How And Why You Should Teach Visual Literacy

How to teach visual literacy. I cannot in good conscience be a humanities educator and passionate photographer, and now blog about the myriad of resources that are available to teach visual literacy.

Why?

Aside from my own personal affinity, visual literacy is embedded in the Common Core standards for Language Arts ( see this article in Edutopia), and it’s also a crucial for meeting the 21st Century Standards ( see this webinar from ISTE). Knowing how to read images is increasingly important in today’s society where images are all around us. Think of how visually rich our media outlets are, and think of how much information we take away from scanning the headlines and viewing images. Now think of how much wealthier our experience would be if we knew how to analyze and interpret images.

What To Look For

Think back to what you learned in your introductory art class, and you will be able to tell so much from an image. The basic pillars are (a) angle, (b) framing, ©light, (d) focus, (e) composition. Maggie Steber is an accomplished photojournalist who later became an accomplished fine art photographer. Check out Steber’s Instagram feed and analyze her work for the five aspects listed above. You will notice a difference in the style between the journalistic photos and the literary…