Critical Reading of an Image Used to Improve Student Writing

The following paper was submitted for an Introduction to Visual Studies course I took this semester, in which we were asked to research an area related to visual studies that related to our current practices (literacy specialist student of TC of Columbia U. working in fieldwork placement classrooms in NYCPS). I chose to focus on the incorporation of visual images in the instruction of reading (although my activity was more so geared toward writing) but could be interpreted as work 'reading the world'. (NOTE*** I will have to post the image of the selected art work that was 'read' and the students writing response on the next entry, although his writing has been typed and is included below. Just make sure to scroll to find the images in reference to them as they are mentioned.):



In an article entitled, Improving Student Performance through the Arts, it was written that, “Art is our bridge for bringing seemingly disparate subjects together” (p. 21). This broad sweeping idealist sounding sentence stopped me in my tracks. I wanted to understand the practice. How could someone come to this realization, and after what work? I read on. Such a statement came only after this particular author’s monitoring of research which occurred over a four-year study in Dallas, Texas, consisting of 600+ elementary school students and six teachers, where he concluded that the integrated arts curriculum these students and teachers worked within dramatically advanced overall student achievement (Chapman, 1998). This sparked my thought about how children began to read pictures long before they learned to read words. Knowing this, I wondered, ‘How could I use their existing and newly thought visual literacies to improve their writing?’ And so, the purpose of this paper will be to illustrate the improvement of student writing achievement that can come from the incorporation of visual literacy and images in classroom instruction.
To more extensively understand how students create meaning from all that they read/encounter daily (academically or otherwise), I used Literacy in the Arts from Primary Voices K-6 a monthly publication offered by the National Council of Teachers of English and Peggy Albers work out of the College of Education, Georgia State University, Atlanta. As she examined the role of print and non-print languages in classrooms, as well as what it means to be literate in systems like musical, dramatic, and visual arts. She was interested in how these literacies were impacting instruction, being that teachers were using what they knew about their students current abilities to inform and shape instruction. She reminded me that “meaning is not inherent in the actual object; our brain creates the meaning, or mediates between the object we see and the sense we make of this object” (p. 3). For the purposes of improving my practice as a classroom teacher at the elementary school level, this is a crucial reminder. If meaning isn’t inherent and we all make sense of the world in our own way, how does it make sense to ask students, while in the classroom, to make sense through very narrowed and specific avenues, the traditionally academic literacies: reading and writing.

The notion of multiliteracy instruction may seem too progressive or underdeveloped to many in the field of education (as I type this, multiliteracy, it is not recognized by Microsoft Word as a correctly spelled or existing word. How telling and appropriate), yet I have been convinced that the reconsideration of what ‘literacy’ means for learners in today’s world. John Goodwin, in Teaching Literacy through the Arts leads us to realize that we, as educators, encouraged students to express themselves and understand others in a variety of ways (p. 37). Isn’t it reasonable to expect that this is only possible by encouraging them to use a variety of structures of expression? Students are already constructing meaning as they travel throughout their day, and realistically the majority of this meaning making time is not done while reading print-based text or writing with pencil and paper. Let’s supply them with support to do this work in the classroom as well.

I became interested in incorporating multiliteracy instruction in my classroom and sought additional resources. Duke University’s Writing Studio produced materials designed to supplement classroom instruction in the way I had hoped to be supported. They provided their definition of visual literacy as “how/why visual images communicate meaning” (p. 1). It was my understanding that this literacy was not solely dependent on the design or visual appearance but how images conveyed culture and meaning, and the processes in their entireties that students go through when creating knowledge and responding to the visual images. This was key; like print-based literacy, creating meaning through visuals was process-based as well. I wanted to have students use these visual literacy processes to analyze artwork and account for their experience with the piece through writing, a traditionally academic literacy component. A Short Guide to Writing about Art opens the classroom teachers mind to this idea and presents the notion that “an unanswered question is an essay topic in disguise” (Barnet, 2004).

Before beginning this type of work with students in my classroom, I needed to “stand on the shoulders of those before” (Calkins, 2001) using their work and research related to visual literacy and art incorporation in content areas. It seemed that most educators felt it difficult to figure out how to generate writing assignments that were based off of paintings, photographs, or artwork. I’ve pulled several suggestions from organizations in the field of education that have done extensive research in the effectiveness of the use of visual images to improve academic achievement in content areas such as reading and writing. Indiana University’s School of Library and Information Science suggest ideas to help build visual literacy in the classroom while working within currently established all content area curricula:

• Scan and use pictures that correlate to poems you are teaching.
• Create a slide show of photographs representing the setting or time period of the novel the class is reading.
• Ask students to take a digital camera photograph that represents the setting of a poem such as Robert Frost's Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening.
• Create visual representations for poems, songs, book chapters, or characters.
• Create maps related to novels such as maps of the city of Paris and London when reading A Tale of Two Cities.
• Create political or satirical cartoons related to content in any subject area.
• Use charts, graphs, map and photos to show population growth, weather and traffic patterns, or the spread of disease.
• Create a slide show of historical photographs and ask students to write the narrative for a project on the Civil War, the Holocaust, Labor Movement, or Civil Rights Movement.
• Use visuals from nature in teaching math. In a unit on fractals use the Earth's natural formations such as Grand Canyon, bee hives, and snowflakes.

• There are many ways to incorporate visual elements when studying a novel. For example suggested when reading Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse that teacher might use historical photographs from the time period to better understand the free verse poem.
Motivating Writing in Middle School, a Standards Consensus Series text compiled by The National Council of Teachers of English offered a lesson asking middle schoolers to make use of their time that is typically considered ‘a waste’ by educators and some parents: time spent watching television. The fact of the matter is students spend a tremendous amount of time engaged with media. Teachers need to tap into this as a resource, using the students’ existing literacies to build their academic literacies (reading and writing). The lesson was designed to have students watch a TV program and to write a short paper on it. Students should watch a show then, as I have outlined below, ask themselves questions that help them critically view the program and, in turn, brainstorm ideas for their writing about the show, such as:
• What type of show is it? (comedy, drama, detective, medical, science fiction)

• Where and when is this show taking place?

• Are the characters believable? Are they intended to be?

• Could you understand the action clearly?

• Is the show violent? If so, do you think that the violence is necessary?

• What is your prediction for the success of the series?
o Consider:
• The time period
• What shows came on before or after this program
• What shows are scheduled to air during the same time as this one
• The subject
• The particular audience the program may appeal to
• Reactions of friends, family, public, yourself

• Also consider, (if the show is ‘known’ to be successful) think about what factors make it such a success.

I would chose to modify and build upon this lesson, pushing student thought and work toward story creation, (assuming that instruction about writing narratives has occurred) by having students ‘read’ the TV show investigating about:
• Character relationships observed during the episode/series
• Changes in plot/setting
• Problem/conflict identification
After doing so, student could then use their notes and ‘data collection’ to support them as the created a script, narrative, or story that would be turned into the next episode. This doesn’t need to be specific to television alone. Students can use any media they are engaged by: magazines, newspapers, YouTube, advertisements in the subway, movie trailers in a theater; just adapting the writing for the ‘episode’ they experienced. This is the theme I found to be reoccurring—visual literacy is pulling inspiration from all that students are already experiencing, and using these experiences as a launch pad to leap into writing after ‘reading’ and interpreting them visually.

I chose to create my own assignment that correlated with the resources I had encountered, as well as what work I had witnessed a senior staff developer from Teachers College’s Reading and Writing Project, Cory Gillette, implement during her literacy consultations with public school teachers while working within several New York City public schools in Manhattan and Brooklyn. She supplied the classroom teachers with material on the critically viewing of images. As Cory did in lab sites where she modeled instruction for teachers, I displayed an image (I used Singing Butler by Jack Vettriano, although she chose a different piece of artwork) allowing the students to view the piece absent of any interruption or talk for several moments. I kept the image in all students’ sight for the duration of the exercise. I began with a series of questions that the students were to think about, then jot down their responses to:

Literal Questions:
1. Who is in the picture?
2. What are the physical characteristics?
Determining Importance Questions
3. What is most significant in this image?
4. What is least significant in this image?
Interpretation Questions
5. What do you think the artist's message is?
6. What is the purpose?
7. Who is the intended audience?

