Literacies Post

I was overall intrigued and impressed by our presenters this past week and the perspectives and information varied greatly, though related to various forms of literacy. I am interested in the way literacy regarding the written word intersects with literacy in textiles and other art forms. In this sense does literacy mean proficiency in a certain area? The ability to decode and recreate material in that code?

For our presentation on Storytelling this Tuesday we will have students break up into groups to write their own fables on a topic of their choice. Although we will have limited time and limited art supplies we are interested in providing students options to convey their fable through oral and written word as well as illustrations, physical art such as masks and props, and using the body to act out the message.

Jenny brought up a really interesting point on Twitter about her wishing academic texts used images and illustrations. This really got me thinking about the potential to have images together with text and theory. I really think this would provide depth to theory and many academic texts. The images could range from photographs of real world examples of the theory occurring in life. They could also be art created by the author with similar intention as the academic text or art that inspires the author. I think the possibilities are endless with images and art in academic text. I recently created a blog http://witchhazelkayari.blogspot.com/ in which I put my photographs juxtaposed with my thoughts and reflections. I love the way the images add to and complicate the meaning of the words. I intend on using lots of images in my thesis of student art as well as some of my own. What would shifting the academic field necessitate in order for academics to feel free to publish non-traditional texts with images interspersed? How would this change the learning process if our dense theoretical texts were "illustrated".