The New Text: Teaching Visual Literacy in the English Language Arts Classroom
This dissertation was written for a graduate project originally completed in the Spring of 2020.
Master’s Project Question:
What will happen if I meaningfully integrate visual literacy into the English language arts curriculum?
Rationale:
My rationale for this project is, I’m afraid, quite simple. ‘I love visual texts. I have been making movies since 12. For sixth, seventh and eighth grades, my middle school had us compete in the Chicago History Fair. For these projects, I created overly elaborate documentaries with green screens, location shoots, and poorly acted recreations, all edited on old Dell laptop that was entirely ill-suited for the job. Initially these Byzantine decisions were done at the suggestion of my ‘helicopter parent’ father who insisted that these things would all be easy when they were, in fact, quite the opposite. Nevertheless, by the time I reached eighth grade, I began to cherish the torture I endured to make these projects, and my documentary that year ended up giving me. (Plus, and on the History and Legacy of the Chicago Blues nagged me both city and state championships, which served as a welcome confidence boost.) However, these were always school projects, just done in an extraordinarily labyrinthine way.
The summer before I started high school, though, I enrolled in a summer playwriting course at the Biograph theater and wrote my first narrative script. From then on, I was hooked. I continued writing plays and shooting movies throughout high school. As an undergraduate at Northwestern, I majored in Radio/Television/Film and earned a special certificate in advanced directing and its corresponding grant in my senior year. I do not mention these things to brag but to establish credibility and interest. I love film, be it arthouse cinema or blow-it-up blockbuster.
So, when I began taking education courses, I began to reflect on how film was taught in school, at first, just in my life, but this soon spread to a desire to understand how all visual literacy is handled around the world, inspired in part by a 2018 research project on the impact of new media on adolescent development (Longmore & Lubell, 2018). I began asking around and doing some informal research as to whether my experiences were unique, which confirmed my suspicion. I had a belief — one solely emanating from my own experiences — that visual texts were either looked down upon by the literary world or that educators believed they were a tool used to get a better understanding of a written text. For instance, the most common experience I heard consisted of classes watching a film adaptation of the book they had just read for the sole purpose of comparing it to said book. This response irked me because such a decision means that they believe the film alone does not stand on its own.
This very narrative became even clearer to me during my first year of graduate school. In an English course, we were assigned to read Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, a difficult novella that bored everyone to tears and resulting in some students to abandon the book midway through out of frustration. After we read and discussed it though, my professor put on the 1962 film version, and everyone was hooked. Moreover, our professor, who had no formal film background, was able to make brilliant commentary on the film’s visual decisions, so I knew she was aware of the care that went into the project. “So why,” I wondered aloud, “read the book? The movie is a more engaging and thematically richer text.” “I understand, but isn’t it so much more powerful to read it, to feel the prose?” No, it isn’t, and I love to read.
Consequently, when the time came for us to choose our topic, there was really only one answer on my mind: I need to see how visual literacy is taught, both in America and around the globe. When this project began, I was hoping to gather evidence and strategies so that I might work towards a definitive way or list of ways on how to teach film. This paper was to have operated almost like an instruction guide. In reality, I deviated from this strategy rather fast though as it became clear that gathering such a list would be a herculean task. Additionally, I found I was more interested in educator’s perspectives on visual literacy than the specific instructional tasks they used.
Literature Review
“Change occurs with lightning rapidity in the photoplay world” (Griffith, 1921, p. 31).
Literature Review Introduction
Visual images and media are omnipresent (B. Burnham, 2018; Gilbert, 2013). Now is the time to finally embrace visual and media literacy into the academic curriculum in America (Gallagher, 1988; Jolly, 1998).
This research related to my masters’ project question can be broken down into three domains, though some texts may be referenced in multiple domains. First, I ask, “Are visual texts literature?” For, if I am trying to ascertain how to use visual literacy in a meaningful way in the English language arts (ELA) classroom, then we must determine whether this ‘literacy’ should be considered alongside the textual literacy we associate with traditional literacy as a part of the ELA curriculum, or if visual literacy belongs in the art classroom instead? The second domain, “What is visual literacy?”, seeks to define visual literacy and related terms such as media and digital literacy. The third domain will explore the need for and practice of teaching visual and media literacy in the ELA classroom. Here, we will first look at why visual literacy is so important for students to understand and look at ways to use visual literacy in the ELA curriculum. Finally, we will examine some of the different studies of this practice from around the world and their findings.
Before continuing with this review, I must acknowledge the uncontestable reality that visual texts are being taught all over the globe in the context of literature, often in ELA classrooms. This statement is not meant to end the discussion on the matter though. This fact merely describes a reality and does not necessarily mean that this is how visual texts should be taught. Additionally, I will state that, for the purposes of this discussion, I am not considering purely visual works (i.e., paintings, drawings, sculpture, etc.), though one could certainly make the argument to do so. Rather, I am referring to visual literature as moving image media (film, television, video, commercials, etc.), political cartoons, comics/graphic novels, posters, and other such media, usually combining visual images with text/words (written or spoken) and/or storytelling (Hobbs et al., 2019, p. 6). In particular, I shall focus on moving image media and graphic novels, as these are the areas with the most academic literature and because they display the greatest degree of multiliteracy. However, much of the information regarding moving images and graphic novels also apply to other forms of visual and media literacy.
Domain 1 — Are Visual Texts Literature?
No citation is necessary to claim that visual texts like film and comics have been accepted by Western society and beyond as legitimate forms of expression. Additionally, the mere existence of The Journal of Visual Literacy, a peer-reviewed publication that has been running for decades, clearly proves the term ‘visual literacy’ does exist and warrants study. However, visual texts (as defined above) contain elements of both traditional literary forms and artistic visuals. This dichotomy begs the question however, do visual texts belong in the English classroom or in the art department? In other words, just because we call a field ‘visual literacy’, does that mean that literature can be visual?
There is no simple answer to the question, and it has been debated for decades. Stecker (1996), holding a common view, states that a work w is literature if and only if w is produced in a ‘linguistic medium’ (a term of ambiguous meaning). He cites novels, short stories, tales, poetry, and drama by name, but does not explicitly omit works with a visual element (Stecker, 1996, p. 694). To the contrary, by including ‘drama’, he forfeits the conceit that a work may be presented in a non-textual way, as plays may be both read and produced. Indeed, many dramatic works such as the plays of Shakespeare are considered part of the literary canon (Bomer, 2011, p. 73). However, Stecker (1996) also writes that w must possess significant aesthetic, cognitive, or interpretive value, and be written with enough technical skill to take that intention seriously (p. 694). For those of Stecker’s ilk, for a text to be considered ‘literature’, it must not just exist, but be of a certain value, be written by a great ‘literary person’, and abide by an institutional framework of conventions and standards (A. Burnham, 1997; Stecker, 1996, p. 685). However, Stecker (1996) does admit that this leaves room for ‘grey areas’ and ‘borderline cases’ (p. 694). However, Stecker never addresses film, likely as he does not believe that visuals have a place within the institution of literature (Oppold, 2013).
