Unit 1 Reflection - Visual Literacy

 What is Visual Literacy? 

I asked the same question myself when i began this unit! To be honest, I had never really heard of visual literacy before, or why it would even be valuable to me as a teacher or a student. My reaction initially was confusion. 

From my understanding now, visual literacy is combining visuals with reading, and the biggest example we used for this was graphics novels, which i adore! Visual literacy is for people who don't just learn through words, but who learn through seeing it in a visual format, weather that be art, or a diagram, or a graph for some examples. 

The one article that really made this clear to me was "I Just Need To Draw", which showed multiple examples of students sharing what they've learned through art. One of my favorites was figure 5, made by a 12 year old named Adam. This honestly made me feel that no matter what art skills you have, you can prove yourself and how smart you are through visuals. 

I, personally, am an artist. Graphic novels are like the best of both worlds for me. I despise the hatred towards these forms of literature. I don't understand why, to so many people, that once pictures are added that instantly makes the form of literature for kids. I need to be able to visualize what I'm thinking, and giving me a real visual makes reading, for me, a lot easier and it doesnt give me as much of a headache. Its easy to me, and it makes me enjoy the stories im being told so much more. I think articles like "How to Read Graphic Novels" actually harm the idea of reading graphic novels way more than it helps it. 

Let me explain. Learning doesn't have rules. Reading doesn't have any rules. Read the same paragraph over an dover again, give a female character a deep voice, read the ending before the beginning. Engage with the media the way you want too. This article, however, tries to give rules and boundaries to a form of literature, and I believe that's just silly. Why cant people discover how they want to read graphic novels? Maybe they want to read the whole book with just reading the words, and then they go through the whole thing again looking at the pictures. Maybe they switch from picture to words, or from words to picture. As soon as literacy has rules, people begin to not care, or find it to complicated. I think this article swings the pendulum from one end to the other, and instead of them being childish, they then become to complicated, and exclusive, instead of inclusive. 

I could also just be being sensitive, but that article really angered me, lol. 

Now that we know what it is and have an example of it, why is visual literacy important?

Well my friend, i think "The Green Knight Should Be Green" explains this very well. The man who wrote this article still remembers the story that he created a visual for, and remembers it fondly. 

The importance of visual literacy is to inspire children to create their own way to enjoy the story, and create what they believe certain characters look like or seem like through art. I know for a fact that when i was able to create visuals for a story I remember those books much more fondly than other books i read. 

Allow me to give an example. 

My 12th grade english teacher gave us a chance to pick a book from the AP list of books and do a project on it. We were given 9 options for what we could do with our book, and we had to pick at least three. I picked create a meme, create a text conversation, and create art based off the book. Like i've mentioned before, I'm an artist, so i needed to make this last one my masterpiece. 

The book I picked? Why, "A Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde of course! I was so fascinated by the story, and the history of the book that i knew i wanted to show this book in a way i've never seen before. I took notes while i read about what the characters looked like, what the setting around dorian felt like, and used those notes to create art that I'm still proud of to this day. I created a piece of art that spoke to me, and i was able to capture my feelings about the story in the picture, along with the characters feelings, and i still remembered more things about this book than the last story i read in critical reading, and i read "A Picture of Dorian Gray" 2 years ago. 

How will I use visual literacy in my classroom one day? 

I actually found a wonderful video from an art museum that talked about haring their emotions through art, and that way students can learn and understand empathy, and how powerful art is at showing emotions. 

https://wqed.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/how-art-you-feeling-video/social-emotional-learning-arts-every-classroom-activity/

I want to use this exercise, but i want to change some things. I want the students to draw to try to express emotions, but i wasn't them to draw the characters emotions in a specific scene. I want them to pick a scene and a character they like, use art to show the characters emotions, and then share with someone or share with small groups. 

Reading makes people empathetic, and i think this exercise would even elevate that to a higher level!

Wrap-Up:

Overall, i think i get it now. At first i was very confused, but as the classes went on and i read more, i began to understand that visual literacy has always been a part of my learning process, i just didn't know the name for it, and now I'm really glad i do! I always wanted to include visuals in my learning, but know i can see that its imperative that i do, for i now see the true value it holds! 

Signing off - 

Maria