Identifies the new literacies of the technological age: technological literacy; visual literacy; information literacy; and intertextuality. Explores a variety of tools available to teachers, such as: digital imaging technologies; World Wide Web based technologies; and global collaborative projects. Provides an example of a teacher who chose a…

A film appreciation exercise for use in the foreign language class is outlined. The questions involve analysis of viewer reactions, film characteristics, visual and aural production specifications, and other technical aspects of the film. (MSE)

Notes that "viewing" (acquiring and criticizing ideas visually conveyed) and "representing" (communicating ideas through various media) are being incorporated into language arts curriculum documents in Canada. Presents 72 teaching ideas (for language arts, science, and math) that encourage teachers to adopt, adapt, and…

Reading can and should be a more widely used foreign language skill, and visual literacy in a foreign language goes beyond comprehension of basal reading materials. Authentic, real-life reading need not wait for foreign language mastery, but can begin at an early level if materials geared to the students' prior knowledge and interest are chosen.…

History teachers should be less concerned with having students try to re-experience the past and more concerned with teaching them how to learn from the study of it. Keeping this in mind, teachers should integrate more critical film and television analysis into their history classes, but not in place of reading or at the expense of traditional…

Part of a larger project to design a production curriculum and measure the impact of this production activity on children's writing, visual thinking, and problem solving skills, a project developed an effective but inexpensive video for use in teaching animation processes to students at the elementary school level. The project used "cutout" or…

The role of the right hemisphere of the brain in learning is examined, and the possibility of using visuals to improve verbal learning in right brain dominant learning disabled students is suggested. Approaches to stimulate oral language production, aid in the recall of written language, and achieve organizational style in writing through…

This book is intended as an aid for high school English teachers who want to understand visual literacy and learn how to teach it. The first part of the book defines and analyzes the basic structural devices used in filmmaking. The first chapter in this section discusses how the creative use of these devices--composition, lighting and color,…

Film and writing each resolve quite differently the problem of how to communicate. Still, film can demonstrate some underlying principles that are helpful to writers, especially those writers lacking understanding or skill in certain writing principles. There are at least five principles that both film and composition portray: the importance of…

Presents a lesson plan based on John Singleton Copley's 1795 oil painting, "Portrait of Nathaniel Hurd." The goal of the lesson is to give students in grades four through six an awareness of portraiture and how portraits record not only character but historical times and customs. (JDH)

"At the Piano," an oil-on-canvas painting completed in 1859 by James Abbot McNeill Whistler, is used as the basis of a lesson designed to help junior high school students analyze the painting's mood, subject matter, and composition. (JDH)

Defines aesthetic scanning, the perceptual activity that artists use when creating art and that connoisseurs use when contemplating it. Shows how to ask questions that elicit information about the sensory, formal, expressive, and technical properties of a work of art. (JDH)

Children must learn to discriminate among the visual stimuli they experience and to recognize the existence of a visual language. Learning activities to help young children develop a sense of visual literacy are suggested. (PP)

Describes a college teaching experience in which active visual analysis (hands-on deconstruction of visual statements to their constituent elements and principles) had an unblocking effect on concomitant writing assignments. Suggests that students can improve both verbal and visual articulateness when modes of perceiving and thinking are used…

Discusses how use of photography in early childhood classrooms enhances visual literacy. Describes how to use photographs in the daily routine to involve parents, build children's identity, and enrich all areas of the curriculum. Also describes use of video cameras in the classroom. (HTH)