Focusing on the Visual

As I read through this article, my mind slipped back to high school and other reading classes that I have been in, where the teachers depended heavily on text books to teach reading. They were weary about using media texts or the "unknown" to enrich learning. The reason for this was because some of the teachers lacked adequate training on these texts and/or do not feel that they can teach a proper lesson using these texts. I agree with the author when she says "if we can help teachers become more knowledgeable and comfortable in working with students to read, discuss, and compose texts that depend primarily on visual elements, they will be increasingly willing and able to apply these understandings to the teaching of new media texts as well." By training teachers on media texts we are preparing them to help our students be prepare to face the challenges of tomorrow.

I agree with the author when she says that she believes that teachers have continued to use alphabetic texts over texts that hae visual elements "because such texts present familiar forms." I believe that this is because teachers have become comfortable with these types of texts and are afriad to step "outside of the box." The teachers haven't been given any other reason to, these texts have only been used to supplement other things that have been taught and teachers don't see how they could help students if they are used alone. This article is going to help boost the confidence of teachers who a weary of trying this type of assignment in their classroom. It will aslo motivate the students since it involves something that they are used to using on a daily basis (myspace, facebook, email or instant messaging), technology. By giving students to opportunity to use technology and giving them guidelines or a rubic we can see what type of work our students can create.

The assignment that stuck out to me was the visual essay because it gives the students a opportunity to reflect on literacies that they have developed in thier lifetime. It also lets them use pictures to represent what they would normally say in words. I think this is a plus because there are times that I struggle with putting my thoughts into words and I believe that a picture would capture what I was trying to say. I think that visual literacies help prepare students for many assignments that they will come across in the future.