Top Tips for Teaching Manga! - Promethean Planet

4) The page is a stageEach Manga Shakespeare artist has given their play an original setting, just like a Director woulddo in a theatre. Hamlet is set in a futuristic Denmark, Richard III is darkly gothic, Julius Caesaris set against a war-torn city.Use the manga staging to begin discussions of character, staging and as a way of clarifying themain themes in the play by drawing parallels with other times and places.5) Go create!Manga is a creative way to imagine stories and anyone canwrite and draw manga. All SelfMadeHero’s artists are youngpeople living in the UK: so you might have the next MangaShakespearean in your class, ready to be inspired by the Bardwith a little help from manga.Choose a few lines of dialogue from a scene you would like thestudents to concentrate on. Write these on the board in a speechbubble and then ask the students to work in groups to make afour panel manga. It is important that the narrative takes isdivided between a few panels so that both the words andimages help tell the story.NB Make sure you choose dialogue or action scenes so that there is a clear starting point for thedrawings. You can even take some of the abridged text from Manga Shakespeare and ask thestudents to produce an alternative version of the manga.6) I’m in piecesThe page composition of the manga gives the reader clues as to the state of mind of thecharacters. It can also provide an instant visual sign that describes the nature of the action. Keepan eye out for jagged and irregularly-shaped panels, pages with no panels and those with lots ofsmall panels. When you are aware that the page layout is important it becomes easier tounderstand the narrative. Your students may be better at this than you!7) Chibi – you’ve got to be seriousSome manga artists use small, comically-drawn versions of their main characters at certainpoints in the play to denote that the character is speaking “tongue in cheek” or sometimes toshow that he character is acting childishly. Chibis are also used to express the inner emotions ofcharacters.

Why not ask your students to identify a humourous exchange in the play you are studying andthen ask them to illustrate it using chibis to show the humour. This has the benefit of benefit ofbeing a quick and easy exercise and can be explored through group work.8) Make your own mangaThere is a great piece of software called Comic Life that allows anyone to create simplesequential art and visual stories in a school computer lab. When used on an IWB in combinationwith a camera and the Manga Shakespeare resource packs you can create your own MangaShakespeare as a class. The software isn’t free, but it isn’t expensive. You can find out morehere: http://plasq.com/comiclife.9) Get cross curricular, get dressed up and put on a mangaManga is a dramatic visual medium, which is why it is perfectfor Shakespeare.SelfMadeHero are running their first cosplay competition thisOctober. Students aged 11 and over are invited to makecostumes inspired by the Manga Shakespeare series andperform a short piece of Shakespeare at the UK’s biggestmanga expo in London at the end of October 2008.You don’t need to take part in the competition to get a projectstarted at your school that involves the performing arts, art &design and English departments in creating a manga-inspiredschool performance of Shakespeare, complete with mangacostume creation.the 2009 English SATs?NB Why not focus on one of the Key Stage 3 scenes fromRomeo & Juliet or The Tempest, which will be examined for10) Read the Manga Shakespeare book!The accompanying Manga Shakespeare books are perfect for using alongside these whiteboardresources, creating a mixed environment of learning materials to teach Shakespeare. Both USteachers and UK teachers can order the books using these online links.