I think the revised version is better than the original because I refined my thesis and turned it into a stronger and more coherent argument. I reconsidered the points I made in the earlier paragraphs and re-evaluated my understanding of the ABT structure. By shifting the emphasis of the thesis toward how the authors retrace their memories of past life events—including their trauma—I realized that this process of revisiting the past plays an important role in healing. This revision also gave me more perspective when reflecting on what “retracing” means, especially in relation to Hillary Chute’s Graphic Women. I believe the previous version lacked a clear thesis structure because I was not fully aware that the thesis should come after the “T” in the ABT framework. In contrast, the thesis in this version makes the essay stronger by clearly tying together the use of text, the use of color, and the strange, non-linear nature of time in comics.
For this project, I chose to structure my argument using the ABT framework—“A and B, but something; therefore, something.” Starting with this format helped me introduce the broad contexts of Kindred and The Talk before narrowing into my main claim. Constructing an argument for a live presentation felt very different from writing a traditional essay. In an essay, I don’t need to rely on visuals to communicate ideas, and I can explain concepts in longer, more detailed ways. Presenting, however, required me to think about how the audience responds in real time—their facial expressions, their reactions, and whether the images I chose helped guide them toward my argument.
I also realized that the ABT structure actually freed me from the typical five-paragraph essay format. Instead of trying to craft a “perfect” thesis first, I focused on identifying meaningful moments in each comic—like Dana being whipped or young Darrin being treated as a threat—and worked backward to find the deeper connection between them. The ABT structure helped me shape the audience’s line of reasoning and led naturally to my conclusion about ongoing trauma and the complexities of healing. I can definitely imagine using this structure in my future writing because it encourages more fluid, analytical thinking rather than rigid outlining.
Reflection on Visual Choices:
For the visuals, I chose panels that captured the most striking and emotional moments from each comic. I intentionally kept text on the slides to a minimum so the audience would pay attention to the images while I explained their significance. The only words I included were brief references to Hillary Chute’s concept of retracing trauma and Herman’s three stages of recovery, since those ideas anchored my argument. My goal was for the images to carry emotional weight while my speech supplied the analysis.
Reflection on the Presentation Experience:
The timed-slide format made this presentation very different from others I have given. Not having control over the slide transitions and not being able to include much text forced me to rely on my own pacing and clarity. Even though I had a technology issue at the beginning, with the slides advancing at ten seconds instead of twenty, and the autosynchronized captions popping up. I learned how important it is to respond quickly and calmly. Switching to Google Slides helped me restart smoothly, and it reminded me that presenting often requires solving unexpected problems on the spot.
Once I got into the flow, the timing wasn’t as stressful as I expected, though I was still worried I might not finish speaking before the slide changed. Watching my classmates’ presentations also gave me ideas for the future. Some students used metaphorical images, such as a broken vase repaired with gold, to express abstract ideas visually rather than relying solely on panels from the texts. I thought that was a creative way to deepen the emotional impact, and I’d like to experiment with that approach next time.
Looking back, I think I could improve by becoming more comfortable with the technology beforehand and by building more confidence so I rely less on my notecards. While I tried not to read directly from them, there were moments when I didn’t feel secure enough to go completely off-script. With more practice, I hope to speak more fluidly and present my ideas with greater confidence and ease.
The rhetorical situation I am addressing in my mix is my Friendsgiving trip to New York City. I spent Thanksgiving in NYC this year, and I felt incredibly grateful for how much my friend cared for me during the break. Because of that, I wanted this album to be a small dedication to her — something that captures the mood, the memories, and the energy of that week. When I chose my songs, I set a simple rule for myself: every track had to connect to a specific moment, feeling, or shared experience from the trip. That helped me stay focused on the emotional story I wanted the mix to tell.
I included several of her favorite songs, and I added one from The Lamp because we went to their concert together on Friday (11/28), which became one of the highlights of the trip. I structured the playlist intentionally: it begins with a calm, peaceful track to mirror how the break started — relaxed, cozy, and comforting — and then gradually becomes more upbeat to reflect the excitement and fun we had throughout the week. Toward the end, I added a few lyric-less songs to bring everything back down to a quiet, reflective mood, almost like winding down after a long, meaningful day.
Even though this mix is not a formal argument, it still argues something emotionally. I am trying to convey my appreciation for my friend and the joy of spending time together during the holiday. The mix itself becomes a way of saying “thank you” — not through academic language, but through the feelings and memories embedded in the music.
