Senses and Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings by ivla.tbsr

2018

Table of Contents Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries Using Senses and Experiences: An Introduction Danilo M. Baylen

…….……. 3

The Editorial Team

……….…. 7

Acknowledgment

……….…. 9

List of Reviewers

………….. 10

List of Authors

…….……. 11

SENSES 1. Emoji Literacies: Read & Write, Translate, Montage Ernesto Leon De La Rosa-Carillo

………….. 17

2. Twentieth Century Virtual Reality Education Reprise: Stereographs to Google Cardboard Veronica I. Ent

………….. 31

3. Creating Connections: Teens, Art, and Engagement Isabelle Guillard

………….. 44

EXPERIENCES 4. Cultivating Visual Literacy among Preschool through Middle School Students: Strategies and Applications Anne Katz

………….. 56

5. Teachers' Visual Literacy Practices in Middle and High School Science Classrooms Xiaoning Chen, Mark Newman, & Vito M. DiPinto

………….. 70

6. Applying Visual Literacy to Pedagogy in Secondary Curriculum Design Teresa A. Farrell

………….. 85

CROSSING DISCIPLINES 7. Evaluating Visuals: Increasing Visual Literacy with Infographics Dana Statton, Melony Shemberger, & Leigh Landini Wright

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8. Aesthetic Empathy and Art-based Learning: Pedagogical Scaffolding in Art Therapy Education Denise Malis

……..…... 112

9. Reading the Landscape Carl Rogers & Chad Hunter

……..……126

10. Visual Awareness and Other Consequences of Promoting Visual Literacy through Photography Ricardo Lopez-Leon

……..……138

Index

…..………149

Call for Manuscript Proposals

…….…….152

Search for Associate and Assistant Editors

….……….154

IVLA 2019

….……….155

Senses & Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings

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Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries Using Senses and Experiences: An Introduction Danilo M. Baylen University of West Georgia

book, edited or not, is never finished. But at a certain point, the writer has to put the pen down or turn off the laptop to end the work that has been a big part of his daily activities for almost a year. As I put the finishing touches to this book of selected readings --- a collection of writings on visual literacy based on conference presentations and responses to invitation -- I believe that this body of work contributes to more scholarly activities and engagement in visual literacy research and practice. As the senior editor, I feel relieved and exhilarated at the same time now that the work is done. Relieved that finally the book can be released for online public access, and I do not have to stay until almost midnight for weeks at my office, have decent meals, and more hours to sleep. Exhilarated by the experience of serving in a position that provided opportunities to review the works of experienced colleagues, mentor those interested in scholarly writing for this field, and collaborate with a diverse group of peers as editors and reviewers. The Book of Selected Readings (TBSR) is not my first editorial experience. I completed another edited book three years ago. But there are still lots of lessons to be learned from dealing with authors and reviewers to managing a team of assistant editors. However, I believe that the previous experience encouraged me to embrace the challenge of working again on another edited text. Definitely, I felt that the years of serving as a reviewer, editorial team member, associate and lead editor has prepared me for this role. It is an honor to work with the next generation of visual literacy scholars in producing the annual book of selected readings for the International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA). TBSR has almost a fifty year history. For more years than I can remember, the book of selected readings is the venue for the writings of those who presented at the annual conference. However, not all presenters submit a manuscript at the end of each conference, and this made my predecessors decide to welcome submissions outside of the annual conference that contribute to the emerging scholarship relevant to visual literacy. As the current editor-in-chief, I am still trying to find a balance in dealing with this challenge. I feel confident with this year's editorial team of Xiaoning Chen, Ricardo Lopez-Leon, Patrick Hickey, and Tinatin (Tiki) Baghashvili. All of us are very proud of this year's collection of writings from a diverse group of authors. After multiple reviews and revisions, we as editors accepted ten manuscripts for publication that were grouped into three sections: Senses, Experiences, and Crossing Disciplines in the edited book. Senses and Experiences are words we chose as part of the edited book's title to acknowledge the theme of presentations and contributions from the annual conferences in Montreal (2016) and Boston (2017). There were many presentations made in those conferences but the reality of time and other commitments prevented many individuals from translating their ideas into proposals and finally into manuscripts for publication consideration. Given this challenge, as editor-in-chief, I advocated for more support to would-be authors to write, revise and complete their manuscripts. We created a review process involving two levels of feedback in improving content, scholarship, and impact of one's writing. Instead of rejection,

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we provided opportunities for revision as long as the author/writer is willing to meet the expectation set by the editorial team. At the end, time became everyone's big hurdle to complete and some manuscripts were recommended for more mentoring and publication consideration in the next year's volume.

Senses, Experiences, and Crossing Disciplines Ten chapters are included in this edited book and categorized into three sections: Senses, Experiences, and Crossing Disciplines. The first section on SENSES included three chapters with connection to digital symbols, tools, and applications. The second section on EXPERIENCES focuses on visual literacy practices in various school settings. The last section on CROSSING DISCIPLINES focuses on the integration and teaching of visual literacy in diverse settings and content areas (journalism, art therapy, architecture, and graphic design). Each chapter in this edited book includes different perspectives yet similar goals of improving learning be it in a classroom, clinical setting, or outdoors in the community. It offers different strategies of teaching visual literacy to include inquiry-based, content-focused, processoriented activities to improve the understanding of how we learn about things around us through images, visuals, illustrations, photographs, videos, or multimedia devices. Chapter 1, "Emoji Literacies: Read & Write, Translate, Montage" authored by Ernesto Leon De La Rosa-Carillo explored emojis as "a particular brand of digital visual literacy through three distinct lesson plans developed within different contexts that focus on the expressive potential of these colorful pictographs." The emoji lessons trace a map that is not meant to quantify and exhaust emoji use in everyday conventional communication but to expand emoji literacy beyond the reaches of the written word and render it capable of fashioning its own poetic, creative and expressive dimensions that can only be fully interrogated within the art classroom. De La Rosa-Carillo's writing was selected as this year's editors' choice award. Chapter 2, "Twentieth Century Virtual Reality Education Reprise: Stereographs to Google Cardboard" written by Veronica I. Ent described and discussed the historical context of virtual reality in the classroom. She wrote about the stereoscope in early 1900s, and then identified parallelism with the use of smartphone as virtual reality devices in the classroom similar to the Google Cardboard. In Chapter 3, "Creating Connections: Teens, Art, and Engagement," Isabelle Guillard explores in her writing how contemporary artists can play in student learning in secondary school art education. She discussed the idea of having artists come to the classroom as a highly motivating educational strategy. She wrote about teens' interests and how her strategy pushes the boundaries of traditional teaching methodology to incorporate the critical notions of identity, belonging, dialogue, and community. Focusing on the teaching and learning, the EXPERIENCES section starts with Anne Katz who shared strategies for cultivating visual literacy in students from Pre-Kindergarten to 8th grade. In Chapter 4, "Cultivating Visual Literacy among Preschool through Middle School Students: Strategies and Applications, she described the approaches used such as family literacy workshops, literacy-through-art curriculum, and visualization/ technology applications through creative writing among middle school students in an urban school setting. The team of Xiaoning Chen, Mark Newman, and Vito M. DiPinto investigated how six middle and high school science teachers used what they learned in their teacher preparation programs and professional training to implement visual literacy practices to facilitate student learning. In Chapter 5, "Teachers' Visual Literacy Practices in Middle and High School Science Classrooms, they shared a case study that documented snapshots of the teachersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; visual literacy practices. They also discussed their findings on how their participants viewed visual literacy, used practices shaped by the curricula of their teacher preparation programs and their school context.

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Chapter 6, "Applying Visual Literacy to Pedagogy in Secondary Curriculum Design," for this section reported the process and preliminary outcomes of an action research study. Teresa A. Farrell studied how secondary pre-service teachers apply visual literacy (VL) integration into their own curricular design. She discussed the initial results that showed students' purposeful integration of theory, and efforts in practicing VL abilities. She argued that these actions could potentially influence the application of VL abilities in curricular design and increase the VL ability to create meaning. The last section focuses on CROSSING DISCIPLINES where researchers and practitioners identified areas that visual literacy knowledge and skills would be useful and helpful in learning discipline-specific content or material. In Chapter 7, "Evaluating Visuals: Increasing Visual Literacy with Infographics," the team of Dana Statton, Melony Shemberger and Leigh Landini Wright studied undergraduate journalism students' understanding of the visual elements and textual content of infographics. They reported that teaching students specific evaluative and creative criteria is a critical part of an infographic assignment. For Chapter 8, "Aesthetic Empathy and Art-based Learning: Pedagogical Scaffolding in Art Therapy Education," Denise Malis presented a case study of a graduate art therapy course, Art Therapy for People with Severe Mental Illness (ATPSMI). She believed that creating art during class helped students develop an empathetic relationship via aesthetic and reflective selfawareness. She argued that visual literacy provided students with a means to develop their visual voice through numerous empathetic encounters. Such encounters allowed students to negotiate perceptions of self and other students, as well as their perception of the lived experience of persistent mental illness. Carl Rogers and Chad Hunter wrote how visual literacy plays a crucial part in the work of landscape architects. In Chapter 9, "Reading the Landscape," the authors utilized as a clarifying lens to research and gather information, analyze and develop graphics, and engage the community and stakeholders. They described this process as active visual learning through drawing and creating in deepening one's understanding of places encountered. Through a community trail assessment case study, the chapter described and discussed how visual literacy strategies strengthened the design process, the value of the information gathered and the communication of the work. The final chapter, "Visual Awareness and Other Consequences of Promoting Visual Literacy through Photography," for this section focuses on how photography develops visual literacy skills. Ricardo Lopez-Leon asked his students to complete visual reports after watching audiovisual content. Assignments used were designed to develop visual literacy but research findings show that students also practiced a skill portrayed as visual awareness, a perception mode in which a designer observes the world with different eyes, being able to identify and convey meaning to everyday objects using a photographic camera. Findings from the study provided an opportunity to explore other ways to guide students in achieving visual awareness and visual literacy.

Thanks for a Million Things The editorial team (Xiaoning, Ricardo, Patrick, and Tiki) and I really appreciate all those who made this book of selected readings a reality. The chapter authors deserved a lot of kudos for the quality of their work. As senior editor, I believe that these chapters can be useful to those interested in promoting visual literacy --- whether as a new teacher, faculty member, researcher, scholar or, practitioner. Also, I hope it will inspire experienced as well as beginning visual literacy scholars to study ideas and practices with courage and a sense of adventure given the rapidly changing visually-rich world. This edited book has become a reality due to numerous individuals, from those who initially proposed, authored manuscripts, and acted as peer-reviewers, and multiple contributors. The

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editors would like to thank them all for what has been accomplished. At a personal level, I would like to acknowledge a good friend, Cristine Goldberg, who cheered and provided sage advice â&#x20AC;&#x153;when things got tough,â&#x20AC;? while making this dream a reality, and Rhonda Robinson for my initial immersion to visual literacy at Northern Illinois University. Finally, the editorial team and I hope that you will enjoy reading the book chapters as we did, and will be inspired to do more teaching, learning, and research related to visual literacy in the near future. We look forward to your participation with IVLA annual conferences and submissions to future Book of Selected Readings. Sincerely,

Editor, Senses and Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings Carrollton, Georgia 30118 USA November 1, 2018

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The Editorial Team 2018

Danilo M. Baylen Editor-in-Chief 2018-2020

Xiaoning Chen Assistant Editor 2018-2020

Professor of Instructional Technology who focuses his scholarly writings on technology integration best practices, visual and media literacy strategies, and course design on blended and online pedagogies. On visual and media literacy, Dr. Baylen publishes and presents visual representation and narrative of Asian children's literature. Born in the Philippines, he studies contemporary Filipino children's books. He also conducts research and publishes on visual media and effective technology integration practices. In 2015, he co-edited Essentials of Teaching and Integrating Visual and Media Literacy published by Springer International. Further, he has been recognized and awarded for his service, research and leadership by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), the Georgia Association of Instructional Technology, and the International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA). He currently serves on the selection committee for the Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities sponsored by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), and the Margaret L. Batchelder Award of the American Library Association (ALA).

Assistant professor of English as a Second Language and Bilingual Education, National College of Education, National Louis University. She previously taught at the State University of New York, Fredonia and North Central College in Naperville, IL. Her research focuses on multicultural children's literature, visual literacy, and the impact of digital technology on literacy development. Dr. Chen has written articles and book chapters on English Language Learners' identify construction and literacy development, quality of bilingual children's books, impact of technology on multimodal design in digital books, and visual representations in science textbooks. She will contribute a chapter on visual literacy and English Language Learners in a new book on visual literacy from Rowman & Littlefield in 2018. Chen made presentations on various visual literacy related topics at state, national, and international professional association conferences. In 2018, Chen was nominated for the excellence in service and engagement award at National Louis University. She is currently serving as one of the assistant editors for The Book of the Selected Readings.

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Ricardo Lopez-Leon Assistant Editor 2018-2020

Patrick Hickey Assistant Editor 2018-2019

Tiki Baghashvili Assistant Editor 2018

Lead researcher-lecturer in the Design Sciences Center at Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes (UAA), Mexico. Has a doctorrate in Art and Sciences for Design focusing on the area of applied aesthetics and design semiotics from the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana. He is a Level 1 member of the National Re-searchers System (SNI) at the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt). Leader of the Integral Design Studies researching group. Member of the Academic Council of the Master in Arts, and Coordinator of the Science of the Anthropic Environment PhD program at UAA. Member of the editorial committee of Kepes International Journal in Colombia. International lecturer participating in conferences around the world. Author in different international publications, focusing in the last years to research in Visual Literacy and Design Education.

Assistant professor and education librarian at Keene State College in New Hampshire. He currently teaches Participatory Cultures and Visual Literacy in the College’s nascent Information Studies minor. In addition, he conducts workshops primarily focusing on information literacy and technology integration to a variety of audiences across campus. He utilizes his extensive experience in the K-12 setting as a former Pittsburgh Public School teacher to provide authentic learning experiences for all students. He is responsible for the organization and development of the physical facilities and collections of the Curriculum Materials Library, Juvenile Collection and Education Collection in the Keene State College Mason Library. His research interests primarily focus on the infusion of creativity in the classroom in multiple formats including digital storytelling and digital video. He is currently completing a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Art Integration at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire.

Hails from Georgia (the country not the state) in Europe. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Audio-Visual Arts at Tbilisi State University where she studied still and motion visuals. She also worked in Georgia and Bulgaria for various positions in films such as director’s assistant, sound assistant, etc. She completed a master's degree in Cultural Management from EMTA (Music and Theater Academy) and EBS (Estonian Business School) in Estonia as well as internships in Germany and the Netherlands. Living in European countries influenced her thinking about career and she decided to return to Georgia and accepted a position at the Ministry of Culture of Georgia as a cultural manager. Currently, she works at LEPL Creative Georgia as the head of Capacity Building Program focused on developing creative industries. She continues to paint and started a company called Tiki’s ART. Also, she frequently participate in exhibitions, and had her first personal one last July 2018.

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Acknowledgment Graphic designer and currently working as part of the team for Content Development at Grupo Modelo ABInBev for countries like Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico. She was born in Aguascalientes City, Mexico. She is in love with her profession and always interested in learning new things, committed to giving her best always. She is currently exploring photography as art, and studying English and German languages. Samantha Aguilar Cover Design

Practicing graphic designer and professional photographer. She was born in Bogota, Colombia. She is a At thirteen years old, she moved to Aguascalientes City, Mexico, where she found her love for art and music. During her teenage years, she began composing music and tried becoming a singer by performing in different events around the city. In 2017, she founded her own studio, where she photographs portraits of families and babies. Today, she now specializes in Corporate Design and social photography, one of her greatest passions. Carol Rodriguez Awards Logo Design

Graduate research assistant in the Department of Educational Technology and Foundations at the University of West Georgia. She completed her bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of West Georgia in 2017. She is currently working on her masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders. She plans to work first to hone her knowledge and skills before returning to academia to pursue her doctoral studies. Cali Hancock Editorial Assistance

Graduate research assistant in the Department of Educational Technology and Foundations at the University of West Georgia. She completed her bachelor's degree in 2018 majoring in Anthropology and minoring in both History and Africana Studies at the University of West Georgia. She is currently working on her master's degree in Teacher Education. She plans to enter the classroom as a social science and history teacher for grades 6-12. Logan Hicks Copyediting Assistance

Senses & Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings

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List of Reviewers

Baghasvilli, Tiki

Katz, Anne

Beatty, John

Kedra, Joanna

Brown, Kathy

Kennedy, Sharlene

Chen, Xiaoning

Lehman, Barbara

Crook, Kylee

Lopez-Leon, Ricardo

Curtiss, Deborah Pratt

Malis, Denise

Delarosa-Carillo, Ernesto

Mark, Elke

DiPinto, Vito

Mestey, Viviana Torres

Ent, Victoria

Newman, Mark

Gallagher, Phillip

Park, Chang Jung

Goldberg, Cristine

Ruby, Nell

Guillard, Isabelle

Shemberger, Melony

Hickey, Patrick

Spitz, Lisa

Hunter, Chad

Statton, Dana

Hyun, Jung Suk

Tetreault, Dianne

Kabiljo, Lea

Wright, Leigh

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List of Authors Ernesto De La Rosa-Carrillo is a user and generator of audiovisual content. He teaches and researches digital media with a special emphasis on the creative practices associated with them. He has been a faculty member in the Art Department at Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez since 2004, where he created and heads the AV Media track; he also leads courses dealing with applied ethics, audiovisual theory, contemporary image theory and seminars on art education. His videos, poetry, multimedia performances and pedagogical experiences have been shared in Mexico, the United States, and Germany among others. Soy solo palabras but wish to be a city was published by Unlikely Books in 2010; Ojalá, a collaboration with Philip Zimmermann was published on Spaceheater Editions in 2012. He completed a doctorate in Art History and Education at the University of Arizona with an emphasis on Art and Visual Culture Education in 2015. His dissertation was an arts-based educational research on the language of Internet Memes. In 2016, he completed a year-long arts based research into the Art Museum of Ciudad Juárez which culminated with the solo exhibition Museo: Conversaciones de Archivo [Museum: Archival Conversations]. His recent publications detail the potentials of hacker practices and open source ideals in the midst of espionage policies and culture, and discuss the Art Museum of Ciudad Juárez as an alien spaceship.

Xiaoning Chen works as an Assistant Professor of English as a Second Language (ESL) and Bilingual Education at the National College of Education, National Louis University (NLU). She previously taught at the State University of New York, Fredonia and North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Her research focuses on multicultural children’s literature, visual literacy, and the impact of digital technology on literacy development. Dr. Chen has written articles and book chapters on English Language Learners’ identify construction and literacy development, quality of bilingual children’s books, impact of technology on multi-modal design in digital books, and visual representations in science textbooks. She will contribute a chapter on visual literacy and English Language Learners in a new book on visual literacy from Rowman & Littlefield in 2018. She also presented on various visual literacy related topics at state, national, and international professional conferences. In 2018, she was nominated for excellence in service and engagement award at NLU.

Vito M. Dipinto began his professional career as an organic chemist. Realizing later in life that he was really a performance artist, Vito became an educator. At the Baker Demonstration School, he assumed a variety of roles from a Montessori teacher, science teacher, curriculum designer, and coordinator. He served as the past chair of National Louis University’s Science Education Department, and the senior science education faculty member. Since the birth of his granddaughter eighteen years ago, he has become a full-time grandfather.

Veronica I. Ent chairs the Education Department at Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and an Associate Professor of Education. Her main research areas are the historical applications of instructional technology, visual thinking and learning, and blended instructional methodologies. She received her doctorate in Instructional Design and Technology from the University of Pittsburgh. She teaches graduate courses in instructional technology, online instruction, curriculum design, and visual thinking and learning. Prior to joining the Saint Vincent College faculty, she was employed as a library media specialist at Greensburg Salem School District. Dr. Ent received the Quentin Schaunt Faculty Achievement Award (2004) and the Boniface Wimmer Outstanding Teaching Award (2016) from Saint Vincent College. She also received the Early Career Award (2011) from the University of Pittsburgh. Among many memberships to professional

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organizations, she also serves as the elected president of the Country School Association of America (CSAA), a national organization dedicated to the preservation and research of early American country schools. Veronica and her husband enjoy life on the family’s 205-acre farm in Western Pennsylvania where she owns fourteen horses and teaches the Saint Vincent College Equestrian Club as well as curates a fully- restored 1858 one-room schoolhouse, the Concord School.

Teresa Farrell studied Theatre Arts and English Literature at Montana State University. She completed a master’s degree in Policy and Management and a secondary teaching license in English language arts and drama from the University of Oregon. She worked for seven years as a professional draftsman and became involved as an actor and director in her local community theatre. She taught formally at both the collegiate and secondary levels for ten years before shifting her focus into teacher preparation. She completed her doctoral studies in Curriculum & Instruction from The University of Montana focus the visual literacy ability of pre-service graduate level teachers. She has been a faculty member with the College of Education at Eastern Oregon University since 2012, and recently returned to the high school classroom full-time while continuing as an adjunct professor. She has been published in the Journal of Visual Literacy and has presented on the topic of visual literacy in P-12 education at numerous regional, national, and international conferences. Her current focus is developing P-12 curriculum to integrate visual literacy into the ELA classroom in order to meet both state and national expectations.

Isabelle Guillard is a doctoral candidate in Art Education at Concordia University (Canada). She received her master’s degree from Vermont College of Fine Arts in visual art. Her interest lies in the A/r/tography métissage of the artist/researcher/teacher identity, to investigate new areas of study that incorporate the environment into creative and innovative works. The subject of her thesis considers the integration of an eco-art based curriculum in art education at the secondary level through the collaboration of contemporary artists and art teachers. Since 2000, she has been teaching art and multimedia to high school students in the city of Laval in Québec. She values the approach of place-based pedagogy and environmental education to enhance the sense of belonging and social responsibility within the community. In the year 2015-2016, she received the Essor Pedagogical Development Prize from the Québec Ministry of Education for her project entitled “Les lieux intangibles” (Intangible spaces). Guillard is a painter who depicts the beauty of nature on the fringes of urban areas to reveal the contradictions inherent in human actions and the transformation of the land-scape. Her paintings have been exhibited and held in public and private collections. Her work stands in a dialectical relationship between theory and practice where she can explore aspects of her identity through the process of writing and esthetic experiences.

Chad Hunter is a Design Fellow for the Community Design Lab (CDL), and Lecturer in the Landscape Architecture Department at Iowa State University. Since 2012, he has been managing CDL projects, collaborating with clients, and leading the design work. Through his work, Hunter is involved with community engagement efforts throughout Iowa, developing master plans, placebased design strategies and catalyst projects related to topics such as complete streets, livability, green infrastructure, trails and food access. He believes in the value of immersing oneself in a community to better understand the conditions of a site, the community character, and the people who live there. This method promotes collaboration, on-the-ground research and designs that focus on human experience.

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Anne Katz works as an Associate Professor of Reading in the Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading in the College of Education, Georgia Southern University's Armstrong campus in Savannah, Georgia. She teaches a range of graduate courses in the areas of literacy theory, approaches to reading instruction, literacy in the content areas, and literacy-based action research, among other subjects. Her current research and service interests include community literacy initiatives between pre-service educators and middle school student literacy leaders in local schools. She has published and presented on literacy topics and research on the national and international level. Additionally, she has provided professional development in content area literacy for Georgia educators through three federal Teacher Quality grants. In 2017, Dr. Katz received the Kristina C. Brockmeier Faculty Award as recognition of her work as an outstanding teacher that has made significant contributions through service to the university and to its students. She was selected as one of the 2015 Governor’s Teaching Fellows through the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Children’s Literature and Reading Special Interest Group of the International Literacy Association.

Ricardo Lopez-Leon works at the Design Sciences Center in the Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes (UAA), Mexico as a Lead Researcher-Lecturer. He received his doctoral degree in Art and Sciences for Design focusing on applied aesthetics and design semiotics from the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana. His professional work includes serving as a Level 1 member of the National Researchers System (SNI) at the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt), and leader of the Integral Design Studies researching group. His actively involved with the Academic Council of the Master in Arts program at UAA as well as the editorial committee of Kepes International Journal in Colombia. Currently, he serves as Assistant Editor of the Book of Selected Readings of International Visual Literacy Association. Dr. Lopez-Leon lectures and participates in conferences around the world. He authored several international publications focusing on visual literacy and design education.

Denise Malis is an Assistant Professor of Art Therapy at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts (MA). She holds a doctorate and master’s degrees in Expressive Therapies with an emphasis in art therapy. She also completed a master's degree in fine arts (painting) from University of Cincinnati. As a board certified art therapist and visual artist, she has taught and mentored graduate and undergraduate students since 1999 at Lesley University, Endicott College, and LaSalle College of the Arts in Singapore. With over 25 years of clinical, supervisory, and creative practice experience, she has worked with a range of populations and in a variety of settings in the Boston area. Dr. Malis established the art-for-all studio in Somerville, MA as a private practice in 2003, and developed and managed an Art Mentoring Program for ten years. The program allowed adults with significant mental illness to invest in their visual voice, flourish and thrive as artists within the context and acceptance of the Somerville artist community. As an artist, she exhibited her art-work in group and solo at national and international exhibitions. She was a contributing member of the formation of Somerville Open Studios in Somerville. Art as inquiry is threaded throughout her clinical work, pedagogy, and scholarship. She is committed to the inclusive creative development of individuals in their communities and believes that art is an ongoing personal process of inquiry, expression and well-being. She publishes and presents on the intersection of visual art, art therapy, and clinical populations.

Mark Newman works as Professor of Social Studies Education at the National College of Education, National Louis University in the Chicago area. He previously taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research focuses on primary sources as historical texts, visual culture, and visual literacy. He is co-author of a book on visual literacy to be published by Rowman & Littlefield

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in 2018. Also, he will contribute a chapter on social studies and visual literacy for an early childhood edited volume. He has written articles and books on photos, maps, and primary sources and made presentations on various visual literacy related topics at state, national, and international professional association conferences. Dr. Newman was the director of a Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources project, He also was co-director of National Endowment for the Humanities projects on the history of cartography, using visuals to study Chicago history, and Chicago’s downtown lakefront as a public place. He received the 2013 Distinguished Service Award from the Illinois Council for the Social Studies and, the National College of Education 2016 Distinguished Teaching Award.

Carl Rogers chairs the Department of Landscape Architecture and an Associate Professor at Iowa State University. His research focuses on the revolutions of connectivity and identity as it relates to the human experience and to creative place making. He is the director of the Community Design Lab (CDL), which he helped found in 2011. Carl works with the CDL staff and leads collabo-rations with clients. Through his leadership at CDL, he has partnered with communities throughout the State of Iowa to create more meaningful places for people. He is involved in projects that incorporate innovative design strategies related to recreation, health, sustainability, green infra-structure, and natural systems. Carl believes in the transformative power of place. He sees the places in which people live more than physical spaces; they are the content and the context of their experience. He values an on the ground immersed experience as a strategy that shapes dreams into realities. He has more than 20 years of experience in landscape architecture and aims to create places that prove the realistic, holistic, and optimistic potential of the human experience.

Melony Shemberger is an Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at Murray State University. She has a bachelor’s degree from Western Kentucky University where she majored in mass communication, history and government; a master’s in mass communication from Murray State University; a master’s in management from Austin Peay University; and a doctorate in administration and supervision, with a concentration in higher education, from Tennessee State University. She is currently pursuing additional graduate studies in instructional systems design at the University of Kentucky. Her primary research interests include journalism history, the scholarship of teaching and learning, sunshine laws and crisis communication. In 2014, Dr. Shemberger was named a Business Journalism Professors Seminar Fellow. One of fourteen faculty members from across the nation, she completed her fellowship at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University in Phoenix. At Murray State University, she was a Provost Faculty Teaching Fellow, presenting workshops and writing articles that focused on pedagogy and course redesign. Also, she was the interim director of the Faculty Development Center in 2016. In 2017, she was a Scripps Howard Academic Leadership Academy Fellow at Louisiana State University. She was among a dozen other journalism faculty in the United States selected to advance their leadership training in the academy. She is a lifetime member of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi where she serves as Murray State’s vice president. In addition, she was the director from 2016-18 on the Society’s national board, leading as chair of the advisory council for Phi Kappa Phi’s Forum magazine. She is also a member of the American Journalism Historians Association. Dr. Shemberger has published in several peerreviewed publications including Journalism History, Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, and the Teaching Journalism and Mass Communication Journal. She also has several book chapters published or forthcoming and professional articles in several guidebooks published by the PR News Press, as well as the Journal of the Jackson Purchase Historical Society.

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Dana Statton is a Research and Instruction Librarian and Assistant Professor at Murray State University where she teaches courses on information literacy and serves as a liaison to the College of Business. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Studio Art from Washington and Lee University, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree with a specialization in photography, Master of Arts degree in art history, and Master of Library Science degree with a specialization in archival studies from Louisiana State University. Her research and teaching interests focus on the intersection of visual literacy and news literacy, the integration of visual literacy instruction into higher education, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. She is active in the International Visual Literacy Association and serves as a member of the Board of Directors, and was most recently selected to become a member of the 2018 Institute for Research Design in Librarianship cohort. She has presented research and pedagogy at The Library Collective, the International Visual Literacy Association, American Libraries Association, and Library Instruction West conferences. She is currently writing a book chapter on teaching higher education students how to critically read images.

Leigh Landini Wright is an Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications at Murray State University where she teaches courses in freshman orientation, introductory newswriting, multimedia journalism, news editing, publication design, feature writing, in-depth reporting, immersive storytelling, and the capstone in journalism. She also serves as head of the journalism sequence and directs a high school media workshop every year. She earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction and a bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in journalism and political science from Murray State University. Her research and teaching interests focus on best practices of social, digital and immersive media in the newsroom and in the classroom, as well as the scholarship of teaching and learning. Wright is an award-winning journalist who worked for sixteen years at a regional newspaper in western Kentucky. She is active in the Broadcast Education Association where she serves as vice chairman of the Interactive Multimedia and Emerging Technologies division. Wright also has presented research and pedagogy at the Broadcast Education Association, Journalism Interactive and Association for the Education of Journalism and Mass Communications conferences. Additionally, she received multiple fellowships from the National Association of Television Production Executives Educational Foundation and the AEJMC-Scripps Howard Visiting Professorship in Social Media programs that allowed her to return to work in print, online, and broadcast newsrooms during summer breaks.

Senses & Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings

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Senses

Senses & Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings

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Emoji Literacies: Read & Write, Translate, Montage Ernesto Leon De La Rosa-Carillo Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

Abstract. Emoji literacy is explored as a particular brand of digital visual literacy through three distinct lesson plans developed within different contexts that focus on the expressive potential of these colorful pictographs. Largely unconcerned with the concrete communication afforded by alphabetical characters, each exploration revels on the ambiguity of emoji phrases that refuse to be simply read and demand to be interpreted, perhaps even translated into intellectual experiences that might deviate from the affective dimensions traditionally associated with them. The first lesson plan was specifically designed to take advantage of emoji possibilities as storytelling devices with 6 and 7-year-olds, whose reading and writing skills might still be developing. The second case was developed with young slam poets to explore the expressive limits of pictographs meant to instantly convey “thoughts or emotions without inspiring strong likes or dislikes” (Nageshi, 2014). Finally, a group of visual arts undergrads participated in the third emoji plan, which expanded on Eisenstein's Montage Theory as discussed in his seminal 1929 essay, The cinematographic principle and the ideogram. Together, these three emoji lessons trace a map that is not meant to quantify and exhaust emoji use in everyday conventional communication but to expand emoji literacy beyond the reaches of the written word and render it capable of fashioning its own poetic, creative and expressive dimensions that can only be fully interrogated within the art classroom. Keywords: Emoji literacy, art education, internet culture, digital visual literacy

ven a decade ago, research by the likes of Morgan and van Dam (2008) suggested that the visual experience afforded by digital technology demanded a special brand of literacy. They understood digital visual literacy as the necessary skills to both create and understand visual information emanating from computers. Today, computers are no longer a requisite to generate or use digital visual information, rather the smartphones in everyone's pockets are fully equipped to engage digital environments and create visually-rich content that nonetheless still demands DVL to be critic-

Senses & Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings

ally evaluated, decoded and written. Emojis are a particularly intriguing and popular feature of the digital ecosystem afforded by smartphones. They straddle the frontier between the spoken and the symbolic, demanding to be equally read and reinterpreted in a single breath. They populate our communications online with colorful smiles and cute renditions of everyday objects like

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and even

They are so ubiquitous that Scall (2016) argues for their exclusion from copyright considerations and makes a case to declare them “a constructed language accessory” (p. 398) meant to thrive under public domain. Stark and Crawford (2015) for their part, have discussed emojis in terms of informational capitalism and their role as instruments of emotional labor that have reshaped “mediated communication in the personal as well as in the corporate sphere — precisely because our interactions in both arenas are often mediated across the same platforms” (p. 6). Of course, emojis have also found their way into the practice of contemporary artists like Carla Gannis (2014), whose The Garden of Emoji Delights reimagines Bosch's iconic earthly triptych and offers a glimpse into a landscape of frolicking

and

According to the official announcement “the 'Face with Tears of Joy' emoji was chosen as 'the word' that best reflected the ethos, mood and preoccupations of 2015” (Oxford, 2015). Furthermore, during the same year two trials, one in New York City and another in Pittsburgh, introduced emojis as evidence of intent in “an explicit acknowledgment that emoji were now part of how we express ourselves and thus also useable as evidence in court” (Danesi, 2017; loc 381). However, as ubiquitous as emoji might be, and as concrete as a bathtub, a car, two pieces of sushi and a dark-skinned female M.D. may read. The emoji string

will demand a significant amount of interpretation from the reader. It could tell the tale of an evening bath followed by a short drive to get sushi only to end up at the emergency room with a case of food poisoning. Also, it could be an invite to clean up and celebrate with sushi a newly obtained medical degree. Perhaps, it could even be a joke about sushi pieces as big as cars and bathtubs that should require a doctor's note to consume. Such level of ambiguity in emoji strings might account for the prevalence of research that focuses on emojis collaborating with alphabetic characters — AKA words — either as punctuation (Sampietro, 2016), for emotional and affective impact (Zareen, Karim & Ali Khan, 2016) or as devices of mixed textuality (Danesi, 2017). However, visual representations of the most mundane, like

But perhaps no other emoji event encapsulates the reach of these silly pictographs better than Oxford Dictionary's choice for 2015 word of the year:

that mesh together into cumulative strings of synthetic abstractions, think

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seem like an ideal object of study for art education, where emojis can serve as an entry point to a specific type of digital visual literacy that is congruent with online culture while at the same time incorporating digital devices and practices into a space that typically attempts to remain undisturbed by such impulses. The following three explorations into emoji literacy focus on the expressive potential of these visual objects and are largely unconcerned with the concrete communication afforded by alphabetical characters. Instead, these explorations, each a particular lesson plan developed within three very different contexts, revel on the ambiguity of emoji strings that refuse to be simply read and demand to be interpreted, perhaps even translated into intellectual experiences that might deviate from the affective dimensions traditionally associated with these colorful pictographs. The first lesson plan was specifically designed to take advantage of emoji possibilities as storytelling devices with 6 and 7year-olds, whose reading and writing skills might still be emerging. The second case was developed with young slam poets to explore the expressive limits of pictographs meant to instantly convey “thoughts or emotions without inspiring strong likes or dislikes” (Nageshi, 2014). Finally, a group of visual arts undergrads participated in the third emoji plan, which expanded on Eisenstein's Montage Theory as discussed in his seminal 1929 essay, The Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram. It is important to note that the map traced by these lesson plans is not meant to exhaust emojis' possibilities in art education or digital visual literacy; rather it is merely an attempt to inform academic discussion on emojis through pedagogical practices focused on creative and expressive potentials that explicitly differ from their conventional usage. A vivid embodiment of this

Senses & Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings

attitude towards emoji, and a good starting point for any discussion regarding emoji literacy in these terms, is Miley Cyrus' emoji story (9Gag, n.d.), which has been bouncing around public image boards and online community forums since mid-2014:

Even though no concrete fact about Miley Cyrus is expressed, the emoji string above succeeds in communicating the broad arch of the singer's stages of fame beginning with the TV show Hanna Montana —

— all the way up to her controversial performance at the 2013 MTV Music Video Awards —

— and hit song Wrecking Ball —

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Of course, most of these visual references require initiated readers to be rendered meaningful; initiated not only on emoji literacy but on Miley lore as well. Nonetheless some of the emoji phrases —

and

followed by

— can stand on their own as meaningful tales of a family traveling and an engagement ending badly, provided a basic knowledge of the cultural implications of artifacts like a plane and a ring. This very capacity of emojis to convey meaning while at the same time demanding a degree of interpretation was the initial impulse behind the lessons plans detailed next.

Read & Write: Studio Meme

to introduce learners to the practice of reading emoji stories before becoming emoji storytellers themselves. It was deployed during a summer arts program in Tubac, Arizona in 2013, which serviced learners as young as 6 and all the way up to 13. In total, data was collected from 27 learners but while the older participants were introduced to the nuances and practices of Animated GIFs and Image Macros, the youngest group, 6 and 7year-olds, worked with emoji stories expecting to take full advantage of their capabilities as visual artifacts with an audience whose reading and writing skills were still developing. Since learners this young were not likely to own cell phones, where emojis resided almost exclusively in 2013, the exercises relied on five shared laptops and Google+, a social media platform that allowed for the creation of private circles — where emoji resources were shared — and multi-person instant messages that could be populated by emojis. As an introduction to emoji storytelling, an album containing 31 emoji texts, found online and within game apps, was created and shared with the learners who browsed them while the facilitator walked around chatting with them and helping them decipher the emojis. The texts shared with learners ranged from the simplest of illustrated film titles —

for Spiderman — to complex plot lines reimagined — for Beauty and the Beast (Mobile, 2013):

Studio Meme was designed as part of a much larger arts based educational research on the language of internet memes (De la Rosa-Carrillo, 2015), it was explicitly planned

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Danesi (2017) identifies this type of emoji texts as substitutive since they forgo all alphabetic symbols and demand “a firm control of the emoji code in order to comprehend it or even just “read it” verbally” (pp. 716717). He however goes on to concede that the narrative flow of these texts give the reader a chance to at the very least surmise its content, more so than if it were laid out in a nonfamiliar script, which would completely preclude decipherment, bringing out that, even in substitutive writing, the emoji code has more universal features in it than has any alphabetic script (pp. 720-721).

module of Meme Studio required the facilitator to first work closely with participants as they read each emoji story (De la RosaCarrillo, 2015). Besides helping learners with the task of interpreting the stories, the instructor also guided them through recognizing the roles that each emoji played as well as their congruency with the referenced movie. Learners were not asked nor expected to guess film titles, rather the emphasis was placed on the methods, logic and grammar of emojis by asking and unpacking questions like how they could recognize Bella in the phrase

? Or, what specific part of the story did

referenced?

