Considers how mapping literary works provides students with a powerful tool for critical analysis. Suggests that educators need to force students to do something different with the text. Notes that the author's solution is to insist that her students visualize the text on paper. (SG)

Deconstruction is a critical literary theory which focuses on the unintentional meanings of a text and aims to achieve an unprejudiced, value-free vision of the social and political power structures in society that combine to produce the text. The development of such critical skills in advertising students will deepen their ability to judge the…

History teachers should be less concerned with having students try to re-experience the past and more concerned with teaching them how to learn from the study of it. Keeping this in mind, teachers should integrate more critical film and television analysis into their history classes, but not in place of reading or at the expense of traditional…

This student workbook provides information about mass media and invites students to consider and respond to that information. Students are encouraged to use reading, writing, researching, critical thinking, interpreting, and debating skills in their responses. The book is organized into 8 chapters: (1) "The World of Media"; (2) "Television: Is…

This paper focuses on the cognitive and social functions of art and the role that art plays in communicating social and personal values. It shows how art criticism can play an important part in the education of all students by fostering critical thinking related to art history, art production, and aesthetics. (Author/JDH)

Focusing on video technology, this discussion of integrating new electronic media into the classroom suggests ways to help students critique and use new visual technologies effectively and to develop visual literacy. (LRW)

One use of television in the two-year college classroom is to help students to deal with inferences. An inferencing exercise that students have generally enjoyed is watching television for a certain length of time at home and taking accurate notes of the commercials. Then, each student pretends to be a space creature who has just landed and seen…

The writing and art program described in this lesson plan has middle school students examine a work of art of their choice to discern purpose, audience, form and function and use transitional and comparative vocabulary to discuss similarities between writing and painting an idea or story. During the three 50-minute lessons, students will…

Argues that educators should train themselves and students to understand and cope with television's power. Describes an inventory of viewing and reading habits, then discusses how three principles of teaching television are expressed in class activities. Outlines a unit that takes students from television as "just entertainment" to active,…

Connecting visual and print literacies in the classroom can bridge distances in students' experiences, because all literacies are complementary and interdependent. This article discusses this rationale for connecting students' communication experiences in and out of classrooms to foster relevant literacies needed in contemporary society. Next it…

Children's visual literacy can be enhanced by focusing their attention on aspects of the natural or built environment in the local community. Two activities use photographs and field trips to provide the building blocks of visual literacy: challenging activities, inquiry and problem solving, curiosity and the unexpected, and culture-based…

Contends that history teachers should help students develop critical viewing and thinking skills about visual images. Discusses the emerging practice of blurring the lines between entertainment and information in television, films, and other visual presentations. Provides two sets of questions to help students analyze documentaries, television…

Visual literacy--an increasingly important skill that has lately been added to the wide range of skills that reading/English teachers are expected to teach--can be coupled with lessons in literary appreciation through the medium of the adolescent novel. Since students participate in a great deal of television viewing, it is as important for them…

Recognizing that students spend more time before the television set than in school, this monograph evaluates television as a potential resource in the teaching of English. The nine articles in the collection (1) discuss the effect of massive television viewing on children in and out of the classroom; (2) examine the students' need to apply…

The inclusion of critical thinking and viewing skills across the curriculum is one way to approach the development of problem solving, which could help develop the kind of students prepared to accept the challenges they face. Using popular media in teaching such skills links critical thinking to life in a way that keeps critical thinking from…