Visual Literacy: Why Is It Important, and How Can I Work With It in the Classroom Setting?

Do students really need visual literacy? Do educators have a responsibility to help their students become visually literate? According to an article by Robyn Seglem entitled “You Gotta See It to Believe It: Teaching Visual Literacy in the English Classroom,” the answer is undoubtedly yes. Seglem argues that “[i]f educators want students to perform well in both the world and on new assessments, students need a critical understanding of print and nonprint text in relationship to themselves as readers and viewers” (Alvermann and Hagood qtd. in Seglem 217). If students are going to be successful later on in life, they need the proper tools, and visual literacy is one of those important tools.

Visual literacy is essential to success. Without a decent understanding of the visual, people would have difficulty driving:

It would be harder to understand advertisements:

More importantly, visual literacy enables people to understand how advertisements manipulate them. For example, being visually literate helps the viewer understand that Bud Light looks more refreshing because it is being paired with the light blue ice crystals surrounding it.

An understanding of visual elements also helps people understand color better like how meeting someone in white may immediately give them an impression of innocence:

Obviously, better visual literacy skills are going to benefit students. The question then becomes how an educator can teach students this valuable skill. First, students need to know the basics such as color. How does the color affect a visual element? One way to address color is to use objects or ideas they already know. A teacher or librarian could present pictures to which students can make connections. Through careful questioning, teachers can help lead students to color meanings.

For example, an instructor could present an image like this one:

Once students have looked at the picture, the teacher could ask the following questions:

What color is the heart?

With what holiday would this treat be associated?

What emotion is associated with this holiday?

What could this color represent?

These four questions would lead students to understand that red is often associated with love.

However, students need to know multiple meanings for the colors, so it would be important to follow this up with another red image:

This image could go with the following questions:

What is this?

What color is it?

With what is blood associated?

Where would one find blood?

These questions could lead students to understand that red is often associated with blood, pain, and war.

If a teacher introduces color with an activity like this one, students not only learn about color symbolism, but they also begin honing their visual literacy skills.

In addition to color, space is another important component of visual literacy. How do objects use the space given to them? How does it change our impression if things are close together or far apart? Again, visual elements could help with this discussion. By showing pictures and discussing the use of space, learners will begin to move from subconsciously recognizing these elements to consciously understanding their effect on a viewer. Take this picture and these questions:

What is the spacing like between these two people?

What does it say about them?
Can the viewer infer anything about their relationship because of spacing?

By creating activities like these to discuss important visual literacy elements (like color, spacing, shapes, content), students will become ready to apply their knowledge more holistically. At this point, students can become more visually literate through practice. Best of all, visual literacy can easily be integrated with the curriculum an instructor already has planned.

In my current English classroom, I like to have my students practice visual literacy in conjunction with background information. Before reading To Kill a Mockingbird, students learn about the 1930s. It’s important to understand the financial troubles and race issues of the era to connect to the novel. Rather than being lectured, students can discover information for themselves through paintings and photographs.

One picture I have students look at is Prayer for Rain by James E. Allen:

From this, students can learn about the Dust Bowl and also many people’s reliance on farming. Most importantly, students are ready to have a discussion on how they figured out this information. They often cite the dark coloring, the dilapidated fence, the position of the people, and the bones of an animal as evidence for their conclusion.

In the library, students are surrounding by carefully designed book covers. This opens up the opportunity for countless discussion utilizing students’ visual interpretation skills.

Every textbook in the school involves pictures within its pages. An understanding of visuals can enhance every class reading assignment. Students can have interesting and relevant discussions that deepen their understanding of the topic while simultaneously preparing them for their future needs of visual literacy. It all starts with bringing more visual literacy into schools.

Works Cited

Seglem, Robyn, and Shelbie Witte. "You Gotta See It to Believe It: Teaching Visual Literacy in the English Classroom." Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 53.3 (2009): 216-226. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 10 Feb. 2011.