After the introductory phase participants were asked to craft emoji stories of their own and share them in a group chat initiated by the instructor. Most learners created emoji stories brimming with nouns but lacking verbs; entities whose actions, if any, were up to interpretation. The 5 Happy Faces, written by a 6-year-old using the screen name Gustavo Meme for example reads like a puzzle whose characters must be examined to make sense of the title:

Emojis' purported universality as narrative agents makes them an ideal vehicle to explore storytelling with young learners in the midst of developing their own literacy skills. Emoji code, however, still demands a basic understanding of these pictographs in order to be deciphered, which is why the emoji

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In The Change, a 7-year-old using the screen name Rosa Meme told the tale of a strong hero who battles a shape-shifting demon for the love of a princess that had been duped into falling in love with one of the villain's fairest forms. After a ranging battle, the story ends in a barrage of kisses and love, just like most romances do:

The space that these emoji stories leave for interpretation is obviously much broader than the one afforded to readers of traditional stories. In fact, the narratives reported here owe much more to the conversations held with the crafters themselves right after the stories were shared than to my personal reading. In a way, these emoji stories were not only crafted by the 6 and 7-year-old participants, they were then also performed and reimagined every time they were told. This performative dimension renders emojis intriguingly fluid as they straddle the line between the written and the spoken. Such fluidity is cemented even further by the fact that, when transcribed, all emoji stories look necessarily different from the original ones found online, which is an indication of not only the formal changes that emojis have gone through in the last four years but also the fact that each platform, device and operating system is liable to display different skins for the same smiling pictograph. From this angle then, emojis and the stories conveyed through them can be engaged not only in terms of the motivational and creative potential in visual storytelling that Lord (2010) has identified for curriculum development in bachelor programs for visual arts, rather emojis may also offer a better understanding of the knowledge of distinct discourse

Senses & Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings

styles and structures that children bring with them to school from the outside world, to see how spoken and written channels overlap and interflow in those discourses, and to recognize how linguistic knowledge of this kind can be used to make literate transformations from speech to reading and writing and back again (Fox, 2003).

Slam poets also engage another instance of overlapping spoken and written channels. Their penchant for delivering loud poems that rely heavily on oral traditions like rhyme, rhythm and repetition, without forgetting the performative nature of their practice made them a unique audience to further engage emojis.

Translate: poe[MEME]s

Slam poets are loud, they are in love, they are loners, they wear every feeling on their sleeve and they are proud. Of course, these are gross generalizations, nonetheless for nearly twenty years slam poetry has been hailed as an outlet for students to empower themselves and emancipate words, pass the literally written into the metaphorically spoken (Bruce & Davis, 2000). Like emojis, slam poetry is quite fluid in formal terms but is closely associated with poetry slams, where competing poets perform original pieces with a three-minute time limit and without the aid of music or props. They are typically held in coffee houses on slow week nights to an audience of poets, advocates and unsuspecting customers that might even agree to judge the performers on a scale of 0 to 10, based entirely on subjective taste. Poetry slams are meant to democratize poetry and

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so slam poetry very often attempts to foster immediate connections with audiences that may know nothing about poetry but, as prospective judges are often reassured, know what they like. However, audiences are also likely to encounter slam poetry during freeform open mics, where poets may share the stage with musicians and storytellers that read from carefully crafted journals. Some read from small pieces of folded paper pulled from jacket pockets, while others read from typed copies... Open mic spoken word poetry events are a strong example of teaching and learning in out-of-school contexts. In these contexts, participants’ “funds of knowledge” are not only valued and considered sacred, but also show that when motivated and inspired, people can and do make strategic choices about their own learning (Fisher, 2003, pp. 365-366).

As a workshop, poe[MEME]s attempted to tap into the liberated words and funds of knowledge that slam poetry and spoken word open mics are purported to foster and Tucson Youth Poetry Slam (TYPS) was an ideal partner that could provide a readymade community of young slammers eager to expand on their expressive practices. TYPS reaches out to high school students to familiarize them not only with the practice of slam poetry but also with its potential as an instrument of social engagement, political activism and self-expression, all of which poe[MEME]s sought to amplify by familiarizing them with elements of internet culture. poe[MEME]s occurred in July of 2013 and, just like Studio Meme, it was also concerned with internet memes and online visual expressions in general but only the lesson plan focusing on emojis will be discussed here. However, since the ten participants, all between the ages of 16 and eighteen, were not only fully literate but also already poets the discussions were signifycantly more complex from the start. Once all

Senses & Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings

participants had been assigned shared laptops and screen names — three or four per device — the lesson began by viewing the videos Are LOLCats and internet memes art? (PBS Idea Channel, 2012) and Samuel, the concise poet (WNYC, 2009). The first video is mainly concerned with making a case for internet memes to be considered art based on their ability to communicate personal experiences. The second video is a two minute portrait of poet Samuel Menashe, whose self-identified struggle is “with too many words!” (WNYC, 2009) and writes poems like “a pot poured out fullfills its spout” (ibid.). After watching and briefly discussing the videos two main lines of thought were explored: (1) the merits of internet memes vis-a-vis Art, and (2) the merits of concise poetry vis-a-vis slam poetry. Soon thereafter, as it almost always is the case when poets are involved, poems began to emerge:

write a poem based on memes? challenged accepted tries to write slam poem writes haiku ((socially awkward penguin)) did I just art? I think I did because i provoke emotion tries to provoke emotion provokes wrong emotion tries to make it concise still over time limit tries to make meme poem can't even do that bite the pillow I forgot my notebook o you write poems you must make quite the money so you're telling me american kids write 'poems' for a living tries to put poems in order sense no make oh well i don't always write poems but when i do, i get on the bnv team TL:DR this poem is too long NSFW

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just kidding is SFW KTHNXBYE

poems into emoji, so Ezra Pound-Meme’s poem above became:

This poem, written by a group of poets under the screen name Ezra Pound-Meme was by far the most representative of the initial discussion regarding internet memes, art and concise poetry. It is dense with references to internet culture — challenge accepted, NSFW —, meme speak — sense no make — and inside jokes —bnv team is a reference to Brave New Voices, a national slam poetry competition for poets under the age of 18. After the poems were written and shared, the poets were asked to peruse three different online slideshows that ask readers to decode emoji phrases standing for the titles and plot lines of films, TV shows and books. Some of the emoji strings were the same that Studio Meme participants studied —

for E.T. (Elliot, 2012)—but others were conceptually rich —

for X-Files (Buck, 2013) — and complex —

for George Orwell’s novel 1984 (Taylor, 2013). After discussing the emoji versions of films, TV shows and books, participants were asked to collectively translate each other’s

Senses & Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings

The first feature that jumps out when contrasting this emoji poem with the emoji stories crafted during Studio Meme is the line breaks congruent with poem forms, furthermore there is a proliferation of verb emojis —

and

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—, which may speak to the characteristic urgency and active voice of slam poetry. However, if the power of slam poetry is often compromised when printed on a piece of paper, something similar can be noticed in the translation from the written word to emoji where any sense of transgressive word play becomes sanitized and somewhat tamed. Here, it could be argued that emoji creator Shigetaka Kurita succeeded in his original purpose to enable the exchange of thoughts and emotions without eliciting strong feelings of agreement or rejection (Kelly & Watts, 2015), an ostensibly fine sentiment but one that runs contrary to slam poetry’s fondness for challenging audiences and their biases even to the point of discomfort. Emojis in this case managed to turn slam poetry bland and neutral, which no slam poet is likely to intend. In discussing the historical and material constraints of emojis Lebduska (2014) likens them to the Sumerian cuneiform writing, designed to keep track of business transactions in concise and unembellished texts. Likewise at their least poetic, most commercial edges, emojis represent an expedient compression of space and time driven by a desire to save money. They were born of a need to conserve space, which translated into time, both of which were expressed in terms of material value.

Senses & Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings

In occupying fewer bytes, emojis made communication faster and cheaper for purveyor and consumer alike (n.p.).

So perhaps the material history of emojis still casts too large a shadow for them to adequately capture the energy of a poetic form steeped in the power of spoken word, activism and nonconformity. Nonetheless, projects like Poemojis (Tercero, 2016) and The Emoji Poems (Berger, n.d.) continue to push the otherwise instrumental rhetoric of emojis into an aesthetic realm that embodies the paradox of a potentially universal visual language that remains materially confined and linked to the devices required to read, write and become fluent in it. Film and video are likewise irreversibly connected to a set of devices that make them possible. Furthermore montage, when applied to video and film editing, is quite adept at injecting emotion and urgency into otherwise instrumental and neutral visual objects. The famous Kuleshov effect, for example, posits that a man staring into the camera can be made to be hungry, in mourning or in love by simply switching between different subsequent shots. And so, the final lesson plan was developed for an intro to video editing class as an initial approach to montage theory.

Montage: Intro to video editing

Introduction to video editing is a second semester class in the Visual Arts bachelor’s program at Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez. Although the course has

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been offered for about ten years it wasn’t until the 2016 spring semester that an emojibased lesson plan was incorporated fully. It’s what universities in the US would consider a studio class, where students are expected to further their art practice by incorporating principles discussed during the semester. Ultimately, the video track tries to steer students away from linear narratives and into practices like live multimedia performance and multichannel installations, but the first two semesters are focused on cementing narrative principles that will later be broken. In that sense, this course is meant to provide students with a final approach to linear narratives and it begins with an overview of montage theory. Introduced in the twenties by soviet filmmakers and theorists, montage theory, much like emojis and slam poetry, is quite fluid and has resisted clear-cut definitions from its beginning; yet, Sergei Eisenstein is generally understood as the foremost proponent and practitioner of montage. Eisenstein (1929/ 1977) states that “montage is conflict… [and] The shot appears as the cell of montage. Therefore, it also must be considered from the viewpoint of conflict” (p. 38). However, the conflict he references has little to do with plotlines and character arches. Rather, he identifies the defining conflict in film as the energy that is released every time two single shots collide with each other. As an example, consider the fact that motion in film only arises from the incongruence between two rapidly succeeding still frames. But cinematographic conflicts, according to Eisenstein, can also exist within single frames, in terms of contrasting scales — taller heroes and shorter villains —, competing sources of light — backlit villains — and differing depth of fields — rack focusing that forces the viewer to survey the screen in meaningful ways. However many other conflicts can arise within single frames, it is crucial to under-stand montage as the possibility to intellectually infer meaning through the placement — collision — of two or more conflicting, seemingly incongruent visual elements. Through montage filmmakers can transcend what is apparent in the image and to do so without

Senses & Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings

the recourse of verbal language. This is how abstract notions can be conveyed through the conflicting representation of concrete objects and it also lead Eisenstein (1929/ 1977) to consider cases of montage within artifacts that have nothing to do with film. Perhaps the most notable case of film-free montage is his discussion of copulative Japanese ideograms that can represent “something that is graphically undepictable (sic). For example: the picture for water and the picture of an eye signifies ‘to weep’; the picture of an ear near the drawing of a door = ‘to listen’” (p. 30). Emojis can of course be explored in similar terms, so after discussing montage theory students were introduced to basic emoji directional grammar (Steinmetz, 2014) —

as opposed to

— and were asked to examine several examples of emoji storytelling placing special emphasis in Miley Cyrus’ emoji story quoted above, which was deconstructed using montage principles. Afterwards students were asked to reinterpret two movie trailers of their choosing. Since most college students own or have access to an emoji-ready smartphone, the assignment was completed through messaging app WhatsApp and the screen grabs were posted on the class blog, along with the embedded trailers, to discuss together (https://leondelarosa.wordpress. com/ 2016/02/02/trailers-emojis/). Miguel Briseño’s reinterpretation of the Born in East L.A. (Video Detective, 2014) trailer was particularly successful. He was not only able to craft meaningful moments

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through the juxtaposition of otherwise unrealted objects —

— but also used each character consistently and employed different skin tones. Finally, he was also able to convey a strong sense of rhythm by using line breaks congruently with the sequences and jump cuts in the original trailer.

is present in virtually every line — as a protagonist should — and is also continually modified by colliding with other emojis as he falls in love, talks on the phone and expreses anger. In fact,

is so well established as the star that even when he is missing, as in

Even though

it is easy to decipher that he is the runner not only by the skin tone but also by his previously established relationship with the cop, the US flag and the barricade. Besides applying the montage principle of copulative symbols, this emoji trailer also serves as a testament to the power of basic narrative notions like a consistent and evident protagonist with a struggle to overcome and an apparent resolution. Furthermore, the fact that all of these are manifested as emojis colliding with each other implies a potential for emoji literacy to exemplify and foster other types of literacies and rhetorics and to do so with the immediacy of visual media.

Final Consideration

looks nothing like Cheech Marin, the movie's original protagonist, there is no doubt he is the star of Miguel's emoji trailer. As such,

Senses & Experiences: The Book of Selected Readings

Of course, it would be unfair to compare the outcomes of each lesson plan because they engaged very different learners and followed different plans with diverse objectives. Additionally, not only did emojis change signifycantly in the span of the three years that the lessons took place but the instructor was also continually deepening his understanding of

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emojis and their possibilities. Nonetheless it seems apparent that by approaching emoji literacy through montage theory, it expands beyond the reaches of the written word and begins to trace new pathways that although not fully compatible with the urgency and energy of slam poetry might still be capable of fashioning its own poetic expressions that transcend the conventionalities of these friendly and colorful pictographs. If that is the case, then the art classroom appears to be an ideal environment to interrogate emoji literacy through creative and expressive practices. Additionally, the materiality of emojis implies that by incorporating them into the classroom, specific digital devices and practices are also ushered in and with them a multitude of digital visual literacy concerns could be addressed. Not only will students be able to expand their emoji lexicon but will also likely expand their understanding of the possibilities of using visual symbols in general to communicate complex messages as in the case of the montage lesson plan. On the other hand there will also be instances where emojis will undoubtedly fail to live up to the task at hand, as in the translate lesson plan, which can open the door to discussing the inherent limitations of a purely pictorial communicative system. In this vein, Tatman (2018) recently found that emoji sequences in Twitter and YouTube comments contain significantly less information than text posts of similar length due in large part to emoji enthusiasts' penchant for repetition â&#x20AC;&#x201D; crafting long emoji sequences that use only one or two emojis. But even when repetition is not the issue, directionality and presentation might be. As emojis have grown in popularity new sets and versions have been released and even if they all must comply with the Unicode Standard, established by the Unicode Con-

sortium, they can all display stylistic variations depending on the device, operating system and update that each user is wielding (Stark & Crawford, 2015). Every emoji string I quoted and transcribed in this article, for example, differs from the original ones due to these fluctuations, which can sometimes even affect the spatial orientation of a particular emoji. Gawne (2018) once even inadvertently suggested that an acquaintance ran towards the metaphorical fire of a bad day at work as opposed to away from it as she originally intended all thanks to differing emoji styles. Although such an anecdote might read like little more than an amusing tale of miscommunication, the underlying issue of style variability can also prove relevant to digital visual literacy as it provides an entry point to discuss issues of proprietary iconography and the shortcomings of a centralized communication system that does not follow the ebbs and flows of so-called natural languages. In short, while new words are uttered everyday by toddlers all over the world, a new emoji cannot be utilized unless the Unicode Consortium first approves it and re-leases it as an update (PBS Idea Channel, 2016). Finally, emoji literacy might prove relevant to digital visual literacy as a way to design, evaluate and discuss lesson plans that introduce students into the implications of the pictorial turn (Mitchell, 1995) and how digital technology has afforded the ideal environment for the visual to thrive. But most importantly, let us not forget just how fun it is to work with these whimsical characters.

References 9Gag (n.d.). Miley Cyrus' emoji story. Retrieved from http://9gag.com/gag/a8W864Q/miley-cyrusemoji-story

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Berger, S. (n.d.). The emoji poems. Retrieved from https://www.stephanieberger.com/emoji/ Bruce, H., & Davis, B. (2000). Slam: Hip-Hop meets poetry â&#x20AC;&#x201D; A strategy for violence intervention. The English Journal, 89(5), 119-127. doi:1. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 822307. doi:1. Buck, S. (2013, January 3). Decode these emojis to guess the TV show. Retrieved from https://mashable.com/ 2013/01/03/emoji-tv-shows/#_ oWSzkO4_sqh [Carla Gannis] (2014, October 21). The garden of emoji delights triptych animation by Carla Gannis [Video file]. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/ 109645144 Danesi, M. (2016). The Semiotics of emoji: The rise of visual language in the age of the Internet [Kindle version]. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. De la Rosa-Carrillo, E. L. (2015). On the language of Internet memes (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 3703692). Eisenstein, S. (1977). The Cinematographic principle and the ideogram. In Jay Leyda (Ed. & Trans.), Film form (pp. 28-44). New York: Harvest/HBJ (Original work published 1929). Elliot, A. (2012, January 14) Iphone emoji fun: Can you decode our emoticon film titles? Retrieved from https://mashable.com/2012/01/14/iphone-emojis/#ujb0CQBDSOqZ Fisher, M. (2003). Open mics and open minds: Spoken word poetry in African diaspora participatory literacy communities. Harvard educational review, 73(3), 362-389. Fox, C. (2003). Playing the storyteller: Some principles for learning literacy in the early years of schooling. In N. Hall, J. Larson, & J. Marsh (Eds.), Handbook of early childhood literacy (HTML version, Chapter 16, no page numbers) SAGE Publications. Retrieved from http://m.knowledge.sagepub.com.ezproxy1. library. arizona.edu/mobile/view/hdbk_earlyliteracy/SAGE.xml Gawne, L. (2018, June 18). Don't run towards the fire (the on-going problem with emoji directions) [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.superlinguo.com/post/174988048516/dont-runtowards-the-fire-the-on-going -problem Kelly, R., & Watts, L. (2015, September). Characterising the inventive appropriation of emoji as relationally meaningful in mediated close personal relationships. Paper presented at Experiences of Technology Appropriation: Unanticipated Users, Usage, Circumstances, and Design, Oslo, Norway. Retrieved from https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/ publications/characterising-the-inventive-appropriation-of-emoji-as-relational Lebduska, L. (2014). Emoji, emoji, what for art thou? Harlot: A revealing look at the arts of persuasion, 1(12). Retrieved from http://harlotof thearts.org/index.php/harlot/article/view/ 186/157 Lord, A. (2010). Creative visual art storytelling and concept development. Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, 3(3), 227-256. Mitchell, W. J. (1995). Picture theory: Essays on verbal and visual representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mobile, V. (2013, May 23). The 18 greatest emoji stories ever told. Retrieved from https://www. buzzfeed.com/ virginmobilelive/the-greatest-emoji-stories-evertold?utm_term=.gfQvo844Y#. abyP95BBm Negishi, M. (2014, March 26). Meet Shigetaka Kurita, the father of emoji. Retrieved from http:// blogs.wsj.com/ japanrealtime/2014/03/26/meet-shigetaka-kurita-the-father-of-emoji/ Oxford Dictionaries (2015, November 16). Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015 is... [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://blog.oxford dictiona ries.com/2015/11/word-of-the-year-2015emoji/ [PBS Idea Channel] (2012, April 11). Are LOLCats and Internet memes art? [Video file] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9Zysw k07vg [PBS Idea Channel] (2016, April 13). Can you speak emoji? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=vRNVf-1M7xQ Sampietro, A. (2016). Exploring the punctuating effect of emoji in Spanish whatsapp chats.

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Lenguas Modernas, 1(47), 91-113. Scall, R. (2015). Emoji as language and their place outside American copyright law. Journal of intellectual property and entertainment law, 5 (2), 381-404. Spalter, A. M., & Van Dam, A. (2008). Digital visual literacy. Theory into practice, 47(2), 93-101. Stark, L., & Crawford, K. (2015). The conservatism of emoji: Work, affect, and communication. Social Media + Society, 1(2) 1-11. DOI: 10.1177/205630 5115604853. Steinmetz, K. (2014b, July 17). Here are rules of using emoji you didn't know you were following. Retrieved from http://time.com/2993508/emoji-rules-tweets/ Tatman, R. (2018, July 7). Are emoji sequences as informative as text? Retrieved from https:// makingnoiseandhearingthings.com/2018/07/07/are-emoji-sequences-as-informative-astext/ Taylor, C (2013, February 20) Read 20 great books in 2 minutes emoji style. Retrieved from https:// mashable.com/2013/02/20/iphone-emoji-literature/#4UmRsV9__Zqu Tercero, D. (2016) Poemojis. Retrieved from http:// poemojis-fonca.tumblr.com/ [Video Detective] (2014, October 19). Born in East L.A. Trailer 1987 [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huBIavcvRsM [WNYC]. (2009, December 23). Samuel, The concise poet [Video File]. Retrieved from https:// www.youtube.com/ watch?v=EefUhL2kHkM Zareen, N., Nosheen Karim, Umar Ali Khan. (2016). Psycho emotional impact of social media emojis. Isra Medical Journal, 8(4), 257-259.

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Twentieth Century Virtual Reality Education Reprise: Stereographs to Google Cardboard Veronica I. Ent Saint Vincent College, USA

Abstract. Could today’s teachers use methods from over 100 years ago in their classrooms with smartphone virtual reality? This article examines the historical context of virtual reality in the classroom as early as the 1900s beginning with the stereoscope and then looks to the future with the use of smartphone virtual reality devices in the classroom similar to the Google Cardboard. In addition to this historical overview, new teachers, unfamiliar with the early stereograph use in the classroom, were asked to develop virtual reality strategies using a Google Cardboard device. In a surprising twist, the teacher-developed methods were nearly interchangeable between the 1900s and today! Keywords: stereograph, virtual reality, visual education, Google cardboard, teaching with technology, stereo views in education; VR headsets, SAMR model

he NMC/CoSN Horizon Report: 2017 K-12 Edition states, “Virtual reality: time-to-adoption is two to three years” in schools. This statement is a bit perplexing in that the Horizon Report, as well as others, often asserts that virtual reality in the classroom is a new and upcoming trend. While it is very clear that new virtual technologies are far more advanced than before, virtual reality is really not new. The 1850 stereograph was the earliest technology to trick viewers into seeing images in the third-dimension. While it began as an entertaining pastime, it was soon applied to education in 1906. The “virtual reality” used in the 1900s was explained as having the experience of seeing an object in the round, exploring a setting as if one was there, and imagining the day-to-day life of others (Keystone View Company, 1906/1922). In addition, the Visual Instruction Movement of the time also encouraged visual learning in the schoolroom to make education authentic for all children that otherwise had no means to see or experience the real occurrence (Saettler, 1990/ 2004). The 1900 education theorists believed that virtual reality would engage learners, make experiences memorable, and deepen learning. Is this much different than today? By mid 1930s, the educational virtual reality of the turn of the century was all but forgotten for about 75 years until reimagined by Google. In 2014, a Google product developer reproduced his childhood memories of a View-Master using his smart-phone and a cardboard viewer (Mattel, Inc., 2016). This 3-D revival sparked a new interest in stereoscopic viewing and virtual reality in today’s classrooms. Since the stereograph was used in the classroom and the new smartphone virtual reality is entering schools today, it seemed likely that the two technologies could be compared. To examine the parallel that teacher methods can be recycled (despite technological advancements), current teachers were asked to develop strategies using a smartphone virtual reality device. The teachers were not aware of the 1900 methods for using the stereograph and had little knowledge about the smartphone virtual reality device, a Google Cardboard. They were asked to experiment and devise a strategy as well to pilot their idea with a student from their class. This article shares some

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of the strategies teachers developed and their reflections of these strategies. Surprisingly, many of the strategies the teachers developed using Google Cardboard were very comparable to strategies used at the turn of the century with the 1900-stereograph. The surprising similarities of strategies and reflections suggest that 100 year old virtual reality teaching methods, when applied to the future, may still actually work!

Virtual Visual Instruction through the Ages Nearly every virtual reality media regardless of its format was born into the arms of the entertainment industry to produce amusement and enjoyment for affluent customers looking for a trendy pastime. Consistent with many trendy amusement innovations, these technologies sometimes land in education to enhance motivation and learning. The first technology that attempted to reproduce life-like, three dimensional experiences was that of the stereoscopic device invented in the 1850s. The Victorians enjoyed entertaining their guests with these stereoscopic images of exotic lands, unfamiliar sites, and staged poses (Goldsborough, 2007). The concept of stereoscopy was that of Sir Charles Wheatstone, an English scientist and inventor, in which he demonstrated how the mind sees three dimensions through each eye seeing a slightly different view (Wing, 1996). Sir Charles Wheatstone developed a box-type English stereoscope viewer that was later patented by M. Jules Duboscq and Sir Davd Brewster in 1856 (Wing, 1996). Eight to nine years after Wheatstone’s design of a stereo-scope, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, an American physician, poet, and essayist, became fascinated by the stereo view “mania.” He designed an inexpensive hand-held viewer that would later become affordable to the general working class around the 1890s (Darrah, 1977). Holmes improved on the earlier styles by making his stereoscopes adjustable for different head sizes and making them very portable. By the turn of the century, many American households enjoyed the less-expensive stereoscopes and images produced by companies such as Underwood & Underwood, H.C. White, and the Keystone View Company (Wing, 1996).

Stereographs in Education It was the design of Holmes’ stereoscope and the advancements in photography that opened the door for stereoscopy to enter the classroom (Wing, 1996). After several improvements by other stereographers, a sturdy stereoscope emerged that would later serve schools along with the thousands of images provided by the three competing companies (see Figure 1). The Underwood & Underwood Company was the first to directly market instructional stereo views and scopes to the classroom (Wing, 1996). In 1892, a former Underwood and Underwood salesman, B. L. Singley, founded the Keystone View Company that led the charge throughout the early 1900s for school use (Darrah, 1977).

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Figure 1. Schoolroom stereoscope with Keystone View Company stereographs. Keystone View Company, Meadville, PA. c. 1906.

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The Keystone View Company established an “education department” around 1906 with the release of a teacher’s manual to accompany the Keystone’s 600 Set and to support the use of stereoscopy in the classroom. The Keystone’s “600 Set was a collection of stereographs selected to offer a variety of images that every student should study (Darrah, 1997). The “600 Set” images consisted of 600 stereographs of wildlife and agriculture, natural and man-made scenes, industries around the world, cultural lifestyles, etc. Well-known school advocates of the time were asked to contribute to the manual entitled Visual Education: Teachers’ Guide to the Keystone 600 Set (Saettler, 1990/2004). The three prominent contributors were Charles W. Elliot, William C. Bagley, and Frank M. McMurry. The manual includes William C. Bagley’s essay titled, “Concreteness of Edu-cation,” which sums up the use of stereographs as a superior method for teaching the authentic experience in a classroom (Keystone View Company, 1906/1922, p. x). He believed that actual experiences are impractical and if possible, become very uncontrolled. The theory suggests that stereographs would narrow the scope of learning to only the essential threedimensional experience that is needed for learning. Bagley explained that students could interact directly with an actual “concrete” experience by viewing a stereograph under the direction of the teacher. The final essay by Frank McMurry touts the value of virtual experiences as a method to increase interest, improve student engagement, offer students experiences otherwise not possible, and to support creative thinking. The remaining sections of the manual index the “600 set” and suggest methods for stereo views use in instruction by creating scenes and settings for stories, providing advanced organization for an upcoming lesson, participating in seat work and group work, visualizing historical problems, increasing vocabulary, and improving express-ion in written and oral modes. Some actual 1906/1922 methods from the Visual Education Teachers’ Guide to the Keystone “600 Set” (Keystone View Company) are listed below: One or two rows passing: A signal is given, and scopes are passed every 20-90 seconds until the whole class observes the image group. Double desk study: One student views the other student reads the description printed on the back of the card. Dramatization: Students act out the scene or an event that is or could occur with the image. Written expression: Students write their emotions when looking at the image, empathizing with characters, or sharing perspectives. Study hour: Students use the images to gather information that will be tested. Home study: Students take the stereoscope and images home to extend the lesson from the classroom. (Keystone View Company, 1906/1922) In addition to the Keystone View Company’s teacher resources, the teacher preparation in visual instruction was also on the rise in the United States. Several teacher’s normal schools used textbooks that included the use of stereo-graphs and how to better use the technology to have strong lesson achievement (Saettler, 1990/2004). One of the most popular visual education textbooks was Visual Instruction in the Public Schools written by Anna Verona Dorris in 1928. This textbook devotes a section to stereographs and provides both positives and negatives of the classroom device. Dorris (1928) clearly cautions teachers on poor and overuse of stereographs. She states that free viewing or multiple brief observations are not appropriate methods for stereograph use. She asserts that every teacher using stereo views in instruction should plan and allow deep

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reflection, Figure 2. She recommends that every image should have accompanying quest-ions or pedagogy that will require deeper processing of visual cues and information. For instance, primary students should describe what he or she sees, and the class can write what the child recites. She also suggests that a child can write on the board what he or she observed, and the class can correct grammar, spelling, or handwriting. Last, she recommends that any vocabulary associated with the image should be introduced, thus the child will have a greater memory of the words. Figure 2. Girls in classroom viewing stereographs through stereoscopes. Reprinted from Underwood and Underwood Company, Arlington, NJ, number 112985, c. 1908. Copyrighted Underwood and Underwood Company.

The stereograph remained popular until about the mid-1930s when school consolidation reduced the need to supply individual sets to schoolrooms. Sets during this time were given to libraries and soon were used less and less. In addition, the advancement of automobile and other means of transportation and travel reduced the desire to view images that could be seen easily. Last, filmstrips and emerging motion pictures technologies were entering the classrooms making large group visual instruction easier for the consolidated and large classrooms. The Keystone View Company remained as the last stereograph supplier as late as the 1960s but halted its production for education in 1939 (Darrah, 1977). The virtual qualities of stereoscopy seemed to completely vanish from the classroom in the 1940s.

The View-Master: A Modern Stereoscope After the stereograph’s popularity began to diminish, the debut of a sleeker handheld View-Master stereoscopic device occurred in 1939 with the hopes that it would replace the stereograph market in entertainment and education (see Figure 3). The View-Master’s design was developed to be an improvement on the single, black and white, and image viewing of the stereograph. William Gruber and Harold Graves believed the device could position well in educational and tourists’ markets. William Gruber was an avid stereoscopic photographer who happened to meet the president of the Sawyer postcard company, Harold Graves in 1938 (Clatworthy, 2016). The

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Figure 3. Sawyer’s View-Master and image reel. Sawyer’s Inc. Portland, OR, c.1951.

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two combined their ideas to invent the View-Master device to enable multiple stereoscopic images (seven images) to be controlled by one viewer without single image exchanging. In addition to this advancement in image handling, the View-Master imagery capitalized on the Kodiakâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new color transparency film, Kodachrome (Wald-smith,1991). This resulted in colorful images that made the device attractive. In 1940s, the US Military capitalized on the training value of the View-Master devices and commissioned sets of reels (over one million) to assist in training pilots and anti-aircraft/ships' specialists in artillery and aircraft identification (Clatworthy, 2016). The US Military purchased thousands of viewers and then had commissioned companies to make World War II artillery and aircraft models to be photographed for self-study and testing reels (Miller, 2010). Even though the View-Master was initially positioned to be educational and had significant US military use in the 1940s, the entertainment value of the device shifted the product to be-come more of a childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s toy before it ever took hold in the classroom. By the mid-1950s, the Sawyer Company purchased a rival competitor with licenses to Walt Disney Studios and anima-ted titles resulting in many entertainment image reels of Disney productions (Clatworthy, 2016). As a result of this merger, the View-Master fixed its place in the toy market and its educational value was further dismissed. Since the 1980s, the View-Master series changed ownership several times landing it today as a Mattel, Inc. toy that is marketed by Fisher-Price (Miller, 2010). Much of the image and story content is for children or sold as touristâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s souvenirs. The View-Master continues to be sold today as a vintage toy.

Google Cardboard: Smartphone Virtual Reality Since the emergence of the View-Master device, little has been done to modernize the handheld three-dimensional stereoscopic viewer over the past 30 years until Mattel, Inc. and Google partnered in 2015. While expensive headset virtual reality was slowly developing in laboratories and universities, a low-cost version of virtual reality was needed to save the technology for the average consumer (Mattel, 2016). One year prior to the Mattel and Google partnership, a prototype of the Google Cardboard shown in Figure 6 was exhibited at the Google's annual developer conference in San Francisco. The prototype used the visual, auditory, and haptic features of the smartphone serve as the media in which would deliver stereoscopic experiences when viewed by the headset. David Coz, a Google employee in Paris, France, developed the prototype (Metz, 2015) reflecting on memories of the View-Master images (Mattel, Inc., 2015). David Coz worked with a team of virtual reality specialists and a colleague, Daimian Henry, to refine the handheld cardboard device and accompanying applications for a smartphone. Once this device was distributed, the low-cost viewer construction, open software, and uses for the device began to gain popularity. Like many of the early stereoscopic viewers, Google marketed the device for entertainment. In a similar manner, it was quickly modified into education. Figure 4. Google Cardboard smartphone virtual reality viewer. Reprinted from Google Inc., December 28, 2017, Retrieved from https://store.google.com/ product/google_ cardboard/ (Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission).

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Since the smartphone virtual reality introduction in 2014, educators have been becoming more interested in its use due to its multimedia elements, benefits to student motivation, and it affordability for schools. Even though virtual reality training and teaching methods are still in infancy, methods on best practices are appearing more and more on teacher resource web-sites and in workshops. Again, similar to the earlier virtual reality devices, teacher adoption is crucial for its success and long-term use. Classroom Virtual Reality. Much of the research and pedagogical support presented by the Keystone View Company in the early 1900s in favor of using stereographs in education remain true for the use of smartphone virtual reality experiences. The research supporting virtual reality in today’s classroom, which consequently are some of the same benefits also mentioned in the 1906/1922 Keystone View Company manual for teachers, include in-creased student interest in the content, improved student engagement, giving students experiences otherwise not possible, and sup-porting creative thinking. Today’s support for using smartphone virtual reality experiences adds two additional areas to this list, improving student digital skills and allowing greater customization in learning (Greve, 2017). As expected, the advancement in technology in 2014 surpasses that of the 1900s. Today’s stereoscopic virtual reality classroom devices do require greater sophistication of digital skills. Students will gain digital confidence when working with virtual environments that require sophisticated manipulation (Greve, 2017). These skills are crucial for today’s connected world and provide students with opportunities where they can apply their skills in a safe environment before they utilize it in the real world. The second area that differs from the 1900s, is the growing trend of customized learning in which students can reach educational targets through the personalized selection of learning events and without the constraints of a predetermined time. Charles Schwahn and Beatrice McGarvey (2014) are the authors of the theory and further explain mass customized learning as a system in which “each learner becomes an active, engaged partner with real voice in how he or she learns and how he or she demonstrates knowledge or skill” (p. 92). Throughout Schwahn and McGarvey’s work, technology tools such as virtual reality are suggested for improving customized experiences. Specific classroom virtual reality applications assist in this new trend by permitting students to use the device to further explore concepts based on their own investigations and interests. The smartphone’s gyroscope sensor (a sensor which is used to maintain and control the position, level or orientation of the device) takes the simple stereoscopic image into the 21 st century by allowing user manipulation. The smartphone gyroscope uses viewer movement, direction, and sensations to provide 360-degree perspectives when placed into the virtual reality headset (Holly, 2015). These multimedia experiences involve learners’ different senses; therefore, the device increases engagement.

Using Smartphone Virtual Reality in the Classroom Today Theoretical and Pedagogical Implications and Framework. The following comparative study examines how current teachers suggest using smartphone virtual reality in the classroom compared to those of the 1906/1922 Keystone View Company’s suggested methods. The SAMR (Substitution-Augmentation-Modification-Redefinition) model is a popular taxonomy that examines the growth of using technology in the classroom (see Figure 5). This comparative study is theoretically based on the premises suggested by Dr. Ruben Puentedura in 2013. Puentedura developed the SAMR taxonomy to help teachers think deeply about applying new technology. In addition to determining the depth of technology use, this framework sets a context in which the methods from 2016 and 1920 can be aligned even though the teachers responding to this study had no knowledge of the earlier stereo view methods. The model has four levels in which technology is intergraded. "S" represents the substitution level which is the most rudimentary in that the technology substitutes a system already in use. In other words, a new technology merely

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replaces a tool with little substantial improvement. One of the current teacher’s strategies suggested in this study is at the "S" level. In this comparison and unbeknown to the current teacher, the smartphone virtual reality device is directly substituting the stereograph of the early twentieth century. However, most of the strategies suggested by the current teachers incorporated the enhanced smartphone haptic experiences in addition to three-dimensional visuals which would classify them at the next level.

Figure 5. Puentedura, R. (2013). The SAMR Model. Reprinted from Hippasus, Inc., April 20, 2018, Retrieved from http://hippasus.com/rrpweblog. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

The next level of the SAMR model is the "A" referring to technology that is augmented or improved from an earlier use. This level could be suggested as a base for the new smartphone virtual reality technologies’ use in today’s classroom over the earlier use in the 1900s. One of the suggested strategies below is at the augmented level on the taxonomy. However, the teacher proposing this strategy was not currently using the earlier devices so this would not be entirely an augmentation of an “in use” tool as defined by Puentedura (2013). Yet once the 1920s strategy was matched to the 2016 use, it would appear as a new technology augmentation of an earlier stereo view device with many improvements. The third level of the SAMR model is "M" for modification. This level is considered transformative whereas the earlier levels were enhancements. Using technology at the M level suggests that a learning task is redesigned and offering a greater experience (Puentedura, 2013). Two of the strategies developed by the teachers in this study transformed learning with the smartphone virtual reality applications. The teachers using the smartphone virtual reality device were able to expand the classroom walls to have students investigate other locations and objects for deeper

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learning. This level also occurred in the 1900s as students learning was enhanced by the stereographs. In the two strategies below, the students were asked to modify their learning to have greater understanding and concept achievement. The final level of the SAMR model is "R" for redefinition. There is little evidence that students in the 1900s would create and use their own stereographs. The ability to develop film or own stereoscopic cameras was not a possibility for a teacher in the 1900s. However, todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s teachers have access to camera functions and applications that would enable students to create their own smartphone virtual reality images and media. As a possible benefit to this comparison, teachers now exposed to smartphone virtual reality could begin creating their own content with students. The comparison study included eight current in-service teachers with approximately two to six years of experience selected from kindergarten to twelfth grade who were asked to explore the use of the Google Cardboard in their classrooms and to devise a strategy for others to use. Each teacher was provided a Google Cardboard and a list of example smartphone applications. The design of the study was to allow the teachers to explore on their own the device and how they would use it in their classroom. Eight teachers provided suggested strategies and were asked to pilot their ideas with students. Since several of the strategies were similar, four were selected to be listed as a sampling based on the SAMR model taxonomy. Below are the four strategies aligned to current Pennsylvania Academic Standards, PA Core Standards, and various levels of instruction. It is important to restate that prior to the development of their strategies, teachers had no know-ledge of the Keystone View Company, its teacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s manual, or how stereographs were once used in education. Each 2016 description is followed by the comparable exercise that would have occurred in the 1920 classroom based on the 1906/1922 instructional manuals of the Keystone View Company and the work of Anna Verona Dorris in 1928. The SAMR level is also indicated for each pairing. Teacher A: Third Grade Teacher. Title: Animals and their Habitats Ages: 8-9 years old PA Academic Standard: 3.1.3.A2 Describe the basic needs of living things and their dependence on light, food, air, water, and shelter. VR Smartphone Application: Animals and Their Habitats 2016 Description: Each student is assigned a different zoo animal. After viewing the habitat of their animal using the application with the Google Cardboard, the student will give a brief presentation and/or demonstration of the physical characteristics that help this animal survive. 1920 Description: Each student is assigned a stereograph with a different animal in its habitat. The student will describe to the class what the animal is doing in the image and why. SAMR Level: Substitution Teacher B: Seventh Grade Social Studies Teacher. Title: Exploring Stonehenge (see Figure 6)

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Ages: 12-13 years old PA Academic Standard: 7.2.7.A Explain the characteristics of places and regions. VR Smartphone Application: Google Expeditions 2016 Description: This is a partner activity. Student A and Student B will be given a list of previous learned vocabulary terms. Student A uses the Google Cardboard device to navigate the application and locate the items from the list of vocabulary terms. As Student A locates them, they should describe them aloud to their partner, Student B. If Student B agrees that the description is accurate, then Student B checks that vocabulary term off of the list. Student A will complete the activity once they find and describe all of the vocabulary terms. Once Student A has completed the activity, Student A and Student B switch roles. Figure 6. Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England. Reprinted from Google Expeditions, December 28, 2017, Retrieved from https://edu.google.com/ expeditions/ (Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission).

