COMPREHENSIVE INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN PLAN

Comprehensive Instructional Design Plan

Stephanie Stone
University of West Georgia

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Introduction

The comprehensive instructional design plan assessment focused on the skill of looking at a unit

of study through a visual literacy lens, and modifying existing instructional material, or creating

new activities and assessments that help students develop a deeper understanding of skills or

content. This design plan takes into consideration research-backed data and information

regarding using images, and films to enhance understanding and create a more rigorous learning

environment in a senior-level language arts class. In Brumbergers 2011 Journal of Visual

Literacy, it is asserted that written and oral language must be complement by proficiency with

visual language (Brumberger); nowhere does this statement ring more true than in a language

arts class. An effective 21st century language teacher, must know how to effectively instruct and

assess student understanding of all types of literacy. Language isnt just the written or spoken

word. Language is any form of communication and with students encountering more than 5,000

images on average per day, visual literacy is, more than ever, becoming a keystone skill. Dave

Gray, founder of visual thinking company XPLANE, put it most succinctly when he said, We

are a visually illiterate society. Three Rs are no longer enough. Our world is changing fast

faster than we can keep up with our historical modes of thinking and communicating. Visual

literacythe ability to both read and write visual information; the ability to learn visually; to

think and solve problems in the visual domainwill, as the information revolution evolves,

become a requirement for success in business and in life (DAVE GRAY BLOG

COMMUNICATION NATION).

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Description of Client and Instructional Problem

The12th grade language arts course lead at Peachtree Ridge High School, Esther Kim

(esther_kim@gwinnett.k12.ga.us) , wants to redesign her unit on the dystopian novel 1984. The

book, published by George Orwell in 1948, centers around a fictitious society always involved in

a war-like conflict and in which citizens are constantly monitored and purposely fed information

by the government. Despite the fact that the novel was published more than sixty-five years ago,

the thematic ideas and symbolism seen throughout in many ways depicts the modern world of

2016.

Mrs. Kim has tried to utilize visual literacy strategies in the past when presenting students

with the text, and the thematic concepts; however, she feels that a more unified, and purposeful

visual approach would enhance students understanding of the book, help them make

connections from the text to the real world, and, ultimately, help refine the AKS and Common

Core Standards she wants students to master by the end of the unit. In her teaching of the novel

in the past, Ms. Kim has felt that her students have understood the novel, but their understanding

of the connections between the fictitious world and their own society were, at best, surface level.

Additionally, she has used more than half of each ninety minute teaching block to read each

chapter of the novel as a whole class, and feels that this approach is minimizing the critical

thinking and student-centered activities that would allow students to refine the skills emphasized

through the teaching of 1984. She wants to spend less time reading as whole group, and hopes to

encourage students to read at least half of the novel on their own. In the event that they dont

read or dont understand what theyve read, she hopes to create activities that will effectively

summarize and/or enrich their understanding of the assigned reading. Her goal is to use visual

literacy strategies to ensure understanding of the plot, characters, and major symbols utilized

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throughout the novel so that more class time can be devoted to a higher level of questioning

authors purpose with more effective integration of textual evidence.

Instructional Design Model Used to Solve the Problem

The dual-coding theory is the primary instructional design model used to address the

instructional problems with Kims 1984 unit. This theory gives equal weight in terms of

cognitive understanding to verbal and non-verbal cues. Before this instructional re-design, Ms.

Kim was primarily relying on verbal processing to help support her students understanding of

Orwells novel. Each chapter was read aloud in class and at key moments, reading was stopped

to facilitate a whole class discussion. This type of instruction appeals to visual, but the visual

comes only in the form of words on a page. Similarly, it does appeal to learners who may be

auditory, but only if the reading is articulated well with a high level of fluency. The dual-coding

theory requires the integration of another level of processing the symbolic. Combining the

auditory reading of the text, with the words in the text, as well as pictures that correspond to the

characters and conflicts in the text, result in a higher level of understanding. When this more

advanced understanding occurs, students are able to make more firm and profound connections

between the text and the real-world.

Description of Re-designed Lessons

I. Students are provided with the graphic novel version of chapter one of the novel.

They are asked to analyze the document using the document analysis method OPC:
O. Provide an overview. What do you see as a whole? What do you see upon

first glance?

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P. Focus on the different parts of the visual. What do the individual parts /

symbols reveal or represents? What can you infer from these specific

parts?
C. Draw a conclusion. What can you learn or infer from this visual as a

whole? What arguments can you make or support based on your analysis of

this image? How does it relate to what you know about the text so far?

II. Students read chapter one of the novel in small groups and stop at points to refer back to the

comic they analyzed at the beginning. Their reading of the chapter will continue independently

outside of class.

