Exploring Visual Literacy Inside Outside And Through The Frame

This interdisciplinary exploration of visual literacy is a result of the discussions that arose at the 2011 Conference on Visual Literacy in Oxford. Consistent with the themes which surfaced at the conference, this collection of articles examines our ways of framing what we see.

Today’s teachers need up-to-the-minute information to help their students make sense of the multimodal texts they encounter daily in and out of school. Reading the Visual is an essential introduction that focuses on what teachers should know about multimodal literacy and how to teach it. This engaging book provides theoretical, curricular, and pedagogical frameworks for teaching a wide-range of visual and multimodal texts, including historical fiction, picture books, advertisements, websites, comics, graphic novels, news reports, and film. Each unit of study presented contains suggestions for selecting cornerstone texts and visual images and launching the unit, as well as lesson plans, text sets, and analysis guides. These units are designed to be readily adapted to fit the needs of a variety of settings and grade levels. Book Features: An accessible introduction to visual literacy and multimodality.Classroom strategies and demonstrations for analyzing and interpreting multimodal texts.Hands-on examples of units of study for ten types of multimodal texts.Resources for developing and adapting units, including suggested texts, analysis guides, and learning objectives. “Frank Serafini gets it. He knows that language and literacy were our original multimodal forms. He knows that today they are as crucial as they have ever been, but that they comport with a great many new relatives which are daily widening and transforming what we mean and how we mean it.” —From the Foreword by James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Arizona State University “Reading the Visual positions the analysis of visual images and multimodal ensembles as essential to language arts and literacy learning. Serafini’s book contributes important scholarship in understanding the theories behind this analysis and the significance of the visual in the many texts we encounter in and out of school settings.” —Peggy Albers, Georgia State University “Reading the Visual is based on wide scholarship; it brings that to a point of profound insight and of intense practicality. Those taking first steps into the area will find a path smoothed by a seductively simple style; those there already are offered constant insight and challenge. It is a book that will be valued by both kinds of reader.” —Gunther Kress, Professor of Semiotics and Education, Institute of Education, University of London Frank Serafini is an author, illustrator, photographer, educator, musician, and an associate professor of Literacy Education and Children’s Literature at Arizona State University. Visit the author’s website at www.frankserafini.com

What does it mean to be visually literate? Does it mean different things in the arts and the sciences? In the West, in Asia, or in developing nations? If we all need to become "visually literate," what does that mean in practical terms? The essays gathered here examine a host of issues surrounding "the visual," exploring national and regional ideas of visuality and charting out new territories of visual literacy that lie far beyond art history, such as law and chemistry. With an afterword by Christopher Crouch, this groundbreaking collection brings together the work of major art and visual studies scholars and critics to explore what impact the new concept of "visual literacy" will have on the traditional field of art history. Contributors: Matthias Bruhn, Vera Dünkel, Jonathan Crary, Christopher Crouch, Peter Dallow, James Elkins, Henrik Enquist, W.J.T. Mitchell, Richard K. Sherwin, Susan Shifrin, Jon Simons, Barbara Maria Stafford, William Washabaugh

Visual Literacy examines how teachers can use visuals to improve learning for all students. It provides teachers with a foundation in visual literacy, defined as the ability to read, think, and communicate with visually presented information. Results of studies of students’ using visual information indicate that most students are clearly lacking in the tools needed to use visuals effectively. The book orients teachers to visual literacy and the world of visuals. It discusses various classroom tested strategies and activities for all students, including second language learners, and students with special needs. Stressing visual literacy skills helps students understand a visual more deeply so they can master the content they are learning. Teachers will learn to employ a literacy triad of reading, thinking, and communicating to aid students in their study of visuals. First, they inquire into the visual, reading it for content and context, including assessing the authenticity of the document. Second, they think about the document by analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating it to come up with answers to their inquiry. Graphic organizers help students decipher the content and understand the meaning of the visual document, connecting it to prior and future instruction. Third, they communicate their findings using visuals.

Visual literacy is an interconnected set of practices, habits, and values for participating in visual culture that can be developed through critical, ethical, reflective, and creative engagement with visual media. Approaches to teaching visual literacy in higher education must include a focus on context and not just content, process and not just product, impact and not just intent. Unframing is an approach to visual literacy pedagogy that acknowledges that visuals are a pervasive part of everyday life, as well as embedded into every scholarly discipline. In four parts, Unframing the Visual: Visual Literacy Pedagogy in Academic Libraries and Information Spaces explores: Participating in a Changing Visual Information Landscape Perceiving Visuals as Communicating Information Practicing Visual Discernment and Criticality Pursuing Social Justice through Visual Practice Twenty-four full color chapters present a range of theoretical and practical approaches to visual literacy pedagogy that illustrate, connect with, extend, and criticize concepts from the Framework for Visual Literacy in Higher Education: Companion Document to the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Topics include using TikTok to begin a conversation on academic honesty and marginalization; supporting disciplines to move to multimodal public communication assignments; critical data visualization; and exclusionary practices in visual media. In exploring the discussions and engaging with the activities in Unframing the Visual, you will find new inspiration for how to unframe, adapt, and apply visual literacy pedagogy and praxis in your work.

"Graphic novels are not only a viable option to improve student retention of literature, but also the cornerstone of several potential lesson plans"--

This volume contains chapters derived from papers presented at the 3rd Global Conference on Visual Literacies: Exploring Critical Issues held in Oxford, UK, July 14th through the 16th, 2009. The conference brought together a broad range of cultural, artistic and academic participants.