Author: Aaron

I believe that working through the full literacy narrative project helped me meet the learning outcomes of this class by making me see writing as a long process instead of a one-time assignment. Writing the alphabetic narrative helped me figure out my story, but creating the comic forced me to rethink and focus on specific moments, flow, and what actually mattered instead of just what sounded good. When I went back to revise the written narrative, I paid more attention to structure and emphasis, especially which scenes needed more space and which ideas could be shown rather than explained. Working visually made me realize how much meaning can come from silence, repetition, and focus, and I tried to implement that into my writing. I now see the story less as a timeline and more as a shift in how I read, write, and think about literacy overall.

Literacy Narrative Part 3

I thought about my peers as the audience for this mix, and I thought about how we all feel right now: tired, stressed, and somewhere between burnout and motivation. I wanted the playlist to feel like something you would listen to late at night after a long day. The main rule I made for myself was to make sure that the emotional flow was clear, starting with songs that were more reflective and ending with songs that felt quietly confident and hopeful. I mostly stuck to one song per artist so that each track would feel different, but I broke that rule deliberately with Frank Ocean because his music helped keep the emotional progression of the mix together. I cared a lot about the order of the songs, and I thought about the playlist the same way you would think about the pacing of an essay, starting out slowly and then building up to something bigger. Early songs make you think and feel unsure, while later songs open up and make you feel more energized without being too much. The mix is saying that it’s okay to take a break before moving on and that contemplating things can actually help you move forward instead of holding you back. The playlist doesn’t try to fix stress or pressure right away; instead, it gives you a place to sit with it and feel better when you’re done. #sk10

For this assignment, I chose to recreate a scene from one of my favorite movies, The Wolf of Wall Street. I chose a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio was showing the viewers a 1 dollar bill at his desk with a screen of code behind him because it symbolized all that Leo (Jordan Belfort in the movie) was working towards. Here is the original photo from the movie:

#sk9

My chart (from Google Sheets) measures how many hours of sleep I get, the quality of the sleep, and how productive I am the next day as a result.

When I saw this assignment, my first thought was how I could measure my productivity and the main factors that contribute to that. I ended up landing on how many hours of sleep I get and the quality of the sleep I get as the main factors towards my productivity. I wrote down in my notes app exactly what time I put my phone away for bed and exactly what time I picked it up in the morning. I rounded to the nearest hour and input that into my Google Sheet. I measured sleep quality by many criteria. I measured it by if I had dreams or not, how I felt in the morning, and how easy it was to wake up. The combination of those led me to choose the numbers that I did. Finally, I measured productivity by the amount of work I was able to get done and how attentive I was able to be during my classes. One thing I realized is that sleep quality is probably the most important thing to stay on top of. If I sleep for 8 hours but have low sleep quality, such as a score of 4, I will not be productive the next day. This concept interested me because I originally thought that I would be most affected by how many hours of sleep I got instead of the sleep quality. After this realization, I started researching ways to improve my sleep quality so that I could be more productive in the upcoming day. I found that creating a consistent schedule, making your environment fit your needs, and eating more fruits and vegetables can improve your sleep quality, so that is what I will try to do in the upcoming months.
#sk8

I wanted to make something simple and relatable for this four-panel comic, so I focused on the idea of trying to get things done but ending up doing the opposite. In the first panel, I had a clear goal. In the two middle panels, I showed how that goal slowly fell apart because I was overplanning and getting distracted. The story felt more real with two middle panels because the problem doesn’t happen all at once; it builds over time. One problem was making sure the second and third panels didn’t feel like they were repeating themselves, since they are both part of the buildup. This format gave me more room to stretch out the middle of the story instead of rushing to the end, which was better than the triptych. I had to think more about the pacing and how each panel moved the joke along, even if it was just a little bit. I picked this story because it’s something that many students and I deal with all the time. In general, making this comic taught me that even a short strip can tell a whole story if each panel has a clear purpose. #sk7

Both Tillie Walden in Spinning and David Small in Stitches use space, lighting, and repetition to show how teenagers deal with trauma, loneliness, and self-expression. Silence is often used in graphic memoirs to exemplify emotional depth. Small’s scene in the dark auditorium on page 215 also uses shadows, a small figure, and repeated film frames to depict a peaceful haven created out of silence. Walden’s scene on page 169, where Tillie says, “I feel like I swallowed my own voice,” uses minimal panels and soft blues to make her emotional confusion visible. However, Spinning’s silence serves a different purpose than Stitches’ silence. The reader is forced to concentrate on Tillie’s body language and the muted surroundings in Spinning because of the pattern created by repetition and empty space, which represents her internal conflicts. In keeping with Hillary Chute’s theory that comics “represent the unspeakable…by making space for absence,” her “swallowed voice” is expressed through absence. However, in Stitches, silence is no longer forced but rather chosen. Small depicts David by himself in the auditorium, where darkness serves as solace rather than loneliness, using panel layout and lighting. Because he chooses to be alone, away from the cacophony of his house, the steady panels and slowed pacing feel soothing rather than oppressive. As a result, the two memoirs present different interpretations of silence. Stitches presents silence as an escape that provides clarity and protection, while Spinning portrays silence as involuntary, shaped by trauma and emotional repression. Consequently, by contrasting these two uses of silence, it is clear that silence in comics can convey both solace and vulnerability, and that the visual techniques of light, space, and repetition turn “quiet” into a strong force in both texts.

