Writing Comics with Kids

Writing comics is a great way to kids to work on both reading and writing skills. It’s also a lot of fun!

Kids get to practice working with the elements of a story–characters, setting, plot, conflict and conclusion–in a fun way.  Not having to fill a blank page also helps motivate reluctant writers.

Before beginning any prewriting I chose a comic template for each of my elementary school age kids from Printable Paper.  There are a bunch of free comic printables online, but I really liked all of the choices on Printable Paper.

I was able to use a 4 square template for my kindergartner who was working on writing stories with a beginning, middle, middle and end in school and big start big end template for my 2nd grader who is working with more advanced story structure.

I showed them the templates they were going to use and then had them start brainstorming their comics.  They came up with characters, a setting, a problem and a solution.

They created a rough draft on scrap paper designating which part of the story would happen in each box.  We also talked about how the graphics in a comic help tell much of it. We did a lot of revising and editing of both text and pictures during this phase.

Once they were happy with their drafts they wrote their final copies on the templates. After all the talking and writing about their characters they were excited to seem them come to life on the comic page.

Not only was writing comics a good storytelling exercise it also got interested in reading comics too! They thought is was very cool to notice how things like the size of the comic box helped tell the story.

For more reading and writing ideas check out my Reading and Writing Pinterest Board!

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