MAUS Response: Sequential Art and
Social Memory
In Maus, Art Spiegelman grapples with an event of great social and historical importance by
looking at one individual’s experience of that event and the impact that experience has had on
that one individual’s personality and relationships. By introducing us to Vladek’s individual
personality and point of view, Spiegelman is able to create a more personal, more human
understanding of an event that may seem extraordinarily distant to us.
He does this through the medium of sequential art (i.e. comics).
In your response to Maus, you may choose either to analyze how Spiegelman employs a
combination of words and images to grapple with the long-term impact of the Holocaust, both
on individuals and on human society, or you may choose to employ words and images yourself
in order to shed light on some other significant event that has been directly experienced by your
parents, grandparents, or another important person to you who lived through a significant
historical event.
Option A: Analytical Response:
Write an essay that discusses at length the techniques Spiegelman employs to convey the
complexities of his relationship with his father and his relationship with the Holocaust. Your
essay must address each of the following questions by using specific evidence from the text as
well as research beyond the text:
 What does Maus imply about the author’s relationship with his father?
 What does Maus imply about the significance of the Holocaust for those who survived it?
 What does Maus communicate to a new generation of readers who did not live through
the Holocaust?
 How do these three things (personal, social and historical significance) relate to one
another?
 How does Spiegelman employ visual imagery as well as words to impact the reader?
Your thesis should involve some argument as to how personal stories can impact historical
understanding of major upheavals in a society. Your essay should also incorporate some analysis
using Scott McCLoud’s Understanding Comics.
Your grade will depend upon your ability to apply the terms of visual literacy that we’ve learned
to Maus, your ability to bring together the three threads of meaning (personal, social and
historical) in a coherent thesis, and your ability to use evidence effectively to support your
claims.
Option B: Creative Response:
Use sequential art to convey to readers of your own generation some personal story of your own
parents, grandparents, or other person important to you from a different generation. You should
ask them questions which get them to tell you about their own individual experiences of some
past era recognizable to your audience, although distant in time. Your goal will be to convey
some of the personal, social and historical significance of that time period through visual
imagery and verbal storytelling. (i.e., the techniques of sequential art). Use your parents’ or
grandparents’ personal experiences to cut through some of the stereotypes we’ve developed in
our social memories about that past era. By 4/28, you should have the recorded interview
completed.
Your grade will depend upon your ability to apply the techniques of visual literacy that we’ve
learned to your subject’s story, your ability to bring together the three threads of meaning
(personal, social and historical) in a way that’s impactful to your intended audience, and your
ability to use the details of your subject’s story effectively to support the claims your story
implies about both your subject and the event that your subject lived through.
Option C: Build Your Own Assessment
If you have an idea for an assessment, you must e-mail me a proposal by 4/17/2015. In your
proposal you must prove that your idea for an essay or project adheres to the following
requirements:
 Shows several levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Know, Understand, Apply, Analyze,
Evaluate, Create).
 It must be of a substantial length.
 It must have at least three components.
 There must be effort in terms of the detail.
 It must require editing/revising.
 It must be relevant either to themes of the text, or form of the text.
The final copy of this assignment is due, in class, on Friday May 8.
Regardless of the option you choose, you must include a one-two
paragraph reflection on the assessment. It should explain your work on the
assessment, where there is room for improvement and where you feel you
really got it right. Also, you can talk about how the process of completing
the assessment changed or confirmed your thoughts on either the text or
subject you interviewed your family member about.