1920 Description: While seated in a double desk, two students turn toward each other. Student A views the image of Stonehenge (see Figure 7). Student B reads the description on the back of the stereograph to Student A who seeks to find the vocabulary in the image. Once complete, Student A and Student B switch roles. Figure 7. Strange Stonehenge on the Salisbury Plain. Reprinted from Keystone View Company, Meadville, PA, number W28387, c. 1901. Copyrighted H. C. White Company.

SAMR Level: Augmentation

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Teacher C: Tenth Grade Art Teacher. Title: Differentiate the Characteristics of Neoclassical Architecture Ages: 17-16 years old PA Academic Standard: 8.5.11-12.G Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media. (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) VR Smartphone Application: Google Street View 2016 Description: Students are given a list of famous examples of neoclassical architecture that can be viewed on Google Street View. Students are expected to explore the various building examples and then identify and explain what they believe to be the basic themes and characteristics of neoclassical architecture. 1920 Description: Carefully view the three given stereographs with examples of baroque, neoclassical and Victorian architectures. Using proper penmanship, write the characteristics of each. SAMR Level: Modification Teacher D: Twelfth Grade English teacher. Title: Descriptive Writing Ages: 17-18 years old PA Academic Standard: 1.4.11-12.E Write with an awareness of the stylistic aspects of composition. VR Smartphone Application: Urban Hike 2016 Description: Students will find and write a descriptive narrative of a cultural site using appropriate vocabulary including the perspectives of the residents or spectators using the Google Cardboard demonstration application â&#x20AC;&#x153;Urban Hikeâ&#x20AC;? (see Figure 8). Figure 7. Avenue Gustave Eiffel, Paris, France. Reprinted from Urban Hike, December 28, 2017, Retrieved from https://vr.google.com/ cardboard/ (Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission).

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1920 Description (Figure 9): Students will recreate a scene that could occur at the site shown on a stereo view. In small groups, students will write a scripted dramatization with emotion using the back description found on the stereograph and act out the scene to the class. SAMR Level: Modification Figure 8. Looking Under the Great Eiffel Tower. Reprinted from Underwood and Underwood Company, Arlington, NJ, c. 1900. Copyrighted Underwood and Underwood Company.

As mentioned above, the four teachers asked to provide the strategies had no know-ledge of the 1900 methods. The parallels be-tween the strategies are very interesting and demonstrate that while the technology tool has changed the pedagogy has not. The teachers were also asked to pilot their strategy with a student. The teachers reported interesting observations. Teacher A states, “I would definitely use VR in the classroom, but as I found in this trial, students require multiple experiences to “try.” In my own experiences, I lost track of what I was doing in the novelty of using the VR. I think multiple VR devices are required for a successful classroom experience due to the number of students in a class. I could predict everyone wanting to partake in this experience, and for longer VR experiences it would take a large amount of instructional time.” Dorris (1928) cautioned teachers in the 1900s of how students could be easily distracted with the stereoscope and the images. Teacher A alludes to this same dilemma when using the Google Cardboard. Teacher A agrees with Dorris in 1928 that instructional time is important to use the technology correctly. Teacher B states, “I could really see using this device to expose students to places that we cannot physically travel with them. Rather than looking at pictures or videos, let the students explore these locations. I think that they would be more engaged, and the activity would be more memorable.” Teacher B agrees with the same thoughts of the essayists in the 1906 Keystone View teacher’s manual. It seems that the benefit of travel with-out leaving the classroom was desired then and now. It also confirms that traditional pictures are not as beneficial in comparison to the virtual reality experiences. This was another point discussed in 1906. Teacher C states, “I thought the Google Cardboard device was a great way to engage students in a history or science related topic. Students could “visit” famous places or

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museums rather than just looking at a picture in a book. However, I was not very successful in finding an App in another subject area that I really liked.” In the early teaching documents for using stereographs, it seemed that most of the lesson examples were related to commerce, geography, and history (Dorris, 1928 and Keystone View Company, 1906/1922). Teacher C points out that the applications for the Google Card-board seemed to be most centered on humanities and science and not on math or languages. This suggests that content areas that benefit the most from virtual reality maybe be those of social or science nature taught in the 1900s and today. Teacher D states, “The content was not overshadowed by the technology in this case. Yes, the students were excited to try something new, but they were on task the entire time. This was extremely meaningful to them, and they voiced this to me.” This reflection suggests that given the correct setting, the Google Cardboard can be helpful and can support or augment the use of other tools or strategies in the classroom. Dorris (1928) asserts that multiple visual instructional methods should be used over just one. In addition, Teacher D indicates that his/her students were actively engaged and motivated. This is one of the benefits emphasized in the support documents for using stereographs in the classroom made by the Keystone View Company in 1906. The above strategies and reflections further confirm that virtual reality is not a new teaching technology and carries with it the same challenges and benefits. While it has advanced since the 1900s, its theoretical foundations have seemed to remain the same. The 2017 NMC/ coSN Horizon Report: K-12 Edition reports that virtual reality of the low-cost nature (Google Cardboard, etc.) is a currently a 13.9 million dollar industry. Despite this large market, the report indicates that in 2017 one-half of educational institutions are experimenting with virtual reality but only one quarter are actually using it. The report also suggests the adoption time to be two to three years from today given the need to train teachers and diffuse the devices to the classrooms. The report predicts that by 2025 over 15 million learners will have used virtual reality in the classroom. Based on these pre-dictions, it seems likely that virtual reality will enter back into the classroom and the benefits once again maybe used in education.

Conclusion At the turn of the century Victorians enjoyed the use of stereographs for entertainment. The amusement of three-dimensional images enthused viewers for hours. The images were of sights never seen by many and the fascination of foreign worlds seemed to dominate much of the content. It was not long until this entertainment was repurposed for education. By the 1920s, the stereoscope and “educational” stereographs became popular in many class-rooms to help teach topics of geography, culture, commerce, and history. The Visual Instruction Movement was also taking hold in American teacher education, thus, maintaining the sustained use of visuals in 20 th century teacher pedagogy. Upon the introduction of films and motion pictures, the fascination with static images seemed to drop in popularity. Larger console-dated schools of the 1940s put resources toward motion pictures and films in order to teach the growing class sizes. For the next 75 years, threedimensional, stereoscopic imagery was rare in the classroom regardless of the efforts to save the market by the Sawyer’s View-Master Company. After several years, the View-Master found its place in the toy market and was regarded as a child’s entertainment as opposed to an educational resource. Nevertheless, it was View-Master’s childhood memories that influenced a Google team of developers to create a new virtual reality device. In 2014, Google pioneered the smartphone virtual reality viewer as a new product, Google Cardboard. This viewer uses a lens similar to that

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of the stereo-scope and the viewer-controlled media similar to that of the View-Master. Combined with an open market of application developers, Google was successful in building a popular device trend that is used in entertainment (like its predecessors) but also, in education. As was the case in the past, today’s teachers are encouraged to embrace new technologies in the classroom. When several teachers were asked to experiment with the Google Cardboard viewer their responses were interestingly similar to those that occurred in the 1900s with the stereoscope. Teachers, unfamiliar with early visual stereoscopic education, devised strategies to use the smartphone virtual reality for teaching. These strategies and react-ions to its use provided interesting parallels into our teaching past. Today’s teachers desire to make learning memorable, expose students to places they have never gone, and encourage deeper understanding the same as they did in the 1900s. The use of virtual reality in the class-room then and now seems to be invaluable to teaching.

References Clatworthy, K. (2016). View-Master history. Retrieved from http://www.viewmaster.co.uk/ htm/history.asp Darrah, W. (1997). The world of stereographs. Nashville: Land Yacht Press (original work published 1977). Dorris, A. V. (1928). Visual instruction in the public schools. Boston: The Athenaeum Press. Freeman, A., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Davis, A., & Hall Giesinger, C. (2017). NMC/ CoSN Horizon Report: 2017 K–12 Edition. Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium. Greves, B. (2017, February 13). Using virtual reality in the classroom. Retrieved from https://unimersiv.com/using-virtual-reality-classroom/ Goldsborough, G. (2007). Victorian virtual reality. Manitoba History, 54, 30-38. Holly, M. (2015, July 14). How smartphone-based VR works. Androidcentral. Retrieved from https://www.androidcentral.com/how-smartphone-based-vr-works Keystone View Company. (1922). Visual education: Teachers’ guide to Keystone “600 Set.” Mead-ville, PA: Keystone View Company (original work published 1906). Mattel, Inc. (2016). Mattel collaborates with Google to reimagine the iconic view-master toy. Retrieved from https://news.mattel.com/news/ mattel-collaborates-with-google-toreimagine-the-iconic-view-master-toy Metz, C. (2015, June 1). Inside story to Google’s bizarre plunge into VR. Wired. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2015/06/inside-story-googles-unlikely-leap-cardboard-vr/ Miller, A. (2010). A brief look at view-master history. Retrieved from http://www.3dstereo.com/ vmhist.html Puentedura, R. R. (2013, May 26). SAMR: Moving from enhancement to transformation. Retrieved from http://www.hippasus.com/rrperblog/archives/oooo95.html Saettler, P. (2004). The evolution of American educational technology. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited. Schwann C., & McGarvey, B. (2014). Mass customized learning: Unfairly maligned. Educational Leadership, 71, 92. Waldsmith, J. (1991). Stereoviews: An illustrated history and price guide. Radnor, PA: WallaceHomestead. Wing, P. (1996). Stereoscopes: The first one hundred years. Nashua, NH: Transition Publishing.

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Creating Connection: Teens, Art, and Engagement Isabelle Guillard Concordia University, Canada

Abstract. This chapter explores the role that contemporary artists can play in student learning in secondary school art education. Partnerships, combining visual and media literacy approaches in pedagogy, tend to develop essential skillsets that reflect current academic aims related to democratic and responsible citizenship. Collaborative projects between practicing artists, students, and educators yield critical, outside-of-the-box thinking and communication, social engagement, and innovative uses of information and communications technology (ICT). Such partnerships also initiate students into working holistically and collaboratively across school subjects and disciplines. The narrative describes the collaboration between a high school teacher and contemporary artists, Manuel Chantre and Elisabeth Picard, through the Quebec Ministry of Education program called the “Culture in the Schools.” Transcripts from interviews of Chantre, Picard and another contemporary artist, Brandon Ballengée, illustrates how the presence of artists in the classrooms can be a highly motivating educational strategy. The experience speaks to teens' interests and pushes the boundaries of traditional teaching methodology to incorporate, both theoretically and in practice, critical notions of identity, belonging, dialogue, and community. Keywords: high school art education, contemporary art, citizenship, interdisciplinarity, information and communications technology

rtists as agents of social transformation can play an important role in the development of pedagogical strategies in visual and media literacy in art education. Teaching in collaboration with practicing artists has served as a highly effective method in motivating teens to learn about contemporary art. This paper presents findings from a collaboration between a high school art teacher and two contemporary artists, Manuel Chantre and Elisabeth Picard, as well as interviews with them and another contemporary artist, Brandon Ballengée. Further, inspired by the artists’ practice a curriculum is proposed that actively engages teens in critical thinking about the world in which they are living. The government program, the “Culture in the Schools” is available to public and private schools in the province of Quebec who wish to integrate culture into the classroom through creative and innovative projects (Ministère de l’Enseignement et de l’Éducation Supérieur [MEES], 2018). The program offers funding and access to artists, writers, and cultural organizations (MEES, 2018). Secondary art teachers have much to gain from developing partnerships with artists who make use of current information and communications technology (ICT) to work across disciplines through interdisciplinary approaches. As Morin (1999) explains, “to be relevant, knowledge needs to be understood according to its context, its relations with the global and its complexity within a multidimentional perspective which includes the social, economical, political and biological aspects of our human condition” (p.35). In the 21st century, neoliberalism has engendered many shifts in our conceptions of culture and creativity, bringing teachers to adopt pedagogical strategies that foster the learning of skills on the one hand and the understanding of critical issues on the other (Giroux & Giroux, 2006). Contemporary artistic practices reveal to be an asset in challenging teens about ideological conceptions as they are often situated in opposition to the hegemony of capitalism and forms of

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power. Visual literacy gives students the possibility to learn about the purpose of images in their everyday life and foster a more collective sense of awareness about the environment in which they are produced and which influences their identity and culture.

Contemporary Art Studies on contemporary art in high school art classrooms demonstrate that the arts are highly effective in developing critical thinking skills in students (Gude, 2015; Marshall, 2008). This is because contemporary art is not simply beau-tiful to look at, but directly engages with relevant current social issues in creative and unexpected ways, inviting critical reflection and conversation on the part of the viewer. Bourriaud's (2002) theory of relational art proposes that contemporary art creates a social context in which the public is enabled to share their experiences of the work through various interactive forms. For many artists today, the processes involved in art creation and the presentation of the art works in public spaces are just as important as their aesthetic content. Illeris (2005) states that “Contemporary art allows for a multitude of interpretations that can be recognized as valuable according to our own experiences and positions while taking into account the ones of others” (p. 235). Inviting students to examine the issues ad-dressed by an artwork and creating their own socially engaged works requires them to think both laterally and critically about an issue, take a position in regards to it, and express it to others in a manner which is uniquely their own (E. Picard, personal communication, February 10, 2016). These learning and teaching experiences can be realized by working collaboratively with local artists in and outside the classroom. Contemporary artist E. Picard worked with students to design a sculpture activity that involved the use of plastic ZipTies and lighting effects to explore the artist’s practice which is inspired by traditional textile, basket weaving, and braiding techniques (see Figure 1). Through the presentation of visual images, students learned about her inspiration from natural and architectural structures and how she transforms these structures through the assemblage of industrial objects. For E. Picard, bringing students to think outside Figure 1. Elisabeth Picard, Strongylocentro- tus, formalism aesthetic, by using objects of 2013. Dyed Zip-Ties, with plexi light box 15 x 15.75 x ordinary life and solving emergent problems 8 inches, Variant ½, Michel Dubreuil photo credit. through the materiality have the potential to stimulate the imagination and develop innovative ideas. Having students participate in this activity was beneficial in the way that they enjoyed the process as well as the result of their sculptures. First they had to familiarize themselves with the techniques and material to create a sculptural piece of their own imagination (see Figure 2). Then, they could see the effects of light and color on the translucent material, experimenting with markers and special lighting, such as black lights (see Figure 3). The relationship between the artist and students’ work was experienced through the process of discovering and sharing new methods of art making.

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Picard notes that teens are sometimes reluctant to discuss contemporary art because they have difficulty identifying the context and the processes involved in the work. Responses like, “It makes absolutely no sense” and “Anyone could make this” are common among teens. Contextualist theory, in which the context surrounding an object is essential in constructing its meaning, is useful when applied in the classroom as a strategy to help students understand contemporary art. Figure 2. Art making process

For contemporary artist M. Chantre, the role of contemporary art is to offer experiences to the public that question aspects of culture and to allow participants to develop increased awareness of who they are in relation to the issues at hand (personal communication, February 19, 2016). M. Chantre explains that his work engages its audiences on both a sensory level (visual, spatial and auditory) and on a social level (interactive, immersive, and participation-based). Contemporary art sets the stage for lateral thinking and openended reflection, leading to unexpected insights. M. Chantre gives an example of a boy who, after looking at his installation Dispergere Maiz (2009), which displayed industrial images of corn, said that he had the impression that the world was getting older (see Figure 4). Although M. Chantre did not intend for his artwork to generate such an impression, he welcomes comments that deviate from what he expects. As M. Chantre describes, corn cereal has been a staple for centuries and consequently has left traces in the collective imagination. His ultimate goal is for viewers to have a meaningful experience that leads them to personally identify with the work. Through his installation, M. Chantre enabled the viewer to construct and/or reconstruct his own interpretations of familiar images. Teaching contemporary art through critical media literacy Figure 3. Student sculptures should encourage students to explore aspects of their personality and culture as it relates to their own reality. Challenging students to discuss the messages that they perceive in contemporary art provides a space to develop their critical thinking in relation to themselves while making connections to broader social, cultural, political and economical issues (Luke, 1994). M. Chantre’s use of digital media involving visual and auditory information prompts the observer to recall me-

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mories and senses and consequently encourages reflection upon what is often hidden in industrial culture. Media literacy is the “ability to access, analyze, create and act using all forms of communication” (NAMLE, n.d.). In this case, learning media literacy has positively impacted students who want to deliver a specific message using various technologies in order to bring about changes in the world in which they live. As media affects the way people think, feel, and behave (NAMLE, n.d.) it is imperative that students are taught media literacy to be able to challenge the media they are confronted with and become active agents in shaping their identity. Figure 4. Manuel Chantre, Disperegere Maiz, Immersive installation composed of 24 projection screens, 2009. Manuel Chantre photo credit.

Identity and Citizenship The notion of identity has long been at the center of philosophical, sociological, and educational preoccupations in the West (Dewey, 1967; Erikson, 1968; Freire, 1968; Piaget, 1936/1968). This inquiry continues to be essential today, as the rise of neoliberalism in the past century has destabilized and reorganized individual and collective identities on many fronts (Giroux & Giroux, 2006). Territorial dispossession, the decline of cultural diversity, the privatization of services, and the financialization of natural resources have all had drastic consequences on the lives of individuals, communities, and their environments (Heynen, McCarthy, Prudham, & Robbins, 2007; Mansfield, 2007; Venne, 2004). The ideology of neoliberalism has constrained human’s freedom to the production of goods and created a simulacrum of a utopic reality (Beaudrillard, 1981). Citizenship finds itself within this turmoil of a democratic society that prevails on the one hand neoliberal values of free will, and on the other responsible behaviors and critical thinking towards consumerism and forms of domination. For this reason, visual literacy and critical media literacy become assets in reflecting upon what people think they know and questioning the relevancy of knowledge within institutions (Strauss, 2012), setting the stage for a non-conformity of rational boundaries. As Beaudrillard (1981) described, the “real” can only exist if the iconographic representation of that reality is depleted of its social connotations. To better understand what it means to be a citizen, there must be an examination of epistemological conceptions of individual and collective identity. Rationalist and empiricist thought lay the foundations of the majority of contemporary political and scientific discourse, and are omnipresent in education systems as well (Davis, 2004). According to Davis (2004), contemporary understanding of the nature of individuality is intrinsically bound to Descartes’ rationalist philosophy. In his theory of deductive reasoning, individuals construct knowledge from inner representations of the outer world. Contrary to rationalism, which separates the mind and the body, enactivism emphasizes the interactions between the mind, the body, and the environment. First introduced by Franciso Valera, enactivism suggests that knowledge is not set, inert or predetermined, but rather co-constructed through individuals' interactions within an environment (Bharath & English, 2010). As Davis explains: “Personal identity is seen to arise in the complex mix of biological predisposition, physical effect,

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social circumstance, and cultural context as the agent copes with the contingencies of existence” (p.154). Echoing enactivist principles, O’Donohue (2004) favors a teaching methodology based on “conversing” and taking a “mindful attitude” in learning about the self and the collectivity, in which knowledge is not inert matter to be acquired, but something which emerges from consciousness. For Li, Clark, and Winchester (2010), “learning is not about gaining information, but an ongoing process of exploration about consciousness, self, context, and interactions of complex systems in order to adapt to the evolving environments” (p. 408). The concept of citizenship is tightly bound to this conceptualization of ethical, relational co-existence. It calls on individuals to reflect on their own identities and raises their awareness of the well-being of others. As B. Ballengée reveals, we need to learn how to work collaboratively instead of separately and think about the environment as a home for all living creatures (personal communication, March 1, 2016). The artist’s practice becomes a model that students can investigate to find other creative possibilities. Through their social interaction, students can share their experiences and give meaning to what they are doing, as it relates to their own interests. Amidst the turmoil of global changes stemming from neoliberal policies, the concept of citizenship takes new meaning. This notion is often difficult to grasp in the field of the arts considering its multiple social, cultural, and political referents (Cogan & Derricott, 2000; Kemperl, 2013). For Mason and Vella (2013), teaching citizenship should not only involve the transmission of knowledge about civil rights and responsibilities, but elicit active student engagement with socio-political and cultural issues. Contemporary art is an effective platform for student learning about identity and citizenship because of its relationship to real life experiences and the plurality of perspectives that it invites. My interviews with E. Picard and M. Chantre show that art can be very effective in allowing space for multiple interpretations of individual, social and cultural identities. Picard states “Making art is creating our identity” (personal communication, February 10, 2016). In her practice, she valorizes the intuition and sensitive aspect of the material to create personal work that is aesthetically pleasing for the eye, inviting the viewer to make their own interpretation. As she mentions, when it is too explicit it doesn’t give the viewer the possibility to elaborate further on what is represented and if it is too conceptual it is just too complicated to understand. M. Chantre echoes this sentiment, “Making art is to discover who we are and where we come from” (personal communication, February 19, 2016). By combining different approaches taken from music, video, computer programming, and light projections, M. Chantre is interested in creating interactive spaces that the viewer can appropriate to transform their perception. For M. Chantre, the success of a work of art is when it causes people to reflect and impacts different levels of understanding that are accessible to people of all ages.

Collaborative Practice B. Ballengée’s eco-art practice is effective in developing engaged citizenship in adolescents with respect to their natural environment around them. Ballengée asserts that increased engagement is necessary as the Holocene extinction (otherwise known as the Sixth extinction), in which we find ourselves presently, is the greatest extinction event in the history of humanity (personal communication, March 1, 2016). Ballengée's intentions as an artist are “hopefully to increase participants' empathy with animals that are in decline, and inspire people to care about the ecosystem and become aware of its complexity and web of organisms.” Ballengée believes that teens can have a positive impact on environmental issues if they are given chances to personally identify with nature and express their personal feelings through the arts. In his work, participants are asked to collaboratively explore an amphibian habitat and are then given options on how they wish to conduct their exploration. Some will use a camera to make a video or use a smartphone to identify species. Others will use more traditional art materials to draw what they perceive. By offering multiple means of investigation and allowing teens to use preferred technologies, he

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facilitates increased interest and learning. Rather than employing a top-down approach in which an authority dictates the specific bounds of a project, his work features a process-oriented "star system" model in which a project develops organically through participants' interactions with their environment and with each other. This teen-led collaborative approach stimulates enhanced dialogue, mutual idea exchange, and ultimately, the co-creation of a work that richly reflects the participants' creative voices. Ballengée's eco-actions both raise teens' awareness about complex issues relating to the environment and gives them the opportunity to become real stakeholders in their local community. By co-leading the project, participants develop the critical sense of selfidentification with their natural surroundings needed in order to have a constructive impact on environmental issues at large. Visual literacy in the 21st century involves “the ability to interpret, use, appreciate, and create images and video using conventional media in ways that advance thinking, decision making, communication, and learning (NCREL & Metiri Group, 2003, p. 15). In fostering these approaches, teens can understand that art has various means of expression and that it can be used to transform ways of thinking. Furthermore, in considering ethical and aesthetic value in art education, teens can develop their sensibility and responsibility towards the environment and their community. The challenge for many art teachers today is to move away from treating knowledge from an individualistic point of view, to set up artistic practices and projects which directly address students' visual culture, and to create conditions that foster critical thinking. Guiding students to understand how the world in which they live influences their identities is setting the stage for responsible citizenship. Teachers that encourage participative and reflective practice share the notion of a communal identity. With the availability of visual images from around the globe, teachers have the ability to value different cultural backgrounds and challenge students’ positions and beliefs on various contemporary issues and using a variety of technological tools.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) How can a media-savvy generation of teens be invited to fully engage in art projects that address citizenship? ICT tools are highly motivating and fluidly adopted by today's high school students. These technologies introduce new ways of sharing creations with others and opening dialogue around a work of art, as well as encouraging the development of new techniques in art making. During the 2015-2016 school year, the artist M. Chantre along with students from a multimedia class worked on a project called “Les lieux intangibles” (Intangible spaces). This project involved three facets: an installation, a sculpture and a virtual component. To introduce the project, students were asked to define what they considered to be “real” images on the web and to deconstruct manipulated photographs to identify elements that were added or modified. For inspiration, students were introduced to the work of various Land Art artists such as Agnes Denis, Andy Goldsworthy and Christo, to learn about environmental movements and how artists of the 1970s created ephemeral works of art in nature and urban areas, outside of museum institutions. In this critical media literacy approach, students were asked to closely observe images and to engage in critical thinking when interacting with content on the web. M. Chantre presented students with manipulated photographs of their surroundings and discussed with them what constitutes a “real” image. Students were asked to distinguish fictitious from real places and to deconstruct the images they were looking at. This exercise enabled students to question their own assumptions about what they think is real in their everyday life and to make connections between visual representation and meaning. By analyzing the codes generated by the image, students were able to develop their skills and competencies to interpret various visual media (Kellner & Share, 2005). Following this activity, students were asked to work in teams to create an installation in the park surrounding their school. Students were required to make a plan and decide on the shapes and materials they were to use. To keep track of their installation and visual experiences, students

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were expected to take pictures and add them to Google Maps, an online mapping service. As with a physical gallery, they appreciated viewing their pictures and sharing their creations on a virtual site that was easily accessible. This was also an opportunity for them to reflect upon their accomplishments and difficulties, for the duration that their installation was posted on the web. For the sculpture component, students modified the photographs of their installations using image manipulation software (see Figure 5), then engraved the images on Flexiglas plates with a laser machine. Finally, these plates were assembled to create a sculpture representing the geographic coordinates of the school (see Figure 6). The benefits of this project were manifold: it gave students the chance to understand some of the processes through which images are transformed using various technologies; it showed students that artworks can be ephemeral and exist in the virtual world of the web; and it enabled students to relate to physical spaces in their local community as environments which can be creatively activated through art.

Figure 5. Manipulated photograph showing studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s installation in the park.

Figure 6. Intangible spaces. Plexiglas and photo etching sculpture installation.

The Effective Use of Technology The use of new technologies in the classroom presents its own unique challenges. On the one hand, new technologies can be seen as taking power away from users by exercising control over the manner in which everyday actions are performed, shaping our identities to conform to their matrix (Feenberg, 2005). On the other hand, these technologies provide enormous potential in the transmission of knowledge, communications and creations. In experimenting with new ICT tools students develop unique ways of using them, while learning about the boundary between educationally effective usage and entertainment. Freedman and Stuhr (2004) state, â&#x20AC;&#x153;technologies were once considered as an escape into a fictional, virtual world. Students using technology today are understood as engaging with complex and global communities through multiple cognitive levelsâ&#x20AC;? (p. 818). For M. Chantre, the internet allows him to create works of art that encourage the viewer to reflect on their visual culture (personal communication, February 19, 2016). He explains that new technologies change relationships within society because they are intrinsically bound to values. Through its multiple forms, technology allows the selection and organization of information in a way that reflects our thoughts and beliefs individually and socially. However, M. Chantre considers that these values could be challenged through his works, as it questions our conceptions of social and cultural identity. In using technology, artists have the ability to push the limits of their practice by making connections with other disciplines and increasing access to their work.

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Interdisciplinarity Since the beginning of the 21st century, interdisciplinarity has become increasingly prevalent in art education and the social sciences (CNAEA, 2002; Freedman & Stuhr, 2004). Governmental educational programs encourage the co-production of knowledge between the disciplines in order for students to acquire a global, multi-faceted understanding of contemporary issues (MEES, 2004). Interdisciplinarity links different fields in order to describe, analyze, and understand the complexities of a shared subject of study. It emphasizes collabo-ration between specialists from different domains in order to break out of the specificity of each discipline and to bring its relativity into perspective (Darbellay, 2011). Visual and media literacy are considered interdisciplinary, both involving the reading and analysis of visual and textual information from various sources. In art education, visual and media literacy can be used to encourage students to appreciate contemporary art and develop their language skills and critical thinking across disciplines. For B. Ballengée, who integrates perspectives from both art and science in his work, interdisciplinarity allows him to ask unique sets of questions about environmental issues, and to approach them from different points of view that are mutually influential. As I am making art, working with scientific facts, I get inspired to do more science, so I start asking different questions based on what I have found. When I have an idea and working on an art project, it inspires new ways of looking at the scientific problem. (B. Ballengée, personal communication, March 1, 2016) B. Ballengée’s practice is interdisciplinary and involves the collaborative participation of the public, various professionals and organizations such as Q-Art (an organization that aims to break down the barriers to art education and contemporary art) to create awareness-raising projects. None of the artists that were inter-viewed chose the same route to becoming professional artists: B. Ballengée studied sculpture, art history, and science; E. Picard studied visual art; and M. Chantre studied anthropology, sociology, electroacoustic music and digital art. For students who must soon choose how to orient themselves after completing high school, hearing practicing artists speak about their own unique educational paths opens up options and acts as a source of inspiration and motivation. By taking into account current political, cultural and social issues while working with various contemporary artists’ approaches and practices, art classes can connect to students’ personal lives. Society demands more specialization than ever before; however, complex global challenges are best addressed from interdisciplinary perspectives (Freedman & Stuhr, 2004). In art class, a study of visual culture that is connected to other disciplines allows students to better understand how various forms of power influence their identities.

Conclusions Even though curriculum may be discipline-bound, competency-oriented, and tailored towards standardized evaluations, art educators can still find ways to make their classes fresh and relevant to teens' interests, as well as effective in developing self-aware, creative, constructive citizens. Teaching students appreciation of contemporary arts should emphasize how it can challenge our conceptions of the world and lead us to questions about individual, social, and cultural identities. As visual images are integrated into most facets of life, visual literacy becomes a necessary pedagogical approach that can enable students to look more closely at images, to identify the information and mess-ages behind it, and to develop a language that is more culturally and globally understood (Stokes, 2001). In encouraging discussion about contemporary art,

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teachers foster the development of communication skills, sensitivity and awareness about the influence of visual culture. By listening to others and sharing their knowledge, students learn about the different meanings and emotions embodied in visual images and become more conscious of their symbolic references. As E. Picard suggests, we read a work of art from our personal baggage, recalling upon our personal knowledge, memory, and senses (personal communication, February 10, 2016). Allowing students to make connections between their aesthetic experiences and their personal lives empowers them as individuals, as they are encouraged to incorporate their own perceptions to interpret the subject. Introducing partnerships with practicing artists proved to be a highly motivating strategy with numerous advantages: it promoted self-identification in relation to local and global issues, empowered teens to take an active role in their community, cultivated creative communication skills using various new media, fostered the ability to work collaboratively and collectively, and created practical real-world connections that students can apply outside of school. In this context, the art classroom then becomes an environment in which common conceptions are challenged and students are encouraged to take the reigns in creating meaningful dialogue about current social concerns. As Freedman and Stuhr (2004) explain: If the intention of education is to prepare students for personal fulfillment and to constructively contribute to society, art education must deal with newly emerging issues, problems, and possibilities that go beyond the constraints of learning offered by a discipline-based curriculum and standardized forms of assessments. (p. 816) Contemporary artists have the ability to bring creative ideas into the practice of teaching. They can stimulate the imagination and build relationships with teens as role models. Although not all art educators are artists, they can find inspiration in their methods of working to build ambitious projects that will connect to the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; interests and needs. Through visual and critical media literacy, students can develop their appreciation of contemporary art by engaging in real life experiences with artists in their community, making connections between traditional to more advance digital technological practices, and transferring their knowledge into broader areas of learning.

References Beaudrillard, J. (1981). Simulacres et simulation. Paris, France: GalilĂŠe. Bharath, S., & English, L. (2010). Theories in mathematics education: Seeking new frontiers. New York, NY: Springer. Bourriaud, N. (2002). Relational aesthetics. Paris, FR: Les presses du rĂŠel. Campbell, L. H. (2005). Spiritual reflection practice in preservice art education. Studies in Art Education, 47(1), 52-53. doi: 10.1080/00393541.2005. 11652813 Chantre, M. (2009). Dispergere Maiz. Retrieved from http://www.amuelchantre.com/fr/dispergeremaiz-fr/ Cogan, J. J., & Derricott, R. (2000). Citizenship for the 21st century: An international perspective on education. London, ENG: Kogan Page. Consortium of National Arts Education Associations. (2002). Authentic connections: Interdisciplinary work in the arts. Reston, VA: National Art Education Association. Retrieved from https://www.arteducators.org/research/articles/103-authentic-connections-interdisciplina ry-work-in-the-arts

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Darbellay, F. (2011). Vers une théorie de l’interdisciplinarité ? Entre unité et diversité. Nou-velles Perspectives en Sciences Sociales, 7(1), 65-87. doi: 10.7202/1007082ar Davis, B. (2004). Inventions of teaching: A genealogy. New York, NY: Routledge. Dewey, J. (1967). The early works of John Dewey, Volume 2, 1882-1898 Psychology, 1887. Southern Illinois University Press. Erikson, E. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. Feenberg, A. (2005). Critical theory of technology: An overview. Tailoring Biotechnology, 1(1), 4764. Retrieved from https:www.sfu.ca~andrewf/ books/critbio.pdf Freedman, K., & Stuhr, P. (2004). Curriculum change for the 21st century: Visual culture in art education. In E. W. Eisner & M. Day (Eds.), Handbook of research and policy in art education (pp.815-828). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Freire, P. (1968). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Seaburry Press. Giroux, H. A., & Giroux, S. S. (2006). Challenging neoliberalism’s new world order: The promise of critical pedagogy. Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies, 6(1), 21-32. doi:10.1177/ 153270 8605282810 Gude, O. (2013). New school art styles: The project of art education. Art Education, 66(1), 6-15. Heynen, N., McCarthy, J., Prudham, S., & Robbins, P. (2007). Neoliberal environments: False promi-ses and unnatural consequences. New York, NY: Routledge. Illeris, H. (2005). Young people and contemporary art. The International Journal of Art and Design Education, 24(3), 231–242. doi : 10.1111/j.1476-8070.2005.00446.x Kellner, D., & Share, J. (2005). Toward critical media literacy: Core concepts, debates, organizations, and policy. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 26(3), 369-386. doi: 10.1080/01596300 500200169 Kemperl, M. (2013) Contemporary arts and citizenship education: The possibilities of crosscurricular links on the level of content. Center for Educational Studies Journal, 3(1), 97117. Levinston, J. (2007). Aesthetic contextualism. Post-graduate Journal of Aesthetic, 4(3), 1-12. Li, Q., Clark, B., & Winchester, I. (2010). Instructional design and technology grounded in enactivism: A paradigm shift? British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(3), 403-419. doi: 10.1111/j.1467 8535.2009.00954.x Luke, C. (1994). Feminist pedagogy and critical media literacy. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 18(2), 30-47. Mansfield, B. (2007). Privatization: Property and the remaking of nature-society relations. Introduction to the special issue. Antipode, 39(3), 393-405. doi.org/10.1111/j.14678330.2007.00532.x Marshall, J. (2008). Visible thinking: Using contemporary art to teach conceptual skills. Art Education, 61(2), 38-45. doi: 10.1080/00043125. 2008.11651141 Mason, R., & Vella, R. (2013). Lessons about identity formation from contemporary art. International Journal of Education through Art, 9(2), 235-252. doi: 10.1386/eta.9.2.235_1 Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement Supérieur. (2018). The culture in the schools program. Retrieved from http://www.education. gouv.qc.ca/en/contenus-communs/teachers/ culture-education/the-culture-in-the-schools-program/ Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement Supérieur. (2004). Québec education program. Secondary. Retrieved from http://www. education.gouv.qc.ca/en/contenus-communs/ teachers/quebec-education-program/ Morin, E. (1999). Seven complex lessons in education for the future. Paris: UNESCO. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/00011/001177/117740eo.pdf National Association for Media Literacy Education. (n.d.). Media literacy defined. Retrieved from https://namle.net/ publications/media-literacy-definitions/ NCREL & Metiri Group. (2003). enGauge 21st century skills: Literacy in the digital age. Naperville, IL: NCREL & Metiri Group.

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O’Donohue, J. (2004). Beauty: The invisible embrace. New York, NY: Harper Collins. Piaget, J. (1936/1968). La naissance de l’intelligence chez l’enfant [The origin of the intelligence in children]. Neuchâtel, CH: Delachaux & Niestlé. Scott, T., & Twyman, T. 2018. Considering visual arts practices at the secondary level: Extending cross-curricular conversations among secondary educators. Art Education, 71(2), 16-20. Stokes, S. (2001). Visual literacy in teaching and learning: A literature perspective. Electronic Journal for the Integration of Technology in Education, 1(1), 10-19. Retrieved from http://www. k12photoed.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ Visual_Literacy_stokes.pdf Strauss, V. (2012, July 9). Texas GOP rejects "critical thinking" skills. Really. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http:// www.washington post.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texasgop-rejects-critical-thinkingskills really/2012/07/08/ gJQAHNpFXW_blog.html Venne, S. (2004). She must be civilized: She paints her toe nails. In S. Greymorning (Ed.), A will to survive: Indigenous essays on the politics of culture, language, and identity (pp. 126140). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

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Experiences

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Cultivating Visual Literacy among Preschool through Middle School Students: Strategies and Applications Anne Katz Georgia Southern University-Armstrong Campus, USA

Abstract. The chapter shares strategies for cultivating visual literacy in students from pre-Kindergarten to 8th grade. These approaches were conducted in the following educational contexts: a) family literacy workshops; b) an elementary literacy-through-art curriculum (collage by Romare Bearden and poetry by Langston Hughes); and c) visualization/technology applications through creative writing and Audacity with middle school students in an urban setting. Keywords: visual literacy, family literacy, literacy-through-art, content area literacy, poetry, technology, creative writing

In an increasingly visual world, pedagogical strategies for understanding visuals and images merit consideration. Clearly, there is value in teaching skills to enable students to interpret and analyze images, as “authors and artists use different types of visual representations with text to communicate information about a particular topic” (Coleman, Bradley, & Donovan, 2012, p.32). Educators across grade levels should consider how to embed visual literacy applications throughout their teaching repertoire (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). Three case studies that illustrate the implementation of visual literacy strategies will be discussed in this chapter. Visual literacy is a valuable reading comprehension strategy that is needed for students to succeed academic-ally and better understand the meaning of a text (O’Neil, 2011). The chapter begins by sharing comprehension strategies designed to help fifteen participants in a family literacy workshop (presented at an urban elementary school in the Southeastern United States as a component of a community-based Early Learning College initiative). The workshop design fostered understanding of text with their pre-Kindergarten and early elementary-aged children. Authors and illustrators of books for young children drew upon elements such as shape, size, style, line, and color to facilitate students’ abilities to grasp intricacies of a concept (O’Neil, 2011). The chapter describes the three-part read-aloud strategy that 1) presented children with a range of color swatches, 2) provided opportunities to associate an emotion with a color that children felt accurately represented the feelings in the text as well as 3) share the reasoning evident behind their choices. In addition, visual literacy activities using poetry ad-dressed fundamental concepts such as colors, shapes, and months of the year. The activities established a foundation for basic skills and early learning success. The final element of the family literacy workshop focused on creating the “I am From” poem based on the “Where I’m From” template inspired by George Ella Lyon (1999). Second, visual literacy and writing activities guided by Romare Bearden's collage art and Langston Hughes' poetry around a Harlem city block through the text The Block (1995). This project took place in an urban school with third grade students who were studying the construct of cities. An interactive writing activity invited participants to consider the senses (such as sight and sound) after reading the poem. Also, the facilitators brought picture books to help in conveying

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meaning through the use of a two-sign system — written language and visual images (Serafini, 2010). The use of picture books focused on cultivating skills and strategies that promote an understanding of the written text. However, expanded pedagogical strategies for unpacking visual images merit reflection as teachers draw upon the overwhelmingly visual nature of contemporary society for learning and teaching (Cappello & Lafferty, 2015). Third, this chapter described and discussed how readers were invited to consider a multimodal writing workshop. Dr. June Parsons, a local middle grades book author and featured speaker at the annual Savannah Children’s Book Festival, facilitated the workshop. The event combined writing (based on visualization) and audio digital recording (including sound effects) in order to bring the mystery genre to life. The twelve middle school students are members of “Teens for Literacy” from an urban K-8 school. After reading the author’s book, the students had an opportunity to meet the author, posed questions about her writing process, and received feedback on their own creative writing output. Then, students composed using visualizations strategies to extend portions of the text based on the interactive “Reading with Eyes Shut” paradigm. They read and recorded their writing with a sense of fluency and expression using an audio application called Audacity to perform and share their own version of a book trailer. This writing initiative helped participating students develop valuable literary skills and hone their creative writing abilities. The middle school students branched out to draft descriptive writing assignments that cultivated advanced comprehension skills, connected them together as a community of readers, and inspired their peers to participate in literacy endeavors.

