Professional Documents
Culture Documents
INTRODUCTION
For 21st century students, visual images and social media are an integral part of their
language and learning medium. Students communicate and share knowledge through images,
symbols, video and interactive interpretation using a wide range of media from text messages to
snapchat, and video diaries on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to using the World Web as their
textbooks. Although we live in an exciting time of information technology, traditional structured
literacy programs often stifle students motivation to read and learn in an effort to hold on to the
lost art of reading. Visual art has the potential to invigorate and support literacy development for
todays students who are acculturated in a society that learns through the universal language of
images, symbols and icons. This literature review strives to answer the question how can the
imaged based literacy practices of the 21st century learner be integrated into classroom practices
to support critical literacy skills.
To understand how visual arts support critical literacy skills, the current use of visual
images in technology and social media should be analyzed to understand how students today are
using the medium for communication and learning. Prensky (2001) describes todays learners as
digital natives who process information differently and have new thinking patterns. Cramer
(2014) states that an arts-based literacy curriculum that integrates multiple way of knowing helps
students develop creative thinking skills and nourish the imagination. Sweet (1997) pointed out
the possible handicapping effect that a narrow definition of literacy can have on children with
varying competencies. Broadening the definition of literacy to include the representation of
visual and communicative arts can make school relevant across cultures and various
backgrounds. In researching the topic of using images as a cognitive and aesthetic approach for
CONCLUSION
As literacy educators move from the traditional text of novels and standardized testing
passages used in the classroom to the visually dominated text of the internet today, they will need
to be more intentional in their instruction to address new strategies and theories that will be
useful for making sense of multimodal texts (Gillenwater, 2014). Readers need to draw from a
new set of strategies, vocabularies and processes for interpreting the visually dominated texts
used to communicate and make sense of their world. Using the perspectives of visual art theory,
Avgerinou, M. D., & Pettersson, R. (2011). Toward a cohesive theory of visual literacy. Journal
of Visual Literacy, 30(2), 1.
Booker, K. (2012). Using picturebooks to empower and inspire readers and writers in the upper
primary classroom. Literacy Learning: The Middle Years,20(2), i.
Cramer, N. (2014). Supporting Literacy Through the Visual and Communicative Arts: Building
Momentum in Literacy for 21 st Century Digital Learners. Texas Association for Literacy
Education Association Yearbook, 62.
Gillenwater, C. (2014). Reading Images: The Phenomenon of Intertextuality and How it May
Contribute to Developing Visual Literacy with Advanced Placement English/Language
Arts Students. Journal of Ethnographic & Qualitative Research, 8(2), 251-263.
Harste, J. C. (2014). The Art of Learning to Be Critically Literate. Language Arts, 92(2), 90-102
Hattwig, D., Bussert, K., Medaille, A., & Burgess, J. (2013). Visual literacy standards in higher
education: New opportunities for libraries and student learning. portal: Libraries and the
Academy, 13(1), 61-89
Messaris, P. (2012). Visual literacy in the digital age. Review of Communication, 12(2), 101117.
Millard, E., & Marsh, J. (2001). Words with pictures: The role of visual literacy in writing and its
implication for schooling. Reading, 35(2), 54-61.
Myers, J., & Beach, R. (2001). Hypermedia Authoring as Critical Literacy. Journal of
Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 44(6), 538-547.
Nikolajeva, M. (2003). Verbal and visual literacy: The role of picturebooks in the reading
experience of young children. Handbook of early childhood literacy, 235-248.
O'Neil, K. E. (2011). Reading pictures: Developing visual literacy for greater
comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 65(3), 214-223.