![]() ![]() ![]() Integrating visual literacy also gives quiet or reluctant students more opportunities to feel comfortable in the classroom these lessons tend to be in small groups, allowing students to practice their own analysis through viewing, listening, and contributing. In addition to photographs, I’ve integrated more works of art and paintings into my classroom so students have opportunities to analyze how two texts are similar and different and to discuss and compare the different approaches the author or artist takes. Through these questions, students have discovered themes and identified main ideas, helping them understand the stories from the photographs. What more can we find? (analyzing details to see how they connect as a whole).What evidence do you see to support this? (looking for supporting evidence).What’s going on in the photograph/art piece? (making inferences).With this strategy, students focus on key questions: For example, in poetry lessons, I’ve modeled the Visual Thinking Strategy (VTS) when looking at photographs from the civil rights era. I’ve used visual literacy lessons to give students practice in analyzing tone, mood, and details in works of art. Visual literacy encourages student reflection, analysis, and evaluative thinking skills. As students gain experience in interpreting works of art, infographics, film, videos, political cartoons, photographs, maps, advertisements, slide show presentations, and so on, they learn that they can use their imagination to see and think between and beyond the lines to draw inferences and conclusions. It is critical for students to be able to evaluate content/texts presented in diverse formats and media, a skill that can require much teacher modeling and independent practice. By integrating visual literacy into classrooms, we help students learn to collaborate and to discuss a wide range of ideas while expressing their own. Students skilled in visual literacy are able to create meaning from images, which in turn improves their writing proficiency and critical thinking skills. Visual literacy builds stronger readers, readers who are able to think about texts in numerous ways through a different lens, an important skill for critical readers and thinkers in the 21st century. One of the major tasks I’ve embarked upon since my initial National Board Certification (NBCT) is collaborating with colleagues to integrate visual literacy in secondary classrooms, giving students opportunities to look beyond the printed text. This post was written by NCTE member Dianna Minor. ![]()
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