Family Literacy Workshop Activities Visual literacy activities through read aloud. When implemented at an early age, visual literacy can plant the seed for properly deciphering in-text imagery rather than strictly pictures alone (O’Neil, 2011). This is a crucial strategy for students to possess throughout life as a reader and learner. Educators should be familiar with different tools to guide students' understanding towards constructive picture reading. Ten Bachelors of Science in Education students enrolled in a Language Acquisition course at a mid-sized Southeastern United States educational institution conducted a demonstration of visual literacy strategies with fifteen pre-school children and their families at the Early Childhood Center where they shared and donated their literacy projects (see Figure 1). O'Neil (2011) described how illustrators provide the reader with pictures to guide him or her through the text, showing emotions and actions present through color choice, shape, and artistic style. Pictures enhance the storytelling by making Figure 1. College of Education students display the them important elements in supplementing family literacy projects that they created for Early the interpretation of words. Particularly, Childhood Center families. images help facilitate the understanding of passages that can be difficult for children to understand from reading the text alone. A language development strategy highlighted in this chapter is the color and culture association approach. A student can learn to explain why those colors were selected by the author/illustrator to represent the character’s feelings and contribute to the tone of the story. The children were provided with a range of color swatches and were asked to choose a color that they

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believed represented the feelings presented in each portion of the text during the readaloud/explain their rationale (see Figure 2). The activity stresses that pictures and words have a unique relationship (Serafini, 2010). They interact in a way that can be dependent on one another, especially in picture books. The story concept hovers between text and imagery.

Figure 2. Early Childhood Center students participate in the color association language development strategy during a read-aloud.

This university-community center partnership aimed to bridge theory with practice for education students. It simultaneously provided parents with tools that empowered them to create high-quality early learning environments for their children. According to Hart and Risley’s (1995) study on language development, children’s academic successes at ages nine and ten are attributable to the amount of conversation they hear from birth to age three. Providing parents with strategies and resources to create high-quality early learning experiences at home prepare the children to be-come active participants in language and literacy learning when they enter formal schooling as well as optimizing their academic and personal success. The collaboration between the education students and parents empowered the teacher candidates to apply their content knowledge while building valuable connections with community members. Teachers bring who they are to their teaching, using their personal and professional knowledge to shape and guide their teaching decisions (Uzum, 2012). This experience facilitates the development of teacher literacy identities for these education students. Spitler (2009) defines teacher literacy identity as “a confident view of self as responsible for and in control of improving the literacy learning of self and competency to enact engagements to guide the literacy learning of students” (pp.129-130). The education students were invited to consider the role that teachers “play in facilitating productive discussions that simultaneously serve children’s learning needs and content acquisition while also developing their literacy knowledge and skill” (Ford-Connors & Robertson, 2017, p.131). One parent who participated in the family literacy workshop at the Early Childhood Center with the teacher candidates noted that she needed to spend more time discussing pictures. She mentioned asking questions such as why the illustrator chose to draw certain things; why the child chose to use a particular color; how it makes the reader feel. She thought that by doing this, attention to the material will be sustained the child continues to read. She also explained that she

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could ask the child to consider why the author chose to have an event occur in the story. In addition, another workshop participant wrote in the feedback form: “Reading a book is a form of art when read deeply.” Parents who are dedicated to ensuring that their children fulfill their potential as readers, writers, and learners need to be equipped with a repertoire of strategies in order to empower them for success. Illustrating concept poetry. The second case describes the family literacy workshops as part of a local Early Learning College initiative for fifteen local parents and grandparents (see Figure 3). Early Learning College sessions are held at several times throughout the school year at a local elementary school that serves as a gathering place in the community. The aver-age age of the children whose parents, grandparents, and caregivers attending the session range from birth to five years of age. The program goal ensures that young children in the community are prepared for school and for early literacy learning experiences. The workshops aimed to provide parents with tools and resources so that they are better able to create high-quality learning environments for their children and are more skilled at partnering with teachers when their child enters school. The session goals promoted the continued literacy learning at home. As the workshop facilitator, the professor modeled instructional strategies (see Figure 4) and provided participants with literacy books and materials focusing on environmental print, poetry, shared reading, comprehension skills, and early writing development. The facilitator also outlined various approaches that can be used to enhance young children’s enjoyment of reading and writing.

Figure 3. Family literacy workshop participants share their concept poetry illustrations.

Figure 4. Illustrated "Wonderful World" poem with a focus on sensory details.

The workshop began with a discussion about the importance of developing children’s appreciation for language and word play. Jordan, Snow, and Porche (2000) described key points regarding family literacy theory. Drawing on the work of Bus, van Ijzendoorn, and Pellegrini (1995), Hart and Risley (1999), and Scarborough and Dobrich (1994), the author summarized the research demonstrating how literacy-rich home environments contribute to children’s early successful literacy development more than outstanding pre-school and kindergarten classroom environments. Participants practiced reading poems around fundamental concepts such as colors, shapes, and months of the year with a sense of expression. The purpose of selecting these poems was two-fold — both to model reading with expression and fluency as well as to reinforce important early learning curriculum topics. Poems that utilized in the workshop were from Poetry Place Anthology (Scholastic, 1999) and A Poem a Day (Scholastic, 1997).

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After participants read and reviewed the poem, each table was provided with a large sheet of chart paper with segments of the text written in marker. Each group brainstormed how they could best illustrate the message contained in their portion of the poem. This was followed by each group presenting their chart paper illustration to their peers (see Figure 5) and explaining their rationale for drawing attention to other text features (such as placing a square around common sight words and certain key words in the poems) (see Figure 6). For example, when illustrating “The Shape of Things” by Figure 5. Family literacy workshop participants share Meish Goldish, one group drew a circle, their visual literacy applications around “The Shape of square, and triangle around each of these Things” poem. words when they appeared in the text for reinforcement. One participant stated, “I learned that poetry is very important." Another participant added, “I liked the interaction in the class, doing the activity just as the child would.” The workshop facilitator also discussed the importance of “raising a reader” through drawing children’s attention to the environmental print in the world around us and prompting questions to facilitate language development. Hart and Risley (1995) indicated that many economically disadvantaged preschoolers come to kindergarten with much smaller vocabularies than more advantaged children. This uneven start can make learning to read more difficult (McCardle, Chhabra, & Kapinus, 2008). Recommendations included talking about objects that you see in the world around us (shape, color, texture, use) and extending children’s conversation through prompting questions. While conducting art projects, such as illustrating poetry, discuss your choice for selecting a color or explain a rationale for your drawing for a segment of the text. Research shows that children learn Figure 6. Family literacy workshop participants discuss vocabulary best when words are presented in their rationale for illustrating a portion of the poetry text. a meaningful context or thematically (Harris, Golinkoff, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2011). In the end-of-workshop evaluation form, when asked to “give at least one specific example of new information one learned in the workshop,” one parent noted, “I will use paper to write out poems to hang on the wall and let the children illustrate.” Another parent explained how she learned that “you can draw pictures to go with the words of a book or poem … to make reading more fun for children.” A third workshop participant noted that he “enjoyed the word play and illustrations of the poem.”

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“I am From” images to poetry. The final element of the literacy workshop focused on “I am From” poems, which were inspired by George Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From” tem-plate (1999). The author reviewed sample sentence with the participants and continued by sharing a few lines of a sample “I am From” poem. Then, the participants were invited to review the sentence starters and take a few moments to compose a couple of lines of their own for the “I am From” poem. Also, they were encouraged to select five images from cell phone photos as inspiration. Finally, the group discussed how this activity could be a valuable language development tool as parent and child wander around their home collecting ideas and gathering images in composing their own original “I am From” poem (see Table 1). The workshop concluded by discussing how this activity would facilitate children’s language development skills and instill pride in both parent and child given their backgrounds. Table 1. “I am From” poetry Brainstorming Chart Item/ Individual/ Place to Photograph You Everyday items found in your home An object that is specific to your home Plant/ flower/ tree that is found at your home Trait that belongs to your family Favorite saying or a favorite album cover Family tradition Map of where you were born Photo of your home An object that represents your nationality or heritage Family foods Family member(s) Object(s) that you associate with family member(s)

Location of the Item/ Individual/ Place

Fifteen family literacy participants were given disposable cameras and asked to take photos that reflected their authentic selves. After a two-week period, photos from each participant were developed and pasted in their writing notebooks (see Figure 7). The photos provided a source of inspiration in composing the participants' original “I am From” poems. Writing workshops on how to “paint a picture with words” facilitated the participants' ability to describe the snapshots and their feelings towards these images. Participants crafted and composed the final drafts of their poems in their writing notebooks for sharing with their families. The notebook served as a forum to document the writing and creative writing process as well as encourage future writing endeavors. Sentence starters were used to facilitate participants’ poetry writing included the following items:

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I am from __________(an everyday item in your house) I am from __________(detail about home-smell, taste, or feel) I am from __________(plant or flower) I am from __________(family tradition/family trait/family habit) I am from __________(family members) I am from __________ (things you were told as a child) I am from __________(family foods) I am from __________(family ancestry/nationality/place)

Figure 7. Photo image to inspire “I am From” poetry writing in journal.

I am from __________(family mementos, pictures, treasures) I am from __________(song or saying)

Below is a sample poem drafted by one of the family literacy participants: I am from colorful vases, passed down from my grandmother to my mother to me. I am from television and mirrors. I am from the beautiful land of cinnamon, brown, and vanilla. I am from roses. The oak tree whose long gone limbs I remember as if they were my own. I’m from cookouts and having fun. I’m from picnics and walks in the park together, and making arts and crafts. I’m from “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” I’m from shopping for bargains! I’m from creative Savannah and the hot summers. String beans and chicken legs. Pictures that have a surprising touch to them, in my heart.

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One of the objectives for this project was to encourage participants’ creative express-ion through photography and writing in a meaningful way. Additionally, the project aimed to instill pride among the students given their backgrounds. A final goal was to provide a forum for participants to view writing as an authentic and meaningful experience for personal expression and an inspiration to all for lifelong dedication to the craft.

Literacy-through-Art: A Study of The Block The collage art by Romare Bearden and poetry by Langston Hughes around a Harlem city block through the text, The Block (1995) merits consideration as a framework for content-area visual literacy applications. Eighteen third grade students in a third grade class from an urban school were invited to consider the senses (such as sight and sound) that come to mind as they “take Harlem’s heartbeat, make a drumbeat, put it on a record, let it whirl …” They were immersed in a unit on city life around the United States as they read about a sequence of scenes highlighting people gathering at a barbershop, at the grocery store, at church, at a local jazz club, and daily life events in an urban neighborhood (see Figure 8). Through the lens of poetry, the “block” is described as a place where “rituals of life occur and also where lessons about life beyond our own community are learned. The homes above the church, the barbershop, encounters on the side-walk, views through windows, all of the scenes and activities that we associate with urban life are a vital part of Bearden’s block” (Hughes, 195, p. 5).

Figure 8. Illustration of a city block in Harlem (Hughes, 1995, p. 5).

In addition, students noted “awesome adjectives” and “vivid verbs” that bring the poem to life for the reader and created an image in the reader’s head as they read each poem contained in The Block (1995). Close reading was introduced as a lens through which the reader sets a purpose for the literacy task, interprets words and phrases, analyzes the structure (visual and text elements), finds patterns and relationships between details, seeks to understand the author’s reasoning and use of evidence, integrates ideas from the text, and promotes connections (Lehman & Roberts, 2013). As an extension of reading this text, students were invited to reflect on a story that they would like their own collage creation to tell by brainstorming on words/images. This was followed by “stretching the words” into phrases to create a poem. Finally, students were asked to assume the role of “reading detectives” while incorporating adjectives and verbs that bring the poem to life and creating a picture in the reader’s head. Critical literacy "accounts for ways that literacy can be used in the service of self-actualization and social change" (Riley, 2015, p. 418). Hughes' poetry and Bearden's collage artwork served as a mentor text that invited students to match words and pictures. As students engaged in literary analysis, they then created their own art and poetryintegrated creative work.

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Afflerbach and Harrison (2017) noted that “positive motivation leads to increased engagement, increased engagement leads to continuing reading success, and this on-going reading success leads to increased motivation .... a key to students’ reading achievement is creation of classroom environments in which motivation and engagement thrive” (p. 218). A third grade student described the view of everyday life in Harlem and the creation of one's personalized collage story evolved over the course of the project. The student stated, "I learned to take my time as I read, think about how the words make me feel and what I understand about what I’m learning .… Then, I use that creativity to design my own neighborhood story.” These new insights gained regarding the project’s impact on students’ identity were celebrated by the group.

Literacy, Technology, and Creative Writing Applications A collaboration established between a middle school student leadership team — “Teens for Literacy” — and a local middle grades author, J. J. Parsons, provided a model for a meaningful community-based visual literacy applications. A group of middle school students --- a combination of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade scholars --- are chosen every year to serve as a literacy leadership team at an urban K-8 public school. The students, selected by the school counselor, participated in a variety of literacy-focused activities, such as the Banned Book Week field trip to the local public library in which they researched and read excerpts from once censored literature to library patrons. Other projects included the creation of a school newspaper, a play regarding the ways that we utilize literacy in our everyday lives, video book trailers, and the introduction of local children’s book authors to the school community. From these experiences, middle school students have strengthened their literacy skills and displayed growth as leaders, creative thinkers, and public speakers. The students emailed and used Skype in communicating with Ms. Parsons to learn about her writing process before the school presentation. The “Teens for Literacy” students created a brochure for distribution to their peers about her work, and introduced her to the school community at an assembly. The introductory speech reflects the “Teens Figure 9. “Teens for Literacy” students introduce the for Literacy” students’ voices as they welauthor to their school community. comed the author to the stage (see Figure 9). “Welcome 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. We are the Teens for Literacy group that represents ways to get everyone excited about reading and writing at our school. We are lucky to have a real author come visit us at East Broad as part of the Savannah Children’s Book Festival. Her name is J.J. Parsons and she has written a wonderful book called Dead Chest Island (2013). The book describes the adventures of three friends who decide to borrow a boat and search for a tunnel in the Caribbean after they hear a tale about pirates and a cabin boy who are swept into an underwater tunnel on Dead Chest Island.

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The Teens for Literacy group has been researching the book and came up with some questions to get to know the author better before she came to visit us. We asked Ms. Parsons questions about what inspired her to write the book and about the process of writing the book. Ms. Parsons told us that Dead Chest Island takes place in the Caribbean, where she lived for almost twenty years. One day, she was out boating with some friends and saw the strangest looking island. It looked like a big wooden box partially sinking into the ocean. That was the real Dead Chest Island and she knew that the characters would have an adventure there. We learned that it was a lot of hard work to write the book. Ms. Parsons explained that she wishes that the plots for books would spring into her head and the words for the story would just roll off her fingers at the keyboard. But, that doesn’t happen. Usually when she writes, about two-thirds of the way through, she wonders how she could ever hope to complete it. However, she has written enough that she knows she can and will finish if she just keeps going. When she writes, she gets immersed in the story and the characters. She thinks about them all day and even dreams about them at night. The more real they seem, the more ideas she gets. Sometimes, when she doesn’t want to think about real life, writing becomes a cozy little hangout. Ms. Parsons told us that it was a winding road to become an author. She always liked to write, but she wanted to become a dancer or an artist. Then, she became interested in computer programming. Her high school English teacher encouraged her to write, and that really inspired her. Today, she is going to share her experiences with us. Let’s give a big round of applause and warm welcome to Ms. Parsons, author of Dead Chest Island.”

After reading her book and hearing the author speak, the students were invited to a book signing and author celebration in the school library. The author spoke with each student and personally autographed their books. The Teens for Literacy students were inspired to embark on a multimodal creative writing initiative as students continued exercising their imagination (see Figure 10). The concept of “Reading with Eyes Shut” focuses on using guided visualizations to give reluctant readers a fuller reading experience. This elevated technology-readFigure 10. Author provides students with ing initiative presented the students with a feedback on their visualization writing pieces. new literacy endeavor complete with the pleasure of visualization even if the reader is struggling in decoding the texts. In follow-up sessions, students created and recorded visualizations using the Audacity application to extend the portions of the text (see Figure 11). Students composed their visualizations by reading their writing with fluency and expression as a performance of their own version of a book trailer.

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Below are two writing samples from students: Sample 1 Edison trudged through a countless set of crooked stone steps (ba dump, ba dump, ba dump) following Jonathan. It was like climbing towards the elevated stairs as they come towards you - similar to a rollercoaster whirling through the air as you circle around the amusement park. They reached a narrow road, with no sign of life except the dreaded sound of crickets (chirp, chirp, chirp), roughly paved and bordered by low rock walls. Jonathan sat against the wall, enjoying the shade of a tree in the distance, listening to the howls and wheezing of the wind around him. Sample 2

Figure 11. Students record their creative writing using the Audacity application.

Charlotte has bright, fire engine red hair, bursting with strawberry flavor. Goldfish eyes stared out at the world around her. Her personality was very bossy, like Sharpay from High School Musical. The bugs are chirping (cha, cha, cha) in the background as she expressed her annoyance with Edison. She rolled her eyes with such energy that there was a fifty percent chance they would become permanently stuck in that position!

The aforementioned writing initiative helped participating students in developing valuable literary skills and honing their creative abilities. The middle school students branched out to draft descriptive writing assignments that cultivated advanced comprehension skills, connected them together as a community of readers, and inspired their peers to participate in literacy endeavors as they shared their work in the school library. Baugh (2017) noted that a â&#x20AC;&#x153;comprehensive reading program incorporates effective instruction, multiple resources, and a wide variety of experiences to help each student achieve optimal reading progress every yearâ&#x20AC;? (p. 229-30). Final Thoughts This chapter outlined strategies for cultivating visual literacy in students beginning in preKindergarten and extending through 8th grade. The following educational contexts were presented in order to provide a frame-work for implementation of visual literacy strategies. Family literacy workshops for young children; an elementary literacy-through-art curriculum; and visualization/ technology applications through creative writing and Audacity with middle school students in an urban school setting were explored throughout the chapter.

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Feedback from the family literacy session reflected that more classes like this were needed to help parents reach their children through the lens of visual literacy illustrates the impact and importance of these work-shops. The sessions incorporated a range of objectives — to provide parents with instructional activities to conduct an effective read-aloud; tools to excite their children about reading and writing; and strategies to facilitate early language development. A metaanalysis found a high correlation between preschool language skills and reading competence at the end of first and second grade (National Early Literacy Panel, 2009). Surveys were distributed before and after each session to assess participants' feelings about integrating the literacy strategies into their home life with their child. Also, written feedback from workshop participants assessed the project’s impact. Samples of work-shop participants’ quotes affirm the literacy workshop project’s positive impact such as:  “… more excitement when I read to my child…I will color more and draw more with my child.”  “… more descriptive when reading.”  “Interact with child during and after reading the material … sequence and ask questions after reading with the child.”  “How I can keep my child focused/ engaged on reading stories …”  “Making words into pictures (poetry) … letting pictures tell the story.” The following quote from a workshop participant resonated with me. She wrote the following: “Reading a book is a form of art when read deeply.” Parents and educators who are dedicated to ensuring that their children fulfill their potential as readers, writers, and learners need to be equipped with a repertoire of strategies in order to empower them. Kentner (2015) stated that “maybe it’s time we rethink the image of our students reading into something that better fits the world they live in” (p. 640). In addition, Zenkov and Harmon (2009) described re-search reflecting students’ attitudes about the perceived irrelevance of school-based literacy tasks that teachers assign. In response, these authors related how they sought to become “teachers who trust youth enough to engage them with our literacy tasks in ways exceeding the expectations of these young adults and society in general” (p. 575). These visual literacy initiatives were guided by similar tenets. The case studies presented in this chapter serve as powerful lenses to support educators and parents as they strive to facilitate students’ personal and academic success. These insights facilitate the ability of education professionals to exa-mine how to better prepare students and their families for the demands of a twenty-first century world that rewards “sustained inquiry and an opportunity ... to practice the discipline of close observation” (Coleman, 2012, p. 1).

References Afflerbach, P., & Harrison, C. (2017). What is engagement, how is it different from motivation, and how can I prove it? Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literature, 61(2), 217-220. Baugh, T. (2017). Supporting the affective needs of a struggling reader. The Reading Teacher, 71(2), 229-230.

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Bus, A., van Ijzendoorn, M., & Pellegrini, A. (1995). Joint reading makes for success in learning to read: A meta-analysis on intergenerational transmission of literacy. Review of Educational Research, 65, 1-21. Cappello, M., & Lafferty, K. (2015).The roles of photography for developing literacy across the disciplines. The Reading Teacher, 69(3), 287–295. Coleman, D. (2012). Guiding principles for the arts, grades K–12. Retrieved from http://usny. nysed.gov/rttt/docs/guidingprinciplesarts.pdf Coleman, J., Bradley, L.G., & Donovan, C. (2012). Visual representations in second graders' information book compositions. The Reading Teacher, 66(1), 31-45. Dickinson, D., Golinkoff, R. M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2010). Speaking out for language: Why language is central for reading development. Educational Researcher, 39(4), 305–310. Ford-Connors, E., & Robertson, D. (2017). What do I say next? Using the third turn to build productive instructional discussions. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 61(2), 131139. Harris, J., Golinkoff, R. M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2011). Lesson from the crib to the classroom: How children really learn vocabulary. In D. K. Dickinson, & S. B. Neuman (Eds.), Handbook of Early Literacy (Vol. 3, pp. 322–336). New York: Guilford. Hart, B. & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experiences of young American children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company. Hughes, L. (1995). The block. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Jordan, G. E., Snow, C. E., & Porche, M. V. (2000). Project EASE: The effect of a family literacy project on kindergarten students’ early literacy skills. Reading Research Quarterly, 35(4), 524-546. Kentner, S. (2015). Reading outside the book. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 58(8), 640. Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). The grammar of visual design. New York: Routledge. Lehman, C., & Roberts, K. (2013). Falling in love with close reading: Lessons for analyzing texts — and life. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Lyon, G.E. (1999). Where I’m from. Texas: Absey and Company. McCardle, P., Chhabra, V., & Kapinus, B. (2008). Reading research in action: A teacher’s guide for student success. Baltimore: Brookes Publishing Company. Moore, H. H. (1997). A poem a day: 180 thematic poems and activities that teach and delight all year long. New York: Scholastic Professional Books. National Early Literacy Panel. (2009). Developing early literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Washington, DC: National Institute for Literacy. O'Neil, K. (2011). Reading pictures: Developing visual literacy for greater comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 65(3), 214-223. Parsons, J. J. (2013). Dead Chest Island. Savannah, GA: Create Space Independent Publishing Platform. Riley, K. (2015). Enacting critical literacy in English classrooms. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 58(5), 417-425. Scarborough, H. S., & Dobrich, W. (1994). On the efficacy of reading to preschoolers. Developmental Review, 14, 245-302. Scholastic Books. (1999). Poetry place anthology: More than 600 poems for all occasions. New York: Scholastic Professional Books. Serafini, F. (2010). Reading multimodal texts: Perceptual, structural, and ideological perspectives. Children’s Literature in Education, 41, 85-104. Spitler, E. (2009). Transformation of preservice and new teacher literacy identity: Three transactional dimensions (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 3366707).

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Uzum, B. (2012). A microethnographic case study of Fulbright language teaching assistants: Dialogic mediation and conceptual thinking for professional identity development. In E. Gorsuch (Ed.), Working theories for teaching assistant and international teaching assistant development (pp. 388-422). Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press. Zenkov, K., & Harmon, J. (2009). Picturing a writing process: Photovoice and teaching writing to urban youth. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(7), 575-584.

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Teachers' Visual Literacy Practices in Middle and High School Science Classrooms Xiaoning Chen, Mark Newman, & Vito M. DiPinto National Louis University, USA

Abstract. The study investigates how six middle and high school science teachers used what they learned in their teacher preparation programs and professional training to implement visual literacy practices to facilitate student learning. The teachers had varying levels of experience. They were graduates from teacher preparation programs at one higher education institution in a large metropolitan area. A case study method documented snapshots of the teachers’ visual literacy practices. The findings indicate that, while the participants did not have a shared definition of visual literacy, they used practices shaped by the curricula of their teacher preparation programs and their school context. The participating teachers had students examine visuals in various ways to support understanding of science content. In addition, some visual literacy practices provided opportunities for students to analyze visuals, apply the analysis to scientific content being studied, and create visual narratives. Keywords: visual literacy practices, science teaching and learning, secondary teacher preparation, professional development

s teacher educators, our primary goal is to equip candidates in teacher preparation programs with research-based and field-tested practices they can implement in their future classrooms. Using visual literacy as the example, the goals of this study were 1) To investigate the impact of teacher education programs on the graduates’ teaching practices; and 2) To identify their continuing professional development needs. Three faculty researchers examined how six graduates used visual literacy practices in science learning experiences that met the needs of all students. The research team assessed the connections between what the participating teachers taught in their classrooms and visual literacy practices learned in their teacher preparation programs and professional training. The faculty and participating teachers came from teacher preparation programs at a private, non-profit university in a large metropolitan area. The team employed a case study method to document snapshots of visual literacy practices of middle and high school science teachers.

Visual Literacy A commonly agreed upon definition for visual literacy does not currently exist. Combining the ideas of several scholars, the researchers defined visual literacy as the ability to read and make sense of information presented in visual representations as well as to use visual formats to communicate ideas and findings (Baker, 2015; Newfield, 2011; Rowsell, McLean, & Hamilton, 2012). Numerous studies have concluded that visual literacy is an important skill that promotes science learning. Aberšek (2008) argues that visual literacy is “one of 21st century literacies for science teaching and learning” (p. 9) and that it must be intentionally developed. Studies suggest

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that visual literacy improves both student understanding (Kelly & Akaygun, 2016; Mayer et al., 1996; Miller, Cromley, & Newcombe, 2016) and retention (Newton, 1984) of science content. Visual means of representation highly motivate students to learn science (Dambekalns & Medina-Jerez, 2012) and promote learning. High school students reported that examining the illustrations of meiosis in biology classes helped them understand structures and phases of meiosis (Cook, 2008). Kelly and Akaygun (2016) concluded that using cartoon tutorials of molecular variations to complement traditional representations improved student understanding. Students noticed the differences between their initial mental models of molecular variations and the critical features portrayed in the tutorials. Several studies noted that there is a connection between the effective use of visuals and the development of visual literacy skills. The explicit use of visual literacy practices in classroom settings creates opportunities for viewers to discover, analyze, and critique meaning embedded in the interplay of visual and other modes (Coskie & Davis, 2008; Rowsell et al., 2012). Reading and comprehending a highly abstract science diagram involves different skills than reading an everyday image (Lowe, 2000). As a result, it can be challenging for students to construct meaning from visual representations found in science texts and tests (McTigue & Flowers, 2011). Therefore, “it is essential that today's students develop the general visual literacy skills required for dealing with scientific graphics” (Lowe, 2000, 2nd para.). For example, middle schoolers who received sustained instruction on conventions of diagrams outperformed those who did not have similar learning experiences (Miller et al., 2016). Knowledge of conventions of diagrams supported learning science content, in part by increasing student engagement (Miller et al., 2016). Dambekalns and Medina-Jerez (2012) reported similar results. By integrating science and art, they captured student interests and promoted learning among middle school students. Despite the proven importance of visual literacy in science education, limited empirical studies explore teachers’ visual literacy practices in science in diverse middle and high school settings (e.g., Cook, 2011; McTigue & Flowers, 2011). This study contributes to the literature by seeking an answer to the following question: How does instruction on visual literacy practices in teacher preparation programs and professional development venues impact the teaching practices of graduates?

The Study The three researchers were faculty members from a private, non-profit university in a large metropolitan area of the United States and taught courses in the teacher preparation programs. One of the researchers was the science methods instructor who taught all the participating teachers in their teacher preparation programs. The other researcher taught a participating teacher in the ESL methods course. The third researcher was the social studies methods instructor and was not acquainted with any of the participants before the start of the study. The faculty team followed up with the six graduates from the teacher preparation pro-grams to investigate how and why they used visual literacy practices in science classrooms. Important considerations for the study included investigating the impact of teaching practices especially how visual literacy practices affected student learning, and identifying future professional development needs. These considerations led to posing the following supporting research question: How and why were graduates of varying levels of experience able to use visual literacy practices learned in their teacher preparation programs to facilitate students’ learning in science courses?

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The Participants A convenience sample method was used to recruit the participants. Six teachers, two females and four males, participated in the study. Two teachers represented each cate-gory: • First-year new teachers; • Novice teachers who have been teaching for less than five years; and • Experienced teachers who have been teaching for more than five years. The names used in this report are pseudonyms. The participants' teaching positions are as follows: • The first-year new teachers were Karina and Kristin. Karina is the only science teacher in a small Catholic middle school while Kristin teaches in a science department in a diverse high school (over 78% of minority enrollment) with over 3,500 students. • The novice teachers were Alex and Chris. Alex teaches in a community charter middle school with around 400 students. Over 90% of the student population is from low income and minority categories. Chris teaches in a high school with over 2,000 students. The school has about 16% minority enrollment. • The experienced teachers were Bob and Frederick. Bob teaches in a public school that serves students from PK-8. It houses over 800 students and about 35% of students are from low income and Hispanic backgrounds. The sixth teacher, Frederick, teaches in the same high school as Kristin. All participating teachers have white, middle class background except Karina, who identified her cultural background as Filipino.

Methods This is a qualitative study that describes how and why teachers used visual literacy practices in science teaching and learning. The data collection occurred during the 2016-2017 school year. Data came from the following four sources: 1. A completed survey by participating teachers at the beginning of the study describing their use of visual literacy practices in teaching science. 2. Transcript of two individual interviews of the participating teachers, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the study. 3. Completed notes on two classroom observations of each teacher. 4. The instructional materials related to visual literacy practices used by participants during the 2016-2017 school year. A case study method was used to examine each teacher’s visual literacy practices in his/ her science classroom. The interviews were transcribed for analysis and triangulation with the survey and classroom observation data. The field notes regarding the observations were

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documented and analyzed by all three researchers. Key words related to visual literacy practices from all data sources were identified to develop categories and themes.

Findings The findings identified two major themes: 1. Though the participating teachers implemented visual literacy practices, there was no long-term, systematic planning and instruction on visual literacy skills. 2. The participating teachers’ working definitions of visual literacy and their visual literacy practices were largely shaped by the teacher preparation training and the school context.

Based on the survey, interview, observations, and the instructional materials, the participating teachers implemented visual literacy practices that used real objects, images, videos, and hands on/lab activities for demonstration. They also used graphic organizers for notes or lab reports, tables and maps for analysis, making models, and drawing. For instance, Karina creatively set up a visual display of the student rosters in the periodical table format in her science room. While working with 8th graders to introduce the digestive system, Karina employed a PowerPoint presentation of images. She distributed graphic organizers for taking notes (Appendix A) and conducted several hands-on activities (e.g., the digestion activity where students pushed a bead through a straw (Observation 1, December 12, 2016)). In a lesson on states of matter, she had students demonstrate the distances of molecules in different states of matter by arranging pieces of cereal on a sticky note (Observation 2, April 27, 2017). In her interview, Karina shared how she, as a new teacher, was trying different visual literacy practices to help her students learn science: I do PowerPoints. So I have images so they can connect to what we are learning to see something. I try to do videos here and there although that doesn’t really hold their attention very often. But I know this is not really visual literacy. But just being able to, more hands-on stuff that I try. It’s all just trying right now though because I’m mostly just learning (personal communication, December 12, 2016). Kristin was the other first year teacher included in the study. The faculty researchers observed her conducting several labs for sophomore students. For instance, during a lab at the beginning of the unit on equilibrium, students worked in small groups using two straws of different diameters to transfer volumes of water from two cylinders until they reached a new balance of water level in the cylinders (Observation 2, May 8, 2017). In a unit assessment, Kristin presented a number of unknown elements and asked students to identify where they should go on a blank periodical table based on the physical and chemical properties of these elements (Appendix B). In her interview, Kristin explained that most of her visual literacy practices were hands-on, including making models in the physical science classrooms. She noted that she would like to include more visually oriented activities in the Chemistry class (personal communication, November 18, 2016). As an experienced teacher, Frederick reported that he frequently encouraged his students to draw and make models (e.g., the LEGO activity in his instructional materials, Appendix C) to explain the science concepts and processes. While exploring the topic of reflection with 9th graders, he drew a visual to show how a mirror reflects light on a board (see Figure 1). Then he

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had students draw an explanation demonstrating how the surface of mirror vs. paper reflects light differently (Observation 2, May 5, 2017). Frederick confirmed that: “I’m big on the creation of models, a lot of drawing. The big idea I always try to do is just to have kids be able to explain through drawing models and describing models that they see” (personal communication, November 18, 2016). Bob was the other experienced teacher. He showed three different types of video clips when he introduced the concept of a virus to his 7th graders (Observation 2, May 30, 2017). The first was a dramatic clip to explain what a virus is. The second was a Brain POP video that involved digital cartoon-like animations that defined what a virus is and how it fundamentally works in the body. The final animation employed cartoons and real imagery to show how viruses can “invade” human bodies and reproduce, but not necessarily cause a disease. In helping 8th graders engage in scientific discourses, Bob designed an activity in which students used data to support a claim by examining the historical data of a cholera outbreak in a certain part of London in the 1850s. Students were asked to observe the data presented in a table, transfer the data to a blank map, and analyze for patterns (Observation 2, May 30, 2017). For an example of the map, go to this URL --- http://sepuplhs.org/pdfs/IAPS-P11.pdf). Bob also mentioned that “when there are pictures in the book, we usually look and see what information we can gather out of these pictures” (personal communication, May 30, 2017). Novice teachers, Chris and Alex, used visuals to support their practice. In Chris’ earth science class on December 27, 2016, he started the class with a simple but powerful graphic with little text to review the “life cycle” of a star. The visual helped students understand the importance of using appropriate visuals for particular purposes.

Figure 1. Frederick’s drawing on the board shows how a mirror reflects light.

When Chris’ class had to prepare a PowerPoint presentation on natural disasters, he encouraged students to explain the reasoning behind choosing a specific image. During the observation of Chris' chemistry class, he had the students do a standard lab to collect data on acids and bases by observing the visually focused data of color and formation changes

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(Observation 2, May 6, 2017). In his interview, Chris mentioned that visuals were the key for his students to start building an understanding of the “big picture:” Well most of it is to get context, right? To give images, because when I was working a lot with my Earth Science students, talking about the big picture stuff, talking about the universe, so I would get just blank faces if I don’t have any images up there. So I need something, to point at something, to give them a reference, even if it’s a diagram they’ve never seen, if I can keep putting the diagram up there each day, it helps them understand it, eventually starting to put the pictures together (personal communication, December 27, 2016). In a lesson on electromagnetism, Alex asked 8th graders to draw the patterns of iron filings for a bar magnet, followed by a hands-on challenge to make the strongest electromagnet they could with an iron nail, copper wire, and a flash light battery (Observation 1, December 13, 2016). He did a similar design challenge during the second observation, in which students were encouraged to draw out their ideas before using or designing simple machines to move a heavy cylindrical object (Observation 2, May 22, 2017). In his interview, he reported that: I’m a big fan of multimedia — we do a lot of video presentations; integrating more video games in, especially with this group of electron magnets, we play video games where they would have to create their own electron magnets to pick up certain amounts of things (personal communication, December 13, 2016).

For personal and educational reasons, the teachers used a variety of visual literacy practices. Table 1 below presents the different types of visual literacy practices observed by the researchers or self-reported by the participating teachers. It aligns the categories according to Bloom’s revised taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) and provides examples that support the categorization. Overall, these visual literacy practices seemed to climb the revised taxonomy, from lower level, knowledge based understanding to higher-order thinking such as analyzing, applying, evaluating, and creating. However, the most dominant use of visual literacy practices was focused either on the teacher presenting visuals to help student understand science concepts and processes or on students being asked to use visuals to demonstrate their understanding (author’s emphasis). Further, the observed and reported visual literacy practices seemed to center on building content understanding. Table 1. Teachers’ Visual Literacy Practices Visual Literacy Practices

Aligned Bloom’s Taxonomy Categories

Examples

Real Objects

Understanding

Frederick showed students different types of mirrors in his reflection unit.

Images

Understanding

Chris presented a simple but powerful image of the “life cycle” of a star.

Videos/Movies

Understanding

Bob showed three different types of video clips to introduce the concept of a virus.

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Applying

Frederick shared his plan to have students to watch the movie The Martian and see how the physics concepts discussed in the course were applied.

Hands-on activities (not involving standard lab equipment)

Understanding

Karina had her students push the bead through a straw to demonstrate how the digestion system works.

Applying/Creating

Alex engaged his students in a challenge to make the strongest electromagnet they could with an iron nail, copper wire, and a flash light battery.

Labs

Understanding

Graphic organizers (notes/lab reports)

Understanding

Kristin had her students do a lab to transport water using two straws with different diameters to understand the concept of equilibrium. Karina provided her students a graphic organizer to jot down notes on the molecular characteristics of three different states of matter.

Maps/tables

Analyzing/Evaluating

Making models Understanding

Applying/Creating

Analyzing

Bob had his students transfer the data of 1849 Cholera Epidemic in London on the map to analyze the patterns. Frederick had his students use the Legos to demonstrate understanding of balancing equations (the Law of Conservation of Mass). Frederick had his students apply their understanding of a rearrangement of the reactants in a chemical reaction to create and build one more chemical equation with the given Legos. Frederick had his students balance the chemical reactions with shapes.

Evaluating

Frederick had his students create Lego models for the stoichiometry.

Drawing

Understanding

Alex had students draw the patterns of iron filings for a bar magnet on the board as a review.

Assessment

Analyzing

Kristin had her students do a mystery element test based on their understanding of the periodic table.

The observed visual literacy practices were consistent with the survey data. Most teachers reported that they used visual literacy on a weekly, if not daily basis. All five teachers who completed the survey indicated that they used visual literacy activities for two major reasons. First, visuals helped make abstract concepts and processes more concrete and, second, they met the needs of students with diverse learning styles. In thinking about her 8th graders learning about the abstract concept of digestion, Karina stated: So you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really see whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going on inside of you. So one of the things we are going to do, if we have time, is just mimicking peristalsis. So I have some straws and I have tiny little beads for them to put inside the straws. And they are going, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kind of, they are not loose in there so you have to push them through. So the kids are gonna physically have to push that bead through to see how peristalsis moves food through the esophagus (personal communication, December 12, 2016).

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The participating teachers firmly stated that the use of visuals and hands-on activities were ways to accommodate students’ comprehension of the content. For instance, Bob shared how he used visuals to differentiate instruction and support diverse learners: I feel like it can be very effective for the diverse learners because they, naturally their strength is not usually going to be reading of a text. They usually are way more insightful when it comes to looking at some sort of image or watching a movie because that’s often the way they learn best is not just through reading because it’s not their strength (personal communication, May 30, 2017). In addition, over half of the participating teachers indicated in the survey that the purposes of using visual literacy practices included activating students’ background knowledge, introducing new knowledge, motivating students’ learning, engaging students in inquiry-based learning, and creating meaningful class-room discussion. Overall, the participating teachers implemented visual literacy practices that covered both low and higher-level thinking on Bloom’s revised taxonomy. Certain practices seemed prevalent. They used certain practices to meet identified needs, but there was no evidence that the teachers had strategically designed a sequential visual literacy curriculum.

