Toward New Media Texts

In the article, Selfe explains and discusses the significance of visual literacy in the schools. I believe that teachers need to incorporate more visual literacy within the classrooms. I agree that most teachers limit the use of visual literacy because they are more familiar with alphabetic literacy. Due to the fact that numerous students are visual learners, I think teachers should integrate visual literacy in the lessons. However, I do not feel as if teachers should throw out the alphabetic literacy in the lessons. In my opinion, students enjoy doing different activities or different ways of doing things instead of the same routine everyday in class. If teachers incorporated more visual literacy within the classrooms, the students would be given more opportunities for diverse ways of doing things, and many visual learners might benefit more from the lesson that involve visual literacy.
I enjoyed reading the sections about visual literacy, visual texts, and visual compositions on page 69. Throughout my elementary and high school education, my teachers hardly ever used any type of visual literacy in the classrooms. I believe that the visual elements such as color and images are great aspects that bring out the usage of visual literacy. I thought it was interesting how Selfe refers to the term composer instead of author, the term viewer instead of the reader, and the term design to describe the activities that involves a task.
One of my favorite activities dealing with visual literacy was the text re-design and re-vision on page 101. With this activity, students have to examine and evaluate various web sites and make a list of ways that designers could make essays more effective than essays are on paper. The assignment involves the students creating a WWW page. I believe that students would enjoy creating their own WWW page. Furthermore, I believe students will create a more effective essay because they know it will be posted on their WWW pages. Students are able to critique and assess their own web designs as well as other classmates’ web designs. In conclusion, I think visual literacy activities are excellent activities for students to accomplish in any classroom.