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Posts Tagged ‘Chester the Crab’
Chester is an App!
Written on Tuesday, October 12th, 2010 [permanent link]
Different formats mean different stories. The Chester history adventures that I’ve published in book form for the past seven years were all designed to work as one-week-long episodes in a newspaper. (Look “newspaper” up on Wiki, kids.) I’m proud of how much action and information I packed into those episodes, but it’s time to update those stories and see how they sing in another format. Kids are reading lots of things outside the covers of a book.
Students, teachers, and parents can now put Chester in their pocket. The first three Chester story apps are available in the iTunes store for your iPhone, iTouch, or iPad! (Click the black app logo on the homepage to get to my links to the iTunes store.) It’s just 99 cents to get an expanded biography of Harriet Tubman or a more detailed story of the Battle of Antietam in the American Civil War or the Battle of Britain in World War II.
When I cut up the panels of the old newspaper stories I got about 40 panels per story. I’ve drawn new material to double that length for my first three smartphone stories. Without the space restrictions that print puts on me, I could add the kind of details that make the history of human beings so interesting. Now there’s a scene to Tubman’s story in which she helps free a man in the middle of a riot in New York! The Battle of Antietam story now does a better job of showing in pictures how the Sunken Lane went from a Confederate stronghold to a Confederate deathtrap. And The Battle of Britain has more of Winston Churchill’s inspiring speeches — and links to webpages where you can HEAR Churchill give the speeches during the heat of battle! So it’s good to have the Tubman biography in the Wonder Women book because there a young reader can get a quick overview of her life and compare her to other bold women of 19th Century America. But it’s good to have the app, too, because it’s got more action!
I hope to keep printing comic books about history — I’m finishing up the World War I book now and am in the thick of drawing a bio about George Washington for Mount Vernon — but I’m also excited to pick my most action-packed stories from the past 11 years and morph them into mobile apps. Next up: The TRUE Story of Pocahontas!
I’d love to get your feedback on these apps!
PS — There are discounts for educational institutions that buy multiple copies of the iTunes apps. Check out http://www.apple.com/education for more information!
PPS — Yes, I know the Droid is selling well. I hope to take the apps I make for iTunes and move them over to the Droid in the next few months.
PPPS — After I get 5 or 6 apps published, I’m going to circle back to add important educational bells and whistles to these — the first being sound. I hope to add an audio track in English and an audio track in Spanish so that struggling readers can get some help as they scan through the story visually. Look for that in 2011!
Tags: app, Battle of Antietam, Battle of Britain, Bentley Boyd, Chester Comix, Chester the Crab, Civil War, Harriet Tubman, history, iPhone, World War II
Posted in Author's Purpose | No Comments »
Slow as Manassas
Written on Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 [permanent link]
I’ve lived in Virginia for 18 years without making it up to the site of the first major battle of the Civil War — and then there was a last-minute mission to get my boys to the Green Day concert just down Lee Highway from the Manassas Battlefield . . .
(Don’t worry, I got my Cool Dad badge LAST summer when I actually went into the Green Day concert in downtown DC with my boys. But this time the concert was at an outdoor theater, and it hit 101 degrees today, and, well . . . )
Manassas was the site of the first major battle of the Civil War. And the feel of today’s battlefield park is just right. Thank goodness these rolling hills are not covered with condos. Though the Manassas Battlefield is only a mile or so north of Interstate 66, you can stand here and feel the struggle of men and guns up and down these hills (and why holding the high ground was so important). There WAS a modern road cutting through the park, but seeing the modern rush hour traffic jammed on its two lanes did not feel overwhelming — it just reminded me of the traffic jam that came at the end of the First Battle of Manassas, as Union soldiers and spectators rushed over each other down that very same roadway to get back to the safety of DC!!
I love visiting Civil War battlefields in the late afternoon. Battles usually ended at sunsdown anyway, so it’s a good time to feel the peacefulness and consider the bravery and the terrible pain that happened on this ground — and the ideas that brought people here in conflict.
I feel restored and inspired from having walked through the quiet grass of Manassas. Now back to Paneras to wait for the concert to end!
Tags: battlefield, Bentley Boyd, Chester Comix, Chester the Crab, Civil War, educational comics, First Battle of Manassas, history, Virginia
Posted in Author's Purpose, Historical Travel | No Comments »
More teacher's guides for free
Written on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 [permanent link]Jump on over to http://www.chestercomix.com/teaching-guides to get the free pdf download of the teacher’s guides for my comix “First Americans,” “Revolutionary Rumblings,” and “War for Independence.”
These additions to the teacher’s area of the website mean almost all my comix now have free teacher’s guides here at Chester’s home on the web. (Because I’m finally running out of the printed versions — and am gaining back some closet space in my house!!) There are many other free teacher resources on the web, but I think the Chester Comix guides do quite well in comparison. Most of the other resources I see are completely text and skimpy on any material you would present directly to students. My guides are broken into distinct sections, have a lot of visuals and have material to directly help both teachers and their students.
Plus, they have quizzes!! I know, I know, the kids don’t like that. But I try hard to craft a light-but-firm tone with them so that these assessments aren’t as heavy as a full-blown standardized test practice but still give the students experience with those kinds of questions. (“Which of the following did Europeans NOT trade for West African gold?”)
These teacher’s guides are packed with the wisdom and work of a dozen real-world classroom teachers who helped me when Chester ran as a newspaper feature for five years. They taught me a lot, and I still hear their guiding voices every time I sit down to draw a new story to help more students.
And their teachers.
Tags: Chester the Crab, educational comics, teachers guide
Posted in History Teacher, literacy | 1 Comment »
