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he problem of the twenty- first century VISUAL LITERACY is the problem of the image," according By PETER FELTEN to cultural theorist W.J.T. Mitchell (1995). The centuries-long domination of texts and words in culture, particularly Western culture, has come to an end. ogy and culture, some would argue, This proliferation of literacies, and The new "pictorial turn" means that are producing a large crop of visual the emergence of new technologies that images no longer exist primarily to learners-"digital natives" who are blend text and image, suggest that the entertain and illustrate. Rather they are "intuitive visual communicators" and time is right to rethink the very concept " more visually literate becoming central to communication than previous of literacy. Gunther Kress, in Literacy and meaning-making. generations" (Oblinger and Oblinger, in the New Media Age (2003), contends Mitchell wrote about a culture 2005, ch. 2). that multiple "modes of representa- saturated with images in print, televi- Living in an image-rich world, how- tion" should replace language at the sion, film, and public spaces. He did ever, does not mean students (or faculty core of any understanding of literacy. not fully anticipate how, and how and administrators) naturally possess In other words, being literate necessar- quickly, evolving technologies would sophisticated visual literacy skills, just ily involves understanding much more transform our visual environment. The as continually listening to an iPod does than words and texts. James Paul Gee's camera, for example, was not so long not teach a person to critically analyze stimulating What Video Games Have to ago a specialized device that, except or create music. Instead, visual literacy Teach Us about Learning and Literacy in hands of experts, produced low- involves the ability to understand,pro- (2004) makes a similar argument for quality pictures seen by few people. duce, and use culturally significant im- what he calls the "multimodal prin- Now digital cameras are just another ages, objects, and visible actions. These ciple," that "meaning and knowledge component in many electronic devices, skills can be learned in ways analogous are built up through various modalities and images are created to be uploaded to textual literacy. With training and (images, texts, symbols, interactions, rather than printed. The four-year old practice, people can develop the ability abstract design, sound, etc.), not just photo-sharing Web site Flickr includes to recognize, interpret, and employ the words" (p. 210). more than two billion images, and in distinct syntax and semantics of differ- In our rapidly changing world, vi- just one recent month (January 2008), ent visual forms. The process of becom- sual literacy, whether conceptualized more than 79 million viewers watched ing visually literate continues through as a distinct set of capacities or as part 3 billion videos on the three-year-old a lifetime of learning new and more of a larger multimodal literacy, should site YouTube. sophisticated ways to produce, analyze, be recognized among the fundamental This visual explosion is not only and use images. goals of a liberal education. a popular-culture phenomenon. Vast Visual literacy has appeared on The following review will highlight scholarly archives-including the the margins of the national discourse four categories of resources essential ARTstor Digital Library (www.artstor. about liberal education. The AAC&U's for understanding visual literacy in org), NASA's Visible Earth collec- GreaterExpectations report (2002), higher education: foundations, visual tion (visibleearth.nasa.gov), and the for instance, contended that one of the cognition and perception, visual design, American Memory site at the Library core characteristics of an "empowered and teaching visual literacy. of Congress (memory.loc.gov)-make learner" would be the capacity to "ef- high-quality visual materials available fectively communicate orally, visually, FOUNDATIONS to students, teachers, and researchers in writing, and in a second language" Humans have created images to con- everywhere. (xi). In the AAC&U's follow-up report, vey meaning for thousands of years, but Our visual, screen-based world is Liberal Education Outcomes (2005), the idea of educating people for visual the natural environment for many of however, references to the visual disap- literacy developed over the past century today's college students. Our technol- peared, although two new literacies, concurrently with new communications quantitative and information, now technologies. In the late 1960s John Peter Felten is associateprofessor and di- complement "written and oral commu- Debes from Eastman Kodak coined rector of the Centerfor the Advancement of nication" as essential intellectual and the term "visual literacy" and, with a Teaching and Learningat Elon University. practical skills. diverse group of academics as partners,

