Teaching Academic Writing Through Autobiographical Comics.

The article focuses on teaching academic writing through autobiographical comics in a university seminar designed for first-year students. It argues that autobiographical comics, defined as life writing using sequential images and words, serve as an effective medium to engage students in critical reading, research, and writing by connecting personal experience with broader theoretical frameworks from psychology and narrative theory. The course combines analysis of canonical works like Art Spiegelman’s *Maus*, Marjane Satrapi’s *Persepolis*, and Alison Bechdel’s *Fun Home* with drawing exercises that encourage students’ creative expression and understanding of comics as a medium. Assignments include a “Lens Essay” applying theoretical texts by Sigmund Freud and Hayden White to comics, and a research project involving independent investigation of autobiographical comics and related scholarship. The author emphasizes amateurism in comics creation as a valuable pedagogical approach that fosters authenticity, accessibility, and intellectual curiosity among students.