Alpha Lambda Delta initiates Charlotte Steele and Trevor Vader have recognized me as a “Favorite Professor.” The 2010 Kalamazoo College chapter initiation ceremony was held Oct. 27.

Seven other initiates have honored me as a “Favorite Professor” since 2007.

Eligibility for membership in Alpha Lambda Delta is determined by the first-year academic record, and is limited to those maintaining a grade point average of at least 3.5 and class standing in the top 20 percent.

Charlotte was a member of two courses I taught in 2010, Introduction to Creative Writing and a hybrid literature/writing class on graphic memoir and identity. She wrote and illustrated an especially memorable piece about growing up with two sisters. And she wrote the best student story I’ve ever seen having to do with asparagus.  For his part, Trevor took Intro Creative Writing, and wrote terrifically from the point of view of a young Kalamazoo restaurant worker.

Thank you, Charlotte and Trevor,  for associating me with your success.

We’ll analyze exemplars of graphic literary fiction, memoir, essay and journalism. Across the myriads of genres and forms, we’ll do close readings of the texts’ verbal and visual layers to see how they work, each on their own and together. In addition, we’ll discuss themes and socio-cultural and other contexts. The cartoon form and comics format of course are widely considered “low” or “popular,” so we’ll look at criticism that seeks to distinguish “serious” from “low,” “elite” from “popular,” taking note of writers and artists from outside the field of graphic literature who’ve mixed seemingly disparate aesthetics. For instance, the cartoon form has influenced serious painters, and prose artists have long mixed high and low forms. In all, we will consider how the cartoon form and the comics format, in a dance with serious intent and interesting writing, can turn into something we don’t mind calling graphic literature. Reading list (subject to change): Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud; An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories, Vol. 1, ed. Ivan Brunetti; French Milk, by Lucy Knisley; The Impostor’s Daughter, by Laurie Sandell; Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel; Farm 54, by Galit Seliktar and Gilad Seliktar; Palestine, by Joe Sacco; The Complete Maus, by Art Spiegelman; The Complete Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi; and Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale, by Belle Yang.

Alpha Lambda Delta initiates Frances Hoepfner and Amanda Patton have recognized me as a “Favorite Professor.” The 2010 Kalamazoo College chapter initiation ceremony was held Oct. 28.

Five other initiates have honored me as a “Favorite Professor” since 2007.

Eligibility for membership in Alpha Lambda Delta is determined by the first-year academic record, and is limited to those maintaining a grade point average of at least 3.5 and class standing in the top 20 percent.

Fran was a member of two classes I taught in 2009, my first-year seminar on graphic narrative, Warning: Graphic Literature, and Introduction to Creative Writing, where she wrote seriously entertaining fiction and perhaps the best poem yet from a Harper’s Magazine “Findings” prompt. Amanda was a standout memoirist as well as explicator of published work in Reading Autobiography.

Thank you, Fran and Amanda,  for associating me with your success.

The objective of the course is to provide students with the skills to analyze graphic memoirs and essays, in part by experimentally authoring their own duotextural pieces. Students will be expected to bring first-year writing competencies and approximately first-grade drawing skills to in-class and at-home exercises and, optionally, longer midterm and term projects.

Evaluation will include points for writing and for sketches—ranging from rough to comprehensive, depending on the assignment—that suggest how verbal and visual narrative elements would be joined to make an excellent whole. Weekly response papers, meanwhile, will ask students to analyze style and theme in published works. Students may undertake all-text critical papers in lieu of duotextural midterm and term projects.

Required readings (subject to change): The Complete Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, by Art Spiegelman (or Maus I and Maus II); The Complete Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi (or Persepolis 1 and Persepolis 2); Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Allison Bechdel; Stitches, by David Small; Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey, by GB Tran; Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale, by Belle Yang; A Few Perfect Hours, by Josh Neufeld; Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story, by Frederik Peeters (trans. Anjali Singh); In the Shadow of No Towers, by Art Spiegelman; Syncopated: An Anthology of Nonfiction Picto-Essays, ed. Brendan Burford; Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden; additional short graphic memoirs and essays; and theoretical essays on form, genre, and the ethics of life writing.

Required materials: inexpensive sketch pad; pen or pencils; and a 1303i Pickett Metric General Purpose or similar drawing template (costing approximately $10).

The course will meet MWF, 1:15-2:30.