Abstract
Thompson’s chapter focuses on her specialized Writing through Comics course, an upper-level course for a recently formed Writing Studies major that includes a track in Creative Writing and Technical Communication. As Thompson explains, this interdisciplinary course draws on the traditions of creative writing, visual design, art, rhetoric, and new media studies to present students with a historical and critical perspective on the art of writing through comics while introducing them to the foundational skills of writing in this literary genre. Built around a workshop format, Thompson’s students read, analyze, and respond to both creative and critical texts, which form the foundation for the writing and revision of their own original comic stories.
I wanted to thank my students of Spring TWRT 333 who agreed to share their reflections on writing through comics for this collection. Thanks to Soyoung Choi, Sage Farray, Lucas Gomez, Jill Grove, Marcela Martine, Olga Subbotin, and Molly Ubben.
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Notes
- 1.
The critical analysis essay is one of the major assignments in this course, requiring students to practice applying theoretical skills of close reading while placing themselves within an academic conversation in the field of Comics Studies.
- 2.
To deal with the evolving writing process (as well as absenteeism), groups are reorganized as needed to make workshop time productive.
- 3.
For groups large enough to have two writers and/or illustrators, there is an opportunity to compare and contrast what elements stood out in the story.
- 4.
Prior to asking students to write a script for their own mini comic, one can practice this meta-level writing skill with sample comics as well. Such an activity would ask students to bring in a favorite comic and write out a script for a section of the text.
- 5.
Students were given the option to go beyond pen and paper to experiment with online storyboarding programs such as Pixton and Storyboard That. A few mentioned trying digital programs, but found the learning curve too intensive during our ten-week quarter system.
- 6.
In the middle of the term, our class took a field trip to the local comic-book store and the owner talked to students about the options for publishing, promoting, and selling their comics, and encouraged them to contribute to the local comics section, which a number of them did.
- 7.
After our course ended, a number of programs across campus got together to get a table at the annual GeekGirlCon, which, at the time of writing, a number of students from this course were scheduled to participate in.
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Thompson, R. (2018). Writing Through Comics. In: Burger, A. (eds) Teaching Graphic Novels in the English Classroom. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63459-3_4
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