5.1 Visual Literacy and Social Justice

  • analyze images for message and purpose; connect and curate image repositories for professional use
  • read and understand images to gain insight into visual literacy skills
  • examine media curriculum to connect visual literacy to classroom teaching
  • review issues of framing, manipulation and validity in imagery
  • create a unique visual display by combining symbols, text and image using a Web 2.0 tool
  • explore how visual literacies can extend social justice teaching and connecting to global issues ​
"Without an understanding
of media grammars,
we cannot hope to achieve a contemporary awareness of
the world in which we live." 
Marshall McLuhan

Reading and viewing

​Focus Questions: How can media and digital literacy support social justice in the classroom?
Our media making internship tasks - collated, collected and created. The interactive image is available at WordArt.com here.

Activating your Understanding about Visual Literacy

Frank W. Baker, author of Media Literacy in the K-12 Classroom explores the world of visual literacy on his site Media Literacy: Visual Literacy. He examines how images are 'read' through a process of understanding, interpreting and evaluating. Elements that impact the 'reading' process include angle, framing, lighting, focus, and composition. (Baker, p. 47). Manipulation of images, believing what you see, and producer's perspectives (political, advertising) are also explored. Baker ends this chapter with a look at editorial cartoons and graphic novels. An interesting example of critical analysis with visual images can be done with "What's Going on this Picture" where an image is posted each week for discussion.

Photography and Story
To develop an understanding of the importance of visual literacy, let's enjoy a visual story titled Eye of the Beholder written and created by Doug Urquhart and posted to Vimeo. As you view this video, consider the images from an 'eyes wide open' perspective. 
  • What messages do these visual images impart? 
  • How do the images connect to the 'story'?
graphic for Web 2.0Visual Literacy Wordle
Visual Image - Analyze     
Underlying our understanding of how visual images create story is the semiotics (study of signs) of meaning, content and context of photographs. Claire Harrison's investigation into the understanding of how still images make meaning provides insight into how social semiotics are applied to icons, index and symbols. 
The structures and processes of representations are categorized into 
  • narrative (action, reaction)
  • conceptual (classification, analytical, symbolic)
Images can create strong viewer involvement by 
  • manipulating visual demand
  • intimate distance
  • angles of images
Compositional decisions in image creation include 
  • informational value (what and how items are included)
  • salience (size, focus, background)
  • framing (colour, line, text)
  • modality (photograph, cartoon, drawing, painting)
ACTIVITY: Analyzing Images 
  • Select ONE of the images found on the '35 Powerful Photos That Tell a Story'
  • Use this Explaining the Image worksheet to conduct an investigation into the story behind an image. Use the New York Times Picture of the Week collection where students can respond to the question prompt "What's going on in this picture?" to find one of your own. 
  • Compare your findings with a classmate. (Baker includes an image analysis form on page 48 of the text.)
  • Share your insight, interpretation or evaluation of visual images with the whole group.
  • Take a moment to scan through the images created by Dewitt Jones - photographer for the National Geographic magazine

Visual Literacy - Create and Reflect

Picture
CREATE IMAGES 
Time to explore your own digital creations. Use available digital technology (cell phone camera, digital camera, tablet or computer camera) to take up to 10 images in a variety of ways.  Create effective visual images by applying techniques found in the document Discovering How Images Communicate 
A sample worksheet to work with students on camera angles is included in the Ontario Online Teaching Resources for Media Literacy. Reflect on the process of creating and storing visual images for a variety of purposes and audiences. How does this process change your perspective of visual literacy for your students?
​
One example shared by Sharon Drummond done by a student in Book Creator where image capture using photographic techniques were applied - See Arthur's Photo Book.

Visual images - interpretation and construction
Try to capture some of the following photos. (list found on Headless DS106 week 5: Telling Stories in Photos)
  • Make an ordinary object look more interesting, almost supernatural (e.g. apply photobooth on iphone)
  • Take a photo that makes use of converging lines (think of framing and composition) 
  • Take a photo dominated by a single color
  • Take a photo of something at an unusual angle 
  • Take a photo of two things that do not belong together​
  • ​​Take a photo that represents the idea of “openness”
  • ​Take a photo that expresses a human emotion
  • Take a photo that emphasizes mostly dark tones or mostly light ones.
  • Make a photo that is abstract, that would make someone ask, “Is that a photograph?”
  • Take a photo of an interesting shadow.
  • Take a photo that represents a metaphor for complexity.
  • Take a photo of someone else’s hand (or paw)

Consider - digital manipulation in visual images

Media Literacy - how images tell stories
Considering these videos, it's time to consider how the media triangle influences visual images as they tell a story.
Collaborate with a classmate to create a story from visual images using a process known as '5 Card Flickr'. You do not need to log in to create.  Select the Random Story option in the menu and create a unique story using the five images you have been given. You can create your story as a slide presentation. Be sure to read some of the creative stories posted under the GALLERY OF STORIES tab on the menu bar.
Picture
5 Card Flickr - Storytelling with Random Images

Application To Your Teaching Practice

Connecting to national and global projects can be intrinsically motivating and extend the impact of visual images. Using images as a means to engage students in examining and exploring cultural diversity can extend and open conversations. The Ministry of Education's Culturally Responsive Pedagogy monograph outlines key features that can shape how lessons integrate media and visual literacies. 

Examine the purpose, tasks and opportunities for ONE of the following global project spaces. 
​How might these types of projects be used in your teaching practice?
How would this impact culturally responsive pedagogy.

More information about culturally responsive teaching and learning is available on the Edutopia blog.

Building Visual Literacy into Lesson Planning

We'll begin planning some lessons that are found in the Media Smarts bank of lessons with a focus on visual literacy and images in media. The lesson you select will then be formatted using the Lakehead lesson planning template. Making lessons work for you, your students and your context is an essential practice in lesson planning. Post your lesson plan into the shared lesson plan folder provided.

Resources/Links: