Webquest At Grammarmancomic.com: Get Your EFL Students To Create Their Own Comics

wquest2.gifDo you need a project to keep your kids’ class busy til the term ends? My own experience teaching kids is rather limited, but it’s not hard to notice that kids everywhere like drawing and cartoons. Exploit this natural interest and use English in the process with the comic-creating Webquest: Awesome Comics activity from Grammarmancomic.com.

Grammarman creator Brian Boyd has designed the Webquest to be done as a series of lessons, ideally over about twelve hours: he offers you and your students the tools to create a hero and corresponding comic and publishes the best submissions he gets online – check out the existing student contributions. I’ve mentioned my difficulty finding material online, but the Grammarman Webquest passes this test (as does Brian Boyd’s Shrek activity, which is how I was first introduced to of all his work). It’s got what you need to get started but also leaves you enough flexibility to adapt it to your particular situation.

In Brief:

  • Students (hereinafter “the artists”) research and report their findings on what makes a good hero. Links are provided.
  • The artists design the hero and generate four paragraphs of background information.
  • They make a sample comic…
  • …and evaluate their own work.


Some tips from Brian:
Students can get overambitious with a task like this, so be sure to make them aware of time limits. It’s also a good idea to bring in examples and supply the artists with scratch paper for brainstorming and drafts.

Get more tips and advice in the teacher’s notes.

Internet access in the classroom would be helpful, so the artists can go through the reference material at their own pace and according to interest, but it wouldn’t be much trouble to print and copy on your own and have students share.

The Webquest is on my own agenda when I encounter the right group. If you have a chance to use the Webquest in class, let me know here and most certainly tell Brian Boyd at Grammarmancomic.com – and send him your best comics for the chance to be published online!