Vocabulary Study Guide: March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, & Nate Powell

Vocabulary terms covering graphic novelist tools, formalist and rhetorical devices, and Civil Rights Movement content from the study guide for March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell.

Splash Page

A page dominated by one large illustration, often used to emphasize a dramatic or important moment.

Panel

An individual frame containing an image, text, or both that represents a moment in a graphic narrative.

Gutter

The empty space between panels where readers mentally fill in actions or events that are not directly shown.

Closeup

An image that focuses closely on a character's face or an object to emphasize details or emotions.

Wideshot

An image showing a large area, often establishing the setting or showing the scale of an event.

Medium Shot

An image showing a character from approximately the waist up, allowing readers to observe gestures and expressions.

Silhouette

A dark, usually featureless outline of a person or object against a contrasting background.

Speech Bubble Type

The shape or style of a bubble that communicates how words or thoughts are expressed, such as ordinary speech, internal thoughts, radio broadcasts, singing, or shouting.

Font & Lettering Style

The appearance, size, thickness, or arrangement of letters used to communicate tone, volume, emotion, or emphasis.

Moment-to-Moment Transition

A transition between panels showing very small changes over a brief period of time.

Action-to-Action Transition

A transition showing different actions performed by the same subject, moving an event forward.

Scene-to-Scene Transition

A transition that moves between different locations, times, or scenes, often skipping a significant amount of time.

Symbolic Imagery

Visual details that represent larger ideas, emotions, or concepts beyond their literal appearance.

Black & White Contrast & Inversion

The use of black, white, and shades of gray instead of color, often emphasizing contrast, mood, or visual symbolism.

Breaking Panel Border

A technique in which a character, object, or visual element extends beyond the boundaries of its panel, often creating emphasis, movement, or intensity.

Motif

A recurring image, object, phrase, or idea that develops a larger theme throughout a work.

Allusion

A reference to another text, historical event, person, or cultural idea that adds meaning through association.

Political Slogans

Short, memorable phrases used to communicate political beliefs, inspire collective action, or persuade an audience.

Pathos

A rhetorical appeal that persuades an audience by evoking emotions such as sympathy, anger, hope, or fear.

Ethos

A rhetorical appeal that persuades an audience by establishing credibility, trustworthiness, or moral authority.

Logos

A rhetorical appeal that persuades an audience through logic, reasoning, facts, or evidence.

Repetition

The deliberate reuse of words, phrases, images, or ideas to create emphasis or reinforce meaning.

Anaphora

A specific type of repetition in which the same word or phrase appears at the beginning of successive sentences, clauses, or lines.

Symbol

An object, person, image, or action that represents a larger idea beyond its literal meaning.

SNCC

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a Civil Rights organization founded in 1960 that organized student activism, sit-ins, voter registration, and other campaigns for racial equality.

CORE

The Congress of Racial Equality, a Civil Rights organization founded in 1942 that used nonviolent direct action to challenge racial discrimination and segregation.

Integration

The process of bringing people of different racial backgrounds together in institutions or public spaces that had previously been segregated.

Segregation

The enforced separation of people into different groups, especially by race, in schools, transportation, housing, and public facilities.

Jim Crow

The system of laws, customs, and practices that enforced racial segregation and discrimination against Black Americans, particularly in the Southern United States.

‘Separate but Equal’

The legal doctrine established by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) that permitted racial segregation if separate facilities were supposedly equal; it was later rejected in public education by Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

Systemic Racism

Racial inequality produced or maintained through the policies, practices, and structures of institutions and society, rather than only through individual prejudice.

Civil Disobedience

The deliberate, usually nonviolent refusal to obey a law or government order considered unjust, often with a willingness to accept legal consequences.

Eulogy

A speech or piece of writing that honors and remembers someone who has died.

Moral Consciousness

An individual's awareness of right and wrong and the ethical responsibility to consider how their actions affect others.

Nonviolent Resistance

The practice of opposing injustice without using physical violence, often through organized protests, boycotts, marches, and civil disobedience.

First Amendment Rights

Rights protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, including freedom of speech, religion, the press, peaceful assembly, and petitioning the government.

Boycott

An organized refusal to purchase goods, use services, or support an institution in order to pressure it to change its policies or behavior.

Sit-in

A form of nonviolent protest in which participants occupy a location, often refusing to leave until their demands are addressed or they are removed.

Sharecropping

A farming system in which a landowner allows a tenant farmer to work the land in exchange for a share of the crops produced. After the Civil War, many formerly enslaved Black Americans became sharecroppers, but unfair contracts, high costs, and debt often trapped them in cycles of poverty and economic dependence.