Compared to writing a conventional essay, creating the halfa kucha felt very different. I had to consider how the concepts would develop in real time while the slides progressed automatically, rather than depending on paragraphs to construct my case. This made me condense my points and concentrate on the most important aspects of my case. A clear progression was created for the audience by structuring the presentation so that Kindred was discussed first, followed by It’s Lonely at the Center of the Earth, and concluded with a link between the two. The presentation was significantly shaped by the visual selections. I chose symbolic images, like overlapping silhouettes, roots, and broken line art, to reflect each book’s portrayal of trauma and identity because the slides could not contain a lot of text. Without directly depicting scenes from the texts, these images supported what I had said. I became more deliberate about the relationship between content and design by carefully considering how the images would interact with my explanation. It was difficult but beneficial to present using timed slides. It encouraged a more organic delivery and stopped me from using the slides as a script. Observing my peers, I saw that the best presentations struck a balance between careful image selection and pacing, and I intend to apply that balance to my own work in the future. If I could make any changes to my own presentation, I would focus on improving the pacing of my explanations and streamlining the transitions between slides. In general, the project made me consider argument structure and communication in various media more carefully.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vQ35fGSoqkqFJ19DapIZ_6nZaY3lLeIziHMCu6EwZjxZyp6fTDVvyxzCTcTHadX7BIP_6SmRumvs6sT/pubembed?start=true&loop=false&delayms=3000

Working on this tracing project was honestly a lot different from most essays I’ve written, but I actually ended up learning a ton from it. Tracing and annotating the pages from Stitches and Spinning made me slow down and really look at the panels, the spaces, and the way the authors used light, repetition, and silence to tell the story. I noticed things I probably would have missed if I had just read the pages normally, like how the small details in panel layout can make a moment feel lonely, scary, or comforting. Writing the essay with the ABT thesis at the end was also new for me—I had to hold back from stating my main argument at the start and instead build up to it, which actually made me think harder about the patterns I was seeing across both books. Overall, the biggest thing I learned is just how much the visuals in these comics do the storytelling. They’re not just pictures to go along with the words, but a whole language on their own. My thesis is that silence works differently in each book. Forced and traumatic in Spinning, chosen and protective in Stitches. In both cases, the authors use visual techniques to make those silent moments meaningful, showing that silence in comics is its own kind of expression. https://engrd101f25.davidmorgen.org/assignments/tracing-pages/

Silent Spaces In graphic memoirs, silence can be just as powerful as dialogue. Both David Small in Stitches and Tillie Walden in Spinning use silence, space, and repetition to diagram how adolescents deal with isolation, trauma, and self-expression. On page 169 of Spinning, after a car accident, Tillie states, “I feel like I swallowed my own voice.” The panels are minimal and filled with soft blues, making her sense of isolation feel very real. Tillie’s figure appears small and confined within the car, highlighting her emotional constriction. In a similar way, on page 215 of Stitches, the scene where David is alone in a dark auditorium watching the same film over and over again, uses darkness, shadows, and a comically small figure to depict a quiet refuge. Both pages depend on the visual layout of panels, light, and space instead of words to convey internal feelings. In Spinning, the repetition of panels and steady pacing create a pattern that reflects Tillie’s internal thoughts. The lack of dialogue forces the reader to pay attention to her body language, the shading, and the surrounding space. Her “swallowed voice” becomes apparent through visual elements, such as the emptiness of the car’s interior, and the soft color of the page. Hillary Chute notes that “comics can represent the unspeakable not by filling in but by leaving open—by making space for absence” (Chute, Comics for Grown-Ups?). Walden puts this idea into use by showing how her silence takes up space, and the reader engages by interpreting the emotional severity of the scene. In Stitches, Small also uses panel arrangement and lighting to convey deeper meaning of David’s thoughts. The auditorium is shrouded in darkness except for the light from the film, which emphasizes David’s small figure alone at the center of the theater. Unlike Tillie’s silence, which signifies trauma and limitation, David’s chosen silence provides solace and comfort. His isolation is a choice, allowing him to escape the overwhelming noise of his home life. The large and constant panels and the projection beam slow down the narrative, giving the audience a moment to breathe. Both methods illustrate how comics can manipulate our sense of time to enhance emotional effects. Ultimately, these pages reveal how silence is used differently depending on context. Spinning shows silence as involuntary, imposed by trauma and internalized repression, and Stitches shows silence as voluntary, a protective retreat chosen by the narrator, but in both cases, the authors use visual strategies—light, space, repetition, and panel arrangement—to make these silent experiences emotionally legible, therefore both memoirs demonstrate that silence and stillness in comics are not emptiness but powerful forms of expression and agency.