CCOG for ENG 220 archive revision 201604

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Effective Term:
Fall 2016 through Summer 2021

Course Number:
ENG 220
Course Title:
Literature of Comics and Graphic Novels
Credit Hours:
4
Lecture Hours:
40
Lecture/Lab Hours:
0
Lab Hours:
0

Course Description

Explores comics and graphic novels. Examines the complex relationship between images and the written word when combined in narrative forms. Considers cultural, political, and/or artistic elements of a variety of examples of the form. Audit available.

Addendum to Course Description

This course explores those comics and graphic novels that transcend the aging assumption that "books with pictures are for kids." Though graphic novels can often be described as more "accessible" than traditional novels, this doesn't mean they are necessarily less complex. When an author effectively combines images with a written narrative--and doesn't resort to mere illustration-- the result is a multi-layered work that illuminates the reader's imagination from multiple angles. Learning to describe how and why a visual story captures our hearts and minds enhances our ability to immerse ourselves into its world.

Intended Outcomes for the course

Upon completion of the course students will be able to:

  1. Read analytically to identify a work’s use of aesthetic and rhetorical strategies.
  2. Compare and contrast the ways traditional literary elements (such as symbol, tone, structure, point of view...) operate when deployed in a graphic novel.
  3. Identify the cultural, political, and/or artistic inferences and assumptions that inform a reader’s perception of a story.
  4. Write clear, focused, coherent essays that explicate for an academic audience the complexity of comics and graphic novels, using standard English conventions of grammar and style.

Integrative Learning

Students completing an associate degree at Portland Community College will be able to reflect on one’s work or competencies to make connections between course content and lived experience.

Aspirational Goals

-To remember (or perhaps learn for the first time) the pure joy of immersive reading.

-To learn to read with a relaxed yet intentional approach.

-To move past the fear that analyzing a work of art will squelch its magic.

Course Activities and Design

Class meetings might consist of a variety of approaches, such as:

Mini-lectures

Class discussions

In-class analysis of specific panels

Individual reading assignments

Reading journal

Think-Pair-Share

Guest lectures

Outcome Assessment Strategies

Assessment strategies might consist of a variety of approaches, such as:

Reading journals

Essays 

Individual and/or group presentations

Creative writing assignments

Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)

THEMES

• Setting

• Plot
• Character
• Point of view
• Narrative styles
• Symbolism
• Imagery
• Interdependence
• Gender
• Race
• Political and social history

-Archetype

-Dialogue

-Structure


 
COMPETENCIES AND SKILLS
• Analysis 
• Synthesis
• Understand various texts through social, political, artistic, and other contexts
• Write clearly about literary elements ( theme, structure, tone, etc.) found in a work

• Articulate close readings of a dense work

• Speak and listen reflectively