Learning to Read Visuals
For many years, I have been guiding classroom teachers and students from grade 3 through college on how to read visuals. I use materials and strategies from both my own work in classrooms and also from the Toledo Museum of Art.
The Toledo Museum of Art has made visual literacy a focus, so that visitors may experience the artwork more deeply, more personally.
Here is a quote from their website:
"The average person spends 17 seconds looking at a work of art in a museum. It usually takes much less time than that to identify an image. But understanding it? That requires slowing down and taking the time to see the details. This kind of thoughtful, close-looking helps us to see that things are not always as they appear at first glance.
The Art of Seeing Art™ is a process for looking carefully and exploring a work of art on a deeper level. Developed by the Toledo Museum of Art, The Art of Seeing Art™ is a series of six steps—Look, Observe, See, Describe, Analyze, and Interpret (see image on the left)—that you can use when looking at any work of art in the Museum's collection or any image in everyday life."
The Art of Seeing Art™
So how does one teach the "art of seeing"?
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I have the students look at The Art of Seeing Art chart and read Six Steps to Understanding What You See thechart below.
I then ask the students:
(1) When have you used this process?
(2) Why did you use this process?
(3) What was the out come of this process?
(4) What does the dotted green line mean in The Art of Seeing Art chart?
(5) How does using the dotted line in your seeing of art change the outcome?
(6) So if following the chart below, what should you do after you have completed the sixth step (Interpret)? Defend your answer.
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I then introduce the students to the vocabulary of seeing art (see image below). I go through the elements and principles with the students asking them to look around them and see how the elements are present (or not present) in the classroom and how does their presence (or lack of presence) give meaning to their environment.
After doing this, I have taken the students on a walk around the school where they can take photos of their surroundings that depict the elements and principles of art and elaborate on how the elements and principals give meanin to the surroundings.
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The above image is located in the box of Visual Literacy Flash Cards that can be purchased at the Toledo Museum of Art. Go to this link: https://www.tmastore.org/visualliteracy.html then locate Visual Literacy in the dropdown menu on the left. Click and you will see an array of visual literacy materials that will be helpful as you broaden your understanding of visual literacy and begin embedding it in your teaching.
Here is a description of the product:
This box of visual literacy cards are tools to spark close looking,description and interpretation of images. Inside the deck you will find instructions for a few activities to get you started.
I use these cards in the following way:
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I locate art from the museum website that relates to the content that I am teaching (i.e. Ancient Greece, Civil War, the theme of loss or isolation or war, etc.) and create a power point depicting the art (and if available, the information card associated with the particular piece of art).
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I then distribute a variety cards to the students (grouped, or paired or individuals) and have them see the painting according to the their particular element/principle card.
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We then discuss how that particular element/principle gives meaning to the art work. See below for an example from the museum's collection.
Anselm Kiefer (German, born 1945), Athanor.
Oil, acrylic, emulsion, shellac, and straw on photograph, mounted on canvas, 1983–84. Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1994.22
Below are seven of the Visual Literacy Flashcards featuring different kinds of lines (an element of art).
Ask:
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Which of these lines do you see in the picture?
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How do these lines give meaning to the painting?
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After the students have mastered looking at art in light of the elements and principles of art, the next step is to get the students looking at real art either brought to the classroom or better yet, or seen on a field trip to your local art museum. Then follow these steps. It is best to practice this yourself along with the students.
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Find a sketch book, note cards, little notebook: Whatever suits your preference.
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Have a couple of pencils.
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If you feel drawn to a painting or sculpture, read the exhibition label.
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Start sketching the piece of art. While sketching write any words or phrases that come to mind. See image below of my sketchbook when I was "seeing" Athanor.
Below is a poem that I wrote based on Athanor. I sat with the painting for over an hour. I lost track of time. My words in the sketchbook eventually became an Ekphrastic Poem (you may learn more about Ekphrastic poems on the page called Ekphrastic Poetry). Read the poem. Notice how lines became an important part of the story.
Shivers, J., Levenson, C., & Tan, M. (2017). Visual literacy, creativity and the teaching of argument. Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal 15(1), 67-84.
The image to the left depicts the cognitive processes used to write an Ekphrastic Poem. As you can see, using the skills necessary to be visually literate (being able to read and create images) incorporate three of the 21st Century skills (critical thinking, creativity, and communication) necessary to navigate the modern world.
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Finally, once learners are skilled in visually literacy, textbooks may be more meaningful if readers take the time to ponder text features used to enhance (or not enhance) the meaning of the text. Below are some materials that can be used with readers as they preview their reading and evaluate the text features in their textbooks. As a beginning exercise, have the readers look at the handout that lists the various types of text features and explain the purpose of each. Then have them check their explanation with the second handout. Once the purpose of each is clearly understood, the learners can begin to evaluate the quality of the text features. Many learners have found that some of the images in mathbooks are more decorative than meaning enhancing (is that what you have found).
One should ask: Why did the authors place that particular image in that particular position?
