The World's Gone Graphic! Gaining a Graphic IQ

 I realize that while my world of novels and books will always be there to entertain and enlighten, we are on riding the wave of a graphic revolution.

We have, we use, and we are bombarded with images everywhere.  And we increasingly need these images to better communicate and convince.

We see and seek  images everywhere.  From product identification and safety directions, to illustrations / art in blogs and in books.  When we communicate via email in short verbal bursts and often include icons to better express ourselves :-)

While this 'revolution' has been around for a while it has only recently hit me how extensive it is.  I now LOVE graphic novels, instructions are graphic, and road signs use more and more images to convey information.


GRAPHICS AND LITERACY:

Since reading my first graphic novel last year (Joe Kelly's I Kill Giants), I have read numerous outstanding educational graphic novels for kids - chalk full of extensive vocabulary, well-written dialogue, exquisitely inviting art, and exciting stories of fiction and nonfiction, science and technology, history, social conflict and the search of identities.

I have also learned that graphic novels are the fastest selling format of kids' books, and find myself the author of a book on how to integrate graphic novels into middle school curriculum.  Major publishers have now set up graphic novel divisions and while Barnes & Nobles don't quite know how to shelve them yet, they're out there!

Furthermore, librarians have realized that graphic novels bring kids and young adults back into libraries, and that graphic novels are bringing kids back to books and reading!  Graphic novels literally illustrate the art of story-telling.

GRAPHICS IN THE REAL WORLD:

We use graphic images in everything thing we do.  We have visual icons that relay safety messages and product information.  We use them to cross the street.  We use them to advertise.  We use them in presentations.  We use them to convince.

When was the last time you went to a presentation or workshop and just sat and listened?  To sell an idea or product we use Power Point, we teach with handouts, advertisers agonize over the most striking and memorable images.  We sell everything with images.

Look at your favorite blogs.  I don't know about you, but I favor some visual support when reading them.  The images are inviting, they help break up the screen, and they add a dimension to the message.



AS PRODUCTS GO GLOBAL - INSTRUCTIONS GO GRAPHIC:

Because so many of our products come from other countries or are sold world wide, instructions must be universally understood.  While some companies will provide written instructions / warnings in multiple languages, many are instead simply going graphic!

It's this last point that really got me to this graphic revolution point!

My daughter just moved to Boston where she started work on Monday.  We went to Ikea to furnish her apartment and found ALL the directions were purely graphic!

The thing is that as bright as we both are (she graduated with honors from Williams College, I have a PhD and graduated from an ivy league school)...the directions were really hard to follow.  There were times we just didn't quite "get" what went where.  Here's just one page:



THE BOTTOM LINE:

• Communicating with images is here to stay! 
• We as concerned parents and educators must teach our kids to "read" images
• The International Reading Association (IRA) and the National Council of Teachers of English (NTCE) have included in their standards that "Students read a wide range of print and non-print texts"

EDUCATION MUST include and address this graphic revolution. 

We should never abandon our classics.  I love teaching Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Andrew Clemen's Frindle, but we also have to teach kids how to use Power Point, how to read graphic instructions/directions, and how to tell stories with graphic images, even how to "read" faces.  Hence, enter graphic novels - a wonderful bridge for both worlds.



SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING GRAPHIC INTELLIGENCE:

• Include graphic novels in your reading repertoire and in your read aloud repertoire with your kids.
• Focus on learning to read the details in illustrations.
• Talk about advertising icons - why do you thing a company / advertisers chose a particular image?  Was it effective?
• Talk about art, the use of color, the use of particular shapes...what these images portray...what emotions they evoke.
• Discuss design choices for school projects, for homemade cards, for household products...
• Turn commercial time into a cognitive puzzle: Talk about your favorite/least favorite commercials.  What do you like about them?  What do you hate about them? (Here are two of my favorites - one serious [and notice - no words], one that made me laugh)

I am curious - how much have graphic images invaded your worlds?  How do you help teach your kids to cope with the images they're bombarded with?  How do you cope? Please let me know in your comments! 

Visual vs. Verbal Literacy? No Contest

http://izismile.com/2009/08/05/weird_signs_16_pics.html 

http://www.goodexperience.com/tib/archives/2006/12/just_for_fun_we.html

If a picture's worth a thousand words, why don't we teach visual literacy?

In a world where tweets, SMS's, and IM's are used more than letters and phone calls, learning to extract meaning from verbal and visual images has become more important.  Why:

• When communicating and marketing ourselves, our ideas, our businesses, we create visual and verbals messages:  Business cards, billboards, advertisements, blogs, tweets, SMS' and IMs ALL have visual and verbal representations!
• Socially - at work, play and in school, we need to read faces of other kids and adults to fully understand how to effectively interact with and respond to others.
• To succeed in school and at work, we need to decipher the following - ALL of which rely on verbal and visual literacy:
• Visual and verbal information presented in advertisements, shows, signs, etc.
• Scientific and mathematical notations, charts and symbols;
• Musical notes and notation;
• Webs and charts;
• Maps;
• Logos;
• Graphs;
• Photographs;
• Videos, movies, shows;
• Cartoons (kids' cartoons, political cartoons, etc.);

In short, we have to learn to read and use images as well as letters.  And, for those who have trouble reading (or reluctant readers), visual literacy is even more important as it will make traditional learning and reading easier and provides another avenue of communication.

