Last week, on my Wednesday and Friday afterschool advanced (allegedly sixth grade but really a mix of 3-4-5-6) class, I was trying to do an exercise with story-telling. I had these handouts that I’d gotten a while back, where there are these wordless comic-book-style story panels presented, and then a series of “hints” (like initial letters of words, rebus pictures, etc.). The students look at the pictures and try to fill in the story based on the hints. It’s pretty difficult, actually – even I was having trouble a few times thinking of how the authors of the exercises meant for the words to go.
But my idea was to then have the kids make their own. I demonstrated one, on the whiteboard (an ad hoc story about miniature aliens landing at Hongnong, being cooked and eaten, and making the guy sick):
Then I had them make their own, as homework. Most “forgot” the homework – pretty typical for the afterschool class – but one student did an amazing job. She made a story about snow and cats making “cloud bread” (which I theorize is a literal translation of the Korean term for something like eclairs). It was excellently done. Here is here set of picture panels:
Here is her page of “hints” (remarkably few mistakes that impair the ability to fill it out):
Finally, unrelatedly, a truly humorous little sketch on the corner of a paper from a first grader. The Korean is “peck peck” (as in “kiss kiss”). Cute:
