Ellis Broadhead EPQ

For Week 4, I decided to do a session on Art Styles and Drawing Tips, as I'm aware that many students at the club feel insecure towards their drawings. In this lesson, I aim to show them that their are many ways of drawing characters for a comic - they just have to find their own style.  I chose four notable art styles from cartoons and comics they may recognise to emphasise my point: Adventure Time Marvel Comics Avatar: The Last Airbender Gravity Falls

I found an academic source by Arthur Berger through Google Scholar named Comics and Culture.  Session Date: 14/12/17 Resource Used: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1971.0501_164.x  by Arthur Berger. Brief Summary/Description of Source: Comics and Culture discusses the negative attitude that has been taken towards comics within society, viewing them as a 'lesser' piece of media, and argues against this. What Was I Hoping To Find Out?: I was hoping to understand how attitudes towards comics have changed over time. Brief Summary of What I've Learnt From the Source: I learnt how the popularisation of comics provided entertainment and laughter in bleak times, and how Berger believes they shaped American culture. Reliability of the Source: Due to the fact that this is an academic source from a published book, I think the source is extremely reliable. However, it was written in 1971, so I must be wary of how attitudes have been changed tod...

Here's the link to the PowerPoint from today's session: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uVlcyKnEYJqosNs2UPX9j89kCCCWfJR_/view?usp=sharing What Went Well: I had to do a lot of research into this topic, as I didn't know too much about writing an effective plot for a comic book, but I'm confident I managed to present my findings well to my students!  Areas for Improvement: Firstly, they all immediately neglected to ignore my advice on needlessly killing off characters. However, this week I decided to add a section at the end where they could discuss their plot ideas and receive feedback, but unfortunately, this discussion tended to deviate frequently from the topic. Therefore, I don't think I'll be adding that again.

For Week 3 of comic club, I'm doing a short session on how to write an effective plot! Of course, plot is one of the most important aspects of writing a comic, so naturally I need to teach my students what they should and should not be doing. To aid me in this, I found another Terrible Writing Advice Video:

I found this article while researching the importance of the creative subjects in our modern society. Session Date: 6/12/17 Resource Used: https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/27-november-3-december-2017/creative-sectors-worth-92bn-uk-economy-government-research-reveals/   by Sarah Dawood Brief Summary/Description of Source: Design Week is an online news source that primarily discusses creative industries. What Was I Hoping To Find Out?: I was hoping to understand the importance of creative subjects in our society. Brief Summary of What I've Learnt From the Source: I learnt that creative industries have the highest growth rate, and are worth £91.8bn to the UK. " The sector that provided the most value to the economy in 2016 was digital, making up 6.7% of the UK economy, followed by the creative industries at 5.3%, and tourism at 3.8%." Reliability of the Source: Design Week appears to be a legitimate online news source, with professional journalists, despite ...

Here's a link to the PowerPoint from Week 2! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v5Vnda99js3KBswVtBNu56V-Nxx_gEq9/view?usp=sharing What Went Well: Introducing harder to understand topics with concise bullet points has worked really well. For example, there are many varied ways to write good characters, but I've explained what NOT to do in a clear way very simply. Furthermore, including a video was a good idea, because this is way more engaging for the students than me talking. Areas to Improve:  I think I included a little too much this week, as the session ran over a little. I needed to take into account the fact that my students ask a lot of questions, which takes up quite a lot of the time.

Right now, I'm toying with the idea of writing and drawing my comic on two characters I developed quite heavily fairly recently. The story is about Lunar and Avery, a real-life prophet and his manager, who own and run a fortune-telling business, while trying to escape the clutches of an evil organisation who just want to use Lunar for his powers. Here are some concept sketches: And here's some sketches of a possible main villain:

For Week 2, I decided to research on YouTube for some fun and engaging videos that could assist me in teaching my students about the importance of character creation. From here, I stumbled across this video on the clichéd 'Mary Sue' character types, on a channel called 'Terrible Writing Advice'. Session Date: 1/12/17 Resource Used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhrfhQbY0K8 Brief Summary/Description of Source: Provides a simplified incredibly sarcastic description on how not to write a character. What Was I Hoping To Find Out?: I was hoping to find an engaging video on character creation that was easy for my students (aged 11-14) to follow and understand.  Brief Summary of What I've Learnt From the Source: I learnt all about the common cliché of 'Mary Sues' within character creation, and how immensely unpopular they are to an audience. Reliability of the Source: By searching through the account's YouTube, I found a link to the creato...

