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This website is an archive of the work I completed in English 101 at Emory University during the Spring Semester 2021

During this semester in English 101, I learned how to use visual thinking and creating an online identity. While also improving my rhetorical composition, writing, and critical thinking skills. This course was the first time I encountered comics in an academic setting, and I was excited. Learning how to analyze comics was challenging because understanding comics requires visual literacy and reading comprehension skills. By using your visual reading comprehension skills, you can decode the secret language of the comic. Through my efforts at translating the secret language that exists in comics, I developed and improved my skills as a writer.

       The Sunday Sketches introduced me to developing stories through visuals. For example, in the triptych, we were told to create an account with three photographs of our choosing.  I chose to write about a conversation between a young couple that highlights the miscommunication in relationships for my triptych. In the reflections for this assignment, I stated that “This comic was a little different to the type of work I have done previously, but it was a fun way to interact with my work.” This assignment allowed me to combine the visual and storytelling aspects present in comics in a way that allowed me to create a story through pictures and words rather than just through writing.

      Another time I was able to expand my critical thinking skills was through the Visual Notes assignment, where I was able to take my written notes from biology class and make them into visuals. While completing this assignment, I struggled to convert my written notes into pictures that still captured all the information presented in my notes. My struggles are shown in my reflection where I say that ” it was very difficult to translate big concepts into smaller pictures because they had so many little parts that all contributed to the overall understanding.” The assignment forced me to simplify the complex topics I write in my notes into smaller ideas represented through drawings. The triptych and the visual notes Sunday sketches pushed me to think critically about the information that goes into creating visuals. Those visuals then served as a way for me to think critically about my writing which later helped me with my Literacy Narrative. 

      The literacy narrative allowed me to use visual representations of my work to revise and improve. Drafting the first portion of the literacy narrative was difficult because I did not know what narrative I wanted to tell or my audience. As a result, my first draft of the narrative was not straightforward. This can be seen in the narrative where I state that “Reading felt like a punishment,” but I never really explained to the audience why I felt like I was a punishment to me. The narrative does not fully address how I learned to love reading; it touches on the idea, but it does not represent how I learned to love reading. 

After completing the first draft of the narrative, we then created a comic based on the written narrative. First, I started with a comic storyboard where I chose the scenes that I wanted to include, the drawing perspective, and the dialogue I wanted to have. Then I draw rough drafts of each scene that I wanted to present and got feedback from my peers. Most of the feedback that I received from my comic was that I needed to include more drawing perspectives to represent the story better. While reflecting on the process of creating a comic, I said that “it was challenging to choose what words I wanted to have and how they helped develop the story.” Due to my lack of perspective, I used more words to fill in the gaps, but that just caused my comic to be wordy. My final comic, after revisions, included more perspectives a more well-rounded story.

After completing my final comic, I then revised my first draft of the literacy narrative using my comic as a revision guideline. In creating my comic, I needed to have a precise moment for each drawing, eliminating some information. When choosing moments, I was forced to boil down my narrative into its central portions and then turn those segments into images that I used to represent my story in my comic. After being simplified, it was a little challenging to expand on the information that still presented a clear argument, so I then had to choose what parts contributed to the whole story. (I further expand on this process in this reflection)In my final draft, I focused more on telling a story that illustrated me and my path of learning to love reading.

Another example of me using both writing and visual is my Halfa Kucha presentation. In the presentation, I talk about the different representations of trauma and healing in Stitches by David Smalls and Kindred by Octavia Butler. This presentation was one of the more challenging assignments in the class because I had to present my thoughts verbally in a limited time. When doing other presentations, I tended to ramble, but with this presentation, the slides were on a twenty-second timer, so I needed to state my point in the allotted time clearly. In addition to making me more concise, this assignment allowed me to present a persuasive presentation with less wording on the slides. The word limit allowed me to spend time expanding on my thoughts as well as ” talk about the information presented rather than read my essential points of a slide show.” The Halfa Kucha allowed me to present a complex argument with the help of a slide show, and this is something that I can use in other courses where I need to present an argument with visual aids.

This class has allowed me to think better critically about the patterns and connections between information. In addition, represent these pieces of information in a way that is appealing to an audience. The different opportunities gave me a way to display my understanding of visual and written texts that have improved my ability as a writer. My improvement is evident in the numerous revisions made to the information posted on this website. I hope to continue to develop these skills in my continued education as a writer.

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