The Illustrated Page: Medieval Manuscripts to New Media

Strategies and Visual Art Components

The visual art component of this unit is a study in the steps and techniques necessary to create a visual narrative known as a comic strip or graphic story.  “Master comic artist Will Eisner uses the term sequential art when describing comics.” ⁵(McCloud, pg. 5) Emphasis on visual sequencing will be an important part of the visual arts process of creating the illustrated panels. This unit will be covered over a nine week span of time.  The subject of time is different for each person that chooses to teach this unit.  Because I see each of my 3^rd grade classes once a week in an elementary school setting, this time frame will better be defined as nine class sessions.  This distinction is being made in an effort to be clear as to how the unit plan is introduced and implemented during each interaction with my art students. The majority of the unit time will be used to introduce students to images, graphic novels and to create the artwork that is to become each panel. These panels may be created in a variety of shapes and sizes to accommodate the artistic license of each student. Panels can also take on the shape of images, such as geometric forms or silhouettes.  In my example I plan to use the shapes of Greek vases, for each of my 8 panels to connect visually with the theme of Greek art and myth. Each of these panels should represent a different moment or time period within the story. As Scott McCloud notes, “The panel is a sort of general indicator that time or space is being divided”.⁵ (McCloud pg. 99) I will introduce students to books that use the genre of comics to tell stories of the past.  Students will view a number of images related to drawings that represent visual stories. Some of these images include wordless pictures such as cave paintings, Egyptian tomb drawings and Greek vases. The Bayeux Tapestry and Bas Reliefs will also be used as examples of graphic stories.  The students will work collaboratively to develop images that are to be reproduced as representations of the main characters of their pictorial narrative. The students will also be introduced to the art skill of tracing on vellum to reproduce their original images for use in each individual panels. A more descriptive detail of the visual art production can be found in the activities section of this unit.

Writing process

“Writing is commonly perceived as confined to the manipulation of words.  The process of writing for graphic narration concerns itself with the development of the concepts then the description of it and the construction of the narrative chain in order to translate it into imagery.”⁴ (Eisner, pg. 113).  This may be true for the professional illustrator and author, but for the purpose of educating my students, I am turning this idea on its head.  This reversal, of using the image first, giving the image the greatest voice in the process of telling a story.  This idea reaches back to the early ages when cavemen drew images that recorded their history and ancient people decorated tombs with the paintings and drawing that eulogized the dead.  This language of using pictures to share information and ideas existed before alphabet and language systems were developed.  Before man talked, he drew.  Before preschoolers write, they draw.  As McCloud notes, “As near as we can tell, pictures predate the written word by a large margin”.⁵ (McCloud, pg. 141). Pictures have always enhanced the reading experience for young learners.  This unit seeks to engrain that idea in the process for creating a writing model that makes writing organized, concise and unintimidating.

The process of becoming graphic storytellers and combining those visual elements to enrich the student’s relationship with text is the overall gain from this unit.  Yes the creative element and the artistic process is very important.  I do not want to lead anyone to think of the literary piece to this unit, as being an afterthought.  The writing will become just as important as the imagery that the students create.  I plan to address the subject or writing as the weeks unfold and the young artists reach different stages in the process of developing their art work.  The classroom introduction to this unit purposefully omits any discussion with students about writing until the students have completed the illustrated portion of their stories.  The focus on writing will take shape and be revealed as the culminating activity.  This strategy is to keep students engaged and unafraid. The writing component will span the last two sessions of class and will be framed as the final enhancement needed to complete these works. 

“The ideal writing process occurs when the writer and artist are the same person.  This, in effect, shortens the distance between the idea and its translation.  It produces a product that more closely reflects intent of the writer.”⁴ (Eisner, pg. 113). The writing component entails a reflection on the illustrated story created by each student.  The students are to use large index cards that will later be edited and typed.  These cards will contain the written interpretations and accounts of the stories that represent the acts and deeds of the Greek God or Goddess that is the subject of their visual narrative. The students will be retelling the stories of these characters from two points of reference.  They will be moving from the position of illustrator to acting as the author of the story.  They are to develop four to six sentence paragraphs that depict, explain and define the events that are visually evident in each of the eight panels that they have created as part of their graphic story.  These accounts must be sequential and as descriptive as possible.  They should reflect with clarity and accuracy the events as illustrated in each panel.  Each paragraph must be related solely to the one panel that it is defining. This guideline is necessary to refrain students from summarizing the entire story on one index card.  Each illustration is to be assigned a paragraph that summarizes that specific moment in the story’s sequence. 

“Comics is a medium confined to still images, bereft of sound and motion, and writing must accommodate these restrictions.”⁴ (Eisner, pg. 116)  Upon the completion of the graphic novel, I hope each student will develop an understanding of how writing is like developing a sequence of pictures, whether on paper or in your mind, that can lead to great writing and transform students into becoming a great writers.