Visual Literacy Essay

Visual Literacy Essay

Definition

Visual Literacy is defined as “the ability to recognize and understand ideas conveyed through visible actions or images (as pictures).” (Merriam-Webster, 2016)

Framing Language

This rubric is designed to assess visual communication skills (herein called, “Visual Literacy”) as students interpret a visual image.  Images will vary across disciplines including (but not limited to) photographs, clip art, drawings, artwork, sculpture, graphs, charts, diagrams, political cartoons, videos, and infographics. Students will be expected to describe the image, explain its plausible meanings and/or purposes and discuss potential consequences and/or implications of the image’smeaning.  Ideally, the assignment will include a copy of the image your professor will be able to determine the accuracy of your response.

Glossary – the definitions that follow were developed to clarify terms and concepts used in this rubric only.

• Description – the ability to engage in written discourse intended to convey a mental image of a visual media object.Elements of description may include organization, color, balance, tone, shape, pattern, texture, light/shadow, symmetry, etc.
• Explanation – the ability to explain plausible meanings and/or purposes of the image.
• Consequences & Implications – the ability to discuss the potential consequences and/or implications of the visual image’s meaning.

The Essay:

MLA format, no less than 1000 words.

Remember! Think about the different components of art that we learned about, i.e. form, line, shade and so on when working on this assignment.

In this essay, you will analyze your chosen artwork. This can be a picture of a statue, a painting, an advertisement and more. You will be seeking to explain and clearly investigate the point of your image, what medium was used, and explaining why this is important to you, to society as a whole, to culture, politics, etc.

You are asking yourself what the image/artwork is saying, and providing an answer. You are then taking that answer one step further and asking yourself: So what? So what if this ad is sexual in nature? Does it matter? Yes or no? Why? So what? If it matters, why do I care? Why do you care? Why should we care? So what? When you find you can no longer ask so what, and you have an answer that delivers the connotation of your artwork, you have found your thesis.

Some points you should focus on when defending your thesis:

• How is the image or artwork arranged?
• Does the positioning make a difference to the point?
• Is there a certain viewpoint or line that the image is focused on? Taken from? Leading to?
• What are the shapes or forms used or seen? Do they matter? Why?
• What colors are used? Are these colors important? Remember colorpsychology.com.
• What textures are there? Are there any textures? Are these textures or lack thereof important?
• What is the overall point here? How does the texture, color, form, line, etc. assist in conveying the overall point?

Some resources from class and outside of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O39niAzuapc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E91fk6D0nwM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpXAD8KfEUo

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