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March 21, 2006 |
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Visual Composition at the Center This week college-level members will gather for the Fifty-Seventh Annual Convention of the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Chicago, Illinois. Program Chair Akua Duku Anokye asked attendees to consider the question "How do we work in the middle spaces with integrity and conviction to clearly and loudly address the literacy needs of a diverse society?" as one issue that might shape their proposals for the convention. One answer to this important question is to foreground the many literacies that students bring to the classroom. Regardless of the level of the students in your classroom, these visual composition resources can provide a way to build a center space, where the academic demands and out-of-school literacies overlap. To explore ways that children's everyday literacies, including their knowledge of visual communications such as comics and cartoons, can be used in schools to connect popular culture with the language arts curriculum, read "Children's Everyday Literacies: Intersections of Popular Culture and Language Arts Instruction" (E) from Language Arts, which includes four approaches to using popular culture in the classroom. The English Journal article "How Comic Books Can Change the Way Our Students See Literature: One Teacher's Perspective" (M-S) details the many merits of using comics and graphic novels in the classroom, suggests how they can be integrated into historical and social issues units, and recommends several titles. Cartoons in the classroom are the focus of "The Simpsons Meet Mark Twain: Analyzing Popular Media Texts in the Classroom" (M-S) from English Journal, which describes a classroom activity where students compare an episode of "The Simpsons" to speeches and essays of Mark Twain. For even more activities using The Simpsons check out the ReadWriteThink lesson plan Exploring Satire with The Simpsons (M-S). The lesson includes extensions that focus on writing analysis of a complete episode of the cartoon and writing an original satirical piece. Tap "Using Graphic Novels, Anime, and the Internet in an Urban High School" (S) from English Journal for classroom-tested activities that encouraged urban English-language learners and native English speakers to improve their written communication. For an exploration of the place of visual communication in the composition, read "From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing" (C) from College Composition and Communication, which includes examples of visual argument and a related visual argument assignment. NOTE: Free access to journal articles mentioned in this Inbox is provided
for 21 days. After this free access period expires, articles are available
to journal subscribers only. This Inbox Idea was published 03-22-2005. |
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