Reading strategies for the comic

T 12/1 is our final discussion of Bad Houses. What has been your strategy for preparing for these discussions? Have you re-read the book? How many times? In whole or in part? What have you noticed during re-readings? How are you addressing reading images as well as words? Did you make use of my guide to reading comics?

Comments

[Alyssa Adams]

I have only read through the comic book once but I have also skimmed through it once. I will skim over the pages we need to have read and look more at the images than the words because those give more clues to the cultural geography. I honestly never looked at the guide to reading comics, I have read a few before and I believe I didn't miss anything that was obvious. I get more out of our group discussions than just rereading the comic.

[Connor Thompson]

I have also only actually read through the comic one time. The only other times that I have looked at it have been in class during the group discussions. Before this class I feel as thought I was fairly knowledgeable in reading comics because I have a good amount of experience doing so. I also have honestly not looked at the guide to reading comics mainly because I did not have any trouble reading the book my first time. When reading comics one much pay equal, if not greater, attention to the pictures as the words. I believe that the in-class group discussions have been very helpful to look at the comic from a closer perspective.

[Jalene Alviar]

I have read through Bad houses once. Usually I would skim the book and briefly would read over it before class if I knew we would be discussing it. I feel that the book is pretty straight forward and is easier to understand when we discuss it as a class. When classmates point out several important views during class time, it becomes easier for me to understand. The comics way of reading was interesting, the book looks like it could take days to read where normal could take up to a couple hours.

[Morgan Taylor]

Before this class, I have never read a comic book. Reading Bad Houses was a completely new experience for me. I enjoyed the comic book. It was easy to read and understand. I have read Bad Houses only once but have skimmed back through it a couple times. Each time I have found something to be more clear and it helped my understanding of what was taking place in the story. I used the comics guide frequently, and it helped me a lot as well as the in class group discussions.

[Jenae Sweet]

I haven't re-read the comic. But I did sim threw the comic just to kind of see if I notice anything that I didn't before. I love comics, I think they are fun. This comic was interesting, I have never read a comic from this type of comic. If that makes sense. But I would like to read it again just to see if I can spot anything I didn't see before.

[Regan Garrett]

When reading the comic over about 3 different times each with a different perspective it brings the enjoyment of the comic out of it. I did make use of the resources that you gave us but I felt as it went in-depth way too much and was trying to dig for something that was not there. In the first reading I sat down in one sitting read the entire comic with out any analysis. My second reading is where I broke the comic down into chunks and looked at each chunk with an open mind. The third time I used the guide to comics to reread the comic over and it brought a different perspective but it felt forced.

[Nicholas Ham]

I must say I'm with most of the class on this one, I have only read through the comic the single time, but I have glanced through a couple of the pages in between classes. I find it interesting how different parts of the story are highlighted during the different discussions. Finer details appear that I hadn't noticed before. It is much the same as reading a normal book, but I guess I had never given comics the same credit for this level of sophistication.

[annie]

Like most everyone else I have read the comic once. If I knew we would be talking about it in class I would look it over the night before or the morning before. I really enjoy reading comics. I haven't look at the guide on how to read them, cause I used to read comic books as a little kid. I really like the class discussions because I like hearing about what others thought and what they think a certain part means.

[Danyelle K]

I've re-read the comic I think twice because the first time I didn't understand all the characters and their relationships until the end so I read it again to understand it better. And at first I read it in parts and the second time around I read it as a whole because I felt it was a lot easier. Having images as well as words gives a good mental picture of what's going on so I think it helps a lot more to read a comic that has to do with what we're learning.

[Gabrielle Ganvoa]

I have read the comic book twice and I am very glad I did because I noticed and understood things that I did not the first time I read it. I really like that we have the group discussions because the group questions talk about the most difficult parts of the comic book for me. Without the images, I would have been totally lost. I did look at the comic book guide, but I did not use it as much as I thought I would. as I was reading it I started to get the hang of it.

[yanet reyes]

Before starting to read the comic book I was a little worried that I was going to have a lot of problems understanding where to start and at the same time understand the story timeline. It got a little easier the second time I read the book, I was able to just read and not worry about doing it right or wrong. If I didn’t understand a part of the reading all I did was re read that part and that help a lot.

[Samantha]

I also read the book only once, mostly because I've read a ton of comic books before so I got through it smoothly, but I went back through it several times enough to say I read it multiple times. I went through several scenes to make sure I didn't miss anything important. Sometimes I'd notice the faces and expressions more and could pick it apart. And again I've read comic books so I scan and read to get the story then while on the same page I'll look more into the pictures while thinking about the text.

[elias Bedolla]

I Read the comic completely one time and after that which actually seemed to be very helpful is I did a lot of spot reading. covering pages that we discussed in class because those seemed as most important. I struggled a bit with this comic maybe because it was the first one ive ever read but it just seemed very scattered. It was easier to connect with the characters than to connect with the story line. I didn't really follow the guide to reading comics but planned on reading it one more time before the field project so I might refer back to it to see if that helps with my understanding of the text.

[Cindy Rosales]

So far I've only read the book once and I did struggle with today's discussion because there were parts of the book that were getting blurry. I'm planning to read it again to understand it a little more and analyze the characters more in depth. When I first read it, I did struggle following it so I might use the guide to reading comics when I read it the second time.

[Danyelle K]

After yesterdays discussion, like Cindy, there were a few parts that I didn't remember quite well so to do our final field exercise I think I'm going to read it or go through it again. But now it's easier to follow because we've gone over it together and have had discussions and read through it a few times already.

[Adeline Ndayishimiye]

I only read the book once and to prepare for the discussing I skimmed the book. Instead of reading the book, I actually just looked at the pictures to understand better how the people were feeling based on their reactions. Because English is my third language, I didn't read the comic once because I want to read it slowly to understand it. By skimming through it was kind of easy to understand because I am a visual learner.

[Peter Nguyen]

I did reread the book because I tend to forget the story/characters after a while. but after rereading it, it makes more sense since we talk about some of the things in class. Which gives a better understanding of what the author wants us to know/see, especially with the confusing images at first which I didn't fully understand.

[Sapphire Dorfman]

I read the book about two weeks before we actually started discussing it in class. That gave me a pretty good timeframe to reflect on the book and its association with the different concepts which we talked about in class. However, I did feel like I need to familiarize with it again, and so I skimmed/read certain sections of it before our discussions in class. During those times, I realized how much detail I was missing after my first reading as I had never read a comic book critically before. I think it was a pretty good way to go about it, and I will continue to use this method before other class discussions.