MakeBeliefsComix.com Online Educational Comics
Launches WRITER PROMPTS to Help ESL, Literacy
Students Write, Read and Tell Stories;
Google Lists Among World’s Top Literacy Sites

Dear reader,

MakeBeliefsComix.com has launched a new WRITER PROMPTS feature that 
regularly offers educators new ideas to spark students’ imaginations 
and encourage them to write more.

The new writing tool is a direct result of the overwhelming positive 
user response to our free web site where children and adults create 
their own comic strips online and, in so doing, practice language, 
writing and reading skills. WRITER PROMPTS utilizes interactive 
techniques that I have pioneered as author, journalist and teacher to 
help people of all ages find their writers’ voices and express their 
deepest thoughts.  Go to http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/ and 
click on the WRITER PROMPTS button at the bottom right to connect to 
these idea prompts at www.billztreasurechest.com/blog/.

At the WRITER PROMPTS blog site selected students’ written responses 
will be posted, reinforcing students’ writing and language-learning 
efforts.  Please try the new feature and give us your feedback and 
suggestions. We also will post some of your own suggested writing 
prompts if you give us permission. Send them to 
billz at makebeliefscomix.com.

Since we launched our educational comics site in 2006 hundreds of 
thousands from 175 countries have visited us.  And, Go
ogle and UNESCO 
selected MakeBeliefsComix.com as one of the world’s most innovative web 
sites in fostering literacy and reading  
(http://www.google.com/literacy/projects.html).

Some sample writing WRITER PROMPTS offered:
.You are an author rewriting the story of your parents’ lives.  How 
would you change their lives, what would you say?  The wonderful thing 
about being a writer is that you can use your imagination to create 
different worlds from what you know. If you're feeling unhappy in real 
life, for example, you might want to create a world in which you feel 
happy. If you are poor, you might want to imagine a story in which the 
characters are rich. You can change a story about your parents or 
family into something entirely different.

.Three children in different parts of the world wake up one morning, 
each expecting the day to be like all the others. For one, in Mexico, 
this will turn into the most important day of her life; for another, in 
China, the day will be the happiest she will ever experience in her 
life, and for the third, in Chicago, this will become his saddest one. 
Write one of the children's diaries for the day.

.You are a six-year-old Pakistani boy sold into servitude by his family 
to labor 14 hours a day in a carpet factory. Your enslavement will help 
settle a $16 family debt. You spend the next six years chained to a rug 
loom, working 12-hour days for pennies.20Then comes the day when you 
escape to freedom  -- here's what happens:

Users of MakeBeliefsComix.com make comics strips by selecting from 15 
fun characters with different moods  -- happy, sad, angry, worried -- 
and write words for  blank talk and thought balloons to make characters 
talk and think.  This site is used by educators to teach language, 
reading and writing skills, and also for students in 
English-as-a-Second-Language programs to facilitate self-expression and 
storytelling, as well as computer literacy. Some educational therapists 
use the online comics with deaf and autistic people to help them 
understand concepts and communicate.  Parents and children can create 
stories together, print them to create comic books or email them to 
friends.  Others will find the site a resource to be creative and have 
fun.

Acting on your feedback, MakeBeliefsComix.com now also enables users to 
write comic strips in languages other than English, including Spanish, 
French, German, Italian, Latin and Portuguese.  Many foreign language 
teachers encourage language practice by having students create comic 
strips.

Please share http://www.makebeliefscomix.com with your colleagues, 
students, friends or readers of your publications and  favorite 
listserv groups.  It takes a community to build and nurture a rich 
educational resource.

Sincerely,

Bill Zimmerman
(billz at makebeliefscomix.com or wmz at aol.com)