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Level 0 Projects — Old Faithfuls
These projects augment or add-on to the other assignments in this class.
L0.1 Team Challenge
Choose a project from levels 1-3 to complete with a partner. You should envision a way for your project to be extra long, extra complex, or extra creative, as a result of your collaboration. Collaborators should submit a brief (1-2 paragraph) plan for their collaboration, justifying how teamwork will benefit the project.
If a justification is submitted and the team-composed challenge is otherwise satisfactory, then this augmentation is worth 1 bonus point on any assignment. This may be used 3 times during the quarter.
L0.2 Bravery Test
Choose a completed project from levels 1-3. Your challenge is to devise a way for you to share this completed project with an audience outside this class. This should be an audience who might be interested in your work, but and audience that you consider “high stakes” or risky. You should also have a specific reason for wanting this audience to see and respond to your work.
To earn these points, you must submit a short justification of 1-2 paragraphs. Explain how and why you decided to share your work with this audience. Make sure it’s clear what was risky about this experience, and what you got from doing it. If completed, this augmentation is worth 1 bonus point on any assignment. This may be used 3 times during the quarter.
L0.3 Re-Mediation
Choose a completed project from levels 1-3. Your challenge is to create a new version of this project in an entirely new medium. For instance, take a piece written in prose, and convert it into a comic, or a video, or a podcast. Take a piece you wrote as a comic, and convert it into a video, or an essay, or a diorama.
To earn these points, submit both your new piece and your old piece, and also submit 1-2 paragraphs where you describe your process and goals in conducting this revision. If you satisfy these requirements, this augmentation earns 1 bonus point on any assignment. This may be used 3 times during the quarter..
Level 1 Projects – Live Performances
These projects require you to perform a presentation or story live in class.
L1.1 Drawing/Reading Demonstration
Design a 5-minute lesson or demonstration for the class. This demonstration might focus on a comics-making technique, perhaps a technique for drawing a particular kind of character. Or perhaps you will demonstrate how you design a complex panel layout for a page of comics. Alternately, give a “close reading” demonstration, where you talk us through how you analyze and interpret a particularly cool piece of comics art.
Requirements:
- Demonstrations must have a specific lesson for their audience
- Demonstrations should last about 5 minutes
Assessment Criteria
- Did you meet the technical requirements for this assignment?
If yes, then this assignment earns 1 point
L1.2 Story of a Comic
Tell a 5-minute story about a comic or comics artist of your choosing. Your story should tell us something interesting or entertaining about your comic’s production history, public reception, etc.
Requirements:
- Stories should focus on a specific comic or artist
- Stories should demonstrate substantial research to ensure they have specific detail
Assessment Criteria
- Did you meet the technical requirements for this assignment?
If yes, this assignment earns 1 point
L1.3 Art Comic Elevator Pitch
Give an ultra-brief, 90-second pitch for an original comic you might like to make someday. Your pitch should cover all the essential parts of your comic project. Your aim is to get your listener interested in reading your comic when it comes out someday, or maybe even to help fund its production!
Requirements:
- Pitches should be under 90 seconds
- Pitches should describe an original art comic idea
Assessment criteria:
- Did you meet the technical requirements for this assignment?
If yes, then this assignment earns 1 point
L1.4 Academic Comic Proposal
Give a short (3-5 minute) presentation describing a non-fiction or scholarly comic project you might like to make someday. Your presentation should lay out, with a bit of detail, exactly how you would use the comics medium to explore your topic. You should also address the audience you imagine for your comic, and how your comic will provide something new to this audience.
Requirements:
- Presentations should be 3-5 minutes
- Presentations should demonstrate some research into both topic and audience
Assessment criteria:
- Did you meet the technical requirements of the assignment?
If yes, then this assignment earns 1 point
Level 2 Projects – Synthesis Pieces
These projects require you to create a written or visual text. You will submit your finished text on Canvas. You will also present your final product in a very brief presentation during class time.
L2.1 Contrasting Comics Collage
Create a visual or audio collage that explores the styles of two contrasting comics artists. The specific form of your collage is up to you: you might create a cut-and-paste collage on a large sheet of paper; you might use Photoshop to mash up images from your comics; or you might draw your own image that borrows from contrasting styles. The aim is to draw out the essential qualities of these comics—how each one uniquely communicates.
Requirements:
- Collages should be complex and engaging
- Collages must focus on two specific artists or comics writers
Assessment Criteria
- Did you select two comics artists to examine in your piece?
- Did you create a collage and present it in class?
- Did you explain the process behind the collage in your presentation?
- Did you follow the technical requirements of the assignment?
If yes to all questions, this project earns 2 points
L2.2 Local Comics Culture
Conduct some research into a piece of your local comics culture. This might mean writing about the history of a local comic book shop. Or maybe you want to attend a local comic-related event and write a journalistic review. Whatever you end up writing, the aim should be to educate others about what your local comics scene has to offer.
Requirements:
- Pieces should be between 500 and 1000 words (or multimedia equivalent)
- Pieces should address a non-specialist audience (think local newspaper article)
Assessment Criteria:
- Did you select a specific piece of local comics culture to examine in your piece?
- Did you meet the technical requirements of the assignment?
If yes to all questions, this project earns 2 points
L2.3 Artist Interview
Conduct an interview with a comics artist about their life and work. Use this interview to create a popular-interest article about your artist. It might be a profile on your artist’s life and career; or it might be an article about a specific aspect of the comics industry, where your artist is the “expert witness” for your story.
