What Does a Selfie Communicate?

What is visual literacy and why is it important?

We are a visual consuming society. From billboard ads and television to Facebook and Snapchat or in the classroom with diagrams, charts, and models, we eat up and digest the visual world around us everyday.

Yet, we do not always stop to negotiate what visuals actually do to us. Visual literacy helps us put our 1,000 words down on paper or in conversation. It helps us to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image. 

a. For example, take a look at these pictures. What are the facial expressions saying to you? Does the background lend messages? Summarize what message you think any of these pictures is saying. Then, respond to how that makes you feel.

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b. We want to take a "Group Selfie" to use as a notice for AR reading. What ideas do you have that would convey "Hey, its fun to read!" that would be a picture of people??

c. Last, take a selfie and submit it in Discussions. (If possible...if that doesn't work, we'll just put them on our desktop, and have people walk around to look at them) Summarize what you are trying to tell us with your picture. and look at, and respond to at least four classmates. What message do you think they are communicating? Does their picture match the "story" they are trying to tell?