The Secret Language of Comics

Tag: tracing pages

Tracing Assignment Reflection

Student Posts
Assignment Information
My Tracing Assignment

The thesis of my essay is that the timespan that is involved with the expression of each author’s traumatic experiences leads to their variation in style. This is displayed in the way David’s sketches represent the way he felt about his mother’s abuse which is consistent with an older memory. Also, Tillie tended to give more detail about her physical interactions, which displays more robust memories and leaves the way she felt up for interpretation. While tracing and annotating each author’s sketches, I got a glimpse of the intentionality it takes to bring an idea to paper. From the largest details like a title wave to something small like eye direction, each facet of a sketch changes the way a reader will interpret it. The writing process of this essay was an adjustment for me, but I believe I was able to succeed by forcing my mind to compare the simplest attributes of each sketch without having an end goal in mind and then letting my thesis develop along with my essay. I do believe I am better able to understand the secret language of comics because of this exercise. By analyzing a specific page for an extended period like this, I was able to put myself in the author’s shoes and see how their use of an aspect of this secret language affects the way it is viewed. I subconsciously slowed down time in my world while examining Tillie’s slide that I traced, and later on, I realized this was intentional by her because the last slide of this scene is where she feels most alone and her world most likely came to a freezing halt.

Tracing Stitches and Spinning Reflection

Sketches

Once you have completed your Tracing project and published the pages to your site, you need to publish a reflection post as well. The post serves to turn the project in when it syndicates to the class site, and is also an opportunity for you to explain your process in the work you just completed.

Your reflection post should link to the main page for your project and also to the assignment prompt. Tell us in the post what the thesis of your essay is and give a one or two sentence preview of your argument.

You should also address the following questions:

  • Before writing your essay, you went through a pretty involved process of tracing and annotating two pages from the books. Briefly explain what that process was like for you — probably this was very different from most other writing you’ve done, so try to explain what was useful about the process for you. What productive thoughts or analysis occurred through the act of tracing and annotating?
  • For this assignment, I asked you to be very conscious of writing an inductive essay with an ABT thesis at the end, which is probably a pretty foreign way to structure an essay for you. How did your writing process change to address this assignment?
  • This assignment is a close reading exercise focused on identifying aspects of the “secret language of comics,” the series of choices the authors make in crafting comics that probably pass by many readers with little or no conscious notice. Do you feel that this assignment helped you to get in on this secret language? Do you understand Stitches and Fun Home better after having written this project? What’s the single biggest insight you gained about the two books during the process of tracing, annotating, and analyzing these pages (maybe something you “knew” on some level before you started but that you really get now, or maybe something you hadn’t really noticed until you worked on the project)?
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