Round Robin Comics

Distribute the Round Robin comics handout.

Tell students that they are going to draw the first panel on their page, and then pass it on.

(You can have students do this in groups of three, or simply pass their pages to the right or left.)

• It doesn’t matter what they draw, but their character should have a funny hat. (This is to make it easy for later students to draw the same character.)
• When they get handed a page, they have to draw the next panel.
• If they draw the same character, make sure to include the hat.
• If they add a new character, give them their own hat or something else that makes them easy to recognize.
• They should think about what happened in the first panel and about leading the reader’s eye to the next panel.

When they are done, have them pass the page again.

The third panel should be different visually from the first two.

• Have students ask themselves:
• What can I do with a bigger panel?
• How can I end the story from the first two panels?

Now distribute the Sample Panels handouts so that each student gets one of the five sample pages.

Have them repeat the round robin process, drawing one panel and then handing the page to another student.

• Remind them to pay attention to the size and shape of the panel: don’t try to squeeze something big into a little panel.
• If the panel is different from the previous panel, have them do something different with it:
  • What can I do with a wider panel? A taller one? An open panel?