For this assignment, I recreated the scene from Aquaman where young Aquaman is in the aquarium and discovers his ability to communicate with sharks and other sea creatures. I chose this scene because I recently visited the Georgia Aquarium and was amazed by the fish and the different species I saw. It immediately reminded me of Aquaman—even though it is not my favorite movie—because the Georgia Aquarium felt so realistic and visually similar to the special effects in the film.
One challenge I faced was that my clothes and hairstyle were obviously different from what appears in the original scene, and instead of a shark swimming toward me, a bat ray approached. Overall, I really enjoyed the process; it was creative, fun, and a great experience.
How has the entire literacy narrative project helped you to meet the Learning Outcomes for this class?
I think when I first wrote Literacy Narrative Part 1, it helped me organize my thoughts very differently from how I wrote in high school. In high school, I rarely wrote anything related to my own experiences, and most of my writing was much more analytical than personal. To some degree, I realized that I needed to allow myself to be vulnerable in order to express my true experiences and emotions. I organized my essay by breaking my journey with reading and writing into a few key points—major difficulties and improvements.
In addition, reading Hillary Chute’s Graphic Women and Why Comics? From Underground to Everythinghelped me plan out my comic narrative (Literacy Narrative Part 2). This allowed me to be much more creative in terms of visual thinking, which is something I really enjoy and something I never expected to have the opportunity to practice in college. It felt powerful because I was able to rediscover many memories about my reading and writing experiences, and the emotions felt even more vivid to me than they did in Part 1. I turned my drawings into a comic memoir, following comic structures, and I used techniques such as adjusting the size of the gutter to control the pacing of my narrative. In Literacy Narrative Part 3, I revised Part 1 because I realized there was much more to add to my memories of reading and writing after completing Part 2.
How was it to return to the alphabetic literacy narrative after having created your comic? How did you think differently after having worked in the visual medium and now returning to a text narrative?
Returning to the alphabetic narrative made me remember many details that I missed in my first literacy narrative. I think this happened especially because English is my second language, and I could not fully express myself in writing the way I could in my comic, which was not affected by language barriers. I felt inspired by my drawings, and my language in this version (Literacy Narrative Part 3) became much more vivid because I was able to add more emotion to it.
How do you see the story you are trying to tell in different terms now? Was your analytical thinking process any different?
I think my analytical thinking process is different now, and I can see the story I am telling in a new way. I see myself with more emotion and with experiences that feel closer to real life in my writing. This time, I am more focused on telling a story that aligns with my feelings, since those emotions are now reflected clearly in my essay, rather than trying to remain overly objective as I did in the first literacy narrative.
Graph 1:
Graph 2:
Graph 3:
Graph 4:
The conceptual issue I was tracking was my energy flow: how productive I am at different times of the day. I wanted to figure out when I should be studying (such as writing and doing assignments) and when I should be doing enjoyable activities (such as drawing). My goal is to use the results from this sketch assignment to help build my schedule for next semester. I used four categories to measure my energy flow: energy level, caffeine intake (cups), the time of day I exercise, and sleep quality. I measured the first three categories across six general time blocks: breakfast, morning, lunch, afternoon, dinner, and bedtime. I chose broader time blocks instead of specific hours because I wanted to track overall patterns rather than exact fluctuations. I also believed that my energy flow varies day to day, so focusing on general trends would be a better fit for this sketch assignment.
I organized my data primarily with bar graphs and included a trendline graph. Because my measurements for energy level, caffeine intake, and exercise time were divided into categories, bar graphs were the most effective way to represent them. I used a trendline graph for sleep quality because it was only measured once per day, and visualizing the fluctuations across days made the pattern easier to see. Graph 1 (Energy Level) shows that I am most productive in the morning and generally more productive from breakfast through lunchtime. I included error bars (± standard deviation) to show how consistent the average values were. The error bars are roughly similar across time blocks, with some slightly larger due to one day when I slept poorly and felt low energy. This supports my reasoning for focusing on general trends instead of assuming my energy is identical at the same exact time every day. I also realized that I did not drink as much caffeine as I expected; I only had coffee or tea on days when I had an assignment to finish or when I felt particularly tired. My exercise tended to happen in the afternoon, which aligns with the decrease in my energy during that time, possibly due to a lot of physical exercise. My sleep quality was generally between 7 and 9 (on a scale of 1–10), with a single drop to 2 on a night when I had trouble falling asleep. I do think the graphs could have been more visually creative (for example, adding pie charts), but since most of my data was categorical, bar graphs were still the most effective choice.
