The Secret Language of Comics

Tag: literacy narrative reflection

Literacy Narrative Part 3 Reflection

Student Posts

The comic that I drew in the second part of the literacy narrative was very different from my written narrative in part one. The second part of literacy narrative felt more true to my experiences than the first part. I stated in the reflection from part one, I felt uncomfortable writing that narrative and the effect is that the writing feels distant and less personal. In this third part of the narrative I return to the written medium after the comic. Because the comic was so different, most of the narrative is new to match what occurs in the comic. In the end, I think that the third part felt more personal and simpler because I started from the comic. Writing it felt less analytical, and it felt more like I was telling a story. Taking all three parts into consideration, I think this whole collection really demonstrates that my mind doesn’t really work in terms of words, and that I have to translate ‘images’ in my mind into those words. The first part of the narrative felt uncomfortable because I went straight from my thoughts to writing. The comic as a medium in the second part was a better representation of my thoughts because it combined images and words, which felt more comfortable to me. The comic drawing process was almost like an intermediate step of converting my thoughts to words, because I was not limited to only using words. Once this intermediate step was done, it was much easier to fully convert the narrative into words because part of the work was already done. This lead to the more comfortable feeling of this third part.

Literacy Narrative Part 3 Reflection

Student Posts

As a whole, the literacy narrative project has helped me achieve many of the learning outcomes for this class. The process of transforming my written literacy narrative into a comic allowed me to write across different genres and formats. I used technology for the large majority of the process, more so in making the comic version. I published the different formats of the narrative to my website, a digital platform. I used an app to create my comics, with the use of typed text, images from the Web, and other technological elements. Overall, the process involved the repetition of research, drafting, editing, and reflecting. I went through multiple drafts of the written text to make sure it sounded good and the comic in order to see which format of frames I liked the best. After getting feedback from classmates and other peers, I implemented changes so that my comic would be a better experience for readers. As I edited the comic, it inspired me to make a few edits to the written text as well. I was then able to rewrite the narrative back into text form based on my final comic.

It was interesting to return to the alphabetic narrative after finalizing my comic. I think the comic was really helpful in that it helped me simplify my narrative. This is meant in a good way – I was able to get rid of unnecessary details and make the actual story shine through. In my first drafts of the written narrative, I included a lot of fluff and I honestly didn’t have a clear path for the story to follow. After reviewing the comic, I decided to focus specifically on my public library experience rather than talk about my experiences outside of that realm. I am glad I made this shift because it made me feel more grounded and I could actually analyze the effects the realm has had on my perceptions of reading and writing. Also, I think it has a positive effect on readers in that they don’t have to go between distinct, vaguely connected ideas. In the earlier drafts, it seemed like certain parts of my narrative went along with different “thesis” statements, which could be confusing. My views of these memories has also been focused in a way. Instead of a general comment about how reading and writing is no longer fun to me, I now think about how these activities are still fun to me, it’s just my perspective changes depending on the setting. At school, I dislike them because it feels forced and stresses me out. However, at the public library, I am relaxed because to me, it symbolizes freewill and exploration based on past experiences.

Link to narrative rewrite: https://selazzioui.wordpress.com/literacy-narrative-part-3/

Literacy Narrative Comic Reflection

Student Posts

To be honest, this comic assignment was a challenge for me. When I first knew that there is an assignment that I have to draw a comic, I was so panicked, since I am not a good drawer and I was not confident to convert my written task about my experience that shaped my writing skill into a visual comic. At first, I was struggled with this, since I felt like I was losing a lot of the details and it was hard to choose the right frame that fits a page and goes well with my drawing. I had some useless spaces left on the page, because I could not pick a perfect frame. Also, showing the atmosphere of the situation and feelings of that characters through my deficient drawing skill. It was annoying to have a clear image and specific vision of what I wanted my drawing to look like, but it was not possible to actually realize it due to my lack of skills. However, the more I drew each page, I could feel that I was improving my skills of choosing the right frame and showing a clear storyline on each panel. 

After I struggled and finished my comic with the peer feedback, I realized that the details are just shown in a different way through the process of arranging and editing. Since the main events and important parts of my writing were in my comic, there was no problem understanding the story and message, even though there were fewer descriptions. Through drawing a comic, I could even have a better understanding of my own literacy narrative. Also, I could find some unnecessary parts that I have to get rid of and significant parts that I have to focus more on when I write my literacy narrative 3. I have been taught to easily find the main important parts from my essay and compose written texts in a comic. This assignment was a rewarding experience, even though there were challenges that I had to overcome. 

