Contemporary nonfiction for young people plays a crucial role in the reading and writing lives of K-12 students. It is a rich and compelling genre that supports students' development as critically, visually, and informationally literate 21st century thinkers and creators. Unlike many textbooks and materials written for online or print-based school…

An important topic of current brain research is "cognitive overload." It is about the capacity of a person's working memory and the strategies employed when that capacity is taxed. The most common strategy for coping with cognitive overload is shutting down, like that point in a conversation with a non-English speaker when everything one…

A walk down Main Street can be very much like a stroll through a museum gallery--visually rich, inviting unexpected choices, aesthetically rewarding. This article explores the concept of shop windows as visually ordered compositions, much like paintings and other art objects, and suggests some approaches to applying this concept in teaching a…

The Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) curriculum and teaching method uses art to help students think critically, listen attentively, communicate, and collaborate. VTS has been proven to enhance reading, writing, comprehension, and creative and analytical skills among students of all ages. The origins and procedures of the VTS curriculum are…

The perceptual encounter with works of art, after all, is the core of aesthetic experience. How well such encounters succeed for people has to be a central concern of art education. (Author)

Anne Burke and Shelley Stagg Peterson argue that "picture books offer a medium for teaching visual and critical literacy across the curriculum." To support this idea, they describe a multidisciplinary unit on World War II that pushes high school students to utilize visual and print literacies to analyze, comprehend, and relate to public events and…

Describes a film study program to help students open up to the beauty that exists around them. Notes that key ingredients of the program are a linkage between the films shown and the asking of probing questions. (RL)

Synectics is an approach to creative thinking that depends on understanding together that which is apparently different. Its main tool is analogy or metaphor. The approach, which is often used by groups, can help students develop creative responses to problem solving, to retain new information, to assist in generating writing, and to explore…

Suggests a simple, adaptable pattern for teaching the grammar of films and television, i.e., its agreed conventions of vocabulary and syntax. A variety of feature-length films and extracts are listed to illustrate the concepts being taught as well as film distributors and addresses. (MBR)

This paper presents and illustrates a framework for synthesis of research and theory on human characteristics, and relates that framework to the concerns of individuals working in the visual literacy area. The framework presented casts learner characteristics into four general types, derived from two primary dimensions: stability/change and…

Provides topics and activities by which English teachers can make their students visually literate and capable of critical television viewing. (RL)

Advocates instruction in drawing for journalists to promote functional visual literacy. Argues that journalists comfortable with basic drawing will write more vividly, handle layout problems better, and have better relationships with artists and photographers than journalists not comfortable with basic drawing. Offers instructional objectives and…

It is necessary to provide a comprehensive program of visual literacy skill development to provide a firm foundation for reading comprehension. A taxonomy of visual literacy can suggest an outline for such a program. Once the student has been made aware of the desired thought processes in familiar contexts, it is then appropriate to guide the…

Discusses three major theoretical approaches in using feature-length films to teach gender roles: semiological analysis, Marxist analysis, and sociological analysis. For each approach, relevant literature is cited and specific examples of films are given to illustrate some applications of that approach to gender role analysis. (MBR)

Visual literacy contains a vat of underlying understanding that fuses to the bones of students who actively pursue an art education. For everything visible, there is an invisible internal counterpart, and arts education provides vital depth that is currently being drained from Canadian culture. Visual literacy begins with the elements and…