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Visual
Literacy: Letting Our Students See the Past for Themselves
Ideas for Using Images in
the Classroom
Wendy Eagan |
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The Benedict Visual Literacy Collection (http://www.asu.edu/lib/archives/bvlc.htm)
defines visual literacy as "the ability to understandáevaluate, and create
visual messages." Both we and our students have grown up in a media-saturated
environment, and are able to read images which would have baffled earlier
generations. Our shared visual language is deeply rooted in contemporary
film and television, video games and, lately, streaming video. Constant
movement, rapid intercutting, and an emotionally resonant sound track characterizes
much of this material. |
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None of this, however, directly prepares students
to encounter visual sources in history. The historical context and language
of 19th century European daguerrotypes, 11th century Song ceramics, and
16th century Inca khipus are, for most students, utterly unfamiliar. How
can we make such sources as compelling and historically resonant as, say,
the iconic images of the collapsing World Trade towers? Over the past twenty
years, high school and college classrooms have generated imaginative and
effective approaches to deepening historical literacy. This column explores
those strategies. |
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One obvious place to start would be one of
the wonderful collections of readings we can all remember from our own college
or university history classes. The Human Record : Sources of Global
History by Andrea and Overfield (4e) has a wonderful introductory
lesson which pairs a letter from Christopher Columbus with a 16th
century English woodcut depicting the peoples from the newly encountered
lands to the west. Even though this is a college textbook, any secondary
school teacher can adapt the concept of pairing written text with an image
for student consideration. Students can use newspapers, magazines or web
images to create a pairing of their own after being given a textual source
from the teacher. |
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Every textbook has selected images included
in each chapter. Why not use those images as a visual introduction to each
period under consideration? This way, we could encourage students to actually
read and think about the captions of these images. We could even award one
or two exam bonus points for responses that correctly analyze the information
included in the images. We know students have different learning styles,
and this approach may be an incentive for the visual learner to realize
that history is not just in the words. |
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Another way to use images for teaching cultural
characteristics is through comparative architecture. Most students have
a family collection of photographs or postcards. These can be collected
and used in the classroom to identify the differences between private or
secular buildings and official or spiritual sites. Through evaluating the
nature of these structures, students learn to see certain buildings as expressions
of powerful political importance (Versailles) or as spiritual icons (stupa
at Sanchi). One assignment I gave to juniors in a regular world history
class was to design a commemorative stamp for a nation that featured a famous
building as a symbol of national pride. In one case, students designed a
stamp for India using the Taj Mahal as a visual description of eternal love
and gender relations. |
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After many fond trips to exhibits at various
art museums, I decided to cut up, laminate, and assemble a large collection
of art posters on a bulletin board in my classroom. These images function
as a wall of faces from the past. Even if students drift off from the lesson
at hand they must gaze upon the visages of a Frida Kahlo self-portrait,
a bejeweled Charlemagne, an aging Leonardo, the stunning Nefertiti, a marble
Alexander, a Japanese geisha, the formal Catherine the Great, the graceful
ballerinas of Degas, or the gallant Bonaparte astride his white steed. While
this may seem to be a subliminal form of teaching, most students have told
me they have never forgotten Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring who greeted
them as they walked in the door each day. Perhaps, one day, this image will
prompt them to take their children to a museum to see the original, or to
buy a novel about 17th century Europe. Such images can also be
used for semester exam review or even for earning extra points at the end
of the grading period. I use this board as my lesson plan for the first
day of class to pique student interest for the rest of the year. After the
long summer of image overload of another sort, they like the fact that they
are sitting in a room with a "class picture" of the last 5000 years. |
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I often prepare handouts for students with
images from the internet or from old discarded books and ask them to compare
these images. For example, students can discuss technology when comparing
an interior image of Hagia Sophia with that of Chartres, or they can discuss
gender roles by comparing images of the Virgin Mary with Kwan Yin. From
there, I ask students to add a third image based on their own research.
For example, if in class they had compared the IBM "man in the gray flannel
suit" of the 1950s with the successful merchants of 15th century
Florence, students must then choose a third image to complement that duo,
such as the Sony salaryman of Japan. The point here is to explore what these
images tell us about the societies under question, to compare the meaning
of different images across time and cultures, and to discover which written
sources might further develop these comparisons. |
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If you are lucky enough to have some money
to spend on instructional materials, consider "World History Unfolding"
by MindSparks (for a catalog call 1-800-558-2110). These series of lessons
are arranged by topic and help prepare students for essay writing. Each
topical lesson has fully colored overheads, discussion questions, and follow-up
activities for a variety of age levels. One lesson entitled "Nomads of the
Steppes" (Volume 1: Ancient Times - 1500) includes visuals of an elaborate
golden comb perhaps worn by a Scythian warrior, a lone mounted horseman
against a stark Gobi Desert, an Uzbeck woman standing beside her yurt on
a beautful woven carpet, and a domed Muslim mosque in Samarkand. What a
wonderful opportunity to use images to compare the sedentary lifestyle of
contemporary students with nomads of Eurasia. |
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Another way of using images as a way of
discovering the global past is through the exceptional work of Gerald A.
Danzer in Discovering World History Through Maps and Views. This
collection combines map transparency overheads with commentary that encourages
teachers and students alike to rethink our views of the planet. We often
teach point of view with regard to written texts, but how often do we ask
our students to think of China as seen from a Japanese point of view (as
they can do using map R28)? We can also use this source to have students
literally cut up a world map and reassemble it along longitudinal lines
to see how our point of view changes if, for example, central Asia is at
the center of a flat map rather than Europe and West Africa. Equally exciting
is the way our point of view changes when we see the Pacific Ocean at the
center of the map (which is an excellent way to show all fifty US states
at once). |
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Finally, a favorite method of exploring
the global past through images is the gallery walk method. One excellent
model for this is available on the web, using Japanese woodblock prints
by the masterful Hiroshige, available at http://www.csuohio.edu/history/exercise/vlehome.html.
The virtual visitor is shown a series of images from Japan and is then asked
to answer questions about that society based on keen observation of various
images that focus on human environmental adaptation. This exercise can be
completed in a class period and may serve as model for future visual literacy
projects for students to complete on their own. Once students have visited
this site, it seems certain that they will no longer view artistic masterpieces
as simple museum artifacts for adults to look at in their spare time. |
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Biographical note:
Wendy Eagan teaches world history at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda,
Maryland.
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