10-26-‘00
Using
Visuals in English Lit.
Rakes, Glenda C.;Thomas A. Rakes; Lana J. Smith. “Using Visuals to enhance secondary students’ reading comprehension of expository text” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 39:1. Sept. 1995. pp 46-54.
Visuals can be used to enhance the learning of a text. They can make meaning more clear. They can give a more artistic representation that the students are more apt to remember.
> The teacher can use visuals provided in the textbook. The teacher can explain what a graph means in the book. If there is a map, the teacher could go over the different places and how they relate to the writing. The students can then keep such visual information in mind when they are reading the book.
>The students can generate their own visuals to illustrate the literary work.
Ø They can make a visual for a specific incident or section.
Ø The students could make an illustration that summarizes the entire text. They would have to be able to pick out the key elements in the text.
Ø Young students could trace and existing illustration. That will put the image in their minds more concretely.
Ø The students could make a flow chart to keep track of characters in a work. This is especially useful in longer works that span many years or even generations.
Ø I could have the students draw a map of their own to represent the geography used in the work.
Ø The students could construct their own charts and graphs to deal with more specific data from the text.
Ø I could have the students mentally picture a scene. I don’t really like this one all that much. If they can mentally picture it, they should be able to draw something like that to show others how they pictured something. I could do this guided imagery before I had them make a picture.
Application in English:
The applications of this strategy are pretty straightforward for English literature. I would explain the pictures that might be in the book. I would make sure to tell them that those are just one interpretation of the work. That might be good to show before I let the kids draw their own picture. I would make use of graphs and tables to simplify some information so the kids can more easily grasp it. I could have my students read a story like the novel Huckleberry Finn. Then I would give them each a section of the book to illustrate. We could then post them in a linear order around the room to tell the story. That way the kids have a graphical representation of the text, and it is personal since they did it themselves or their classmates did them. I would have each group or student (depending on how I split them up and how many pictures I wanted) give an explanation of his or her picture. If the work dealt with many generations or many characters, I would have them make a chart to connect them. An intricate plot might be easier if the class worked together to create a flow chart of the action. I might have the kids make a graph or table to organize rote info that might be important but hard to remember in context. The students could work together on a mural representing an entire work. Each person would have to contribute something that they got out of the novel, book, poem, or other kind of literary work.
Benefits and Drawbacks:
This method brings into play the more visual intelligences. Students who do not normally excel in English may be really creative in other areas. I have found that kids love to draw and create. They think you are just letting them waste class time but they are actually learning and will probably remember the activities more than a boring lecture. It gets the students up and collaborating, which is good since they will often have to work in groups. It gets students to think about things “outside the box”. Information does not need to be represented or taken in in one specific form.
Modifications:
This method is pretty much set up for the teaching of literature. That is exactly what I want to do so I would not need to modify much. I have already noted how I would you the mental picture idea. I might have the kids make a collage out of magazine pictures instead of drawing their own.
