30 Black Students in College

Jada Andrade

Click to listen to this essay

In this ‘zine Andrade demonstrates how to circulate a message using physical multimodal composing strategies. Using interview quotations, images, and the layered structure of a physical zine she is able to share and highlight experiences of black students at UMass Amherst in connection with other secondary research sources as well. By combining formal academic citation with personal drawings, words, and images – the final product is a strong example of how something physically multimodal can be just as interesting as something created through digital multimodal composition.

Jada Andrade

Instructor

ENGLWRIT 112: College Writing

Day Month Year

Black Students in College

The images of this ‘zine are provided below with a descriptive transcript for provided above each image.

Red backpack with zipper pocket and black top handle. Label at top of backpack: Black Students in College
Right side: Handwritten on torn piece of blue lined white paper: “I am often one of the few black people in class let alone black women, even in the big lecture halls at UMass, and especially in my honors classes” Helen Cutout photograph of black woman with short natural hair smiling on top middle and black ink line drawing of same woman on bottom middle. Left side: White text on black background glued to brown notecard, all glued to center of zine page “Black male college students express high levels of repressed frustration, greater dropout or “slow-out” rates, and lower grades because of the mundane, extreme, environmental stressors faced in public, academic, and social spaces on and off campus” (Smith, 557)
Right side: Handwritten on torn piece of blue lined white paper: “I think attending a PWI feels like waking up every morning and being in the wrong body” Sharai senior year Cutout photograph of black woman with long hair on bottom middle and black ink line drawing of same woman on top middle. Left side: Megan freshman year written on green flower decorative paper. Cutout photograph of black woman with box braids smiling on top middle and black ink line drawing of same woman in middle right of page. Handwritten on torn piece of blue lined white paper. “I sometimes feel like I have to hide parts of who I am so I don’t draw attention to myself and stand out”
Right side: White text on black background glued to brown note card, all glued to center of zine page Patricia Boyer writes that “Racial microaggressions also function as “status reminders” by the inherent message of unworthiness that microaggressions communicate; they indirectly convey the message to “stay in one’s place” (Boyer, 178) Left side: Christian junior year of college handwritten on brown paper. Cutout photo of black man in red cap taking selfie with phone bottom middle and black ink line drawing in upper right. Handwritten on torn piece of blue lined white paper: “It is difficult to feel welcomed/connected to other students” “My self-esteem has drastically changed where I become anxious to do things that I was comfortable doing before I came to college” “I’ve only had ONE black professor in my THREE years at college”
Collage of photo cut outs of photos on green flower decorative paper. Top: Black women lined up in a row wearing different denim dresses, photo focused on right shoulders. Middle: Four black women with different braid hairstyles pose and look at camera. Bottom: Five black women silhouettes showing a variety of hair styles and skin tones holding hands with yellow stars in highlighter over each head, labeled My Black is Beautiful

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Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

UMass Amherst Writing Program Student Writing Anthology by Jada Andrade is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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