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hosted the first national conference on For a theoretical overview of the perceives a line drawing of a cube to the topic. This group soon evolved into state of the field, James Elkins' has ed- have three dimensions; our eyes project the International Visual Literacy As- ited a volume, Visual Literacy (2007), depth onto a flat surface by assembling sociation (www.ivla.org), which hosts that brings together major thinkers to a familiar shape from a two-dimen- an annual conference and sponsors a consider what the concept means in sional drawing on a sheet of paper. Pro- Web portal (www.ivla.org/portal/intro) diverse contexts around the globe and ponents of visual literacy contend that that provides links to relevant research, across the disciplines. The volume fo- if the physical act of seeing involves ac- teaching materials, publications, collec- cuses primarily on cultural studies, but tive construction, then the intellectual tions, and other resources. act of interpreting what is seen must The connection between visual liter- require a critical viewer. acy and emerging technologies persists. The study of the physiological and EDUCAUSE (www.educause.edu/), a cognitive systems involved in visual leading higher education association perception is one of the burgeoning focused on technology, has made visual areas in neuroscience. Dale Purves and literacy an important part of its agenda. R. Beau Lotto (2003) offer an acces- Susan E. Metros and Kristina Woolsey, sible peek into this vast field in Why We writing in the EDUCAUSE Review See What We Do: An EmpiricalTheory (2006), offer a succinct argument for of Vision. Scientists will continue to why visual literacy should be "an in- debate Purves and Lotto's thesis that stitutional imperative." Another inter- the visual system generates a "statisti- national consortium of academics and cal reflection of visual history" rather technologists, the New Media Consor- than an accurate representation of the tium (www.nmc.org), has drawn on the physical world, but since no generally scholarship of Kress, Gee, and others to accepted framework for understand- produce an extended argument that the ing the visual system exists, the clarity development of multimodal literacy is and comprehensiveness of Purves and now "A Global Imperative" for higher Lotto's book make it valuable to those education (www.nmc.org/pdf/Global outside the field. Imperative.pdf). The Horizon Report, Echo Objects: The Cognitive Work produced annually by EDUCAUSE and of Images, by Barbara Maria Stafford the New Media Consortium, anticipates (2007), takes a different view into the how emerging technologies will affect science of sight. Stafford, an art histo- higher education. As in past years, the rian, has studied neuroscience deeply. 2008 report focuses on how Web 2.0 Echo Objects makes the compelling, if tools for video, data visualization, and jargon-heavy, argument that since think- multimedia "mash-ups" will require ing is inextricably linked to images, human cognition requires "formal instruction in information, vi- Elkins makes a powerful plea to "take understanding of science and art. sual, and technological literacy." up the challenge of providing a visual the integration The Cambridge Handbook of Mul- timedia Learning (2005), edited by culture 'core curriculum' for all stu- VISUAL DESIGN dents. Images are central to our lives, writing is essential to textual Richard E. Mayer, summarizes the and it is time they become central in Just as educationally relevant research on literacy, the capacity to manipulate and how people learn in multimodal envi- our universities" (p. 8). make meaning with images is a core component of visual literacy. Techno- ronments; although the volume does VISUAL COGNITION logical change has made it increasingly not focus on visual literacy per se, it AND PERCEPTION ordinary people, not just pro- is an essential resource. For example, The study of the physical processes possible for Mayer's chapter on the "Cognitive fessionals, to become visual designers. Theory of Multimedia Learning" involved in visual perception has both Indeed, editing with a particular graph- encouraged and reinforced advocates of clearly explains both the science ics program has become so common as and the implications of "the human visual literacy. Research demonstrates to create a new verb, "to photoshop," that seeing is not simply a process of information processes system [that] passive reception of stimuli but also that means to digitally alter an image. Johanna Drucker and Emily McVarish's includes dual channels for visual/pic- involves active construction of mean- torial and auditory/verbal processing" ing. A typical person, for example, GraphicDesign History: A Critical (p. 31). Guide (2008), a widely used college text,

