Quotes to Support Multiple Forms of Literacy
Art is the visual form of experience that vivifies life (Dewey 1934).
Works of art are projections or images of feeling. Artistic representations present feeling, and make it visible, audible or perceivable through symbol. (Langer, 1957).
Visual literacy expands students’ ability to “read” images contained in visual communication, and to “create” visual images for communication (Beaty & Pratt, 2008).
While transacting with text, learners experiment in multiple ways by producing and interpreting stories. Visual communication is one form of “new literacy” of the 21st century, for it is nearly impossible to think and not ‘envision’ (Rosenblatt, 1994).
The arts are a symbolic partner with literacy education (Caughlan, 2008).
Transmediation and Visual Literacy
Transmediation is a process of bringing meaning from one sign system to another. Transmediation is the basis of all literacy, and it's the essence of media literacy. Graphic art, sculpture, dance, music, photography, film, are all bearers of meaning, and each medium constrains the types of messages it can express. Every sign system has it's own grammar. As teachers, we might better grasp the understanding of a concept by providing opportunities for our students to generate multidimensional representations of expression and understanding. A value of such works is that the meaning might not rest in one work, but rather demonstrate a more complex understanding across multiple works.
A beautiful example of visual literacy which demonstrates the power of language and how words can shape the way we think and feel is represented in this stunning created by filmmakers Will Hoffman and Daniel Mercadante with an original score by Keith Kenniff.
Imagine students transmediating a project like that for a grammar lesson on homonyms and homophones!
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