Visual Understanding

"Today's young people need the knowledge and skills to deal with persuasion in an age of images."

I'm having coffee with the EJ article by Gretchin Schwarz, and one thing strikes me about last night's ABC conversation: with few exceptions, no one said anything about the VISUAL component of ABC!!! Did anyone else notice that we were pretty fixated on literary analysis? This is proof, of course, of how graphic novels can promote the "goals of traditional literacy" as outlined by Schwarz. O.K., I'm convinced. But why didn't we talk about the pictures? It's interesting to me that our discussion about pictures began when someone asked our 6th grade guest about her favorite part, and we were refered to the picture of Chin-Kee.

Schwarz comments that graphic novels can be more challenging to analyze than traditional print, since they require analysis of visual elements: color choice, placement, framing, positioning, etc. When I was commenting on Steve's post about archetypes, I looked at the herbalist's wife on p 29 and for the first time became aware that the background frame on her prophetic words is black!

Even as progressive as we are, we are still most comfortable with traditional literary analysis. I hope that our conversation next week might delve more into the visual as I'm eager to see how this plays out in classroom discussion.

Comments

[Karen Stearns]

Tamara, yes, true. I did bring up this topic toward the end of our discussion last night pointing out that we might want to consider the images as integral to the reading experience. Obvious of course but you suggest useful ways to continue to explore this topic. Jenn also pointed out a topic of interest about the drawings in her post above.

[Ray]

I think with such an intricate book as ABC it's hard to focus on one aspect of the book. I have about three pages of notes just on the pictures! I guess the class, being all English people, tried to figure out what was going on before really delving into the pictures. You're right, though. There's so much going on in this book; it's awesome!

[Andrew Morabito]

It's true, one of the misconceptions about reading comic books is that they are quick reads. I know last week we all commented on how quickly we read ABC, but we also probably didn't spend nearly enough time examining each frame before we flipped to the next page to find out what happens next. The drawing of ABC is so deceptively simple and cartoonish that is easy to neglect the images, but there is so much there that every single time I pick up the book I want to spend more time going back to examine it.

[Joe Fox]

I think it is interesting to think of us all as trained in a certain approach to literary analysis. New literacies really do demand, new approaches and perspectives. I for one am really going to try this semester to take each work I encounter at face value, and search for significance on the author's terms. It is not as simple as reading the fiction or reading the articles for class. Even to the point of choosing what books should and shouldn't be in your classroom library. Who knows what the kids that walk through the door are going to be interested in?

[Amanda]

I'm really looking forward to spending a little time next class talking more about the visual aspects of ABC; I agree that we didn't get to explore this nearly enough last class. I like that we're challenging ourselves to look beyond what we're obviously accustomed to. While there is always merit to critical literary analysis, I think what Tamara is saying is showing us that we all have room to step further outside the box. There is so much going on in this graphic novel, I think it would be difficult to touch upon most of what it has to offer in a 20-minute class discussion. For next week, I think I'm most curious to hear what we think the visual elements of ABC do that the words on the page can't. I'm sure we could all reexamine each page and discover something new in each frame. Much to my surprise, this is one of the richest books I've encountered in awhile.