The Secret Language of Comics

Month: August 2023

Sunday Sketches~Sketch 2: An Ap-“peel”-ing Beach Day

Student Posts

To find inspiration for this week’s sketch, I looked around my dorm room for objects I could use. The long weekend was in the back of my mind, and I thought about taking my hammock out to the quad to sit in and take a break. My desk is next to the micro-fridge, which also inspired me. My roommate happened to have left a banana on top of the fridge from breakfast. It then clicked: Why not take the banana and make it into a hammock?
I set my sketch’s setting at the beach, as I always think of it as the perfect location to set up a hammock. I then marked the ends of the banana so it could be “attached” to the trees, just as my hammock needs to be before it can be sat in. I made sure to draw the person a little arched so it looked like it was lying on the banana. The banana worked really well as a hammock, and I’m curious to see how other foods can be transformed similarly.

Original Prompt link

Deductive -> Inductive Writing

David's Posts

We’ll spend some time in class today looking at the essay below as a method for breaking down differences between inductive and deductive writing and to see a more concrete example of an ABT thesis.

A number of years ago, I assigned students in a class three hard-boiled detective short stories and assigned them to write a comparative essay in response. I no longer remember the exact prompt I gave those students, but they needed to compare the stories. The three stories are all set in Los Angeles: The Big Sleep is one of the originators of the genre, with a white male hardboiled detective in the 1930s; in “Murder is My Business” the protagonist is a lesbian detective in LA of the 1980s; and in Devil in a Blue Dress the protagonist detective is a black man in LA of the 1950s.

Below is a real essay a student wrote in response, which has some good observation in it but the five paragraph structure of the essay seriously undermines the author’s ability to make any kind of argument. Please read over the essay (it shouldn’t take more than 5 or 10 minutes). In class, we’ll spend about half the class looking at this example and go through an example process of revising the structure of this essay to be an inductive essay using an ABT thesis.

Detective-comparisons-essay

Week Ahead: 2

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2 8/28
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8/30
9/3

We spent class today applying the rhetorical situation key terms to Allie Brosh’s “Adventures in Depression.” On Thursday we’ll spend a little time thinking about how the second part shifts our understanding.

We’ll also spend a chunk of class thinking about Randy Olson’s ABT thesis template and look at an example of a deductive essay that we can transform into an inductive one by rearranging the structure.

Your second sketch assignment is due on Sunday 9/3 — for this one you’ll need to use analog tools to draw your sketch because you’ll be incorporating a physical object into the sketch. It’s an exercise in simple visual storytelling and lateral thinking, so have some fun with it. Please make sure to give your sketch a funny and/or clever title.

Also, you should be working on the pre-writing exercise for your literacy narrative, which will be due in week 3. You do not need to publish the pre-writing work but I’d recommend you try to get through that exercise before class on Wednesday so that you leave yourself time to work through the essay itself by next week.

Feature Image credit: “second class” by Flickr user Georg for the One Digit group

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Student Posts

Hello visitors!

Welcome to my page. My inspiration for this avatar was that people usually pronounce my name as “coffee” when they read it on paper and even after I say it myself. In recent years, I have learned to embrace it as something I can laugh about rather than be ever so slightly annoyed by. As you may be able to see, the backbone of my avatar is its coffee mug structure and the dark brown color which resembles a full cup of coffee as well as my skin tone. I also made sure to include a smile as a prominent feature of my avatar in order to illustrate that I like to bring positive energy into whichever room I enter. The accents in my hair depict the scattered dyed strands in my hair. With this avatar I have created a character that highlights several parts of who I am.

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This is my pet dog, Mocha, and is what often first comes to mind whenever I think of ‘home’. Specifically, this is the last photo I took of him before I flew out to the US for college, and is very funny as I used a Snapchat filter that squished his face up. Finally, I chose to write my name in a bright mint color both because I wanted it to pop out, but also because I really like this color.