Teachers’ Definitions of Visual Literacy How teachers employ visual literacy practices in the classroom provides insight into how they define visual literacy. In turn, the definitions offer clues as to why such practices are effecttive. The researchers asked the participating teachers to define visual literacy. Most of them provided a description-like definition. For example, Karina: I think it’s a way for students to be able to not only just read something, but it’s also to be able to translate it into their writing, to be able to organize what they are learning so that they can see, and it will be in a form that’s easier for them to remember it by. So it’s more like just techniques to help them learn the content better, and to visualize things, not just to be by the book, just to apply to the real world to what’s written (Personal communication, April 27, 2017, italics added). Frederick: So hopefully that visual literacy aspect is strengthened both where they can actually draw better, and communicate better visually as well as they understand when someone is communicating to them visually back. Hopefully strengthen that kind of aspect of their knowledge and skills based of the science part of it (Personal communication, May 8, 2017, italics added). The teachers’ descriptions of visual literacy indicated that they had some ideas about visual literacy that meshed well with the existing definitions that focus on 1) reading, 2) understanding/ making sense of, and 3) communicating and creating visuals (Baker, 2015; Newfield, 2011; Rowsell et al., 2012). For instance, teachers used images, video clips, and graphic organizers to help students understand science concepts and processes. However, there was a lack of explicit instruction on how to read the static and dynamic visuals and on how to make sense of them. The participating teachers also expected students to use visuals to explain concepts and/or processes by creating drawings or making models (e.g., Frederick’s class observation of asking students to draw the light reflection on paper versus mirror and he discussed the Lego models in his interview). It seems that each teacher had his/her own spin on different aspects of visual literacy, yet none of them developed a comprehensive

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understanding of what visual literacy was. Nor does it appear that there was specific literacy training over time to improve student skills.

Impact of Teacher Preparation Programs In their interviews, the participating teachers shared where they learned about visual literacy and what practices were most important for their teaching. Karina: I do integrate other subjects into science. So, a lot of what Saia [pseudonym of a social studies methods instructor] had taught in social studies, art, and art integration (personal communication, December 12, 2016). Frederick: I think a lot of that was probably with you [the science methods instructor], with just every time doing something that was more hands-on, you know, a little different than the same old notes, quizzes, tests, we didn’t do any of that. It was handson, let’s learn how to show this idea, but with a visual, or a model, or a building of something, or a drawing of something, or a video showing something, the digital storytelling, for instance, whatever it may be, just there’s different ways to go about showing an experiment step by step (personal communication, November 18, 2016). It seemed that the methods courses that the teachers took in the teacher preparation program had a significant impact on their understanding of visual literacy and effective practices in teaching and learning science. In addition, Alex mentioned how he incorporated some of the ideas from his student teaching experience: Other than your class, we didn’t really go into visuals all that much. During the student teaching, I picked up some of the ideas of stopping a video, asking questions, talking through things. Constantly checking in, asking them, before the video, how they would solve the program etc. (Personal communication, December 13, 2016). At the time of the study, none of the participating teachers mentioned that visual literacy was a top priority at their schools. In addition, the participating teachers indicated that they had rather limited opportunities to attend professional development or conferences focusing on visual literacy. As a new teacher, Kristin said that she would love to have a list of visual literacy strategies as a reference (personal communication, November 18, 2016). The availability of professional development experiences focusing on visual literacy that aligns with schools’ priorities would be appropriate to guide the teachers. Having these experiences would help the teachers in developing a long-term plan to systematically introduce and practice visual literacy skills.

School Contexts Shaping Up Visual Literacy Practices Besides the teacher preparation programs, the schools where the participating teachers worked also played a role in determining what visual literacy practices were considered appropriate and relevant to use in their classrooms. Their colleagues had adopted their own way of teaching different subjects over the years, which in some cases was in conflict with what the participating teachers had learned in their teacher preparation programs. Karina was in her first year of teaching science. She taught a group of students who were used to textbook-focused learning. Further, there was a situation where teachers and the administration held different opinions on how standards should be aligned to the curriculum, assessment, and classroom instruction. For

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instance, Frederick pointed out that building the science curricula at his school was based on a literal view of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013).

Discussion This study examined the visual literacy practices of six classroom science teachers with varied teaching experiences. It identified several different ways these teachers implemented visual literacy practices in their science classrooms. Based on Bloom’s revised taxonomy, the use of visual literacy was prevalent in the category of understanding, with a few cases addressing the analyzing, applying, evaluating, and creating categories. However, there was no strong evidence showing how students were taught to engage critically with visual materials. That is, students were not taught to evaluate and reflect on what was presented visually or why it was presented that way. Nor were students taught to ask what is missing from the visual or how visuals interact with text to create meaning and perspectives. Moreover, the observed and reported visual literacy practices primarily focused on the short-term building understanding of content, rather than on the long-term goal of developing visual literacy competency. There was no mention of any consistently used, well-defined visual literacy strategy. Rather, these visual literacy practices were more ad hoc and informal. It is critical for teachers to use visuals and other multimodal instructional materials to help students build and demonstrate understanding of abstract science concepts and processes. But, it was disconcerting that none of the participating teachers explicitly provided instruction on how to read and make sense of the visuals. It was falsely assumed that visuals were straightforward and that students were already visually literate enough to comprehend the content (Martins, 2002). As a result, there appears to be a theoretical and pedagogical gap in the participating teachers’ understanding between using visuals and implementing visual literacy practices. Using visuals in teaching and learning is just a beginning step toward building students’ visual literacy competency. Ausburn and Ausburn (1978) suggest that students do not develop higher-order visual literacy skills unless they are explicitly taught so. Avgerinou and Ericson (1997) argue that visuals “have their own vocabulary, grammar, and syntax” (p. 285). Only when teachers provide opportunities for students to discuss visuals using the unique visual language, will they “be able to decode (interpret) visual messages successfully and to encode (compose) meaningful visual messages.” The participating teachers in the study expressed some basic understanding of visual literacy as they mentioned some key categories such as reading/visualizing, understanding/ interpreting, applying, and communicating in their descriptions. This basic comprehension might be a start toward a clear definition of visual literacy. The teacher preparation programs, especially their science methods course, had a significant impact on how they understood visual literacy and what visual literacy practices they implemented in their science teaching. In addition, the school contexts played a role in what visual literacy practices were legitimized in their classrooms. School priorities, colleagues’ teaching styles, and the administration’s view on how standards should be implemented in the curriculum affected the use of visuals in the classroom. Even though there is not much control over school contexts, teacher educators can help teacher candidates and classroom teachers develop a clear understanding of what visual literacy is and how it works. Teacher educators can model how to provide a systematic introduction of effective visual literacy strategies in the teacher preparation programs and continuing professional development. This study has not only identified how and why the participating teachers implemented visual literacy practices in the science classrooms, but also shed some light on several curricular issues regarding science education. It is important to mention that in all of the participating teachers’ classrooms, students did not read or discuss written science discourses (e.g., reading a chapter

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in science textbook or a science report where information is presented through the interplay between visuals and other modes). The primary source of information was what their teachers provided by PowerPoint presentation, handout, or worksheet, for instance. The researchers shared two reasons why no textbook was used. The first reason is that most of the science textbooks were outdated. In addition, most of the students’ reading levels were below the textbook level. Due to these reasons, science textbooks seemed not to be an ideal choice. Further, research indicated a mismatch between the visual formats presented in the biology textbooks and the techno-scientific graphical conventions (Dimopoulos, Koulaidis, & Skaveniti, 2003; Lynch, 1985; Trumb, 1999). If the students did not have the opportunity to read and critically analyze authentically written science discourses presented both in visual and text formats, how do educators expect them to be competently engaged in critical thinking and problem solving when they advance their study at the college level? What should educators do to fill in the gap?

Conclusion This study provides an opportunity for educators to gain a better understanding of how and why visual literacy plays such an important role in academic learning. Visuals, occupying about onethird or more space, play a significant role in the genre of science textbooks, research articles, and technical manuals (Darian, 2001). Moreover, the NGSS has created a strong need for preservice and in-service teachers to adopt a more holistic approach in science education. Students need to be engaged in asking critical questions, developing hypotheses, and making evidencebased claims. This study identified visuals and visual literacy practices implemented by the participating science teachers to support students’ content learning and meet diverse students’ different needs. Further, it sheds some light on ways to revamp teacher preparation program curricula and to provide continuing professional development. Teacher candidates and classroom teachers need to be more confident and strategic in using visual literacy practices in their current and future classrooms. Hopefully, the findings of this study can stimulate further research that will have an impact on the advancement of science education at the secondary and higher education levels.

References Aberšek, M. K. (2008). Visual literacy-one of 21st century literacies for science teaching and learning. Problems of Education in the 21st Century, 5(5), 9-17. Anderson, L.W., & Krathwohl, D. (Eds.) (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman. Ausburn, L. J., & Ausburn, F. B. (1978). Visual literacy: Background theory and practice. Programmed Learning and Educational Technology, 15, 291–297. Avgerinou, M. & Ericson, J. (1997). A review of the concept of visual literacy. British Journal of Educational Technology, 28(4), 280-291. Baker, L. (2015). How many words is a picture worth? Integrating visual literacy into language learning with photographs. English Teaching Forum, 53(4), 2–13. Cook, M. (2008). Students’ comprehension of science concepts depicted in textbook illustrations. Electronic Journal of Science Education, 12, 1–14. Cook, (2011). Teachers’ use of visual representations in the science classroom. Science Education International, 22(3), 175-184.

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Coskie, T. L. & Davis, K. J. (2008). Science shorts: Encouraging visual literacy. Science and Children, 46(3), 56-58. Retrieved from http://cmapspublic2.ihmc.us/rid=1H0VWKYQY1PFL9JT-K54/Encouraging%20Visual%20Literacy.pdf Darian, S. (2001). More than meet the eye: The role of visuals in science textbooks. LSP & Professional Communication, 1(1), 10-36. Kelly, R. M., & Akaygun, S. (2016). Insights into how students learn the difference between a weak acid and a strong acid from cartoon tutorials employing visualizations. Journal of Chemical Education, 93(6), 1010–1019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed. 6b00034 Lowe, R. (2000). Visual literacy in science and technology education. Connect: UNESCO International Science, Technology & Environmental Education Newsletter, 25(2), 1-3. Dambekalns, L., & Medina-Jerez, W. (2012). Cell organelles and silk batik: a model for integrating art and science. Science Scope, 36(2), 44–51. Dimopoulos, K. Koulaidis, V., & Skaveniti, S. (2003). Towards an analysis of visual images in school science textbooks and press articles about science and technology. Research in Science Education, 33, 189-216. Lynch, M. (1985). Discipline and the material form of images: An analysis of scientific visibility. Social Studies of Science, 15(1), 37-66. Martins, I. (2002). Visual imagery in school science texts. In J. Otero, J. A. Leon, & A. C. Graesser (Eds.), The psychology of science text comprehension (pp. 73-90). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Mayer, R. E., Bove, W., Bryman, A., Mars, R., & Tapangco, L. (1996). When less is more: Meaningful learning from visual and verbal summaries of science textbook lessons. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88(1), 64-73. McTigue, E. M., & Flowers, A. C. (2011). Science visual literacy: Learners’ perceptions and knowledge of diagrams. The Reading Teacher, 64(8), 578-589. doi: 10.1598/RT.64.8.3 Miller, B. W., Cromley, J. G., & Newcombe, N. S. (2016). Improving diagrammatic reasoning in middle school science using conventions of diagrams instruction. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 32(4), 374-390. doi: 10.1111/jcal.12143 Newfield, D. (2011). From visual literacy to critical visual literacy: An analysis of 122 educational materials. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 10(1), 81-94. Retrieved from http://education.waikato.ac.nz/research/files/etpc/files/2011v10n1art5.pdf Newton, D. P. (1984). A way of classifying and measuring some aspects of the illustration style of textbooks. Programmed Learning and Educational Technology, 21(1), 21-27. NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next generation science standards: For states, by states. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Rowsell, J., McLean, C., & Hamilton, M. (2012). Visual literacy as a classroom approach. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(5), 444-447. doi:10.1002/JAAL.00053 The Regents of the University of California. (2007). Map of the 1849 Cholera epidemic in London (with data). Retrieved from http://sepuplhs.org/pdfs/IAPS-P11.pdf Trumb, J. (1999). Visual literacy and science communication. Science Communication, 20(4), 409-425.

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Appendix A: Karinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Graphic Organizer for Notes Chapter 2 Section 1 Notes Solids, Liquids, and Gases Section 1: States of Matter (pages 42-47) Learning Target: Explain the molecular characteristics of a solid, liquid, or gas. What is matter? _____________________________________________________________________________________ Characteristic

Solid

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Gas

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Appendix B: Kristin’s Mystery Element Assessment Alien Period Table Purpose: To correctly place given physical and chemical properties of unknown elements in a blank period table. Materials: Alien element cards with observations of the unknown elements. Background Information: Earth’s scientists have announced that they have made radio contact with intelligent life on a distant planet. One of this alien planet’s languages has been translated, and scientific information has begun to be exchanged, The planet is composed of the same elements as Earth. However, the inhabitants of the planet have different names and symbols for them. Since the alien scientists do not know the names of our elements, they have radioed the following data on the known properties of the elements. Strangely, but luckily there are no transition or rare earth elements on the alien planet. This means that their periodic table consists only of the “A” groups of elements. The data of the alien elements are listed on the element cards in the envelope. Using the descriptions of the properties of the elements listed on the cards, construct the periodic table of these elements for the group “A” elements. Fill in each alien element symbol on the periodic table on the back of this page. Good Luck!

Alien Period Table:

Name: __________________ Period: ____________ I

VIII II

III

VII

2 3 4 5

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Appendix C: Sample Page in Frederick’s Lego Activity Name __________________________________ Date _________________ Period ________________ Balancing Equations with LEGOs Introduction A balanced chemical equation tells the relative proportions of each of the molecules in particular reaction. Dalton’s Law tells us that “atoms are conserved in chemical reactions.” This means that any atoms that appear on one side of a chemical equation have to also appear on the other side. In other words, atoms are never created or destroyed but they are rearranged. The Law of Conservation of Mass states that the mess of what you end with (products) is always equal to the mess of what you start with (reactants). For example, consider the following chemical equation: SiO2+4HF--- SiF4+2H2O This equation tells us that one molecule of SiO2 (silicon dioxide) reacts with four molecules of HF (hydrofluoric acid) to form one molecule of SiF4 (silicon tetrafluoride) plus two molecules of H2O (water). In other words, if we were to take apart the one SiO2 molecule and the four HF molecules, we would have one Si, 2 O, 4H and 4F atoms. This would give us exactly enough atoms to produce one SiF4 molecule plus two H2O molecules. Objective Apply the law of conservation of mess to balancing chemical equations. In this lab activity, you will use LEGO blocks to represent individual atoms. Materials

Legos: 2: Tan/Yellow Blocks (T) 4: Red Blocks (R) 2: Green Blocks (G)

2: Blue Blocks (B) 1: Orange Block (O) 1: Gray Block (Gy)

Total: 12 LEGOs

Procedure 1. Build the reactants and the products with the appropriate Lego block color according to the equation in the problem. (Remember: Polyatomic ions are in parenthesis and they stay together!) 2. Add more reactants/products with the appropriate Lego block color to correctly balance the equation with Legos. (Remember: The number written in front of the reactants and products is called a coefficient don’t confuse it with the subscript in a compound.) Once balanced with Legos, draw your illustration in the space provide for that equation and color coded appropriately. 3. After you have drawn your illustration, balance the equation with numbers. 4. GET YOUR TEACHER’S STAMPS before you proceed to the analysis questions! If a problem is not STAMPED go back and DOUBLE CHECK and CORRECT IT before proceeding. 5. Once you have completed the 8 Lego equations you and your partner MUST COUNT YOUR INVENTORY OF EACH OF YOUR BAGS to make every LEGO is counted for!

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Applying Visual Literacy to Pedagogy in Secondary Curriculum Design Teresa A. Farrell Eastern Oregon University

Abstract. This chapter describes a preliminary action research study builds upon the theory base of communication, social semiotics, and pedagogy to explore how secondary pre-service teachers apply visual literacy (VL) integration into their own curricular design. Using the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (2011), Fredette (1994) classroom integration principles, and the Avgerinou (2001/2007) Visual Literacy Index, this study seeks to answer the following research questions: 1) How do secondary teachers justify and incorporate visuals into their pedagogy to demonstrate their own level of VL ability? 2) How do secondary teachers promote VL in their students’ work through their own use of visuals in their pedagogy and assessments? The initial results show that purposeful integration of the theory base, and time practicing VL abilities, influences the application of the standards and VL abilities in curricular design and may increase the VL ability to create meaning. The results also show a deficit in the application of the ACRL Standard 4 (evaluating images and their sources). Keywords: visual literacy, pedagogy, curriculum design, assessment

y early training in visual literacy (VL) — that is, “a group of largely acquired abilities, …. to understand (read), and to use (write) images, as well as to think and learn in terms of images” (Hortin, 1994, p. 25) — began with my upbringing. I was born into a land surveying/civil engineering business that was run by my father. As I became tall enough to see the level bubble on the rod, he began teaching me how to work in the field but there was also work indoors involving drafting. My father trained me how to read survey plats and how to hand draft them. I remember distinctly the twirling motion that I had to apply to my pencil to produce an even line on the vellum, a prepared animal skin as writing material. My favorite book was on architectural renderings. As I grew older, my interest in the visual broadened to the theatrical. I was at home on the stage in junior high and high school, so when the time came to make a decision for a college major, I was torn between my two visual interests: architecture and theatre. As I later discovered, my drafting and architectural design ability became very useful as a theatre major when I took stage design. In college, I met and married a photography major, and many years after his death, I met and married an artist. Not until after I became an English/drama teacher did I even know what VL was, but it is obvious to me now that it had always been a part of my life, and I have come to appreciate the importance of this field of study through my own work as an educator.

Context For the past five years, I have been conducting ongoing action research in VL using my Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) students as participants in my summer VL course. This work began as

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a part of my dissertation in 2013, and was the result of my personal involvement in VL as a teacher and graduate student. An assignment that I gave to my students in a college-level writing class required them to select a photograph by Dorothea Lange and to write a visual analysis of the photo. The expectation was that they would address visual composition as well as the intent of the photographer. They were given an article entitled “How to Read a Photograph” (author unknown) which quickly ran through concepts such as subject, size, angle, frame, etc., but were given very little (if any) other instruction in VL. The results were superficial analyses from students who did not feel comfortable in their abilities. This was not just my students, this was the majority of students being taught by my colleagues from other schools as well. As a doctoral student, I took an English class that required a similar type of analysis, although we were given the opportunity to choose our own Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph, rather than being limited to one photographer. We were provided with some readings (student exemplars and information regarding analyzing an image), but no discussion or practice with the concepts of visual composition. I confess that I did not do well. I could fake my way through, but I had never studied visual composition, and I now knew how my own students must have felt when they did their visual analysis writing. As a trained educator, I know that I was not following best practices by expecting my students to complete a visual analysis with little to no training. Good pedagogy requires thoughtful design, and it takes into consideration instruction as well as assessment. This is why I have kept a visual rhetorical analysis as a part of my VL curriculum (requiring my students to use visual composition as well as personal response and historic context), but I have also prepared my students, through curricular choices and instruction, in order to have better results in their performance on assessments. My curriculum includes the work of Dondis (1973), Braden (1994), Fredette (1994), Seels (1994), Silverblatt (2008), Avgerinou (2007), and others. In my previous work, I discovered low-performing areas in VL abilities (as defined by Avgerinou’s VL Index), and during my first VL course, I drew some conclusions through observation. In particular, I identified three areas: 1) concrete concepts (knowledge of design principles and their use), 2) defined concepts (knowledge and understanding of the meaning of signs and symbols), and 3) higher-order rules (verbo-visual relationships) (Avgerinou, 2001; Farrell, 2015). Avgerinou and Knight (2004) also identified the VL abilities that they deemed as critical. The five VL abilities I find relevant are 1) Visual reasoning — “coherent and logical thinking that is carried out primarily by means of images” 2) Constructing meaning — “the ability to construct meaning for a given visual message on the evidence of any given visual” 3) Visual reconstruction — “the ability to reconstruct a partially occluded visual message in its original form” 4) Visualization — “the process by which a visual image is formed” 5) Critical viewing — “applying critical thinking skills to visuals”)

These VL abilities are represented in the three areas of challenge that I discovered. My goal is to incorporate information and practice in these three areas to increase my own students’ understandings and VL abilities. However, as educators, there has to be even more reason for focusing on VL in our curriculum, which is how my theoretical approach developed.

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Theory Base and Curricular Choices The three areas of theoretical approach include communication theory (Austin, 1955; Barthes,1968; Braden, 1994; Gould, 1995; Hesford & Brueggemann, 2007; Langer, 1957; Moriarty, 1994; Silverblatt, 2008; Stephens, 1998; States, 1992), social semio-tics (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006), and visual pedagogy (Callow, 2008; Considine, Horton & Moorman, 2009; Dondis, 1973; Fredette, 1994; Postman, 1985; Robertson, 2007). Communication theory is firmly entrenched in the rhetorical triangle of the speaker (artist), listener (viewer), and message (image), and drawing particular attention to the idea that it is important to focus on the perception of the viewer and the multiple perspectives that viewers can offer to the understanding of an image. Social semiotics is important to include within this triangle, as it draws attention to the audience and the choices the artist must make when considering the audience. Finally, visual pedagogy must be at the forefront for MAT students because they need to have a firm foundation on why it is important to include VL in their own teaching as well as implementing practical ways to integrate VL into their curriculum. The topics for my course include the following:           

Defining VL The Skills of Visual Literacy—VL Index Rationale for VL Common Core and VL Opposition to VL Communication and Rhetoric in VL The Language of VL VL and Movement Consumerism/Power Differential in VL VL Composition Perception and VL

Students need to understand the rationale for VL in practice. Students could reflect on the visuals used and identified as important to their own content areas. Also, students could pay careful attention to the teaching standards (i.e., Next Generation Science Standards [NGSS], National Core Arts Standards [NCAS], Standards for Health and Physical Education [SHAPE], Common Core State Standards [CCSS], National Council of Teachers of English [NCTE], Career and Technical Education [CTE] Skill Sets among others) being used. Further, students are introduced to the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (2011) as well as the Inter-state Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) Standards (2011) as a basis for why they need to understand VL principles and to be visually literate.

Activities and Assessments Figure 1 demonstrates the alignment of course assessments/activities with the theory categories, the ACRL Standards, and areas from Avgerinou VL Index. There seems to be a greater emphasis on communication theory in viewing the graphic. However, visual pedagogy (teaching that focuses on the use of visuals as a best practice) seemed to be more emphasized in the final project.

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Figure 1. Alignment grid showing activities/assessments aligned with applicable ACRL Standards, theory base, and VL Index abilities. VRA=Visual Rhetorical Analysis.

In the next section, the narrative describes a classroom activity and one assessment that are represented in Figure 1.

Social Semiotics Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) offered an image of a car drawn by a three-year-old. As can be imagined, a group of irregular shapes on a page does not clearly represent a car. This is a good example to use when teaching about communication theory as well as social semiotics because it clearly demonstrates that something must align between the artist and the viewer in order for appropriate understanding to happen. In the classroom, the image was shown to the MAT students and they were asked about it. They were given no other information. This situation emphasized the verbo-visual relationship defined by Braden (1994). If the age of the artist was provided to the students, then they might narrow down their ideas of what the drawing might mean. When given the name of the drawing or the topic (the car), the students could then begin to make other connections (number of objects, shape, proximity, etc.) to see the metaphor for a car in the image. Without the context and the topic, they were at a loss. Prior to showing the students this image, they needed time to practice social semiotics — the central concept of which involves the artist selecting specific images that would elicit a predictable response from the viewer. It makes sense to teach this concept through a variation of game called Pictionary. The teacher grouped the students into teams of four or so, and then provided drawing paper. The pre-determined category “titles” was told to them with several song, TV show, or film titles having already been selected, such as “Jail Break,” “The Sound of Music,”

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and “Rocky Mountain High.” Given a timeline, students drew and guessed what the drawing meant. A sense of competition kept them motivated. The teacher collected the drawings after the game and displayed them using a document camera. Quickly, the students saw that they have many similar features to their drawings (see Figure 2). In this example, it is clear that an inverted vee (with jagged lines depicting snow at the top) is a standard symbol used for the word, “mountain.” This game led naturally into a discussion of how we select what we believe would be appropriate symbols/signs to get our team mates to guess the correct answer. This experience primes the students for the car drawing and a discussion of symbols and signs as metaphors.

Figure 2. Student drawings for “Rocky Mountain High.”

Final Project The final project for this course assessed how well MAT students were able to make appropriate choices for using visuals to teach as well as using them to assess their students’ understanding of the content. Prior to assigning this project, the teacher informed the students on how visuals could be used in the classroom based on the 6W approach outlined by Fredette (1994) which includes WHAT TO USE — characteristics of visuals, types of visual media; WHEN TO USE — selection based on teaching/learning objectives; WHY TO USE — purposes for selecting visuals; WAYS TO USE — teaching strategies, tasks; WHO WILL USE — developmental and individual difference in students; WHERE TO USE — environmental considerations in selection.

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The teacher also provided instructions on ways that students could incorporate visuals into their teaching, such as the following:      

Openers — attention getters Establishing the knowledge base for a topic (direct instruction) Inquiry based learning Transitions Feedback Assessment (Fredette, 1994)

In brief, the directions for this project included the following instructions: Your final project will consist of creating a learning unit plan that integrates visual literacy into the curriculum. Specifically, you will be assessing the VL abilities of your students by selecting specific VL concepts to assess rather than overall VL ability. You will select a grade level and content that lends itself to VL integration, so that you are teaching both content and VL. Plan on developing a 1-3 week unit — determined by the content and the grade level you select. (Farrell, 2016)

Specifically, they were to create an instructional visual that they would use to teach a concept and one exemplar of the product they expected their students to create somewhere within the unit.

Research Question The research question being pursued for this portion of the action research is, How do secondary teachers promote VL in their students’ work through their own use of visuals in their pedagogy and assessments? The answer to the question could come from the students’ demonstration of their ability to analyze the visuals used in instruction, engagement in various activities, and the assessment completed.

Preliminary Assessment Results As this research is ongoing, the results provided are initial in nature and have not been analyzed in-depth; however, the information provided here does provide the solid basis for answering the research question. Initially, the researcher collected the frequencies of the use of the seven ACRL Standards. For the teacher’s instructional visuals, the researcher used Fredette (1994) defined categories such as openers, direct instruction, inquiry based learning, and transitions to track how often MAT students used these in their activities. For student exemplars, the researcher considered and incorporated both the ACRL Standards as well as Avgerinou's VL Index abilities (visual reasoning, constructing meaning, visual reconstruction, visualization, and critical viewing). The data collection (A and B) involved two consecutive cohort years to provide a greater number of participants as well as a way to compare the two cohorts. The A cohort had 19 participants while the B cohort had 29. Raw Scores of Frequencies Two separate data tables displayed the frequencies of both the teacher instructional visuals as well as the student exemplar assessments. Tables 1 and 2 show the frequencies for the A cohort

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and Tables 3 and 4 show the frequencies for the B cohort. The frequencies of Tables 1 and 3 do not limit the number of ACRL Standards demonstrated, but the Fredette (1994) categories only allow for one selection because the teacher is using the visual for only one purpose. Likewise, Tables 2 and 4 do not limit the number of ACRL Standards demonstrated nor do they limit the VL Index categories to just one per exemplar.

Table 1. Summer A Teacher Instructional Visuals # of Students 18/19

ACRL ACRL ACRL ACRL ACRL ACRL 1 2 3 4 5 6 17 16 1a 1a 15 14

Fr O 2

Fr DI 15

FR Inq 1b

FR Tra 0

Note: Frequencies of occurrences for each ACRL Standard and Fredette criterion. Fr O = Opener; Fr DI = Direct Instruction; Fr Inq = Inquiry; Fr Tra = Transition. aOutlier was math student who had to find an example of a hyperbole. bOutlier was PE student who used visual to lead inquiry.

Table 2. Summer A Student Exemplar Visuals # of ACRL ACRL ACRL ACRL ACRL ACRL V Students 1 2 3 4 5 6 Rea 19/19 11 10 11 3 14 16 19

CM 9

V Rec 0

Note: Frequencies of occurrences for each ACRL Standard and VL Index criterion. V Rea = Visual Reasoning; CM = Constructing Meaning; V Rec = Visual Reconstruction; V = Visualization; CV = Critical Viewing.

Table 3. Summer B Teacher Instructional Visuals # of ACRL ACRL ACRL ACRL ACRL ACRL Students 1 2 3 4 5 6 29/29 29 28 0 0 26 25

Fr O 2

Fr DI 27

FR Inq 0

FR Tra 0

Note: Frequencies of occurrences for each ACRL Standard and Fredette criterion. Fr O = Opener; Fr DI = Direct Instruction; Fr Inq = Inquiry; Fr Tra = Transition.

Table 4. Summer B Student Exemplar Visuals # of ACRL ACRL ACRL ACRL ACRL ACRL V Students 1 2 3 4 5 6 Rea 29/29 14 13 17 7 22 23 29

CM 19

V Rec 0

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Student Examples Two MAT studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; pieces were considered with their consent for a clear understanding of the different types of visuals that were submitted, These visuals were categorized as either a teacher instructional visual or a student exemplar visual. The selection of these visuals demonstrated how the MAT students engage their students with VL. Figure 3 shows a student exemplar of how visuals can create metaphors for different cellular structures in a unit for an 8th grade Life Science class. This exemplar resulted from a formative exercise. The 8th grade students created an overall metaphor representing various organelles and their relationship as their final project. Figure 4 is an example of an instructional visual. The student took an existing poster design and reworked it by translating the texts into Spanish. High school students used this tool to create a visual analysis written completely in Spanish. Also, students chose an artist of Hispanic descent and provided information about the artist and his/her work. The students selected one piece of art from the artist to analyze using the terminology on the poster.

Figure 3. Student exemplar of formative assessment from life science unit on cell structures. Used by permission.

Figure 4. Teacher instructional visual to be used by students as they learned the elements of art and practiced using the terminology. Used by permission.

Comparison of Assignment Data between Two Cohorts Secondary MAT students who were enrolled in the program made up the cohorts for this study. These students varied in age from 21 to early 50s and held endorsements in varied secondary subjects such as physical education, health, music, language arts, math, science, Spanish, and social studies. The program incorporated the VL course during the last term and students signed consent forms for the researcher to use the data for this study.

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When comparing the frequencies between the two cohorts, the most frequent ACRL Standards addressed for the instructional visuals were 1) “The visually literate student determines the nature and extent of the visual materials needed;” 2) “The visually literate student finds and accesses needed images and visual media effectively and efficiently;” 3) “The visually literate student uses images and visual media effectively;” and 4) “The visually literate student designs and creates meaningful images and visual media” (Hattwig, Burgess, Bussert, & Medaille, 2011).

The most frequent instructional visual created and used based on Fredette (1994) application was for direct instruction. When comparing the student assessment exemplars, the most frequent student requirements were for ACRL Standards 5 and 6. There were similar percentages for ACRL 3: The visually literate student interprets and analyzes the meanings of images and visual media (Hattwig et al., 2011) in student requirements (58% for Cohort A and 59% for Cohort B). The most frequent student requirements in the Avgerinou's (2007) VL Index were for Visual Reasoning and Visualization. There were also similar percentages in the Avgerinou's VL Index Ability of Critical Viewing in the student assessment requirements (53% for Cohort A and 55% for Cohort B). Also, the researcher noted an increase from 47% to 66% in the Avgerinou's VL Index of Creating Meaning from Cohort A to Cohort B. These results show that teachers are promoting their students’ use of visuals as well as their creation of visuals. What should be noted is the lack of attention given to ACRL Standard 4: The visually literate student evaluates images and their sources (Hattwig et al., 2011) when designing curricula. As with other standards, ACRL 4 does not always apply to the units that are designed, but it is important to identify that this standard is the least focused in this assessment (16% in Cohort A and 24% in Cohort B). In fact, what is intriguing about this finding is that the content area standards frequently require students to examine sources and the evaluation of images is critically important in certain subject areas to increase literacy in various media formats. This is similar to the area of concern presented by Considine, Horton, and Moorman (2009). Limitations Influences that likely have impacted these data sets are the differences in the instructional methods of the course as well as the course schedule. As in any of the researcher's classes, she works to continuously improve her practice. The researcher consciously increased the focus on the elements and principles of design in her pedagogy as well as the application of the elements and principles in analysis. She also increased an emphasis on the ACRL Standards and what they mean. The shift in the schedule for her course was contingent upon the other courses offered during the summer. As a result, Cohort A attended the class for 5 sessions at 6 hours per session. Cohort B attended 8 sessions at 3 or more hours per session. The total time remained at 30 hours. Due to the change in schedule, the researcher also rearranged the content which likely affected some of the formative assessment results which were not reported.

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What's Learned? What's Next? It is no mystery to those who work in the field of visual literacy that this is a complex field. When this field is added to another complex field like education, the variations grow exponentially. What has been learned concretely is that as one becomes more intentional in how one approaches VL instruction, students increase in their VL abilities and understandings. This study has only scratched the surface. The researcher needs to intentionally focus on measuring how well the MAT students performed in the ACRL indicators for their own instructional visuals. This will show the impact of the assessment on their own achievement in these standards. This means developing a valid and reliable rubric to measure each standard. This could be accomplished using multiple scorers for each student artifact and conducting a reliability study. Also, the researcher would like to look at students’ VL abilities in what they have produced to see if they are truly growing in those skills. This would take more effort than the ACRL Standards as the researcher would need to define how each skill is demonstrated within the context of each artifact in order to develop a rubric for measuring these abilities. This rubric must align with the abilities defined in Avgerinou’s VL Index but by developing it, the rubric would likely serve many different student products. The researcher would like to answer the larger research question --- How do second-dary teachers justify and incorporate visuals into their pedagogy to demonstrate their own level of VL ability? More specifically, in the following Avgerinou & Knight (2004) VL abilities: visual reasoning, constructing meaning, visual reconstruction, visualization, or critical viewing? In order to answer this question, the researcher will analyze both a written rationale that is required for the unit plan as well as their selected visuals and how they use them for instruction. The researcher would also like to explore the following questions: Did they identify the correct ACRLs for their students? It is important to understand if the MATs are able to apply the standards to the assessments that they create. This is a critical skill for a teacher. 1. Did their rationales provide strong reasoning for the inclusion of VL, and what patterns (if any) exist? 2. Teachers need to be able to justify their pedagogical choices. VL should be intentionally integrated into the curriculum. 3. Much work has been done to demonstrate the importance of visuals to the learning process; therefore, a solid rationale for including it is imperative. 4. Are they building the skills in the areas of challenge that were identified in the original study (Farrell, 2015)? These skills were deemed valuable, so they should be purposefully addressed.

Pursuing these questions using primarily qualitative analysis will help to better answer the larger research question and will expand the ability to answer this study’s question as well. The researcher’s goal is to develop a final project that can be replicated to apply to other teacher preparation programs.

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References Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Avgerinou, M. D. (2001). Developing a visual literacy index (Chapter 5 of unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Bath, UK. Avgerinou, M. D. (2007, Spring). Towards a visual literacy index. Journal of Visual Literacy, 27(1) 29-46. Avgerionou, M. D., & Knight, E. Q. (2004). Assessing the visual literacy skills and perceptions of pre-service math teachers. Unpublished Manuscript. Barthes, R. (1968). Elements of semiology. Retrieved from http://ada.evergreen.edu ~arunc/ texts/frankfurt/ barthes.pdf Braden, R. A. (1994). Visual verbal relationships. In D. M. Moore, & F. M. Dwyer (Eds.), Visual literacy: A spectrum of visual learning (pp. 193-208). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Callow, J. (2008). Show me: Principles for asses-sing studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; visual literacy. The Reading Teacher, 61(8), 616-626. doi:10.1598/RT.61.8.3 Considine, D., Horton, J., & Moorman, G. (2009 March). Teaching and reading the Millennial Generation through media literacy. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 52(6), 471481. doi:10.1598/ JAAL.52.6.2 Dondis, D. A. (1973). A primer of visual literacy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Farrell, T. (2015). Visual literacy in teacher preparation: Measurement to direction. Journal of Visual Literacy, 34(1), 89-104. Farrell, T. (2016). Final VL project [Class handout]. College of Education, Eastern Oregon University, La Grande, OR. Fredette, B. W. (1994). Use of visuals in schools (curriculum and instruction). In D. M. Moore, & F. M. Dwyer (Eds.), Visual literacy: A spectrum of visual learning (pp. 235-256). Engle-wood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Gould, T. (1995). The unhappy performative. In A. Parker, & E. K. Sedqwick (Eds.) Performativity and performance (pp. 19-43). New York, NY: Routledge. Hattwig, D., Burgess, J., Bussert, K., & Medaille, A. (2011). ACRL visual literacy competency standards for higher education, draft 9/19/ 2011. Retrieved from http://acrlvislit standards.files.wordpress.com/ 2011/07/ACRLVisLitStandards_draft_20110919.pdf Hortin, J. A. (1994). Theoretical foundations of visual learning. In D. M. Moore, & F. M. Dwyer (Eds.), Visual literacy: A spectrum of visual learning (pp. 5-29). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design (2nd edition). New York, NY: Routledge. Langer, S. K. (1957). Philosophy in a new key: A study in the symbolism of reason, rite, and art (3rd edition) [Kindle Edition]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Moriarty, S. E. (1994). Visual communication as a primary system. Journal of Visual Literacy, 14(2), 11-21. Postman, N. (1985). Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business. New York, NY: Penguin Books. Robertson, M. S. M. (2007). Teaching visual literacy in the secondary English/language arts classroom: An exploration of teachersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; attitudes, understanding and application (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest LLC. (UMI Number 3259309) Silverblatt, A. (2008). Media literacy: Keys to interpreting media messages (3rd edition) Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. States, B. O. (1992). The phenomenological attitude. In J. G. Reinelt, & J. R. Roach (Eds.), Critical theory and performance (pp. 369-379). Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

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Stephens, M. (1998). The rise of the image, the fall of the word [Kindle Edition]. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

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Crossing Disciplines

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Evaluating Visuals: Increasing Visual Literacy with Infographics Dana Statton Melony Shemberger Leigh Landini Wright Murray State University, USA

Abstract. Do college students evaluate infographics? If so, what criteria do they use? Does that criteria change upon introduction to specific, evaluative criteria? In order to answer these questions, students in two journalism classes were given a pre- and post-questionnaire that explored their understanding of the visual elements and textual content of infographics. Researchers also asked the students to complete an assignment about creating an infographic. In both classes, students were also asked to create an infographic. In the second class, students learned about specific, evaluative and creative criteria regarding infographics from the department’s liaison librarian. Results from the questionnaires indicated that students who received the instruction evaluated infographics at a higher rate than students who did not. Results from the infographic creation assignment indicated that students who receive instruction on creative criteria created more visually appealing and textually sound infographics than those who did not. The study shows that it is possible to increase students’ visual literacy skills by teaching specific evaluative and creative criteria. The researchers found that it is important to incorporate the process of evaluation when assigning an infographic assignment. Keywords: visual literacy, infographics, evaluation, journalism, library instruction

he rise of digital culture has brought about an explosion in the amount of information being produced and disseminated in the world and the amount, access, and availability of visual information, in particular, has increased exponentially. For instance, in 2017, more than one billion YouTube users watched an average of one billion hours of video content during a single day (YouTube, 2017). The proliferation of photographs has likewise been exponential. In 2000, consumers took approximately 80 billion film photographs (Heyman, 2015), and it was predicted that consumers would take 1.2 trillion digital photographs in the year 2017, fifteen times that number (Cakebread, 2017). Although information graphics, or infographics, are not a new phenomenon, just like video and photographs, they have exploded in popularity in the online environment. To illustrate, the number of searches for the term “infographic” on Google increased by more than 900% from 2007 to 2017 (Google Trends, 2017). In 2017 alone, the hashtag infographic (#infographic) was mentioned 45,200 times, engaged 68,100 users, and reached 155,500,000 users on sites such as Twitter, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, Foursquare, and Instagram (Talkwalker, 2017). These same social media sites have embraced visual content. Kane and Pear (2016) have stated: Many of the successful recent entrants into the social media space, such as Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Vine, Periscope, and Meerkat, emphasize visual

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media. Platforms that did not originate as chiefly visual — Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter — are transitioning focus to emphasize the prominence and importance of visual content. (paragraph 3)

This is because nearly 60% of all digital impressions are now driven by images as well as the fact that posts with visuals receive 94% more page visits and engagements than those without (Kane & Pear, 2016). Scroll through any social media site today and you will likely land on an infographic. Just who is scrolling through social media sites? In 2018, 88% of 18- to 29-year-olds in the United States indicated that they use social media across a variety of platforms. For 18- to 24year-olds specifically, Smith and Anderson (2018) reported the following usage: YouTube (94%), Facebook (80%), Snapchat (78%), Instagram (71%), and Twitter (45%). Because these age ranges closely correspond to the age of college students, it follows that this population makes up a large portion of those who use and consume social media. Given that social media sites increasingly utilize visual content, visual literacy remains a vital set of skills for college students to learn. In order to gauge students’ existing visual literacy skills, the authors of this study examined how students evaluate images, specifically, infographics.

