Education+and+Youth

Tools and Youth Education
Become more aware of visual literacy **tools** and check out some ways visual literacy relates to children and **public education**.

**Tools for Analyzing Visual Media**

Analyzing is probably the key word in this section, becasue we will be looking very closely at some of the theories and tools for deep consideration of visual media to develop increased literacy.

As with any critical field of study, aspects of media have been categorized for use in describing their prominent features. Composition, symbolism, and perspective are only a few of the aspects of visual media that can be analyzed. Foundational to analyzing images is the understanding that images have associated meanings that must be uncovered.

The theory of semiotics  is often used to systematically analyze images. Semiotics is a scary-sounding word, but it basically describes the way meanings are developed for objects or forms and allows for a code that simplifies communication between people. The person who first worked with this theory was Ferdinand de Sassure, and he mainly applied it to written and spoken language. For example, the signifier is the word "box", and the signified is the rectangular folded hollow object used in moving possessions. The word is tied to a mental picture  or understanding of the object. Of course, for more complex words, the mental understanding may be more difficult to pinpoint. The sign is the combination of the word and the object. It is the connection between the rectangular folded object and "box". It functions as a useful shorthand  in communication if the object is not present (Imagine if you could only point to or hold objects you have and not use any words for them!) The relationship is not fixed, however, because any signifier can be chosen to represent any object (as in the cases of each language). Also, the understood meaning can change over time as the understood, shared meaning is altered (Howells 98).

Another scholar took this idea further in application to visual culture. Roland Barthes (1915-1980) theorized that images (photos, videos, icons), not only words, can convey messages from the combination of an image and a meaning into a sign. The red, white and blue patterned cloth can stand for America or patriotism. When this sign is combined with other signs, a complex "myth", or deeper meaning due to more than one sign, is purposefully created but the meaning is less concrete. For example, showing the presidential seal and the flag in one frame usually conveys power or authority. Other images could have been used to convey this concept, and the ones are chosen purposefully with the concept in mind to portray a specific meaning (Howells 101).

Visual literacy is certainly different when reading a renaissance painting than when reading street signs. Infographics  are the shorthand symbols used to communicate messages (Rockenbauch 28). According to Krum's collection of infographics, they are not only the black and white stick figures with red slashes through them, as in this image on a rock warning pedestrians of a cliff. The broader definition of an infograph is any type of chart that portrays info visually. This is example below is an infograph depicting the newest federal budget for 2001. As explained elsewhere on this poster (this is only one section of it), the green/red is the short term change in income (over one year), the gray is the long term change (over 10 years). Symbolism is very apparent in this poster, as well as relative size. Look at the familiar images - the penny, the eagles on various federal seals, and the classic colors for the percents. Why are increases green and decreases red? Where else do these colors have these meanings?


 * __Things to Consider __when looking at an image: **

Composition- Where are the images in the picture? Where is your eye drawn to first? Why?

Symbolism - does this image only mean what is shown on the surface?

Perspective - Are you above the subject? Below? Are there any size indicators in the background? If there is a lack of perspective, does this have meaning?

Social Norms - what culture created this image? What norms are depicted?

Visual Encoding - What meaning did the producers place in the image? When I reuse images, do the encoded meanings suit my purposes?

Political Images - Are you focuses on the candidate's words or the construction of his campaign in the media (Adatto 71)? Do you analyze positive messages as much as negative messages for their construction?

Editing - How much of a "realistic" image is actually real and not made to look real?

These are only a summary of some of the literary tools that can be used to look critically at images.

 Visual Literacy is a buzzword in education today. Relating to, creating, and expressing images is it is a relevant skill necessary for <span style="background-color: #17ff00; font-family: Georgia,serif;">competent <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">citizenship in the twenty-first century. Teacher can take advantage of the children's familiarity with images to teach new concepts, and can also draw lessons from the visual media. Besides including visual literacy in the curriculum, children's familiarity with images at a young age has implications on how they learn.

Teachers and professionals clearly understand the need for students to learn visual literacy in order to fully function in the culture. Background knowledge on <span style="background-color: #17ff00; font-family: Georgia,serif;">symbols <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">, proficiency in formulating words about what the eyes see, and the ability to <span style="background-color: #17ff00; font-family: Georgia,serif;">create <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> images that convey desired meanings are important to our society. Some have called our digital age "the age of participation" because information is less structured and the organizing must be done individually. The mode of literacy reflects the common technologies of the society (Rockenbach 27). When the technology was oral criers, the skill was auditory retention. When the technology became the printing press, verbal literacy was the skill necessary. Since the common technologies today are gradually more visual, the literacy skills taught also need to be visual. The students in the public schools today can be called "digital natives", which ties their experiences to digital technology, which includes more images and visually appealing organization of information than newspapers or books. <span style="background-color: #17ff00; font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Resources <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">for teachers, including lesson plans using contemporary images, on visual literacy are many. It is these contemporary images that will engage the students first, before using photographs to comment on cultural change or history. Educators can expose familiar iconic images to students, which may be historical, as a link between the past and the present. In interesting example is the Rosie the Riviter poster used to sell cleaning products in advertisements.

