Why Is Visual Literacy Important Essay

In her comic-style article you can see there is a lot of visuals as you go through the reading. The visuals throughout the article helps the readers get her ideas more clearly than a regular article with no images. For example, on the first page of the article she talks about homophily and even though she gives the definition before the word, the picture of her in a flock of birds can help the reader understand and visually see that homophily means the groups we associate ourselves that have similar views to us. Not only do the visuals help the reader understand her argument but it also makes the reader look more

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but maybe they are worth far more than that. Pictures, although seemingly simple in nature, are extremely complex. Far too often, people overlook what a picture truly is. When a person looks at an image, they most likely see only the image, nothing else. Many people do not look deep enough into an image to fully comprehend the true meaning of it. However, when an individual begins to truly study an image in an attempt to understand the true complexity of it, they will be surprised at what they overlooked before. As stated by French Realist Painter, Gustave Courbet, “Fine art is knowledge made visible.”

Over the past few decades, enhancements in the visual fields have greatly improved, giving weight on the importance of visual material in text. Something that is more visually stimulating can usually make a text more convincing or credible. The term “seeing is believing” proves this fact. As humans, we tend to believe something if we can actually see it, which is why Jay David Bolter has referred to this phenomenon of the changed role of text and graphics as the “visual culture” in his book Writing Space. “Mere words no longer seemed adequate; they had to share their space with images.” (Bolter, 69).

The authors tell the reader that a picture must be interpreted like an essay or piece of writing. The motive and goal of the author or photographer must be figured out.

The visual capacity to formulate distinctive images through words reveals the true nature of the individual through their experiences that of which will then be used to define their society.

Distinctively visual texts aim to manipulate the we perceive images critically affecting our interpretation of events and people we meet in our lives. Distinctively visual techniques are utilised in the ‘Run Lola Run’ directed by Tom Tykwer and the picture book ‘Red Tree’ written by Sean Tan. The way the distinctively visual is shown throughout these texts is through the use of motifs, different angle shots, colours, lighting and reading paths. These techniques aim to show the important themes in both texts such as time, hope and love.

I have learnt that as adults, we already have the skills for reading but using illustrations, sounds and words is a multimodality tool. I tend not to use these different strategies and I think at first, this made my writing in Storybird difficult. I had plenty of ideas but had trouble finding images. I learnt children have far more of a free flowing attitude than adults do, and it took me a while to focus on writing around the images rather than finding an image to match my writing. Children already know much about multimodal texts from their home experiences. As teaching assistant’s it is our responsibility to build on these experiences and the children’s knowledge, recognising the relationships between different modes and use this in our teaching. The future of reading and writing is interwoven with the future of digital technology (UKLA 2005).

In the essay written by Cynthia Hahn, the principal concern is to demonstrate how images produced to illustrate texts can also enlighten meaning.

Literacy is important for young children. It’s so much a child has to know before entering kindergarten. The Essentials of Early Literacy Instruction stressed the importance of teaching literacy. Early literacy is an emerging g set of relationships between reading and writing. Today a lot of terms have been referred to for literacy development for preschoolers the term that’s mostly used is early literacy. The term was chosen because the earliest forms of literacy development are forming reading and writing concepts. Linking early literacy to play is the most effective way to for young children to learn. There are many ways educators can teach literacy activities such as rich teacher talk, storybook reading, phonologic awareness activities, alphabet activities, support for emergent writing, shared book experience, integrated, and content-focused activities, Young children understand print by oral and written language. Asking students to help read a book and turn the page help them understand the basics of a book. There are at least three critical content categories in early literacy: oral language comprehension, phonological awareness, and print knowledge. Children need to learn phonological awareness, alphabet letter knowledge, the function of written language, a sense of meaning making texts, and vocabulary. Alphabetic writing is quite difficult once children understand the language of their community they learn which words stand for which concepts in that language.

Visual Literacy has a monumental impact on how we interpret the images we view daily such as commercials and billboards. With the use of these images and the variety of ways they are produced, our visual literacy needs to interpret if what we are seeing is safe, reliable or accurate. In the journal, Visual Literacy and the Digital Native, Emmanuel and Challons-Lipton state, “Visual literacy involves thinking differently, asking interesting questions, seeing the nuances of things. Visual literacy enables one to effectively embrace art as “an instrument of knowledge, an instrument of

Is it important to be a literate person in today’s society? The ability to function well depends on whether or not a person is literate and can comprehend what is going on around them. If a person doesn’t have the basic ability to read, they will feel the stress and dependency on others because of their illiteracy. Illiteracy is a big problem because without the knowledge of reading, illiterate people can’t perform daily tasks and responsibilities in daily life. When all it would take is a mere two minutes out of your day, don’t you think illiteracy can be helped or even extinguished?

Even before a young child can read or write they learn the alphabet as the beginning of interpreting the process of reading and writing. Equally a small child can generally recognise popular signs and symbols, such as the “M” for McDonalds or the Coke symbol before they can read. Just as society associates signs and symbols with various meanings, artists convey their thinking, beliefs and feelings to the audience through their works. This can be described as visual language or how images are used to communicate messages. This communication is vital to

Art education is often underestimated by many who believe that school was created to teach only analytical concepts such as mathematics and literature. However, research has shown that art courses are important, even necessary for students in elementary, middle, and high schools. These art classes may include not only visual arts but performing arts such as dance, theatre and choir. Barbara Streisand said, “Art does not exist only to entertain, but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for the truth,” (Quotations). Streisand points out that there are multiple benefits to art whether it be painted by a brush or sung from the heart. Art has the ability to allow people to see situations from

Art is a form of human expression. Art can be seen as the artist sleight of hand on his mood. Art is in various media from posters to public wall of which we call “graffiti”. Art is elusive as the use of colors shapes and the surface used adds a new dimension. Art portrays various ideas, feelings such as triumph, love, happiness, sorrow and boredom in loss to mention a few. Art is beauty and creativity. During man’s evolution art has progressed over in its most primitive state up to its most modernized versions today.

Art Education is very important for students. A growing body of research suggests that the arts offer students a unique, valuable way to grow intellectually, socially and emotionally. These things are all associated with creativity. Schools today want to focus more on the four core classes math, science, english, and social studies which is acceptable for some students who are academically stronger in school. Opposed to the students who have a harder time focusing in school and we see them drawing when they need to be taking notes. Creativity today has become less and less more visible in classrooms in America. Due to the expansion of technology people see that it takes less time to look an idea up on the internet rather than taking the time to come up with something original.