Literature Review Developed over the past fifty years, the phrase visual literacy has been used in a wide variety of disciplines. In 1969, the first International Visual Literacy Association conference codified the phrase and John Debes received credit for defining visual literacy as “a group of visioncompetencies a human being can develop by seeing and at the same time having and integrating other sensory experiences” (Fransecky & Debes, 1972, p. 7). Since then, the phrase found frequent use in art history and criticism, rhetoric, semiotics, and philosophy. Recently, the phrase became common in the disciplines of information design, graphic design, and data visualization. Despite this wide usage and passage of time, there has been no standard definition, nor agreed upon understanding of the phrase. Nevertheless, visual literacy, at its most basic level, refers to the ability to comprehend, evaluate, and use images. The most comprehensive definition of visual literacy to date comes from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Libraries Association, which approved the ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education in 2011, defining visual literacy as: 

A set of abilities that enables an individual to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media.



Visual literacy skills equip a learner to understand and analyze the contextual, cultural, ethical, aesthetic, intellectual, and technical components involved in the production and use of visual materials.



A visually literate individual is both a critical consumer of visual media and a competent contributor to a body of shared knowledge and culture. (ACRL, 2011, paragraph 2)

The seven standards show how the understanding of visual literacy has evolved. According to these standards, a visually literate student determines the nature and extent of the visual materials needed (Standard One); finds and accesses needed images and visual media effectively and efficiently (Standard Two); interprets and analyzes the meanings of images and visual media (Standard Three); evaluates images and their sources (Standard Four); uses images

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and visual media effectively (Standard Five); designs and creates meaningful images and visual media (Standard Six); and understands many of the ethical, legal, social, and economic issues surrounding the creation and use of images and visual media, and accesses and uses visual materials ethically (Standard Seven) (ACRL, 2011). Key elements of these standards come into play when considering the infographic as a visual piece of information. The purpose of an infographic is to educate an audience about a specific topic or issue through a combination of words, numbers, and visual elements. Before the rise and rapid proliferation of social media, newspaper pages, marketing campaigns, and annual reports use infographics. Infographics, now, are created for any, and seemingly, every, topic in the digital landscape. They often function as stand-alone communication, enabling the audience to comprehend the information by simply looking at it. This can lead to the illusion that all infographics are trustworthy because visual elements tend to carry more impact than words and numbers. Visual creators could potentially mislead audiences, and some viewers might believe information from an infographic that contains questionable material. Many scholars (Kimball & Hawkins, 2008; Kostelnick & Roberts, 2010; Schafer, 1995; Schriver, 1997; Tufte, 2003) have reported that visuals have emotional impact that people tend to remember longer than words. Given their potency and ubiquity, the challenge that infographics pose to educators face is twofold: 1) teaching students to evaluate infographics, and 2) checking for meaningful and accurate textual and visual content (Standard Four of the ACRL Visual Literacy Standards), and teaching students to design and create meaningful visual media (Standard Six of the ACRL Visual Literacy Standards). Complicating this challenge of evaluation is the simplicity of online search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Because of the ease of searching for online information, students think finding a source is easy. Students might find and cite information that reaffirms their beliefs or needs, regardless of veracity. However, finding a source and finding a relevant, accurate source are two different things (ACRL, 2011; Toth & McClure, 2016). The need is not only to find but also to critically evaluate. Evaluating the source as well as the aesthetic and technical characteristics of the image becomes key. Likewise, the challenge of designing and creation is that web-based software makes the design and creation of infographics easy for anyone, which is a boon and a bane for teachers and professors. On the one hand, the design of infographics has never been simple with the use of web-based software applications such as Canva, Infogram, and Piktochart. All of these applications enable students to produce infographics with relative ease. On the other hand, this means that it is just as easy for anyone else to create an infographic, too. This becomes problematic when considering the lack of oversight or standards associated with infographic production and dissemination. Matrix and Hodson (2014), in their examination of using of infographics as a teaching assignment in an online classroom, recommended that instructors adopt infographics as a teaching and learning tool to help students practice the digital competencies needed to participate in a visual, digital culture. Teaching infographics is an important step toward creating a pedagogical approach founded on visuals. While the literature on infographics and comprehension is lacking, the literature on infographics and pedagogy increasingly includes a widening array of fields (Toth, 2013; Polman & Gebre, 2015). To address the visual literacy demands of modern digital culture, educators can incorporate an infographic assignment as an assessment tool, which is the subject of the present study.

Research Questions To evaluate studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; existing visual literacy skills, and to determine if students independently evaluated infographics, this study sought to answer these three research questions:

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RQ1: Do students evaluate infographics? RQ2: If students do evaluate infographics, what criteria do they use? RQ3: How do students’ initial evaluation criteria change after they are introduced to specific, evaluative criteria of infographics?

Methodology The study was conducted over two semesters in a copyediting course offered by a Journalism and Mass Communications department at a four-year university in the southeastern United States. This specific course, offered every semester during the academic year, is required for journalism majors. The university’s general student body, approximately 10,000 students, is 60.1% female and 39.9% male, with students coming from 46 states, 55 foreign countries, and 106 Kentucky counties. The student population is 80% white, 6.4% black, 6.3% non-resident alien, 2.3% unknown, 2.2% multiracial, 1.8% Hispanic, and 1% Asian (Murray State University, 2018). The student population involved in this study included journalism as well as creative writing, public relations, organizational communication, and television production majors. The majority of students were sophomores or juniors, and were approximately 19-21 years old. The study was conducted in two classes, referred as Method 1 and Method 2 taught by Instructor 1 and Instructor 2 over the period of two semesters. Both methods included a unit on infographics. In addition, Method 2 included a lesson on evaluating infographics led by the department’s liaison librarian. This approach provided a focused instructional emphasis on the evaluation of textual and visual information, addressing Standard Four of the ACRL Visual Literacy Standards. In both courses, students had an assignment in which they had to create an infographic, addressing Standard Six of the ACRL Visual Literacy Standards. The procedures used in the two methods are described in the following narratives. Method 1. In the spring semester of 2017, Instructor 1 taught the infographics unit over the span of four 50-minute class periods to nine students. In the first two class periods, the instructor taught the material, and in the last two class periods, students created infographics using different platforms. The lessons, which were taught through lecture, discussion, and hands-on activities, began by focusing on the history and background of infographics before progressing to the “hows” and “whys” for making and using infographics for the fields of journalism and mass communications. The lessons included instruction on the anatomy of infographics, highlighting the distinction between one-level and two-level infographics (Crane, 2016) as well as the different types of infographics: statistical-, chronological-, process-, geographical-, and research-based. Each type of infographic was represented visually as a way to help the students better understand the different types of infographics. The lessons also included a brief review of the writing and research techniques needed to create an infographic. These techniques included story, style, simplicity, size, statistics, sources, and shareability (Crane, 2016) and addressed Standard One and Standard Five of the ACRL Visual Literacy Standards. Finally, students were given instructions on how to make a successful infographic before creating their own, addressing Standard Six of the ACRL Visual Literacy Standards. The instructor did not teach the specifics of each platform, Infogram and Canva, in class but did assign online tutorials for the students to watch before each class session. During the first class period devoted to creating an infographic, students used Infogram to create one about understanding tuition and fees at their university based on data from the institution’s fact book. The assignment was used as a low-stake assessment to check the students’ understanding of constructing an infographic and interpreting data visually. During the second class period devoted

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to creating an infographic, students researched a historical element of the Kentucky Derby and created an infographic in Canva. Most students reported that they felt Infogram allowed them to create numbers with more meaning than a listing in a story. However, they reported that Canva was an easier and more creative program in which to make an infographic because it allowed for easier text entry and helped them more easily to tell a story with their data. Method 2. In the fall semester of 2017, Instructor 2 and the departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s liaison librarian taught the infographic unit during two fifty-minute class periods to eleven students. For the first class period, the instructor explained the following topics and concepts: explanation of how infographics originated; discussion of why infographics are used; introduction to various infographics, with examples provided (e.g., pie chart, timeline, maps); and basic elements of infographics, such as source, credit line, and title. An in-class infographic creation assignment using Canva was completed as a low-stake assessment to help students navigate the software. The librarian led the second class period, approaching the assignment from a visual literacy perspective and introducing evaluative criteria which was missing in from Method 1. The infographics assignment directly addressed Standards Four and Six of the ACRL Visual Literacy Standards. Because infographics contain both text and visuals, students need to learn how to evaluate both textual and visual information. To evaluate the textual information contained in an infographic, the librarian introduced the students to the CRAAP Test. CRAAP stands for Currency (timeliness of information), Relevancy (the importance of the information to oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s needs), Authority (the source of the information), Accuracy (the reliability, truthfulness, and correctness of the content), and Purpose (the reason the information exists) (Blakeslee, 2010). The CRAAP Test is frequently used in library instruction as a basis to evaluate sources, particularly websites. Because infographics frequently utilize web-based information (and are also found on websites), the CRAAP Test provides a sound method for determining the accuracy and reliability of an infographic. During the class, students learned about the CRAAP Test. The instructor provided an explanation of the acronym as well an expanded list of questions to accompany each criterion (See Appendix A). Next, the librarian outlined criteria to evaluate the visual information contained in an infographic, based on the principles of design. These principles include similarity and contrast; dominance and emphasis; balance and alignment; proportion and scale; unity and harmony; and hierarchy (J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011). Similarity and contrast includes the concept of light and dark, and line. Dominance and emphasis includes highlighting, color, and size. Balance and alignment includes symmetry and asymmetry. Proportion and scale includes size, ratios, and divisions. Unity and harmony includes proximity, continuation, repetition, and rhythm. Finally, hierarchy refers to weight and design elements such as trees and nests (Sameer, 2014). The students viewed four examples of problematic infographics (Chibana, 2016) and the librarian led them through the evaluation process for each one. The librarian asked the students to evaluate the infographics according to the CRAAP Test and principles of design, addressing both the textual and visual elements. Some of the problems in these infographics included the amount of information (See Figure 1), misleading scales (See Figure 2), the wrong type of representation for the data (See Figure 3), and bad math (See Figure 4).

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Figure 1. Example of an infographic with too much information.

Figure 2. Example of an infographic with misleading scales.

Figure 3. Example of an infographic using the wrong type of representation for the data.

After discussing each infographic, the students were instructed to evaluate the infographic they had created for the low stake assessment or one they found on the internet with the criteria they had been given for textual and visual evaluation. Students then applied the lessons from both class sessions to create an original infographic related to the Great American Eclipse, a major natural phenomenon occurring in the region later that day.

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In both Method 1 and Method 2, students were formally tasked with creating an infographic as a summative assessment. The objective of the assignment was to represent and communicate a specific concept with accurate and appropriate graphic representations of data and information for a defined audience. During the librarian-led discussion in Method 2, the students were encouraged to use the criteria they had learned for evaluation in creating their infographic, ensuring the information they used passed the CRAAP Test and the visuals they used incorporated elements from the principles of design. Figure 4. Example of an infographic with bad math.

Results To investigate the research questions, the authors of this study designed a pre- and postquestionnaire for both methods. The questionnaires, approved in early 2017 by the Institutional Review Board at the authors’ university, asked the students about several different aspects of infographics. The first aspect addressed knowledge: “How familiar are you with infographics?” and “What is the purpose of an infographic?” The second aspect addressed evaluation: “Do you evaluate the infographics you read?” and “If you responded ‘yes,’ how do you evaluate the infographics you read?” The third aspect addressed location and content: “Where do you encounter infographics?” and “What subject matter do you associate with infographics?” The last aspect addressed comprehension: “How do you ‘read’ an infographic?” and “If an infographic is included in a news article, which do you read first (the headline, article, or infographic)?” The research questions for this study focused on the second aspect, evaluating, exploring Standard Four of the ACRL Visual Literacy Standards which addresses whether or not students evaluate images and their sources. Research Question 1: Do students evaluate infographics? Before any instruction on infographics, 5 out of 9 students (56%) of students in Method 1 and 6 out of 11 students (55%) of students in Method 2 answered that they evaluated infographics, approximately the same percentage. Analysis revealed that for Method 1, after receiving instruction on infographics in general, the percentage of students who indicated that they evaluated infographics rose from 5 out of 9 students (56%) to 7 out of 9 students (78%). For Method 2, in which the students received specific instruction regarding evaluation criteria, the percentage of students who indicated that they evaluated infographics rose from 6 out of 11 students (55%) to 10 out of 11 students (91%). Research Question 2: If students do evaluate infographics, what criteria do they use? Before any instruction on infographics, 4 out of 9 students (44%) in Method 1 responded that they did not evaluate infographics. For the 5 out of 9 students (56%) who indicated that they did evaluate infographics, three mentioned that they use fact-checking as a criteria, stating “I usually check other sources to see if the information all matches up with the same data,” “I evaluate the

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infographic by looking at the credentials on the bottom. The sources and sponsored organizations are found there,” and “I try to fact check the infographic, verify the source, etc.” Two students mentioned both fact-checking and visual criteria, writing that they evaluate infographics depending on whether or not “the information of the infographic is right and the picture of the infographic is clear” and “if they make sense, if they are visually appealing. After receiving instruction on infographics but no further information on the evaluative criteria, 7 out of 9 students (78%) responded that they did now evaluate infographics. On the postquestionnaire, the students gave much of the same types of answers such as referencing factchecking by stating that the following: “fact check, source check,” “ask myself if it makes common sense, go back through the sources to see if it matches up,” and “I look up sources on the bottom.” One student also mentioned visual components, citing “pic content.” Two students mentioned both visual and textual criteria by stating, “the colors, the clarity, look for grammatical errors, and fact check using links, if provided” and checking to see if “the infographic displays a clear picture [and] the infographic display the right information.” Before any instruction on infographics, 5 out of 11 students (45%) in Method 2 responded that they did not evaluate infographics. For the 6 out of 11 students (55%) who indicated that they did evaluate infographics, students reported that they “take in all of the information,” “look at the facts they use and sometimes compare to what’s written in the article itself [sic],” and “read all the info I can.” The students also mentioned some visual elements such as “read the article and judge how the graphics relate” and “not only is the information on the infographic important but the composition is as well, such as color palette, text organization, etc.” Research Question 3: How do students’ initial evaluation criteria change after they are introduced to specific, evaluative criteria of infographics? After introducing the specific and evaluative criteria, 10 out of 11 students (91%) in Method 2 responded that they now evaluated infographics. Four students mentioned both textual and visual criteria, stating “I evaluate the infographic by analyzing both the text and visual aspects more precisely,” “look for accuracy first and then I’ll go through specific design elements like alignment, color, flow, etc.,” “looking for clear information shown, readability, credibility,” and “by credibility, the layout of facts.” Four students focused on visual criteria: “the spacing of the graphic, the symmetry, and the text,” “I make sure it looks good without a lot of clutter. It is easy to understand if it’s more appealing,” “by their design and readability,” and “looking if it is readable, what information is on there, is there enough information to understand the meaning of the infographic.” One student focused on textual criteria, writing “evaluate how it relates to the info and how accurate it is. If it’s from a credible source or not, if it makes sense.” One student replied succinctly that they evaluate the infographics they read by “using the criteria from this course.” In both methods courses, approximately half of the students did evaluate infographics before any instruction on infographics was made: 5 out of 9 students (56%) in Method 1 and 6 out of 11 students (55%) in Method 2. After instruction on infographics in general (Method 1), there was a 22% increase in the number of students who evaluated infographics, from 5 out of 9 students (56%) to 7 out of 9 students (78%). The students mentioned both textual and visual criteria in their responses to the questionnaire. However, the answers were not very specific in regards to either criterion. After instruction on infographics with additional lessons about specific textual and visual evaluative criteria (Method 2), there was a 36% increase in the number of students who evaluated infographics, from 6 out of 11 students (55%) to 10 out of 11 students (91%). The students’ answers here tended to be more specific regarding how they were evaluating infographics regarding text and visuals. Students also mentioned visual criteria more often. To increase students’ visual literacy skills, students in both Method 1 and Method 2 were also directed to create an infographic. This assignment focused on the creation of an infographic,

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exploring Standard Six of the ACRL Visual Literacy Standards which addresses whether or not students can create meaningful images and visual media. The following infographics are examples created in Methods 1.

Figure 5. An example of an infographic created in Method 1.

Figure 6. An example of an infographic created in Method 1.

Figure 7. An example of an infographic created in Method 1.

Upon content analysis, student-created infographics from Method 1 tend to be more textheavy. The students rely on using full sentences and provide excessive information within the space, instead of using charts or graphs to convey information concisely (see Figures 5, 6, and 7). While the information used is relevant to the topic, no sources are cited and so there is no indication of the currency, authority, or accuracy of the information (see Figures 5, 6, 7, and 8). The graphics and visual elements lack cohesion and look merely placed on the infographic rather than integrated into the infographic as a whole (see Figures 6 and 7). The infographics are busy, with too much variety in font selection and size (see Figures 5, 6, 7, and 8). The studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; choices do not look refined or intentional (see Figure 8). The graphics used are relevant to the Derby, but again, are simplistic (see Figures 5, 6, 7, and 8), and, in one example, a chart is even used as a design element, rather than displaying any information (see Figure 8).

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Figure 8. An example of an infographic created in Method 1.

Figure 9. An example of an infographic created in Method 2.

In Method 2, the studentcreated infographics display greater cohesion, placing textual and visual elements in relative harmony. The following infographics are examples created in Method 2 (see Figures 9, 10, 11, and 12). The information is cited, indicating authority and accuracy (see Figures 9, 10, 11, and 12). Charts and graphs are integrated into the infographic, usually using a bar chart (Figures 9, 10, 11, and 12). The font is differentiated in style and size, but there are not too many different styles and sizes; the information is easy to read (Figures 10 and 12). The student-created infographics in Method 2 also included a title, a credit line (see Figures 9, 10, and 11) and one student even put her name on the infographic as well as the class, which lends further credibility to the infographic (see Figure 12). Color is used in a way that makes sense and design elements are interesting without being overwhelming to the eye (see Figures 9, 10, and 12).

When comparing the student-created info-graphics from Method 1 and Method 2, it seems that student-created infographics from Method 2 appeared more informed by the specifics of the principles of design. The students in Method 1 did not receive any information about the visual criteria for evaluating infographics. The student-created infographics from Method 2 also included textual information such as a title, chart, and credit line for the sources used which could be attributed to information gained from exposure to the CRAAP Test.

Limitations Some of the limitations experienced by the researchers included low class attendance due to the journalism department cap on enroll-ments at 15 students due to accreditation standards. Also, the timing of the instruction unit (at the end of the spring semester and beginning of the fall semester) proved problematic given the spotty attendance issues leading to a smaller than anticipated sample size. An additional limitation included the amount of class time spent on the infographic unit due to scheduling and timing conflicts; there were four days allotted for instruction in Method 1 and only two days in Method 2.

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Figure 10. An example of an infographic created in Method 2.

Figure 11. An example of an infographic created in Method 2.

Figure 12. An example of an infographic created in Method 2.

Conclusions and Recommendations This study demonstrated that there are definite ways to increase studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; visual literacy skills using instruction on infographics. The first way to increase these skills is by providing explicit instruction to students regarding both textual and visual evaluating criteria. Although both methods in the study saw an increase in students' behavior focused on evaluating or not the infographics --- more students in Method 2 (91%) evaluated infographics compared to Method 1 (78%). This seem to indicate that by including instruction specifically on knowledge about evaluation criteria, it is possible to increase studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; behavior of choosing to evaluate infographics. It also indicates that a specific instruction has a higher impact than simple instruction about infographics in general. While this may seem like an obvious outcome, it is important to recognize this point. Many assignments exist about creating infographics but far fewer include information about evaluating infographics. By including criteria about evaluating infographics in an assignment, students learn how to think critically about the information they will include in their infographics and also become more critical consumers of information. Based on the findings, it

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seems prudent to encourage teachers and professors to include evaluative criteria, both textual and visual, in their lecture on infographics. The second way to increase students’ visual literacy skills is implementing an infographic assignment that stresses utilizing textual and visual evaluation criteria while simultaneously creating an infographic. Comparing the student-created infographics from Method 1 and Method 2 shows that students who receive explicit visual literacy instruction become critical consumers and creators of visual information more so than those students who do not receive the same instruction. Students who receive specific visual literacy instruction can effectively create infographics that tell a story with text, numbers, and graphics. Teachers and professors are encouraged to create an infographic assignment to accompany their lecture on infographics. To conclude, instruction must guide students to develop visual literacy skills and competencies that will empower them to communicate effectively. While journalism is one field that contains specific visual communication styles, visual literacy skills and competencies are necessary for learners across the disciplines. Although the ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education explicitly refer to higher education, the infographic assignment is applicable for online or face-to-face courses in any discipline and any student; the instructor need only to adjust the level of the assignment for the appropriate grade level.

Future Studies Information gathered from the student responses in the pre- and post-questionnaire will be included in subsequent studies. Future research will explore the knowledge component of the study, further investigating students’ understanding of the functions and purpose of an infographic. The comprehension component of the study, exploring how students physically read and visually process infographics, also holds great promise for future studies in visual literacy.

References ACRL. (2011). ACRL visual literacy competency standards for higher education. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/visualliteracy Blakeslee, S. (2010). Evaluating information: Applying the CRAAP test. Retrieved from https:// www.csuchico.edu/lins/handouts/eval_websites.pdf Cakebread, C. (2017, August 31). People will take 1.2 trillion digital photos this year --- Thanks to smartphones. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/12-trillionphotos-to-be-taken-in-2017-thanks-to-smartphones-chart-2017-8 Chibana, N. (2016, February 3). 11 Infographic mistakes. Retrieved from http://blog.visme.co/ bad-infographics/#BqvdXcy8J2hxOJPe.99 Crane, B. E. (2016). Infographics: A practical guide for librarians. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Fransecky, R. B., & Debes, J. (1972). Visual literacy: A way to learn –- A way to teach. Washington, DC: Association for Educational Communications and Technology. Google Trends. (2017). [Graph illustration, January 2004-November 2017] Infographic search term. Retrieved from https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=infographic Heyman, S. (2015, June 23). Photos, photos everywhere. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/arts/international/photos-photos-everywhere.html?r =0

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J. Paul Getty Museum. (2011). Understanding formal analysis: Principles of design. Retrieved from https://www. getty.edu/education/teachers/building_lessons/principles_design.pdf Kane, G. C., & Pear, A. (2016, January 4). The rise of visual content online. MIT Sloan Management Review. Retrieved from http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-rise-of-visualcontent-online/ Kimball, M. A., & Hawkins, A. R. (2008). Document design: A guide for technical communicators. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Kostelnick, C., & Roberts, D. (2010). Designing visual language: Strategies for professional communicators (2nd edition). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Matrix, S., & Hodson, J. (2014). Teaching with infographics: Practicing new digital competencies and visual literacies. Journal of Pedagogic Development, 4(2), 17-27. Murray State University. (2018). Mission and quick facts. Retrieved from https://www.murraystate. edu/Info/quickfacts.aspx Polman, J. L., & Gebre, E.H. (2015). Towards critical appraisal of infographics as scientific inscriptions. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 52(6), 868-893. Sameer, A. (2014). The 6 principles of design. Retrieved from https://visual.ly/community/ infographic/education/6-principles-design Schafer, C. (1995). Understanding the brain helps writers. Intercom, 14(9), 18-19. Schriver, K. A. (1997). Dynamics of document design. New York, NY: Wiley. Smith, A., & Anderson, M. (2018, March 1). Social media use in 2018. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/ 2018/03/01/social-media-use-in-2018/ Talkwalker. (2017). #infographic. Retrieved from https://www.talkwalker.com/app/page#/search #g=SEARCH&t=RESULTS&m=TOPICS_CATEGORY&i=2ff21c84-5bf7-4af3-b9afae6ac049e639&tz=America%2FNew_York&co=project&cid=b4501bac-14a4-4401-922d153fa2df0548 Toth, C. (2013). Revisiting a genre: Teaching info-graphics in business and professional communication courses. Business Communication Quarterly, 76(4), 446-457. Toth, C., & McClure, H. (2016). Ethics, distribution, and credibility: Using an emerging genre to teach information literacy concepts. In Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Angelo, B. J., Jamieson, S., Maid, B., & Walker, J. R. (Eds.), Information literacy: Research and collaboration across disciplines (257-270). Fort Collins, Colorado: The WAC Clearinghouse and University Press of Colorado. Tufte, E. (2003). The quantitative display of information (2nd edition). Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press. YouTube. (2017). YouTube for press. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/intl/enGB/yt/ about/press/

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Appendix A

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Aesthetic Empathy and Art-based Learning: Pedagogigal Scaffolding in Art Therapy Education Denise Malis Lesley University, USA

Abstract. This chapter establishes the integration and viability of integrating art-based learning in graduate art therapy coursework. It presents a case study of a graduate art therapy course, Art Therapy for People with Severe Mental Illness (ATPSMI), where creating art during the class helped students to develop an empathetic relationship via aesthetic and reflective self-awareness. For the students, academic learning goes hand-in-hand with clinical training. While clinical internships provide the ground for clinical practice, academic courses have the potential to allow students to further their clinical knowledge through self-awareness. The translation of counseling to art therapy and vice versa can be complex and presents specific challenges for instructors when integrating a visual pedagogical platform. Educational scaffolding included films, artworks, and academic articles as well as the inclusion of visual art-making. Visual literacy provided students with a means to develop their visual voice through numerous empathetic encounters. Such encounters allowed students to negotiate perceptions of self and others as well as their perception of the lived experience of persistent mental illness (PMI). The author presents four art-based learning strategies along with student work: 1) constructed visual responses to films; 2) visual responses to articles; 3) personal stance on supportive services; and, 4) integrative, self-reflective visual response. Keywords: aesthetics, empathy, art therapy, pedagogy, persistent mental illness, recovery

n the field of art therapy (AT), students are not only learning a discipline, they are practicing to become mental health practitioners (Junge, 2014). Graduate AT students are typically immersed in foundational classes that bridge the fields of psychology, AT, and the visual arts. While each field has a unique approach to visual aesthetics, this article will focus primarily on AT, the aesthetic framework used in teaching a graduate arts therapy class, and the ways in which art-making can help students learn skills essential for clinical practice. Specifically, this article will examine a graduate course, Art Therapy for People with Severe Mental Illness (ATPSMI), and the ways in which visual literacy (VL) not only enhanced academic content, but helped students develop an experiential empathy necessary for clinical practice. The class consisted of nineteen female graduate expressive arts therapy students, between the ages of 22â&#x20AC;&#x201C;60. Central to this class was the active utilization of personal art-making in the classroom, which served as a reflective base for integrating didactic course material, otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s narratives and artworks, and guest speakers. Art-making further served as a means of sensorial contemplation that extended thinking through a personalized emotional response. Developing a reflective art-making practice is an important aspect of graduate AT studies that extends to professional practice (Deaver, 2011, 2012; Fish, 2012). Typically, classwork in AT graduate studies focuses on theoretical and clinical issues pertaining to the therapeutic needs of specific populations; understanding these populations allows students to distinguish sometimes subtle and varied needs of specific agencies and clients. Art therapists must also establish a

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therapeutic relationship with the client; this is essential both in terms of therapeutic art-making and sharing and exploring the work after completion. To do this, relational care and aesthetic sensitivity must be extended via empathy and compassionate regard for the Other (Franklin, 2010). Art making as an integrative process allows for a subjective sensory exchange be-tween self and Other. For this class the creation of responsive visual art-making provided empathetic encounters with those deemed as the Other in society. The process of viewing, creating and reflecting on art helped students achieve a state of empathy when considering future clinical interactions with people with severe mental illness --â&#x20AC;&#x201C; both in terms of their lived experience and the transformational capabilities of art-making. Art-based experiences established visual knowledge and meaning making as an interactive dialogue based in VL (Watson, 2014). In the context of AT education, VL can be imagined to include not only factual knowing, but an embodied, emotional knowing that can be termed an empathetic aesthetic (Deaver, 2012). By looking at course design and examples of student work, this chapter explores the potential to expand the conception of teaching VL to include the concept of empathy in aesthetics.

Aesthetic Empathy and Pedagogy Aesthetic empathy was the pedagogical foundation for the delivery of the ATPSMI course; viewing and creating art helped students understand and develop this skill. The design grounded the ATPSMI course in self-reflection and social learning practices including learning about the history of mental illness treatment and asylums, interacting with first-person narratives of those with persistent mental illness (PMI), and creating response art to what they had learned. Viewing art and integrating art-making practices in particular allowed students to integrate course objectives in relation to the curriculum objectives. These practices helped students develop and understand empathy through aesthetic exploration, understand how visual artwork can amplify the voice of the Other and, develop a point of view that integrates non-traditional and traditional art materials when working with this population. Concretized responses in visual art, coupled with group experiences, furnished students with an embodied experience and deepened their learning and self-perception. Meaning and insight in art-making can be sequential and built over time and formed through relational dialogue, as it was in this course. The artwork produced in ATPSMI remained present for the duration of the class, allowing continued meaning-making. Most importantly, art-making provided students with a means to coalesce various course material through personalized art-making practice, deterring a separation be-tween self and Other. As a catalyst for aesthetic empathy, students were exposed to the history of the mental health system beginning with a historical overview of asylums dating back to the 18th century (Cohen, 2017; McGregor, 1989). Typically, the extent of life in an asylum is not connected to current attitudes towards mental illness. However, the history of mental illness provided a starting point for both aesthetic empathy and art-making. In this history, students saw the vitality of art as an indomitable force of the human spirit, which was mirrored in the integration of their own reflective art-making experiences. Fish (2016) emphasized the importance of reflective art making for art therapists as an important means of clinical clarification and self-understanding. Using reflective art-work for encounters with the history of the mental health system helped students to begin to develop their empathy and to grasp the social, political, and emotional challenges facing those deemed mentally ill. This encounter with the history of the mental health system helped students to begin to develop their empathy and to grasp the social, political, and emotional challenges facing those deemed mentally ill.

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Studio Art Therapy and the Importance of Social Learning Learning from one’s art-making is a central consideration in graduate AT studies. Not only do students continue to develop art skills, but art-making allows students to value visual selfperception and grapple with concepts in an open creative environment (Elkis-Abuhoff, Gaydos, Rose, & Goldblatt, 2010). Deaver (2012) identified an increase in self-awareness that stem-med from student’s art-making experiences coupled with social learning. The open studio-like classroom environment in the ATPSMI course allowed students to be with each other while they made art, which allowed them to witness and integrate other perspectives in a socially connected manner. Furthermore, students learned to value the process of art-making alongside the personal growth of others; witnessing self and other can aid not only in self-awareness but in clinical sensitivity. Including art experientials in a social environment aided the integration of clinical AT skills. In this aspect, students were experiencing the inclusive, non-hierarchical environment that is the hallmark of the practice known as studio art therapy. Studio art therapy (SAT) historically stems from fine art studio practices and dates back to asylums (Cohen, 2017). In AT, the studio pro-vides a distinct environment in practice that is viewed as contrasted to clinical practice. Overall the tenets of SAT hold principles that art is not pathologizing and non-hierarchical (Allen, 1992). The structure and approach in SAT varies since the approach to art-making is de-pendent and tied to the practitioner their own art-making practices. For this course, the classroom became shaped around the SAT approach that reflected the instructor’s art-making practices, clinical treatment experiences, and a long-standing Art Mentoring Group (AMG) with this population (Malis, 2017; Thompson, 2009). A SAT approach allowed students to explore non-hierarchical art-making in an open-ended exploration in response to course material, not unlike the openness of the AMG. In both, the artistic engagement, investment, and motivation stemmed from self-exploration through traditional and non-traditional art materials in an evolving process of discovery and imagination. Additionally, approaching psychological and clinical course material through sensory-based art-making allowed students to establish points of embodied meaning by taking risks when using familiar and unfamiliar art materials (Watson, 2014). The studio environment in AT is considered a nurturing environment, where there are no mistakes and growth is incumbent on each individual’s pace and approach. Bertling (2015) established social rapport based on empathetic art-making in a learning environment in a way that built awareness and responsibility. Similarly, in ATPSMI no student’s art was elevated or critiqued for aesthetic accomplishment, but rather appreciated and valued as unique reflections of personal merit. In this way, the process of art-making is considered intuitive and based in tacit self-knowledge. As an energized community of art-based activity, the studio classroom became “a place of all possibility” (Allen, 2008, p.11), where each person provided an expanded horizon and dense coursework became energized and alive. Wix (1995) described the AT studio-based classroom as based in a ‘web-like structure of connectedness’ (p.175). Similarly, Franklin (2010) cited the neurological interconnections embedded in relationships. The focus on social milieubased relationships in SAT is viewed as a relational holding environment (Moon, 2002). As a social network, the studio can be regarded not only as a base for relational aesthetics, but also as a guide that directs practice. Aesthetic creativity is valued as a social act to “foster and deepen bonds with oneself, others, or the larger community” (p.142). Art-making as a social act can provide an alternative path of practice, where the psychological lens of the practitioner is superseded by the relational healing atmosphere of social creativity. This nurturing, creative social environment was key in helping students build an empathetic aesthetic through their art-making.

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Empathy and Sensorial Art-Making In the traditional hierarchy of psychology is typically established through the notion of interpretation --- which in AT could be translated to mean one has more insight into the embedded layers of the artwork than the maker. Different theoretical perspectives can open up possibilities of meaning in art, but providing top down, labelistic interpretations reinforces the hierarchical pull in the therapeutic relationship when working with people with severe mental illness. To counter the pull towards hierarchical thinking, group art-making experiences in ATPSMI allowed students to experience their visual and creative actions within collective visual meaning-making environment. Further-more, students experienced the interpersonal connections as a form of nonverbal social action (Allen, 2008). Empathetic regard of specific course material established a link via the action of art-making, while building introspective reflection. Empathy is based on a sense of under-standing that reaches beyond the self and enters the world of another. Carl Rogers (1980/ 1985) considered empathy as “temporarily living in the other’s life, moving about in it delicately without making judgements” (p. 142). One does not lead in empathy but is rather led by the experience that is cultivated in someone else’s experience. Entering the world of another is a slow moment-by-moment process, which in therapy consists of attuning to the unfolding experience (Elliott, Bohart, Greenberg, & Watson, 2011; Kossak, 2015). Aesthetics as a vehicle for empathy in AT consists of two approaches: aesthetic sensibility (Henley, 1992, 1995) and aesthetic regard and empathy (Franklin, 2010; Wix, 2010). In both, the experience of making art is based in the response to therapeutic experience through an intuitive approach. Aesthetic sensibility is linked to unconditional aesthetic regard, while Franklin and Wix both emphasize the foundational principles of sensorial art-making as connected to aesthetic empathy. This involves considering and understanding the client’s experience and their framework. For art therapy (AT), this also includes the art-making process and encountering the artwork with the client. Such emotional knowing is a felt, embodied and intersubjective experience of the Other (Franklin, 2010). For Franklin, when viewing artwork gently sensing the other person or object occurs through the slowed-down process of appreciation (Franklin, 2010). AT considers the artwork as an extension of the maker that can viewed as a unique, self-standing autonomous image (McNiff, 1991). As such, comprehending artwork can be viewed as building an imaginative bridge between the self and the artwork: the action of “feeling into” the art as a process of appreciation is distinct and opposed to appraising its formal qualities (Franklin, 2010). To feel and sense the artwork is to view it not through the viewer’s eyes, but rather through the maker’s eyes. Intersubjectivity extends past empathy to intersubjective shared states. Franklin (2010) defines shared states in aesthetics as an inclusionary process of felt knowing that extends to the senses. Skaife (2001) ties aesthetics and social relational aspects of art-making in AT to MerleauPonty’s notion of embedded physical experiences of meaning-making. Intersubjectivity from a phenomenological perspective involves a reflexive relationship with a physical experience; artmaking constitutes a sense of self with an engaged interactive process. Empathy is embedded as a felt inclusionary experience (Gendlin, 1978) that includes the senses as the basis for an intersubjective encounter (Franklin, 2010; Rova, 2017). A purposeful extension of the Other necessitates the inclusion of the senses. Embodied engagement includes the artist and the witness/viewer via the implied action involved in the art-making (Freedberg & Gallese, 2007; Maglaglan, 2001). Making and viewing artwork become linked in mirrored observation and aesthetics becomes tied to taking in the image in an intersubjective experience of self and Other (Skaife, 2001). Bridging art-making with relational, clinically-oriented practice is a central aspect in the education of art therapists. Response art (RA) allows the therapist to understand their patient’s thinking and subjective states through physicalized visual language. As a practice, RA is used in clinical supervision beginning in graduate school (Deaver & Shiflett, 2011). Creating art in

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response to clinical interactions allows the therapist to experience and objectify a situation or circumstance. Clinical know-how is based upon acknowledging subjective feelings, yet maintaining a distance in order to gain insight. This in turn allows the therapist to self-supervise the impact of specific moments of therapeutic encounters (Fish, 2012, 2017; Franklin, 2010). RA additionally allows the practitioner to deconstruct and construct circumstances and experiences through the self-story of the therapist, which integrates with the narratives of another. Creating visual images is a state of receptivity, which allows the maker the possibility of holding contradictory and uncomfortable information or experiences through the containment of the image (Fish, 2012). As a practice, RA integrates the therapist’s self-awareness and self-understanding with objectivity and subjective knowing which are particularly important in clinical practice. Creating response art in the ATPSMI course allowed students to understand this critical AT practice in a personal, embodied way.

