Multimodal Literacies MOOC’s Updates

Section 11: Making Visual Meanings

Media embedded April 23, 2016
Media embedded April 23, 2016
Media embedded April 23, 2016
Media embedded April 23, 2016
Media embedded April 23, 2016
Media embedded April 23, 2016
 
Media embedded April 23, 2016
Media embedded April 23, 2016

This update explores the ways in which we make visual meanings. It offers a design analysis of the visual mode for the purposes of literacies learning and teaching. We refer to two types of visual meanings or images. Perceptual images are the things that you see with your body’s eye – your vision. Mental images are the things you see in your mind’s eye – your envisionings. The world does not just present itself for us to simply see. Our minds make visual sense of the world through what we call perceptual imaging. We can also envision things that we cannot for the moment see by using our imaginations. Growingly aware babies make sense of the world first by seeing it and making mental images, only later learning words for what they see. There are both similarities and differences between visual images and language. The similarities in these two symbolic ways of making meaning allow us to refer to the same things in language or in a visual image. There are also important differences. Visual images and words can never be quite the same.

To explore these issues further, see the supporting material on the Literacies website.

Comment Below: How are images like and unlike language?

Make an Update: Find some examples of curriculum resources or classrooms where teachers engage their learners in meaning-making texts that move between images and writing. How do these experiences highlight the power of synaesthesia—the process of shifting from one mode to another—and integrated, multimodal learning?

  • Gayatri Bhagowati
  • Bernadette Samson
  • Gayatri Bhagowati
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  • Gayatri Bhagowati