Similarly, many consider visual texts as lesser works than traditional texts. A. Burnham (1997) complains that film and television have begun to overtake traditional texts, who writes that we are plunging recklessly into the 21st century; students are obsessed with movies and, consequently, “appreciation of literature” is at an all-time low. Clearly, A. Burnham, too, believes that cinema is not worthy of being enshrined in the bounds of Literature the institution (A. Burnham, 1997). Much of the holdouts’ reasoning for disregarding non-printed texts comes down to tradition. Historically, literacy has been defined as the ability to read and understand the written/printed word, and more recently, the ability to produce texts of that nature of one’s own (Malmelin, 2010, p. 130–131). There is nothing inherently unique though between this type of understanding and the nature of the printed word. Indeed, the most common reason for dismissing visual texts usually comes down to some form of bibliophilia — a love of books and the institution they represent (Oppold, 2013).
However, visual texts have been gaining acceptance within the confines of literature for years. Films are now stocked and shown in libraries, and graphic novels have graduated to the adult literature sections of bookstores (Hobbs, Deslauriers, & Steager, 2019, p. 2–3; Lačňáková, 2015). Oppold (2013) argues that film should be accepted by the literary community as it is so similar to theater, both in procedure and effect. However, Oppold doesn’t argue that we should teach visual analysis, but that film should be taught the way we teach drama in an ELA classroom. We read play scripts from William Shakespeare and Lorraine Hansberry, so why not screenplays?
Others, meanwhile, goes much further. Bomer (2011) argues that there is too much focus on the idea of literary merit; instead, he argues for everything from poems and novels to movies and TV commercials to be considered literature (p. 73). Gilbert Seldes argued in 1960 that motion pictures vastly increased opportunities for literary experiences (Forsdale & Forsdale, 1970, p. 263). Some, like A. Burnham (1997), may consider this acceptance radical, but reading visual texts analytically as literature for over a century. Robert Mattuck (1949) created a class on ‘visual literature’ at Goddard College of Plainfield, VT, and wrote that he wanted to create an awareness of film language, believing that film should be considered a branch of literature (p. 162). In fact, librarians have been using film programming since before World War I (Hobbs et al., 2019, p. 224). Consequently, there is growing support for film to be taught in the English classroom (Gallagher, 1988). The addition of visual texts in ELA classrooms has been mandated universally across Australia (Callow, 2008). As Bomer (2011) notes wisely, that what is a text is constantly changing, so shouldn’t we change with the times? After all, we read for stories that move us, not for the physical format (Oppold, 2013).
To counter A. Burnham (1997), if we consider visual texts literature, America has never been as obsessed with literature as we are now (Gilbert, 2013). I, myself, holding a degree in film, believe that we should include visual literacy in the English classroom. We should treat films like a book only allowing visual analysis to replace the linguistic analysis performed on traditional texts.
Domain 2 — What is Visual Literacy?
“[Visual literacy is] Understanding and communicating through visual mediums.” (Student 7A)[1]
Next, we must ask ourselves if we are teaching the text solely for story, as an equivalent to drama, as Oppold would recommend, or if these texts should be treated differently? Visual literature has characteristics unique from other mediums, many of them have equivalents to the traditional writer’s techniques, others without. While we often will analyze and compare books to determine what makes the writing most effective, we rarely do so for a movie (Forsdale & Forsdale, 1970; Gallagher, 1988; Mattuck, 1949). This type of analysis and understanding in visual literature is known as visual literacy. Furthermore, Furthermore, Argerinou & Pettersson (2011) argue that visual literacy is the learned ability to interpret visuals accurately and create such messages; this combination of interpretation and creation mirrors that of reading and writing in print literacy (p. 6–7). Similarly, Malmelin (2010) describes all literacy as one’s ability to understand different types of signs and semiotic systems, and to produce different types of messages using said systems (p. 131). Indeed, visual literacy is inextricable from semiotics and reading theory (Callow, 2008, p. 617).
Forsdale & Forsdale (1970) write that everyone needs to be taught how to interpret film. Namely, they argue that it is necessary to perform close reading (i.e., the act of dissecting and critically analyzing literature carefully and completely) on film, and treat it as though it were a traditional text to fully understand its meaning (Forsdale & Forsdale, 1970, p. 272). This close reading (or, ‘micro-skills’) of visual analysis such as misé-en-scene, foregrounding, camera movements, etc. will bring film and literature closer together (Gallagher, 1988, p. 58).
Many forms of visual media have components that are unique to their medium, and understanding them holds the key to visual literacy. One such element is visual editing (Literacy: Using Archive Film, 2010; Mattuck, 1949; McCloud, 1993; Thompson & Bordwell, 2010). For example, Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov filmed a man in staring directly into the camera then cut to a shot of a plate of soup. When asked what the man was feeling, audiences responded ‘hunger’. When Kuleshov substitutes the soup for a girl in a coffin, audiences interpreted the man’s expression as grief; when the girl was swapped for a sexy woman, the man came off as lustful. Kuleshov’s experiment showed that people generate emotional associations from the intercutting of two images, a correlation now known as ‘the Kuleshov effect’ (Thompson & Bordwell, 2010, p. 108–109). The Kuleshov effect is also true for graphic novels, as well, and the way that panels and pages are arranged and displayed are among the central principles of comic book creation (McCloud, 1993). Understanding these types of devices, whether you can name them or not, are essential to being able to close read visual literature (Boyd & Dobrow, 2011; Callow, 2008; McCloud, 1993).
Of course, we cannot talk about visual literacy without discussing its siblings, digital literacy and media literacy. Digital literacy (also called web literacy) refers to the competencies needed for meaningful usage of the internet and social medias, in addition to other purely digital technology, while media literacy describes the practice of critically analyzing mass media and creating messages for said media, which can come in a variety of forms (Hobbs et al., 2019, p. 4–5). Media literacy also includes understanding of news media and journalism, as well as advertisements (Boyd & Dobrow, 2011, p. 251; Malmelin, 2010). Media literacy often overlaps with other forms of literacies, especially visual and print literacy. However, it should be noted that there is a great deal of fluidity in the terminology of literacies, and they are constantly changing and being subdivided (Hobbs et al., 2019, p. 6). For instance, Malmelin (2010) broke down ‘advertising literacy into four sub-literacies: visual/aesthetic, informational, rhetorical, and promotional; Malmelin did explain what each of these are, but ultimately, they are just different subdivisions of broader categories of literacy. Indeed, one can distinguish a nearly infinite range of literacies if one was so inclined (Malmelin, 2010, p. 131). As result, we will only referring to visual and media literacy skills, with literacies such as advertising, web/internet, and promotional (among others) being understood as sub-literacies within those categories as they commonly are understood (Alvermann & Eakle, 2003; Bomer, 2011; Hobbs et al., 2019)
Domain 3 — The Need for and Practice of Teaching Visual Literacy in the ELA Classroom
The age of visual literature has arrived (Gallagher, 1988, p. 58). We, as a Western society, used to spend large amounts of time reading. Reading was our primary mode of non-oral storytelling. With the advent of radio and visual literature, however, that began to change (Hobbs et al., 2019; Thompson & Bordwell, 2010). Today, technology is everywhere. Students live lives overwhelmed by images. They are bombarded by still images printed in newspapers, emblazed on clothes, displayed in textbooks, projected online, etc.(Gilbert, 2013, p. 89). They watch moving images, look at memes, zealously check social medias, read comics and magazines, etc. (B. Burnham, 2018; Gilbert, 2013, p. 89–90). Moreover, much of the most important information they receive as citizens is displayed on the news, itself always media and often visual (Boyd & Dobrow, 2011). Consequently, there is now near unanimous agreement nowadays that visual literature is not to be ignored.
Educators already use these resources all the time but truly teaching kids how to interact with this material (Gilbert, 2013; Jolly, 1998). Hobbs et al. (2019), for instance, write that films are screened in most libraries across America, few librarians think about these screenings as educational opportunities, using them blindly as way to increase their end-of-year attendance tally (p. 16). Similarly, Jolly (1998) reports that teachers use movies as classroom fillers; they are things to be shown to allow the instructor to relax or finish paperwork. Such problems are the result of educators ignoring the importance of a visual literature’s visual nature and associated skills. We must encourage the multimodality and multiliteracies associated with showing visual texts (Callow, 2008). Otherwise, we will be ignoring many of the creators’ most important creative decisions, and these texts will likely fail to meet the institutional standard of Stecker (1996) and A. Burnham (1997).
Gilbert (2013) examines the importance of teaching visual literacy in the English language arts classroom using two examples to prove his broader thesis. He uses two magazine covers to show the importance of understanding how to critique such images — one from Ebony and another from GQ. In doing so, he sidesteps to allow himself to delve into the problem with visual media education: viewers (and their educators) give little thought that goes into, “the analogical nature of visual literacy or its metaphoric force” (Gilbert, 2013, p. 90). Both articles, as Gilbert (2013) frames them, relate to racial politics and the presentation of whiteness VS blackness; without an understanding of visual literacy, one would not be able to figure out the sociocultural power of these images, seeing only two photographs instead.
Visual and traditional literature share many elements with one another. Consequently, visual literacy skills also correlate to greater literacy skills overall (Gillenwater, 2014). The UK Department of Education promotes (via a teacher instruction video) the use of archive (i.e., very old) film to teach students aspects of narrative, delving into both aspects of visual literacy, such as shot composition, and overall (narrative) literacy, examining setting, character, and, ultimately, narrative structure. The teacher of this lesson uses the visual literacy understanding that the students acquire to enhance their knowledge of all narrative literature (Literacy: Using Archive Film, 2010). Jolly (1998) concurs and recommends using visual literacy and literature to support the work already happening in the classroom. She uses The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963) as an example, writing that we are introduced to the protagonist, antagonist, conflict, setting, and more, thereby enhancing students understanding of these terms for use in any piece of literature. Teaching the parallels between print and visual literature, students may become better readers, as well (Jolly, 1998, p. 5–6). Moreover, as many of these elements are important in any kind of narrative writing, it only makes sense that visual literature will become much more important to the teaching of writing (Gallagher, 1988, p. 59).
Gillenwater (2014) uses a phenomenological case study to examine intertextuality between visual literatures and traditional texts. He is particularly interested in whether greater aptitude in print literacy translates to similar gains in visual literacy. Gillenwater (2014) uses graphic novel Daredevil: Born Again (1986–1987) by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli as his primary research text. Set in seven different grade 12 AP courses in a rural Kentucky town taught by a veteran teacher, Mr. Ryan [pseudonym]. This study used in-depth semi-structured interviews, observations, and structured think-alouds as the basis for this test, utilizing a constant comparative method. Ultimately, the findings showed that that students’ considerable traditional literacy skills are transferable to visual literature (Gillenwater, 2014, p. 258). This transference was made possible by the intertextuality between literatures. Mr. Ryan told the students that they should read Daredevil, “…the same as a book, left to right, unless there are arrows indicating what path your eyes should follow”. Likewise, Mr. Ryan made sure to emphasize that there are both words and pictures; ignoring either one means that you are not getting the full picture (Gillenwater, 2014, p. 259–260).
Another reason to teach visual and media literacy stems from its comparative readability despite complex themes. Many believed, falsely, that basic visual literacy was innate. (In reality, it is learned before one gains verbal language abilities, and the degree to which they learn it may be result from richness and diversity one interacts with (Avgerinon & Pettersson, 2011; Forsdale & Forsdale, 1970, p. 263–264).) The existence of this belief supports the idea that it is easy for students to pick up on visual images and already performs some degree of interpretation of them. Indeed, Jolly (1998) writes of showing a film that students come to the classroom with an almost innate knowledge of a directors’ intentions (p. 5). This seemingly innate knowledge means that complex themes and emotions of a text expressed in graphic novels like Daredevil: Born Again can be fully discussed without the difficulty of traditional texts of merit such as Shakespeare. For instance, Gillenwater (2014) observed that students are able to interpret character’s emotions and characterizations from even a single glance. Furthermore, students were able to grasp many of the visual conventions, such as characters with a less detailed rendering being easy for a reader to identify with, without knowing it (Gillenwater, 2014, p. 260; McCloud, 1993).
These findings have been supported by educators all over the world (Callow, 2008; Forsdale & Forsdale, 1970; Soto-Sanfiel et al., 2018). Writing from Australia, Callow (2008) emphasizes the importance of blending traditional and visual literacies, as well as some others in ELA education. In particular, he discusses how he emphasized artistic elements of a work when educating a class of third-grade students. Callow (2008) writes that modern texts often use more than one mode: often, these are visual and written, however audio is also a common inclusion (audio is often included in the understandings of film/moving image literacy) (Gallagher, 1988; Thompson & Bordwell, 2010). Callow (2008) encourages critics of nontraditional literature to evaluate a work on three ways: the affectual (how does the work affect you?), compositional (how is a work composed? What does it look like?), and critical (why was it created as it is? What do these decisions mean about a piece?). Additionally, he agrees with the Queensland Education Department that all assessment of multiple literacy environments need to be embedded within authentic tasks (Callow, 2008, p. 618–620). This emphasis on authentic tasks is meant accomplish the second half of Malmelin’s (2010) definition of literature: you have to be able to create messages of your own in a given media. Moreover, with so much media everywhere you look, it only makes sense to fit media/visual literacy education into the world around you; doing so encourages students to be aware media around them and become a more engaged citizen, and may even help with cultural identification (Boyd & Dobrow, 2011; Callow, 2008; Soto-Sanfiel et al., 2018).
Literature Review Conclusion
In summation, we have discussed whether visual literature belongs in the ELA classroom and if it gets to be called literature. We have reviewed multiple definitions and understandings of visual literacy, as well as discussed the nature of other non-traditional literacies. We examined the need for visual and media literacy education in American schools, and then, looked at multiple case studies from multiple countries of visual literacy being used effectively and what their usage was able to inspire in students. For, as I have shown, we are living in a time dominated by media and visual experiences; one could argue that they are dominating our daily lives (B. Burnham, 2018). However, while we have largely begun accepting these non-traditional texts into the academic space, most educators do not know what to do with them. As a result, they are often treated as filler; when they are not, educators usually try to ‘normalize’ them in an attempt to make them fit the institutional idea of worthy literature, by treating them like print texts. However, in doing so, these multiliterary works have been stripped of their most essential parts. While there are certainly exceptions, especially at the college level, few American ELA classes at the secondary level are able to slip true visual analysis into a curriculum (Alvermann & Eakle, 2003; A. Burnham, 1997; Jolly, 1998). What little that has gotten through is usually funneled through one of only a few procedures. (The teaching of a graphic novel in secondary education is being held up almost exclusively by Scott McCloud’s graphic textbooks (Gillenwater, 2014; McCloud, 1993).) As such, it is time that we accept the challenge and begin teaching students about visual literacy.
