Samuel Batey

MEDT-7490 Assignment #3

The Legislative Process

This comic strip is titled: The Legislative Process and it is targeted toward 9th grade students. The
instructional design process is to develop a comic strip to teach students the process of how a bill
becomes law. Comics have almost always been primarily used as an entertainment medium and
directed toward children. The objective of this comic strip is to teach using the process of
sequence; in this case the idea is for students to learn the steps of introducing a bill to the final
step of having it signed into law by the President. Since comics have an appeal to children they
can be very effective in teaching because they can attract and motivate learners.
This comic strip would be used to introduce the legislative process. After viewing and discussing
this comic strip students will use their understanding of the legislative process to analyze

documents that were created or received by Congress as Congress drafted legislation. Groups of
students will examine several documents in random order to determine at which step in the
process each was created. Students will read each document carefully and look for clues to
determine what action is illustrated in the document. Students will match each document to the
Process Card which describes the action taking place in the document.
The primary principle used in this comic strip was the use of color. As we have learned from our
textbook: Teaching visual literacy (Frey & Fisher, 2008). A big part of the impact of images is
the color. Recent research concerning the benefits of using color in presentations indicated color
visuals increase willingness to read by up to 80 percent, using color can increase motivation and
participation by up to 80 percent and Color enhances learning and improves retention by more
than 75 percent (The Power of Color, 2007).
I define comics as anything that tells a story. This can be presented in comic strips, comic books
and graphic novels. There is usually a sequence of images and sometimes there is a clear
message stated and other times the message is implied. Graphic novels tend to read more like a
book and the characters are developed more than in a comic strip. Comics, cartoon and graphic
novels can all be effectively used in the classroom to teach concepts, ideas and themes in all
content areas. Once I came up with lesson that I wanted to use for a comic strip it was all about
just putting it all together and I was pleased with the finished product.
I really like the idea of using comic strips in the classroom. There are many ways they can be
effective. In language arts comic strips can be used to create story boards for an original story or
to illustrate a book or play being read in class. Or, encourage students to create comic strips that
change the ending of a book they have just read. If students are creating short stories or novels
they will find that comic strips can provide them with a way to experiment with dialog that can
be incorporated into their writing of text. Comic can also be used as a way of formative
assessment by having students demonstrate knowledge of content in a specific unit that is being
taught.