My final Literacy Narrative Comic

Comic Reflection

Student Posts

Writing my literacy narrative as a comic was a challenging but rewarding learning experience. Writing out the narrative was something that I had done before, so it was familiar. While translating my writing into a comic was new and came with its own set of challenges. Some difficulties mainly were about what angles I wanted to include and how to get the main point across. When I created the draft for my comic, it was challenging to choose what words I wanted to have and how they helped develop the story. The first draft of my comic had an issue with wording, and it took away from the primary goal of the story I was trying to present.
Translating my Literacy narrative into a comic allowed me to understand the time and energy of creating a comic. The different choices that authors make allow their story to progress excitingly. In my literacy narrative, many of the details needed when you write a story translate a little differently when you are writing a comic, like time. When you show the progression of time in a written narrative, you can time jump and use ellipses to show change, but in a comic, you can use more panels and perspectives to change how the reader perceives time. Time perception is crucial because it can help the reader understand the importance of certain events and memories in the narrative.
In my comic, I choose to include color on some panels to show emotion or lack thereof. On the classroom panel, I decided not to color it because I wanted the reader to understand that reading in school was a dull experience. While in other panels, I choose to include pale colors and bright colors to show a change in emotion. On other pages, I had many panels on the pages that all offered a different perspective of the same image. This setup goal was to show what I imagined in my head before zooming out into reality on the next page. I don’t think I got many different perspectives in my comic because it was challenging to draw the different stances; I wanted to be straightforward to the reader. Overall, drawing my comic was fun and a little scary because I represented my writing differently.
After I completed my comic, I felt that I could add a lot more to the pages, but I did not have enough time to do so in a way that would be the best representation of my work. My comic could be more in-depth in certain scenes, but while creating it, I felt that if I added more pages that only centered on a specific moment, the comic would not have been clear.
So I sacrificed the length of my comic to have more detailed panels with more color and emotion. The colors and emotions they evoke are essential to the story because it allows the reader to have a more personal connection to the work. Also, the colors make the pages more vivid and entertaining for people who are reading.

The final Comic

Literacy Narrative Comic Reflection

Comic Reflection

Student Posts

Writing my literacy narrative as a comic was a challenging but rewarding learning experience. Writing out the narrative was something that I had done before, so it was familiar. While translating my writing into a comic was new and came with its own set of challenges. Some difficulties mainly were about what angles I wanted to include and how to get the main point across. When I created the draft for my comic, it was challenging to choose what words I wanted to have and how they helped develop the story. The first draft of my comic had an issue with wording, and it took away from the primary goal of the story I was trying to present.
Translating my Literacy narrative into a comic allowed me to understand the time and energy of creating a comic. The different choices that authors make allow their story to progress excitingly. In my literacy narrative, many of the details needed when you write a story translate a little differently when you are writing a comic, like time. When you show the progression of time in a written narrative, you can time jump and use ellipses to show change, but in a comic, you can use more panels and perspectives to change how the reader perceives time. Time perception is crucial because it can help the reader understand the importance of certain events and memories in the narrative.
In my comic, I choose to include color on some panels to show emotion or lack thereof. On the classroom panel, I decided not to color it because I wanted the reader to understand that reading in school was a dull experience. While in other panels, I choose to include pale colors and bright colors to show a change in emotion. On other pages, I had many panels on the pages that all offered a different perspective of the same image. This setup goal was to show what I imagined in my head before zooming out into reality on the next page. I don’t think I got many different perspectives in my comic because it was challenging to draw the different stances; I wanted to be straightforward to the reader. Overall, drawing my comic was fun and a little scary because I represented my writing differently.
After I completed my comic, I felt that I could add a lot more to the pages, but I did not have enough time to do so in a way that would be the best representation of my work. My comic could be more in-depth in certain scenes, but while creating it, I felt that if I added more pages that only centered on a specific moment, the comic would not have been clear.
So I sacrificed the length of my comic to have more detailed panels with more color and emotion. The colors and emotions they evoke are essential to the story because it allows the reader to have a more personal connection to the work. Also, the colors make the pages more vivid and entertaining for people who are reading.

The final Comic

Literacy Narrative Comic Reflection

Literacy Narrative Pt. 2 Reflection

Student Posts

Link to Comic

Making an alphabetic essay to a comic was very interesting and fun. Before I started working on the comic, I went to the writing center and rewrote the essay, keeping in mind this will turn into a comic. I had mental images of what I wanted to draw while I was reworking my essay. The rewriting process prepared me when it came time to draw a comic because I already had a vague idea what certain panels will look like. 

Before the drawing process, I had to think about what I wanted to include in the pages and how the story builds on. I had to think about my essay in a board way then add more details. The rough sketch of the comic really helped because I was able to mess with how I wanted to format everything. Beforehand, I was able to visually think how the story should progress and what scenes are important. We mentioned something in class about structure and how making a comic provides more structure than the aplahbetic essay. I totally agree because I tried to focus on how each thing will add to another and how to make things cohesive. I had to leave out a couple of things from the alphabetic essay because I wanted the comic to be short and sweet. Straight to the point. When I would read through my essay to see how I wanted to draw it, I would have a perfect picture in my mind, and it was harder than I thought drawing it out. I think that goes with any type of drawing, but it was my first time using a digital software to draw something a little more intricate. 

