What Is the Term Called From the Reading When You Look at All Aspects of a Media Message?
VISUAL LITERACY IS Rex OF THE INFORMATION ERA
For many people, mention the discussion 'literacy' and an image of a library filled with dusty books is conjured upwards. This is not surprising given the importance the written discussion has played in all our lives, particularly those of us who are too old to be considered 'digital natives'.
Despite the primacy of the written discussion in our schools, information technology is not the but means of widely sharing our thoughts and ideas. In this age of the internet particularly, nosotros are constantly bombarded with images – both static and moving. Information technology is more essential than ever that our students develop the necessary visual literacy skills to navigate this image-intense earth we all inhabit.
Screens of all shapes and sizes dominate our attending span, YouTube, and diverse social media platforms accept replaced the book equally the principal source of amusement in the blink of an eye, and this is unlikely to change.
In this article, nosotros will look at some approaches to aid you lot come up with activities to employ visual texts and teach visual literacy in the classroom. We will also suggest some fun and meaningful activities yous can use with your students today.
Firstly, withal, we need to get to grips with exactly what nosotros mean when we use the term 'visual literacy'. Equally a full general working definition, nosotros can remember of the term equally referring to interpreting and creating visual images. Every bit with other types of literacy, visual literacy is most advice and interaction and while it has much in common with those other forms of literacy, it has some unique aspects of its ain that students will demand to explore specifically.
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WHAT IS A VISUAL TEXT?
The bones definition of visual literacy is the ability to read, write and create visual images. Both static and moving. Information technology is a concept that relates to art and design but it also has much wider applications. Visual literacy is most linguistic communication, advice and interaction. Visual media is a linguistic tool with which nosotros communicate, exchange ideas and navigate our highly visual digital earth.
The term was first coined in 1969 by John Debes, who was the founder of the International Visual Literacy Association:
Why is Visual Literacy Of import?
Much of the information that comes to our students is a combination of both written text and images. It is essential that our students are fully equipped to process that information in all its forms.
Because how visually orientated we are as humans, it is no surprise that images have such a powerful impact on united states. Enquiry shows that there is a wide range of benefits derived from improved visual literacy including:
Visual Information is More Memorable
One of the almost effective ways to encourage data to make that important jump from the express short-term memory to the more powerful long-term retention is to pair text with images. Studies show that we retain approximately 10-20% of written or spoken information, but around 65% of the data when information technology is presented visually.
Visual Information is Transferred Faster
Data presented visually is processed extremely quickly by the brain. The brain is even being able to see images that appear for a mere 13 milliseconds. Effectually 90% of the data transmitted to the encephalon is visual in nature.
Helps Students Communicate with the World Around Them
Traditionally, we think of pedagogy literacy as the two way street of reading and writing. Nosotros can think of visual literacy as involving the like processes of interpreting images and creating images. In a fast-moving world, with an always-increasing diagnosis of attention arrears disorders, we increasingly rely on images to rapidly convey meaning.
Enriches Understanding
While images tin exist used in isolation, they often accompany text or audio. Images can profoundly enrich the students' understanding of a text or other media, merely to be able to interact with these deeper levels of pregnant, students must possess the necessary skills to access those depths.
Increases Enjoyment
Not simply does increased visual literacy enrich the agreement of our students of the media they consume, only it tin likewise enrich their enjoyment too – especially of visual art. If you have taken younger students to an art gallery yous may have heard protests of 'This is boring!'
However, when students accept a deeper agreement of the 'significant' behind the art pieces, or are familiar with the context around the fine art, insights into the lives of the artists, or experienced with some of the techniques that produced the pieces, students ofttimes derive greater pleasance from their visit.
The same is true of their date in terms of visual literacy. Equally informed readers of images in a range of modalities, students are opened up to an exciting dimension of shape, color and texture and more.
Creates More than Educated Image Readers
In an era of imitation news and ceaseless advertising, a responsible arroyo to the duty of educating our students must involve encouraging them to go informed viewers of the world around them, including the media they engage with. Through the instruction of visual literacy nosotros can help students understand the different ways the images they eat can be used to manipulate their emotions and persuade them to deed in a given way.
