Capstone Project Proposal Draft

Name of student: Christine An Date: October 17th

Teacher: Ms. Lacroix Block: 1-1

The Capstone strand I have chosen is Project Strand

Proposed title for my Project Proposal: (write the proposed title for your Capstone Project in one
clear sentence):

My proposed title for my project proposal would be “the beautiful duckling.”.

Choose one of your stored inquiry questions from grade 9 or create a new inquiry question that
interests you for further research. It should be a question that connects with a purpose, passion
or personalized area of interest for you.
My inquiry question is:

How can I inspire and inform others of the extremes of social norms and social standards of
society through my art in the form of an illustration book?

Rationale/context: Detail your reasons for choosing this inquiry question. Explain WHY you are
choosing to investigate this topic as a major area of focus. How does this area of inquiry
connect to your passion(s), purpose? Why is it of personal interest to you?

The reason I chose this inquiry question is because I would like to incorporate my passions of
art and inspire others using my story. I am choosing to further investigate the topic of
discrimination because I want to explore the influence of society on social standards. I also
want to investigate how a comic book would act as a media form that could inspire others with
its message. This area of inquiry connects to my passion because I love exploring aspects of
social psychology and I like to draw and would like to further my interest with illustrations. The
ultimate purpose for this project would be to further investigate the effect of comics, and the
themes of social standards.
Background: What background knowledge/connections/prior learning do you have in this
area of inquiry?

Some background knowledge and prior learning I can use for this inquiry is that I have been
studying Psychology in IB for about two years now. I can use what I learned about social
standards (discrimination, conformity) and apply it to my themes of my story line. I also am
taking a graphic design class and art class; I can apply the skills of design into my comic.
Also, I can use my prior knowledge of character, theme and plot I learned in English into my
story line.

Career connections: What is your intended career area at this point in time? What
connections does this inquiry question have to your life, academic and/ or career goals?

At this point of time, I am intending of pursuing Graphic Design and I want to pursue a career
of a Designer. I love to draw and make art and I also am interested with computer
applications. The inquiry question mentions social and human factors, which is connected to
my interests because I also love helping and counseling others. I can use the experience I
have from my relationships or from my knowledge and contribute it to my project. Some other
connections from my inquiry question is that I can apply the same design skills into my
project. The inquiry question also mentions inspiration through my art, and I would like to
inspire others with my art in the future as well, whether it would be through comics or my
designs.

Interdisciplinary and core competencies connections: What subject areas and core
competencies will be connected with your project? Outline and explain the connections.

The subject areas of English, Art, Textiles, Psychology, Computer Science would be
connected with my project. With English, I would be using skills learned and applying it to my
 story line. Theme analysis, characterization analysis are all skills learnt in English, and I can
apply these to my own characters and the story.
For Psychology, I would use the knowledge of social standards and applying it to my story
line as well. Not only am I taking a Psychology class, I also have many experience with other
people and can apply these into my project.
Skills from art and graphic design would help with my designing the characters. Also, drawing
and sketching skills learned from art would be applied in illustrating the story. For my physical
copy of the comic book, I would apply skills of textiles to create the physical copy of the book.
I would apply computer science in the design, and organizing portion of the comic if I were to
make a digital comic book.

Capstone Presentation medium: select one or more project mediums you wish to use to
present your project. Outline and give details about how you will present your project once
completed. You may use a combination of mediums.
o Electronic portfolio: Prezi or PPT
o Physical portfolio
o Website
o imovie presentation

I wish to present my comic book in digital form, as a digital portfolio. I will draw my comics
using my iPad and computer software and save it as PDFs. I would also like to present it in a
physical comic book. I would do this by printing my digitally drawn comics and gathering it in a
big photo album-type of physical comic book. For my presentation, I wish to display it so
people can be able to read it, because my intention of this project is to reach others in the
community.

Description of my Capstone project. Specific Project Details of the Capstone Project: what
will you research, create, study, produce, solve, investigate? What product will be produced
at the end of this project for evaluation. Write a one-page description outlining your
proposal.

My Capstone project, “the beautiful duckling.” would demonstrate aspects of comics and art
to illustrate the extent of social norms, discrimination and stereotypes. Within my animation, I
propose to produce a story that will that will investigate themes of social standards and
conformity. The background research for this project would include storyboards, outlines, and
basic comic outlines. With this background research, I will be able to successfully achieve my
intended themes with a balanced story to project these themes. To begin, the title of “in the
eyes of lou” purposely directs as a rhyme to “in the eyes of you” which can be interpreted as a
 meaning of POV or perspective. For this reason, I made my title to be “in the eyes of lou”
because this comic is focused in my protagonist, Lou’s POV and her experiences and
relationships with others. Although my comic will include other diverse characters, my overall
theme would be focused on anxiety, and Lou’s experience with dealing with other people’s
“eyes”. Also, the symbol of the “eye” is intended to be interpreted as “self identity” within my
comic, as I would incorporate this symbol throughout my story and characters. My project
would include characters with their own definite identities and I will incorporate these
characters together and create conflicts, characterization and progression of plot. The
character of “Lou” would have characteristics that show mental illness of anxiety and PTSD.
Characterization for Lou would include able to express emotion, finding self-confidence and
learning to move on. Other significant characters within my project include “Prim” who
suffered with depression, “Bree” who suffers with social standards and loss of identity and
“Joe” who is designed to be an overcomer of past experiences. A significant antagonist for my
comic is named “Ty” who is placed in a higher social standard with wealth and social reasons,
which therefore changes his perspective of the world with selfish views. Some significant
themes explored by Lou is dreams, expression, self identity, gender roles, perspectives and
love. Other significant themes explored by characters such as “Bree” is social standards,
conformity, and acceptance. The themes explored within my project will serve to connect with
the readers who have had experiences with any of these issues. I am purposely intending of
making these characters and storylines more relatable to people of today’s society, so the
overall message can be more effective. It will also serve to project these issues of mental
health to those who are unaware of the effect of society today. At the end of my project for
evaluation, a completed product of a storyline, illustrated comic book would be presented to
reach the audience with a message of awareness. It would include a completed, digitally
illustrated comic book, and printed out as a hard copy as well. The visuals of this book will
help to not only give image of the story, but express each of the characters stories, so the
readers can really connect with each one.

Project Design Team: who needs to be on your project design team to make this
project/research effective? To support your work? Outline the team and their roles.

For my project design team, I would need people who could be able to edit my storyline and
give me suggestions. Indeed, I am not a professional at writing stories and would have some
cracks within my storyline. I would need people from an audience point of view, so I can learn
from what a real audience would think of my story.
I would also need a person who could help me with my drawing of the comics. Accordingly
with the storyline, I have no experience with professional digital comics, so I would need a
professional or a person with experience who could guide me along the way. I would most
likely be using a mentor for this aspect.
Resources/ Technology/Skills: Make an assessment of the resources, technology and
skills you will need to be able to complete this project. What is your plan to be able to
access/learn all of the resources necessary to achieve completion of this project? Detail
your plans.

The resources, technology I would need to complete this project is a digital tablet, computer
software (Adobe, etc.), drawing tools and a storyboard. I will have access to a digital iPad and
computer software from my graphic design computer. I am also planning to buy any needed
materials needed for the planning of my comic, or my physical copy of the comic (album
book, pencils, etc.).
Other resources I need are research resources such as how to write a illustration book, how
to draw comics. I can gain information of story writing through online, or reference to other
books and comics. With drawing a comic book, although I can get individual research, I would
also need someone who can guide me to achieve a professionally done sketch. I intend of
asking a professional mentor who has experience with comics and graphic art.