Contextualization and Statement of Ethics
School and Class Context
The data collected for this project was acquired during my student teaching experience which began on 3 September 2019. The school is a selective enrollment college preparatory high school in Illinois. During my time at this school, I taught both American literature to sophomores and world literature to seniors, however, all three of my data sets come from my senior class, so I shall focus on them. My seniors were split between two blocks — Block 1 and Block 5 — totaling 32 and 36 students respectively. As this school was a selective enrollment institution, each block features a wide variety of socioeconomic statuses, including students living in poverty. Similarly, the school was remarkably diverse, with White and Hispanic students making up over 60% of the school’s student body in roughly equal proportion: as seen in fig. 1, according to GoCPS[2], 20% of the school identified as Asian, 7% as black, and the remaining 12% as other or mixed race (2019). As such, this school takes great care to protect and provide for each student to the best of their abilities. Additionally, all of the students who attend this school were accepted due to their middle school grades, standardized test scores, and a high school entrance exam. Getting into this school is very difficult. As such, all of my students were extremely intelligent and nearly all were extraordinarily motivated. Nevertheless, kids are kids, so while they may have been better behaved than students at other schools, were still issues; namely, there were frequent instances of late and/or missing assignments as well as one case of borderline truancy from one student in my Block 5 section and a couple students who were “…done with high school” — a result that made itself apparent on their written work despite consistent participation in class.
Also of note is the remarkably confusing schedule this school abides by. As seen in Fig. 2 [2], blocks 1 and 5 are only taught two days each week in 100-minute periods without a break. Wednesdays are devoted to non-academic courses and study halls, a unique system which works primarily due to the tenacity of the superbly motivated students this school attracts. However, it is noteworthy that I only got to see each student twice a week and that there were no regular gatherings outside of the classroom I could see them in.
Lastly, this school gives each of its students a Chromebook for the duration of their high school careers. These computers can connect and offer access to the internet unimpeded. However, when connected to the school wifi, some websites including social media, YouTube, and video streaming sites (e.g., Netflix, Hulu, etc.) are blocked, though students can (and do) access these sites by circumventing the school network, connecting instead directly to their smartphone’s personal hotspot, or by using a VPN (virtual private network).
Existentialism Unit
In World Literature, I taught a unit on existentialism. In this unit, we looked a diverse array of texts from all over the world. The centerpiece texts, Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit (France) and Albert Camus’s “The Myth of Sisyphus” (France/Algeria) were chosen for me. However, I was given the opportunity to select the rest of texts, including Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (Czech Republic/Germany), Octavio Paz’s “The Dialectic of Solitude” (Mexico), and Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman (Ireland), among others. However, because I was investigating visual literacy and due to my experience in the field, I was also afforded the opportunity to include visual texts alongside said texts, including Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru (Japan), Alejeandro G. Iñárritu’s Birdman: or, the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (Mexico/USA), and “The Enigma of the Amigara Fault” from Junji Ito’s manga collection Gyo (Japan). This work was treated as any other written text, however, I did use these visual literatures to help prepare the students for their No Exit project, which I shall discuss later. Consequently, the unit became somewhat dual-purposed as both a visual literacy primer and a survey course of existential literature from around the globe. This unit was taught to both sections of my senior class.
COVID-19 Global Pandemic and Teacher’s Strike
My time with the students overlapped with the Coronavirus global pandemic. The outbreak forced the closure of all city schools just two days prior to what was supposed to be my last. While this interruption does not affect the data, it is important to note that the coronavirus had been slinking through the country for weeks prior to the school’s closure and was weighing heavy on the students minds. My mentor and I even hosted daily town halls on the virus — what it would mean for them and how they should care for themselves and their families during this time of strife. Though some data set 1 had been collected early in 2020, data sets 2 and 3 were collected in March, with some work coming in after school had already been let out. Most late scores were excused for this reason. This event means that students may not have performed as well as they may have otherwise as a result of the emotional toll and uncertainty that the pandemic had beset upon them. Furthermore, that fall, a teacher’s union strike lasted from October 17–31. These incidents, compounded by the annual senioritis that comes just after students receive their college admission letters just weeks prior to the COVID-19 shutdown, made it especially difficult for students to maintain their academic focus.
Ethics Statement
Throughout my six months at this school, I maintained clear communication regarding exactly what I was doing, what kind of data I would be collecting, and what information I would be sharing and to whom it would be shared. I repeated this information throughout my time with them and always made sure to offer time for questions. Moreover, I used exit tickets as early as November 2019 to ensure that no student had any qualms outside of an all-class discussion to protect against peer pressure forcing them to ignore their concerns. Each student was given a release form to either sign themselves or have a parent/guardian/responsible adult sign on their behalf (depending on whether or not they were under 18) back in October. Due to the aforementioned teacher’s strike, it took weeks to receive each student’s form, but eventually, they were all returned signed. All students remain anonymous throughout this paper.
Student Identification Key
As mentioned above, no student is referred to be name in this dissertation. So, to identify students, I anonymized their identities through a numbering system. Their numbers (1–32/1–36) refer to reflect alphabetical order of students’ surnames (and forename for those with the same surname). Students are further divided by section. Students in Block 1 have the letter ‘A’ after their representational number, while numbers from Block 5 feature a ‘B’. For example, ‘student 21A’ refers to a student in Block 1 ranking the 21st in the class alphabetically.
What is Blocking?
Below, I repeatedly mention the term ‘blocking’ so I feel obliged to explain what that means. Corrigan & White (2012) define blocking as, “the planning of actors’ movements on the set” (pp. 27). This is a good working definition though they simplify the concept by only referencing the set; a fuller definition also must identify that a director also plans how actors move in relation to each other and the camera as well (Corrigan & White, 2012; Katz, 2004). The famed Russian acting theorist Konstantin Stanislavski (2008) refers to this choreography as a “dance” which does much of the storytelling, a position seconded by many other actors and directors (Bogdanovich, 1997). Understanding blocking is critical to visual literacy. With other elements of film, purposes can be rote. For instance, if a character is lit from below in a dark space, it is most likely to intimidate us; hooting down at a character is often done to make them look weak; energetic music is most likely there to add drama to an action sequence. These are things you can easily Google. But film blocking is not like any other element of visual analysis as it must be taken on a case-by-case basis (Bogdanovich, 1997; Katz, 2004). When I set out to teach visual literacy, I had decided that I would avoid cramming technical definitions into students; heads, and I wanted to do the same here. However, blocking is a term for which there is no substitute and it is of particular importance here as it represents the centerpiece of their primary visual literacy assessment: the No Exit blocking project (see below), which is also the cornerstone of both data sets 2 and 3.
Data Summary and Interpretation
Data Overview
My first data set was a student survey on students’ media experiences. The survey was long — 14 questions. I decided to look carefully at a handful of these questions. Namely, I was interested in a) how much they watch video content online, b) gauging their familiarity with comics and graphic novels/short stories, c) whether they have previously analyzed film before in an academic setting, and d) whether they had produced a video before in any capacity beyond social media. Additionally, I was curious whether there would be any correlation between any of these answers and students’ gender identity. This data was acquired through a Google Form. I also utilized supplemental data from to one exit ticket question (again, administered through Google Forms) from my sophomore classes months earlier to identify the degree to which film and television content was available and accessible to students at this diverse school. This data set was designed to gauge the degree of understanding, universality, and accessibility of the visual literature amongst our class’s diverse population.
My second data set looks at student work. Namely, I analyzed the results of my Block 5 students’ big No Exit blocking project paper (see below). In doing so, I gathered and standardized the results of each paper through the frame of the rubric criteria to gain greater insight into student understanding and application of visual literacy skills. Additionally, I cited quotes and referenced evidence from a handful of student papers to showcase the methodology of this coding system.
