Comics are very powerful pieces of writing. Students enjoy reading and creating comics. Two apps on the iPad,, Comic Life and BookCreator, allow students to create their own comics. 
One of the best ways to engage your students in a story writing dialogue activity, is to use Comics. What better way is there to show how writing dialogue needs to appropriate, clear and effective? If their characters’ dialogue does not drive the plot, then the audience cannot follow their story.
Students can use Comic Life or BookCreator to display their understanding of any topic in their non-fiction writing:
- Autobiographies or Biographies
- Speech Plan
- Instructional/Procedural Write
- Travel Guide
- Poster
Comic Life and BookCreator have many unique comic features and the purpose for using these features needs to be explained to students.
- Panels and Pages
- a panel is like a paragraph, with one main idea
- size of panel shows time and importance
- we read panels left to right, top to bottom
- Pictures
- Background
- shows us setting
- develops mood
- Foreground
- Characters and important objects
- Background
- Text Features
- Captions
- carries the narrative of the story
- tells us about setting
- explains what happens between panels
- Speech and Thought Bubble
- displays characteristic of characters
- Is often the core text feature, giving the most information
- Lettering
- Onomatopeias
- Title
- Captions
You can also have students explore App Smashing by:
- Adding themselves as characters on a background in PicCollage
- In Drawing Box, create their own drawings and add to their comic
- Create their own characters in Avatar Creator
Here is student instructions for using Comic Life
and Comics in BookCreator