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I first used the Create a Comic Project as an in-class activity while working for Hess Educational Organization. I worked at a school in Hsinchu.
I primarily taught children in grades 3-6. I had one younger class with 1st and 2nd graders and another with a few 7th graders. I also volunteered to teach a kindergarten class for a month. The average class size was 15-20 kids.
The standard way was to use the CCP as a conclusion to a lesson: each student would take a comic and then use either a vocabulary word or a sentence pattern they'd just learned. I found that having the students work in groups was often more productive; competitve comic making was a great way to motivate them. With younger students, I'd put a comic on the board, have the students make suggestions, and write it on the board for them. This was a good classroom warm-up.
In all, I used 40 different templates in the original version of the CCP.
Only some. A few of the original templates proved ill-suited for the activity after I tried them, so I've chosen not to reuse them. Others were not used due to content. Culturally, Taiwan has much broader standards on what's acceptable artwork for kids to see. A lot of the manga that's labeled for 16+ here in the US is read by elementary school kids over there. So there were templates from the ROC that would be deemed objectionable if I used them here. Using Photoshop, I did alter a few of these comics and plan to use these censored versions in future CCP sessions.
In all, over 370 comics were created by my students in the period of roughly 2 months. In comparison, the students in the US produced over 2000 comics in a little over 6 months.
Yes. All of the comics from the first CCP have been posted to the archives starting July 9, 2005. Several of them have also been posted online as part of Strange Candy's archives under the title "Strange English."
I left behind the printouts for other teachers to use. Unfortunately, I've been told that one of my co-workers threw them all away shortly after I left Taiwan. Why he did this I don't know - I can only imagine it was some final act of spite on his part, as he had a reputation for being petty and disliked the other teachers who did their jobs. To give you an idea of his character (or lack thereof), one line he liked to quip was, "Chinese are notoriously rude." Bigoted Americans shouldn't travel abroad - it makes the rest of us look bad!
Fortunately, I kept the original electronic files and they were made available to Hess teachers online so they're still being used despite his attempt at sabotage. Additionally, the original activity guide is still in print, so other teachers can find their own comics to adapt.
Yes! In addition to the Create a Comic Project, I had several other games published, including adaptations of Rampage and Space Invaders. However, the CCP was arguably the best of them.
For a more detailed look into the inner workings of the CCP, read the Create a Comic Project Blog.
