Comics

Autism is a lifelong disability that affects social interactions, communication, behaviour and interests. With 1 in every 160 people having Autism in Australia alone ("Autism spectrum Australia," 2011), as future teachers it is highly likely that we will have a student with autism in our school let alone individual class at some point in our career. Due to the severity of the autism, social interactions and communication between teacher and students can be difficult. As this is an important factor in any person’s education, a strategy introduced by the teacher or teacher’s aide where the student can have a ‘comic strip conversation’ with someone may help with communication.

The comic strip can work by using the child’s interest of a character they like and illustrating them to have a conversation with one or more people ("Autism spectrum institute," 2011), whether it be a teacher or students. Often this comic strip is used to communicate behavioral expectations and important information to the student as well as to enable the student to communicate with the teacher and other students.

An example of a comic strip: ("Autism spectrum institute," 2011). In this case ‘Patrick’ was a boy in the class who was talking too loudly, which the student with autism doesn’t cope well with, often causing him to react physically towards “Patrick” instead of calmly asking him to be quiet ("Autism spectrum institute," 2011). Because the child may not be able to orally communicate his feelings this is how he would let Patrick know he doesn’t like how loud he is being.

This strategy would work well for Primary aged students especially senior primary as there are more expectations that they understand how being in a school environment works as well as having better knowledge of how to spell and draw to convey meaning.

Making a book of each comic strip that the student draws which they can add to every time they draw a new comic can be beneficial ("Autism spectrum institute," 2011). This can be helpful if the same issue arises in the future where they can just open the book to that page instead of having to draw the same or similar comic again.

References: Autism spectrum Australia. (2011). Retrieved from []

Autism spectrum institute. (2011). Retrieved from []

__**Comics and literacy teaching strategy**__

Comics in book form and as short strips are fun for all ages. On my last professional experience placement I was teaching a Year 1 class, within the class their was one student with ADHD, another student with autism that was high functioning, one student with a developmental disorder and another student who had been repeated at the end of last year. There was a couple of students with an ILP in place and 3 students who had an ESL background. The engagement and performance of the students with the work that I initially set was not particularly high across the whole class.

In teaching a recount to the students, I decided to employ the use of comics. Using a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip I uploaded to my website I accessed it on the SMART board and did a book orientation with it. Then had the students do some predictions of the story looking at the cells. I then read through the comic and used a variety voices for the different characters in the comic strip whilst pointing at the words as I read them. Another strategy used was the illustrations of the expressions on the faces of the characters and some open ended questions such as "How do you think Calvin is feeling and why?" and "What is happening in this picture and why do you say that?.



At the end of the comic we discussed the comic and the events that happen in a sequence, I then gave the students some blank templates to draw and write their own comics. There were 6 cells with some text to help start their sentences such as "First", "After", "Then", "Later" and "Finally". In the last cell I had the text "What I liked best" where the students could added a comment and illustration of what they liked best about their recount. The students were given the option of either drawing their illustrations first or writing their sentences below the cells. The lesson produced a high level of engagement and the students created some very interesting comic strips. Some went as far as fulfilling the sentences and illustrations, then putting in speech bubbles next to their characters. I think one of the most fun parts for the students was being able to read their comic strips to the other class members.

An amalgamation of different representations to tell a story is a great way to allow students to express their thoughts, this teaching strategy worked well for a Year 1 class that had a variety of students. I am sure this teaching strategy could be used in various other classrooms as well.