Exploring Identity through Six-Panel Memoirs with Collegiate and Secondary Students

Memoir writing helps to provide mirrors and windows (Bishop, 1990) into the larger human experience by conveying narratives that center on actual life experiences. While memoirs are a well-established genre in literature and literary criticism (Aronowicz, 2024; Kleinbauer, 2007), only recently have graphic novels, including graphic novel memoirs, gained popularity and respect not only among teens, librarians and educators but also among the public (Williams, 2022). In this article, we describe a six-panel memoir assignment completed by collegiate and secondary students and analyze a sampling of memoir creations by both groups of students. Specifically, we are interested in the expressions and representations of identity the students created, including semiotics, mediums, the texts that shaped their lives (Kist, 2017) and the words they selected for their narratives. We conclude with recommendations for the mini-graphic novel memoir creation that can provide support for both critical reflection and graphic novel memoir writing development.