Where I'm At: Despite the fact that I was ill on the intended first week of comic club and had to push it back a week, I feel that I have made tremendous progress this month. Firstly, I managed to run a successful first club meeting, and I spread the word effectively around school in order to ensure I got a decent number of dedicated students. I also managed to jot down some initial ideas for my own comic. Goals for December: -  Research.  I need to do some research for both the second and third club meetings. The second week is on character creation and design, whereas the third week is on writing an effective plot. To be able to do this, I'll have to research into each topic in detail, and find videos on YouTube by writers and artists on how to do this. -  Ideas.  Further my own comic ideas and try to finalise them and decide what I want to do. Because it takes me a long time to decide, for now, I've decided that I'll simply work out a plot outline. -...

The first comic club is over and done with, and as of now, I have four students that I hope will become regulars! They are Amelia, Logan, Isaac and Henry.  Here's the PowerPoint from the first session: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VPMexS1APJ6R5CO7Hi_v5KXZBj6hsr2n/view?usp=sharing What Went Well: The ice-breakers I included worked really well in encouraging the students to open up and be more confident with myself and others in the club, since they were all talking to each other by the end. Areas to Improve: I had some issues getting the PowerPoint from my laptop onto the projector in the classroom we were using for the club, and thus I wasted around five minutes trying to get this set-up. Next time, I'll do this before the club starts to ensure that we can start straight away.

Hi, this week has been really busy, but mostly I've been trying to think about what comic I should actually do. In my head, I have composed three main storylines I could potentially follow, and although they are currently unnamed, these are the titles I'm going to refer to them by. Ilias and Co is a story set in London in 2049. It follows three siblings- Ilias, Redd, and Cyan- and their nemesis Joseph, as they work together to solve a series of murders surrounding a drug which claims to give the users 'superpowers'. Angels combines multiple storylines involving the biblical creatures, but most prominently being Lucifer's fall and his adventures on Earth afterwards. It would follow two priests-in-training- William and Paul- and their adventures as they accidentally move into the same apartment block as the devil. James and Magnus follows a biology student named James, who accidentally steps into a portal into another world. He immediately befriends the prince ...

So, unfortunately, it's gotten to the intended first week of comic club and unfortunately... I'm ill. Therefore, I'm having to push back my entire schedule for the rest of the year, which will undoubtedly set me back quite a bit. 

I decided that to introduce a wide variety of comics to my students in Monday's session, I should do some research into popular webcomics, read through them, and recommend some to them! Here's my favourites out of the webcomics I've read: Eerie Crests by Bell - "H ere’s the gist of it. Dallas Margolin was doing his best to better himself as a person. He was about to graduate highschool. He was Willow Grove’s star baseball player. He had good friends. Overcoming things from the past, You’d think, for once, the universe was kind to Dallas. That is, until one day, before an important highschool match, his best friend Malek starts planning to move away for college. In an attempt to make Malek stay with him, Dallas makes a terrible mistake. Something lurks in the quiet town of Blue Crests." Rock and Riot by Chelsey Furedi - " Rock and Riot follows the tales of two opposing teenage gangs in the 1950s with an LGBTQ theme!  " Long Exposure ...

For the first week of comic club, I had to research the history of comics in order to teach my students all about it. I found a Wikipedia article on the subject, and here's a summary of my research: Session Date: 18/11/17 Resource Used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_comics Brief Summary/Description of Source: Wikipedia is a free, online encyclopedia created through collaborative efforts. What Was I Hoping To Find Out?: I was hoping to gain a simple understanding of the history around comics in order to teach my students about the origins of the comic format. Brief Summary of What I've Learnt From the Source: I learnt about printing presses and early comics in newspapers, along with early pioneers of comic strips found in newspapers today, superhero comics and manga. Reliability of the Source: Due to the fact that Wikipedia articles can be edited by anyone, the reliability of the source does drop a little, but I did some separate research into names ment...

Finally, the comic club poster is up on the TV screens around school! Here's a picture: Also, I managed to get Mr Welch to ask school to print out consent forms for comic club, which the students can take home to their parents to ensure that we have permission from them to keep their children after school for an hour.

After remembering that Comic Club could be advertised in school on these giant TV screens we have around the place, I decided to make a revised poster too, primarily to display on these screens. Then, I sent out this revised poster and the original poster to the relevant people to display it around school for me.

Hi, recently I've been focusing on establishing the Comic Club. I sent out an email to the Heads of Year and people in relevant departments to transmit the information around school about the club. Furthermore, I updated the poster to show these changes.

