“We have too often a deliberate attempt so to change the facts of history that the story will make pleasant reading for Americans”: Bossier Massacre Graphic Text

Cover of Frank Yerby’s The Vixens

Whenever I have a course that focuses on comics or graphic narratives, I usually have students create their own graphic text. For this assignment, students have the choice of either doing a script or an actual, completed graphic text. They can work solo or together, use photos, and essentially approach the assignment in any way they want to approach it. This semester, I assigned this project to students in my World Literature and Graphic Novel course. The assignment varies depending on what course I use it in, and for this course, since it is focused on world literature and we are looking at historical events, students must create either a graphic text or script based on an historical event that they want to know more about. Along with this part, they must also write a reflective essay where they discuss their research and choices in the creation of the script or graphic text.

The first time I gave this assignment, I created a graphic text on Lillian Smith. This semester, I wanted to create another graphic text, but I wanted to create something different. In another course, I had students create zines, and I created a few minizines to share as examples. As well, I started…