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"Thank you so much for making a comic that children WANT to read and learn from." Niesa Wilhelm, 2nd grade teacher in Virginia |
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Archive for the ‘Author's Purpose’ Category
Artist becomes the Editor!
Written on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 [permanent link]
I’m back in Richmond this week doing artist-in-residency work with 4th graders for the arts organization Young Audiences! This is my third school year of helping elementary students become authors over these 5-part workshops.
When I was in 4th grade I was copying “Peanuts” comic strips out of the newspaper, line by line. By 5th grade I was making my own little chicken-scratch comix by folding a regular piece of typing paper in half and drawing with an over-the-counter black felt pen. My Dad copied the original for me, and I sold the black and white copies to my friends for 25 cents.
I like helping the students today do MORE than I did. I push them to really structure their ideas and practice them through three full versions of their stories (a text rough draft, a thumbnail sketch version and a finished, colored version) — I sure didn’t do multiple drafts when I was drawing “Dyno-Man and the Army of Justice!!” The good news is that their ideas are worth that work. Today I edited stories about Harriet Tubman and John Henry building a freedom railroad to the MOON and about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington arguing about where to have lunch!
Tags: arts in education, Author's Purpose, Bentley Boyd, Chester the Crab, comic book, graphic novel, Richmond Public Schools
Posted in Author's Purpose, History Teacher | No Comments »
Class Project: ROUGH DRAFTS!!
Written on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 [permanent link]Be a part of my next book!! As your students work on their writing skills, I’d love to have them practice by editing ME. I’m posting more and more on my website about the author’s choices I make, and I’ve just added some rough draft pages from my upcoming book about World War I.
http://www.chestercomix.com/rough-drafts/
The rough drafts are the second step in my Creative Trail. (The first is research – When I pick a topic, I love the hunt for information I will use to tell the story the way I want to tell it.) I hope that inviting students into this second step with me will excite them about the creative process. Teachers can print these rough draft pages and give them to students to review and correct. Now, for once, the students get to be the editor! I’d love to get feedback from teachers and students via email or via a snail mail return of the pages, marked in red or green or purple or whatever color the students want to use to mark their suggestions.
I will take all suggestions into consideration before making my final author’s choices on these pages. Classes who make real contributions to this story will get signed copies of the final book!
Tags: author's choice, Bentley Boyd, Chester Comix, Chester the Crab, creative process, World War I
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I Dream of Sparky
Written on Saturday, November 28th, 2009 [permanent link]
I’ve been blessed to meet most of my cartooning heroes in the past 20 years, but I never got to meet Charles “Sparky” Schulz.
Until two nights ago. I had a dream that I found him — he was undercover, hiding from his worldwide fame as the creator of “Peanuts.” He was a schoolbus driver for elementary kids! Somehow I had reason to get on his bus (though my two sons are well out of elementary school now, I may have been there mentally because that’s still my target audience for my comix) and I easily recognized him under his old guy felt cap. He looked like a kindly grandpa and was very quiet — even as he asked me to not reveal his secret. Of course I promised I would not.
It was a great dream. It made me very happy to make that simple connection, standing on the steps of that bus. The day outside the bus was sunny and warm — were we in California, where Schulz the Quiet Minnesotan had found a place to draw his magic? Or had he moved to my town, Williamsburg, like so many other retirees? My dreams are always based in reality — I’m never flying, never shooting through space talking to aliens. I’m chatting with Charlie Brown’s dad!!
A 42-year-old cartoonist dreaming about Charles Schulz is nothing remarkable — my generation of cartoonists grew up chasing his example. I and many of my peers started drawing by copying the Charlie Brown and Snoopy strips we read in the newspaper. I recreated a bunch of them line-for-line and mailed them to Schulz, and some nice secretary mailed me back the form letter you see above. And it was one of the best moments of my life.
Thank goodness Sparky paid for that secretary to crank out those form letters. That simple piece of paper inspired me to keep going, to keep practicing, to believe that my dream of finding a job as a cartoonist could be real. I’ve had plenty of inspirations from many sources to be an Artist, but Schulz was the shining example that you could get a JOB as a CARTOONIST and maybe conquer the world.
And here he was in my dream, giving up the world to live a simple life caretaking children. Which is what he had already done for decades with his cartooning.
From one of those kids, Thanks, Sparky!
Tags: Bentley Boyd, cartooning, Charles Schulz, Charlie Brown, Chester Comix, Chester the Crab, elementary school, Peanuts, Snoopy
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