Here is part of the activity:
As you might guess, the activity was first reading and discussing the comics, then asking them (in pairs) to think of possible new dialogue for the pictures. I pretended these two strips were connected. On another page, they were supposed to continue with nine more boxes, all totally empty. They were to draw, write the dialogue, and caption each box. Groups that were most advanced I had finally write the comic as a narrative (“One day, a boss had a meeting with a worker…”). At the end were half-hearted, giggly presentations and candy prizes. Most groups had fun.
My apologies to Scott Adams for using his Dilbert comic without permission, but on the positive side for him, this activity exposed two dozen students to Dilbert. None of them had ever seen it. One or two said it looked like the “Wimpy Kid” series they use in class.
The success of this activity, which I came up with in only fifteen minutes, and the success of an MI class at the end of the day in which all the kids were enthusiastic, contrasted sharply with my rising anger toward Management, whose hostility increases by the day. I mentioned in post-140 the issue of back pay for about 50 essays I did months ago. I was accused of “lying” about doing them. Argh….Really. Well, I took the time this afternoon to carefully take screenshot evidence proving beyond any sensible person’s doubt that I did, in fact, complete those essays and submitted them into the system. The parents paid this institute, but the pay never got to me. I presented really knockout evidence. I gave Stringbean the paper with the evidence. An hour later, the paper appears back on my desk marked up with ways she still “thinks” I am “lying”. If one untangles the logic of the implied continuing-accusation that I am “lying” despite evidence from the online system (which I screenshotted and explained exactly how she can check directly, herself), then the implication from Manager Stringbean is that I have hacked into that website and manipulated evidence, a theory so wildly implausible as to be laughable…..if it weren’t happening to me.
See post-138 for an artist’s rendition of Manager Stringbean’s appearance.
Comics can be successfuly adopted into any classes. I observed a biology class last year as part of a County evaluation process. The teacher had the students working in small groups to put together comic strips to show that they understood the complex genetics topics that they were studying. The students were all engaged in the project, which was fun and intended to teach others about their topics in an interesting way. Very evident were team building, dividing the several tasks among the team members, and working cooperatively to complete some excellent final products. Students “peer reviewed” each others’ comic strips along the way to enable each group to achieve an even better result.