Visual Literacy Narrative Revision

Below is my write up of a new assignment I'm trying out for this semester's 1101 portfolio unit. I based this largely on Cynthia Selfe's chapter from Writing New Media, but I've never assigned anything even close to this, so I'd love any feedback or advice you have.

What kind of experiences have you had doing visual essays? What works best? Do you make them all use the same medium? Are there any pitfalls I should be on the lookout for? Where do the students need most help? Are there any other feeder assignments I should add? (I posted the two I'm using below the assignment sheet).

Visual Revision Essay

Inspired by and Adapted from Selfe’s “Toward New Media Texts”

Objectives

· Reflect on your literacy development to discover how your experiences have affected who you are as a reader and/or writer today and to arrive at some insight into literacy that may resonate with audience

· Engage in radical revision to enhance understanding of composing and revising processes

· Explore the possibilities of multi-media rhetoric

Audience: Your classmates (imagined as young scholars interested in literacy) and your instructor.

Assignment: Use your written literacy narrative as a starting point for a visual essay, which you will share with the class in a four- to six-minute presentation. Your goal is to explore your experiences to provide your audience with some insight into literacy. You will also write a short essay to include in your portfolio, reflecting on your essay and the process of creating it.

Format: Your essay can take any number of forms. Be creative and chose a medium that best suits who you are and your current literacy and one that will allow you to both challenge yourself and be proud of your final product. Consider a website, PowerPoint, Prezi, posterboard, scrapbook, or video. Be sure to check class equipment with me before committing to a form that requires special technology.

Your Visual Essay Should…

· Use images to tell the story of your literacy development and how you’ve become the reader and/or writer you are today (some text and audio is okay too, but focus should be on the visual aspect).

· Put your experiences into context by connecting them to larger conversations about literacy and referencing some terms, concepts and scholars from the field.

· Identify two to four major points as particularly important (using strategies to make these points prominent and stand out from other elements: size, color, contrast, placement, etc.).

· Use some pattern of organization to help viewers to comprehend your essay (arrange elements along a timeline, a path, a trail, or some other metaphor that represents your life, separate your computer and your book-based literacies or connect them if they are related).

· Create an overall coherence (elements should be linked by theme, color, shape, arrangement, etc.).

· Demonstrate a high degree of visual impact

· Include at least 15 images in this essay.

· Document the source of each image in an accessible but not visually imposing way.

Presentation: Present a five-minute (4-6 minutes) presentation of your visual essay to the class. You should time your presentation carefully to meet these requirements. The format of your essay will determine your role in the presentation; if you create a video with pre-recorded audio, for example, your role may be just to set it up and press play. If you create a posterboard or scrapbook, however, you will need to talk your readers through the images to help tell the story.

Reflection Essay: Write an MLA-formatted essay that discusses the following issues:

· What were you trying to convey about your literacy development in your visual essay? How have your previous experiences affected your current literacy? What do your experiences suggest about literacy development? What might others learn from your experiences?

· How did you go about completing this task? How closely does your visual essay match your written essay? What sort of changes did you make in your visual revision? What specific revision strategies did you use to revise to a new medium? What was your strategy for organizing your major points and creating visual salience? What specific strategies did you use to create visual coherence?

· What have you learned about literacy, rhetoric, composition and/or revision during this task? How might these ideas help in you other contexts?

Important Resources

Useful Vocabulary: From Kress and Van Leeuwan’s Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (as cited in Selfe)

· Visual Impact: The overall effect and appeal that a visual composition has on an audience.

· Visual Coherence: The extent to which visual elements of a composition are tied together with color, shape, image, lines of sight, theme, etc.

· Visual Salience: Importance or prominence of a visual element.

· Visual Organization: Pattern of arrangement that relates elements of the visual essay to one another in a way that makes them easier for readers/views to comprehend.

Useful Websites

· **Use this page for documenting images: http://guides.boisestate.edu/content.php?pid=86778&sid=645544

· This page provides links to image banks and information about manipulating visuals in PowerPoint: https://www.msu.edu/~eymandou/vr/powerpoint1.html

· This page provides links to information about using PowerPoint in presentations: https://www.msu.edu/~eymandou/vr/powerpoint2.html

· Here’s the URL for Prezi. Click on “Learn” for information on using it and “Explore” to look at examples: http://www.prezi.com

· This website covers the basics of designing websites: http://www.fluffbucket.com/

· This website provides examples of awful web designs so you know what not to do: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/

Grading Criteria

· Visual Essay’s Exploration of and Insight into Literacy Development (20%)

· Overall Visual Impact (10%)

· Visual Coherence (10%)

· Visual Salience (10%)

· Visual Organization (10%)

· Overall Effect of Presentation (10%)

· Documentation of Images/Sources (10%)

· Reflection (20%)

Students will complete feedback forms for after each presentation to practice their evaluation skills.

Visual Essay Presentations will begin Friday 12/3 (three to four presentations). All students should plan to have their visual essays complete by this date. We will continue during the last regular class period, Monday 12/6 (five to six presentations) and finish during the final exam period, Monday 12/13 10:00 AM – 12:50 PM (up to sixteen presentations)

Visual Revision Reflections and assigned planning and workshop materials are due with Portfolio Monday 12/13. See Portfolio Handout for more information.

Selfe, Cynthia. “Toward New Media Texts: Taking Up the Challenges of Visual Literacy.” Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. Wysocki, Anne Frances, et.al. Logan, UT: Utah State UP, 2004. Print. 66-110.

Feeder 1: Visual Presentation Resources Homework

Chose one medium you are thinking of using for your visual essay presentation.

1. Find two websites that discusses how to design in that medium. You may choose these websites from the provided resources, or search and find one of your own. (Note that many of the provided sites are lists of more sites; choose two specific websites from there). Write down the title and URL for each website.

2. Read and explore the websites, looking at their various sections and links. What do the sites identify as characteristics of effective presentations in that mediu? What design elements are most important and how can composers ensure these are used correctly?

3. Now compare the two websites and discuss their effectiveness. Would you recommend one or both of these sites to other students using this medium? Why or why not? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each site?

Be prepared to share what you have learned about effective design in that medium.

Feeder 2: Visual Presentation Planning

Read your literacy narrative and consider which aspects of it you want to explore in your visual essay. Any of your answers below may be inspired by your literacy narrative, class readings, or new invention work.

Remember that you will only have five minutes (six maximum) for your presentation, so you may need to narrow your focus significantly. Rather than trying to say a little bit about all aspects of your literacy development, choose an overall theme about literacy that you feel expresses one important part of your literacy development.

1. Brainstorm a list two or three options for your main theme . Some examples may include the role of literacy in religion, family, state institutions, social, or economic issues; the role of literacy sponsors, computers, video games, social networking in your literacy development; or any other aspect that strikes you as important and worth exploring.

2. Choose one of those themes and write a short paragraph about it: What point about your literacy development do you want to make? How do your experiences connect to larger conversations about literacy and be of interest to literacy scholars?

3. Brainstorm a list four to seven (at least two more than you use for #4) possible points that might develop the above stated theme.

4. Choose two to four of the best points from #3 and brainstorm how you might express each visually. What images, texts, source references could you use?

5. Write for a few minutes about the pros and cons of your top choices for the medium to use and how to present your visual essay to the class. What issues do you need to consider about technical knowledge, materials and supplies, computer programs and software, availability and reliability of classroom technology.