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competencies is fundamental to normal human learning” (cited
in International Visual
Literacy Association, no date). In the concise definition of the Visual Literacy Program
of Pomona College, visual literacy “means the skills and learning needed to view visual
and audio-visual
materials skeptically, critically and knowledgably” (Stonehill, no date).
Teaching students to become visually literate implies perceiving video in the classroom
not merely as a conveyor of content knowledge, but also as a learning object productive
of its own visual meanings.
In a study of elementary
students in Australia, Callow (2006) concluded that
students’ intuitive understanding of such visual elements as color, salience and layout
needed to be scaffolded through explicit instruction: while “many
students have some
understanding of visual features, …this is not developed into a richer systematic
understanding, where similar concepts might be transferred to other literacy tasks.” In his
review
of the relevant literature, Callow found a lack of substantial research and
documentation of “both the metalanguage of visual texts and the pedagogy for teaching
about them,” indicating that this is an area where further work is required.
Teaching students to become visually-literate consumers of media also develops
their abilities to produce
their own multimedia objects, literate as both “readers” and
“writers” in a visual language. While historically, research and resources have been more
focused on the development of print literacy, the development of
visual literacy is in fact
a means of supporting more traditionally defined literacy: the application of visual
literacy skills will assist students not only “[to] critique their own visual products, but
also … to interrogate other texts to explore intended audience, purpose,
emotional effect
and ideological positions” (New London Group, cited in Callow, 2006). “Although visual
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literacy is surely
valuable for its own sake, its potential broader ramifications lend
additional urgency to the argument for visual education” (Messaris, 2001).
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