Students' engagement in multimodal remediation of learning material in the form of slideshow presentations dominates universities. Yet, diversification of learning artifacts through the creation of more diverse types of multimodal content is scarce. The current article therefore proposes an innovative project during which students summarize…

In higher education, the popularity of using infographics as teaching and learning tools is increasing. However, their design is a demanding task and the majority of students are inexperienced in creating this form of visual. To help educators integrate tasks of creating infographics more successfully and thus enhance the development of visual…

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…

In this photo elicitation assignment, each student must take, select, and interpret a picture about a social issue that he/she has learned about in class. The student must then craft either a sensory poem, or answer the SHOWeD questions as designed by Shaffer and modified by Wang, which facilitates the student's interpretation of the picture. As a…

Figure analysis is a novel active learning teaching technique that reinforces visual literacy. Small groups of students discuss diagrams in class in order to learn content. The instructor then gives a brief introduction and later summarizes the content of the figure. This teaching technique can be used in place of lecture as a mechanism to deliver…

This article provides a practical guide for teaching visual analysis to university students. By adapting Serafini's curricular and pedagogical framework for teaching multimodal representations to incorporate self-reflection, I evince how visual analysis can be taught in a writing course and similar introductory courses. Using a photograph that…

Courses: Visual Rhetoric, Political Communication, Media and Society, Argumentation. Objective: Students trace a social hierarchy created through the visual reason of memes.

This guide is intended for all teachers who wish to enhance their curriculum by incorporating objects and photographs into their lesson plans. Kindergarten and elementary, middle, and high school classrooms can all benefit from expanded use of these materials. The guide can be used across a range of subject areas including history, community,…

The texts that adolescents encounter today are often multimodal, meaning they incorporate a variety of modes, including visual images, hypertext, and graphic design elements along with written text. Expanding the perspectives readers use to make sense of the multimodal texts is an important aspect of comprehension instruction. Moving beyond the…

This study examines how three elementary teachers refer to pictorial models (photographs, drawings, and cartoons) during science read-alouds. While one teacher used realistic photographs for the purpose of visually verifying facts about crystals, another employed analytical diagrams as heuristic tools to help students visualize complex target…

The use of graphic poetry in classrooms is encouraged as a way to engage students and motivate them to read and write poetry. This article discusses how graphic poetry can help students with their comprehension of poetry while tapping into popular culture. It is organized around three main sections--reading graphic poetry, writing graphic poetry,…

Some educators may view diagrams, pictures, and charts as nice add-on tools for students who are visual thinkers. But Steve Moline sees visual literacy as fundamental to learning and to what it means to be human. In Moline's view, we are all bilingual. Our second language, which we do not speak but which we read and write every day, is visual.…

While diagrams make the text more visually appealing and provide an image of the text, they also do much more. Subsequently, the authors designed a series of lessons for students to discover the many purposes of graphics in science. A particular utility of these interdisciplinary lessons is that they are used with any science text featuring visual…

External representations (ERs), such as diagrams, animations, and dynamic models are vital tools for communicating and constructing knowledge in biochemistry. To build a meaningful understanding of structure, function, and process, it is essential that students become visually literate by mastering key cognitive skills that are essential for…

This study examined the use of teaching three students with autism how to comprehend pictures. Students were elementary-aged, did not speak, and needed communication training. Students were provided systematic visual literacy instruction. Visual literacy instruction consisted of comprehending familiar people, objects, actions, and sequences…