VISUAL LITERACY

Visual literacy is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image. Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be “read” and that meaning can be communicated through a process of reading. - Wikipedia

Visual literacy is increasingly important in the digital age. Cable news channels rely heavily on multiple layers of graphics to convey several different pieces of information at once. A Web site can feature any combination of visual media on a potentially endless scrolling canvas. YouTube, having grown beyond a simple repository for streaming videos, has become a distribution system for user-generated content. The age places new demands upon the user as not only a consumer of information, but as a producer of it. Simply put, the average person today is living in a far more mediated culture than ever before. The ability to make sense of the endless onslaught of visual media is essential.

Visual literacy can be used in many ways in the elementary classroom. One activity I saw in a video that was very effective was young students creating a map of their neighborhood using signs and chairs. This taught them simple directions and how to navigate around an area by using maps. Students learned how to associate signs and symbols with real-world directions and places. Another way visual literacy can be used in the classroom is by creating concept maps. These are often done in science classes, as there are so many processes and systems that can be represented with images, such as the water cycle and layers of soil. Concept maps can also be used in literary subjects, such as creating venn diagrams to compare characters in a story or creating a story web to organize events. These are all ways in which visual media can be used to encapsulate ideas and information. -----

 For this project, I have decided to use a comic strip as an example. It is called "Worm's Eye View", and it comes from the book The Big City, by Will Eisner. I have been surrounded by comics my whole life, so I thought this would be an interesting choice. This particular comic uses no words and shows only a limited view of the action. It is very open to analysis and interpretation.

 Here are my thoughts and breakdown of this comic, beginning with general ideas and moving to specific ideas for each panel:

GENERAL NOTES

 * It's black and white.
 * There are two people: a man and a woman.
 * No faces, no words.
 * Same setting/angle in each panel.
 * Open for interpretation.
 * The characters don't move very much.
 * It looks like we are looking at them from someone's perspective.
 * They are well-dressed.
 * They're meeting up on the sidewalk in public.
 * The clothing of each person suggests their respective genders.
 * The direction they're facing (toward each other, away from each other) suggests their comfort level.
 * The foot movement suggests what they're doing and how they're feeling. For example, their closeness and the raised foot in the  last panel indicates an intimate moment. The body language in general is conveyed through the feet.


PANEL 1: They're walking toward each other.
 - They seem to know each other.

PANEL 3: She's tapping her foot/they're shuffling their feet.
 - They are briefly uncomfortable.

PANEL 5: He's hugging her from behind.
 - He attempts to comfort her.

PANEL 2: They stop to chat.
 - Maybe they're sneaking around.

PANEL 4: They're facing away from each other.
 - They are in deep thought. They seem uncomfortable about something.

PANEL 6: They face each other and kiss.
 - They have resolved the uncomfortable issue.