Collaborative Comics: FaceJam

Esperanza, 1st Grade | ELA & Visual Art

Ms. Andrea

First graders in Ms. Small’s class collaboratively drew faces that showed various emotions. For practice, as a class we drew a collaborative face on the board: I drew a face shape and called on volunteers to draw the hair, nose, eyes, mouth, eyebrows, and ears. We noticed that, with the addition of each facial feature, the character became more realized and real! Students repeated the exercise in small groups, passing the paper to their right after drawing each facial feature.

The next day students received a face to color and name. They did not get “their" drawings, because each drawing had 3–6 artists who’d created it! With maturity (adults could learn from), the first graders took the drawings they received and made them their own: they colored, named, and added speech bubbles of the characters introducing themselves. 

Then everyone came to the front of the class and introduced the characters they co-created to the class! Many chose names of fellow classmates, so someone might say, “Hi, this is my friend Joy,” and Joy was sitting right there! There was much laughter and, of course, joy!