For creating and reading data visualizations, visual literacy is crucial. This article advances the knowledge about graphical variations and conventions related to the basic graphical element of the graphical line used as a connector in data visualizations. Some visual characteristics of connecting lines can be used to show directionality and thus…

Activities involving photographs stimulate visual perceptual awareness. Children understand visual stimuli before having verbal capacity to deal with the world. Vision becomes the primary means for learning, understanding, and adjusting to the environment. Photography can provide an effective avenue to visual literacy. (Author)

Describes a visual media course which covers the following: (1) communicative value of basic elements of design in photographs; (2) construction of messages in photo essays and advertisements; and (3) technique of scripting for moving images in scratch films. (PD)

Offers suggestions on how to make a film study course challenging and enjoyable, through using a variety of films, defining visual literacy, choosing films with cinematic and literary value, and deciding on a specific approach for the course. (FL)

Suggests that older feature-length films can be uplifting, relevant to the curriculum, and inexpensive. Offers tips on how to select and use them and a list of ten such films. (FL)

Described is a college-level art activity that teaches aesthetic literacy to entry-level art education majors. Students are asked to bring to class and to discuss two objects--one, an art object, and the other a nonart object. The article also presents thematic categories for the generation of aesthetic concepts. (RM)

Defines visual literacy and considers a number of elements of wordless picture books that contribute to the development of visual literacy in students. (FL)

Describes a film study program to help students open up to the beauty that exists around them. Notes that key ingredients of the program are a linkage between the films shown and the asking of probing questions. (RL)

Suggests a simple, adaptable pattern for teaching the grammar of films and television, i.e., its agreed conventions of vocabulary and syntax. A variety of feature-length films and extracts are listed to illustrate the concepts being taught as well as film distributors and addresses. (MBR)

Discusses the advantages of using photographs in history instruction and suggests questions teachers can ask to help students analyze photographs. (SJL)

A playful series of activities using the "Yellow Pages" as a resource. (Editor)

This essay discusses 13 pictorial devices with which one must be familiar to understand the illustrations in Virginia Lee Burton's "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel." Color constancy, implied background, sharply drawn lines, abstractions of caricature, use of perspective, face on objects, and picture book narration are noted. (EJS)

Discusses the value of making students visually literate. Stresses the technique of visual rehearsal and offers suggestions for incorporating visual rehearsal activities into the classroom. (FL)

Provides topics and activities by which English teachers can make their students visually literate and capable of critical television viewing. (RL)

The author urges art educators to contribute to holistic education by emphasizing the unique and alternative modes of thinking and acting which are intrinsic to visual arts. He presents two exercises to help students develop a perceptual rather than conceptual or linguistic mode. (Author/SJL)