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I came into this class period with a general idea of what I wanted to do for my visual literacy narrative. As stated in my previous blog post, I wanted to compile a book of my various literacies. I still plan on finishing my visual literacy narrative with this book in mind but talking with my group  helped solidify my plans and tweak them a bit as well. I bounced some of my ideas off of them and they helped me form my thoughts into a cohesive whole about my plan for my literacy narrative.

I plan on taking pictures of myself partaking in my various literacies, such as reading, texting, writing, etc. But I plan on working this into a general theme of what my literacies help me to do. By this, I mean my various literacies help me become a better thinker. Reading a book helps me think more about the connections and the relationships between the characters and overall plot. But being literate with texting can help me think more about the relationships between people and help me be more sympathetic with my friends and have more interpersonal knowledge. All of this will  help me be a better teacher, which I plan on being my overall theme that connects all of my literacies together into one being. Being literate in various mediums and with various things will help me better transmit this knowledge to my students and that is why being literate in a multitude of things is so important to me. I plan on conveying this pictorially in my literacy book.

The examples shown in class of visual narratives were all technologically based. This is to be expected, of course; doing things on computers is sometimes more efficient. But as I began to think about my personal literacies, I knew it would be unfair of me to do my visual narrative through some advanced technological medium. I am by no means computer illiterate, but I feel that PowerPoint is overdone in classrooms and I do not know how to make a movie. There’s nothing wrong with these choices, of course, but they aren’t representative of me or my personal literacies.

Thus, my rough plan for this project is as follows: I plan on making a book featuring my personal literacies. Books are an important part of my literacy and certainly help shape my thought process, which is another important part of my literacy that I plan on working into my project. So I was thinking of creating a book (not a fully bound professional book, of course) that features pictures of me partaking in my various literacies. I compiled a general outline of pictures that I want to include which are me reading various things, me writing in various mediums (both on paper and on a computer), me texting, me explaining something to someone else to demonstrate that I can think critically about what I have read/written, me discussing a book with someone else (that’s my personal favorite part of my literacy), and various other pictures. I plan on working this into a general theme of how my literacies help me think about my everyday life and help me plan for the future when I’ll need to be literate enough to teach things to others.

I think that a good visual narrative is one that is capable of telling a good without using too many words. An ideal narrative is one that would not require any words but I think this would be difficult to accomplish. One of the better visual narratives we looked at was, I believe, “The Journey of Eric Wooten’s Literary Experience.” He had little text and his pictures told an interesting and amusing story regardless. I could see where a clear beginning, middle, and end was.

A bad visual narrative is one that does not tell a clear story or one that would require even more words to express what is happening in the visual. I won’t give any actual examples because that seems slightly rude, but a less-than-exemplary visual narrative would be one wherein I could discern no clear beginning, middle, or end. If it were just a “visual,” then I wouldn’t need those elements. But this is a “visual narrative,” indicating at least some sort of story is being told and ought to be perceived as such by the audience looking at it.

This isn’t to say that all visual narratives ought to have all of the elements of a story. What I mean instead is that a visual narrative, especially the assignment in this class, could follow an actual sequence; could have a beginning, middle, and end; or it could follow the conventions of any other type of narrative. As long as it is not simply a muddle of various images that are rumored to have some sort of logical connection, I think that is a good visual narrative.

As the homework was to, I believe, ask a question about the readings assigned for Monday, I do have a more general question: what exactly is the difference between Creative Commons and a copyright? I hope this question was not answered on the site and I completely overlooked it, but I think I need more examples to fully compound my understanding. I’ve wondered a great deal about this.

In the other reading, the writers mentioned something along the lines of, “Remember that anything you put online is considered published.” What does this mean? Does this mean that the words on my blog are published and therefore protected by some sort of law? Doesn’t the fact that I could do nothing and probably would never know if people “stole” what I wrote online mean that any laws protecting what I wrote are essentially useless?

The main crux of the argument for using visuals is simply that visuals can often convey what words alone cannot. The most prevalent example I can think of is when I’m driving. If I come to a stoplight, it isn’t as though there are words trailing below the red light that says “Stop now.” The red light is a visual that conveys much more than just a simple red light. It tells us, if we’re approaching from afar, to slow down. It tells us to look in our rear view mirror to check that the people behind us are stopping also. It also makes me think of children’s books that are wordless. We used these in my Grammar & Writing class last semester and it astounded me just how much a picture could convey. Of course, there’s the cliche adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but in this class and through the readings, I’ve discovered that this is so very true.

