Professional Development Workshop for High School Teachers Shoshana Gray & Staci Greenwald

 Understand the concepts involved in visual literacy  Understand the importance of visual literacy  Become aware of your own visual literacy  Learn how to use visual tools in your classroom to increase your students’ visual literacy

“Visual literacy is the learned ability to interpret visual messages accurately and to create such messages (Heinich, et. al. as cited in Pettersson, 2009, p. 38).  Xtranormal Video Xtranormal Video Images combine all media forms and are a synthesis of language, discourse, and viewing (2). ~Ron Burnett

From the Kaiser Family Foundation Report: Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8-to-18-year-olds [Data from 2009]

 Design  Association  Context

 Shape  Angles/Direction  Color  Placement The intersections of creativity, viewing, and critical reflection are fundamental to the very act of engaging with images in all of their forms (13). ~Ron Burnett Images: Microsoft Office 2007 clipart

(Bang, M., 2000, p. 17)

(Bang, M., 2000, p. 23)

(Bang, M., 2000, p. 40)

 What are your emotions as you view this image?  Does it remind you of something?  Does it have a connection with something else that is commonly understood? shutterstock.com

via Google images

Photograph by Simon Howden; accessed via freedigitalphotos.net.freedigitalphotos.net

Photograph by Suat Eman; accessed via freedigitalphotos.net.freedigitalphotos.net

via Google Images.

What happened when you viewed these images?

 What is the relative context of the image?  Is it placed together with other images?  Has it been manipulated?  Does it have a caption or text associated with it? There is no such thing as an image divorced from a variety of media or social contexts of use and application (6). ~Ron Burnett

(Wilde & Wilde, 1991, p. 119)

(Wilde & Wilde, 1991, p. 115)

 Net Neutrality Net Neutrality  In groups of 3, take a few minutes to discuss the images you saw in the video.  What message did you receive?  Identify elements of design, association, and context that lead you to understanding the images the way you did.  Use the handout to focus your discussion and take notes.

 What did you determine about:  The audience to whom this was directed?  The purpose for this video?  Any indirect communication?  What visual clues lead to your interpretation ?  Design  Association  Relative context

 Now that you have an increased awareness of the power of visual images, how can you apply this to your teaching? Images are no longer just representations or interpreters of human actions. They have become central to every activity that connects humans to each other and to technology. ~Ron Burnett

 Find ways to incorporate visual tools into your lesson plans. Benefits:  Targets visual learners  Provides outlet for teaching visual literacy  Engages students Microsoft Office 2007 clipart

Images can say a great deal, but they can speak differently to different people. In this activity, you will pick the caption you feel best describes what is taking place in each photograph. Oakland Museum of California. (2003)

Thousands attend “Welcome Home” rally for Arthur Ashe after his history- making win at Wimbledon. Oakland Museum of California. (2003)

Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, addresses a crowd of supporters in front of the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland.

Singer Damon Harris motivates the crowd outside the Bateson Building in Sacramento during a peaceful protest against the ban on interracial marriages. Oakland Museum of California. (2003)

Which is the correct caption? 1.Thousands attend “Welcome Home” rally for Arthur Ashe after his history- making win at Wimbledon. 2.Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, addresses a crowd of supporters in front of the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland. 3.Temptations singer, Damon Harris, serenades a crowd of peaceful protesters outside the Bateson Building in Sacramento. Oakland Museum of California. (2003)

Which is the correct caption? 1.Thousands attend “Welcome Home” rally for Arthur Ashe after his history- making win at Wimbledon. 2.Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, addresses a crowd of supporters in front of the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland. 3.Temptations singer, Damon Harris, serenades a crowd of peaceful protesters outside the Bateson Building in Sacramento. Oakland Museum of California. (2003) Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, addresses a crowd of supporters in front of the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland.

Oakland Museum of California. (2003) Correct answer: #2 Entertainer Paul Robeson sings to laborers working at the racially integrated Moore Shipyards in Oakland, California, on September 21, 1942.

Oakland Museum of California. (2003) Correct answer: #3 Three First Class seamen stationed at Port Chicago examine the shrapnel remaining from the infamous 1944 explosion that killed 320 sailors.

 Capitalize on teachable moments that come up spontaneously in classroom discussions.  Advertisements  Elections  Movies Crucially, it is the many ways in which images “materialize” metaphors that gives them such transformative power (42). ~Ron Burnett

 Seglem, R., & Witte, S. (2009, November). You gotta see it to believe it: Teaching visual literacy in the English classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53 (3), doi: / ‌ JAAL By teaching students how to read and view all texts critically, not just the traditional print texts, teachers can build upon the skills students need to read and write, increasing their literacy levels in all areas (224). ~Seglem & Witte Microsoft Office 2007 clipart

 Bang, M. (2000). Picture this: How pictures work. San Francisco: SeaStar Books.  Burnett, R. (2004). How images think. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Flynt, E. S., & Brozo, W. (2010, March). Visual literacy and the content classroom: A question of now, not when. The Reading Teacher, 63 (6), doi: / ‌ RT  Oakland Museum of California. (2003). Visual literacy activities. In Picture this. Retrieved from  Rideout, V. J., Foehr, U. G., & Roberts, D. F. (2010, January). Generation m2: Media in the lives of 8- to 18-year-olds. Retrieved from The Kaiser Family Foundation website: ‌ entmedia/ ‌ upload/ ‌ 8010.pdf  Seglem, R., & Witte, S. (2009, November). You gotta see it to believe it: Teaching visual literacy in the English classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53 (3), doi: / ‌ JAAL  Wilde, J., & Wilde, R. (1991). Visual literacy: A conceptual approach to graphic problem solving. New York: Watson-Guptil Publications. Image Sources cited on each slide