Picture Writing

Background

The ideas and research in this weather unit involve visual literacy, visual language, semiotics, and mental imagery. In the seminar given by Professor Janice Carlisle, titled Picture Writing, she led our group in studying the relations between words and images, how they are in conflict with one another, and perhaps that there are no visual images without words and no writing without mental images. The ideas, research, and an engaging observation method gained from this seminar are what I will integrate into this creative unit to address the goals of teachers who are building and activating prior knowledge, and to meet the needs of my students.

Although my students may have limited prior knowledge in the academic area, they still grow up surrounded by visual images connecting to personal experience and important learning. Visual Literacy is the ability to recognize and understand ideas conveyed through visible actions or pictures. Along the same lines, Lynell Burmark explains symbols and images like this: "They are visual mnemonics – memories of life experiences and feelings recaptured through nonverbal means." ⁸ Applying visual literacy to the learning of key weather symbols and mnemonics for this unit will establish a rich understanding of the content. Explicitly observing and gathering data through senses during hands-on weather experiments and projects will add to students' visual mnemonics. Visual Language is discussed as the means in which students create, think, and receive information. Students this young are still developing their vocabulary to express themselves, and have yet to learn how to read and write using letters and words. Expression through drawing, however, is age appropriate and an important part of visual language. "Drawing in connection with vocabulary provides children with the means to think in the language by which they receive much of their information, that being the visual language." ⁹ An integral part of student activities and projects are their display of weather knowledge through illustrations (and verbal explanation). Bazeli and Olle conclude, "Visuals have great impact on students' lives, and can be useful tools to develop vocabulary and reading comprehension skills. ¹⁰ Teachers, be encouraged to model your own expression of weather concepts in illustration, computer drawing programs, drama, or video clips.

We can naturally apply these tools to enhance the lessons in this weather unit. Soundy and Drucker, however, speak in depth about teachers using visual language as a process that they call the semiotic process. They explain that it involves student illustrations connected to students' experiences of everyday life and personal interests, and that it creates an interactive sociocultural environment. They state that, "Drawing can be seen as a meaning-making process in which children produce signs to express their understanding and ideas in visual-graphic form and engage their emotions and imaginations." Practicing inquiries before having students draw, finding details in their illustrations, and engaging in conversation allowing them to explain and express their understanding of weather will solidify this knowledge base. Using these strategies helps "strengthen teachers' understandings of drawing, sharpen their interpretation skills, and equip them to enable children to use graphics as powerful learning and thinking tools in interactive social environments." ¹¹ Empowering students with visual literacy and language strategies will facilitate their natural curiosity and interest, constructing even more comprehension of this new weather knowledge.

Developing mental imagery is another strategy from research to help connect mnemonics, words, and pictures to support comprehension. Imagery is created when a person internally proposes and constructs representations of external objects or events. Timothy Rasinski believes imagery can aid in reading comprehension. He explains in detail that imagery involves symbols that can be unique for each person, but language represents by using signs. He continues by explaining that signs are uniform symbols among groups of people, whereas, language can only represent only concepts and tangible objects. Rasinski describes imagery as complementary to language in assisting comprehension. ¹² In this weather unit, we'll have large group activities that use imagery. For example, students will be able to listen to language and words in order to develop images in their minds of a sunny (rainy, windy, etc.) day outside on the playground before they are instructed to transfer the images onto paper or verbally describe using experience through their senses. Developing imagery is a powerful strategy to connect key weather vocabulary with comprehension.