I Love It When A Plan Comes Together: Personal Narrative & Comics

[Melissa Marquart]

For the past month my classes (h.s. juniors) and I have been exploring memoir and personal narrative through a variety of mediums, including comics.  First we read Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and then an excerpt from Vivian Gornick's The Situation and The Story (sort of a "how-to" for writing personal narrative).  They've read a variety of shorter pieces, all "traditional " narratives ranging from slave narratives (Frederick Douglass and Olaudah Equiano) to contemporary authors Jean Shepherd, Frank McCourt, Annie Dillard, Annie Choi, Garrison Keillor, Toni Morrison and Chuck Palahniuk. We also watched an episode of Morgan Spurlock's "30 Days" (each episode plays out as a personal narrative; attitudes are changed; there are epiphanies).  Then they wrote their own personal narrative.

As a means of introducing comics to this unit, first my students read excerpts from Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and Will Eisner's two texts, Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative and Comics and Sequential Art.  We discussed the synthesis of words and art, how one informs the other and each's importance in telling the story.  Then we bridged the gap between the "traditional" essay and comics by reading short autobiographical comics by Nate Powell, Jeffery Brown, Lynda Barry, Nick Bertozzi, Rina Piccolo, and Brendan Burford and excerpts from Blankets by Craig Thompson, Stitches by David Small, and Laurie Sandell's The Imposter's Daughter.

Last week, the students took the final draft of their essay and scripted it for a comic (we looked at a script by Russell Lissau at the back of his short comic, "The 29", a resource that proved invaluable to my students as both the writer [Russell] and artist, MpMann, were very kind in making themselves available to answer questions from my students).  Once their script was completed, they began working on turning that script into a completed comic.  Some of my kids have been working on Comic Life (a computer program), but most have chosen to hand-draw their comics.  When they hand in their work today, they will not only give me their completed comic, but also their script and the final draft of their essay.  The goal is to see how well their story transfers from the written essay to comic form.  Does the heart of their story stay true?  I'm not grading the artwork, which has alleviated some stress, but rather how well they tell the story.  I want them to know that each one of them has valuable stories to tell.

This is the first time I've done this project, but so far, so good.  I've heard very positive feedback from a lot of students.  So, goody-goody gumdrops for me.  But, more importantly, goody-goody gum drops for them (and comics as several kids remarked that they didn't like comics before, but now want to add some to their personal libraries).  I'm excited to see what they've come up with.

[Nick Sousanis]

Wow - this sounds terrific, Melissa! What a great experience for students and teacher. Hope you post some of their works - curious to see how it all turns out. Best, Nick

[Melissa Marquart]

Several students queried, "Who's going to read this?  Just you?"  I've taken a cursory glance at a few pieces and I will ask if I can post them.

[Tony O'seland]

You might look into doing permabond binding for the finished project and have it placed in your library as a reference object.  My masters Thesis was accepted and is being used by more students than I care to think about as a reference in their own Thesis (thesees??).  Congratulations on doing an outstanding job.

[Melissa Marquart]

I've toyed with having the comics bound; I think I'll look into it.  Thanks!

[Stergios Botzakis]

Thanks for sharing all of your successes here! I very much like how you've laid out the readings and assignments. Add my voice to the choir who would like to see some of their works. Also, I think a bound class copy sounds like a great idea as a resource/model for later classes and also a souvenir for current students.