Here are the stickers I use in my visual narrative workshops. Loops work much better than dots for several reasons. AVERY stopped printing one of my fav loopy stickers in five primary colours. The metallic stickers are essential for depicting folks with a range of brown skin tones. The highlighter colours are also well used by participants.

1. Drawing by hand adds significant motor neurobiological experience that facilitates recall.
2. Drawing by hand what is read in text improves observational processes (Stein and Power, 1996); improves text comprehension in remedial readers (Fisher, 1976); stimulates greater interest in the content (e.g., Ernst, 1997); encourages higher-order thinking (Britton and Wandersee, 1997) and increases students’ enjoyment of the learning activity (Biller, 1994).
3. Drawing (comic-creating) is intersubjective and leads to deeper reflection.
4. Drawing to illustrate a list of words boosts memory (the drawing effect).
5. The drawing effect is significant even when learners are given a very brief drawing session.
6. The drawing effect benefit can be achieved regardless of artistic talent (Fernandes, Wammes, & Meade, 2018, p. 306).
7. The drawing effect is reliable and robust and has been shown to improve memory recall in older adults (Ally et al., 2008; Luo, Hendricks, & Craik, 2007).
8. Narratives encourage the reader’s imagining being there which foster an immersed experiencer (Bergen, 2012).
9. Social-justice comics lesson plan may reduce cognitive biases by scaffolding and sustaining experiences that invite participants to engage in precisely the “deliberate and effortful thinking” that can lead to reduced cognitive bias. (Ayodogan, et al., 2018).
10. Comics are reconstruction-inviting visual structures that encourage greater participation (Postema, 2013).
11. In the social-justice comics lesson plan, participants must use discretion to choose which detail to show.
12. Respectful construction of visual narratives and the conscientious use of gutters (gaps) between panels allow readers to infer rather than be explicitly shown extreme depictions (Polak, 2017).
13. Perception of stick figures in visual narratives is built into the human brain (Peelen & Downing, 2015).

604-980-0160

A Justice Institute of British Columbia initiative.

From Grade 1 to graduate school, traditional tutoring to innovative learning

support, online and face-to-face, Life Outside the Box can help you love learning.

Teaching Excellence Award Winner, JIBC Director

Life Outside the Box began at the Justice

Institute of British Columbia. For two years we served at-risk youth in various schools around B.C. We observed consistently positive learning outcomes — especially for struggling students — and received high praise from Life Outside the Box

the teachers whose classes we visited. Life Outside the Box now has an expanded 60-

lesson curriculum* and new one-to-one and small group learning support services.

Who can benefit from Life Outside the Box tutoring and mentoring services? Children, youth, and young adults who:

• Need some help with lesson assignments (written in English)

• Are discouraged or disempowered around school work

• Need customized lesson support to accommodate neural diversity or

accessibility needs

• Have anxiety around learning and find it hard to make it to school or campus

Where are the sessions? At a nearby library, North Shore learning studio, or via Skype or other web conference app.

More about Jessica Motherwell McFarlane, Ph.D. Please click on these links to read more about my award winning professional work in education. My credentials. My previous professional workshops for educators. My conference presentations

Evidence-based learning strategies. Read my recent published article that presents the research evidence for the drawing effect and other benefits of multimodal, arts- based learning.

Article. Motherwell McFarlane, J.A. (2019). Using visual narratives (comics) to increase literacy and highlight stories of social justice: Awakening to Truth and Reconciliation. Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 12, 46-59.

• NEW – After school “how to make comics” club.

• NEW – Harry Potter weekly reading group (all ages). We transfigure Harry’s

adventures into stick figure scenes and co-create our own Harry Potter comic

books.

• NEW – Adult reading group analyzes their chosen book using Life Outside the Box

visual narrative (making-comics) techniques

Life Outside the Box is dedicated to safe classroom practices. (criminal records check available upon request)

Jessica Motherwell McFarlane, Ph.D. is an instructor and professional education consultant on gender, anti-oppression, indigenization, and other social justice issues. She is also a research associate at the Justice Institute of British Columbia where she won the Instructional Excellence award.

Jessica is the developer and

director of the Life Outside the Box

Learning Institute — a JIBC initiative

— with curricula designed to use

visual narratives (comics) and other expressive arts as a way to SEE the story, conflict and injustice from new perspectives. She facilitates school groups needing to have complex — and sometimes emotionally painful — conversations. Jessica offers workshops to children, youth, and adults. Her workshop topics include: learning about Truth and Reconciliation; improving teaching practices for diverse students; transforming bullying situations; rehearsing best practices for self-care; problem solving; team building; and promoting mental health, inclusivity, and kindness.

Jessica offers professional development sessions to teachers across the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island. In her role as an instructor at Life Outside the Box Learning Institute, Jessica offers innovative one-to-one and small group tutoring for students from Grade 1 through graduate school who need learning support and wish to be inspired by the expressive arts, and more.

Office phone (leave message): 604-980-0160

dr.jessica.motherwell.phd@gmail.com https://drjessicamotherwell.ca http://life-outside-the-box.ca

*Life Outside the Box Educators’ Manual: Sixty visual narrative lesson plans to help at- risk children, youth, and adults promote self care, inclusivity, and social justice. A Justice Institute of British Columbia initiative.