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The visual images and multimodal texts we encounter in our daily lives are complicit in how we make sense of the world and our emerging identities. We rely on visual data to decide what foods to buy, to find our way around unknown places, to determine how to dress for work and play, and to understand our cultural past. The creation of visual images allows humans to communicate feelings and ideas across time and space, develop relationships with one another, and document the details of everyday experiences.
Literacy education has been dominated by written language and the medium of the printed text, pushing the teaching of visual images and multimodal elements to the periphery of the literacy curriculum (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001). If children are to understand how visual images and multimodal features represent and construct meaning, they need knowledge of the meaning-making systems used in their production.
With greater frequency, students are confronted with multimodal texts that include visual images and a variety of design features rather than texts that focus primarily on written language (Jewitt, 2009). Texts' inclusion of design features and visual images in addition to written language presents challenges to novice readers as they work within and across multiple sign systems to construct meaning (Siegel, 2006). As theories for interpreting visual images and multimodal texts continue to evolve, instructional approaches in literacy education need to evolve as well. Bearne (2003) states, "[C]hildren deserve to be given the key to translating their inner text making into coherent communications by explicit discussion of variations in the structures, purposes and effects of multimodal as well as written texts" (p. 99).
There is a difference between looking and seeing (Berger, 1972). It has been suggested that some visual images, specifically photographically produced images, because of their close resemblance to what they represent are universally comprehensible. In other words, it is assumed that by simply looking at particular visual images, people should be able to understand what is being communicated. However, every process of representation implies a reduction and transformation of a considerable number of characteristics of represented reality (Kenney, 2005). Consequently, recognition of the represented elements of a visual image by no means implies that one understands the meaning potentials or purposes of a...