For this project, you’ll select a single page from one of the graphic novels we

For this project, you’ll select a single page from one of the graphic novels we

For this project, you’ll select a single page from one of the graphic novels we have read for the course, and illustrate how that page develops or contributes to a central theme – or the relationship between themes of that work. The thesis of your paper should be specific about the theme(s) you see at work on the page. Then the body of your paper should illuminate how the page develops the theme(s), and how the page connects to the work as a whole.
This first paper will address a page from either The Handmaid’s Tale or Watchmen.
Each paper should be somewhere between 500 and 750 words, not counting your Works Cited page. You should format these in accordance with the MLA 9 guidelines. If you want a shortcut for MLA 9 formatting, there’s The English Major’s MLA 9 Cheat Sheet available to you in Folio.
Your choice of a page to write on is crucial. Choose a page that offers plenty of material for you to interpret.
Consider how the page contributes to the theme or themes you see at work locally on the page, and globally in the work as a whole. Focus on at least three elements from the section on “The Structural Frame” in The Student’s Comics and Graphic Novels Cheat Sheet. You should incorporate the work of other scholars into these papers. That means, usually, material that has been peer-reviewed. You may consult online summaries or analyses from sites like Shmoop, SparkNotes, or Wikipedia, and you should most definitely work with The Student’s Comics and Graphic Novels Cheat Sheet, but they will not count as scholarly sources for the purposes of this project. I’m not going to mandate a crazy number of sources for you; I would think at least two might suffice, but hearing from more voices is always a good thing. Check the journals in Resources for the Study of Comics and Graph Novels (linked here and in Folio) for a good place to start your research.