Visual Literacy - All Ugly

I'm wrapped tightly in Wysocki's chapter. Can't quite get past how stunningly she has driven straight to the issue. I wonder where this leads.

So, then, what is the purpose, then? Incorporate visual literacy into our general definition of literacy, or even simply decided that it's its own animal, and you still have to get to this question. I, too, looked at the rubrics she provided, and it boils down to a continuum of little to moderate to exceptional. I can agree that this sort of literacy should be included  in our curriculum. I can agree that this sort of literacy should be given equal weight to that of "old" media. Hell, I could see myself agreeing that this sort of literacy should become a heavier focus than the "old" media, even (radically) the sole focus. But to what end and at what standard? That's what I find myself examining.

Wysocki knocked me down, though. Her chapter neatly whipped through all of the different avenues I know that I would've pursued to explain and set a standard for my students. So then, what next? Again, back to basics. She plowed through the approaches from easy rhetorical ground to a dense philosophical jungle requiring machete, guide, and various vaccinations. After coming through all of that, where are we?

To extend the metaphor well past where it deserves, I find myself walking out of that dense and complex jungle that I could barely get myself out of let alone navigate students through, and when I pop out on the other side, I find myself in ancient Greece. The surprised, bearded faces of a group of men in togas greet me, looking quizzically at my pith helmet. They aren't disturbed much by me and get back to their conversation quickly. I shake off the leaves, wildlife, and horrifying parasites and hover on the edge of their circle. A miracle of the fact that I'm in charge of this metaphor means that I can understand what they're saying.

They're debating the story of Persephone and its meaning and implications for their lives. They're pushing and pulling at the choices of the author, parsing the differences in the different ways they were told and remember the story, and digging deeply into where their ideas come from. They're leaving no aspect as "chance". The story's parts and contexts and allusions are all on display. But of course these ancient Greeks have a major disadvantage: it's not written down. Oh, maybe it's written down, but it has no author - it's oral tradition. And each man brings the version he heard as a boy, along with the moralizing and deep teaching that his family or teachers selected for him. As they pick the story apart, argue, yell, threaten, and mock, I realize that what's happening is the kind of analysis that is looser than the kind that is mostly practiced (and praised and measured and encouraged) in my classroom. See, we always have the text to return to. And words have vast but ultimately limited meaning. We can be sure what the words on the page say. They don't change and provide us parameters and boundaries. The playing field is vast, but the lines are mostly clear and visible.

The analysis those metaphorical Greeks are doing is the kind that is required to look at the Peek ad or the Redskins logo and begin to argue. Where does the game even begin? The answer to the question is not an increasingly complex analytical algorithm that will take into account the historical context, the author's intent, the cultural norms and contexts, the impact on the reader, the background and context of the reader, or the access to the allusions in play. Instead we have no clear boundaries beyond our own compasses to let us know the limits of the analysis. In that way we are all on equal footing.

The men stand in a circle, they address each other as equals. No one is teaching the analysis. The analysis is generated and moderated by the group. Does maybe the incorporation of this type of literacy force the teacher to come down from the pulpit and join the flock in the act of "not knowing"? But each will be enriched by the process, discernibly though probably not measurably. This is the antithesis of the standardized curriculum and yet I feel compelled to do more of this because of its inherent focus on the life of the mind of the individual.