Is the name of a henchman in Austin Powers? It is also an apt description of a piece of work I gave my Year 9 students today. Yesterday I asked them to copy down a simple, stick figure style comic strip about a man and his wife arguing over who should take the trash out. They then had to write out the scene in prose form, focussing on correct punctuation of speech. This is a task that another teacher suggested, though she photocopies Calvin and Hobbes strips for the kids to use.
Today, I decided to do the reverse - I write correctly punctuated dialogue, they have to make it into a comic strip. An entirely sound and non-random task, except for the dialogue I ended up writing (on-the-fly):
"Hi Jane. Man, those are big shoes," said Simon.
"Thanks, I made them from old car parts," replied Jane sweetly.
"They're not... dangerous, are they?" asked Simon timidly.
"Only if I kick you with them... like this!" screamed Jane as she jokingly mimed a roundhouse kick at Simon's head.
The task became more random, as some kids added dialogue, Tekken moves, and a character called Turkeyman to their stories (I think Turkeyman was a replacement Jane?).
I like that class. Their Star Wars debate went really well too. It was about whether Star Wars geeks should form the government. The negative won, but the affirmative did a damn good job (especially since none of them were particularly into Star Wars).
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