Get Graphic! Using Storyboards to Write and Draw Picture Books, Graphic Novels, or Comic Strips

Based on more than 20 years of experience with teachers and students, this practical book illustrates how classrooms can “get graphic” as they draw and write amazing stories. The book describes an eight-stage process that begins with an idea and ends with a visual picture book, graphic novel or comic strip.

Get Graphic! Introduces the power of a storyboard in stages of the creative process – from brainstorming ideas to using thumbnail sketches to develop revise and finalise stories. Step-by-step instructions lead students to generate action-filled pages and streamlined plots for their own unique and personalised stories and books. Simple suggestions for planning drawings and using collage to illustrate students’ original stories are part of the active process described.

A powerful technique for encouraging students to show action that peaks and resolves, storyboards free young writers to focus on language and build skills essential to highly visual media, where words, few but apt, must resonate. Focusing on the visual makes students more aware of how TV, computer games and all forms of media use words and visuals to make an emotional impact. It makes students less vulnerable to the impact of all forms of media that are such a huge part of their lives.

Designed for easy and immediate classroom use, glossaries of visual terms and illustration ideas, a list of recommended children’s books with strong visual images and ready-to-copy storyboards complement this remarkable resource.