Visual+Literacy+-+Nancy

=﻿**Visual Literacy**=

A picture is worth a thousand words

**Definition:**
In their book //Teaching Visual Literacy: Using Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Anime, Cartoons and More to Develop Comprehension and Thinking Skills//, Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher write "We think of visual literacy as describing the comlex act of meaning making using still or moving images. As with reading comprehension, visually literate learners are able to make connections, determine importance, synthesize information, evaluate and critique. Further, these visual literacies are interwoven with textual ones, so that their interaction forms the basis for a more complete understanding". (p.1)

**Implementation ideas:**
//Teaching Visual Literacy// is a collection of articles by authors who suggest various ways of engaging students by way of colours, cartoons, manga etc. The following are three ideas from the book. All page numbers are in reference to this book.


 * 1. Political Cartoons**

In his article "That's Funny, Political Cartoons in the Classroom", Thomas DeVere Wolsey, suggests using political cartoons in order to generate discussion of current events. These type of discussions could easily take place in a library as an ice breaker activity or as a full lesson on critical analysis, for example, identifying differences, similarities, discussing relationships and generating discussion of local, provincial, federal or international events.

Wolsey sets out the steps for what he calls "cartoon thinking', that can be the basis of a lesson (p.117)

a. Observe the cartoon's features b. Use prior knowledge c. Speculate about causes and consequences d. Make personal connections e. Use evidence to suppor speculation

In addition to using the daily newspaper, Wolsey recommends the website [|www.worldpress.org/cartoons.cfm] as a great source for political cartoons.

Rocco Versaci advocates the use of comic books in his article "Literary Literacy and the Role of the Comic Book". One of his suggestions is to provide panels from comic books cut out, enlarged and mixed up so that they are not in any particular order. In small groups, students are to arrange the panels into a story. After they have done this, they can tell their story to other groups. The beauty of this is that there is no right or wrong way of organizing the panels and each group will come up with a different story depending on how they have arranged the panels. It is a great exercise in analytical thinking.
 * 2. Comic Books[[image:cartoon.jpg width="111" height="118" align="right"]]**

Another suggestion that Versaci offers for older students, and easily implemented in a library setting, is to use comic books to open a dialogue on what constitutes "literature". Are comic books literature or is that term reserved for the "classics" like Dickens and Hardy? Versaci states that he finds students are more forthcoming in their opinions about literature when they can refer to comics and other forms of writing that they are more familiar with. As Versaci states " Regardless of popular perceptions, comic books and graphic novels can be every bit as complicated, challenging and enlightening as more traditional literary forms" (p. 107)

In his article "An Irrecusable Offer, Film in the K-12 classroom" Lawrence Baines discusses the merits of using videos in the classroom. Instead of the typical read a book, give a test, show the film version of the book, he suggests the following activity:
 * 3. Video and Film**

Show video clips that contain awful grammar and have the students re write the dialogue in "proper" language. Or vice versa: show clips that contain proper grammar and have students re write the dialogue into everyday language or even web 2.0 language. Baines provides lots of very amusing examples where students have completed these exercises.

**Resources:**
Burmark, L. (2002) //Visual Literacy: Learn to see, see to learn//. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Carter, J.B. (Ed.) (2007) //Building literacy connections with graphic novels, page by page, panel by panel//. Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Frey, N and Fisher, D. eds. (2008) //Teaching Visual Literacy: Using Comic Books Graphic Novels, Anime, Cartoons and More to Develop Comprehension and Thinking Skills.// California: Corwin Press.

Golden, J. (2006) //Reading in the reel world: Teaching documentaries and other non fiction texts//. Urbana, IL. NCTE.

Lamb, C. (2004) //Drawn to extremes: The use and abuse of editorial cartoons//. New York: Columbia University Press.

MacDonald, H. (2004) //Drawing a crowd: Graphic novel events are great ways to generate excitement//. School Library Journal, 50(8), 20-22.