Darren Studnicki, English/Secondary English Education
As the semester starts to wind down and my time at ACH Clear Pathways begins to wane, I’ve begun to brainstorm ideas for my final project for this internship experience. In my thinking, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am going to write on one of the more engaging projects that the students have worked on during this semester: comic books. This is an extremely relevant topic, as superhero movies have become more and more popular in recent years. With the growth in popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for instance, students have the ability to flip through a comic book and read about the escapades of Iron Man or Spiderman then watch one of the many visual adaptations that feature these characters and stories in motion picture format afterwards, which opens up a whole new world of potential analysis. Through these different artistic mediums, students have a broader set of options regarding what they can potentially analyze. As a prospective English educator, I believe that this is a great thing, as the more ways to have students engaged in the material, the more likely they will actually enjoy what they are learning. I was also a huge comic book nerd growing up, so I can definitely relate to the students’ enthusiasm when discussing the different characters and storylines!
At ACH Clear Pathways, the students have started to really put the finishing touches on their personal comic book projects. They went through a multifaceted process with this assignment, as they were tasked with coming up with a story, creating a storyboard, and sending in a final copy for the Fall/Winter showcase that will be held in December. I found it very interesting to see how each student went about this process, as the creative process is not the same for everyone. For example, some students decided to base their stories off of a known entity and change a few things, while others came up with an entirely new set of characters. Overall, I thought that this was awesome to see, and I can’t wait to get started working on my final project, which I’m really excited for!
Building Bridges 