Shuqiao Song’s assignment for her writing class on graphic narratives featured two major parts: first, she had to write a ten- to fifteen-page argument based on research on a graphic narrative, and then she had to turn that information into a script for a twelve-minute oral presentation accompanied by slides. After some brainstorming and talking with her instructor, Shuqiao chose her favorite graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, as her topic.

Assignment analysis

As she thought about her assignment and topic, Shuqiao realized that she had more than one purpose. Certainly she wanted to do well on the assignment and receive a good grade. But she also wanted to convince her classmates that Bechdel’s book was a complex and important one and that its power lay in the relationship of words and images. She also had to admit to at least one other purpose: it would be great to turn in a truly impressive performance. Her audience—the other students in the class—seemed smart, and some were apparently experienced presenters. Shuqiao knew she had her work cut out for her.

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A memorable introduction

Shuqiao Song found a six-second YouTube video clip of Fun Home author Alison Bechdel saying, “I love words, and I love pictures. But especially, I love them together—in a mystical way that I can’t even explain.” Shuqiao decided to play this short, vivid clip at the beginning of her presentation and to follow the clip with this statement:

That was Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home. In that clip, she conveniently introduces the topics of my presentation today: Words. Pictures. And the mystical way they work together.

Note that this introduction includes short sentences and fragments, special effects that act like drumbeats to get and hold the attention of an audience.

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Straightforward language

At the end of Shuqiao’s introduction, she decided to set forth the structure of her presentation in a very clear, straightforward, and simple way to help her audience follow what would come next:

So, to outline the rest of my presentation: first, I’ll show how text is insufficient—but also why it is necessary to Bechdel’s story. Second, I’ll show how images can’t be trusted, but again, why they are still necessary for Bechdel’s purposes. Third and finally, I’ll show how the interplay of text and image in Fun Home creates a more complex and comprehensive understanding of the story.

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Vivid language

Shuqiao Song’s presentation includes crowd-pleasing examples such as this one:

Now, to argue my second point, I’ll begin with an image. This is a René Magritte painting. The text means, “This is not a pipe.” Is this some surrealist Jedi mind trick? Not really. Now listen to the title of the painting to grasp Magritte’s point. The painting is called The Treason of Images. Here Magritte is showing us that “this is not a pipe” because it is an image of a pipe.

The intriguing image and vivid language (“surrealist Jedi mind trick”) help to keep the audience engaged.

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Print essay to presentation

To see the kinds of changes Shuqiao Song made as she turned her print essay into a presentation for a viewing and listening audience, compare this paragraph from her essay with the same information presented in her script.

Paragraph from Shuqiao Song’s essay

Finally, we can see how image and text function together. On the one hand, image and text support each other in that each highlights the subtleties of the other; but on the other hand, the more interesting interaction comes when there is some degree of distance between what is written and what is depicted. In Fun Home, there is no one-to-one closure that mentally connects text and image. Rather, Bechdel pushes the boundaries of mental closure between image and text. If the words and pictures match exactly, making the same point, the story would read like a children’s book, and that would be too simple for what Bechdel is trying to accomplish. However, text and image can’t be so mismatched that meaning completely eludes the readers. Bechdel crafts her story deliberately, leaving just enough mental space for the reader to solve the rest of the puzzle and resolve the cognitive dissonance. The reader’s mental closure, which brings coherence to the text and images and draws together loose ends, allows for a more complex and sophisticated understanding of the story.

Content from Shuqiao Song’s slide presentation

Finally, image and text can work together. They support each other: each highlights the subtleties of the other. But they are even more interesting when there’s a gap—some distance between the story the words tell and the story the pictures tell. In Fun Home, text and image are never perfectly correlated. After all, if the words and pictures matched up exactly, the story would read like a kids’ book. That would be way too simple for Bechdel’s purposes. But we wouldn’t want a complete disconnect between words and images either, since we wouldn’t be able to make sense of them.

Still, Bechdel certainly pushes the boundaries that would allow us to bring closure between image and text. So what’s the take-home point here? That in Bechdel’s Fun Home, image and text are not just supporting actors of each other. Instead, each offers a version of the story. It’s for us—the readers. We take these paired versions and weave them into a really rich understanding of the story.

Notice that the paragraph and presentation cover the same ideas, but the presentation is written to be spoken and heard. To keep listeners focused and engaged, Shuqiao has revised the essay paragraph to include signpost language, repetition, simple sentences, and less formal English.

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Slides

For her presentation, “Residents of a DysFUNctional HOME: Text and Image,” Shuqiao Song developed a series of simple slides aimed at underscoring her points and keeping her audience focused on them. She began by introducing the work, showing the book cover on an otherwise black slide. Throughout the presentation, she used simple visuals—a word or two, or a large image from the book she was discussing—to keep her audience focused on what she was saying.

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Student Writing: Critical analysis of graphic literature (Shuqiao Song)

Student Writing: Presentation (Shuqiao Song)