Imagine that you open your history book and expect to be greeted by a dull and boring black and blue text book with only a few colour pictures in between. But what you are pleasantly surprised to see instead is a cheerful comic strip of the same historical characters but in vivid and lively colours.
Welcome to a memory technique called ‘Memory Comic Strips’! Each one of you has an artist within you. While some of you may end up becoming a Picasso or a Da Vinci, most of you can use art as a technique to enhance your memory powers.
Sounds silly and a littletough to digest? Well, here’s a little bit about how art can help sharpen the brain. If I say the word mango, what comes in front of your eyes? A yellow or a green fruit, something juicy, or a mango drink? Let’s try another one. Chimpanzee! Now, what do you see? Yes, a brown hairy creature swinging from tree to tree, scratching or jumping or eating a banana? Well, what you do see is actually an image as the brain can recall an image much faster than it can recall a word.
So how about feeding the brain images so that when we need the information, the brain is able to give it to us quickly!
What are the steps involved in making a comic strip?
Step 1:
Identify the chapter. It works well in subjects like history and geography where you can create a story line with a central character. For example, you are learning about Australia. How about creating a kangaroo as the mascot for the lesson and seeing Australia with it as a guide or a lesson in English where you can put the story into pictures? Sounds fun right?
Step 2:
Break the lesson into parts so that they can be placed as a story line. Luckily, the chapters are divided into sub-parts and can easily be grouped together as one to two box dialogues. Make sure you make speech bubbles where the characters are having conversations. Stick to the context of the lesson and do not deviate from the main topic. Keep it fun yet sensible.
Step 3:
Colour the comic strips. This is very important as one has to make it look like a comic book. Try and keep the same colour scheme for the characters. For example, if Bholu is the main character in the story and he is wearing red shorts in the first box, make sure he does the same for all. If the day changes, you may change the colour of the shorts then. This process of making doodles or comic strips activates the right side of the brain considerably and helps increase your creativity and thinking. You don’t have to be an artist to create the pictures imaginatively. It is always the funny pictures that we remember and recall faster than the serious ones. Also, the added advantage is that between you and your friends, you can make comic strips of different chapters and exchange these to read. I am sure studies can never be the same again. Let’s create them into story strips and enjoy!
(The author has over two decades of teaching experience in well-established schools)
