Using Comic Life at Every Level of Bloom's

Comic Life is a game-changing app that allows students to create posters or comic books full of rich media. The app helps teachers pull the most valuable materials from students and tackles all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.  Comic Life can be used throughout many segments of a lesson plan, ranging from an anticipatory set to a summative assessment of a student's proof of mastery for any standard in any subject level.  The creativity for each comic can be started from a template or started from scratch.  

When finished, you can either export the file as a Comic Life file or simply send it as a picture that can be downloaded from any device.  Create folders or categories to organize your comics by class or topic.  Either way, download Comic Life as start creating today!

Creating

assemble, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, write 
Creating with Comic Life is a great way to assess your students.  The highest level of Bloom's Taxonomy has never been easier to reach than with Comic Life.  Students can design their own sales flyer to prove their level of understanding with markup, discount, and/or commission.  Students can create a Comic that only uses figurative language to tell a story and include pictures!  In Science, students can also develop a lab using the scientific method.  The entire process of the lab would be documented using the app's speech bubbles and image-adding features.  In Social Studies, students could construct a timeline of Abraham Lincoln's life and his work to abolish slavery.

Evaluating

appraise, argue, defend, judge, select, support, value, evaluate
Students can use Comic Life to evaluate the validity of a student's answer by creating a comic and using the narration bubbles to defend or support the steps of a math problem that were displayed.  Using Comic Life, students can judge the effectiveness of a historical figure's course of actions.  For example, judging the actions of Pericles as he commandeered the money of the Delian League.  Have students argue whether Pericles was a hero or a villain using evidence displayed throughout the comic that they create.  In Social Studies, students can select and support a side of a current event through a Comic rather than simply writing out there response!

Analyzing

appraise, compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, test
Using Comic Life, students can differentiate between metaphors and similes.  In math, students can use Comic Life to compare fractions with pictures of real life examples and examine each.  Students can also discriminate between various types of triangles in a Comic.  In Science, students can distinguish the physical characteristics of solids, liquids, and gases (states of matter).

Applying

choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate, schedule, sketch, solve, use, write
Students can use Comic Life to illustrate their understanding of the steps required for solving two-step equations in math.  They can also use a Comic to sketch or interpret the number line for acids, basis, and neutrality.  Student can also create a Comic that demonstrates the proper use of a particular part of speech.  In Social Studies, students can illustrate the journey of Lewis and Clark.

Understanding

classify, describe, discuss, explain, identify, locate, recognize, report, select, translate, paraphrase
Using Comic Life, students can identify sight words by taking pictures and annotating over them.  In math, students can use Comic Life to locate various types of 2-dimensional, 3-dimensional, and irregular shapes.  You can also have students describe how society has changed because of the struggles during the Civil War.  Having students take pictures of proof that explains their position would be a great way to use Comic Life.  For Science, students can use Comic Life to report out on their results of a lab or classify various species on a number of Comic pages.

Remembering

define, duplicate, list, memorize, recall, repeat, reproduce, state
Students can use Comic Life to visually define vocabulary words within a unit.  Honestly, Comic Life is used for most of the higher level of Bloom's Taxonomy, but you can certainly find uses for it on a "Remembering" level.  As a spelling assessment, students can recall the spelling of words with an accompanying picture for additional support.  In math, students can use a Comic to define types of triangles with pictures and text.  In Social Studies, students can use a Comic to recall historical figures or time periods.  

Making Comic Life easy to use

The video tutorial at the top of the page is very inclusive of how to use the Comic Life app in the classroom.  However, every teacher has a unique situation and a unique set of students.  Some ideas that may help you our as far as integration:

  • Make sure students have a strong understanding of how to use the Camera app, Photo Library app, Safari app, and how to take a screencap (hold down the home button and power button simultaneously until there is an audible click).  It's that easy- your students are ready for action!
  • Have students work in groups of 2 (or 3, depending on your iPad quantity).  One student finds the pictures being used for the Comic, regardless of content area.  The other student creates the captions for each image found or taken
  • Use as a summative assessment when you are looking for students to explain their answers in a unique and creative way
  • Use as an anticipatory set to help enrich the unit being presented.  For the Pythagorean Theorem, have students go around the campus to find examples of right triangles.  For Photosynthesis, have students take pictures of vegetation on the campus and attempt to explain what happens.  For any historical time period, have students use Safari to research the topic and create a comic about what the students think happened.

Questions on how to integrate this app?

Email John Stevens with any questions you have about how to use this app in your class, or if you would like more specific suggestions for how you can use this app in your content area. 

How to use Comic Life:

Student Samples

Here are some screen captures of student work...
This is a screen capture of a finished product that a student created to explain and illustrate the steps to adding two mixed numbers in an 8th grade basic math class.  Notice the use of speech bubbles to explain each step that has been photographed from the paper
In this example, the students have shown how multiple problems can be solved and described using one Comic Life page.  The topic was adding fractions with different denominators, so this Comic clearly shows that the group understands the steps and can describe their process.
When finished with your Comic Life creations, either you or your students can email the finished file to you or save it to the Photo Library on your iPad.  In my class, students save to the Photo Library and then email it to me, just to make sure there is a backup.