Requirements:
- Articles should be between 500 – 1000 words
- Articles should incorporate multiple quotations from the artist
Assessment criteria:
- Did you conduct an interview (of some description) with a real-life comics artist?
- Did you create a popular-interest article (appropriate for a magazine or blog)
- Did you meet the technical requirements of this assignment?
If yes to all questions, this project earns 2 points
L2.4 Scholarly Collage
Create a visual or audio collage that explores a complex scholarly idea. You might choose a fascinating concept from psychology or geology or political science. To find materials for your collage, search through textbooks, websites, and open source image databases. You are welcome to include your own drawn images in the collage, of course.
Your aim is to explore the visual vocabulary of this topic. How you choose to arrange the elements in your collage—as well as the final size and shape of your collage—are all decisions for you to make.
Requirements:
- Collages should be complex and engaging
- Collages should represent considerable research into your scholarly topic
Assessment Criteria:
- Did you research the visual vocabulary of a specific scholarly idea or concept?
- Did you create a collage and present it in class?
- Did you discuss the process that went into designing and making your collage?
- Did you follow the technical requirements of this assignment?
If yes to all questions, this project earns 2 points
Level 3 Projects – Workshop Pieces
These projects require you to go through multiple stages of development. You must produce a rough draft, which must go through a peer-review workshop during one of our scheduled Workshop Days. Like the level 2 projects, you will submit your final piece on Canvas; you will also speak briefly in class about your finished project.
L3.1 “Why Comics?” Statement
Create a personal statement that explains why you value comics as a form of expression or object for analysis. Try to demonstrate how making or studying comics fits in your larger academic or professional trajectory. More than just being a fun thing to do, why study comics? Why make them? Why is it important?
Requirements:
- Final pieces should be 500 – 1000 words (or digital equivalent, if a video for example)
- All pieces should make reference to Lynda Barry and/or Scott McCloud’s work at some point
- Provide a Works Cited at the end, and give page numbers for any quotations used
Assessment Criteria:
- Does your statement offer a specific answer to the prompt question “why comics?”
- Does it meet the technical requirements of the assignment?
- Did you receive feedback on a draft of this piece in workshop?
- Did you polish your product for professional presentation?
If yes to all questions, this project earns 3 points
L3.2 Rhetorical Analysis of a Comic
Create a scholarly research report analyzing a specific comic text. This text can be a single book (for example Ales Kot’s Material Vol 1), or it could be on a specific series or artists of interest.
Your task in this project is to conduct a rhetorical analysis of your text of choice.
Your report should focus on the rhetoric of your chosen text: that is, your report should somehow try to answer questions about
- Visual rhetoric: “how does this text work,” “what’s unique about its visual or linguistic communication style,” “where does this text fit on McCloud’s analytical spectrum of meaning making (ch2)?”
- Cultural rhetoric: “how does this text address the interest or concerns of real world audiences?,” “How does this text address issues of representation, identity, or point of view?, and “How do audience expectations and genre conventions influence this text?”
These are just examples of the kinds of topics you might focus on in your rhetorical analysis. Feel free to follow your own interests to what is most rhetorically rich or compelling about your chosen text. Just remember, rhetoric is about how and why it works, not just what it says.
You will be responsible for (1) choosing a central object of study, (2) developing a methodology for analyzing your OoS, and (3) creating a report to present your research.
Requirements:
- Your report should have a title, and each of the following subsections:
- Introduction (Where you present your OoS and state your research question)
- Background (Where you describe your OoS)
- Methodology (Where you describe your research question and your process for studying the question)
- Findings (Where you name the key evidence you will examine)
- Discussion (Where you present your evidence-based rhetorical analysis of your OoS)
- Conclusion (Where you sum up your most important observations)
- Works Cited
- Your report should include at least one scanned image from your Object of Study
- Include a caption with your image indicating the source and describing the image
Assessment Criteria:
- Does your report describe a specific research process focused on a rhetorical investigation?
- Does it follow the technical requirements of the assignment?
- Did you receive feedback on a draft of this piece in workshop?
- Did you polish your product for professional presentation?
If yes to all questions, this project earns 3 points.
L3.3 Prototype of an Art Comic
Create a proof-of-concept for an art or entertainment comic. This comic should be aimed to engage and entertain a specific real-world audience. Your aim should be to create a rough draft, rather than a totally polished final project. It just needs to be solid enough to see if the story or idea might work with further development.
Requirements:
- Prototypes should be between 12 and 24 pages (or equivalent)
- Prototypes should include both linguistic and visual communication
- Prototypes should present a single story from a larger series, or stand-alone narrative
Assessment Criteria:
- Did you develop your own original comic idea into a full proof-of-concept?
- Did your prototype meet the technical requirements for the assignment?
- Did you revise your prototype to suit a particular real-world audience?
- Did you receive feedback on a draft of this piece in workshop?
If yes to all these questions, this assignment earns 3 points.
L3.4 Prototype of an Academic Comic
Create a proof-of-concept for a comic about an academic or scholarly topic. You might focus on a concept or principle from an academic field that interests you. Or you might create a comic focused on a specific research question that interests you. Either way, pick a serious academic topic and explore it using comics.
Requirements:
- Prototypes should take between 12 and 24 pages (or equivalent)
- Prototypes should include both visual and verbal communication
- Prototypes should include a works cited section at the end (or use footnotes)
Assessment Criteria:
- Did you develop a full proof-of-concept for an academic or scholarly comic?
- Did you follow the technical requirements of the assignment?
- Did you receive feedback on a draft of this piece in workshop?
If yes to all questions, this project earns 3 points
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