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is an excellent introduction to both the ba- of the leading books on pedagogy in tools, SPACE's web site (www.csiss. sic principles and the historical evolution higher education make at most a pass- org/space) offers an array of materials of visual design. ing reference to visual-literacy con- to help college faculty teach spatial Edward Tufte, a professor emeritus siderations, in effect treating images thinking in the social and environmen- at Yale, has developed a large following as mere illustrations and ignoring the tal sciences, including both "classics" for his elegant, practical, and pointed myriad of ways people make meaning like V.0. Key's 1949 work on mapping views on the visual display of quantita- by combining visuals and texts. One of southern politics and emerging tools tive data. His workshops and books, exception is James E. Zull's The Art of like "virtual globes." including The Visual Display of Quan- In the natural sciences, Nobel laure- titative Information (2nd ed., 2001), ate Carl Wieman (2007) argues that should appeal most to professionals in a range of visual forms, including business, engineering and the sciences. figures and simulations made possible Tufte's most recent volume, Beautiful by new technologies, are essential to Evidence (2006), includes a chapter effective scientific education. Jo based on his influential article, "The Handelsman, Sarah Miller, and Cognitive Style of PowerPoint," that Christine Pfund's Scientific Teaching contends that "PowerPoint, compared (2006) explains how using a visual to other presentation tools, reduces the frameworks and "mini-maps" can help analytical quality of serious presenta- students not only learn content in a tions of evidence" (p. 157). biology course but also better under- Despite the harsh critique, many stand how scientists think and how the academics rely on PowerPoint and scientific process works. other software to create, manipulate, In history, Michael Coventry and and present visuals. Many campuses colleagues from the Visible Knowledge and technology groups (such as EDU- Project (crossroads.georgetown.edu/ CAUSE) offer or broker training in vkp) recently presented, in the Journal these technologies. For example, the ofAmerican History (2006), five case University of Minnesota's Center for studies of faculty using new visual ap- Teaching and Learning hosts a free proaches to teach historical content online tutorial about "Active Learning and thinking skills. In education and with PowerPoint" (www 1.umn.edu/ohr/ psychology, Elizabeth Thomas, Nancy teachlearn/tutorials/powerpoint). Lynda Place, and Cinnamon Hillyard published (www.lynda.com) is a corporation with a pair of articles in the journal College an excellent reputation for online tutori- Teaching (2008) that outline and assess als on the tools and techniques com- several approaches to using "visual im- monly used for visual design. ages in the college classroom to promote students' capacities and skills." TEACHING VISUAL LITERACY Changing the Brain (2002). Zull draws Faculty in composition and cultural on "the biology of learning" to argue Schools have traditionally placed that faculty should make "extensive use studies have produced the deepest litera- primary emphasis on textual literacy. ture on the pedagogy of visual literacy in of images to help people learn," both by Our pedadogy and academic training teaching with visuals and by requiring higher education. Lynn Z. Bloom, Donald often focus on words and texts as the A. Daiker, and Edward M. White's 2003 students to use various visual forms to source of knowledge. As Carmen Luke represent what they know. Composition Studies in the New Mil- (2003) explains in a provocative article Models for doing this recently have lenium includes several chapters, both on pedagogy and multimodality, the provocative and practical, on visual lit- begun appearing in many disciplines, classroom is perhaps the only place eracy and the teaching of college writing. building in part on new visualiza- where today's students are not "blend- Brian Golfarb's Visual Pedagogies(2002) tion technologies being developed as ing, mixing, and matching knowledge blends critical theory and concrete ex- research tools. Perhaps the clearest drawn from diverse textual sources and example of this is the Spatial Per amples to show the potential of students communication media" (p. 398). spectives on Analysis for Curriculum as producers of visual and multimodal Although a vast literature exists on Enhancement (SPACE) program. academic work. In The Rhetoric of Cool: teaching visual literacy in pre-colle- Drawing on advances in geographic in- Composition Studies and New Media giate settings, relevant higher education formation systems and spatial analysis (2006), Jeff Rice argues for a new un- literature is only now emerging. Many derstanding of writing as inherently net-