Where I'm At: Although last month I decided that I would finalise the arrangements of the club, unfortunately this has not happened. I have found a teacher willing to supervise the club- Mr Welch- but due to differences in our schedules we've had to push back the first meeting in the club to mid-November. I have designed the posters, however, and have fully realised my ideas for the comic club. Goals for November: - Advertising. Finalise the posters and distribute them to staff who can advertise the club around school using posters and the TV screens. Ask for a tannoy announcement before the club each work to ensure that the students remember to come. - Research. Do some research for the first comic club into the history of comic books, in order to present this to the students. It is important to learn about the history of comics, in order to enable advancements for the future. Furthermore, start reading some webcomics to get an idea of how to draw my own. - Ideas. Ga...

Audience: I believe that my audience for the club will be primarily male, although I am hoping to have at least one female join the club. This is due to the fact that comics are generally viewed as a typically 'masculine' interest, despite the increasing normality of comics as an interest in society today due to the increase of superhero films. I also suspect that the club will consist mainly of students from Year 7 - Year 9, because of the fact that Year 10 and 11 students tend to be too busy focussing on their GCSEs and attending revision sessions to attend a club that is for one of their interests. Finally, I believe that the club will also consist of a mixture of students interested in comics but not art, students interested in drawing but not comics, and students interested in both. Accessibility: Because the club is open for all lower school students, I cannot assume that everybody in the club will have a basic knowledge of comic books and drawing, and I need to ensu...

After considering my poster again, I figured it would be a lot easier to discuss a precise meeting place and time, where our initial meeting will be held. In this initial meeting, I decided it would be best to ask students of their preferred time for our next, regular meetings to be held. Therefore, I updated the poster to match this information: I also increased the spacing of some of the words on the picture, to make it more aesthetically pleasing to the viewer.

In order to set up a Comic Club around school, the first thing I needed to do was design a poster to advertise the club to students. Here is the first draft: I used minimal colouring to ensure it would be cheap to print on school's budget, but also to increase how the lettering stands out to any people who may pass by. Furthermore, I actually included a small comic strip (drawn by me), to showcase what I can already do and inform others that I'd make a good teacher.

I found this academic source using Google Scholar. Session Date: 08/10/17 Resource Used: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=http://scholar.google.co.uk/&httpsredir=1&article=1008&context=englishpub  Dale Jacobs Brief Summary/Description of Source: A piece on attitudes towards comics in society and how they should be viewed as equally intellectually stimulating as any other piece of literature.  What Was I Hoping To Find Out?: I was hoping to gain an understanding of the attitudes towards comic books in the education system with a view to highlighting the importance of comics to my students. Brief Summary of What I've Learnt From the Source: I learnt all about how why others may argue that classic literature is more mentally stimulating than a comic or visual novel, but why their arguments are false. Furthermore, I've also learnt how to derive meanings from comics, in the same way you might do with a piece of text. Reliability o...

Here's what I intend to do this month for my project: - Finalise my ideas for the project. I need to decide exactly how I'm going to spread the news about the club around my school, as well as decide when the club is going to be held, how often, and find a teacher willing to supervise the club at this time. I need to check whether the school has a policy on after school clubs, and how I'm going to follow this to ensure that my club is being run correctly. - Advertise the club. Design some tools used to advertise the club around school. Maybe draw some posters, and contact the correct people in school to ensure that a notification regarding the creation of the club is passed on to students within their forms, and also to present advertising for the club on the TV screens around school. 

Because my day to day life is quite busy, I decided to create a timeline of how I expect my project to progress. However, trying to pinpoint a date to start the club has been harder than expected, so instead, I created a very basic timeline that would allow me to be flexible with how I choose to run the club. Through my previous experience running a group, I've found it's important to be flexible in your plans in case circumstances change; for example, not enough members might show up one week.  Here's the timeline: Weeks leading up to comic club: Design posters, send news of the club out to form tutors, advertise club on boards around school. Comic Club Week 1: A Welcome Evening! Introduce myself, encourage discussion in the group with ice-breakers, teach the students about the history of comics and recommend them some of my favourite free webcomics. Comic Club Week 2: Teach the students about the importance of characters, in their creation and design. Encourage...

For my project, I intend to run a comic club for younger students within the school, as well as create my own comic alongside the students. Although I have experience running a club- as I'm a leader at my local Brownie group- I want to gain independence from researching about a topic I know little to nothing about and teach it to students in a way that is clear and engaging.  To achieve this, I will create a timeline for the club, where over several weeks I will teach them how to write and draw the perfect comic, before eventually using the remaining weeks to discuss and create our own comics. I will design posters and send out messages to advertise the club around the school. Furthermore, I have wanted to create my own comic for a while now, and I hope that researching these skills will ensure I learn how to draw and plan my own comic to a high standard.  The only issues I can forsee with this project are that I need to find a teacher who will happily supervise the club ...

A post detailing my initial planning ideas: