Rocking in Hakata

I recently had several classes re-caption several webcomics. I did this for a few reasons. Using comics in class to have students develop dialogue is far more interesting / engaging than asking them to roleplay what has already been written in the textbook. It’s also far more challenging due to its unfamiliarity. These students do not know the characters from the comic, have a mere 3 frames to grasp the context of the situation, and are often pressed to be super creative when faced with these issues. I love that. I thrive on that. I like to hear the gears in their heads whir as they do something out of the ordinary. Plus, it benefited me in a way, too – I also happened to use this activity as an example in a cruddy mediocre talk I gave at our prefectural midyear seminar to other high school ALTs.

I first got the idea for this project when I saw it pop up on the blog of a former CIR here in Ehime. His Japanese examples are pretty funny, by the way, though you can tell they’re a bit dated from the jokes (not just the URL)! Anyhoo, I then traced it over to this site, which is where I saw the potential for high school kids to pull it off.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Penny Arcade, you really should be. It’s a hugely popular webcomic built around gamer interests that’s updated thrice weekly. The guys who make it, Mike & Jerry, rock out with their socks out, so go hit them up. Having said that, I feel like it’s important to offer up a note here. Note: Penny Arcade is NOT appropriate for class. The subject matter is super niche and the language alters between course, archaic, and highly sarcastic. The art, however, is perfect – highly emotive and often curious.

You can visit the source comics via the following links: 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5. That’s right. 5 comics. Examples follow. Please feel free to read them. Sorry about the poor legibility – the ditto machines are ancient at school. Ask questions and make comments if you’re so inclined! But above all else, enjoy. Read more…

Deas Customary Drivel, Humor, Media, Photos

Sometimes when I’m grading, I think “I should probably share this.” My students have active imaginations – sometimes they choose to use them, and sometimes they don’t. Let’s take a quick look at an example of each situation.

Situation 1: this is a common occurrence with chain stories written by indifferent students who just want a laugh. They pick an idea and they snowball it. I was happy that it paid off a bit, at least. The “crazy” part turned into a polar bear club type of outing, and the story did have a good conclusion. Also, I’m a sucker for maniacal laughs. Nicely done!

Situation 2: this is a great way to cause your ALT to have a heart attack when he’s grading, and then wonder how much he needs to defend himself against any forthcoming outrageous accusations. Ha ha ha. Holy crap. For the record, no way, Jose. No chance. Also, I don’t live in London – clearly, it’s some other dude.

I’ll be sharing some more student work soon – I did the Penny Arcade Remix activity that I spotted on several other websites, where you erase the dialogue from any webcomic (I used PA for the great contextual clues it contains) and have your students create the conversation in each frame. I hope you look forward to it!

Deas Customary Drivel, Humor