In today’s fast-paced, algorithm-driven media environment, students often prioritize speed over reflection. Instructors of a Spanish bridge course noticed how this can limit students’ ability to engage deeply with complex texts, complicating their progression to more advanced language courses. This poster session presents curricular changes and shares findings from a year-long study using social comics to help develop students’ attention to detail as a foundation for critical media engagement.
Examples of student work, along with qualitative and quantitative survey data, demonstrates that analyzing the language of comics—framing, sequencing, visual rhetoric, silence, and authorial choice—provides an enjoyable yet rigorous structure for deeper engagement with texts. Students not only analyze but also create their own comics, applying the aforementioned strategies to produce thoughtful, multimodal work in small groups.
Additionally, these analytical practices transfer beyond the classroom since students learn to examine how layout directs attention, how images shape interpretation, and how design influences emotion—skills essential for navigating social media, digital storytelling, and AI-generated content. By strengthening close reading, students simultaneously develop intercultural competence, critical thinking, and creativity, while gaining confidence to navigate ever more complex media contexts.