So really, there is no contest between visual and verbal literacies...both are essential!

Interestingly (at least to me), while the term "visual literacy" is credited to Jack Debes, co-founder of the International Visual Literacy Association around 1969, it did not come across my radar as a school psychologist and educator until very recently.  Similarly, while Mary Alice White, a researcher at Columbia University's Teacher's College has found that kids learn more than half of what they know from visually presented mediums, few schools consciously teach students how to evaluate and think critically about visual data. 

In fact, until VERY recently, there was little or no emphasis on visual literacy.

Point: Visual and verbal literacy should both be taught is school - preferably together.

That said, due to limited space, I will continue now with visual literacy and my next post will be about verbal literacy.


Some ways to help you and your child develop visual literacy skills:

Things to talk about together:

• When walking, driving, flipping through magazines, looking at illustrations, and reading aloud books with visual images, TALK about the ads and images you see: 
• discuss the color choices for the panels and images,
• discuss what is and is not in the background image, 
• discuss the choice of words and fonts used,
• what type of feelings/impressions do the font choices relay?

• When reading graphic novels discuss the three bullets above AND:
• Do the panel shapes change?  How and why? [For example, dream and flashback panels are often portrayed within panels with squiggly lines vs. straight lines.  Also, spoken dialogue is often written in different text balloons from ideas/thoughts that are unspoken.] 
• Discuss the way the panels are organized on the page - does one seem more dominant than another?  Why?
• Does one page look different from another?  How is it different?  Why do you think the authors/illustrations changed the format?

Books you can read:

• Wordless story books - here are only a few of my favorites:

Good Dog Carl by Alexandra Day; Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathman; Chalk by Bill Thomson; and Rainstorm by Barbara Lehman

•  Comic books and graphic novels -

 These are some of my favorite graphic novels for kids of various ages:

Laika by Nick Abadzis.  First Second Books (age 7+) - about the first sentient being sent to space by the Russians.

 I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly and JM Ken Nimura. Image Comics  (age 12+) a book about 5th-grader Barbara who fights giants (but does she really -or is this one giant metaphor...sorry for the pun).

Courtney Crumrin Tales by Ted Neifeh Oni Press (age 7+) about a girl in space school.

 Salt Water Taffy by Matthew Loux Oni Press (all ages)

Possessions  by Ray Fawkes (ages 7+) about ghosts and gouls living together (lots of fun, lots of spunk)

Northwest Passage by Scott Chantler. ONI Press (age 9+) a wonderful account of this pivotal story in American history (with author annotation to help those novice visual

readers)

City of Spies by Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan, illustrated by Pascal Dizin. First Second Books (age 9+) - about a girl sent to spend the summer in the early 1940's with her aunt, while her father marries his fifth wife...

Lewis & Clark by Nick Bertozzi.  First Second Books (age 9+) another verbal-visual account of a pivotal event in American history

American Born Chinese First Second Books (age 9+) minority in America

Robot Dreams by Sara Varon First Second Books (all ages) wordless graphic novel all about friendship

The Olympians by George O'Connor.  First Second Books  (age 9+) a beautiful account of Greek mythology

Berona's War by Jesse Labbe and Anthony Coffey. Archaia Press (age 11+) a manual depicting this infamous (fictional) war

Gennerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell (age 9+) great story about a girl and her 'friends' in a very boarding school in a very different world

Mouse Guard by Luke Crane and David Petersen (age 9+) a graphic novel much like Brian Jacques' Redwall series.

Websites to visit:  Check out some of my other blog posts for specific age level suggestions:

http://departingthetext.blogspot.com/2011/04/options-shining-opportunities-opening.html

http://departingthetext.blogspot.com/2011/04/facial-literacy-orsecuring-social.html

http://departingthetext.blogspot.com/2011/03/kicking-back-bitwhats-all-this-about.html

http://departingthetext.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-jaunt-at-c2e2-2011departing-text.html

http://departingthetext.blogspot.com/2011/03/reading-graphic-novels-and-memory.html 

• Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a great way to learn and experience the world of visual literacy.  For what it's worth, I just love this book.  McCloud shows how print fonts, print size, patterns, colors, facial expressions, designs, ALL influence our processing and understanding of the things around us.

Sites to visit:

• http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html

This site provides an interactive 'periodic table' and I find it MIND BOGGLING that there are so many ways to visually present information.  This is an absolute MUST for teachers to go through.  It will change the way you teach and look at the world.

As a parent - this is a fun site to share with your child - especially before projects.  Brainstorm different ways to visually present information.  It is fun!

•  http://k-8visual.info/

This site is also useful for parents and teachers.  It defines visual literacy, makes book suggestions and has free materials for teachers.

• http://museumca.org/picturethis/visual.html

This site is sponsored by the Oakland Museum of California and discusses why visual literacy is so important, and how parents and teachers can use photographs to better appreciate, understand and develop visual literacy skills.

• http://www.readingart.net/LESSONS

This site has some pretty cool lesson plans on visual literacy using all sorts of materials although most of the lessons are for middle or high school classrooms.

What is your take on all of this?  I am really curious:  Obviously if you're reading this you love blogging - how much thought do you put into the visual aspects of your blogs?  What would you recommend to others?