This sketch assignment was extremely interesting to do because I generally enjoy making playlists be it for the studying mood or the shower. However, I put more thought into this playlist and the music is relatively slow. I picture someone listening to this playlist on the beach when the sun is setting or enjoying a scenic view while resting in a chair. The songs that I have included in this playlist are those which may prompt an individual to reflect on situations or their daily life in general. This playlist could also be used to study as it is currently also finals season.
This assignment was very different compared to other assignments that I have done in this class. I thought a presentation would help me express my thoughts more clearly because I tend to struggle to express my ideas while writing an essay. I chose to do my Halfa Kucha on “Stitches” and “Kindred” because I saw the process of trauma and healing through both of them. I realized that just like I structured my presentation to help my audience understand the process of trauma and then a road to recovery, I should do the same with my essays to help the reader understand my thought process. My slides were mostly focused on certain images that I wanted to highlight and things that held meaning to me. I struggled with the format of this assignment because there were some slides where I had more to talk about and some slides where I did not have enough information. I realized that time management is extremely important while presenting to an audience and being precise so that they understand the purpose of your content. Something I could have done better in my presentation is be a little more confident in my content because I ended up stuttering which disrupted the flow of the argument.
This literacy narrative project has helped me improve my writing skills and made me re-think many of my strategies regarding writing. Making a comic made me think of many ways I could improve my essay. Once I visualized my narrative I realized that I should express some of my thoughts differently. I also added some events that completed my literacy narrative such as my acceptance to Emory and how this writing course has had a small change on my writing abilities. Looking back at my initial literacy narrative I can see that there was a lot to improve on and a lot of things that I could do better. My thinking process regarding this narrative was very different and I think what helped me was drawing it in the form of a comic.
This was my first time drawing a comic and I really enjoyed myself. This assignment allowed me to use visual representation to show ideas that I had in my head. I also realized the different aspects that there are to making comics compared to writing essays. I used the gutters to my advantage by explaining the storyline so that the audience could interact with the comic. I really enjoyed doing this assignment and I am looking forward to creating other comics in the future. It made it easier to express my thoughts and ideas when I could present them visually. I was initially very skeptical of this process because I am not a good artist but I discovered that I could portray my story using stick figures as well.
As the instruction asked for elements that I have not quite thought of when reading, I had to briefly reread the book again. This time, I focused on the use of constituents that only comics have such as the panel and gutter. I think such perspective helped me understand and see the part of comics that I was missing.
Even after rereading it, I had a hard time planning the essay. It was extremely difficult to select a page from each book. I was strangely captured by the thought that I had to choose a single page that would somehow represent the whole book. I think I may have overthought here, which impacted the overall assignment afterward.
With doubt, I chose two pages and started to brainstorm in a planning document. In this process, I had to overturn my decision several times as I was not satisfied with where it was heading. In hindsight, I probably should have done with it. On my third attempt, I chose the current pages and started analyzing. As it was my third time tracing the pages, I had no left spaces on the tracing paper, and I had to use my iPad. By repetitively tracing, I noticed a few things like the use of lines. Some were rougher and some were smoother. Also, color-wise some looked like water paintings and they often crossed the panels and invaded gutters.
For analysis, I initially thought of ultimately linking my analysis with the quotes from Chute, and accordingly, I skimmed through her books again. However, at first, I was not able to find any groundbreaking rule that penetrates not only the selected pages but also the whole book and the literary world of comics. There was a moment where I tried applying the symphonic effect for layout or use of symbolism which I thought would give a pretty nice analysis and would be easy to be broadened and generalize in the conclusion. However, it did not fit with the reason I picked the current page. While I was in trouble, it suddenly reminded me of the gist of the instruction: understanding and applying, the name of our website, The Secret Language of Comics. After all, it surely was a secret.
After, rather than finding fancy terms or known effects of certain layouts, I analyzed the panel itself, one by one, which is quite opposite of the symphonic effect. I looked for the purpose of each panel and tried to understand the intention of the author. In such a way, I was able to find meaningful patterns.
The writing itself again was easier than the previous painful process. However, the conclusion where my thesis is in ABT format as the instructions was hard to write. It was very interesting but also hard at the same time to use ABT format thesis in the final paragraph. Also, besides the thesis statement being introduced at last, as it had to contain statements that embrace broader aspects of comics, I felt that the essay is broadening unlike other essays of mine.
In general, it was a useful time that developed a new perspective in seeing comics, but to be honest, it was also very difficult.
This assignment was really interesting because it made me measure things that I usually do not keep track of. My apple watch is in charge of keeping track of things like the hours I slept or how many steps I took today or how long I worked out. However this assignment took into account things like how happy I felt, or if I fulfilled my religious duties or if I was feeling content with myself. Everyday I used to look back at the information think “Oh I wasn’t as productive as I meant to be”. Another thing I realized was that my productivity was directly related to my happiness on somedays. Days where I was more productive I felt more content and happy with myself. One shocking thing that I realized was that I am not happy all of the time. In my head this was something that I never really needed to think of because it is just an emotion. However, looking back at this data I can see that there are moments in time when I haven’t been completely happy with myself. Something that I realized I have to work on is my creativity. Looking at my data set right now I believe one change I would make to my schedule is to try to be creative. I would try to do this by trying one new thing everyday. It could be trying new food or playing a new sport. This would help me branch out and may help boost my creativity. This assignment has been helpful to me as it has helped me to analyze my own character. By seeing these results I can visualize what I need to work on to help improve myself.
For the last Sunday Sketch, I wanted to show the process of how I was able to achieve the learning outcomes as I took this course. I used the process of human evolution to refer to how I started the course off with a limited number of skills but was able to achieve a lot at the end of the run. Digital citizenship exists at the beginning as it’s just about using technology appropriately and engaging responsibly in online spaces. Rhetorical composition is the last learning outcome that I’ve achieved, as other outcomes are strategies required to achieve rhetorical composition.
