Serious Comics

Serious Comics & L2 Multimodal Graphic Texts (minimum length 4 pages / no maximum length)

1) Based on readings our in-class discussions, create a Serious Comic that tells a story or explores an issue or key ideas from ANY the readings (or related course themes). While this is an open-ended, creative application of ideas, some of the topics you may address or expound upon include thematic threads like…

  • Digital Storytelling: Create a graphic text that tells a story in any genre (an original short fiction, a story about learning with new media, a non-fictional essay that explores a serious topic, a story about an educational theory or theorist you interesting, etc, etc etc….Be as creative as you want to be…
  • Using Serious Comics in your content area…(reflecting on how you might employ this tool/media for student-research or presentation of knowledge, etc)
  • Do a meta-comic about graphic novels/serious comics (e.g., a comic about how serious comics might support learning, creative production, engagement in participatory cultures)…

Serious Comic does not mean you have to be grim, humorless or dourly solemn in your approach. Serious Comic means that you simply take the communicative possibilities of multimdodal/graphic texts (as a genre) seriously in conveying ideas, meanings, and/or narratives…

Nuts & Bolts of Graphic Texts (resource can be applied to digital graphics texts, and search web for graphic texts/comic models).

Please use an iPad/Android comic-book maker (ComicBook! or HalftTone) or check out ComicLife (30-day Free Trial). Please try to avoid browser-based cartoon makers that do not enable image integration, or that constrain design options (as discussed in class). Please try to avoid browser-based cartoon makers that do not enable image integration, or that constrain design options (as discussed in class).

L2 Multimodal Serious Comic: If your first language is not English, this is an opportunity for you to mobilize your L1 (language/cultural-capital) as a semiotic resource in conjunction with images, graphics, pictures, etc. Create an L2 dual-language comic that integrates L1 and L2 (English in translation) that tells a story about culture and identity. If English is your first language, but you speak (or are learning to speak) a second language, you may create a dual-language serious comic where you can express yourself across (in both) languages.

If you choose option 2, ensure that the text is dual-language (both languages appear together, somewhat like a polyglot text, though in serious comic form).

Serious Comic does not mean you have to be grim, humorless or dourly solemn in your approach. Serious Comic means that you simply take the communicative possibilities of multimdodal/graphic texts (as a genre) seriously in conveying ideas, meanings, and/or narratives…Remember, too, some of the multimodal and knowledge visualization strategies from last week…AND LOOK AT MODELS >>>  Nuts & Bolts of Graphic Texts (resource can be applied to digital graphics texts, and search web for graphic texts/comic models).

If possible, use an iPad/Android comic-book maker (ComicBook! or HalftTone) or check out ComicLife (30-day Free Trial). Please try to avoid browser-based cartoon makers that do not enable image integration, or that constrain design options (as discussed in class).