Supports EAL Learners
The use of images in the classroom tin can be of great benefit to students who come up from non-English-speaking backgrounds. As these students travel on their route to fluency in English, images tin can provide an constructive bridge in that learning process. While the use of images in the forms of flashcards, writing frames etc for the purposes of teaching EAL learners may be obvious, the creation of images by the students themselves can also exist a great way to assess their agreement of more abstract concepts and vocabulary.
What Forms of Visual Text Are Used in the Classroom?
Students are exposed to a vast array of visual media. When we hear the jazzy term 'visual text' we may immediately think of its expression in the digital age, but the roots of visual texts stretch deep into our history; all the way back to our beginnings. Retrieve of the cave paintings in Lascaux!
Still, today in that location are and then many more forms of visual text to consider. From cave walls to computer screens and all points in between, students are exposed to billboards, photographs, Tv, video, maps, memes, digital stories, video games, timelines, signs, political cartoons, posters, flyers, newspapers, magazines, Facebook, Instagram, movies, DVDs, and cell phones wallpaper – to name merely 20! All these can serve every bit the jumping-off bespeak for a lesson on visual literacy.
The digital age has opened the floodgate on images spilling into our consciousness and unconsciousness alike. The implications for visual literacy stretches far beyond the limits of the English language classroom into all areas of our lives. From the math student interpreting graphs to the music educatee following musical notation, or the geography educatee poring over Google Earth. For a multitude of purposes, in an array of modalities, visual literacy is ever more important.
Visual Literacy Clues: What Are They and How Exercise We Read Them?
"Visual Literacy is the ability to construct pregnant from images. It'due south non a skill. It uses skills equally a toolbox. It's a form of critical thinking that enhances your intellectual chapters."
Brian Kennedy
Director, Toledo Museum of Art
If visual literacy is about decoding meaning from images of various kinds, we need to teach our students how to fix about this intimidating chore – only as we exercise when we teach them how to approach a written text. Regardless of the nature of the paradigm, this process follows three general steps:
1. What Can Y'all See?
To reply this, students must become familiar with Visual Literacy Clues (VLCs). When students are familiar with these clues they volition have a method of approaching any image with a view to decoding its significant. The VLCs are: subject matter, colors, angles, symbols vectors, lighting, gaze, gestures, and shapes. These categories provide an approach to examine the details of the various aspects of the image they are reading.
2. How Does It Make Y'all Experience?
Afterwards the students have had time to note what they can see in the epitome through test of the VLCs, it is now time for them to consider their emotional response to what they have viewed.
With close reference to the VLCs they accept previously identified, students express how the prototype makes them feel and how information technology has influenced them to feel this style. They may feel anger, anguish, excitement, happy etc. There is no limit to the emotions they may refer to, provided they can point to evidence from the image. Here are some suggested questions to help the students explore their responses:
Subject field Matter: What is the topic of the film? Who and what are in the image? What is the epitome near?
Color: How is color used in the image? What consequence do the colors chosen have on the viewer?
Angles: Are we looking from above or below? What is the camera angle? How does this affect what we encounter and how nosotros feel well-nigh it?
Symbols: What symbols are used in this image? What do yous think they represent? Are the colors that were called symbolic?
Vectors: Tin yous see the major lines in the image? Are they broken or unbroken? How do the lines create reading paths for our optics?
Lighting: Can y'all depict the lighting used in the movie. How does information technology bear on the 'mood' of the pic?
Gaze: What blazon of look is the character giving? Where is their gaze directed? What does this say?
Gesture: What blazon of gestures is the graphic symbol giving? What is communicated by these gestures?
Shapes: What geometric shapes can you recognize in the prototype? Do they repeat? Is there a pattern? Is lodge or chaos conveyed?
3. What Is The Image Trying To Tell U.s.a.?
This third aspect peels back another level of pregnant to get to the overall message underlying the image. This question asks the students to delve into the intentions of the image-maker themselves. The genre of the image volition be of significance here as well, as the pupil considers the nature of the image as art, entertainment, advertisement or a fusion of the various genres.
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Activities for the Education of Visual Literacy in the Classroom
1. Explanation a Photograph
Photographs are i of the virtually familiar forms of visual media for our students. Oftentimes photographs they run into will be accompanied by captions.
In this do, give out copies of a single photo to the form without captions. Their task here is to closely examine the photograph, either individually or in small groups, before writing a caption to accompany the photograph. When students have completed their captions they can compare their captions with each other earlier you reveal the true nature of the photograph.
