This article describes how to help students connect what they learn in the language classroom to the outside world as they learn to understand, produce, and analyze spoken, written, visual, and cultural information in their second language (L2). As learners make connections between course material and the physical and virtual spaces where the L2…

This study employed a qualitative approach to examining the rhetorical value of multimodal composing practices among first-year college students with diverse academic, sociocultural, and linguistic backgrounds. With a shift to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study sought instructional methods that would support the development…

People learn and remember more efficiently and effectively through the use of text and visuals than through text alone. Infographics are one way of presenting complex and dense informational content in a way that supports cognitive processing, learning, and future recognition and recollection. But the power of infographics is that they are a way…

The high profile of fake news reveals underlying trends in the production and consumption of news. While news literacy is a lifelong skill, the logical time to start teaching such literacy is in K-12 educational settings, so that all people have the opportunity to learn and practice news literacy. School librarians can play a critical role in…

As pictorial-based social media (e.g., Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Tumblr) continue to encourage and sustain contemporary culture, the future success of America's democratic experiment may increasingly depend on its citizens' ability to critique visual information and take informed action. Promoting critical, historical analysis of…

Internationally, there has been increasing emphasis on the teaching of the academic literacies, particularly reading and writing, in higher education institutions. However, recent research is highlighting the need for more explicit teaching of multimodal forms of communication, such as the visual literacies, in undergraduate courses in a wide…

A conceptualization of visual proficiency is offered. A survey is described which asked college students (N = 358) to identify five photographs, five symbols, and five paintings that are generally recognized to be "famous". About 27% of all respondents claimed to recognize all the photographs, 23% recognized all the symbols, and 3%…

This article describes and evaluates an 8-week photography workshop, FotoLab, conducted in Italy at an afterschool-tutoring program for students acquiring Italian as an additional language. Seventeen students, age 8-17 and originating from 9 countries, participated. Co-facilitated by three international educator-researchers, FotoLab's purpose was…

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,…

This case study presents a cocurricular initiative at the Margery Somers Foster Center at Rutgers University Libraries in New Brunswick, NJ. The initiative resulted in an interview workshop for the course Knowledge and Power, a "mission course" of the Douglass Residential College. This discussion-based workshop uses visual and multimedia…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of two innovative, art-and-literature-based approaches to teaching writing (Picturing Writing: Fostering Literacy Through Art and Image-Making Within The Writing Process) on elementary school students' writing, visual literacy, and reading skills. RMC Research Corporation of Portsmouth, New…

Pictures abound in history classrooms and teachers use them in many different ways. They add--often literally--some colour to the past, helping us to imagine what different worlds were like. Pictures can be used quite legitimately in this way to fire imagination and stimulate interest. But we can also use them to develop important skills of visual…

Presents a checklist which can be used in the development of materials and activities to develop visual abilities; and includes a visual preference survey designed to provide data needed in responding to some of the checklist items, especially those related to learner abilities and preferences. (CMV)

The goals of the visual arts program of the Attleboro (MA) public schools, its relationship with the rest of the curriculum, and a study of the effectiveness of the program in seventh grade are described. It is suggested that the visual conceptual skills that are developed through the visual arts program are essential to cognitive processes and…

Teachers of 13-year-old students are invited to participate in a place-vocabulary project conducted by the International Geographical Union. Students associate names of oceans, countries, and cities with their correct location on a world outline map. Although the test is included, teachers must contact the coordinator to participate. (KC)