Developing Awareness of Recovery and Mental Illness The course objectives included: understanding the historical context between creativity and mental illness; gaining an empathetic understanding of the person with mental illness and their family members; exploring research that challenges the notion of chronicity, and; be-coming familiar with the phases of recovery. To this end, students learned the historical significance of mental illness and integrated the recovery model through first-hand accounts. Also, appropriate art therapy interventions were learned in the context of art therapy programs in current treatment settings. Students in ATPSMI had varied degrees of understanding mental illness: some had internship experience with other age groups, namely children or older adults, while others had worked in both inpatient and outpatient sites with adults. Several students had family members with mental illness and some students had lived experience which was not disclosed to other students. To provide common ground for understanding, students worked with first-hand narratives of people with severe mental illness. While it is important that clinical training addresses ways in which the complexities of diagnosis are comprehended and understood, the inclusion of these first-hand narratives in the coursework provided a window into the lived experiences of severe mental illness. Presenting students with a historical timeline of European and North American treatment of those deemed mentally ill, coupled with first-hand accounts in the context of the recovery movement, allowed for a complete picture of the whole person. Part of the basis for including these first-hand narratives is the recovery model in mental health. The recovery model addresses the symptoms that people with persistent mental illness experience in conjunction with the impact of the system of care, which is viewed as impacting the well-being of the person (Rapp & Goscha, 2006). Persistent Mental Illness (PMI) results in the ongoing need for services, such as medication, supportive social services, and in-patient/ outpatient care. Mental health services tend to have a deep impact on those with PMI, and the need for ongoing services often coincides with the degree of agency experienced. PMI impacts the trajectory of a person’s life, often diminishing a person’s sense of self-worth (Deegan, 1996). Spaniol, Gagne, and Koehler (1999) further identify that stigma and discrimination occur on multiple levels. Agency is often impacted by the degree of dependency on mental health providers. This can induce a type of self-stigma (Whitley & Campbell, 2014). Additionally, treatment interventions do not consider the coping mechanisms of the individual as strengths. Historically, a person’s symptoms were viewed as problem-based: the patient’s relationship to and perspective on their symptoms was discounted and often viewed as a part of the problem. They were not seen as an important perspective or a source of resourcefulness. AT provides an important link in the treatment and recovery for those who experience PMI (Malis, 2017; Van Lith, Fenner, & Schoflield, 2011). Spaniol’s (2012) approach to AT treatment was utilized in the ATPSMI course as a way to addresses the stages of recovery which provided an integrated approach to treatment considerations. This model includes the beliefs and self-

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perceptions of the person at the time of treatment and allows for an inclusive approach to treatment. As a layered approach to therapy this involves identifying the degree of current crisis, how the client is learning to live with mental illness, and addressing the integration of well-being. The recovery model has been adapted in numerous PMI art therapy programs (Malis, 2017; Van Lith, Fenner, & Schoflield, 2011). Parr (2005) established an art-based program that linked social connection and creativity, underscoring the importance of wellness. A common thread in these programs is recognition of art-making as providing creative agency, decision-making, and problem-solving, resulting in a restored sense of empowerment. Viewing and responding to first person narratives of PMI helped students to understand art-making and the recovery model. Empathetic Pathways: Art-based Learning Experiences A review of four art responses used in the ATPSMI class highlight the relevancy of RA, empathy, and intersubjective response. While the range of art responses varied, the use of found objects is highlighted in almost all of the examples of student art. Found objects allowed students to problem solve and develop meaning making through sensorial engagement (Camic, Brooker, & Neal, 2011). Selecting and incorporating objects is meaningful and often interfaces with personal narrative. While the majority of response art was done in the classroom with others, the final assignment was done individually and used to highlight and integrate course material in a final paper. Response to Narratives.The first RA assignment was based on the viewing of two films: Between madness and art: The Prinzhorn Collection (Beetz, 2008) and Outsider: The Life and Art of Judith Scott (Bayha, 2006). Each film had a unique historical narrative that focused on the artists and artwork created by people in mental institutions. Beetzâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (2008) historical documentary of the Prinzhorn Collection introduced visual and biographical footage of Out-sider artists and Franz Prinzhorn within the social and political climate of Germany before, during, and after the Second World War. Bayhaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (2006) film included footage of Judith Scott as a child with her twin sister before being institutionalized and her life afterwards. Both of these films allowed students to comprehend history from a distanced and familiar perspective. In order to experience the art of Judith Scott, students were asked to randomly select a found object (branches, bricks, and household items) and wrap this with yarn. This experience involved a deep and sensorial engagement with the materials. Beginning with the found object and the manipulation of the yarn, string, and fabric, the constructed engagement became meaningful. A visual range of technique and expression occurred from whimsical engagement (Figure 1 and 2) to a direct reference of Scottâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life (Figure 3). In Figure 1 a plastic shoe form was selected and yarn and fabric were used to weave and connect different areas of a foot. The foot-like form expresses a sense of whimsy in the way that the toes are emphasized and enlarged, as well as establishes a tension in the way in which the toes are connected to other areas of the foot. Detailed attention can be seen in the amount of layering, the assortment of colors, and the use of felt to cover the original plastic shape Figure 1. Untitled by T. Adams (yarn, wire, and felt over plastic). (2017)

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In Figure 2 a hubcap was chosen to weave iridescent fabric which emphasized a central area. In Figure 3 the weaving and threading process was revisited in the final reflective artwork by wrapping five small orbs representing family members. Returning to this process in reflective writing allowed the student to have a deeper understanding of this practice: “As I wrapped, I discovered something new about the technique that had been lost on me with the large hubcap; the act of wrapping each bulb in the yarn I’d selected was quite calming ... relaxing, and meditative” (Nelson, 2017, p.5).

Figure 2. Untitled by K. Nelson (fabric, yarn, wire on steel hubcap). (2017)

Figure 3. Untitled by K. Nelson (yarn over ornaments). (2017)

In Figure 4, a magazine was selected, which directly related to Judith Scott who prized and often coveted magazines as special items. The magazine form remains somewhat discernable and is wrapped with soft orange gauze and felt. Sections are embellished further with wrapped colored yarn. Green felt tabs indicate different sections. The use of soft textiles and materials transports the image from an everyday object to something that invites an encounter and interaction. This object manifests a sense of joy that corresponds to how Judith Scott treasured magazines (Bayha, 2006). This student further reflected on the artwork of Prinzhorn artists and wrote, “This artwork really seemed to tell us more about living with the burden of mental illness than anything text books or teachers could ... I feel a lot of the times that humanity, personhood is lost in having a severe mental illness. The art gives voice to that person, allows them to express their truth” (Fisher, 2017, p. 3-4). Viewing both films and further reflection through art-based processes allowed students to concretize their perceptions of witnessing and empathy.

Figure 4. Untitled by E. Fisher (wrapped magazine with fabric, felt and yarn). (2017)

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Response to Readings.Group discussions based on assigned readings occurred throughout the ATPSMI course. One specific assignment utilized individual RA to articles that addressed current issues of race, gender, and socio-economic issues that affect those with PMI. Students did not discuss the articles with one another before the art-making and discussion. Two interesting comparisons emerged in which visual similarities occurred in the groups. Figure 5 displays three two-dimensional drawings, each done by a different student. Each one has a circular focal point. In each drawing, the embellishment of the circle includes jagged and graphic indicators that sometimes appear eye-like. One image includes the word ‘CONTROL’ written horizontally across the circle. Students were surprised at the similarities of the images and discovered that they had also had shared perspectives and feelings on rehospitalization even though their Figure 5. Group Discusion (watercolor and markers on paper). (2017) artwork focused on different sections of the article. Figures 6 and 7 were both based on a different article that addressed the issue of housing and the inadequacy of the mental health system. Issues of vulnerability are connected to PMI, homelessness, hospitalization, or incarceration. Figure 6 was created from a base of a small sectioned shallow box; the partitioned areas are used to depict various homes. Small clusters of objects fill each section; however, the inclusion of words draw attention to one specific area. Three clustered cut-out words and phrases vary in size, color and text; the largest word “HOME” partially covers “I SURVIVED” and the phrase “WITH PILLS” is located below. In Figure 7, home is approached ironically on a Sorry game board. Each corner depicts a potential cycle in housing and PMI: hospitalizaFigure 6. Untitled by T. Adams (mixed media on tion, a homeless person's tent, home as a found object). (2017) resting place (nest) and incarceration. Each area is made with varied materials illustrating a contrasted sensorial response. The most contrasted areas are the metal box with black and white figurines inside and the nest embedded with colored flowers that surround a game piece. The former appears rigid, isolated, and cold, while the later gives a sense of warmth and contentment. From the center of the board extends a wire with an attached fortune cookie saying, “A new environment makes all the difference in the world.” Both of these three-dimensional artworks describe the challenges that create multi-faceted problems with the notion of home for those in need of significant mental health services. Each artwork is a visceral response that relates to social and multilayered psychological challenges that describe the daily reality for people who experience PMI.

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Response Art to Clinical Issues, Recovery and Growth. A medication regime is individualized and is a daily reality in managing symptoms of a PMI diagnosis. Although mental health counselors cannot prescribe medications, they see clients on a regular basis and provide supportive services. A counselorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s understanding and personal stance towards medication is an important factor in their ability to explore since it has the potential to impact the therapeutic relationship. An art-based exploration was designed in the ATPSMI class using empty medication bottles (Figure 8). Students embellished a selected bottle that represented their thoughts and feelings towards medication. An array of visual attitudes Figure 7. Untitled by M. Matteson (mixed media were created inside the containers such as: on game board). (2017) filling bottles with beads/gems, dried flowers, self-care messages enveloped in felt (Figure 9), and skulls. The outside of the bottles consisted of labels and additional materials that included information on side effects (Figure 10), and humorous statements about taking ongoing medications (Figure 11). Students identified their personal challenges with medication experiences; one student discovered a negative attitude that she had not consciously recogFigure 8. Responses to medication (varied media nized, while another acknowledged the mixed with prescription bottles). (2017) message of stigma and stability that medications can provide. The range of visual exploration in the RA created a basis for discussion that involved the challenges of taking daily medications and both the positive and negative impact of psychiatric medication. Self-Reflective Visual Response. In order to visually summarize and integrate course material students were asked to select one small ornamental object and embellish/construct/deconstruct/integrate the overall course. This final artwork was then used as an integrative process in a reflective paper that allowed students to revisit their initial position on mental health and recovery.

Figure 9. Untitled by S. Hage Obeid (rolled felt and paper in prescription bottle). (2017)

Figure 10. Untitled by L. Pai (mixed media on prescription bottle). (2017).

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Figure 11. Untitled by T. Adams (mixed media and prescription bottle). (2017)

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Figure 12 enacts an inside/outside understanding of PMI. The art work represents a transformative process that occurred during ATPSMI. The student wrote: The barriers represented by the outer ornament are real but once I was able to make it past assumptions, past a lack of knowledge, I was able to discover and be invited into a warm and colorful world. The inner ornament also represents to me a feeling of respect and a comfort of being held. Together, the two ornaments also represent the experience recovery in that sometimes more than others, the end point of recovery can be visible but sometimes it cannot. Recovery takes a great deal of time, effort, and care just as taking the inner ornament out takes a great deal of effort and care. Once an individual is able to get past internalized stigma and other barriers in their life, recovery slowly appears. (Pai, 2017, p.3)

Figure 12. Untitled by L. Pai, (mixed media). (2017)

Figure 13 reflects a similar but distinct definition of recovery. Relating this image to recovery Evaleena Fisher (2017) wrote: I look at the lotus as a beautiful symbol of recovery and of overcoming and living with mental illness. People with mental illness are living in the murk, each day fighting to bloom in less than ideal conditions. Their ability to get through the mud, to bloom despite all they deal with, to create anew each day is recovery to me. (p. 5 – 6)

Figure 13. Untitled by E. Fisher (mixed media). (2017)

Both artworks include an extension of the self as an empathic embrace of another’s lived experience. People who experience PMI were understood by another student as being “placed outside a crucial circle of belonging” (Matteson, 2017, p. 2) with the recognition that art can serve “to receive kindness, revitalize those who have lost so much ... where nearly everything is beyond their control. In a sense, when the possibility of creativity and love remains, or is reclaimed, there is wellness and recovery” (Matteson, 2017, p. 4). Finally in linking and becoming the voice of a final artwork, a student wrote:

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I am seasonal, and on the surface appear put together. It seems that no one acknowledges the epic life events, and messy plaster and scars (scotch tape) that hold me together. However, I am not just surviving- but thriving now. Even the celebration of Christmas used to cause me the most sense of trauma, signaling loss; but I tried to work with the suggested prop and here stood it is representing a stage of my double week experiential both as an expressive arts student and a person with significant lived experience. (Anonymous, 2017, p. 2)

Conclusion AT offers a unique perspective to the field of VL that includes a relational connection to self and Other. The approach to VL in the ATPSMI class was largely based on the creation of three dimensional objects, often created from found materials. This approach provided a rich process of engagement, distinct from two-dimensional art-making. The creation of objects, in response to course material allowed students to deepen their experience and encounter both themselves and elements of the Other. AT can be considered an egalitarian approach to art-making, holding the belief that participation is an inclusive endeavor. Additionally an integral aspect of aesthetics in art therapy welcomes the unconscious versus the framework of aesthetic qualities or formal values (McNiff, 2017). Art therapy educators readily embrace classroom experiences and utilize art-based learning to enhance pedagogical material (Deaver, 2012). Often the degree of artbased learning in graduate studies is challenged by the high degree of required course demands. Pedagogy, there-fore, in the field includes the unfolding process of visual creating that reveals the depth of self-perception and understanding. Therefore it is incumbent on the educator to utilize and infuse creative practices throughout the course. Student work in the ATPSMI course established that continued immersion in RA provided non-verbal ways to process and integrate multi-layered information. The degree of aesthetic investment throughout the course remained high and allowed students to build and communicate with one another about self-perceptions and perceptions of one another. The artwork created throughout the course illustrated the capacity and motivation to embrace specific art techniques used by artists as well as historical, cultural, and institutional challenges faced by those in the mental health system. Students extended themselves through the immersion of self-directed artmaking processes. By using found materials, each student found an authentic process that aligned with their felt emotional experiences. VL focuses on varied forms of cognitive engagement and strategies in developing critical dialogue and meaning making (Westraadt, 2016). Rather than interpreting signs and symbols in works of art, the ATPSMI engaged in the visual decoding and interface between the self and the Other. Multiple meanings were derived through each studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s RA as well as written reflections. Duncum (2003) identified a gap in visual cultural studies that lies between seeing and reflecting upon what is seen. The accumulation of artworks created for the duration of ATPSMI allowed students to take risks, revisit art processes and enter a discourse of meaning making. Art-making as reflective knowing invites postmodern multiplicity and grounds it in an embodied source of knowledge. Highly individual artworks were created throughout ATPSMI. Each student adapted materials, intuited different techniques and took risks by allowing an artwork to form in a gradual unfolding process, where thoughts were â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;felt intoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; as opposed to actions that were cognitively driven. Specifically artworks had a substantial impact based on a subjective encounter with the notion of stigma, which is at the heart of the recovery model (Rapp & Goscha, 2006; Whitley & Campbell, 2014). Additionally, the artwork and reflective writing show the varied degree of visual and emotional risk-taking that was involved. Such risk-taking reflects the aesthetic embrace of embodied, empathetic regard that coalesces with a perceptional shift regarding people with PMI.

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The creative studio environment coupled with the careful scaffolding of art-based experiences provided a protected holding space of connectivity necessary for inter-subjective experiences of self and Other (Wix, 1995). An ongoing visual dialogue, established through art-making allowed each student to develop a unique empathetic aesthetic. Aesthetically embodied visual processes can augment and surpass current notions of VL which solely rest in the notion of interactive language and communication (Eisner, 2002). Integrating sensory-based personal art making into a pedagogical platform establishes not only critical thinking, but surpasses cognitive understanding with subjective knowing. As an integrative process subjective knowing is a dynamic means for effecting notable change and growth in a student’s knowledge base. Self-knowing coupled with aesthetic sensibilities allowed students to develop images and gain insight through an empathetic base. The art object as a way and means of aesthetic connection to self and Other, evidences the therapeutic capacity and drive to engage and create in the art-making process. Furthermore, the encounter with the created art object in response to personal narratives of recovery and hope, established art-making as a process embedded in aesthetic empathy.

References Anonymous. (2017). Final artwork and response paper. Unpublished manuscript. Expressive Therapies Division. Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. Allen, P. B. (1992). Artist-in-reside: An alternative to “clinification” for art therapists. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 9(1), 22-29. Allen, P. B. (2008). Commentary on community-based art studios: Underlying principles. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 25(1), 11-12. Bayha, B. (Producer). (2006). Outsider: The life and art of Judith Scott [motion picture]. (Available from Betsy Bayha, Producer/Director, 264 Diamond St., San Francisco, CA 94114). Beetz, C. (2008). Between madness and art: The Prinzhorn Collection [motion picture]. (Available from Icarus Films, 32 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201). Bertling, J. G. (2015). The art of empathy: A mixed methods case study of a critical place-based art education program. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 16(13), 1-26. http://www.ijea.org/ Camic, P. M., Brooker, J., & Neal, A. (2011). Found objects in clinical practice: Preliminary evidence. Arts in Psychotherapy, 38(3), 151-159. DOI: 10.1016/j.aip.2011.04.002 Cohen, R. (2017). Outsider art and art therapy: Shared histories, current issues and future identities. Philadelphia, PA: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Deaver, S. P. (2012). Art-based learning strategies in art therapy graduate education. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 29(4), 158-165. DOI: 10.1080/07421656. 2012.730029 Deaver, S. P., & Shiflett, C. (2011). Art-based supervision techniques. The Clinical Supervisor, 30, 257–276. DOI: 10.1080/07325223.2011.619456 Gendlin, E. T. (1978). Focusing. New York, NY: Bantam Books. Elkis-Abuhoff, D., Gaydos, M., Rose, S., & Goldblatt, R. (2010). The impact of education and exposure on art therapist identity and perception. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 27(3), 119-126. Elliott, R., Bohart, A. C., Greenberg, L. S., & Watson, J. C. (2011). Empathy. Psychotherapy, 48(1), 43–49. DOI: 10.1037/a0022187

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Eisner, E. W. (2002). The role of the arts and creating consciousness (Chapter 1, pp. 1-34). In The arts and the creation of mind. New Haven, CT: Yale University. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral. proquest.com/ lib/lesley/detail.action?docID=3420063 Fish, B. J. (2012). Response art: The art of the art therapist. Art Therapy: The Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 29(3), 138-143. Fish, B. J. (2012). Art-based supervision. New York, NY: Routledge. Fisher, E. (2017). Personal reflection number 2. Unpublished manuscript. Expressive Therapies Division. Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. Franklin, M. (2010). Affect regulation, mirror neurons, and the third hand: Formulating mindful empathic art interventions. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 27(4), 160-167. Freedberg, D., & Gallese, V. (2007). Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(5), 197-203. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2007.02.003 Henley, D. (1992). Aesthetics in art therapy: Theory into practice. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 19(3), 53-161. DOI: 10.1016/0197-4556(92)90015-G Henley, D. (1995). A consideration of the studio as therapeutic intervention. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 12(3), 175-178. Junge, M. B. (Ed.). (2014). Identity and art therapy: Personal professional perspectives. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. Kossak, M. (2015). Attunement in expressive arts therapy: Toward an understanding of embodied empathy. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas. Malis, D. (2017). Crafting the visual voice: Art as agency in studio art therapy. ATOL, 8(2), 1-19. MacGregor, J. M. (1989). The discovery of the art of the insane. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Maclagan, D. (2001). Psychological Aesthetics: Painting, feeling and making sense. Philadelphia, PA: Jessica Kingsley. Matteson, M. (2017). Final artwork and response. Unpublished manuscript. Expressive Therapies Division. Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. McNiff, S. (1992). Ethics and autonomy of images. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 18(4). 277-283. McNiff, S. (2017). Cultivating imagination. In S. K. Levine, & E. G. Levine (Ed.), New developments in expressive arts therapy: The play of poiesis (pp. 21-31). London, England & Philadelphia, PA: Jessica Kingsley Publications. Moon, C. H. (2002). Studio art therapy. Philadelphia, PA: Jessica Kingsley. Nelson, K. (2017). Final artwork and response paper. Unpublished manuscript. Expressive Therapies Division. Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. Pai, L. (2017). Final reflection and artwork. Unpublished manuscript. Expressive Therapies Division. Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. Parr, H. (2005). The arts and mental health: Creativity and inclusion. Dundee, Scotland: University of Dundee. Rapp, C. A., & Goscha, R. J. (2006). The strengths model: Case management with people with psychiatric disabilities (2nd ed.). Oxford, England and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Rogers, C. (1980/1985). Empathic: An unappreciated way of being. In A way of being (Chapter 7, pp.137-163). New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. Skaife, S. (2001). Making visible: Art therapy and intersubjectivity. Inscape, 6(2), 40-50. DOI: 10.1080/17454830 108414030 Spaniol, L., Gagne, C., & Koehler, M. (1999). Recovery for serious mental illness: What it is and how to support people in their recovery. In R. P. Marinelli and A. E. Dell Orto (Eds.), The psychological and social impact of disability (pp.409-422). New York, NY: Springer. Spaniol, S. (2012). Art therapy with adults with severe mental illness. In C. A. Malchiodi (Ed.), The handbook of art therapy (2nd edition, pp. 288-301). New York, NY: The Guildford Press.

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Thompson, G. (2009). Artistic sensibility in the studio and gallery model: Revisiting process and product. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 26(4), 159-166. doi.org/10.1080/07421656. 2009.10129609 Van Lith, T., Fenner, P, & Schofield, M. (2011). The lived experience of art making as a companion to the mental health recovery process. Disability and Rehabilitation, 33(8), 652-660. DOI: 10.3109/09638288.2010.505998 Watson, J. S. (2014). Assessing creative process and product in higher education. Practitioner Research in Higher Education, 8(1), 89-100. http://194.81.189.19/ojs/index.php/prhe Westraadt, G. (2016). Deepening visual literacy through the use of metacognitive reading instruction strategies. Perspectives in Education, 34(1), 182-198. DOI:10.18820/2519593 X/pie.v34i. Wix, L. (1995). The intern studio: A pilot study. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 12(3), 175-178. Wix, L. (2010). Studios as locations of possibility. Art Therapy: Journal of America Art Therapy Association, 27(4), 178-183.Whitley, R., & Campbell, R. D. (2014). Stigma, agency and recovery amongst people with severe mental illness. Social Science & Medicine, 107, 1-8. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.02.01

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Reading the Landscape Carl Rogers Chad Hunter Iowa State University

Abstract. Visual Literacy plays a crucial part in the work of landscape architects. It is utilized as a clarifying lens to research and gather information, analyze and develop graphics, and engage the community and stakeholders. The process involves active visual learning through drawing and creating to deepen the understanding of places one encounters. Through a community trail assessment case study, the paper will show how visual literacy strategies strengthened the design process, the value of the information gathered and the communication of the work. The assessment highlighted the importance of on-the-ground observation and experience to aid in the visual literacy of the landscape. The immersive observation techniques provide a deeper understanding of environmental conditions and character that influence perceptions of the landscape. It also led to the creation of maps and diagrams aimed at expressing the sensory and experiential data gathered through direct engagement with the trail landscape. By visually organizing and representing the qualitative data spatially, the data could then be analyzed in relationship to other spatial information or additional qualitative and quantitative data. Keywords: landscape, landscape architecture, community engagement, trail, transect

n the field of landscape architecture, visual literacy is an important factor in how people understand and experience the built environment as well as how the landscape architect graphically represents those experiences and conditions. To observe, sense and visually understand the relationship between the character of the landscape and how humans interact with it, one must be on the ground and directly engaged with it. This immersive method pro-vides a deeper understanding of the landscape and allows for a more experiential assessment of the built environment. The assessment --- a form of visual communication --- when reflective of this method of investigation, aids in creating experiential and spatial graphics integral to revealing patterns in the landscape. The paper focuses on how the role of landscape architects benefits from the use of visual literacy strategies within their projects and how bringing those techniques into the community engagement process strengthens the role the community plays in the design project. The authors will demonstrate this process through highlighting key steps of a community-wide trail assessment project in Ames, Iowa, a small city located in the midwestern United States. This case study will showcase the benefits of the visual literacy strategies utilized in the project.

Visual Literacy in Relation to Landscape Architecture Landscape architecture is a visually based design field. Visual literacy is not yet a common topic in the field but landscape architects do employ a variety of visual methods and understand the importance of visual imagery in the process of site analysis (Balmori, 2014; Sanoff, 1991), develop critical landscape research (Dee, 2004; Southworth, 2006) and strengthen communication (Balmori, 2014; Al-Kodmany, 1999). At the very basic level, landscape architects utilize visual

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techniques of observation and analysis to understand the sites they are working with and visual representation tools to communicate their work. The work of the landscape architect often involves not only observing and asking questions regarding the images and visual experience, but actively creating and diagramming from and upon these visual inputs as an act of exploration, to generate new ideas, see the landscape in new ways and make discoveries (Dee, 2004; Balmori, 2014). This active approach of creating new knowledge through new experiences and design iteration is reflective of the visual literacy and learning. (Felten, 2008; Introduction, 2017). This active and interactive approach to visual learning combines how to communicate what we perceive and interpret what we see. Visual literacy extends to the entire visual world, which includes the built and natural environment (Romice, 2000). The landscape architect reads the landscape, similar to how one reads an image, by taking in the surroundings, assessing it and making judgments about it. Landscape architects employ visual methods as tools for observation and analysis, to strengthen communication and bridge boundaries between experts and the public. Landscapes are dynamic, spatial and evolving. They are composed of natural, built and cultural environments, which humans manipulate to suit their needs (Kaymaz, 2012). To begin to understand these complex places, landscape architects look at the world as a series of interconnected scales. Assessment of aerial imagery, maps and diagrams showcase large-scale patterns and flow while on-the-ground information gathering reveals experience and connection to place. The multiple layers of information within each scale are evaluated simultaneously to define the experience and character of the space. Understanding these layers of experience and how they relate spatially and programmatically to each other, is key to designing places that create positive experiences. The authors believe this process is more effective when engaged in active, visual methods of gathering and assessing information and communicating it. This is important in promoting collaborative and inclusive design processes and making the information accessible to the public, city planners and other interested parties. Visual literacy is more successful when seen as a common, usable system for all people and not just the trained experts in design, to learn, create and analyze through imagery (Dondis,1974). Strong visual literacy skills aid in the ability to communicate our experiences in environments we encounter every day, just as they do in our ability to describe and analyze images (Herman, 2016). Experiencing the landscape in a physically engaged way is similar to connecting holistically and emotionally with images (Avgerinou & Pettersson, 2011). Investigating and assessing the landscape requires asking thoughtful and engaged questions about the visual experience of a place. These questions lead to deeper understandings and discoveries about how one perceives and analyzes what they see. The questions that one may ask of the landscape are not dissimilar from the questions one might use in reviewing paintings: What is going on in the scene around you? Why is it intriguing to you? How does it shape your experience? (Yenawine, 2013). Additional analysis may investigate the intent of the designer, planner, or property owner just as one may analyze the intent of the artist. Through their role as landscape architects, the authors of this chapter, utilize a visually driven research method where the process of investigation and creation become a catalyst for discovery. Utilizing imagery as the basis for investigative thinking and communicating shapes a more critical visual study (Dee, 2004). It also provides the ability to see the big picture, the relationships between the parts and the patterns they create (Introduction, 2017). Infusing the design process with visual thinking and theory, improves the understanding of landscapes, the experience of them and their resulting design (Dee, 2004).

Study of Visual Preferences and Landscape Theories It is impossible to view the landscape without bias. Peoplesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; past experiences, culture, judgment, time, the purpose of the visit and inherent biology affect what they see, how they perceive it and

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their attachment to place (Romice, 2000; Kaymaz, 2012). Often one sees in the landscape, what they are directed to see or expect to see (Avgerinou, 2011). Vision perceives in conjunction with other senses in a more subject centered way (Kaymaz, 2012). As a result, viewing and asking questions about the places one encounters tends to focus on the landscape qualities and feelings related to plea-sure and safety of the surrounding environment. Research on landscape preferences provides many theories about human inclination toward a particular landscape type and the qualities that encourage and support the use of it. The primary focus of this project focused on the importance of positive visual qualities and the ability to visually understand landscape conditions that inform perceptions of safety and security to create more walkable and bikeable environments. The landscape preference research highlighted the importance of natural spaces and the presence of vegetation in making landscapes more welcoming and utilized (Kaymaz, 2012). It uncovered historical and biological preferences related to the intrinsic need for safety, security and visual legibility of the landscape based on thinking of our environments as a habitat. This theory, coined prospect refuge, by Jay Appleton focuses on responses to the natural environment, but those same needs and perceptions carry over into our understanding and perception of the built environment (Kaymaz, 2102). People are more likely to feel comfortable and utilize environments that are well organized and quickly, visually understood, as well as those that promise a sense of exploration (Kaplan, Kaplan & Ryan 1998). Additionally, preferences are influenced by whether a landscape is perceived as useful or supportive, and provides moderate uniqueness and visual diversity (Kaplan et al., 1998; Kaymaz, 2012). As one visually gathers information in the landscape they are taking in many components which go in to creating the whole of the landscape environment. The act of seeing is a process that involves taking in multiple dimensions of information simultaneously (Dondis, 1974). As we view the scene before us we may read it as a two-dimensional image the way we see an artwork. This provides the viewer the ability to immediately assess the site in terms of its coherence and complexity. The legibility of the site (the ability to understand and traverse a site) comes through experience and movement over time. When people visually experience and respond to a landscape as a scene, they do not individually assess each part as independent, but rather, take in the whole and give value to that as a sum of its parts (Kaymaz, 2012).

Case Study: Engaging Ames in Complete Streets The following case study presents a community-wide trail assessment project carried out during 2014 and 2015 the authors collaborated on, titled Engaging Ames in Complete Streets. The study was a partnership with the non-profit coalition Healthiest Ames and funded by a Wellmark Foundation Match Grant. The role of the landscape architects, which included the authors and four undergraduate students pursuing degrees in landscape architecture, was to lead the charge of investigating the design and condition of the built environment and its impact on community health. Designing for a healthy community goes beyond a physical health focus and considers environmental, social, economic and cultural factors as well as infrastructure and the built environment. Ames is a university town in the heart of Iowa. About 65,000 people reside in Ames, with the student body making up nearly half of the population. Ames was settled at the confluence of Squaw Creek and the Skunk River. These two waterways and their adjacent greenways still define the regional character of the town. Squaw Creek cuts right through what is now the center of the town, dividing the downtown and major commercial areas from the west side of town, which is dominated by the university. Trails align and intersect with these river corridors, and although some greenways are utilized for commuting, their purpose has typically been seen as places to recreate, set apart from the urban fabric rather than integrated, as an active component of the overall transportation network. Over time, Ames has grown and developed a coarser land use

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pattern, which reduces walkability and bike-ability and peoples’ connection with their environment. The goal of the trail assessment was two-fold: 1), to develop a metrics to assess the experience and character of each trail segment based on defined assessment categories, and 2), to analyze the overall trail network in response to how it supports and encourages active transportation. The community trail assessment provided a framework for developing strategies for enhanced community connectivity and a multi-modal transportation policy focused on contextsensitivity and user experience. By establishing a framework for visually assessing and analyzing the trail networks and pedestrian environments, locations for where and how these networks can be improved to support and encourage active transportation in Ames, is highlighted. The investigative process, assessment and subsequent presentation of the project brought to light many limitations of standard mapping practices and visual tools, including concerns about the current way that these trails were being visually presented and the need to explore the experiential data in visual form. The limitations of information gathered revealed that a more engaged assessment was needed to understand the landscape. The project presented the team with unique opportunities to improve visual literacy of landscape conditions and experience through graphic communication and community participation, as well as show-case how visual literacy is increased through physical engagement with the landscape. The case study involved a variety of visual methods, which when used together, strengthened the project by providing a more holistic view of the experience of the landscape. The processes and methods utilized include five primary steps: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

visual inquiry of existing maps and images through active mapping and diagraming; interactive community engagement to gain local knowledge; sensory walks and an on-the ground immersive approach; visual brainstorming; and visual communication through the development of a transect.

These five steps illustrate how visual literacy strategies improve observation skills, open the door to new discoveries and create more effective means of communicating and collaborating in the design process.

Step 1: Visual Inquiry of Existing Maps and Images Often landscape architects start a project by looking down from 40,000 feet to see the general make up of a site and its context. They explore maps and diagrams that provide information about the conditions or content of a space. Then landscape architects immerse themselves in a site to visually and experientially take in the details. This is where visual representation and real life experience can often provide very different stories. Though this step is defined by observation it actually involves actively drawing based on what is seen in the images being analyzed. The act of creating images enhances the sensory experience and more directly connects to the physicality of being in the landscape (Dee, 2004). To begin the trail study the most obvious resource was the town’s trail map (See Figure `1). However, after just a few minutes of observation, it was clear that the lines on the map didn’t relate to the experience of the landscape or the team’s awareness of the existence of these trails. In fact that map would lead an outsider to believe that Ames has a very robust and connected trail network. Though lines appeared on the map indicating the location of trails, it proved difficult to find the presence of many of the identified trails or the conditions necessary to create an awareness of the trails in the landscape. Very little visual or experiential information existed in the landscape to distinguish the represented trails from any other street or sidewalk within the community.

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This lack of connection between the visual representation of trails and the actual experience of them in the landscape stressed the importance of engaging with local citizens to find out if they used the townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trails, where they used them, and for what purpose. It also highlighted the need for a thorough on-the-ground investigation, due to the limited data that could be gathered through visual imagery and mapping.

Step 2: Active Participation by Community To create successful and livable communities for people, their perceptions, concerns and goals need to be valued and investigated (Kaymaz, 2012; Al-Kodmany, 1999). Those who will be utilizing the spaces and places are more deeply tied to them through their experience, culture and history. Bringing community members into the design process of a project more thoroughly informs the designer through local knowledge, as well as increases community awareness of needs and goals (Romice, 2000), their enthusiasm for the project, and can greatly embolden the design (Al-Kodmany, 1999). Community members can be brought into a variety of points throughout the design process. They may help by providing, gathering or examining information during the inventory and analysis phase. It is also becoming more common to do design chartettes where the com-munity has the opportunity to help shape the design and conceive of the strategies and vision. The use of visual tools (imagery and models) plays a key role in making the design process more interactive and provides a better understanding of the project for community members and stakeholders. Throughout the trail assessment process, there were multiple events and techniques employed for engagement with the stakeholder group, town officials and community members to gather input and feedback. The community engagement process involved many one-on-one and small group conversations about trail use, concerns, needs and potential routes. These intimate conversations encouraged greater participation and allowed more people to have a voice at the table. The greatest boost to the process however, came through the use of maps (see Figure 1), imagery and encouraging community members to actively draw and diagram their routes, concerns and stories. Over forty community members, both men and women, ranging in age from teenagers to the elderly, provided information about their biking and walking habits through mapping and diagramming with the team. This visual method enhanced conversations and understanding, building stronger communication both ways. The maps were used at three community events: 1) a public open house for the city to gather input for its long-range transportation plan, 2) a community wide Eco-Fair and 3) and a community open streets event sponsored by Healthiest Ames. By presenting and gathering input at a variety of events, the team had the potential to reach a larger and more diverse audience with the maps and diagrams. Design language and some methods for participation can be hard for a layperson to relate to and leave them feeling disenfranchised in the process (Kaplan et al., 1998). This can happen due to lack of communication tools that allow for greater immediacy and interaction (Al-Kodmany, 1999). Utilizing visual imagery, such as maps and diagrams as a basis for conversation and allowing others to communicate through drawing and diagramming, offers a more direct and common language for dialog (Avgerinou & Pettersson, 2011). People involved in the process have important knowledge related to their history, culture and daily experiences. The designer can use visual literacy techniques to bring out those details through the design process (AlKodmany, 1999). Direct involvement by community members in the process of creating maps, diagrams and images increases visual literacy learning and establishes more significant connections with the public.

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Figure 1. Community Participation Map example. (2015)

Step 3: Sensory walk and immersive exploration As valuable as local knowledge is, it is best when it compliments data gathered by a trained eye. Environments that people experience on a daily basis, become routine and common that one may overlook obvious information or tune out features that may in fact aid in the ability to navigate through them. To increase visual literacy with regards to the landscape requires becoming ardent observers, asking important questions, learning to recognize new opportunities and solutions, and being open to unexpected discoveries (Herman, 2016). Being open to discovery is an integral part of the design process and key to how this project developed. It is important to engage in design with a sense of uncertainty to allow the design thinking process to reveal or discover new ideas through collaboration and discourse (Pallasmaa, 2009).

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As the team began to take a deeper look at site conditions and community awareness of trails, they limited criteria and expectations and utilized sensory walks and immersive visual observation as the primary method for information gathering and directing the inquiry. Sensory walks and immersive exploration involve moving slowly through an environment, with a greater awareness of one’s surroundings, sensory experiences and perceptions of the landscape. The physical engagement of walking the trails and being immersed in the environment allows one to perceive the environment with their whole selves and provides time to absorb details, increasing the effectiveness of what is learned (Avgerinou & Pettersson, 2011). The interaction between the human and the visual input is key, both physically and psychologically, toward strengthening visual literacy (Dondis, 1974). Though much can be learned from images and maps, they cannot provide a sense of the social or natural life of a place (Southworth, 2006). They can overlook the importance of the power of experience and the power of place and can often be biased in what they show (Dee). Being in the space may have its challenges, including factors such as climate and phenomenology, which may affect judgment, but a landscape is dynamic and needs to be experienced first-hand (Kaymaz, 2012). Based on community input, research on walkability and landscape preferences as well as the team’s experiences in the landscape, a set of introductory questions for the sensory walks and immersive observation was established, such as, “Does this space feel safe, inviting, connected, maintained, utilized? And what are the visual indicators that may be influencing that perception?” (Southworth, 2006; Kaplan et al., 1998). These methods helped direct the inquiry and analysis, leading to the development of specific elements that connect perceptions of the landscape to physical objects or conditions visible in the environment, such as, lighting, people, signs of maintenance or lack of it, signage and safety accommodations, fences and other barriers. These questions and visual observations helped uncover the relation be-tween how well the landscape is being cared for and peoples’ feeling of safety and connection to their surroundings. The initial questions and the indicators evolved as we began taking in new information as active participants in the landscape.

Step 4: A Visual Guide for Exploration and Assessment The questions that developed through the sensory walks and walkability research aided in establishing six key criteria for future, on-the-ground trail assessments: trail signage and delineation, lighting, safety features, connection to the surrounding environment, quality of the adjacent landscape, and surface quality. Every community is unique, so there is no single prescription for walkability, but there are general guidelines that help direct success (Southworth, 2006). Some of the conditions and qualities that go into creating walkable communities are physically experienced, but many factors relate to how people visually interpret and perceive their environment. A place-based metrics was created to establish a hierarchy of information to be observed for each of the six criteria (see Figure 2). Together these established a visual language for discussing and questioning what the team saw in the landscape. The goal of the metrics was to assess the trail network based on the scale of the community, and the character and conditions that one could expect to see within the community. This aided in fine tuning the trail assessment according to the context where it exists, and provided the team with a more appropriate level of expectations for examples of both positive trail environments and areas of concern. The metrics explores subjective perceptions of the trail and surrounding environment while gathering the data through a more objective lens.

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Figure 2. Assessment Metrics. The example shows the range of conditions analyzed through the trail for two of the categories. (2016)

Work that was being carried out by others, for Ames’ long-range transportation plan, was also looking at road, sidewalk and trail conditions. The work in their plan however, focused on content like, level of service (LOS), which considers the capacity of the route to manage the anticipated use and demand analysis, which looks at areas more likely to need cyclist and pedestrian infrastructure. Some information was being gathered from community members related to their concerns and goals, but overall the information being collected was not considering the experiential and visual conditions that determine a routes use or success (HDR, 2015). The Engaging Ames in Complete Streets trail analysis was intended then to compliment the longrange transportation plan and be a tool to identify very specific locations and conditions for future design strategies and updates. To do this a metrics with a wide variable range of assessment was necessary so that minor deviations within the data could be more easily seen and provide a clearer picture of what details and conditions were really affecting the routes success or struggles. The criteria were evaluated on a seven-category scale from “none,” where elements or connections are not present to “excellent,” where the conditions exceeded expectations that were assumed to be present in the community. A detailed description (see Figure 2) about the condition and list of anticipated components for each category on the scale was developed so that the process could be picked up and used by others for further assessments.

