• Overall goal: Everyone will teach their classmates what they learned about comics from their chapter of McCloud. This teaching will be done in part by applying McCloud’s theories to close readings of Fun Home.
• Step 1: Walk the class through your McCloud chapter. You shouldn’t try to explain every aspect of your chapter, just an idea or two you find most relevant. Remember, your classmates will not have read your chapter. This will be 100% new material to them.
• Step 2: Illustrate McCloud’s ideas by applying them to a close reading of some small part of Fun Home (1-3 pages should be enough—you may also focus on a series of isolated panels instead).
• Step 3: Build on your observations from Step 2 in order to begin answering larger questions like (you shouldn’t try to answer all of these, just the ones that interest you most):
Why comics? How is this medium being used in order to confront, comprehend, and represent Bechdel’s experience and those of her father in meaningful ways?
What is the nature of Bechdel’s relationship with her father? What does it mean that she is both a character in this narrative and its creator as well?
How is the comic form helping us understand particularly well something about sexuality, parent-child relationships, growing up, relational identity, and memory?
Are their things Bechdel is doing that seem related to your McCloud chapter but which McCloud doesn’t actually address? If so, can you analyze that aspect of her comic?
• You don’t have to limit yourself to the material from your McCloud chapter in order to answer any of these bigger questions. Feel free to draw on and incorporate insights of any sort into Step 3—which may include questions for the class as well.
• You should put together a powerpoint presentation for this.
• We will share these on Monday.