My final data set looks at the students’ insight accounts of their No Exit blocking project. This information, like data set 1, was also ascertained through a Google Form, but in no way resembles a survey. Rather, this form sought to identify what students had learned and how they had learned it in order to better understand how to improve upon my own teaching practice and, hopefully, those of others curious to learn. As with data set 2, data set 3 only looks at my Block 5 section. This specificity was deliberately done. While I hesitated to reduce my sample size, ultimately, there were differences in how I taught Block 1 certain things. So, for the sake of consistency and to make my data as meaningful as possible, I chose to use only one section’s data for this dissertation, though in both cases, the results were within the a statistical margin of error.
Data Set 1 — Media Experience Survey
This data set concerns four pieces of information from a survey of students at the beginning of winter quarter. This survey was used to establish students’ visual media experiences only 28 of the 32 students completed and submitted the survey in Block 1, while Block 5 only saw 30 responses out of 36 students, meaning 87.5% and 83% of students respectively.
Of the students who responded, the gender breakdown (as achieved through self-identification) is as follows. In Block 1, 15 students identified male (54%) while 13 identified female (46%) (as did all four students that did not respond). In Block 5, 11 (37%) students identified male, 18 (60%) identified as female, and 1 (3%) identified as gender non-binary. In total, as pictured in Fig. 3, this means that my sample included 58 students: 26 male (45%), 31 female (53%), and 1 gender non-binary (2%).
The first question asked was an inquiry into how often students engage with visual media. Though this question was split between different forms of visual media (film, television, internet videos, etc.), only one of these results was astounding of special import. When asked how often they watch internet videos, which may include YouTube, Vimeo, Tictoc, Instagram, etc. (pornography was not a possible source of video content though this, too, may have been included), every student responded that they engaged with this category of media every day. One student (male) even responded that he spent eight hours a day watching these types of videos. While this number may have been an exaggeration or even just an outlier, it speaks to a greater truth. Students nowadays are obsessed with internet videos. They live and breathe this content. As teachers, it is critical we must not undervalue or underestimate its importance in our students’ lives. Additionally, there was no divide by gender among respondents, nor was it affected by any other variable. This result is as conclusive as it gets.
After analyzing this data, I was reminded of the results from a combined survey/exit ticket I had given in early November to my sophomore classes (n=55 with a similar degree of diversity). During a discussion of the puritans, we watched a clip from Robert Eggers’ The Witch: A New-England Folktale (2015). Before allowing them to analyze clips in groups, I gave out a survey to gauge various factors, but the relevant question asked them to tell report how easy it was for them to access the film on Netflix (where The Witch was hosted). Some students said that it would be hard to access the film on their own as they are not Netflix subscribers, but nearly everyone did, and those who did not still had access to YouTube (when off the school wifi), which allowed us to do the activity unimpeded since not everyone would need to be watching the film on their own computer, but could instead gather around a group mate’s Chromebook. This data informed my practice when it came time to work on visual literacy with the seniors, as we used the same methodology for YouTube clips of Birdman (Iñárritu, 2014). I do not know whether or not I would have gotten the same results if the school did not give out Chromebooks. However, circumstantially, I would estimate 95% of my students had a smartphone of some kind, so, while the screen would be smaller, it may be possible to do this without each student owning a computer, but greater studies would need to be done. When Mattuck (1949) was writing, watching and analyzing films were extremely difficult; every viewing had to be shown on physical film, which was extremely expensive, on a specialized projector. Gallagher (1988) even exclaimed that the video cassette offered the key to teaching film because of its comparative accessibility (pp. 58). Streaming platforms and the internet make viewing these films infinitely easier and more affordable than even Gallagher’s world. Now, students can press play on their own and each student or group of students can watch a different clip from their peers simultaneously. Furthermore, this accessibility of content allows students to analyze works much more precisely, as they are not required to simply remember things but can now quote as one does from a book (Hobbs et al., 2019; Mattuck, 1949; Soto-Sanfiel et al., 2018).
This data was very useful in my personal planning, but it also told me a lot about what my students knew. In order to analyze, create, or understand something, you first need to experience it. As students, we spend years reading Dr. Seuss, Louis Sachar, and Rick Riordan for years before we start writing complex analyses. We have to gain an understanding of reading semiotics. The same, then, applies to visual literature, as well. Rather than focusing on the tropes and stylistic patterns and effects of text, we must look at how those same traits are conveyed through visual imagery (Callow, 2008). Consequently, it is of great importance to know whether or not the students are familiar with this language. For, as mentioned above, visual literacy comes to us so naturally. This low barrier to entry is responsible for many educators turning to visual texts to support their students’ learning (Haiken, 2019; Hobbs et al., 2019).
Next, I inquired about students’ experience level with comic books and graphic novels. Students chose between “no experience,” “a few a long time ago,” “not as much as I’d like, but I certainly have read them as an adult,” and “all the time”. I should note here that, between blocks 1 and 5, I decided amend the options students could select in responding to this question. The options above reflect the post-change offerings. Block 1 did not have the opportunity to choose between “all the time” and “not as much as I’d like, but I certainly have read them as an adult”; rather, these options were combined into a simple “yes”. As defined in fig. 4, in Block 1, 12 students (43%) identified as having no experience, 12 students (43%) identified as having read a few a long time ago, and 4 students (14%) selected that they do read comic books/graphic novels. In block 5 however, the results were a bit different: ten students (33%) responded that they had no experience, 11 students (37%) selected that they had some experience a long time ago, four students (13%) said that they do read them but not as often as they would like, and five students (17%) said they read comic books/graphic novels all the time. In total, assuming the students from block 1 who responded in the affirmative would respond in the third category (which is open to debate), when rounding to the nearest percentage point, this would mean that 22 students (38%) had no experience, 23 (40%) had limited experience, eight (14%) had some experience, and five (8%) had a lot of experience.
Tangentially, I want to briefly look outside of the scope of education to pop culture. Forbes recently reported that the 22 canon entries of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is based in comic books, have grossed over $21.5 billion (Bean, 2020)! Why is that a relevant fact? Because they are popular. We have never seen one source of fiction reign so supreme. It is always important to understand something with the amount of import that those films have, and, ultimately, they are just adaptations of comic books. So, whether you like it or not, the narrative language of comics and their films has become more prevalent than that of Shakespeare (Gillenwater, 2014). Furthermore, comic readership is growing throughout the world for the first in decades, yet it often feels as though its readers represent only a small niche within society. so I was deeply curious as to whether or not there I would see an increase in the number of readers or the amount that those who loved to read and buy them do so (Grebey, 2016). This data, which is extremely small in sample size for such a finding seems to indicate that, suggests that, among America’s youth, comics are becoming increasingly accepted as a form of literature and that the bounds that once declared you a nerd are no longer there.
Returning to the education. as I discussed, we do not know the degree to which film literacy is directly correlated with textual literacy due to a lack of studies (Haiken, 2019). However, the evidence is more clear regarding comic books and graphic novels, which have been shown to correlate to improvements in textual literacy due to the greater degree of similarities between the mediums, leading to greater intertextuality (Gillenwater, 2014). So, I wanted to see if there would be a positive correlation between this data and other data I collected throughout the process.