I asked that the students keep their notes at hand, and simply ‘free write’ whatever came to mind, in narrative form. If students needed to use a graphic organizing tool, such as an outline or web, to brainstorm or draft how their story may go, that was certainly optional. I also encouraged the creation of additional images, pictures, or sketches that may help them support their visualizations. These particular students have spent time working on envisioning details as they read, and have been taught a unit on the writing of fictional narratives. I was more interested in what type of work could come from the initial viewing of a piece of artwork. Below, a student’s first draft after a 10-minute free write session has been typed, followed by the exhibition of his piece itself:

"Something big and exciting happened and the two people dancing fled to the
beach followed by two of their faithful servants, who, glancing at each other, had
a strong feeling of apprehension as they hurried after the people dancing. A
strong wind came up, making the servants grab their hats and look at the quickly
darkening sky worriedly. As the water rose up around their feet, the two people
dancing ignored it and kept dancing, as if they were under a curse. A light rain
started up, lightning cracked the sky, but the dancing people paid no attention.
Soon the water had risen up to their heels, with no affect. The servants backed
away from the water to more shallow parts. The people dancing kept on dancing,
oblivious to the fact that the water had almost risen to their knees. The servants
backed farther back to dry land. Soon the water had risen up to the people
dancing’s thighs but they paid no attention. The servants glanced worriedly at the
people dancing, now getting a bit scared; for the water had now risen up to the
people dancing waists, and getting higher every second. Soon it was up to their
hips, then their necks, and then, as the servants retreated to the dunes, all they
could make out was the blurry outlines, swaying slightly, one red, the other black."


Reflecting on this student’s piece alone, I was so surprised at the extensiveness at which he was able to create a story with such detail and inference. He built excitement and mystery. He created drama and suspense. He brought the beach alive, lifting it from the image in such a short time. I saw great potential in continuing to incorporate opportunities for students to write their ‘readings’ of art, in their daily instruction. The gasps and groans I heard come from the students when I informed them we must discontinue this work for the day, and move onto another subject gave me the sense that they thoroughly enjoyed the engagement as well, leading me toward thought about incorporating visuals in all of my content areas.
I conclude with Goodman’s (from Teaching Literacy through the Arts) words:
“The written word cannot always carry all the meaning, ideas, and feelings
a person is trying to communicate. Therefore, comprehension of deeper
and higher thought and feelings are often only possible through another art
form” (p. 37).

This investigation into the influence visual arts has on student writing when incorporated in classroom instruction has make me realize that meaning can and is represented in so many varied ways. Ways that lay outside of the traditional thought that ‘reading’ occurs when students encounter print-based material/text. I have compiled a enthusiastic list of resources and lessons that educators interested in utilizing visuals as a tool to influence students’ writing achievement can access, which is of value and directly correlated to my studies here at Teachers College as a Literacy Specialist student of the Curriculum and Teaching Department.


References

Albers, P. (Ed.). (2001). Literacy in the arts. [Monograph/Themed Issue]. Primary Voices K-6, 9 (4). Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Barnet, S. (2004). A short guide to writing about art. New York: Prentice Hall.

Calkins, Lucy. (2001). The Art of Teaching Reading. New York: Addison-
Wesley Publications.

Chapman, R. (1998). Improving Student Performance through Arts. Principal, 77 (4), 20-22.

Fisher, D. & McDonald, N. (2006) Teaching Literacy Through the Arts. New York: Guildford Press.

Visual Rhetoric/Visual Literacy: Writing About Paintings. Retrieved April 6, 2008, from Duke University’s Writing Studio Web site: http://uwp.duke.edu/wstudio/ resources/documents/painting.pdf