Based on these findings, I seem to be more productive (with assignments and schoolwork) in the first half of the day (from breakfast to lunch) than in the second half (from afternoon to bedtime). When building my schedule for next semester, I can prioritize morning classes and aim to complete academic tasks earlier in the day. I can then dedicate afternoons to activities that require less mental focus, like exercising or drawing, to give myself a break. If I were to continue this project, I would keep most of the categories the same because they provided useful data for self-reflection. Even though I had a general sense of when I am most productive, it was interesting to see the trend supported by actual measurements. However, I realized that my caffeine data was too limited and did not appear to strongly influence my energy flow. In the future, I might instead track screen time before bed to better understand why my sleep quality fluctuates and what I could do (such as reducing nighttime screen use) to make it more stable and consistent.
I really enjoyed the process of drawing my own comic. It felt very different from writing my literacy narrative because it required me to think narratively through both words and images. Sometimes the text I used in my comic and the drawings expressed slightly different meanings, while other times they worked together to strengthen the story and help readers understand what I wanted to convey. When I was drawing, I realized that many of the emotions I had previously tried to express through words could be communicated more vividly through visuals. For example, I could show my facial expressions and the exaggerated reactions of other characters—like my elementary school teacher getting mad at me, her face surrounded by fiery lines and distorted into a monstrous expression. This captured the way I remembered her and how that memory reflected my feelings of frustration toward studying at the time. Through visual storytelling, I could make abstract emotions more concrete and relatable.
Creating the comic did not change the core story of my literacy narrative, but it did add more room for interpretation. Readers could now pick up on tone and mood through color, composition, and exaggeration. I also wanted to leave space for humor, hoping that the over-the-top reactions or symbolic drawings would make the story more engaging. Compared to the alphabetic version, the comic felt less about precision in wording and more about rhythm, pacing, and visual impact. This shift in focus made me rethink how stories can be told not only through sentences but also through expressions, body language, and panel arrangement.
My analytical thinking process was also quite different from when I wrote the essay. Instead of analyzing through language alone, I had to think visually and symbolically. For example, on the fourth page, second panel, I used a metaphorical image of a person climbing a mountain to represent my struggle and eventual success in overcoming my difficulties with reading and writing in English, which is not my native language. Thinking through symbols like this made me more aware of how metaphors can function visually. It was a more creative and flexible way of representing my ideas, requiring me to communicate feelings and growth in fewer words.
Transforming my alphabetic literacy narrative into a comic also changed how I thought about storytelling in general. I had to condense the plot and decide which moments were the most essential to show since comics rely on visual efficiency and I had a four-page limit. For instance, I shortened the part about how I overcame the challenge of learning English, focusing instead on a single symbolic moment that could summarize the struggle. This forced me to think more concisely and to prioritize emotional clarity over detailed explanation.
If I had more time and space, I would expand the ending to show more clearly how I connect drawing to creative writing, since that link defines my relationship with literacy today. If I could collaborate with a professional comic illustrator, I would also work on condensing the text further—some of my captions still feel too long, though I kept them because they helped readers understand the context. Overall, creating this comic taught me that words and drawings can tell the same story in very different yet complementary ways.
When I was brainstorming ideas for this assignment, I wanted to create something personally relatable, so I thought about my experiences studying at Kaldi’s Café on the weekends. I often find myself getting distracted by everything happening around me—people chatting loudly, baristas calling out orders, and the general bustle of the café—until I eventually give up and leave to find a quieter place to study. The most challenging part of this process was deciding how to present my drawing: whether to make it simple, colored, or more detailed. I ultimately chose a simple style to emphasize the humor and goofiness of the situation, making it more universally relatable. Crafting this four-panel comic strip felt different from creating the triptych because the addition of an extra panel allowed for more plot development and creative freedom. Instead of showing just one source of distraction, I could include multiple moments—like an annoying person on a phone call and a whining child—which made the story more dynamic. Having the middle act stretch across two panels also gave me space to build up the conflict more gradually before reaching the punchline. I chose to tell the story of an average college student struggling to find a peaceful study spot because it’s something I—and many others—have experienced, making it both funny and familiar.
