The Dare and ToonDoo

The first story in the anthology is "The Dare." Set in 1948, it tells the story of a young girl who is dared to steal a flower from a pointsettia bush on a neighbor's land. As she attempts to complete the dare, she witnesses the beating of a young black boy caught stealing oranges from the same man. While she is also stealing, she is not punished because of the color of her skin. Through the story, readers are immediately introduced to the racially-motivated politics of apartheid-era South Africa.

For this story, I chose to create a comic strip using Toon Doo, an online comic strip and book generator. Instead of retelling the story, I decided to make the comic an assignment to support metacognition and reflective reading. My character represents myself (a middle school student) and the dialogue and thought bubbles record my thoughts, feelings, questions, and connections during my reading of the short story. Note: In creating my identity as a middle school student, I assumed that I was reading the piece within the context of a South African history unit.

The Dare by jfriesgaither | Make your own at www.toondoo.com

You can also view my comic within the ToonDoo site itself.

While comic strips are an obvious choice for a retelling activity, I feel that i has a great deal of potential in encouraging reflective thought among students. The process of creating an "avatar" and representing myself within the comic strip encouraged me (as a fictitious student) to be thoughtful about the story. It could also be an interesting cooperative assignment to have pairs or small groups create a single comic strip in which they discuss a story. I like that it preserves the thinking and discussion around a story. It also is a more engaging approach than the traditional double entry journal that is typically used.

On the technical side of things, there was a bit of a learning curve in constructing the actual comic. I didn't like that you were limited to a three or four panels. I had to create four separate strips and then combine them into a book to have enough space to record all my thoughts. However, there seem to be many fun tools and functionalities within the site, and students would have the ability to comment on each other's work - an essential component of web 2.0 in my opinion. Sharing work is easy with the ability to email or embed comics into a blog or web page.

Teachers looking for a simpler interface might check out Make Belief Comics instead. The amount of time involved to create the strip also means that this would not be a regular activity in a classroom. However, I do believe it is worthwhile and can encourage creativity, motivation, and reflective thought.