For my text, I chose to handwrite it rather than have a text box. The handwriting was so the comic can be more authentic in a way, and it was also easier. Overall, I wanted the comic to be authentic and not be like the frames in “Sabrina.” It also allowed for there to be more of me in the comic. Not only is my story in the comic but also my unique handwriting. This is my first comic, so there is bound to be rustic, in a way. If I knew what I was doing, I would’ve focused on the art itself and making it more realistic. More backgrounds and details. Even without the addition, I think I was able to put enough in that the comic does not feel incomplete. I also tried to incorporate different perspectives in the comic, but it kinda just felt right. Especially with the three frames of the book falling from the sky, the change in perspective, to me at least, was humorous. Hopeful, others think the same way. 

I enjoyed creating the comic and thinking of different ways to present an idea. This assignment kinda inspired me to maybe in the future make more comics. We will see if that ever happens. Lol. 

Literacy Narrative Comic Reflection

Student Posts

This writing process has helped me achieve many of the learning outcomes for this class. The process of transforming my written literacy narrative into a comic allowed me to write across different genres and formats. I used technology for the large majority of the process, more so in making the comic version. I published the written text version of the narrative to my website, a digital platform. I used an app to create my comics, with the use of typed text, images from the Web, and other technological elements. Overall, the process involved the repetition of research, drafting, editing, and reflecting. I went through multiple drafts of the written text to make sure it sounded good and the comic in order to see which format of frames I liked the best. After getting feedback from classmates and other peers, I implemented changes so that my comic would be a better experience for readers. As I edited the comic, it inspired me to make a few edits to the written text as well. 

There were a couple of major differences between writing my narrative as written text versus a comic. In the written text, it was easy for me to write freely by adding as many details as I wanted, within reason. For the comic, I had to downsize the amount of the narrative I wanted to tell. If I included every aspect of my written text, I would have had many more pages of frames. In order for my comic to be effective, I had to be even pickier about the details I included to ensure I wasn’t wasting valuable space. The comic format was easier in that I already had visualizations in my head of the scenes played out in my narrative. All I had to do was draw them out which took time but as a visual person, this format is more effective for me to explain my thoughts and opinions. Now that I have two different formats to compare to one another, I feel like the comic represents me more accurately. It is a representation of how my narrative is organized internally. I like that it has to be efficient because it gets the point across. In contrast, my written text can become clouded with fluff which can be distracting to readers.

On my second, final draft of my comic, I made more intentional decisions. I chose bright colors to represent how vivid these memories are and how vivid my childhood was. These memories brought a lot of happiness and forms of familial love and connection to me as a child. I chose different perspectives that represented different points in the narrative. For example, sometimes the frame was zoomed into a specific element in order to emphasize its importance. If I had more time and professional help, I would have changed the organization and design of the actual frames. I made different formats of frames from my storyboard draft however, I still feel like the organization could be even more creative. I would also find ways to make time shifts more smooth and coherent. In some cases, it can seem sudden when time shifts. 


Link to the final comic: https://selazzioui.wordpress.com/literacy-narrative-part-2/

Literacy Narrative Pt.2 Reflection

Student Posts

This assignment was definitely very different from any essay or narrative that I have written before. Due to the visual nature of medium, creating my narrative comic was rather challenging because I purely had to show not tell. In other words, I had to not only identify the most important elements of my written narrative but also effectively illustrate them. The two resources that helped me the most during this process was Scott McCloud’s Making Comics and Hillary Chute’s Comics for Grown-ups. Scott McCloud’s work introduced me to several fundamental concepts of comic illustrating such as moment, frame, and image. These concepts helped me recognize what makes a comic successful in storytelling. Specifically, I used these concepts in the beginning of my comic when I establish the setting as my middle school. In the first sequence of panels, the images go from general to more specific. The first panel of the comic is an outside image of my school, and the last panel of the sequence is the door of my classroom.

 Hillary Chute’s Comics for Grown-ups was also useful. By reading Chute’s work, I realized that comics can be poetic in a certain sense. Panels not only show the constant passing of time, but the author can choose to make illusions or perhaps give the reader a rather unique intended direction of reading. Furthermore, Chute’s work gave me the liberty to be more experimental and creative with my comic. By applying the principles of these two works to my comic, I successfully synthesized and evaluated ideas scholarly sources and applied them to my own work.

