Culloden Comics
Read all about the the spiders who fought (and then made up) over a cheap can of beans…
Last term, we launched an after-school club with a selected group of year 6 pupils from Culloden Primary School. The club ran for seven weeks and supported the children in developing their ideas and building their skills as comic book writers. The project also built confidence, writing for pleasure and was designed to encourage stamina and resilience in preparation for their transition into secondary school.
Writing Facilitator Phoebe Wagner and Illustrator Facilitator Andy Long worked with the children to create characters, story structure, setting and dialogue through imagining and drawing their comic creations.
The children created distinct, highly original pieces of work and their enthusiasm and humour was infectious as they brought to life the stories of:
- The spiders who fought (and then made up) over the cheapest can of beans in the supermarket:
- Superhero Andy (who looks uncannily like our illustrator Andy) as he travels in a time machine to ‘old man’s valley’ – although no-one knows why it was called that!:
- Tess’s fury that the ice cream van has no sprinkles:
- Amy’s day, that began very normally before taking a dramatic turn:
The sessions used a mix of drawing and writing challenges with some oral and drama-based activities. Each child had their own Ministry of Stories comic sketchbook which included a range of exercises and templates for them to create their own original comic.
In the final session children shared their comic stories with family members and school staff. Their pride in their work was evident as all the children spoke to the invited audience in front of the powerpoint of their brilliant, inventive and funny comic strips.
Thanks to their teacher Kavitha Nicholas-Raymond for all her help with the project.
