This is the fourth part of a series on the CMT. Part 1 is here, part 2 is here, and part 3 is here.
Long-form Pre-drawn
By the end of the short-form original event, my time in the program room was over. So I moved everyone up to the Children's Library to use the activity room there. Jordan and Stephen had to leave at this point, which left four kids: Zenon, Sabir, Junee, and Esther.
For the long-form pre-drawn, I used multipage arcs from Krakow and QC. Esther decided not to participate due to the difficulty, leaving three contestants even.
Junee came in first, with Zenon second and Sabir third.
Long-form Original
The theme for this event was "gaining superpowers." I'd thought it would be simple, but Junee found it so difficult that she dropped from the event, leaving only Zenon and Sabir to compete. Both struggled, though Zenon was able to use her greater creativity to edge out Sabir to win the event.
Speed
Speed was the most fun of all the events! I had originally only allotted 20 minutes for it, but everyone enjoyed it so much that I allowed it to go on twice that long. All four - Zenon, Junee, Esther, and Sabir - participated.
One trick I use was a "quality multiplier," so that quantity would be multiplied by overall creativity in making the set of comics. This encouraged the kids to right more than "Hi" over and over again (even though this is what Zenon did to a large extent).
Sabir managed to win, even though he produced the fewest comics, by filling each out with quick jokes. Junee came in second, though several of hers were just lists of her friends and random words. Zenon was third, since she'd only written "Hi" on many of her comics, costing her the multiplier score. Esther quit halfway, so she came in fourth.
Awards
Even though Jordan and Stephen had to leave, they'd both earned prizes. I set aside several of the items for them. Their parents came by and picked them up.
The remaining four got the best prizes and were able to select them. The first step was to tally the point totals from the first four events to determine the overall winners (thus rewarding those who participated more). Then, awards were given to those who'd won first place in the five events, then second place, and then a round table distribution with everyone picking over what was left.
Thanks to her strong showing in three of the four events, Zenon won overall first place, with Sabir a close second and Junee third. All of them got a large number of gift certificates, plus books, comics, and other items.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the award ceremony. This is something I will remember with future CMT's.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Sessions vs. Workshops
(Note: Below is a post that I had intended to release back in June. However, I just found out that Blogger had kept it in draft form, so it never went online. I'm posting it publicly now.)
One of the advantages of doing the Create a Comic Project in two venues was that it gave me a chance to reach a broader population of kids, in turn giving me a better idea of how to craft the CCP to be appealing and informative. It's also interesting the differences between the two locations: the original CCP sessions at the New Haven library and the workshops at the Dixwell-Yale Community Learning Center.
I think the students in the workshops were generally older, probably due to the population being serviced by the DYCLC. The New Haven library mostly had events aimed at young kids (0-6 years), with the CCP being one of the few aimed at elementary kids. As a result, the kids who became aware of the CCP tended to be the slightly older siblings of very young children and usually weren't older than 12.
DYCLC was mainly geared to elementary and high school kids, so those who attended the workshops tended to be from that group. As a result, I had many more teens than I ever saw at the library. This was further caused by the presence of the High Meadow School, which is an educational facility for troubled teens.
Another difference is diversity: the library had a much more diverse population than the DYCLC. The key here was again the target population. The library serves the entire city, while DYCLC is intended mainly for the those in the Dixwell neighborhood of New Haven. The Dixwell neighborhood is predominantly African-American, so the students at the workshops were, as well. At the library, I arguably had equal numbers of Asian and African-American students, with a few whites and Hispanics.
Another difference was family involvement. Parents tended to accompany their children more often at the library than at the DYCLC. The library wasn't in walking distance of most schools, so students generally needed transportation from their parents to attend. Also, the Children's Room of the library generally encouraged parents to take part in all activities. The DYCLC, on the other hand, was more an extension of school itself. Parents tended to drop their kids off and let them go on their own. In general, children with their parents attending tended to perform better and focus more on the activity at hand.
The school a child attended seemed to matter more than either race or gender in terms of their grammatical skill. I noticed that children who attended normal public schools in New Haven did not write as well as those in New Haven's magnet schools or who were from public schools of other towns.
One of the advantages of doing the Create a Comic Project in two venues was that it gave me a chance to reach a broader population of kids, in turn giving me a better idea of how to craft the CCP to be appealing and informative. It's also interesting the differences between the two locations: the original CCP sessions at the New Haven library and the workshops at the Dixwell-Yale Community Learning Center.
I think the students in the workshops were generally older, probably due to the population being serviced by the DYCLC. The New Haven library mostly had events aimed at young kids (0-6 years), with the CCP being one of the few aimed at elementary kids. As a result, the kids who became aware of the CCP tended to be the slightly older siblings of very young children and usually weren't older than 12.
DYCLC was mainly geared to elementary and high school kids, so those who attended the workshops tended to be from that group. As a result, I had many more teens than I ever saw at the library. This was further caused by the presence of the High Meadow School, which is an educational facility for troubled teens.
Another difference is diversity: the library had a much more diverse population than the DYCLC. The key here was again the target population. The library serves the entire city, while DYCLC is intended mainly for the those in the Dixwell neighborhood of New Haven. The Dixwell neighborhood is predominantly African-American, so the students at the workshops were, as well. At the library, I arguably had equal numbers of Asian and African-American students, with a few whites and Hispanics.
Another difference was family involvement. Parents tended to accompany their children more often at the library than at the DYCLC. The library wasn't in walking distance of most schools, so students generally needed transportation from their parents to attend. Also, the Children's Room of the library generally encouraged parents to take part in all activities. The DYCLC, on the other hand, was more an extension of school itself. Parents tended to drop their kids off and let them go on their own. In general, children with their parents attending tended to perform better and focus more on the activity at hand.
The school a child attended seemed to matter more than either race or gender in terms of their grammatical skill. I noticed that children who attended normal public schools in New Haven did not write as well as those in New Haven's magnet schools or who were from public schools of other towns.
Comic Project ROC November & December
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Comic Making Tournament Part 3: Beginning
This is the third part in a series on the CMT. You can find part 1 here and part 2 here.
The day of the event, I went in an hour early to start setting things up. Two library volunteers had agreed to be judges: Brad and Lydia (you can see pictures of them in the Tournament Gallery). I gave them the judging forms so they could read up on scoring procedures.
Next, I organized the prizes. The Yale Bookstore dropped off their donations in the morning, so I added them to the pile. Prizes were split into large, medium, and small. Small prizes would be given to everyone, large prizes for the first place winners, and mediums for those who came in 2nd and 3rd.
I also ran some last minute photocopying, printing out template copies for the Speed event, and getting the themes ready in the Can of Inspiration. I then went into the Program Room, setting up the tables and chairs as needed, as well as my camera.
Warm-up
At 11 AM, when the tournament was supposed to start, only a few kids were there. So I handed out a few warm-up comics for them to work on as I waited for more people. This also gave a chance for the new kids to get used to using pre-drawn templates.
Introduction
For the opening intro to the Comic Making Tournament, you can view the video here. The tournament started with four kids, with more joining later on.
Short-form Pre-drawn
The first event had the lightest participation, with only four kids. One of the three was Jordan, a regular at the Dixwell-Yale Community Learning Center workshops. The other two - Sabir and Stephen - were new. The fourth, Michelle, bowed out after her mom realized she was too young and hadn't learned enough about sentences to compete.
I used Krakow, Penny Arcade, Rob and Elliot, SGVY, Shortpacked, and Something Like Life for templates.
In the end, Stephen came in first, earning a major prize, with Jordan second and Sabir third.
Short-form Original
This event had the highest level of participation, with six kids in all. Three more kids joined the remaining three at this point: Zenon, who had been with the CCP's main session since its beginning; Junee, who had come to the last DYCLC workshop; and Esther, Junee's younger sister.
Junee came in first, with Jordan and Zenon tied for second, and everyone else tied for third.
The day of the event, I went in an hour early to start setting things up. Two library volunteers had agreed to be judges: Brad and Lydia (you can see pictures of them in the Tournament Gallery). I gave them the judging forms so they could read up on scoring procedures.
Next, I organized the prizes. The Yale Bookstore dropped off their donations in the morning, so I added them to the pile. Prizes were split into large, medium, and small. Small prizes would be given to everyone, large prizes for the first place winners, and mediums for those who came in 2nd and 3rd.
I also ran some last minute photocopying, printing out template copies for the Speed event, and getting the themes ready in the Can of Inspiration. I then went into the Program Room, setting up the tables and chairs as needed, as well as my camera.
Warm-up
At 11 AM, when the tournament was supposed to start, only a few kids were there. So I handed out a few warm-up comics for them to work on as I waited for more people. This also gave a chance for the new kids to get used to using pre-drawn templates.
Introduction
For the opening intro to the Comic Making Tournament, you can view the video here. The tournament started with four kids, with more joining later on.
Short-form Pre-drawn
The first event had the lightest participation, with only four kids. One of the three was Jordan, a regular at the Dixwell-Yale Community Learning Center workshops. The other two - Sabir and Stephen - were new. The fourth, Michelle, bowed out after her mom realized she was too young and hadn't learned enough about sentences to compete.
I used Krakow, Penny Arcade, Rob and Elliot, SGVY, Shortpacked, and Something Like Life for templates.
In the end, Stephen came in first, earning a major prize, with Jordan second and Sabir third.
Short-form Original
This event had the highest level of participation, with six kids in all. Three more kids joined the remaining three at this point: Zenon, who had been with the CCP's main session since its beginning; Junee, who had come to the last DYCLC workshop; and Esther, Junee's younger sister.
Junee came in first, with Jordan and Zenon tied for second, and everyone else tied for third.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Comic Project ROC Update
Another month's worth of comics from the ROC version of the CCP have been added to the archives.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Create a Comic Project ROC
After a long delay, I have finally begun to add the comics from the very first CCP. While comics made here in the US have been labeled "Create a Comic Project," these are being grouped with the title "Create a Comic Project ROC" to denote their overseas origin.
These comics are backdated to begin in July 2005 and will run up to the previous starting point of November 2006. (I should've done this last month during the CCP's second anniversary, but oh well.)
I will be adding them a month at a time to the archives until they're complete. I've also included occasional commentary on the first CCP. The first month is all the CCP comics that have been posted elswhere (that is, Strange Candy). Following months will be new material, never seen before.
With this addition, I'm also considering improving the site's navigation, since simply clicking through the months doesn't seem adequate anymore.
These comics are backdated to begin in July 2005 and will run up to the previous starting point of November 2006. (I should've done this last month during the CCP's second anniversary, but oh well.)
I will be adding them a month at a time to the archives until they're complete. I've also included occasional commentary on the first CCP. The first month is all the CCP comics that have been posted elswhere (that is, Strange Candy). Following months will be new material, never seen before.
With this addition, I'm also considering improving the site's navigation, since simply clicking through the months doesn't seem adequate anymore.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)