From 26 October to 1 November, students in Grades 8-12 attended a presentation and workshop with visiting author Laura Gao. Laura spoke to the students about their early years in Wuhan, China, their immigration and college experiences in the US, and their webcomic The Wuhan I Know, which went viral in 2020 and led to the creation of the popular graphic memoir Messy Roots.

Students learned tips on how to compose comics, add and change panels or use montages to affect the timing of a story, balance text and image, and create colour palettes to show the mood or emotion of their stories. Then, students drew their own comics to share the story of their names, their experiences with learning language, their alter egos, or the literary works they are studying in class.

The students left the workshop inspired to share their own stories through the power of art.