Introductory Modules
Using Comics Storyboarding as Empathy Machine for ‘Chaotic’ Illness Narratives. By Rachel Lee (UCLA)

Using Comics Storyboarding as Empathy Machine for ‘Chaotic’ Illness Narratives

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Session Objectives:

  1. Read through illness narratives and develop a) understanding for the storyteller (aka the patient) as a fellow human being, and b) compassion for the deep feelings of “harm” and “hurt” they confront in receiving medical care. Here, the idea is to familiarize yourself with what happens to patients especially when their cases cannot be diagnosed quickly and easily.

  2. Guide students in reimagining care practices outside clinical institutions through archival materials, comics storyboarding, and critical reflection.

  3. Return students to empathy and compassionate witnessing as a crucial component of good care.

Preparation Time:

Facilitator Preparation:

  • Suggested Prep Time: 2 hours

  • Facilitator Pre-Reading/Materials:

    • This module uses transcripts and audio recordings in the Oral Histories of Environmental Illness archive (OHEI) at UCLA. At this link (https://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/ ), set the search pulldown to “Interview Information” and type in “Chemical Entanglements”: 70 or so oral histories of varying lengths will come up.

      • Read through a handful of oral histories in the Oral Histories of Environmental Illness archive (OHEI), and then choose to assign one of them to the entire class. Alternatively, break the class into three subsets and assign different oral histories to each of the subset groups.

      • Supply paper, markers or crayons, and rulers

      • Provide 1-2 encapsulations of significant passages/events from the oral histories (OH)

Participant Preparation:

  • Runs about 2 hours: the length of listening time to oral history audio or reading time of transcript where audio isn’t available (approx 1-1.5 but could be longer depending on the selected oral history) plus 20 min for reflection and selection of a passage

  • Participant Pre-Reading:

References and Materials:

Session Materials

Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness Interviews