Literacy Guide for
supporting visual literacy education in middle school and high school: for
educators and student learners.
“Considering the many ways in which media literacy skills are important to an individual’s successful functioning in society-and that they are likely to become more important in the future-media literacy should be a consistent part of students’ formal education.”
-
Media Education Lab
The
purpose of this guide is to create a resource for educators who use visual
materials with their students. This guide would be particularly helpful for
visual arts and humanities based educators, and although I was writing the
guide for middle to high school aged students, I have used some of the methods
and tools working with younger children. Included in the guide are resources
that demonstrate and or/illustrate simple methods, questions, and tools for
teachers to incorporate into everyday classroom use to support thinking skills that become habitual and transfer from
lesson to lesson: oral and written language literacy, visual literacy, and collaborative knowledge building among peers.
The general
framework or goal is to incorporate activities that introduce and support
visual literacy in the classroom in an interdisciplinary manner, to help
students to see connections, to ask questions, to trust their perceptive
intuition and to learn to read artifacts as text/communicating information
greater than the surface or initial “reading” . The purpose is to teach students how to
research through inquiry and how to identify cultural, social, historic,
political and affective context of visual artifacts in support of critical
literacy.
Some of
the sites listed are places for educators to brainstorm, to be inspired by or
to see examples of how art and media educators are incorporating visual
literacy skills into their curriculum, with global concept based lesson plans.
Most of the sites are student friendly.
In my own teaching I have recently added spoken word
videos, visual journaling, dance, graffiti for social justice, poetry,
graphic novels, semiotics and typography. I have found specific favorite sites
and artists etc, that support my teaching that I use to engage my students. There is SO much out there.
I think the trick is to find what speaks to you, and then to use it as your
tool. You can share a method, a framework, resources, even a philosophy, but
the mash up is your own.
I can see the organic and ever growing nature of this
thing we are calling a literacy guide. When I cruise around the Internet, or
when students, friends and colleagues turn me onto a meme , an image, a book, a
u tube something, a tumbler link, a blog, an open source site, music, a
new technology, another tool in Photoshop, an app or a zine that they find
interesting, my resource list grows… and grows.
Here is a
working description of some of the sites/tools in the guide:
(The guide
is then listed separately. Feel free to make use of whatever you can.)
VTS (visual thinking strategies) Using VTS in the
classroom has been documented to have a positive effect on both teachers and
students. It is a simple process of inquiry and observation that supports key
behaviors sought by Common Core Standards, 21st Century learning
skills and more importantly, the” other” critical thinking.The site has a great simple example/tutorial of VTS being employed in its simplest form.
Art 21, The Getty, The Whitney and The Spiral
Workshop
each develop conversations and lessons around concepts and ideas having to do
with contemporary issues in culture:
personally and globally. They are great resources for ideas,
inspiration, and understanding. Art 21 has video clips and programs of varying
length that can be used in the classroom, or for teacher education.
Contemporary art can be hard to understand. It contains lots of ambiguities,
but it is a great resource for looking at the world. Students are often times perplexed
when introduced to an unfamiliar form, but the number of questions and emotions
that come to the surface are a true sign of engagement. The line between art
and media are blurring, and this is their world. Visual expression always has
context and a relationship to its own history.
Google Culture is a great collection
of visual artifacts. The “How to use Google Culture” tutorial says it all. You
(teacher and student…it’s that simple) can research an artifact; compare it to
another artifact, even from another time. You can curate a collection, and what’s
really great , is that you can research the cultural, historic and social
context of an artifact.( An artifact might be a photo, a letter, a tool, an
artwork etc.)
Lite Mind has great examples and tools to help
students become familiar with graphic representation as a form of communication
, to learn to map and to see their own, or the groups connectivity,…meta-cognition…kids
love to draw if it has nothing to do with true representation. Lots of artists
are playing with mapping, systems and visual representation..particularly when expressing our dear friend data.
The Media Education
Lab, The Media Literacy Project and
Spark Media are really important resources. Each site has links to deconstructed
advertisements, powerful videos and media campaigns, u tube videos and examples
of student content….all really student geared and student friendly. The site
contains specific lesson plans about teaching students how to identify and
evaluate propaganda, the 5 key questions and 8 media concepts integral to media
literacy and materials to support lessons. Suggestions/ discussions about
student creation and distribution, with a participatory interactive link… for
feedback/data gathering and crowd sourcing.
Literacy Guide for supporting visual literacy education in
middle school and high school: for educators and student learners.
Adbusters.org Journal of the mental environment,
anti-consumerist magazine.(media literacy project) (also Adbuster
advertisements @Google images)
Art 21::Peabody Award-winning television
series, using the power of digital media to introduce people of all ages to
contemporary art and artists. Artist interviews categorized by theme. http://www.pbs.org/art21/about-art21
Art Babble referred to as “You
Tube of the Arts”, the site offers high definition videos of art, classical to contemporary. http://www.artbabble.org/
The Getty Museum/ Open Studio the Getty Artists
Program, for a target audience of K–12 teachers, with
the goal of making contemporary arts education accessible to teachers and
classrooms across the nation and around the world.( Artist ,Xui Bing, using
symbols) http://www.getty.edu/education/
Google Cultural Institute brings together millions of artifacts from multiple
partners, with stories that bring them to life, in a virtual museum.(Interactive
research and viewing site/interdisciplinary ) Great site for comparing and
deeply observing visual materials, placing materials in cultural/historic
context. (Good how to tutorial to get started.) https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/
Litemind.com: “Exploring ways to use our minds more
efficiently.” (Including mind maps) Visual thinking tools that help to structure
information, helping you to better analyze, comprehend, synthesize, recall and
generate new ideas.
The Media Education Lab at the University of Rhode Island
advances media education through research and community service. They emphasize
interdisciplinary scholarship and practice that stands at the intersection of
communication, media and education. http://mediaeducationlab.com/
·
Analyzing Contemporary Propaganda ( A project by
the Media Lab Education) Promotes dialog and discussion about what
constitutes contemporary propaganda and the positive, benign or negative
impacts on the individual.(Interactive, crowd sourcing) http://www.mindovermedia.tv
Media Literacy Project approaching media literacy education
from a media justice framework. Five key questions for teaching media literacy.
Open Culture: “The best free cultural and
educational media on the Web”. Open Culture brings together high-quality
cultural & educational media for the worldwide lifelong learning community. Video, e-books, sound recordings, poetry,
teaching resources, lectures, MOOCs and
lots more. https://openculture.com/
Spiral Workshop, at the University of Illinois at
Chicago.. This site is designed for art teachers to share innovative approaches
to middle and high school art curriculum, developed by research from the UIC
Art Education Program, focusing on “the collaborative task of rethinking the
style and content of art education in the 21st century.” (Innovative(sometimes
collaboratively based) lesson plans) The Big Questions Project https://www.uic.edu/classes/ad/ad382/sites/Projects/P003/P003_first.html
Spark Media Project (Spark) aims to create opportunities for all young people to develop the
communication, critical thinking and problem solving skills and habits of mind
they will need to become active participants in the 21st Century. (Radio, video
and animation) Student made videos are available for viewing. sparkmediaproject.org/
How to ….do anything, make, fix, tutorials
You tube.com
Whitney Museum.org
Activities that focus on works of art in the Whitney’s
collection and special exhibitions. Through discussion, research, art making,
and writing activities, the site encourages close looking, fostering
conversation between students and connects artwork to classroom learning…with
teen specific focus. http://whitney.org/Education/ForTeachers/Activities
Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a method initiated by
teacher-facilitated discussions of art images. It is perhaps the simplest way
in which teachers can provide students
with key behaviors and thinking skills that become habitual and transferrable
to oral and written language literacy, visual literacy, and collaborative
interactions among peers www.vtshome.org/
www.vtshome.org/what-is-vts ( 10 minute intro to VTS in action)