** Students repeat this method for all of the chapters of the novel that follow. **

Assessment of Lesson

After students have analyzed the chapter graphic, and read in small groups and discussed the

chapter, they will take an individual assessment to determine their level of understanding with

the text. The assessment will be the form of pictures that pertain to their reading and analysis.

They will be asked to explain the relevance of each of the pictures and connect them to their

reading of the text. These will be formatively assessed to determine whether further dissection

of a chapter is needed as a whole class, or in small groups, or for individual students. The novel

is divided into three sections, and at the end of each section, students will be asked to create their

own visual interpretation of events with photographs they have taken. These will be submitted

and evaluated and analyzed by two of their peers in the classroom.

Explanation of Solution

It is typical in a language arts classroom, for a teacher to want to keep students in suspense with

regards to the novels, plays, or short stories studied in the classroom. So often, teachers, like Ms.

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Kim, feel that giving students the plot kills the suspense for the student and may create a lack of

engagement with the text. The dual-coding theory suggests otherwise. The richer the experience

a student has with a text, the more invested they will become, and the more willing they will be

to engage with that text on a higher level. Giving away the plot before reading is OK, if it helps

to enhance students understanding. Understanding the plot of any piece of text is not a skill

directly tied to any language arts course. Citing evidence, making valid arguments, and

supporting them with reasoning these are skills embedded into the language arts curriculum.

Certainly, in order for students to cite evidence from a text, or make an argument about a

character, they certainly have to know the plot. That doesnt mean that teachers need to spend

80% of their class time going over the events of the story, or the conflicts the characters face. In

order to help students reach a level of mastery with more rigorous skills, we, as language arts

teachers, have to work towards minimizing plot in order to maximize critical thinking. That is

the whole premise behind this instructional redesign. Ms. Kim found that she was spending too

much class time reading the plot of the novel and making sure students understood the

characters. Her goal was to find a way to have them read more independently, and she needed to

be able to supplement their understanding of the novel. Providing them with a visual summary

in the form of the comic before they read seemed like a great way to hone in on the important

aspects of the plot, and ensure that every student, regardless of their reading ability, had a clear

understanding of the basic premise of the novel.

Integration of CLR Visual and Literacy Competency Standards

Most of the CLR Visual and Literacy Competency Standards are integrated into this instructional

redesign. The most prominent are explained below:

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Standard 2: The visually literate student finds and accesses needed images and visual media effectively
and efficiently. Students will be provided with specific visual materials relevant to their readings of

individual chapters of the novel. It is important to present them with these visuals in small chunks so as

not to create confusion or to unnecessarily overwhelm students.

Standard 3: The visually literate student interprets and analyzes the meanings of images and visual

media and Standard 4: The visually literate student interprets and analyzes the meanings of images and

visual media. These standards are emphasized through the OPC analysis of each graphic panel.

Students wont simply be provided with a summary of the text prior to reading. They will be given the

graphic, and their understanding of it will be scaffolded through questioning the visual. Additionally, their

analysis will be enhanced as they read the specified chapter of the novel because they will already have

an understanding of the plot and this will enable them to focus on language, style, and authorial intent.

Standard 6: The visually literate student designs and creates meaningful images and visual media. The

integration of this standard comes at the end of each part of the novel when students create their own

visual representation of the section. Using images they have created, they will re-tell the section of the

novel and present their images to their peers for analysis and evaluation.

Reflection

Completing this instructional design plan was very useful for me as a classroom teacher. So

often I find myself keeping pertinent details from my students because I want for them to

uncover them on their own. There is something to be said for creating a level of suspense with

readers in order to keep them hooked, but many of the complex texts we chose to integrate into

instruction have elements of suspense that only highly experienced readers can acquire. It took

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quite a bit of reflection for me to be ok with sharing the outcome of a novel with students before

they actually read it themselves. Does it really matter if students know that Boo Radley is going

to save Jem and Scout before they read about it? Maybe knowing the big event is coming,

enhances their understanding of it, and enables them to pick up on the nuances of language, and

style that the author uses to convey this big moment.

Creating this design for Ms. Kims class actually put into perspective something that Ive

long since been frustrated with as a language arts teacher. I love literature, and I love reading,

but the days of a language arts teacher teaching classic novels, plays, and poems are long gone.

21st century students dont need the same type or level of instruction when it comes to presenting

them with a novel like To Kill a Mockingbird or 1984. They definitely need to understand the

worlds in which characters in these novels lived and they need to understand the characters

motivations and frustrations; however, the real goal should be applying them to real-world

problems and solutions. If we get too caught up in plot, we lose sight of the fact that novels, and

poems, and plays are vehicles that help us learn how to communicate more effectively.

References

Brumberger, E. (2011). Visual Literacy and the Digital Native: AnExamination of the

Millenial Learner. Journal of Visual Literacy, 30(1), 1946.