Lesson plans that specifically uses contemporary images vary in their educational purpose or subject area. Some use images to break down <span style="background-color: #17ff00; font-family: Georgia,serif;">stereotypes <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> about exceptional children (Zambo). This article describes using an image to start a critical dialogue about biases and the effects images have on student beliefs and behavior and includes rubrics for measuring the success of the activity with early adolescents. //How Does Photography Define Celebrity// asks high school students to look at [|celebrity images] and answer questions about what makes a person a celebrity and the <span style="background-color: #17ff00; font-family: Georgia,serif;">purpose <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> of the photographs. Another interesting lesson takes the introductory credits to //Desperate Housewives// and asks students to analyze it with literary techniques. Some of the unfamiliar image symbolism is explained in the comments in this lesson plan as it relates to literary works. For example, the woman and man holding a pitch fork is from a painting called //American Gothic// by Grant Wood.

What kind of meaning do you draw from this introduction? What seems to be the theme for the show from this introduction? Consider that every scene is from a painting, and that the images progress through history from past to present. What portrayal of history does it show by using these images? This is a case where classic artistic interpretation is cast in a new light of modernity, by making the still paintings into moving images.

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<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> This lesson plan gives a <span style="background-color: #17ff00; font-family: Georgia,serif;">context <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> for a entertaining visual clip that might be less appreciated or understood without this background information. Projects like this one, which unite the visual entertainment with academic learning, help develop practical skills the child will need life long. With the rise of television viewing in young children, and viewing (any DVDs or online activities besides television) becoming the primary means of communication, it is increasingly important to glean meaning about the world from this medium, not just passive entertainment.

One major argument in the past half century has been whether television has any effect on children. Some have claimed that watching television is a <span style="background-color: #17ff00; font-family: Georgia,serif;">passive <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> cognitive activity due to the undemanding delivery system (all you have to do is turn it on) with rapid motion for sensory stimulation and no time for analysis (Neuman 66). Considered from a visual literacy standpoint, it would seem that just as with reading, more <span style="background-color: #17ff00; font-family: Georgia,serif;">exposure <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">to a medium and practice viewing would indicate growing proficiency in the medium. Children (and adults) are thinking when they watch television. If asked, they can talk about the roles shown and decide if these are logical or not (Buckingham 49). Viewing television causes <span style="background-color: #17ff00; font-family: Georgia,serif;">schemas <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> to develop about television. The is a constructed understanding of the world based on what is seen on the screen. This schemas, according to learning theorists, are the frameworks made for every activity we take part in, and we learn from all of them.

Critical thinking about visual images placed in an educational setting also helps close a gap in information <span style="background-color: #17ff00; font-family: Georgia,serif;">processing <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> depth. Critics of television as a medium claim that television requires less critical thinking, on the whole, but others argue that this is becasue of its social context. "Television in the home is likely to be processed more casually than reading in the schools" concludes Neuman (84) not by nature of the medium but because schools are strict environments with learning goals and your living room sofa is not. The information received through the television is used in social understandings, even if it is not formally taught or evaluated. Taking time and slowly, critically, examining media is also a good idea to counteract the "instant gratification education" bemoaned by older professionals, without ignoring the position media images play in student's lives.

Encouraging students and children to consider images more closely is an essential function of modern education. Education has to help students act competently in society. It is not in place of literature, but to compliment it and teach as effectively. Using contemporary media builds skills that "transfer to students' work with the written word" and helps "nurture students' natural curiosity and motivation" (Hobbs 168). Visual literacy helps students learn the tools they need to be emphasize, recognize patterns and makers of meaning (Rockenbauch 30). Creatively including popular media items into instruction is a new way to make media <span style="background-color: #17ff00; font-family: Georgia,serif;">relevant <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and meaningful to students. Looking critically at visual product promotion is another important application for visual literacy.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Return to Visual Literacy Main Page......................Tools and Youth Education.....................Learn about Product Promotion.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">References
<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Hobbs, Rene. //"//Expanding the Concept of Literacy//". Media Literacy in the Information Age//. Robert Kubey, Ed. Vol 6. New Brunskwick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997.

//How Does Photography Define Celebrity?// Click! Photography Changes Everything. Smithsonian Photography Initiative. http://photography.si.edu/pdf/click_LessonPlan2.pdf.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Howells, Richard. //Visual Culture.// Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2003. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 80%;">

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Krum, Randy. //Cool Infographics//. 29 April 2010. @http://www.coolinfographics.com 29 April 2010.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Neuman, Susan B. //Literacy in the Television Age: The Myth of the TV Effect.// Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp., 1995.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Rockenbach, Barbara and Carole Ann Fabian. “Visual Literacy in the Age of Participation.” //Journal of American History// 27.2 (2008) //:// 26 -31. Web. <span style="color: red; font-family: Georgia,serif;"> [] March 16, 2010. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 80%;">

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Wright, Junius. "Desperate Housewives in the Classroom: Using Literary Tools to Analyze the Opening Credits of a Television Show." //The Visual Literacy Project.// 2007. @http://www.readingart.net/LESSONS/desperatehousewivesintheclassroom 4 May 2010.

Zambo, Debby M. "Using Visual Literacy to Help Children Understand How Images Influence their Lives." //Teaching Exceptional Children// 41.6 (Jul/Aug 2009) : 60-67, 8p. //Communication and Mass Media Complete.// 22 April 2010.