Next, I inquired as to how many students had ever analyzed a film before. As shown in fig. 5, among all respondents, 25 (43%) said that they had no experience analyzing a film and 31 (53%) said that they did have experience doing so. Two students (3%), one in each class, fell into a middle category as their response was ambiguous. However, the difference in the results between the two blocks was radically different. In block 1, only seven of its 28 respondents (25%) said they had no experience analyzing a film compared to Block 5, who reported 18 of its 30 students (60%). There is no identifiable error in my data delivery, and, consequently, this variation most likely reflects the individual composition of each block.
In addition to this data, I also asked the class at one point to raise hands to identify if they were currently taking film studies, an English elective at this school. From this data (which was not tallied out of haste), roughly 25% (+/-6%) of my Block 5 students were enrolled in this class and marginally less were enrolled from Block 1. This information indicates that students have at least analyzed a film in their lives outside of in an educational context outside of a film studies course.
These numbers are roughly what I would have expected. As shown throughout my literature review, there are dissenting opinions on whether to teach film in English and whether or not it should be used as a text or a tool. So, this total figure splitting roughly in half (54% said ‘yes, 43% said ‘no, 3% said ‘sorta’) makes sense and reflects said dispute nicely. Admittedly, it some students may have checked ‘yes’ without questioning whether what they were analyzing or viewing, but there is no evidence to indicate such a misunderstanding. Nevertheless, I am encouraged to see that the majority of my students claimed to have analyzed a film as it means that teachers are slowly moving toward utilizing visual literature in their classes, a marked improvement over just a few years ago (Hobbs et al., 2019; Jolly, 1998).
Lastly, I was interested in researching whether any of the students had produced their own videos, either for class or for personal purposes. I categorized these results into four categories: ‘no’, ‘sorta’ (this informal, vague wording means a student was involved in production but did not have a creative say), ‘yes’, and ‘beyond’. Beyond is defined as a project a student has created outside of school and/or which is narrative rather than informational in nature as a student would have to go out of their way to make such a project; it is not intended as a judgement of the student or this film. For instance, if a student reports that they had shot plays with their family, turns a science project into a filmed sketch, or make a trailer parody, they would be coded as “beyond”. I determined whether a student’s work categorizes as “beyond” based on their descriptions of the process. As seen in fig. 6, in Block 1, 18 students (64%) had not produced a video project while two students were coded (7%) as ‘yes’, one (4%) as ‘sorta’ and seven (25%) were coded as ‘beyond’. In Block 5, 24 students (80%) had not produced a video project, while three were coded as as ‘yes’ (10%), and three (10%) as ‘beyond’. In total, 42 students (72%) had no experience while one (2%) was coded as ‘sorta’, five (9%) were coded as ‘yes’, and ten (17%) were coded as ‘beyond’.
This news is somewhat troubling when contrasted with the results from fig. 5. There, we saw that majority of students had analyzed a film at some point in their academic career. However, only 26% of these students have ever produced a film before. Analyzing a movie but not creating one is akin to reading academic essays but never writing one for yourself. Application is a key method we use to teach skills in the ELA classroom and beyond (Bomer, 2011). Ultimately then, I think that film creation is viewed as a fine art akin to painting rather than a literary art, even by those who believe they should be analyzed or utilized in an ELA setting (Haiken, 2019). However, it is equally likely that educators fear the technological and time requirements for mounting any kind of production. No one wants to waste large amounts of class-time on one project when you can do so much more; nor does anyone want to disqualify a student from an assignment due to an inability to pay for the necessary equipment. These concerns are legitimate and I shall address them in greater detail in the conclusion.
Data Set 2 — Student Work: No Exit Blocking Project Paper
My second data set consists of student work, namely, work from the paper sections of my senior class’s No Exit blocking project. For this project, students sorted themselves into groups of four, eight groups in my Block 1 class and nine in Block 5. Each group then selected one scene from Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit after we had read and discussed it over three classes together. Once they chose a scene, each group was to block and direct two versions of this scene, each following one of three possible blocking options — a single static shot, a single shot with a moving camera, or daisy-chaining (i.e., in short, shooting a movie composed of different takes shot in order without overlapping content between takes) — meaning that each four-person group was responsible for two variations. I chose these variation types specifically to avoid students spending hours editing as it is a grueling job that does not lend itself well to equal distribution of work within a group which requires specialized skills and knowledge which I would not have the time to impart. Each variation would be handled by a pair within the group, who would serve as co-directors. Each group was to use their group members as their actors. (Since all of the scenes featured three characters, one of the co-directors was to act in the variation they were directing while the other would operate the camera.) Though these films were scored, they were graded exclusively for completion of the requirements. Rather, the majority of their grade came from the final section of their project: each pair was to write a 3–5 page paper identifying and explaining the decisions they made. This paper and related project was the ultimate culmination of their work with visual literacy. (Note: student 27B’s attendance bordered on chronic truancy, which soon began affecting her group (1B, 17B, and 36B); consequently, the rules were modified so that they would collaborate as a threesome without splitting into pairs, sharing equally the responsibilities of both variations. To do this, they selected a largely two-person scene with the third character — the Valet — being reduced to two lines as played by a peer.)
The paper was scored on four criteria: thesis/vision strength, identification of decisions, justification, and mechanics & diction. Since mechanics and diction, though important, does not reflect their understanding of visual literacy, we shall ignore these results for now. The marks for each criteria are identified in Fig. 7 below. There were additional elements that contributed to students’ grades including participation, self-reflections, and progress checks, however, none of these were designed specifically to evaluate student comprehension of visual literacy skills with the directness of the paper.
In deciding how to approach this treasure trove of data, I decided to as utilize the scores from my Block 5 class on each individual criterion, which I support with student examples. These smattering of results are designed to provide insight but not be a scientifically valid reflection of all 68 of my seniors. Fig. 8 shows the number of students who received each score for each of the criteria listed above. The score categories listed above — excellent, progressing, and underdeveloped — were worth 25, 20, and 15 points respectively. However, my mentor and I decided that it would be best to allow for some students to receive scores in between two of these categories. Consequently, the new sub-categories of ‘near excellent’ and ‘near progressing’ were added. Additionally, I added a category for ‘missing,’ which I shall elaborate on below. Lastly, as mentioned above, student 27B did not complete any of the work for this project due to chronic absence; to account for this, I created a special ‘excused’ category rather than excluding her from the class data. She makes up 100% of the ‘excused’ category, accounting for 3% of each of the three graphs below.
Working our way through Fig. 8, I shall begin by addressing the first criteria: Thesis/Vision Strength. Of the 36 in Block 5, nine (25%) did not include a thesis/vision statement identifiable anywhere in their group’s paper. This criterion offers the grimmest news, for which I take partial responsibility. This section of Fig. 8 is the only to feature a purple bar indicating missing work. From the outset of the project’s assignment, I emphasized that groups should make sure that their films had a cohesive vision. The intent behind including this criterion was so that I could get an insight into the students’ mindsets and ensure that they had such a thesis statement. However, I did not actually inform them that they would have to include a formal vision statement in the document until after they had already shot. This last minute addition may have resulted in students not including their thesis/vision in their papers. However, this only accounts for 25% of the class. Otherwise, of the 26 students (72%) of the class that did turn in include a thesis/vision statement, the results show an inverted bell curve of performance, meaning that the same number of students who received ‘excellent’ scores received ‘underdeveloped’ scores — eight (22%) each. Additionally, four students (11%) received ‘near excellent’ and ‘near progressing’ each while two students (6%) received a ‘progressing’ mark. Clearly, this data represents a failing in my instruction. If I had done a better job, I would have expected to see these numbers reflect either a traditional bell curve or linear function with the greatest number of scores being ‘excellent’ or ‘near excellent’. Instead, a gap of knowledge made itself apparent that, in the future, I must take care to fill.
