Final comic
Sam’s big test: the power of good study habits
This comic was created to demonstrate why and how it is important to create good study habits. In this comic Sam is a student with poor habits however with the help of abby he learns how to balance fun and study.
The challenge: Children need to learn the value of studying vs not studying at all to educate that hard work does pay off even though the effort may be hard to begin with.
Goal: Educate kids about the power of studying and hard work without deterring them from also being able to find a study and life balance.
Pov: Young children struggle to get develop good study habits due to fear or lack of work ethic that will affect them later on in life in school and other aspects.
Context and audience
The comic created was done to educate children aged 10-16 about the power of studying vs not studying. The reason I picked this topic is because as a student now myself I have learnt several study techniques and the value of studying to help me achieve my goals and get the full experience from university. The age group I picked was 10 to 16 years old because healthy habits begin early and I feel this is a very important habit all people should have even if they are not going the academia route in life. This topic also stands out to me because I feel that many children in the social media age rely on AI and others to do work for them when they are more than capable, however hard work pays off and what you put into something is what you get out of it.
https://www.trevormuir.com/blog/how-to-tell-great-stories-in-the-classroom
This link above I used to learn more skills in how to tell stories and it was very insightful because I was able to use it to to learn new tricks for example when creating my comic read it out loud and try have an objective view to put myself in the mind of the reader another useful resource used was the video posted under story telling that explained how to place myself the setting to put the reader where I want them so they can get the full grasp of the concept.
When brainstorming this project I wanted to educate the youth and put the comic in a way that would be easy to understand yet have enough detail to get my point across while in the process using techniques that we have learned in class about how to combine text and image while not falling into the redundancy principle or extraneous cognitive load.
The idea of my comic was to explain a story about a boy named Sam who does not study but plays video games instead because he does not want to work hard but he has a test the next day while his classmate Abby studies. Sam and Abby both receive the test the next day and Sam is upset while Abby is happy so he asks her for advice. She explains she studies for the test and takes brain brakes and then can relax once the test is over. Sam learns from this and applies it to the next test.
Storyboard
Storyboard
| Panel 1 Sam’s older brother: Hey sam, don’t you have a test tomorrow? Have you even studied yet? Sam: Yeah but studying is way too much work but I am so close to beating this level | Panel 2 Abby’s sister: Abby do you want to go to the mall later? Abby:Sure after I read this chapter I got a test tomorrow but I donāt mind taking a break | Panel 3 ( at school) Sam: Abby I donāt feel good about this test. Abby: How much did you study? Sam: I don’t like to study it takes too much time Abby:Well the effort you put in is going to reflect how well you do on the test |
| Panel 4 Sams older brother: What’s wrong Sam? You seem upset Sam: I did not do good on the test and I feel so overwhelmed | Panel 5 Abby’s sister: Soo how did the test go? Abby: Really good! Now that I have free time lets go to the mall again Abbys sister:Good job Abby and YESS I would love to go to the mall | Panel 6 Sams older brother:Dont feel bad perhaps you need to create better study habits Ask for help learning is about being open minded I heard abby did really good on the test. Il ask her for advice |
| Panel 7 Sam: Hey Abby what are you up to? Let me guess studying for the next test Abby: Hey sam Just taking a break,from studying Abby: I like to take brain breaks and relax sam:Could you help me get better at studying? Abby:of course! | Panel 8 Abby: When I study I like read before I go out so I can enjoy the rest of my day.I also like to make myself a schedule to stay on task | Panel 9 Abby: Putting my phone away also helps me lock in Honestly the most important part is finding the right balance and how you learn best. Sam: HMm thank you Iāll apply this for the test in 3 days |
| Panel 10 Sams older brother: Hey do you want to play games Sam: I can AFTER I read my textbook Sams older brother: Oh okay, I respect that | Panel 11 ( at school) Abby: Ready for the test? Sam: I studied properly and I feel so much less stressed | Panel 12 Abby: SO how did it go? Sam: I feel great, I can go home and play video gamesā¦ stress free Abby: feels nice right Sam: It does |
| Panel 13 Sams older brother: Hey Sam how are you feeling Sam:I feel great, less stress and happy | Panel 14 Sam: These new habits will give me structure and the more I practice them the better I will get Sams older brother: yea your right Sam: Alright let me focus on the game now |
Learning objectives
I really want to empathize: hard work, study habits and taking breaks, balancing studying and fun and as a background point of the story as kindness and having the willingness to learn.
