Visual Literacy: Connections Between the Visual and the Verbal

You have just been appointed a job as a VISUAL LITERACY DETECTIVE! Your job will be to look at a visual image and decide what information that image is trying to pass on to you. You will need to look at symbols and signs (semiotics) and text (words) for clues about the image. You will need to develop a special process for learning this type of information.

DEFINITIONS

Visual Literacy: The way that we define visual literacy is the joining of two concepts together. They are Visual and Literacy. The Visual pertains to the images that our eyes encounter on a daily basis. Literacy refers to reading and writing at a level adequate for communication. Joining these two words together gives us a definition for visual literacy; it refers to reading an image for understanding.

Text: The wording of anything written or printed.

Semiotics: The study of signs and symbols in systems of communication.