Create a short Children's Book in PDF file DUE IN 24HRS (8pm EST) 4/12/15

1.6  Writing  Assignment  -­‐  Fairy  Tale  Comic/Picture  Book  

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ECW3721-O Children’s Entertainment (CEN) 1.6 Writing Assignment - Fairy Tale Comic/Picture Book

Objective: To create a children’s picture book/comic based on an existing fairy tale, fable, or myth as a way to learn how to (a) adapt familiar material in a unique way, (b) simplify plot and writing style to fit a 0 - 6 age group, and (c) think visually about storytelling for a pre-reading audience. Step One: Watch the Overview of Fairy Tale Assignment Video If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the video posted that provides an overview of this week’s assignment and the writing assignments in this course in general. It will give you a better sense of the big picture for these fairy tale retellings you’re going to be working on in this course. Step Two: Select a Public Domain Fairy Tale/Fable/Myth Check out Project Gutenberg’s website at www.gutenberg.org for a great selection of public domain works. You can search e-books with search term “fairy tale”  or “Grimm”  or “Anderson”  or even “Little Red Riding Hood”  depending on how specific you want your search. This site offers a lot of the classics that have fallen into public domain, but also fairy tales from other cultures that might be interesting to adapt. Step Three: Analyze Your Chosen Work Before you begin your original work, analyze your fairy tale by examining:

1. the plot of the fairy tale, boiling it down to its inciting incident, climax, resolution, etc.; and

2. what makes the fairy tale “recognizable”  and what elements you need in order to call your version a retelling.

Step Four: Plan Your Adaptation Plan your adaptation by thinking about:

1. what unique spin you could put on the fairy tale to make it your own; 2. who your protagonist is, and his or her desires and journey throughout the story;

and 3. what might appeal to this age group, including specific questions of whether you

see this as a story for two-year-olds versus six-year-olds.

Step Five: Create Your Comic/Picture Book There are myriad ways to complete this assignment, and you’re free to explore ones that you’re comfortable with or think would work. However, a few notes:

Creative Writing Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree Program

1.6  Writing  Assignment  -­‐  Fairy  Tale  Comic/Picture  Book  

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1. If you choose to do a comic strip, you can Google “comic strip templates”  and find lots of samples you could use to draw in. If you choose to do a picture book, you can simply draw each picture on its own page.

2. You can create your pictures and hand-write your text by hand. If you do this, you’ll need to scan your images and compile them into one PDF (you can put each picture separately onto slides in a PowerPoint or KeyNote and then export into a PDF, or put each image separately in a Word document and then save as one PDF, as a few possibilities). You are also welcome to handwrite, but be sure that your handwriting is clear and reflects proper capitalization, etc.

3. You can create your comic or picture book using a computer program. Some examples are PhotoShop, if you have it, or free programs like Paint, Paintbrush (for Mac), Paper (for iPad), etc. There are lots of free drawing and art apps out there that you can experiment with.

4. Whatever you do, make sure that you exercise control over the images you’re creating. Using clip art or a comic creator from the web, for example, could be problematic if you’re not exercising control over the images in your story. It would be better to have stick figures that you created than to have clip art that you didn’t.

Note: I understand that the CWEBFA program does not provide the Adobe programs, so some people might run into some technical issues with this part. Here are a few open- source alternatives to the Adobe programs you may try out if you wish: Gimp (Photoshop): http://www.gimp.org/ Scribus (In Design): http://scribus.net/canvas/Scribus Audacity (Audio Editing): http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ TweenLite andTweenMax (Flash): http://greensock.com/tweenlite and http://greensock.com/tweenmax

Step Six: Turn in Your Fairy Tale Comic/Picture Book by Sunday Night at 11:59 p.m. EDT

1. Your final deliverable should be a single PDF. If you have separate images, you can paste them into a Word document and then save that as a PDF, place each image on a slide in PowerPoint or KeyNote and then export as a PDF, etc.

2. Your final comic/picture book should include your name and the name of the fairy tale that you’ve adapted somewhere in the file.

3. Please upload the final PDF to FSO by the deadline.

This assignment is worth 10% of your overall grade, and is assessed out of 100 points.

1.6  Writing  Assignment  -­‐  Fairy  Tale  Comic/Picture  Book  

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This assignment will be graded using the criteria in the below rubric. Fairy Tale Comic/Picture Book (100 points):

Criterion Superior Above- Average

Average Below Average

Absent

Plot - Is the inspiration from the source material clear? Is there a unique spin on the material? Is the story paced well?

30 27 25 22 0

Audience - Is the material engaging and appropriate for its audience (vocabulary, themes, characters, plot, etc.)?

30 27 25 22 0

Visuals - Is there a variety in the composition of the images? Are conventions of captions, dialogue balloons, etc. followed as applicable? Do the images reflect effort? Do the images reflect a dynamic and visual interpretation of the story?

20 18 15 13 0

Grammar - Is your story free of grammatical errors? (No more than 1 for “Superior,” no more than 3 for “Above- Average,” no more than 5 for “Average,” no more than 7 for “Below Average”)

20 18 15 12 0

1.6  Writing  Assignment  -­‐  Fairy  Tale  Comic/Picture  Book  

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