William Cope
Nithin Kalorth
Jako Olivier
Ida Brandão
Mitchell PetersMultimodal Literacies MOOC’s Updates
Section 11: Making Visual Meanings
This update explores the ways in which we make visual meanings. It offers a design analysis of the visual mode for the purposes of literacies learning and teaching. We refer to two types of visual meanings or images. Perceptual images are the things that you see with your body’s eye – your vision. Mental images are the things you see in your mind’s eye – your envisionings. The world does not just present itself for us to simply see. Our minds make visual sense of the world through what we call perceptual imaging. We can also envision things that we cannot for the moment see by using our imaginations. Growingly aware babies make sense of the world first by seeing it and making mental images, only later learning words for what they see. There are both similarities and differences between visual images and language. The similarities in these two symbolic ways of making meaning allow us to refer to the same things in language or in a visual image. There are also important differences. Visual images and words can never be quite the same.
To explore these issues further, see the supporting material on the Literacies website.
Comment Below: How are images like and unlike language?
Make an Update: Find some examples of curriculum resources or classrooms where teachers engage their learners in meaning-making texts that move between images and writing. How do these experiences highlight the power of synaesthesia—the process of shifting from one mode to another—and integrated, multimodal learning?
I am from India and in most of our CBSE schools, textbooks produced by NCERT are used to teach English and other subjects. I would like to present this chapter from the Grade 6 English textbook : https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php?fehl1=3-10
Here, there are images that trigger the imaginative minds of the learners to associate the written story with the illustrated characters. I remember how our English teachers would teach us these stories in class. They would often go front and back from the text to these images and illustrations embedded in the book to simplify the process of understanding and perception for us, the learners.
Talking of synaesthesia, I would like to cite another example from my Indian History class in school when, to explain the tension between India and one of our neighbouring countries, (as mentioned in the book), our teacher used one classroom session to show us specific clips of a movie called Gadar: Ek Prem Katha which resonated with the same theme and struggle. The use of such visual aids helped us, the learners, to give life to the words in the text and remember the minute details vividly.
In my opinion, such integrated, multimodal learning makes the teaching-learning process dynamic, interesting, and suitable for learners with multiple intelligences. Visual grammar is as important as reading and writing, and there's no better way to prove this than the Eiffel Tower, and figure-and-ground examples talked about in the video lectures here.
One of the best examples where the teachers in the classroom discussion uses the change from image to writing is when the motivation or discussion process requires the students to analyze a picture and write their answers and reflection regarding the image. Here, from visual, seeing the picture, to writing, expressing their opinions and thoughts regarding the material, the multimodal literacy is evident.
I agree with you, Bernadette. Visual activities making learning imaginative and holistic!
Images have a reference. There is a dialogue going on which could be in first person or second or third. There is a situation, there is a context and intent. All the traditional grammar could be found in an image if we try to deconstruct the image. In reading, we have to go sequentially and causal effect can be shown there. In images we look at the space all one at a time.
Indeed! Visual grammar has a lot of scope of analysing as opposed to the written text where we read and understand whatever the writer wants us to perceive.