Week 3: Abstract Representational Taxonomies: Who Knew?

How many times have I laid out information in relational conceptual representation to clarify meaning?

 Constantly?...no, daily? Frequently.

 As multi-taskers, I am sure that we all make hierarchical lists. Classifying things by priority, simultaneity, noting their necessary order of importance, in an effort to accomplish the many goals of consequence we answer to or create for ourselves every day. 

As an educator, I scaffold lessons in units that relate skills and concepts to previous learning and that will connect to future learning. I map the year, with branching structures, abstract symbols and accompanying text as part of my thinking process. This process is my “thinking out loud”, only quietly. Oftentimes the ideas appear as a network, (too) many things interconnected in any number of ways, with no specific beginning or ending point. I agree with Kress and van Leeuwen that, “This fragmentation (in a network system) makes it difficult, if not impossible, to form a coherent view of the whole.” (pg.85) I crumple the paper and move on. 

I have a huge white board in the front of my classroom where I constantly abstractly represent groups of things in different configurations and use gesturing vectors to support the verbal babble that students find difficult to absorb. Students deconstruct an image by naming its Possessive Attributes and by identifying its symbolic structures.  I introduce students to abstract representation having them create a  mind map as self-portrait…a branching display representing  the major influences of their identity creation and with a   hierarchy  of importance’s visually represented with tributary smaller branches. Their design is usually based in some organic structure.

 I display temporal analytical processes using flowcharts and topological mapping to show “the stages of a sequenced, unfolding process.”(Translation: I create displays that illustrate sequential steps to complete a particular task.) These are all great tools to support visual learners, they help absent students stay in the loop, and the information displayed is helpful for the short term memory that comes with adolescence. 

Green used the visual model to represent his ideas of the 3 dimensions of Literacy. Three equally sized circles, equidistant to each other, overlapping , each possibly organically evolving. Each circle represents a distinct set of Attributes. At the point of their overlapping convergence, they create the Carrier: a separate, solid, stable “entity” represented by the centrally placed rectangle horizontal to the picture plane. There is a locked- in, bound together quality of his representation. Without the specific text included, we would still have a sense of parts- to- the- whole and have an understanding of a new “other” created from the intersection.

 So who knew all these processes had names and were based in theories of media communication and perception? Who knew these were literacies? 

 

I think I would visually structure Jenkins’ “New Digital Literacies” in respect to participatory culture as a network system. Leeuwen defines a network system as a system where “any participant can form an entry point from which its environment can be explored and the vectors or lines (‘links’) between the participants can take on many different values…”(p. 89) Jenkins, in his TEDex video, describes  "participatory culture” as community, cultivated through mutual cultural interests, that exists in a large communication system, and where all participants are considered equal, having something to offer regardless of age or area of expertise. Ideas are exchanged, built upon and changed in a nonlinear formation.

Can’t you just see all the nodes and co-joining links? It’s a beautiful thing .

I think the “fragmentation view” of network systems brought to our attention by Kress and van Leeuwen with “a difficult view of the whole” is replaced in the participatory culture network system with an eye on the goal(s). Jenkins’ style of a network system would squirrel around and land up all in one place…at least for a moment….and then move along creating offshoots, gathering more nodes instead of hierarchical branches. Not a static structure suggesting evolution by means of its visual form, but as an organic evolving reality. Perhaps with this new literacy and culture, we need a new model of representation.

Chapter 3 in Kress and van Leeuwen's "Reading Images" produced moments of concern during my reading. Statements like: “this makes it possible for the producer of an image to classify……” whatever.  Or,… “Classification and processes do not, of course, simply reflect “real”, “natural” classifications.” “They were judged to be members of the same class, and to be read as such”…And, “classification structures represent participants in terms of their place in a static order.” (83)And,

analytical representations are, “open to many readings, and that constitutes its power to shape reality..”(Leeuwen, p.90) all give me reason to pause.

 As I mentioned before, with networking systems, fragmentation “makes it difficult, if not impossible, to form a coherent view of the whole. The network system  " appears to be fluid, providing the “reader” with many choices, many paths to follow, but on the other hand tend to  obscure the fact that the range of choices is ultimately pre-designed and limited".(84) (Designed by whom and for what purpose?)
 Analytical systems and taxonomies represented in any number of configurations reek of authority and fact, but as Kress and van Leeuwen states in regards to a simple bar chart…”it can be easily (mis)taken as suggesting….”something.(102)

 I’m certain there are many more examples that make us aware of the necessity of critical analysis when engaging these literacies throughout the text.

Perfect example...only you have to imagine the visual representation.

On my way home from school. The radio is on. An event is reported.Two stories are told. Each biased by its presentation, and its classification of participants.I think to myself, " Who is the perpetrator and who is the victim?"
 The same event can be represented in any number of taxonomies. Each representation creating a different knowledge based on what is abstractly left out, or considered salient.

“Who has the power to make some forms of knowledge more legitimate then others?”

                                                                                              Peter McLaren, Life in Schools ,2007

Sources:

 Kress, Gunther & van Leeuwen, Theo (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. New York: Routledge.  

Jenkins, Henry. "TEDxNYED - Henry Jenkins - 03/06/10." Online video clip. 

Youtube.  Uploaded on April 13th, 2010.  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFCLKa0XRlw.  January 29th, 2015.