Visuals play an integral role in communication. When I read the articles for today and saw that even body language are included in visual literacy, I was astounded. It was then that I realized just how much we use visuals to communicate. I often “talk with my hands”–I’ll wave my hands to show my excitement, I’ll jab my hand to emphasize a point, I’ll cover my face if I don’t want to talk. Visuals can also play an important role in technological communications. One would be hard-pressed to find a website that didn’t contain visuals. I’d like to think this isn’t simply because people have such short attention spans that we need pictures to grasp our interest longer but rather because visuals can so enhance the story that a website is trying to tell.

Visuals play an integral role in my daily life. As I’ve said before, I enjoy writing and reading and telling stories. Even through a few days in this class, I’ve already learned how well visuals can help tell a story. This intrigues me and I look forward to investigating this more. Visuals play an important role in my education as well. There are certain concepts in my English classes or my Education classes that can best be conveyed with visuals. Even yesterday, in my General Methods course, we had to pictorially represent concepts for a field unit we were to plan for our future students and how it would help us become a more effective educator. This provides a nice segue into answering the question of how visuals will be important in my career. I plan on becoming an English teacher and I know that not everyone can learn best while reading. I also know that writing isn’t simply words on a page anymore. One can do a visual project that speaks more than they could ever have said with their words. As a teacher, I will use the overhead, I will use PowerPoints, I will use the chalkboard/dry erase board. I will also probably utilize a website that my students can access. All of these things require visuals to work and I know that I will be able to communicate best if I properly utilize all of the visuals at my disposal.

In attempting to pinpoint specific acts of literacy that I perform, I must first consider what the term literacy means to me. With regards to my previous post, literacy was not just reading and writing, but being able to think and being able to coherently and concisely express one’s thoughts. In my own personal definition of literacy, I not only consider being able to comprehend things (such as reading a textbook and understanding what it says) as part of being literate but also being able to explain what it is one just read. This may not be the most accurate definition of literacy, but so many things involved with writing and reading are subjective. I think that “literacy” could be something subjective and mean different things to different people. 

That being said, I perform a literacy act everyday in that I read. I always have a novel that I’m reading and though I don’t have as much time to devote to it while classes are in session, it’s still an act. I also write a great deal and make an effort for it to be as eloquent as possible. I believe I perform literacy acts everyday in class when professors ask us to think about what we read and provide comments about it. Another possible literacy act is when I am online and IMing with my friends; I’ll read what they say, think about it, and respond. Whenever I blog (for this class and my personal blog), I’m performing a literacy act. I’d also venture a guess and say that whenever I email someone, I am performing another literacy act. I’m having trouble coming up with more because I feel as though “literacy” is one of those umbrella terms that applies to so many different activities, but when it comes down to it, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly one.

As this class takes care of one of the writing requirements for my major, I originally expected to have a primarily writing course. After the first day, however, my expectations have changed slightly. I do still expect to write, but I now expect to write in a variety of mediums. The course title of “Exploring Multiple Literacies” will be especially helpful for me as a future teacher, as writing does not simply mean handing in a research paper. I expect to learn not only how to write in a variety of technological mediums but also the effect of doing so.

Obviously, literacy means to everyone the ability to read. For me, however, reading has always been a passionate hobby of mine. Thus, literacy not only means the ability to read but also the ability to understand new ideas and concepts and to familiarize new concepts with ones previously learned. Literacy is how one thinks and interprets the world. Additionally, literacy is also the ability to express oneself: one’s thoughts, opinions, feelings, etc. Reading is never simply looking at words on pages; thus, literacy isn’t just being able to look at words on pages. It is the ability to let those words transform into ideas in a person’s mind. Literacy is a concept important to me, as a future English teacher. It is thus especially important to me that people are literate with a variety of mediums.

Most students write simply because they have to. Others write because they have something to say. I can’t answer the question of why others write, but I can explain why I write. Writing is also another hobby of mine, as you can tell by this particularly loquacious blog posting. I write not only because I have something to say but also because I need to express myself. I write because I want others to know what I think or believe about certain topics; I also write because it helps me work through my own thoughts and beliefs. Seeing my thoughts put into actual words is a cathartic experience that is really unparalleled to anything else.