Ultimately the reason for this divide comes down to specificity and consistency. The most common problem with student’s theses was a lack of specificity. For instance, students 12 and 34 wrote, “Our vision is to emphasize the ways in which the characters’ emotions change throughout the scene. We used a variety of camera angles to make these emotions evident, so that the scene looks dynamic and changing, rather than stagnant.” The first sentence of their thesis does not say anything; practically all works of narrative fiction will feature emotions and do something to show them. Additionally, making a scene visually dynamic can be great, but why? I described a vision statement to the students as a note of what makes your scene special: what are you emphasizing or showing and how? Students 12B and 34B do not address either area. Comparatively, students 5 and 13 wrote that they sought to emphasize a struggle between Inez’s cynical nature and Garcin’s naiveté. This latter statement is much more focused, specific, and arguable. The other area where students struggled regarding their theses was consistency; namely, students would write a good or great thesis statement but not have any of the content reflected below.
Identification of decisions was a triumph of this project. 17 students (47%) received ‘excellent’ marks. Four students (11%) scored ‘near excellent’ while six (17%) scored ‘progressing’. Eight students (22%) received marks in the lower two categories, only two of whom (6%) were classified as ‘underdeveloped’. Though one more pair scored ‘progressing’ than ‘near excellent’, this number is statistically insignificant due to our small sample size of nine groups, so no significant gap can be found. Students were able to identify decisions similar to ones we had seen and discussed in our class examples and beyond. For instance, students
The results were similarly positive in the justification category. There, 13 students (36%) were classified a ‘excellent’, while ‘near excellent’ represented ten more students (28%), meaning that 64% of the class earned one of the top two scores, representing mastery or near mastery of the criteria. The progressing category represented an additional 22% (eight students). Only four students (11%) received one of the lower two scores, two each. Remember though that this paper was written in pairs, so two students (6%) receiving ‘underdeveloped’ correlates to only one group receiving said mark.
Data Set 3 — Insight Accounts
My final data set analyzes the insight account for my Block 5 seniors’ No Exit blocking project. The insight account was one part of the self-evaluation Google form that each student filled out after completing their No Exit blocking project. The evaluation consisted first of a self-evaluation section, in which each student evaluated their own contributions to the project and understanding of the concept of the relevant information. Then, they did a similar process for their group members. This section allowed me to ensure each student contributed equally to their group’s project. The insight account was the final section of this Google form. Here, students wrote about their experience with this project and with learning about visual literacy in general; what did they learned, how did they learned it, and more served as short answer responses. One final note about this data: I carried out the blocking project with both my Block 1 and Block 5 seniors. I decided to only discuss the results of my Block 5 seniors here to eliminate the variables related to dissimilarity of teaching, as mentioned in my data overview.
My overriding curiosity concerning the results of the insight account was to see what the students had learned. This answer was contained in the first question: “What did you learn and how did you learn it.” As a result, I read through each response first to get a sense of what kind of answers my students would give. Then, I marked down each students’ response number (which correlates to the order they submitted their responses) and their variation type for future reference. Next, I searched each student’s response for the primary information or skill they identified as having learned through this process. When a student wrote multiple things, I used my own judgement in identifying the thing they stressed most in the response. For example, Student 36B wrote, “I really learned how to memorize my lines. I struggled a lot to do so, but I ultimately learned that if I break it down into smaller chunks I could learn the lines with enough practice. I also learned about camera angles.” This student claims she has learned two distinct skills: an understanding of filmic techniques and memorization skills. However, she clearly put much more emphasis on her memorization than on the filmic techniques; consequently, she was categorized as such. This identification system is subjective — not a good thing when dealing with statistical data. However, the main intent of this data here is to demonstrate overall trends and identify what skills students believed they had learned. If some categories are slightly higher or lower, that is okay as exact percentages would be of little use to me in this context. Rather, I want to see what, generally, students valued.
Going through the responses, I sorted each student response into one of six categorizations: Analysis & Justification, Memorization Skills, Planning Skills, Filmic Techniques, Time Management and Group Dynamics, and Missing/Excused. The most common learned information/skill was filmic technique, representing 33% (12) of the responses. Analysis & Justification and planning were the second and third most common responses with 25% (9) and 22% (8) respectively. Time Management/Group Dynamics represents 11% (4) of the responses indicate they learned how to improve their time management and group cooperation and/or management skills. Only 1 student (3%) listed memorization while 2 students (5%) did not complete this assignment. This data shows that the majority of students learned information directly correlating to visual literacy, either practical or analytical, rather than socioemotional learning. This breakdown is depicted in Fig. 9.
Next, I went through this question again and sorted each students’ response to the second part of the question: how did you learn said information. The results of this breakdown are depicted in Fig. 10. I identified six primary sources of learning plus from their responses: Watching and Discussing Examples (as a class), Practice (i.e., through the experience of trying to film after or in ignorance of the planning stage), Planning (i.e., the experience of preparing to shoot their film), Paper (i.e., the experience of writing their paper), Mr. Lubell (i.e., through personal discussion with individual students and/or small groups of students), and Independent Research. Similar to the data from fig. 9, the exactitude of this data is not what matters, but rather that it represents the overall attitudes and general responses, especially as this evaluation was filled out less than a week before school was cancelled due to COVID-19, so my mentor and I felt we had to get a lot done in a shorter amount of time, which may have prevented students from filling out this survey as fully as they otherwise may have. Many students referred to specific activities or discussion. I classified those activities within the categories I selected in order to present the most comprehensive data I could. In addition to these categories, nine students, which represents 25% of the class, is listed as “undetermined”. Here is where I must admit a fault in data collection. I did not know that I would be comparing these two pieces of data when I posed the question. If I had, I would have asked this question separately, as multiple students failed to fully answer this second part. Regarding positive numbers, Watching & Discussing Examples and Practice followed closely behind undetermined, with eight (22%) and seven (17%) respectively. Additionally, five students (14%) learned primarily from planning while three (8%) learned primarily through discussions with me, two (6%) from writing the paper, and one (3%) through individual, outside research. It should be noted that all of the discussions with me and the student who cited individual research took place while preparing to film rather than in the early stages of our class. Consequently, 18 of the students, an even 50%, identified the primary learning source as being experiential, including the 25% undetermined.
I then compared the information received from these two pieces (fig. 9 and fig. 10) of data to determine how each student learned what they learned. I wanted to determine if there was a correlation between the two, and the results offered insight into the way that students best acquire the individual information/skills they learned. This data is represented in Fig. 11. Some patterns are self-explanatory. The one student who wrote about her troubles with memorization learned her lines through practice. Other patterns are more thoroughly disguised. For instance, those who identified filmic techniques as the main source of information saw the greatest variety in learning methodology. Some students learned experientially while others learned from example. Similarly, this was the only category in which individual and small group conversations with me were cited, which tells me that I was either emphasizing technique too much or just impressively/memorably (to them) more knowledge on this particular subject than any other. Those students that chose Analysis & Justification as their primary takeaway from this project had a more difficult time identifying how they learned this information; over 50% of these students did not determine/identify their primary learning source. Moreover, this was the only category in which the paper was listed as a primary learning source.
