Graphic Narrative/Script Assignment

Matthew Teutsch
5 min readDec 1, 2022

A few years back, I taught a course focusing on graphic memoirs. For their final assignment, students had to create their own graphic memoirs, either illustrating it or using picture and an app. The assignment went well, and I was thoroughly impressed with the products that the students produced. This semester, since I was teaching “Monsters, Race, and Comics,” I wanted to do a similar type of assignment. This time, however, students could choose between creating an illustrated graphic narrative or writing a script. As well, I gave them the option of working in pairs to complete the project. Along with the product, each student had to write a reflection essay about the decisions they made in the creation of the product and how the product connected with themes we discussed in class. Today, I want to share that project and some of the students’ products.

This is the assignment prompt I provided to students for the graphic narrative/script and the reflection paper. I did have a rubric for the reflection paper.

Assignment:

Over the course of this semester, we have used horror and comics as a lens to examine issues of race, xenophobia, sexism, history, and more through works such as Deathlok, Killadelphia, and The Low, Low Woods. You have seen how graphic narratives work to convey information through the juxtaposition of words and…

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Matthew Teutsch

Here, you will find reflections on African American, American, and Southern Literature, American popular culture and politics, and pedagogy.