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My avatar represents a sort of rift or “canyon” that sometimes feels present in my life. I have passions in both academics and athletics that each require 100% of my time, energy, and focus. One of the biggest steps I have taken so far in my college journey is putting each of these passions in their respective place at the appropriate time. I am striving to be able to prioritize learning during most of the day, while also having the ability to flip the switch and leave everything on the field for practice and games. My decision to transfer to Emory was a symbolic one that represented my deepest affinity shifting to left side of my avatar.

Danielle Proulx @dlproductionss (baseball picture), https://pixabay.com/vectors/swords-battle-blades-medieval-296741/ (sword, Creative Commons), “This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-SA.” (Canyon).

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The avatar is a combination of my character and the difficult topics that will be discussed in class. The blue sky on the top of the avatar indicates my open-minded personality I hope to demonstrate throughout this semester. Since this course explores mature topics, having an open mind is essential for me to dive in the core and understand the essence of these unspoken subjects through the readings. Another aspect of this avatar that represents myself is the maple-colored path. As the avatar shows, the path extends without a clear end. This is meant to display my ambition of exploring the unknown future ahead of me.

The original image was a white wall with no significant drawings, yet, I combined a raising fist using different layers. The fist represents violent topics such as bullying and self harm. The intended effect was to make the raising fist look like a graffiti art, but my lack of technical skills limited my representation of the final product.

Photo Credits:

patz0. “Raising Fist.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 7 Feb. 2008, http://www.flickr.com/photos/patz0/2248684195/in/photolist-4qH6ta-bwgYGM-8xvsJU-8mx4pL-7FUccU-c62x7o-8xvsFs-8xvsME-Eiz8U-8xsqPR-8xsqSt-8xvsWE-3eYfsf-25dB3j-8xsqzD-ieJBD-8oTazZ-56pGf1-2jQbKn2-7eLToh-6bnWKj-9U36Ur-8xsqHc-8xvsEq-a8d76y-SuwG6y-7FUcc3-8xsqBR-ehiHxg-gRJVJP-5MWHuK-dWobb-oniK4B-4tv2Uj-7EKsn-255bjwv-vYDVnm-7nj2SN-NfS8G-BQtLd-9mWRfB-92G2AK-9nwQED-2nhdLik-9mWQvT-Qrx6W-mLY7X-DjriDw-fSxWcW-4XFU4r. Accessed 28 Aug. 2023.

Ele, Rick. “Picking up the Neighborhood.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 31 Mar. 2014, http://www.flickr.com/photos/rickele/13529472704/in/photolist-mBy5SL-TkThP1-UqBi5T-Y2AtEN-WRA5z7-ctjN4C-EMu2Jj-Ts1dEr-XgJg8z-BMdocT-XA3akq-WD6jWZ-WJh2e2-YfL5Hc-UD7WPk-uqRyxh-pTggzQ-egRgRS-RGA1R1-YjhqKe-UGMjQo-MjJ25W-WxTmhA-QKkaVL-VnF5zf-RRAHAX-YjuDuZ-eAnsyE-S27LdV-Xoxmmt-X2KqWL-TuMHeJ-VtkjUz-Wq3JtG-YdFozg-Yf4qQp-VpRexV-61ZJg5-SKNuMH-Y6EAuc-YsejD4-UoJmL7-Sa2fAj-GHGhEk-XMZJ8p-E5PRZ3-P8CHhw-TfDS7D-Di3ui3-awQ4Ev.

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Student Posts

I chose this avatar because of the wordplay you get when pronouncing my last name correctly and my connection to music. Schuchat, pronounced “shook-it,” is often challenging for most people to say correctly the first time. Usually, I get called “shoe-chat,” “shoe-cat,” or something along those lines. A name is integral to one’s identity, so the maracas symbolize the most common thing people think of when I tell them how to pronounce my last name. Also, the value of music in my life can not be overstated. So, the use of an instrument is not a coincidence (milkshakes are the other popular object people think of when I tell them “shook, past tense of shake, like a…” ). My life revolves around music, whether listening to it 24/7, scheduling around playing by myself or with a band, or writing about it in college essays. I love music and have kept it in my daily routine for years.

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