Visual literacy is both the product of a tool towards multimodal literacies (Callow, 2008; Haiken, 2019). So, if I was not emphasizing any of the learning skills individually, I would want to highlight modeling through viewings and discussion, small and/or large, as students identified that this method was useful in learning the greatest variety skills, thereby encouraging multimodal learning. However, practice is a close second. This figure is arguable the most striking and important information from this data set.
As discussed in data set 1, the disparity between the students with film analysis experience compared to those with production experience (figs. 5 and 6) and what we know about the work classified as ‘beyond’ in fig. 6, we can see that students have not been given the opportunity to be creators of visual content. And yet, fig. 11 shows us that practice — that experiential learning of shooting — was among the be the most beneficial, appearaing in more bars than any other color and representing 17% of responses in fig .10. This emphasis on experiential learning is mirrored by Callow (2008) and Gillenwater (2014). The latter has students draw their own comic books to get a greater sense the techniques and semiotics of the graphic novel, as originally taught by Understanding Comics (Gillenwater, 2014; McCloud, 1993). My data suggests that teachers should provide students the opportunity to serve as producers in addition to analyzers to fully engrain the ideas its related benefits, especially with regard to socioemotional learning.
Conclusion
I see five main takeaways from this project that I shall carry with me throughout my career. First, students encounter visual every day, and they are familiar with the languages they use, whether they know it or not. For instance, in fig. 12 we, know that Spiderman has just punched through a glass window. In this image though, all we get to see is Spiderman posing as glass is flying radially away from him. If you were to punch glass, the shards fall right to the ground, but we know from the radial spread and “FTANNG!” sound effect text that the glass has just been shattered by Spidey. We know that he punched his way in by the air swooshing around his body culminating at his right fist. We know the out of frame character is shocked by the wild misalignment and abnormal color of “SPIDERMAN!” within a jagged speech bubble we all know connotes distress (McCloud, 1993). If these types of imagery are so present and our baser understanding of them so innate, why not take advantage of it, if not as the primary text, then as a tool to better comprehension, especially among our burgeoning bilingual students (Gillenwater, 2014; Haiken, 2019; Jolly, 1998; Longmore & Lubell, 2018).
Secondly, as we learned from data set three and throughout the literature review, a meaningful integration of visual literacy, especially through a project or creative outlet, benefits students in a variety of ways, only one of which — filmic technique — being specific to film literacy. This includes socioemotional skills, which, while easy to integrate subconsciously, is rarely identified so clearly by students as being a primary skill, speaking to the effectiveness of a film producing project, since film projects are almost always collaborative works, especially when working narratively or with performers (Corrigan & White, 2012). Multiple students complained on their insight accounts that it was very difficult to get together to shoot. I understand that, and, we ended up having to readjust our unit plan calendar to allow students class time to work. However, after that change, things ran relatively smoothly considering the circumstances. What hiccups did remain were the kind of hiccups you want: problems that can be solved the students when they put their minds together. While I did not have the opportunity to do a similar activity with comic books, I would love to see if the results would be different, especially concerning socioemotional learning as creating a comic book would require a similar degree of creativity but is not necessarily as conducive to group work as film (Gillenwater, 2014; McCloud, 1993).
Third, I learned that students learn visual literacy skills in a variety of different ways. Personally, I found that watching and discussing films in both small group and whole class settings was the most effective method. As these types of discussions are the most common ways that both my mentor and I taught regardless of visual literacy, this result is not surprising. Nevertheless, I do remember, after a class where I had demonstrating how to analyze blocking from clips Birdman and Y Tú Mama También, my mentor, who was sitting in the back of the room, told me there were audible gasps of “oh!” — a testament not to me, but to the power of effective modeling and discussion. However, this is not the only way to generate understanding of visual literacy. The best approach is likely the one which that incorporates some, if not all, of these strategies.
Lastly, and most unexpectedly, I learned it is critical for students to have the opportunity to apply what they learn. When referring to visual literacy, this takes the form of creating some visual text, whatever that may mean, but a 30-second magic marker sketch is less likely to inspire all the skills mentioned above. There is hesitation among educators to employ film production because of the technical knowledge and equipment involved. However, the tide on accessibility is turning fast, with smartphones and computers being extremely widespread (at least, if the school can provide for a low SES what they might need). Moreover, sites like Google Drive, Vimeo, and Flipgrid (which I used with great success), offer easy outlets to share and submit these projects in a timely and space-saving manner. Lastly, I cannot recommend enough to avoid long editing processes, which quickly descend into one person slaving for hours alone in an editing room, an oft cited concern and rightly so (Gallagher, 1988; Haiken, 2019). To do this, my recommendation is to use one-shot takes. When they only have one take, they are forced to make conscious choices rather than simply shooting everything from five angles and making their editor choose what matters after the fact.
Mere weeks before I began the journey that became this project, my peer, Dan Haiken (2009) wrote in his (superiorly titled) dissertation, “Watch and Listen: Film as Text in the English Classroom and Points of Access for Multiple Literacies,” that visual literacy was a worthwhile topic and there was much more left to unearth (pp. 34–35). I want to second this claim. As others much smarter than me have said, it is very hard to find an firm correlation between visual literacy skills and traditional literature skills, however, circumstantial evidence points to there being a positive correlation between the two, and nothing that I have seen has pointed to an inverse result (Boyd & Dobrow, 2011; Gillenwater, 2014; Haiken, 2019).
The results of this study mean a great deal to me. I have always been a champion of non-traditional texts, visual or otherwise. However, that same passion is also likely the most problematic element of this thesis. I have a severe bias. I am, potentially, trying to prove my worth. Consequently, as an unbiased statistical support, this paper likely carries little weight. Given greater time, I wou;d have loved to have spent more time unpacking the data I received further. I barely scratched the surface of some all three data sets, and I have many more lying in wait. However, I believe that this thesis acts as a survey course through my results and that, despite my bias, I have not knowingly distorted any of the facts or statistics.
I do not see myself continuing to do action research of this kind — in scale and formality — in the immediate future, however, I do plan on doing more visualizations as I go forward. This decision was inspired by fig. 8 from data set 2. As soon as I saw my numbers graphed out, the confusion over the dismal scores concerning ‘thesis vision strength’ parted and I immediately realized the error of my ways. Even during inter-program discussions, I did not understand just how useful such a visualization would be to me. So, while I am unlikely to continue formal action research, I do plan on using its central tenet of taking hard data, coding it, and visualizing it, even if I am the only one to see it.
References:
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Avgerinon, M. D., & Pettersson, R. (2011). Toward a Cohesive Theory of Visual Literacy. Journal of Visual Literacy, 30(2), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/23796529.2011.11674687
Bean, T. (2020, April 24). All 24 Marvel Cinematic Universe Films Ranked at the Box Office — Including “Black Widow.” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbean/2020/04/24/all-23-marvel-cinematic-universe-films-ranked-at-the-box-office-including-black-widow/#2c36cb62494e
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Boyd, M. J., & Dobrow, J. (2011). Chapter 10 — Media literacy and positive youth development. In R. M. Lerner, J. V. Lerner, & J. B. Benson (Eds.), Advances in Child Development and Behavior (Vol. 41, pp. 251–271). JAI. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-386492-5.00010-5
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Endnotes:
[1] See Student Identification Key.
[2] This website name has been censored to ensure the anonymity of the school and city.
[3] School name and identifying colors of school have been cropped to ensure the anonymity of the school.
