Become An Illustrator in Children Literature Class

 

Who here has a hobby of drawing and writing stories? To channel your hobby well, join the Children Literature class at the English Literature Study Program at Yogyakarta State University. What do you do in that class? Well, this Children Literature class is one of the featured subjects provided by the language arts and culture faculty for students majoring in English Literature. This course aims to improve students' skills in producing work intended for children.

Students can take this course in the fourth semester for one hundred minutes per meeting. In the first meeting, students will be given material about the history of children's literature, the theory of children's literature, and the elements of writing work. The material will be given by lecturers who are experienced in the world of children's literature. After this, students were asked to analyze several works of children's literature to increase their knowledge. This activity also aims to give students an overview of the products they will make later. After reaching the middle of the semester, students will be given an individual project, namely, making a picture book. This project is also used as a final project, so there is no written or formal exam in this subject.

Before drawing and creating stories, students are asked to present their ideas in front of the class. The presentation contains genre, theme, character, setting, plot, and point of view. After that, the lecturer and other colleagues will provide suggestions and input so that students can improve their ideas for the better.

After completing the preparations, students will be given time to draw illustrations for their children's storybooks. Well, this is where students can show their drawing and writing skills. Students can use various software or applications for drawing, such as Adobe Photoshop, Inkscape, CorelDraw, Canva, Sketch, ibisPaint X, etc. What if you are interested in this course but need help drawing? Take it easy. The lecturer also allows students to find illustrators who can help make images. However, students must also include the illustrator's name in their work. This individual project will be monitored weekly so that students must report the progress of the illustrated children's storybook.

After all student works are completed in soft files (PDF format). Then, a small team will be formed to collect and print all student works into one. This finished work will be used as an archive and an assessment for the end-of-semester project. In addition, some time ago, the English Literature study program also organized a workshop on translating children's stories whose sources came from the picture book works made in this Children Literature class. Some student works will be taken to be translated and made into English and Indonesian children's storybooks. This workshop will result in a bilingual children's storybook printed by a publisher with the International Student Book Number (ISBN). The names of the authors and illustrators are also licensed for their respective books. Students can include this work in their portfolios.

Students can send their work privately to certain publishers for works not selected for the workshop. Who knows if the work will pass the assessment and can be published. Very interesting, isn't it? From our hobbies of drawing and writing, we can produce work that is useful for children and can be used as a portfolio for a resume. So, what are you waiting for? Let's join this class and become an illustrator!