This will be done through techniques beginning with the cognitive load theory to get my ideas across in a simple and effective way without overloading the leader with so much information they can’t effectively learn. Also using the coherence principle in the work to keep to the topic and avoid information that will seem redundant to be the material coherent. This also links to the redundancy principle where I am trying to balance the amount of text and images to let the reader learn through two different ways. One of the biggest things in my work is the personalization principle, this principle says that research has shown people learn better than the information is taught through conversational speech vs formal speech which is why in this project I felt the need to use a nice medium in between.
Change of ideas
The idea of the comic began with me wanting to create an environment that promotes hard work with the undertone of caring and sharing ideas. But through peer feedback, personal reflection and research of what makes a good story for children (Gidwitz, 2016) I decided it would be more helpful to create a story about better study habits, which focus on more aspects and perspectives. Instead of saying āwork harderā it gives them tips and tricks on how to work harder and more effectively. The New York Times article was helpful because it made me think about how important engagement is and simplicity as without that the reader will never read enough to grasp the deeper meaning which hopefully leads to the reader gaining at least one new perspective or in this case study habits to use in the real world.
Peer feedback Reflection
The feedback I received was positive and gave me a lot of insight into what I could change and improve. It is important to take this into consideration as another perspective is vital as they are the receivers of my work. It was suggested that I add multiple study habits and this really changed my idea as it made sense. The reader would want specific examples on how to improve their study habits and I was able to add that while demonstrating how it affected the character in a positive way. Another suggestion I received was to be careful when sharing my study habits not to crowd the comic with information. I took this into consideration in every panel I made as it was a valid point. I made sure to space it out without over stretching and creating redundancy. Overall the feedback was positive and I realized that I was going in the right direction with some tweaks needed.
Personal reflection
This project taught me a lot about multi media and how to use it in the educational sense. When I first started to create this project I wanted it to resonate with the younger generation about 10 to 16 years old. This was because based on my experience, when I started to develop my study habits around that age , the study habits have transferred into the university and will continue to change and refine until Iām an adult in the workplace. My goal of my project was to make sure that the study habits created were healthy and balanced, and the audience could create a healthy relationship with study habits from my comic. I wanted to use a few principles when creating this comic. The first principle that I wanted to use was the personalization principle. This principle was vital I thought, especially when creating a comic and I feel like I use this in many situations in my comic. I didnāt want to create an environment where I felt like you were being forced to learn a topic. I wanted to feel they were reading a story and they would take advice from the story and almost a passive sense and be able to learn from the characters mistakes and then grow and apply it to their lives. Another important principle that I use with the coherence principle was the coherence principle was important because you donāt want to have redundant information and you wanna keep it simple and in the material to be coherent this one seemed intuitive to me however, personally I have never thought about it. This made me think back to too times when I have been reading to learn and how the most effective books or comics that I have read were not read were not redundant andĀ the each panel had an important meaning that coherently flowed to the next, and I wanted to use this in my work to keep the reader engaged and be able to follow my story without too much effort. As I created the comic comic Insentric cognitive load was also a big part of the thought process . I used segmenting as I was suggested by my peers when breaking down major ideas and this led to me being able to include more complex ideas into the comic. The comic format was an effective way to cover a complex topic in a simple, straightforward way. I enjoyed being able to teach through a comic as children and young adults while creating a fun and a creative way to learn. I learnt comics areĀ able to activate different parts of the brain, including the visual pathways and the pathways for language. This is important for learning and as we know, many people learn in different ways and this gives different opportunities to learn, this also falls into the dual coding theory which I tried to balance in all my panels. When this challenge was at its early stages I feared having to add so much information into a comic, where there is not the space, however what I will take away from this is when balancing intrinsic cognitive load and extraneous cognitive load, learning and understanding becomes a lot easier. I can apply this to my studies when writing notes and in the future applying for schools to get my message across the most effective way possible.
References
Gidwitz, A. (2016, October 2). What makes a childrenās book good? New Yorker (New York, N.Y.: 1925). https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-goosebumps-conundrum-what-makes-a-childrens-book-good
How to tell great stories in the classroom. (n.d.). Trevormuir.com. Retrieved September 26, 2025, from https://www.trevormuir.com/blog/how-to-tell-great-stories-in-the-classroom
Granchelli, Adrian. (2025). Theories of multimedia learning EDCI 337. Educational technology Uvic.
