Peter D. Grondin 14 November, 2013 Noah Tysick ENG.

111 Too Legit to Quit: Visual Literacy What is visual literacy and why does it play such an important role in our daily lives. Well, were not in Kansas anymore Todo. Its the 21st century and technology rules the world. We live in a media fueled society where to maintain, is to stay connected. We have progressed from the age of information and on to the age of participation, whereas, we the people are the information, meaning, receivers of information are no longer passive consumers, but active contributors. (Rockenback 26) But what does that mean for the academics of today? Let me remind you, this isnt your fathers scholastics, where reading and writing are the basic fundamentals of literacy. No, we live in a world where libraries are virtual and textbooks have Wi-Fi, with infinite knowledge and endless pages. To be literate in this day and age, is to be visually literate, This term is often defined as the ability to read and interpret a presented image, rather it be a digital billboard or a commercial on TV, learning how to read the multiple layers of image based communication, media languages, and internet technologies is becoming a necessary adjunct to traditional print literacy. (Somali 271) It is often underestimated the role mass media and the internet technologies play in shaping

individual or national identity. (Somali 272) Statistics show that by 12th grade, the average teen has watched 22,000 hours of television, played 10,000 hours of video games, received over 200,000 emails, and spent nearly 10,000 hours on their cell phone. Compared to the 5,000 hours they spent reading, it would seem as though visual literacy is not a subject to be ignored. It is a subject to be harnessed and integrated into the curriculum by todays educators. In Ways with Visual Languages: Making the Case for Critical Media Literacy by Ladislaus Somali, he hones in on the importance of media literacy in todays school systems. He states for students, media based production aids now include web-based writing and publishing tools; multimedia and hypertext tools for creating and annotating reports; graphics and animation programs for rendering visual representations and even movies; camcorders, video editors, and animations that enable students to create their own dramatic and documentary videos.(Somali 272) He goes on to explain that as critical as visual literacy is, it is often not subject to education reforms such as No Child Left Behind. As society moves forward, education must progress as well, but some educators seem to be stuck in the curricula of thirty to forty years ago. If integrated into education reform, teachers would be less apt to overlook such an important way of learning. He explains that for many schools, what is missing is a research based method for teaching students to read, question and understand the visual languages of media, meaning, there is yet to be a standardization of teaching the visual arts. This is a perfect example of stick to what you know, teachers find the subject complex and lack in understanding, therefore throw it to the wayside.

Stephanie Martin, author of Close the Book, Its Time to Read offers up a perfect example of this lack of integration. As a teacher, it didnt take her long before she realized how imperative it was that her lessons address the media and the messages portrayed in the media. Her lesson plans often revolved around students making connections between in class readings and the elements of pop culture in their daily lives, often via TV shows, movies, advertisements, and web based applications. As she attempted to incorporate media directly into the curriculum, school officials routinely restricted her access to any and all needed resources. The district considered critical viewing of media to have no legitimate place in education. Martin believes that such doubts stem from a misunderstanding of what it means to teach reading, also resulting from confusion about whether the proper goal of education is to teach inert information or to teach critical thinking of that information. (Martin 289) As Thomas P. Mackey and Trudy E. Jacobson would have it, as viewed in their article Information Literacy: A Collaborative Endeavor. Collaboration among faculty and librarians is essential for Information literacy initiatives to be successful. (Mackey 140) These partnerships must be cultivated through ongoing planning, dialogue, and classroom practice.(Jacobson 140) They acknowledge that media applications are often left up to an institutions library services, including program development and instruction, and in order for these programs to be successful, the collaboration must extend to all departments, including administration, teaching services, and tech. centers. In order to understand visual literacy in all of its importance, one must first understand the five core concepts behind this key learning technique. Introduced in Media Literacy, an article by Liz Thoman, the five concepts are;1) All media messages

are constructed; 2) Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules; 3) Different people experience the same media message differently; 4) Media have embedded values and pints of view; 5) Media are organized to gain profit and or power. .The purpose of these key core concepts are to help the visual reader derive meaning from the presented image, because seeing isnt always believing. In order to get the best perspective, it is best to keep in mind, who is creating the image and why, what does it represent, and how might different people derive different meanings.

Works Cited

Hinchey, P. H. (2003). A Crash Course in Media Literacy. 295-297. Mackey, T. P., & Trudi E. Jacobson. (2005). Information LIteracy: A Colaborative Endeavor. College Teaching, Vol 53, No. 4, 140-144. Martin, S. (2003). Close the Book, Its TIme to Read. The Clearing House, Vol 76, No. 6, 289-291. Rockenback, B., & Fabian, C. A. (2006). Visual LIteracy in the Age of Participation. Art Documentation, Vol 27, No. 2, 26-30. Semail, L. (n.d.). Ways with Visual Languages: Making the Case for Critical Media LIteracy. The Clearing House, 271-276. Thoman, E. (2003). Media LIteracy. The Clearing House, Vol 76, No. 6, 278-283.