They just are.
They make students laugh (always a plus) help visual learners, and tend to have very succinct summarizations of otherwise complicated grammar topics.
If nothing else, they give examples that grab student's attention.
But where to find these miraculous creatures?
You can always resort to google. Just google the grammar topic and comic and then click on images. If you need help Googling check out this link.
The downside is that you tend to get a lot of stock images and irrelevant pictures.
I tend to read http://xkcd.com/ and http://www.smbc-comics.com/ every day and Pin comics that I know will work well for me, my classes or topics that come up a lot.
I also keep up on http://www.9gag.com/ as they tend to have a lot of good stuff on you vs your, they're vs their and other common mistakes that your students will relate to (and have probably already seen as they love 9gag)
The comic above is from Boggleton, who has grammar comics involving misused words and participial phrases as well as full on grammar explanations.
Otherwise some sites have specific sections for grammar comics. The oatmeal has some nice full on grammar explanations; such as, how to use a semicolon.
I talked about GrammarCat before. There aren't a lot of strips, but the ones that are there are good.
BrightlyWound is no longer updated, but it does have a collection of grammar comics.
This bitstrips comic has some great grammar reviews
My students just used The Yuniversity, which I decided to look up and was super pleased to see that they have some awesome explanations that students would surely find more interesting than a simple list.
Great post! I so very much like the idea of making my students have a great time while learning that this post about comic strips gives me some ideas. In my opinion, and in the case of this specific grammar point , I"d use it as a Consolidation exercise and ask them to predict what his girlfriend's reaction would be . Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteGlad it gets your imagination sparked! I try to make students have a good time, but in the end I settle if they just don't hate coming to class :)
DeleteYou might want to check out my website: http://davidrickert.com/2012/08/10/misplaced-modifiers-lesson/ I do a lot of comics related to grammar. There's a link to my store on Teachers Pay Teachers at the bottom - some freebies there!
ReplyDeleteI do a whole lesson on dangling participles! I'll have to put some of the pictures my students have drawn up here to illustrate them; they are quite good :)
DeleteGood resources; this website could also be added to the list, although it's more directly geared towards students since it provides voc and explanation: http://www.comicsenglish.com (There is also a nice reference list for teachers who are interested in the use of comics in education)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link Jonathan; it sounds great! I'll check it out within the month =-D
DeleteHI, Carissa! This comic made my day! I love using comics in my powerpoint lessons. Memes are now the "in" thing. Hope to see more grammar memes in your blog. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteI do love a good meme now and then, but I try not to overuse them. :-)
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