Prior to writing their explanation, you may wish to provide some supporting questions or groundwork information. You may, nevertheless, wish them to go in blind to whatever groundwork other than what they tin can deduce from the photograph itself.
The purpose of this action is to reveal to the students how open to interpretation a single visual image can exist. The students will gain sensation of the ability of a caption to frame an prototype'south significant, even if the caption is not authentic.
Some suggested questions for students to consider:
- What people, objects, or activities can y'all see in the picture?
- Are there whatsoever clues to when it was taken? What was happening at this time in history?
- Are there any clues to where it was taken? Are there any clues to why information technology was taken or who took it?
- Is it a posed photo? A natural scene? A documentary photograph? A selfie?
Extension: You may wish to use this action equally a lead-in to a bigger topic, equally it can brand for a great introduction to depict out the students' groundwork knowledge and pb into a larger give-and-take or inquiry project. This activity tin can also be easily adapted for a wide range of different types of images, for example, advertisements.
ii. Engage with a Video Game
In that location is no doubt of 2 things when it comes to video games:
1. They go a bad rap
2. They are extremely popular amongst younger people
And while in that location is no doubt that at that place are some games on the market of dubious worth, as with any fine art grade, at that place is much of merit and potential in this relatively new medium.
While there are obvious links that can be made with storytelling activities past examining the narrative of many video games, it may be much more interesting, and useful, to look more closely at how video games 'work' in terms of the overall experience.
Video games are immersive, multi-sensory experiences for players. This is a big part of their entreatment. While written texts can appeal largely to our imaginative faculties, video games can also appeal to our senses of sight and hearing – and at present, even touch can be incorporated. To accept students focus on visual aspects of their gaming feel, give them a worksheet to brand notes on that experience using the VLC categories listed above. This can brand for a corking group word activity as the picture show or game plays with the sound off.
iii. Multi-Modal Comparisons
We are long familiar with the concept of flick tie-ins. In days gone by the response to the question "Accept you read ten?" was oft a "No, simply I saw the movie." Present the reply is merely every bit likely to be "No, but I accept the video game." The triumvirate of the book – movie – game tie-in is fertile footing for some interesting text comparison work in the classroom.
Popular necktie-in triplets include Harry Potter and the seminal Lord of the Rings. Bring your students' powers of visual perception to this multimedia experience past selecting scenes from the original book and making a comparison with how the scene is handled in the movie or video game.
Keep the focus on the visual elements in the latter two media. Encourage students to discuss, write, or prepare a presentation on how the movie or video game translates not-visual elements from the text version into visual elements. Once again, reference to the VLCs as discussed above volition be an of import chemical element in this action.
4. The Timeline
While the activities looked at so far have been nearly honing the students' comprehension skills in relation to visual texts, this activity allows students an opportunity to employ that knowledge to the creation of visual texts themselves.
Encourage the students to plot significant milestones in the class of their life on a visual timeline. They may utilise a combination of images and text if this is more in line with your learning objectives and students' abilities. However, practise ensure you remind students of how they can contain the VLCs into how they convey meaning in their images.
This can besides be a useful activeness to incorporate various aspects of It skills. Students can perform advanced Google epitome searches to locate copyright-costless images or apply websites like The Noun Project to locate Creative Commons icons to assist them make a slideshow version of their timeline on Powerpoint. There are a wealth of software applications that can assist, many freely bachelor online.
Draw a Line Under It
In this article nosotros have touched the mere tip of that proverbial iceberg. The telescopic for using visual texts in the classroom is potentially express only by our own imagination. While we have looked at several concrete examples of visual literacy-based activities in the examples above, the opportunity for building lessons effectually the myriad forms of visual texts is endless.
Whether utilising advertisements, internet memes, or archetype works of art as the focus, start with the three broad questions outlined previously: What can you meet? How does it make y'all feel? What is the image trying to tell u.s.a.? These questions provide the basis for developing your learning objectives and your activities tin hands be built around them.
The Visual Literacy Clues provide the strategies with which the students tin read any visual texts whether in the form of moving or still images. The more practice students go using these strategies the more than fluent their reading will become. And while for some students these skills may take time to develop, remind them too that just as we tin can refer to images as visual texts, we can equally refer to written text as images themselves as the letters on the page are themselves symbolic in nature.
If they can learn to read the complexities of the written language they tin be confident they will exist able to larn to read the visual earth also.
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