Regina students produce comic book about Syrian refugees

Students at Lakeview Elementary School in Regina have produced their own comic book. 

 The project was a joint effort between two classes: a Grade 2/3 class and a Grade 6/7 class. The book is entitled “My Saving Grace: A story of Syrian refugees coming to Canada”.

Allan Dotson is a local artist who worked with students and teachers on the project.

“What we did is introduce to the kids the topic of developing countries and the idea of how do kids live in developing countries, and the kids had the idea that they wanted to focus on Syria and the problem of Syrian refugees.”

Dotson explained that the students did most of the research and writing for the story.

“Mostly what I do is just teach them how to turn that story into a comic, so a lot of figure drawings and storytelling – how to do realistic backgrounds and stuff like that.”

Teacher Jared Clarke whose Grade 6/7 class helped create the comic, says it was a major project.

“We started in January and then finished up all the pieces to this in June.”

Clarke said it was a project which had the students doing a variety of different work.

“There were a ton of different roles that the kids took on: there were researchers, some of them were object drawers, some of them were character drawers, background drawers, inkers – there was just a whole list of roles.”

Besides reading, writing and drawing skills, Clarke hoped the kids would take away other lessons.

“(We hoped) they develop a real empathy as to what was going on in the world, obviously it brought real attention to the refugee crisis in Syria.”

 The project was helped by a grant provided through the Saskatchewan Arts Board.