INTE 6710 ~ Creative Designs for Instructional Materials Project 2: Graphic Novel Handout Design Document

Dawn Turek
October 23, 2011

1. Significant Purpose
The purpose of this handout is to show step by step instructions on how to make grape jam from the grapes on a vine. Many people think that making your own jam is difficult and let their grapes go to the birds. I would like to show them that it is actually quite simple and makes great holiday gifts! This handout will be for any grape enthusiasts who have grapes in their yard and are unsure how to make jam. It is a fun activity which the whole family can get involved in and reaps many rewards. The feeling of making something from scratch from nature creates an amazing feeling and giving it to friends and family also makes us feel good. Making grape jam is simple. Go to your local store that carries jelly jars and pectin. For this instructional I got 48-4oz jars and 2.5 packets of pectin. Around the end of September, beginning of October your grapes will be ripe. You can tell they are ripe by their dark purple color and they ability to easily squeeze the pulp from the skin. You can then start to pick the grapes off the vines. Pick as many as you feel you will use. For my instructional I will be picking a little more than 10 cups of grapes. You can easily double or half this recipe if desired. After picking the grapes I thoroughly wash them with cool water and place them in a bowl. Then place all your jars into the dish washer on the highest setting or I have a setting called sanitize. You want the jars to still be REALLY hot when they are filled so time this appropriately. I recommend going outside for this next step or at a table where things can get sticky. Get some family and/or friends together because this next step can be very time consuming. Get two containers one for the pulp and one for the skins. Then start to squeeze the pulp from the grapes into one container and putting the skins into a different container. This is probably the most time consuming part of this whole process. After you have separated the pulp from the skins place 10 cups of pulp into a large pot. Add a cup of water and bring to boil. Boil for 5 minutes. You will notice the grape pulps loosing their form and the seeds dropping to the bottom of the pot. After five minutes pour through sieve to remove the seeds. Grid the skins with a food processor or chop up into fine tiny pieces. Add the skins to the strained pulp and place in pot and add sugar and a little butter (the butter helps foam from forming). Again bring to boil stirring constantly and add pectin. Continue to boil until it continues to boil while stirring. remove from heat skim off any foam and QUICKLY ladle into HOT glass jars and put lids on immediately. Once jams cool
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push on the top to make sure it has formed a seal. If there is a pop store in refrigerator. All Done! You can now create labels for them and wrap and or decorate and give out for gifts! By using some of the grapes from your yard there will be less animals in your yard and less to clean up in on the vine and on the ground. Grapes attract many different kinds of wildlife and although sometimes cute to watch the birds eat the grapes some animals can be a nuisance such as the mice, rats, and raccoons. Also by picking many of your grapes you will have less to rake, groom, and clean up when all the leaves have fallen. By keeping your grape vines well maintained you can ensure a plentiful and beautiful crop for next season. Grapes are a great hobby. It requires a little bit of attention and grooming to keep the vines maintained but has great rewards such as beautiful leaves, a pleasant aroma, and the ability to create things such as jam. If you don't have a vine and want one they take a bit of time to get going but then they are a fast growing and hearty plant that can grow almost anywhere. I know too many people with grape vines who just let them go to waste or the birds and its a shame because growing, creating, and making your own foods from your yard is a very fulfilling activity which more people should get into! My audience can be anyone who has a grape vine, wants a grape vine, or has a friend/family with a grape vine. A person who would like to make holiday gifts for the people in their life without spending a lot of money or using a lot of their time. A person who wants a more wholesome and natural jam where the container would only list a few ingredients. A person who want to save money at the grocery store and prepare for the future.

2. A Picture of the Future

In the future I hope to see more people becoming more self sustaining. From the prices at the stores to the extra ingredients many products have people are looking more and more into growing and making their own produce. By growing their own fruits, veggies and maybe even having a chicken or two people will know exactly what goes into their bodies and save money at the same time. People should go back to their roots and do as their ancestors did and use the earth to make them an all natural dinner, or in this case preserves. So much satisfaction comes from doing it yourself. Yes it so easy to just go to the local supermarket and pick up the things you need but you don't really know what your getting where it came from and what process they used to get it there. Many jams are from huge fields where machines do most of the work. There is no 'love' put into each jar of jam and sometimes they don't even contain real fruit! High in fructose corn syrup, artificial colorings and flavorings making these jams not really what you expect from jam. Also the jams that are real fruit and organic can be very pricey! By making your own you can be assured that it is jarred with love and contains limited ingredients. Making your own foods and preserves is healthier and cheaper alternative to buying from your local grocery store!
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I would like my learners to learn that its easy and fun to make things from their garden such as jams. The time it takes is relatively small compared to all the benefits. Benefits that include self satisfaction and using the resources that are given to us. The learners will learn also how to make great holiday gifts. People enjoy gifts that come from the heart like a child's drawing or sculpture. But people also enjoy things that taste good! Create a logo sticker or a pretty picture to accompany your jam and the people will feel the love and you feel it back by giving a gift that you created on your own. 3. Clear Design Values
Design Decision #1. With a sequence of steps I engaged the viewer and got them interested enough to stick through the sequence. As in Roam explanation I made a conscious choice of what moments I wanted to include and my choice of frames. The choice of my image in the frame were clearly placed then used words that made the pictures relevant and valuable. Lastly I focused on the flow of the sequence making smooth transitions and with clear conscious decisions. With a clear and convincing sequence of events I created a story. A sequence is very much like a story. A place in time a sequence of event. As in Heath and Heath Made to Stick stories are almost always concrete. ( McCloud, 2006, pgs. 3-4; Heath & Heath, 2008, pg.237) Design Decision #2. I use a scene to scene transition. This compresses my story or sequence of events down to a manageable length. I used only scenes and words needed to get the clear purpose of my handout. Making this clear, compact and simple instruction on how to make jam. I did not make this any more lengthy and convoluted than needed. I keep my wording compact and not too lengthy. I reduced the amount of information to get a compact and sticky instruction. (McCloud, 2006, p. 17; Heath and Heath, 2008, pg 46). Design Decision #3. I choose the right moment of each step to take a picture of. By doing this I made the viewer focus on what is important in the step and letting the view see what has changed. With help from my peers I made sure I did not use any irrelevant photos or scenes that may confuse the viewer getting them lost or loosing focus. I keep the viewer attention by keeping the focus and taking one step at a time. "The brain is a sequential processor" (McCloud, 2006, p. 20; Medina, 2008, pg 93). Design Decision #4. I used a template that had flip flop and tilted frames. However the frames were placed so that they were still easy to follow in sequence and the center of attention was always in the center of frame. I used photos that were simply laid out with the occasional funky angle like in my picture of jars in frame 37. I did not go out of the frame ever but I did make frames not centered and crooked but it all looked good and flowed well. As design rules that you don't want to break to often otherwise it will just cause havoc. (McCloud, 2006, p. 24; Reynolds, 2009, pg 21) Design Decision #5. I limited text and relied on photos because we are visual beings. "Vision is our most powerful sense" Text can be boring and inefficient since the brain is not as good at identifying letter as it is at identifying a picture. We get into the moment when we see a picture instead of having to read it and visualize a picture of our own in our head. "One of the reasons text is so ineffective is that the brain sees words as tiny little pictures. Pictures are way more efficient in retain the information than text. (Reynolds, 2009, p. 97; Medina, 2008, pg 234)

