Toward A More Visual Literacy

Technology and multimodal texts must be included as part of the literacies we teach in 21st century schools. Implementing multiple modes of literacy requires that teachers shift their focus toward multiple genres and modes of text. This shift to the visual requires that teachers consider how students read images in the classroom, address visual literacy, and engage students in constructing visual texts. Students already live and communicate in a virtual world connected by expansive networks, and many also read young adult literature. Given this, researchers and practitioners in the field examine ways texts written for students can be combined with digital tools to craft more critical conversations around literary response and digital media consumption and production. This book explores ways adolescents read, engage, and construct meaning within the world around them and examines how teachers can leverage the use of young adult literature with digital practices within their classrooms.

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.

Use graphic novels to teach visual and verbal literacy While our kids today are communicating outside the classroom in abbreviated text bursts with visual icons, teachers are required to teach them to critically listen, think, and read and write complex texts. Graphic novels are a uniquely poised vehicle we can use to bridge this dissonance between student communication skills and preferences with mandated educational goals. Worth a Thousand Words details how and why graphic novels are complex texts with advanced-level vocabulary, and demonstrates how to read and analyze these texts. It includes practical advice on how to integrate these books into both ELA and content-area classrooms and provides an extensive list of appropriate graphic novels for K-8 students, lesson suggestions, paired graphic/prose reading suggestions, and additional resources for taking these texts further. Provides research to back up why graphic novels are such powerful educational tools Helps you engage diverse student learners with exciting texts Shows you how to make lessons more meaningful Offers advice on implementing new literary mediums into your classroom Perfect for parents and teachers in grades K-8, Worth a Thousand Words opens up an exciting new world for teaching children visual and verbal literacy.

Literacy in the twenty-first century means more than just reading and writing. Today's students must learn how to interpret and communicate information through a variety of digital and print-based media formats, using imagery, online applications, audio, video, and traditional texts. In Engaging the Eye Generation, library media specialist and National Board Certified Teacher Johanna Riddle draws on twenty-five years of education experience to show teachers how to update the curriculum for twenty-first century learners. Technology neophytes need not despair. Johanna suggests enhancements ranging from low-tech to high-tech and explains how teachers, even those with limited technology skills, can effectively guide students to proficiency. Each chapter--filled with meaningful and motivating activities--thoughtfully explains how to elevate traditional learning and add new layers to students' reading comprehension, critical thinking, and communication skills. Through proven methods and practical examples, teachers will discover how to: - use multiple literacies to weave together standards and disciplines; - identify and apply appropriate tools to ensure relevant information literacy; - integrate information and research skills; and - design rubrics collaboratively with students so all learners can effectively assess the learning process. To help students meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving world, teachers must become comfortable in the twenty-first-century learning community. Engaging the Eye Generation isaccessible, manageable, and inspiring; it will help teachers bridge the generational gap with enthusiasm and savvy. Engaging the Eye Generation takes a fresh approach to infusing twenty-first century skills into the classroom. In addition to practical examples of lessons and units, Johanna shares her own learning process, which will allow the reader to easily adopt the best practices outlined in the book] Her attention to sound pedagogical practices, with an emphasis on both visual and information literacy, will support teachers as they move their students toward the skills they will need to succeed --Kathy Schrock, Creator of Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators and Administrator for Technology for the Nauset Public School

In a world that is becoming increasingly visual, this book equips teachers with innovative strategies to engage students with visual media. Today's students need to know how to "read" visuals closely to understand their meaning, the messages they are sending, and be able to discuss them with others using appropriate vocabulary. Teachers will help students comprehend visuals such as images, charts, graphics, and multimedia texts across the content areas. With tools and techniques, sample lessons, and suggested visuals to use in the classroom, this professional development resource by Marva Cappello and Nancy T. Walker provides strategies for both receptive and productive purposes of visual literacy and is organized by content area to support all teachers. These approaches focus on valuing evidence in visual texts and develop all literacy skills to engage students in building 21st century skills and higher-order thinking.

In order for students to reap the benefits of graphic novels, teachers need to first incorporate them into their classrooms. Graphic novels are not only a viable option to improve student retention of literature, but also the cornerstone of several potential lesson plans. The multimodal nature of graphic novels allows teachers to shape their lessons in new directions. When the validity of graphic novels is no longer a question, students and teachers alike will discover the countless benefits of multimodal learning.

Some educators may view diagrams, pictures, and charts as nice add-on tools for students who are visual thinkers. But Steve Moline sees visual literacy as fundamental to learning and to what it means to be human. In Moline' s view, we are all bilingual. Our second language, which we do not speak but which we read and write every day, is visual. From reading maps to decoding icons to using concept webs, visual literacy is critical to success in today' s world. The first edition of I See What You Mean, published in 1995, was one of the first books for teachers to outline practical strategies for improving students' visual literacy. In this new and substantially revised edition, Steve continues his pioneering role by including dozens of new examples of a wide range of visual texts--from time maps and exploded diagrams to digital tools like smartphone apps and tactile texts. In addition to the new chapters and nearly 200 illustrations, Steve has reorganized the book in a useful teaching sequence, moving from simple to complex texts. In one research strategy, called recomposing, Steve shows how to summarize paragraphs of information not as a heap of interesting facts but as a diagram. The diagram can then work as a framework for students to follow when writing an essay. This overcomes the teacher' s problem of cut and paste essays, and, by following their own diagram-summary, students have an answer to their familiar questions, Where do I start? What do I write next?

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.