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i ReSUrceBox worked, erasing traditional dichotomies of visual or textual, print or online. PUBLICATIONS of Chicago Press. Rice notes some irony in the recent * Association of American Colleges 0 New Media Consortium. (2005). discovery of the visual by composition and Universities. (2002). GreaterEx- A Global Imperative: The Report of scholars and teachers. Humans always pectations:A New Vision for Learn- the 21st Century Literacy Summit. have used images as one important tool for ing as a Nation Goes to College. Austin, TX: NMC. making meaning. That composition stud- Washington, DC: AAC&U. * New Media Consortium; Edu- ies, and indeed most academic disciplines, [ Association of American Colleges cause Learning Initative. (2008). The are only now beginning to take visual and Universities. (2005). Liberal 2008 Horizon Report. Austin, TX: representation seriously reflects a failure Education Outcomes: A Preliminary NMC. of many academics to understand hu- Report on Student Achievement in 0 Oblinger, D. G., & Oblinger, J. L. man learning rather than a radical change College. Washington, DC: AAC&U. (2005). Educating the Net Genera- sparked by technology and culture. 0 Coventry, M., Felten, P., Jaffee, tion. Boulder, CO: Educause. To train students to see critically D., O'Leary, C., Weis, T., & Mc- 0 Purve,, D., & Lotto, R. B. (2003). and to create in multiple modes should Gowan, S. (2006). Ways of Seeing: Why We See What We Do: An Empiri- be an essential component of a liberal Evidence and Learning in the History cal Theor' of Vision. Sunderland, education. That will require not only re- Classroom. Journal ofAAmerican His- "MA: Sinauer Associates. envisioning our curricula and teaching tory, 92 (4), 1371-1402. 0 Rice, J. (2007). The Rhetoric of practices but also supporting faculty, M Drucker, J., & McVarish, E. Cool: Composition Studies and New librarians, and others in learning to both (2008). GraphicDesign History: A Media. Carbondale, IL: Southern Il- value and use visual representations in CriticalGuide. Upper Saddle River, linois University Press. working with students. rc NJ: Prentice Hall. 0 Stafford, B. M. (2007). Echo Ob- 0 Elkins, J. (2007). Visual Literacy. jects: The Cognitive Work of Images. im RSLrc Bo3 1 New York: Routledge. Chicago: University of Chicago • Gee, J. P. (2003). What Video Press. WEB SITES Games Have To Teaching Us about E Thomas, E., Place, N., and Hill- E Active Learning with Power- Literacy and Learning. New York: yard, C. (2008). Students and Teach- Point, Center for Teaching and Palgrave Macmillan. ers Learning to See - Part 1: Using Learning, University of Minne- E Golfarb, B. (2002). Visual Cul- Visual Images in the College Class- sota: wwwl .umn.edu/ohr/ tures in and Beyond the Classroom. room to Promote Students' Capaci- teachleam/tutorials/powerpoint Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ties and Skills. College Teaching, 56 * American Memory, Library of 0 Handelsman, J., Miller, S., & (1), 23-27. Congress: memory.loc.gov Pfund, C. (2006). Scientific Teaching. 0 Thomas, E., Place, N., and Hill- 0 ARTstor Digital Library: www. New York: W. H. Freeman. yard, C. (2008). Students and Teach- artstor.org 0 Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the ers Learning to See - Part 2: Using 0 EDUCAUSE: www.educause. New MediaAge. New York: Rout- Visual Images in the College Class- edu ledge. room to Enhance the Social Context "* Flickr: www.flickr.com N Luke, C. (2003). Pedagogy, Con- for Learning. College Teaching, 56 "* International Visual Literacy nectivity, Multimodality, and In- (2), 74-77. Association: www.ivla.org terdiscipilnarity. Reading Research N Tufte, E. R. (2006). Beautiful Evi- ""Lynda: www.lynda.com Quarterly,38 (3), 397-403. dence. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press. " New Media Consortium: www. N Mayer, R. E. (2005). The Cam- E Tufte, E. R. (2001). The Visual nmc.org bridge Handbook of Multimedia Display of Quantitative Information. 0 Spatial Perspectives on Analy- Learning. New York: Cambridge Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press. sis for Curriculum Enhancement: University Press. * Wieman, C. (2007). Why Not Try www.csiss.org/space 0 Metros, S. E., & Woolsey, K. A Scientific Approach to Science E Visible Earth, National Aero- (2006). Visual Literacy: An Institu- Education? Change, 39 (5), 9-15. nautics and Space Administration: tional Imperative. ED UCA USE Re- N Zull, J. E. (2002). TheArtof visibleearth.nasa.gov view, 41 (3), 80-8 1. Changing the Brain: Enriching the 0 Visible Knowledge Project: * Mitchell, W. 1. (1995). Picture Practiceof Teaching by Exploring crossroads.georgetown.edu/vkp Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual the Biology of Learning. Sterling, 0 YouTube: www.youtube. Representation.Chicago: University VA: Stylus. "w comrc,

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