By Alyssa Tremblay
From the long-running West End musical Les Misérables to Sofia Coppola’s lush 2006 film Marie Antoinette, visual retellings of the French Revolution have a history of captivating and fascinating the human mind.
So, in telling his students about this turbulent period of radical social and political change in eighteenth-century France, Professor Rod Phillips of the Department of History decided to try putting a new visual spin on his own teaching style.
To do so, Phillips invited his friend – Ottawa-based designer and artist Jordana Globerman – to graphically record one of his lectures for his course HIST 3113 (The French Revolution: 1789-1799).
“I looked at her website and saw she had done graphic recording for corporate meetings. I had never seen that before, and I thought, ‘Why wouldn’t this work for a lecture?’” said Phillips.
Globerman describes graphic recording as the live capture, through drawing, of key messages from a workshop, presentation or conversation in real-time.
“Graphic recorders listen closely to what is being said and translate the key concepts into easy to digest visuals,” explained Globerman, who has worked as a graphic recorder at conferences like TED Global in Geneva, team-building workshops in Jordan, the Prime Minister's town hall, government workshops, retreats, and even retirement parties.
This was her first experience illustrating a university lecture, however.
For an hour, Globerman sat in the classroom sketching on sheets of paper positioned underneath a document camera. The camera projected her drawings live onto the display screens behind Phillips as he taught the course material.
The images were later edited by Globerman into one big infographic, which was shared with the students.
Speaking from decades of teaching experience, Phillips sees real value in graphic recording as an educational tool, perhaps particularly in the study of history given the popularity and effectiveness of illustrated approaches to historical storytelling like Chester Brown’s bestselling collection of Louis Riel comics and Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus.
“I already illustrate my lectures with images and videos, but graphic recording is different – it’s dynamic and it evolves with the lecture,” he said. “It can also introduce some humour. At one point in my lecture, I talked about some peasants losing grazing rights for their livestock when common lands were privatized. Jordana drew a lamb trying to clutch its owner and tears spurting from its eyes, as it was taken away. I mean, on one level it’s sad, but on another it’s very funny.”
Globerman, who also makes YouTube tutorials on visual thinking, believes that graphic recording offers another entry point for students – or anyone, really! – to better understand a concept, project or story.
“Most people are either visual thinkers or respond to more than one form of thinking, so having a visual component accompany an oral presentation is super helpful for memory retention and comprehension.”
While Phillips had some initial concern that the impressive performance playing out on the screen behind him might be distracting, students felt that the addition of Globerman’s in-progress art-making actually increased their engagement with the course material:
“I thought the illustrations were really innovative and added richness to the lecture. Great idea!”
“… the real-time illustration was fantastic. I'd never seen anything like it in person, and it reminded me of YouTube videos that do it (except on YouTube they have all the time in the world to correct their mistakes).”
“As for the drawings during the lecture, I found them to be super interesting! As much as I like your slides, they definitely helped me to envision and engage with the topics even more."
“I am a student in your French Revolution class and I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed the illustrator in class last week. I didn't find it distracting at all – if anything, it kept me more engaged and helped me to understand the material more.”
For his part, Phillips says he’s in awe at the whole process and the skills involved in quickly translating words spoken aloud about historical events into easy-to-understand images that communicate the very same information.
“It’s like interpreting from one language to another, but even more demanding,” he said. “The illustrator has to listen to the lecture, decide on an image, and draw it quickly, all the time listening to the lecture so that she can do the next image. All without a break!”
Globerman describes the live performance aspect of being a graphic recorder as exciting and one of her favourite parts of the job.
“I used to get in trouble as a kid for doodling in class,” she laughed, “so it's great that now someone is paying me for it!”
Learn more about courses offered in the Department of History: https://carleton.ca/history/undergraduate/courses/