My literacy narrative was quite different as a comic than as a standard piece of writing. In my comic, I wanted the illustrations within the panels to do a majority of the story telling. Therefore, I had to turn my written narrative into a more comprehensive story, so that it could fit the medium. I could not simply state retrospectively that my attitude towards reading changed. Instead, I had to show how it changed through experiences and memories. One example of me doing this, is on page 4 of my comic. In my written narrative, I simply stated that I struggled to read Romeo and Juliet during freshman year of high school. However, I wanted to elaborate upon my reading struggles, so I illustrated multiple books alongside pictures of myself being confused. By doing this, I think my comic is more effective in showing my struggles firsthand, than my written narrative. Once I finished my comic, I realized that my written narrative lacked emotion and personality. My written work was effective in telling a story, but I think my comic would connect better with an audience because I am truly shared my thoughts and past life experiences.

Given that I am not an amazing artist, I wanted the drawing style of my comic to be pretty simple. Going into the comic, I knew my limits as artist and tried to work around them. That is why there is never any dialogue within the panels themselves. However, with a simple art style, I made sure to vary the format of each page as well as the size of the panels. I do not think that my illustrative style hindered my comic too much. I think a professional illustrative would aid my work but improving my drawings would have no impact on the story I am trying to tell.

My Comic

Literacy Narrative Comic Reflection

Student Posts

After completing my comic, I realized that the work that I have done reflects the learning outcomes of the class. Firstly, comics involves multiple types of literacy, and to complete my comic I used multiple modes communication to express my ideas and help the readers understand the plot of my comic. Whether it be using different colours or sizes of panels, I used different techniques to help the readers realize what is significant and what is not. Also, the entire process of completing my comic involved several steps from making the first draft of my literacy narrative and the comic, to editing it and turning the final copy into the final comic. This showed that I practiced writing as a process, drafting and editing my words while writing reflections like this. Finally, I used technology appropriately as I used my iPad to sketch out my comic and revise it into the final copy. If the same process was done on paper, I think it would’ve taken more time and would not be as efficient. 

Overall, I think it is different to write my literacy narrative as a comic. As a comic, some of the aspects of the literacy narrative had to be turned into a visual representation, and after those aspects were added, the story itself became more obvious as to how I became a reader. I feel that I did not need to explain as much in the comic as the essay since I could show certain things using images directly. I also realized some of the unnecessary details in my alphabetic literacy narrative that does not contribute to the bigger plot or storyline. I think turning my literacy narrative into a comic helped me see it from the readers’ perspective, and I really realized what I need to include in both formats of my literacy narrative to make them better. 

When creating my comic, I had to select only the important events or details to include. If I tried to include every single detail, my comic would be very long and hard for the readers to follow along. This realization came after looking at my old comic and the feedbacks. I thought about how my comic would look from an outsider’s perspective, and some of the panels simply did not make sense. Also, I tried to make the comic all the same colour except for important details or events. I made everything black, with occasional usage of red to emphasize certain moments or details. I also added some panels with only words in them. This gave my comic a sectional feel, and it is easier for the readers to follow along my journey that I described. Overall, I think I used some writing techniques when composing my comic, which I learned from other assignments that I competed this semester. 

Comic can also be found here

Comic Reflection

Student Posts

I mentioned this in class but it was a challenge determining how to layout my comic, since with essay’s the only things writers really have to worry about is where to break off a paragraph. It was also fun to choose how to visually represent certain things, such as my repeated failures in 4th grade or the “FCAT” taking the forum of a pure black cat with judgemental eyes. Another difference was, for my comic, a lot of stuff I liked in my literacy narrative had to be left out. I wanted to explain why I struggled so much as a kid in school but I realized that the reason why I struggled didn’t matter as much as the effect it had on me and what I had to do to overcome the fear I gained from the FCAT. This did help be to see my story in a different way. It is so easy to be mad at that situation but writing it out then drawing it made me realize how little that event really was in comparison to the impact it had on me.I had to think more about how this event actually changed me. In the future whenever I have to analyze writing I can’t just focus on any single part, events that happen on just page one of a book can have effects lasting all the way to the final paragraph. 

In my comic I had to take a, well let’s call it a “minimalist” style. I had to sacrifice backgrounds for the sake of time (and sanity). If I had more time or artist skill I would have loved to add in backgrounds, seeing the school background slowly progress from elementary to middle to high school would have been a nice effect. I’m also pretty lousy at drawing still, especially real people. I simplified faces a lot just so I could save time and I didn’t have to look up 800 references. It would of also been nice to just make it longer, there was a lot of stuff that’s important to me that I had to leave out. It’s hard to tell my entire 19 year long journey in writing in just 4 pages, and I didn’t even get the chance to touch on my experiences with reading and the burnout I felt at the end of highschool. 

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