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Step 5: Visualization of Analysis Visualization of the assessment needed to express the multiple layers of experience and conditions gathered through walking the trails, relate them spatially to one another and in doing so represent a larger story about the character of the trail network. When one sees, they are engaging a composite of multiple parts that work together to form the whole of the image, the significance of which is determined by the importance of the weight of its parts (Dondis, 1974). In this way one begins to construct an analysis of the landscape, attempting to visually express how each moment along the trail is defined by the strengths of all of the individual pieces working together. A primary goal of the assessment was to create a transferable method that could be utilized by others in various settings and communities. Because of this, it was important that the visualization techniques be adaptable to new locations and be easily understood by the general public. A variety of methods, both written and visual, were tested as a means to showcase the team's data. The written data, expressed in lists and tables was too cumbersome and could not convey the experience or the spatial qualities as well as imagery. Charts and graphs were able to summarize and compare the experiential data, but the spatial qualities were missing. Though maps worked well for conveying space, there was not a way to then express the experiential qualities clearly on the map plane. In the end, the transect (see Figure 3) proved to be the best suited method to express spatially the many layers of experiential data and be visually accessible and transferable. Transects are a method typically utilized by biologists and environmentalists to map, describe and locate land-scape resources and the presence of plant and animal species. By gathering samples at given intervals along a determined route, the re-searcher can understand a larger context, relate various levels of information spatially and identify opportunities and barriers (Transect analysis, 2002-2017). Diagrams including transects are often more easily understood by the general community especially if they use content and symbols that are meaningful to the particular community, as compared to professionally drawn plans and other design drawing tools such as sections (Transect analysis, 2002-2017).The transect presents simultaneously two-dimensional evaluative planning strategies with three-dimensional experiential and spatial goals in order to give a better sense of the whole (Talen, 2002). Design can be complex and reveal new information that goes even beyond the process that created it (Tufte, 1990). As in the assessment, the development of the graphic communication was a process of visual brainstorming. Because the team set out with uncertainty about the outcome of the analysis and the visual presentation of it, new ideas were able to be explored and new relationships discovered. The layering process that created the transects for this project brought forth relationships that highlighted how the trails were performing, located key points where intervention is needed as well as key points that could serve as precedent examples for trail updates. Common factors in both the routes chosen and areas of concern presented by the community members during the input sessions, were highlighted in the highs and lows of the transect layers. The assessment revealed the strength of the greenway which lines the river and creek corridors flowing through town as successful examples of trail development and showed the potential strengths of extending those routes to connect to other major points in the city. Locations where there was greater visual awareness of the trails, both for the cyclists and drivers, and where the surrounding environment was well maintained also scored high on the transect, which highlights the power of visual experience in creating positive environments. The conditions and qualities found in the exemplar trail segments were suggested as precedents for how to improve upon less successful trails and develop proposed trails. Since the time of the study many updates have been made through-out the city to its trails and bike infrastructure. One of the key changes has been the introduction of trail route signage and road markings to increase awareness of the routes. These signs and markings encourage use because cyclists and pedestrians are made

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visually aware that they are on a designated route, which helps with wayfinding and implies a level of expectation related to condition. These updates also bring greater awareness to drivers that they can expect to encounter cyclists and pedestrians on and along these roads and that they should proceed with greater caution.

Figure 3. Transect example. This image highlights the intersection at State Street with the Middle School Trail, noting the safety features and pedestrian infrastructure in place at this location along the route. (2016)

The transect also revealed ways in which the data and the method could connect to other spatial research within the community. The transectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to link a variety of spatial data encourages the connection of research from multiple disciplines to merge their thinking and develop richer understandings of place through this common visual method for gathering and relaying data (Talen, 2002). Transects can also be a community based method for gathering spatial information, allowing members of the community to have an active role in the inventory and assessment of the landscape and provide descriptive recordings of on-the-ground information. The leaders of the walks, the designers and planners, become active listeners in the process of identifying problems and potential solutions (Panek, 2015). One shortcoming of the transect is that it only captures a single moment in time. Pairing the transect with local knowledge and experience of community members gains a better understanding of real life conditions (Transect analysis, 2002-2017).

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Summary Visual Literacy plays a crucial part in the work of landscape architects, from the way that they research and gather information, analyze and develop graphics, and how they engage the community and stakeholders. The community trail assessment project for Ames sharpened skills in assessing existing maps and imagery and comparing it with real perceptions of the landscape. The five steps involved in the project, visual inquiry, active participation, immersive exploration, visual assessment and visual analysis, all combine together as visual literacy strategies that landscape architects can use to engage communities in the design process. The strategies increased community participation in the project by using different visual communication tools that engaged in more personalized conversations through drawing. A better perspective about the landscape was gained during the on-the-ground assessment. Through physical and visual immersion in the environment, a more realistic impression of the character and conditions present, was revealed. Entering the study with limited questions and expectations, minimized bias and opened up the project to visual discovery. The immersive walks provided the framework and visual language for documenting the conditions of the trail and increased awareness of the landscape qualities that influence perceptions of safety, security, convenience and other mobility factors. The transect method helps to visually construct, analyze and communicate spatial and multilayered data, gathered by the team, and merge it with both two-dimensional planning strategies and three-dimensional experiential conditions. As a result, the transects provide a more accessible visual communication tool that can become a model for future assessments. The transect is a critical visual study of the big picture by showing individual parts in relation to the whole and the patterns that are generated at different scales. The benefit of the transect method employed through this project has allowed the data to be a major component of the larger data set and provides new opportunities to better visually present, more accurately and experientially, the landscape. Finally, the visual analysis can become a future tool for other landscape architects and communities to use and make new discoveries of their own.

References Al-Kodmany, K. (1999). Using visualization techniques for enhancing public participation in planning and design: process, implementation, and evaluation. Landscape and Urban Planning, 45(1), 37-45. Avgerinou, M. D., & Pettersson, R. (2011). Toward a cohesive theory of visual literacy. Journal of Visual Literacy, 30(2), 1-19. Balmori, D. (2014). Drawing and reinventing landscape. Chinchester, UK: Wiley. Dee, C. (2004). â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The imaginary texture of the real â&#x20AC;Śâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; critical visual studies in landscape architecture: Contexts, foundations and approaches. Landscape Research, 29(1), 13-30. Dondis, D. A. (1974). A primer of visual literacy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Felten, P. (2008) Visual literacy. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 40(6), 60-64. Introduction to Visual Literacy. (2017). Retrieved from http://www.hsl.unc.edu/ HDR. (2015). Ames Mobility 2040: Ames Area MPO 2015-2040 long range transportation plan. Retrieved from https://www.cityofames.org/ Herman, A. E. (2016).Visual intelligence: Sharpen your perception, change your life. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

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Kaplan, R., Kaplan, S., & Ryan, R. (1998). With people in mind: Design and management of everyday nature. Chicago, IL: Island Press. Kaymaz, I. C. (2012). Landscape perception. In Landscape planning. Intech. Pallasmaa, J. (2009). The thinking hand: Existential and embodied wisdom in architecture. Chinchester, UK: Wiley. Panek, J. (2015). Participatory methods: Transect Walk. Retrieved from https://geoparticipation. wordpress.com/ Romice, O. (2000). New developments in and reflections on, the use of visual literacy and environmental evaluation for the participation of community groups in design. GeoJournal, 51(4), 311-319. Sanoff, H. (2016). Visual research methods in design. New York, NY: Routledge. Southworth, M. (2006). Reclaiming the walkable city. Frameworks, 4, 16-23. Talen, E. (2002). Help for urban planning: the transect strategy. Journal of Urban Design, 7(3), 293-312. Transect analysis. (2002-2017). Retrieved from http://methodfinder.net/welcome.html Tufte, E. R. (1990). Envisioning information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics press. Yenawine, P. (2013). Visual thinking strategies: Using art to deepen learning across school disciplines. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

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Visual Awareness and Other Consequences of Promoting Visual Literacy through Photography Ricardo Lopez-Leon Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes, Mexico

Abstract. This paper presents results of a research project aimed to understand and explore how photography develops visual literacy. Design students were asked to hand in visual reports after different activities such as watching audiovisual content. Assignments used were designed to develop visual literacy but research findings show that students also practiced a skill portrayed here as visual awareness, a perception mode in which a designer observes the world with different eyes, being able to identify and convey meaning to everyday objects using a photographic camera. This was visible thanks to both, the images generated as part of the class activities and group discussions based on handed in images by students in class. Finally, interviews were conducted to understand the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; process of developing images, and how the task at hand presented a different way to interact with the world visually. These findings frame an opportunity that explore other ways teachers can guide students to achieve visual awareness, visual literacy, and teaching tools to help them develop skills that can be associated with them. Key words: visual literacy, visual thinking, visual awareness, design education

isual Literacy has become a fundamental skill in the 21st century (NCREL & METIRI, 2003). Communication between clients, companies, and people, is now highly visual, thus every professional needs the skills in developing, interpreting and creating images. This scenario presents a double challenge to design students and visual communicators: not only do they need to develop this skill to perform according to the standards required in this century, but they must also perform at the expert level showing mastery of these skills. Nowadays, anyone can manipulate images thanks to computers and technological gadgets. Anyone with a smartphone can edit still and moving images, create shapes, alter color, manipulate sound, and a host of other things. A question that guided this research was how to promote developing skills associated to visual literacy through activities in the classroom. This research was planned, designed and implemented during a class, over the course of two years. As a result, several papers have been published about this research focusing on different aspects found while trying to develop visual literacy in design students as well as working with different photography or design software. Publications worth mentioning are, a literature review about the concept of visual literacy and its importance to design education (Lopez-Leon, 2015b); findings from motivating students through visual reports to reading texts about design theory (Lopez-Leon, 2015a). Most recent findings show that activities aimed to develop visual literacy also promoted critical thinking since students practiced analyzing, synthesizing, and gathering information through observation, and other skills related to critical thinking. The last publication (Lopez-Leon, 2017), focuses on these findings, specifically about an activity that implicated visual reports related to Marshall McLuhanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (1996) perspective on media.

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This chapter focuses on visual awareness, an aspect that has been overlooked in the other publications. Activities designed for this research included having design students hand in visual reports after watching a movie, a documentary, a conference, or reading a chapter in a book, or an article in a journal, that would make students more aware of their visual surroundings. This awareness was noticed in two stages of the research: the first and the most evident was the actual photograph as a report, which showed a student-everyday-environment; the second one is an interview about each student’s process; they expressed having suddenly become aware of their environment while looking around to find material for their visual report. This paper will present student’s original visual reports and show how they became visually aware of their surroundings. These are unpublished findings fundamental to understand how promoting visual literacy in the context of design education could help students develop a professional skills set that may become an advantage in the real world even though there are several publications from the same research about visual literacy and design education. Reason why this paper represents a newer version of those published papers with a different focus on the findings, sharing a few excerpts with the previous publications, because it depicts from the same research. The final goal of this research is to develop tools to help teachers design assignments that include visual literacy. This paper focuses on photography as a tool for developing students' visual literacy skills. The main findings showed that photography became a great visual reporting tool for students given easy access to smartphones every day. Even more, students feel comfort-able taking pictures and complete their photographic report with objects available at home. After generating the visual reports, the students shared them in the class and discussed with the whole group.

Visual Discussions and Design Education Seeing the world through camera lenses represents a different experience. The frame, the camera’s point of view, and the focus among other aspects make it so. Technological evolution has made photography available to almost everyone. Today, it is so easy to take a picture and share, thanks to mobile communication and image generating tools with a more dramatic effect than ever before. Photography has awaken new interests for what it has brought to the art world and the process of creating art (Durand, 2012). The power of photography's ability to transform ways of thinking has been pointed out by Coats (2014) who considers the “photographic act as an affective and affirmative encounter — a reflexive, embodied, and relational community engagement that may produce a rupture in our habitual modes of thinking” (p. 1). The author proposes to observe the camera as a nomadic weapon (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) because it has the capacity to recompose “reality through creative forces” (Coats, 2014, p. 5). This practice of recomposing reality involves conveying meaning to objects, transforming both the object-context relation as well as the relation between the one that is taking the photograph and the object. The camera can become a reflexive apparatus if it is incorporated to the process of pedagogy (p.6). The camera becomes a tool that enables different ways of thinking, relating and interacting with the world. It represents a possibility to enhance the learning process enabling students to reflect upon abstract concepts while making them capable of constructing their own discourse. Visual literacy has become a fundamental skill for the 21st century not only for designers and visual artists, but for other professions as well. The concept and its importance in design education is addressed deeply in other works (López-León, 2015a; 2015b). To be illiterate could have a broader meaning in the 21st century. Some authors (Bamford, 2006; Riddle, 2009; Stokes, 2002) declare that knowing how to read and write will not be enough, and that one needs to be literate in different areas to be able to perform in both personal and professional contexts. If an illiterate person is one that does not know how to read and write, there should also be a concept or term to define someone that does not know how to send an email, use a smartphone,

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understand visual narratives, comprehend other cultures, among others that have nurtured the discourse of the importance of developing multiliteracies in schools (Kellner, 1998). There are new terms referring to literacy that reflect the concerns and reality of our world. For example, ecoliteracy (Stokes, 2002, p. 11; Center for Ecoliteracy, n.d.) is defined as the capacity to understand and develop practices from a sustainable perspective; media literacy, "conceived as a subset of multiliteracy, applicable to mass media forms in particular" (Burn & Duran, 2007, p. 5). So, it is important to discuss these new literacies in addition to visual literacy. To understand the full scope of literacies and where and how visual literacy takes part, it is helpful to refer to The North Central Regional Education Laboratory report where four abilities are identified:    

Digital Age Literacy including visual and information literacies; Inventive Thinking integrating creativity and risk taking; Effective Communication involving interactive communication; and High Productivity, including effective use of real world tools (NCREL & METIRI, 2003, p. 15).

The Digital Age Literacy includes eight essential literacy categories that NCREL recommended to promote in higher education. Visual Literacy, as one of the categories, is defined as a capacity to interpret and create visual messages. In other words, visual lite-racy is seen as a professional capacity fundamental for the 21st century. Secondly, it is important to note that written and verbal language has had a privileged place in education, relegating visual images (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). According to Arnheim (1969), the mistrust in visual images can be traced to the Greeks. The western world inherited the Greek’s disdain for visual images and the senses because they are subject to different interpretations and represent illusions: Appearances can be deceiving. However, Arnheim declares that it is only through the senses that a human being can know the world such that “a child sees and recognizes before it can speak” (Berger, 1972, p. 7). So, it is fair to wonder if visual images could enhance the process of reflection and thinking, understanding the world, and a resource for reasoning in education. At the same time, it is important to consider if reading and understanding visual images requires specific training and the development of a specific set of abilities. If so, what are the best ways to develop them. The coining of the term Visual Literacy is attributed to John Debes in 1969 (IVLA, 2015) referred to the author’s original definition as follows: Visual literacy refers to a group of vision-competencies a human being can develop by seeing and at the same time having and integrating other sensory experiences. The development of these competencies is fundamental to normal human learning. When developed, they enable a visually literate person to discriminate and interpret the visible actions, objects, symbols, natural or man-made, that he encounters in his environment. Through the creative use of these competencies, he is able to communicate with others. Through the appreciative use of these competencies, he is able to comprehend and enjoy the masterworks of visual communication. It is clear that these “vision-competencies” are fundamental to graphic designers and visual communicators as well as to every profession encountering visual images on a daily basis, from scientific schemas to sketching technological innovations (Bleed, 2005). At the same time, this definition highlights the need to design specific tools and methods that help in developing these "vision-competencies.” This research experimented with photography and other visual reporting

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tools as a means to develop them. This enabled students to analyze the visual outcomes while promoting class discussions.

Participants and Methods This research explored (Malhorta & Birks, 2000) and strived to obtain new knowledge on how visual literacy could be developed through class activities in order to design appropriate teaching tools. Participants were not considered as statistical representation instead they were selected to bring different attitudes, opinions, and feelings towards the process of generating visuals. In other words, this research focused on heterogeneous group of participants that would understand deeply the subjective aspects of their experiences (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2005; quoted in Martínez, 2015, p. S63). Qualitative research is a way of generating knowledge by comprehending, in a profound manner, how human beings interact and are affected by their own reality (Martinez, 2015, p. S59). This perspective, framed by experience, allowed the researcher to establish a “reflexive and self-critical” position (De la Cuesta & Otálvaro, 2015, p. S43) describing the phenomena in a more holistic and less fragmentary way. Moreover, the interpretative aspect of the researcher is inescapable of the qualitative approach (MartÍnez, 2015) and the emphasis that guides the results. The qualitative research aimed to understand the students’ process for generating visual reports. The data was collected in three phases (see Figure. 1): 1. The construction of visual reports 2. The class discussion of visual reports 3. An interview with the participants Nineteen students enrolled in the Advanced Advertising course of the Graphic Design Undergraduate Program at a public University in Mexico participated in this study. The participants completed the study as part of the work required in the course. Three assignments provided opportunities to generate visual reports: 1) reading an assigned text, 2) watching a movie, and 3) watching a TED talk. The data collected consisted of over fifty images that students generated after completing the activities. The researcher used six images to illustrate the results generated after students completed one of the three activities, i.e., watching the movie SYRUP (Rappaport, 2013) shown in class. The movie was selected for this research because it presented the role of advertising clearly as a façade of actual products and it was necessary to make the students question their role as graphic designers in the advertising and consumer world. Figure 1 illustrates the three research phases involving student-participants. In Phase I, students watched the movie SYRUP and then took photographs with a mobile phone or digital camera based on the ideas presented in the movie. Then, students uploaded the images to a website that collected all the images from the participants. These photographs served as data evidencing the process of synthetizing information, interpreting the ideas in the movie, and constructing their own opinion. The images were analysed considering how well the students expressed those features. In Phase II, students presented their visual reports individually and explained to the whole group what they were trying to say using visuals. The arguments that each student expressed were also collected as data and served to enhance the understanding and interpretation of the elements found in the images. In Phase III, when all the assignments involving visual reporting were finished and graded for the advertising course, in-depth interviews were conducted to facilitate the understanding of the students’ processes in generating visual reports including student perceptions from the lenses of graphic design. This technique helped to uncover hidden reasoning involved in the visual reporting process and the challenges students had to face while completing this activity. Some ideas expressed by students about the process often included

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having gone out without knowing what they would find, observing carefully and thinking at the same time about the main concepts of the assignment. The intense observation done by the students is referred to as visual awareness in this chapter.

Figure. 1. Three phases of the research in which students participated in generating visual reports.

Analysis of Visual Reports The researcher performed visual context analysis in the visuals generated after watching a movie as a group. Students had to take a photograph of something they found interesting about the movie. Participants agreed to be part of this research activity and gave consent for the use of their visual reports as data to be shown and published. The movie SYRUP (Rappaport, 2013) was shown because the role of advertising is clearly seen as a faĂ§ade of actual products and a great example for students to see advertising strategies used to sell products and the roles they could play as graphic designers in this system. The image (see Figure 2) below belongs to one of the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (Amador) visual report. By showing a peeled off label of a drinkable yogurt, Amador makes a statement: Figure 2. Advertising as a skin by Amador. A visual report about SYRUP (the movie).

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Advertising is like shells or skins. Ideas, design and narrative are the wrapper that makes us believe in a need of having objects that can give meaning to our lives. The movie focuses on the idea of concealing simplicity, taking it to a level of adoration. Amador’s image came as evidence of visual awareness --- an everyday product that the student had consumed. The fact that this was an ordinary object showed that the student began observing objects around her that were familiar in an unfamiliar way. By peeling off the label of the yogurt she realized a metaphor about advertising --- thinking of it as a skin not only for products but also for people and the products they wanted. Photography made her observed carefully in order to construct a visual argument so clear that everyone in the class could agree with. The main arguments shown in the movie became present outside of the classroom. This allowed her to see relationships with Figure 3. The perfect fake family by Armas. A visual report for SYRUP. an everyday object that made it more a significant experience. The next picture was taken in a supermarket by another student (Armas) showing a stereotypical family on the wall (see Figure 3). Armas stated that brands sometimes use idealized models that represented “status.” For Armas, this strategy created an aspirational bond between the producer and consumer. “Even though they represent a fake-perfect-family, by consuming the brand you can aspire to perfection.” In completing the assignment for the course, Armas went to the supermarket where he carefully observed every corner, shelf, aisle, poster, and stamp found along the way. In retelling his story, he was about to leave after feeling disappointed of not finding anything useful. His attention caught an image that he recognized as a pattern that he had seen in advertisements over and over again --- a stereotype of a family that seemed to project higher socioeconomic status or of foreign origins. Armas’ report also made a statement by presenting the obvious (stereotypes in advertising) and pointed out that something was out of place in Mexican context. A white, blond, smiling family could probably not resemble the average features of many Mexican people. The image is an example that demonstrates visual awareness. The student had probably seen this stereotype in advertising repeatedly but the exposure to the movie and the assignment had made him visually aware of how close and common these stereotypes were and how distant they were from his everyday experiences. “We marry brands” as Rodriguez expressed in her visual report. For the student’s own wedding ring gained a different meaning when becoming visually aware. The wedding ring had become a common object for Rodriguez because she looked at it every day since she got married. In observing the ring carefully, she found in it an argument that could be related to the movie.

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We marry brands, even though they are unreal and superficial, we are in love and seduced by them, because we are trying to belong to a social group or trying to be cool, and that is what they have made us believe. For her visual report, Rodriguez had to make a compelling argument by showing her wedding ring juxtaposed (see Figure 5) to an image of a brand that could fully communicate loyalty such as Apple. Martinez went to a mall (see Figure 6) to find something for the assignment. I went to the shopping mall, to see what I could find in the stores, and by walking around, I realized that the shopping mall as a brand needs advertising as well, it needs to sell itself beyond products and services that we may find in it. There are more shopping malls in our city and through marketing they need to send a clear message that connects with people in such a way, that they would prefer to go to one this mall instead of others. It is all about creating an experience that stands out. Plaza San Marcos: it amuses you, it delights you.

Figure 6. Selling experiences by Martinez. A visual report on SYRUP.

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Figure 5. Marrying brands by RodrĂguez. A visual report for SYRUP.

Using a camera, she went to there with a different pair of eyes. The camera allowed her to see things differently that led to seeing a new world. By sharing this image with the rest of the class, she made this new world available to her classmates. Looking inside a magazine seemed to be a great way in finding something related to advertising because of all of the ads in them. However, it is not an easy task to look for an image that could represent a concept from the film. Flores took a magazine and began flipping through the pages with different eyes in looking for images that would fit the assignment. Flores constructed a metaphor of the attributes of a woman in advertising for her visual report (see Figure 7). The student showed an image of cosmetics advertising but the ad is not the element that carries meaning in her

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visual report. By looking at the ad, Flores found that the figure of a woman could represent concepts discussed in the movie. This meant that any picture depicting a woman in the magazine could be useful for her visual report. This was probably not the first woman she had seen when reading a magazine but through the classroom experience she identified the concepts of advertising and reflected on them. I think that they related advertising to a woman because advertising seduces you, it makes you fall in love, it is beautiful and sometimes you have a blind love for it, it could sometimes be platonic and aspirational, because you want to have the brand’s attributes. Advertising wants to have a captive audience and knows what the audience wants, and because of this, they can take advantage of them.

The next image is not particularly an evidence of visual awareness but rather the manipulation of elements to construct a meaning. This example is closer to art and design practice which was also seen in several students’ visual reports. Instead of looking for something that could represent a concept from the film, Velasquez gathered objects to manipulate and construct such concept. She wrote the word "REALIDAD" (translates to reality) on a piece of paper and took a picture of it through a glass which distorted the image of the text (see Figure 8). Figure 7. Advertising is a woman by Flores. A visual report for SYRUP.

“Sometimes advertising transforms reality so much in order to draw attention and sell a product, that reality is hidden, it goes to a distorted dimension and so, the brand becomes a representation of new meanings with little relation to the product. In the end, the consumer is “deceived” by that transformation and perceives only the distorted reality”.

Representing scenes or objects from the movie was a common practice. This student represented a mirror that appeared in the film only a few seconds but by incorporating it in the poster, it emphasized the concept of reflection in a holographic way. Velazquez stated, “the mirror reflects what they [the characters in the movie] are not”. Figure 8. Advertising Distorts Reality by Velazquez. A visual report for SYRUP.

Analysis of Student Interviews Students created their visual reports after watching a movie that were analyzed. Also, the author conducted in depth interviews of the students to know better how the assignment challenged them

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as well as provide a better understanding of the processes taken in constructing the visual reports. The use of qualitative research methods assisted in finding out if the assignment, as an educational experience, challenged the students and promoted critical thinking. The student interviews facilitated knowing more if the experience promoted visual awareness. The verbal responses collected helped frame a broader sense on how students became visually aware while performing visual reporting tasks. Students shared their opinions about the process of creating visual reports. The author encouraged spontaneity and openness as necessary conditions in successful data collection. Efforts were made to create a relaxing environment where students can describe and discuss their experiences. The narratives below are examples extracted from student interviews about the experience: 

Photography needs to be more spontaneous, you look around and you need to ponder if there is something related to the information; you observe, something catches your eye, you capture it and relate it [to a concept].



Taking a picture is faster, but it needs an open mind, it demands more creativity than redesigning a poster.

Another important part of the activity was discussing the visuals presented in class. Students’ opinions seem to indicate that the activity helped in discussing the main concepts addressed in the movie. The students expressed interests in finding out how their classmates resolved the challenge and what new ideas they could bring into the discuss-ion. 

It is really cool to present the images to the group and discuss with them because we can see different ways to understand the movie.



It demands a lot from us, it enhances our creativity.

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There are parts that my classmates represented visually that I did not notice and it is like going over the main ideas again and again.

Conclusions In retrospect, discussing visuals instead of written reports allowed everyone to have an opinion. Group discussions were more dynamic because students were able to express themselves more easily. On the surface, it would seem that the group was discussing visuals but deep down they were also discussing abstract concepts or interesting ideas picked out from documentary or film. Promoting visual literacy as a capacity to interpret and construct meaning through images is a must-have skill among graphic designers. The use of photography and visual reporting enables students to develop their abilities, motivates and keeps them engaged. Bringing visual literacy into the classroom becomes a fundamental strategy in the students’ learning process as developing professional designers. Specific assignments that aim to promote visual literacy need to part of daily tasks for design teachers for two main reasons. First, because generating images is the main professional performance that society needs from designers. Second, because by developing visual literacy, other skills are also addressed and will help in developing a holistic professional suitable to face the challenges in a rapidly changing society. Among these lateral skills is visual awareness proposed here as a perception mode in which a designer observes the world with different eyes depending on the project. As a person who changes lenses on a camera, or sunglasses with different shades and colors, designers need to

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change their perceptions and enhance their sensibility in understanding the world from different points of view of their stakeholders such as clients and users to name a few. Visual awareness is still an incipient concept, so there are more opportunities to understand it fully. The challenge is to design tools for teachers that they can implement in their classes and promote the development of visual literacy. Also, findings show the potential of the camera as a reflexive apparatus that needs more exploration on how to incorporate it actively into the classroom. Even though this research only involved working with design students, using the camera to develop images and convey new meaning to everyday objects is a process which individuals from different professions and educational levels could benefit. Technology, such as cameras, are part of students’ everyday life in the 21st century, and schools should take advantage of it.

References Arnheim, R. (1969). Visual thinking. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Bamford, A. (2006). The visual literacy paper. Retrieved from http://www.adobe.com/au/solutions/ white-papers/education-k12.html Berger, J. (1972). Ways of seeing. London: Penguin Books. Bleed, R. (2005). Visual literacy in higher education. Retrieved from https://net.educause.edu/ir/ library/pdf/eli4001.pdf Burn, A., & Durran, J. (2007). Media literacy in schools. Practice, production and progression. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Center for Ecoliteracy. (n.d.). What we do. Retrieved from https://www.ecoliteracy.org/about Chamorro-Koc, M., Scott, A., & Coombs, G. (2015). Bombs away: Visual thinking and students’ engage-ment in design studio contexts. Design and Technology Education: An International Journal, 20(1), 18-28. Coats, C. (2014). Thinking through the photographic encounter: Engaging with the camera as nomadic weapon. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 15(9), 1-22. De la Cuesta, C., & Otálvaro, C. (2015). La réflexividad y la autocrítica como fundamentos de la investigación cualitativa. Salud Pública, 33(1), 42-44. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press. Dondis, D. (1973). A primer of visual literacy. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Durand, R. (2012). La experiencia fotográfica. México: Ediciones Ve. International Visual Literacy Association. (2012). What is visual literacy? Retrieved from http://ivla.org/new/what-is-visual-literacy-2/ Kincheloe, J., & McLaren, P. (2005). Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research. In N. Denzin, & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp. 303- 342). Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE. Kellner, D. (1998). Multiple literacies and critical pedagogy in a multicultural society. Educational Theory, 48(1), 103-122. Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images. The grammar of visual design. New York: Routledge. López-León, R. (2015a). Developing visual literacy in design students. Proceedings of the 3rd international conference for design education researchers, Aalto: Aalto University. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/14332650/ Developing_Visual_Literacy_in_Design_Students

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López-León, R. (2015b). Primera aproximación al concepto de visual literacy y su importancia en la educación del arte y diseño. In C. Villagómez, & J. Saldaña, (Eds.), Estudios críticos en arte y diseño (pp. 31-48). Guanajuato: Universidad de Guanajuato. Lopez-Leon, R., & Villa, G. (2017). El aula de diseño como escenario de exploración entre alfabetidad visual y pensamiento crítico. Revista Kepes, 14(15), 173-194. Malhorta, N., & Birks, D. (2000). Marketing research: An applied approach. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Martínez, C. (2015). El compromiso interpretativo, un aspecto ineludible en la investígación cualitativa. Salud Pública, 33(1), 58-65. McLuhan, M. (1996). El medio es el mensaje. Comprender los medios de comunicación. Las extensiones del ser humano. Barcelona: Paidós. NCREL & METIRI, (2003). enGauge 21st century skills: Literacy in the digital age. Retrieved from http://pict.sdsu.edu/en gauge21st.pdf Riddle, J. (2009). Engaging the eye generation, Visual literacy strategies in the K-5 class-room. Retrieved from http://booksgreatchoice.com/getbook/p306781/?id=30 Scriven, M., & Paul, R. (1987). Defining critical thinking. The critical thinking community. Retrieved from http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766 Stokes, S. (2002). Visual literacy in teaching and learning: A literature perspective. Electronic Journal for the Integration of Technology in Education, 1(1). Retrieved from http://ejite.isu. edu/Archive.html Rappaport, A. (Director). (2013). SYRUP. Taboada, M. & Coombs, G. (2013). Liminal moments: Designing, thinking and learning. In J. B. Reitan, I. Digranes, & L. M. Nielsen (Eds.), DRS Cumulus 2013: Design learning for tomorrow – Design education from kindergarten to PhD. Oslo: LM. Taylor, S. J., & Bogdán, R. (1987). Introducción a los métodos cualitativos de investigación. Barcelona: Paidós.

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Index A Aesthetic, 112-113 Art education, 17 Art making, 112 Art therapy, 112, 114 Art-based learning, 44, 112 Assessment, 85, 132 C Citizenship, 44, 47-48 Collaboration, 44, 48-49 Communications technology, 44, 49 Community engagement, 126, 130131 Contemporary art, 44-47 Content area literacy, 56 Creative writing, 56, 164-166 Curriculum design, 85 D Design, 85 Design education, 138-141 Digital visual literacy, 17, 28 E Empathy, 112, 115-116 Emoji, 17-30 Evaluation, 98 F Family literacy, 56-63 G Google cardboard, 31, 35 H High school art education, 44

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I Infographic, 98 Information and instructional materials, 44 Interdisciplinarity, 44 Internet culture, 17 J Journalism, 98 L Landscape, 126 Landscape architecture, 126 Library instruction, 98 Literacy, 164-166 Literacy-through-art, 56, 63-64 P Pedagogy, 85, 112-113 Persistent mental illness, 112, 116 Photography, 138 Poetry, 56 Professional development, 70 R Recovery, 112 S SAMR model, 31 Science teaching and learning, 70 Secondary teacher preparation, 70 Stereo, 31 Stereograph, 31, 32-34

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Teacher preparation, 77 Teaching with technology, 31, 36, 50 Technology, 56 Trail, 126 Transect, 126 V Virtual reality, 31 Visual art, 44 Visual awareness, 138 Visual education, 31 Visual inquiry, 129-130 Visual literacy, 49, 51-52, 56, 70-71, 77, 85, 98, 126, 138 Visual literacy practices, 70 Visual thinking, 138 Visualization, 56, 134 VR headsets, 31

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Call for Manuscript Proposals 2019 The Book of Selected Readings The Book of Selected Readings (TBSR) is a peer-reviewed, annual IVLA publication selected primarily from papers based on the annual conference presentations. The publication has served as an important reference point for current research and issues concerning visual literacy. Besides providing seasoned scholars with an outlet for their work, one of the goals of this volume is to enable new scholars to publish their studies. TBSR is inclusive and serves as a place for scholars to publish their research, promote their work, and connect with their audience. Criteria for Selection All presenters at the annual IVLA conference are invited to submit manuscripts for consideration. The editorial team will select those manuscripts they deem appropriate and relevant for the publication. In order for manuscripts to be considered they must be: • • • • •

Based on presentations from recent IVLA annual conferences. Narrative includes a definition of visual literacy based on the current literature. Submitted manuscript is supported by appropriate images, illustrations or photographs. Writing should follow the APA style format. Submitted for consideration by December 30, 2018 to Dr. Danilo M. Baylen, dbaylen1@yahoo.com

Editorial Process •

Every manuscript proposal submitted will be read by at least three reviewers: external reviewer(s) and editor(s).

•

Every manuscript submitted for publication consideration will be reviewed by at least two editors.

•

The editorial team will recommend to either publish the manuscript as submitted, publish the manuscript with suggested revisions, or mentor the manuscript for future publication. In all cases the author will be notified of the decision, and receive the editors’ comments.

•

Accepted manuscripts for publication will be copyedited by at least one editor.

Guidelines for Manuscript Proposal Submission Please read this document carefully before submitting your paper. Manuscript proposals that do not follow these guidelines will not be considered. Email your manuscript proposal to Dr. Danilo M. Baylen, dbaylen1@yahoo.com by December 30, 2018.

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1. Please submit one digital copy of your manuscript that includes the title of the work (preferably not exceeding 40 letters and spaces) followed by an abstract of 200-500 words and a list of 4 or 5 keywords or brief phrases. This copy must have all author information removed. 2. A separate file with the title of the work (preferably not exceeding 40 letters and spaces) names and contact information for all authors (include name, highest degree, mailing address, phone, email, and institutional affiliation as appropriate). Formatting • • • • •

Follow APA style All submissions must be a Microsoft Word .doc or .docx file. Submitted manuscript proposals are deemed final. Please ensure your proposal has been edited/proofread and is ready for review. The manuscript proposal should be between 8-15 pages long without page numbers. Indicate headings and subheadings for different sections of the proposal clearly. Do not number headings.

Styles OP • • • • • •

Body text: Arial, 12pt, 6pt paragraph spacing Author name: Arial, Bold, Italic, 12pt Keywords: Arial, 12pt Figure titles, legends and captions: Arial, 11pt Block quotations: Arial, 12pt, italic, indented 10mm from left margin Headings: Follow APA style

Awards Each year, outstanding TBSR submissions are considered for two important awards. These are: •

Editors’ Choice Award -- This award is given to the paper the editor/s consider the best work of all of the contributed papers. The Editors’ Choice Award paper is distinguished from the other papers in the book with a distinctive corner marking in the publication. The editors determine this award.

•

Braden/Beauchamp Visual Literacy Award -- This award, named for two previous editors of the Selected Readings, seeks to honor the paper that best helps contribute to the definition of the study of visual literacy. This award is given only in years where sufficient contributions have been made to the Selected Readings in this area. The editors also determine this award.

We strongly encourage you to submit a manuscript proposal to 2019 The Book of Selected Readings. Submission Please submit your letter of interest and curriculum vita by December 30 via email to Dr. Danilo M. Baylen, Editor-in-Chief, The Book of Selected Readings at dbaylen1@yahoo.com.

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Search for Associate and Assistant Editors The Book of Selected Readings This IVLA-published book of selected readings is a peer-reviewed, annual publication selected primarily from papers based on presentations by the participants at the annual conference. The volume had been print-based, but has migrated to an online presence. The editorial team are currently seeking dedicated individuals as associate and assistant editors for this online volume. The publication has served as an important reference point for current research and issues concerning visual literacy. Besides providing seasoned scholars with an outlet for their work, one of the goals of this volume is to enable new scholars to publish their studies. The Book of Selected Readings (TBSR) is inclusive and serves as a place for scholars to publish their research, promote their work, and connect with their audience interested in visual literacy. We are looking to fill the following positions: Associate Editor (3-year term, 2019-2021) and Assistant Editor (3-year term, 2019-2021) The Editor-in-chief will oversee all editorial activities and be responsible for meeting publication deadlines. The Associate Editor will support the management of the review and production processes. The Assistant Editors will provide support to review of proposals, manuscripts, layout and production. All editorial team members will be involved in the selection of publications for IVLA awards. Specific tasks for the Associate Editor include  Collects all submitted manuscript proposals (online format).  Recruits reviewers for the initial proposal review process.  Assigns manuscript proposals for external review.  After external review, recommends manuscript proposals for revision to the Editor-in-Chief.  Participates in monthly online editorial team meetings.  Performs other duties as assigned by the Editor-in-Chief. Specific tasks for the Assistant Editor include  Reviews manuscripts submitted for publication consideration.  Recommends manuscript submitted for acceptance, revision or mentoring.  Provide copyediting to manuscripts submitted for publication.  Participates in the selection of the recipients of the publication awards.  Provides technical assistance in the production of the book.  Participates in monthly online editorial team meetings.  Perform other duties as assigned by the Editor-in-Chief. Benefits  Editorial roles provide great opportunities to stay in contact with fellow scholars  Editors are involved with current activities in the field.  Editors receive recognition for "service" or “scholarly activity”. Qualifications Applicants should be IVLA members (if not, please apply at ivla.org), possess advanced academic degrees, and have experience in writing for publication themselves. Experience with managing online publication is preferred. Submission Please submit your letter of interest and curriculum vita by December 1, 2018 via email to Dr. Danilo M. Baylen, Editor-in-Chief, The Book of Selected Readings at dbaylen1@yahoo.com. Applicants should indicate whether they are applying to be Associate or Assistant Editor. If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Baylen.

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IVLA 2019 Mark these dates -- September 24 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 27, 2019 and start packing your bags for Belgium! The M-Museum Leuven and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) will host the 51st annual conference of the International Visual Literacy Association.

Leuven is situated in the heart of Europe. At 20 kilometers outside Brussels and 15 minutes from Zaventem, Brussels International Airport, it is an accessible city. The city of Leuven, with 100,000 inhabitants and 50,000 college students is a typical historical European university city. The city itself is compact that makes everything within walking distance.

Leuven houses one of the oldest Universities in the world, yet Reuters declared it as the most innovative university of Europe. In addition, the Museum M Leuven is credited as the place to see the most innovative displays of a historical collection in Europe by conceptualfinearts.com <http://conceptualfinearts.com>. The basic curatorial principle used at the M is visual literacy --making it a perfect venue for hosting a gathering of Visual Literacy scholars and practitioners.

For more information, please contact an IVLA Officer or Board Member. Images from the M-Museum Leuven and KU Leuven websites.

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