1. Find a cartoon strip. It can be Chinese or English, but English is better, unless you're prepared to explain, in English, the Chinese strip and speak it in English.
2. Make a new (original) cartoon strip based on the old one, as I've shown in my examples.
3. Copy both strips for your classmates and me to follow in class.
4. Read both strips in front of the class. As I've said repeatedly, this is a language class, not a knowledge class, so how you read is important (with expression, proper intonation, accent, diction, fluency, etc.). You cannot tell a joke by saying takemywifeplease. You have to say, "Take my wife--please!"
5. Ideally, you will use interesting idioms or diction (choice of words): for example, I used "shrink" in one strip and "despair" in another). Then you can explain those words or idioms to your classmates.
6. You may have to answer questions from classmates.
7. Classmates will ask questions and evaluate your performance and cartoon on a scale of 1 to 10.
8. There will be two scales: for classroom performance and for cartoon.
9. Cartoon strips will be based on creativity, originality, humor, use of English. (Although "creativity" and "originality" are closely related words, by "creativity" I mean any interesting new ideas in the strip, even if the strip is fairly closely related to the original; by "originality" I mean the degree of departure or difference from the original. By "humor" I don't necessarily mean "ha-ha" or silly humor; but rather humor can be more thoughtful, ironic, sarcastic, satiric, etc.
If all goes well, this could be our only class assignment. In addition, I will intermit the presentations with illustrations of vocabulary or idioms introduced by students in their cartoon strips. We will also pause for our usual "culture segment" featuring American lyrics.
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