I got the title for our next series of readings from a quote on page 1. Kress and Leeuwen assert "grammar has been, and remains, 'formal'" (1). So naturally I ask, what does it mean to be formal? Does that mean there are a set of rules that should be followed or does this mean something entirely different? I imagine over the next few weeks this questions will be answered, and from that answer, more questions will certainly arise. They always do, right?
As children, we are encouraged to produce images and illustrate our written work, and "teachers comment on these illustrations as much as they do on the written part of the text..." (16). The benefit of this medium is there is not correct illustration, and images are seen as self-expression rather than communication.
I remember growing up in Elementary school where the pictures I drew where more important to what I was writing. Of course, we are still learning to write and producing images is presented to children as something they can do with any further instruction. But before we can learn how images can help us communicate a message, they are gone from our education. Around 2nd grade, images are no longer seen as important and written communication becomes the most important. Why is this?
The importance put on the visual comes and goes as we move through our education. More often than not, images are seen as a distraction from the written words, and if nothing else are seen as simply a supplement to our writing. Now, in the 17th year of my education, I am finally taking a class in visual rhetoric and learning how visual images have a language all of their own. What I am calling for is a shift in how we teach the importance of the visual in our lives. Maybe then we will understand what we are looking at when we view advertisements, paintings, photographs, etc. Maybe this type of education would help to produce a more literate, conscious public.
Your comment regarding the way that images disappear from written language is oh so true, and oh so sad. (That's exactly how I felt when I noticed the lack of images in our new book...) When we teach students to write, we emphasize the importance of images. Most often, prewriting begins with a drawing and then emerges into a draft, and eventually into a final product. The drawing not only accompanies the writing, but it also serves as the jumping off point and brainstorming. I completely agree with your assertion that visual communication needs a more prominent place in early education! Preach on, brother!
ReplyDelete