Unessay: Opportunities for Engaging with Author-Illustrator Voice

Students in Assistant Professor Taylor Rose-Dougherty’s course, ENGL 3040: Perspectives in Writing and Rhetoric, are studying graphic literature and the voice of author-illustrators. Throughout the semester, they have been exploring the rules of graphic literature, how these rules can be broken, the rhetorical moves of author-illustrators, and how to determine their own author-illustrator voice. Recently, students participated in creating “Unessays” to creatively engage with the course material.

“Unessays,” a term coined by professor of English Daniel Paul O’Donnell, provide a counter to the traditional academic essays that can sometimes be too prescriptive and binding. “Unessays” allow students to choose their own topic and presentation mode, and they are evaluated based on effectiveness and how compelling they are. 

In Taylor’s course, students were asked to create “Unessays” that made an argument about the literary and rhetorical aspects of the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman. “I chose this assignment because in the previous unit, students responded to graphic literature in a much more traditional way. They had just written a literary and rhetorical analysis essay, so I could see that they were already thinking deeply about the ways in which they were impacted as readers,” Taylor reflects. “I wanted them to be able to shift into creator roles by engaging in a really creative way. I was curious to see if this assignment might offer them a bridge into the world of composing with graphics, and many students accepted, in some way, that invitation to start experimenting as author-illustrators.” 

Student in the course, Abby Hong, created a pop-up book that shows the ways graphics can enhance memoir. “When I was reading Maus, I noticed a few panels that would work well in 3D because of their composition, so I thought that a pop-up book would be a good way to bring those panels to life while exploring what an ‘Unessay’ might look like,” she says. “Working on this project showed me just how much graphic novels can bring to the table. Incorporating illustration with memoir also helps the reader have more control over how they experience the story; they choose how much time they spend engaging with images on the page. I think there’s a lot of potential for graphics to bring memoir to life and connect to a wider audience.” 

Miranda Weiner produced a scrapbook that compared Maus to the written memoir Night by Elie Wiesel. “I wanted to focus on the theme of desperation within families during the Holocaust and what this desperation drove different individuals to do,” she comments. “I loved creating my ‘Unessay’ in this way because I used the words written by Wiesel and the images drawn by Spiegelman side by side to show how graphic literature has a different effect than written words. I learned that while both of these novels spoke about the same event, both of them told their stories in very different ways.” 

Erin Fuller created a spinner with rotating layers for her “Unessay.” The bottom layer held the main characters of Maus, and the top layer depicted two sets of bars, window and prison bars. When rotated, the spinner showed each character between each set of bars. “I wanted to show how similar the prison and window bars looked and ask what message that sent to readers. By isolating them on a spinner, it was easier to illustrate my idea,” she reflects. “It helped me realize how intentional every move made in a graphic novel is. I’m used to reading written stories, but I had never examined graphic novels in a literary way before. This project helped me learn that everything you see in a graphic format was put on the page for a reason.”

For Taylor, the “Unessays” allowed students to step more into their roles as author-illustrators and use their voice to express themselves creatively and compositionally. “I witnessed a heightened student engagement and sense of agency as they took calculated risks, reflected upon the efficacy of their approaches, offered one another constructive feedback, and articulated how their process of learning was as valuable as the end products,” Taylor comments.

Abby said taking this course has opened her eyes to the potential inside of graphic novels: “There’s a lot of stigma against graphic novels that’s still somewhat present in the book community today—a lot of people say that it’s only for kids or that graphic novels can’t be as complex as traditional novels. I’ve appreciated the opportunities I’ve had to read and discuss a variety of different graphic novels through this course, many of which I’ve never heard of before, to really get into what makes graphics an effective mode of storytelling.”

For Erin, this course provided a new avenue for studying writing and effective rhetoric. “I have examined essays, poetry, novels, memoirs, etc. and thought about rhetorical moves, but in this class, I got to think about what rhetorical moves for graphic novels can look like,” she says. “I think my understanding of the many forms of rhetoric has completely expanded because of this class.” 

Miranda shared that each class discussion broadened her idea about the book they were reading, rhetorical strategies, or graphic novels in general. “This class has been my favorite class I’ve taken at USU because it’s a topic I’m so interested in, and Professor Rose-Dougherty is really passionate about the subject and her students,” she reflects. “I cannot recommend this class enough.”