Co-Design a TrueFiktion Comic Book

Co-design a TrueFiktion comic book

Every community's history deserves to be told. If you can't find a book that highlights the amazing stories in your community and makes history relevant to your students, we can create one with you. We believe that there are numerous stories that are locally relevant, but also nationally significant.

We know it's hard to make high-quality resources without a process. We will work with you through our design process to create a book that is engaging but also drives critical thinking about your community.

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Past Partners

Make your community’s history more relevant, palpable, and engaging

Historical fiction based on your community’s history

Students get insight into current social issues by following the stories of fictional characters who demonstrate agency in dealing with racial, gender, and socioeconomic challenges in their community.

Authentically represent your community with world-class artwork

We collaborate with illustrators to produce engaging, high-quality visuals highlighting the humanity and dignity of marginalized people from your community.

Integrate local primary sources and secondary interpretations

We will consult local sources and subject-matter experts to make the content hyper-relevant to your students.

Develop a locally relevant, inquiry-based workbook

We create a workbook with inquiry-based exercises designed to help students use primary and secondary sources to dig deeper into their local history.

Our Co-Design Process

We guide your students and teachers in creating a comic book that captures a local story your community knows and loves while revealing its national significance. This process usually takes five to six months.

Teachers will learn strategies for using comics to teach complex historical narratives. They’ll also learn how to seamlessly integrate primary sources into history lessons and use culturally responsive comics. Teachers will review a case study on teaching the untold stories of marginalized groups in a social studies classroom and find opportunities to test C3 Standards and SEL competencies.
Key features include:
- Comprehensive training on using comics in an educational setting
- Case study analysis on applying culturally responsive teaching practices
- Tools and techniques for making history more engaging and relatable
Teachers will learn how to select local historical events that allow for inclusive, culturally responsive learning experiences. Throughout the workshop, teachers will discuss which historical moments to include in the curriculum and develop perspectives on selecting culturally responses historical moments.
Key features include:
- Framework for selecting culturally responsive narratives
- Brainstorming sessions to select impactful moments in history
- Guidance on creating content that centers local stories and marginalized communities
In this train-the-trainer workshop, teachers will learn how to incorporate design thinking into their history lessons. Then, teachers will give the same workshop to their students so they use their agency, creativity, and problem-solving skills to help design their history learning experience.
Key features include:
- Introduction to human-centered design practices
- Training on conducting design thinking workshops
- Guidance on gathering and implementing student feedback
Teachers will now incorporate their students’ feedback into a culturally inclusive local history narrative. They’ll learn different techniques for integrating primary sources, key historical themes, and culturally responsive pedagogy into one story. Plus, they’ll see how to make informed, culturally sensitive design choices throughout the content development process.
Key features include:
- Introduction to narrative storytelling frameworks and approaches
- Methods for integrating historical themes into a narrative
- Strategies for developing engaging, culturally responsive content
Teachers will learn to create a comic-based inquiry workbook. They’ll create engaging, thought-provoking questions designed to help students sharpen their analytical and critical thinking skills as they learn more about their local community’s rich history.
Key features include:
- Training on using comic books to build inquiry units
- Practice selecting resources for a culturally responsive inquiry
- Guidance on implementing comic-based inquiries in the classroom
Your teachers will receive a class set of comics that they and their students created to learn history in a more engaging, culturally responsive way. You can easily integrate these comics into your local scope and sequence. Most of all, teachers will be equipped to integrate any TrueFiktion comic book into their history lesson plans.
Key features include:
- Final comics based on co-designed content
- Professional development on using co-designed resources in your community

Watch co-design in action

Testimonials

Slide Over

The critical thinking and thought processing that we're doing challenges us on levels that we are not used to. In the 21st century, educators need to be challenged with and taught design thinking.

-Nick Stamoulacatos, Director, Syracuse City School District Social Studies Department

The teachers that are involved really love this. They’re very excited and want to do more together; they like the facilitation style and the facilitator is knowledgeable on the subject.

— Nick Stamoulacatos, Director, Syracuse City School District Social Studies Department

The process was incredibly rewarding. As teachers, I don't often get the chance to work with professional artist for local curriculum”

— Abigail Henry, history teach at Mastery Charter School

It was exciting to see my research come alive in a comic. It made me comfortable with fictional story because it was rooted in primary sources.”

— Molly Mitchell, historian, University of New Orleans

My students were so excited to see the final comic book.”

— Abigail Henry, history teach at Mastery Charter School

I enjoyed the intentional nature of the process. It was clear how significant historical themes were transposed into the narrative.”

— Molly Mitchell, historian, University of New Orleans

TrueFiktion comics teach history in a way that encourages a sense of global responsibility to each other as human beings.”

— Samuel, High School History Teacher

FAQs

Design thinking is a problem-solving methodology that emphasizes creativity and innovation. It involves empathizing with users, defining problems, ideating solutions, prototyping, and testing, similar to human-centered design.
One TrueFiktion comic book takes six months to produce.
We can produce several comic books simultaneously, but we cannot shorten the process for one comic book and curriculum.
TrueFiktion's expertise lies in historical fiction comic books, specifically historio-metagraphics. It is important to note that we do not do autobiographical stories of well-known historical figures, such as Martin Luther King or Frederick Douglass. While these real people might appear in the comic, the story will focus on fictional characters who bring a local story of national significance to life.
The comic books we create always fulfill the following criteria:
• Stories not yet told in existing textbooks
• Are grounded in local primary sources
• Explain a phenomenon pertinent to U.S. history
• Show historically marginalized characters or communities having agency
• Have themes of resilience
• Are relevant to understanding current social issues
We use our GRR Framework to ensure our stories show people from marginalized groups having agency in history.
The cost depends on how many books we are doing and whether co-creation is part of a more extensive curriculum and professional development project. The cost also depends on how involved we are in the production from a co-design experience. We can provide a quote based on your specific objectives.
Schedule a discovery call.
We are a design-thinking-led company. Content will be made with our design frameworks derived from interviews with students, teachers, and local community leaders. If we conduct a co-creation pilot, we will use our frameworks and design thinking workshops with participants to guide the design of the comics.
The design of our book follows a specific production methodology. We will work to do a co-designed book custom to your local context. However, the book's structure will be the same as our existing products and is conceived to easily introduce culturally responsive teaching and innovative pedagogy in your classrooms.
At a minimum, we engage in creation projects once there is a scope and sequence audit, a series of professional developments on methods and resources, or a curriculum pilot with a school. There have been a couple of exceptions, but this is on a case-by-case basis.
The sooner you get in touch, the sooner we can evaluate your needs and get you a quote and projected timeline for your comic book.
Schedule a discovery call.