NEW! Help 4 Students

School Support Staff, Guidance Counsellors, Therapists Will Find Comic-Making a Powerful Tool to Aid Troubled Students

Dear reader,

Every school guidance counselor and teacher at some time works with children who come to school with mental health problems – escalating rates of depression, anxiety, and isolation. Some students hurt from difficult family lives, some are very anxious about Covid, others worry about school violence and shootings. Still, others question their sexual identity, while others are pained by the discrimination they experience because of their color or gender preference.

To assist you in helping these students, we have created this new special section on using comic storytelling as an aid in your counseling work. Consider encouraging your youngsters to talk about their lives by their creating comic strips about who they are and the problems they contend with on a daily basis. We are, after all, the stories we tell.

The pages that follow in this section were written for teachers and school support staff -- guidance counselors, school social workers, mental health professionals and nurses. We were encouraged to do this because of the earlier success that many educational therapists have had in using our comic-making website to help children with autism and behavioral issues. Now, we hope you will share MakeBeliefsComix with the wide range of students you serve.

Pointing students to comic making can be a very useful tool for counselors who deal one-on-one with students in understanding them better and getting them to communicate what is in their hearts.  This can’t fail to work. Who doesn’t love comics? The act of creating your very own comic strip about your life or your view of the world can offer a profound, affirmative experience for a young person.  It’s one way of their being heard and building confidence in themselves.

Please refer our resources to your young clients to test. We welcome your thoughts and your suggestions, as well as your students’ feedback to help us improve this new feature.  Please use the form below to tell us what you think is missing and what more you need. You may also send your thoughts and ideas to billz@makebeliefscomix.com We want to do our best for you and be of use to you in your hard work.

Yours sincerely,

Bill Zimmerman
Creator, MakeBeliefsComix

Let us know your thoughts on ‘’HELP 4 STUDENTS”

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Students with mental health challenges

There is a special section on helping students deal with mental health challenges. It offers many story ideas to help youngsters open up by creating comic strips that deal with problems causing anxiety, depression, or suicidal ideation.

LGBTQ+ Students

In this section, for example, you will find a new sampler page of all the resources our comic-generating site has for LGBTQ+ students, including many specific ideas they can use to talk about their lives and express what is troubling them. Students can choose a surrogate comic character among the more than 100 diverse characters offered to represent them in the comics they create.

COMBATTING RACISM & SEXISM W/ DEEP LISTENING

There also is a special lesson plan by an educator who was named Teacher of the Year by The New York Times that focuses on combatting racial and sexual discrimination with a new technique she uses called Deep Listening and which is combined with comic-making.

Comic Starters – Discrimination

To help spark student ideas in their storytelling, there is a new page of Comic Starters on Experiencing Discrimination. These prompts help answer the question of What Should I Write About in My Comic?

Case Studies

Helping you will be a page of case studies on how comic-making is helping students with behavioral problems and special needs.

MAKEBELIEFS 2 HELP U SMILE & FEEL J_Y

In this section we present our special series titled MakeBeliefs 2 Help U Smile & Feel J_Y.  By writing or drawing your responses to these graphic writing prompts, students are encouraged to open their minds and express what they feel.  This page also links to resources on our site to teach social and emotional learning (SEL) skills.