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4. Formative Evaluation Response

Peer Review Question #1. Is my handout easy to follow and read? Please explain why? I asked this question because I used a template that was included in the Comic Life program and wanted to make sure it was easy to follow and clear to read. Jason said the following: Your comic is really clear and easy to read. I know exactly what it is about from the beginning and your step by step process is clear and easy to follow. Kayla said this: It is easy to follow and read. I think the application you used lends itself well to this. The only suggestion is you may want to consider fitting a few more on the same page so you don't have as many pages. I would consider Kayla's suggestion it is a good one but with the template I used it would not look as good or be a clean and clear. Peer Review Question #2. Do you think you could make Grape Jam using my handout? Suggestions to make it easier? I asked this question because I wanted to make sure it was a good instruction handout. To be able to follow along and make jam yourself. Jason said: I definitely could make jam using your comic, but I am not sure how to get so many grapes:) One suggestion might be to acknowledge which sections might be challenging, like hand squeezing the pulp out of so many grapes, I think I would get really bored during this process. You could mention that this part is tedious but so worth it. Kayla said: Yes, I feel I could. However, it does seem like a lot of work. If there are any short-cuts or packages you can buy that cut down the work, you may want consider including those in here too. Well Jason was right on here! The squeezing of the grapes was very tedious and boring. It took FOREVER! I will add something to the effect of it being worthwhile for sure! As for Kayla's suggestion there are no shortcuts really. With other recipes you can use grape juice from a store but what is the fun in that? The hard work of squeezing grapes with show in the yummy taste you get. Peer Review Question #3. Are my pictures clear and representational of what I am talking about? I wanted to make sure my pictures were relevant and made sense. Jason said: Your pics are clear and the only one I would change are on the first page. I would show some jars of grape jam on the first page. Think about Mise en scene, if I don't look at your words and I just rely on the images of your first page I would think its about your children, I should be able to visually gather information from the first page concerning grape jam. Kayla said: Most of them are. The very first picture with the crying baby doesn't really make a lot of sense to me, although it is adorable. The rest are clearly related to your instruction. Votes are in! I will definitely be changing the first picture which I was trying to represent the frustration of making jam. However I did not get that response so I will be using Jason's suggestion of using one of my pictures of jam. So no more crying baby. I will however keep the other picture of kiddo because it represents the family aspect of this activity. Peer Review Question #4. Are there any grammar or awkward phrases or sentences? Please point out any? After looking at a project for so long I tend to not see my grammar or word issues anymore so I always like getting another set of fresh eyes to take a look and let me know if they see anything. Jason said: Your grammar and phrasing look great to me, I detected no errors. Kayla said: In the very first frame, the last sentence has the word "will twice, including once at the beginning which makes it look like a question. There is another double word issue in frame 13. Jason

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like me read right over the errors but nice eye Kayla! Thanks I will be fixing those errors. Peer Review Question #5. Is my handout memorable and fun? In what ways could I make it more fun and memorable? Nothing worse than a boring dry handout. I wanted to make sure my handout was interesting and memorable. Jason said: I think the subject matter is memorable because I don't recall ever learning about this, so it really sticks with me. I think the images, text, fonts, and phrasing are fun and lighthearted, so I get a good fun vibe the whole way through. Kayla said: While I wouldn't necessarily describe your handout as fun, it is memorable. To make it more fun, you could include something besides just action shots of items, maybe a picture of you or someone else actually having fun making it. Well Kayla good suggestion! But unfortunately the process is over and I wont do it again until next year so the new photo opportunities are gone.

Bibliography
Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2008). Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Die and Others Survive. New York: Random House. McCloud, S. (2006). Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Magna and Graphic Novels. New York: Harper. Medina, J. (2008). Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. Seattle, WA: Pear Press. Reynolds, G. (2009). Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations. Berkeley, CA: New Riders. Roam, D. (2008). The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures. New York: Portfolio/Penguin Group.

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