Oftentimes, teachers speak highly of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), the idea being that all teachers should be in some way teachers of writing, encouraging students to communicate their ideas effectively in writing in every specific subject area. For many, including me, this makes perfect sense, and many schools have found success by implementing this simple philosophy. The case study of Brockton High School, a school of 4,100 students in the United States, found lasting success in part because of their adoption of WAC strategies.
However when it comes to how we communicate visually, and how we teach and study these skills, there seems to be less of a consensus, and more of a stigma. The attitude of some students and teachers seems to be that visual communication should be relegated to visual and performing arts. But more recently technology courses are now incorporating design instruction into their curriculum design, specifically with the use of multimedia technology like Keynote or PowerPoint, and web design.
In English class, we talk about contrast in literature, via the use of juxtaposition in T.S. Eliot’s poetry or Steinbeck’s prose, but rarely do we talk about creating visual contrast. The same can be said for visual imagery, by far the type of imagery that we spend the most time discussing, and the type of imagery that students spend the most time writing about. The question, “How does an author describe it?” always comes back to, “How does it look?” and this, to me, sounds first and foremost like a design question, even if we don’t address it as such.
Before one of my classes started reading R.C. Sherriff’s play Journey’s End, where the entire play takes place in an officer’s bunker in the trenches during World War 1, I had my students draw it. This, to me, sounded like a logical first step. I had some photography slides of various productions, but I wanted to first see how my students imagined this stage, especially since the setting remains static for the entire performance. While some were eager to translate Sheriff’s directorial notes into a stage design, others grumbled at the fact that, in their minds, we were doing Art in English, and therefore, wasting their time. When I solicited feedback from this class on the helpfulness of assignments we had completed for this unit, a few identified it as the least beneficial activity, with one student commenting, “I just didn’t see the point of drawing the play. We should just read it.” How interesting that plays–a genre of literature intended to be performed on a stage in front of an audience–is relegated in English class as something to just read.
So where does this attitude come from? Perhaps the school subjects become inherently compartmentalized in students’ mind, just like the time blocks reserved for each area. Maybe this is why programs like Writing Across the Curriculum do more than just encourage students to better communicate in writing–maybe these programs also act as bridges between content-subjects, and important reminders that there are more connections to be made between subjects than students are aware of.
I wonder if this is all on my mind because my 9th grade class is in the process of studying their first film as text, Whale Rider. And although we spent some time investigating the characters, themes and symbols and all that stereotypical Englishy stuff, I tried to focus instead on the visual and cinematic elements: shot composition, color saturation, film angles, etc. We looked at the rule of thirds and screen shots of scenes from movies–O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Rushmore, and Whale Rider, where directors are playing with this “rule,” creating balance or implying some sort of imbalance through their visual medium (mouse over the screenshot at the top of this post for an example). We even looked at the trailer to the new Wes Anderson movie, Moonrise Kingdom (which baffled most–it turns out most of my students do not share my appreciation with this writer and director’s style of film making). But I argued that if I saw this film trailer without knowing what it was, it would only take me about thirty seconds to know that it is a Wes Anderson film, based on the stylistic techniques. In my opinion, this is a good thing, and it allowed us to talk a little about what style really means–perhaps an easy explanation that we came up with in class is that it is what allows us to differentiate texts, artists, and writers. This discussion also allowed us to question to what extent visual style matters.
And as we prepare for our first formal and professional presentations in 9th grade, we are looking at fonts, images, balance, placement, color, contrast, movement and a lot of other important design elements. My hope is that studying these ideas–along with formal presentation techniques–will help my students to more effectively communicate their ideas to their intended audience: their classmates. We consistently expect this idea of effective communication in their writing, and it is time that we come to equally expect it in other means of authentic communication as well.
Some Follow-up Questions that I want to explore further that relate to design:
If we make a literary journal, can we devote time to font selection, spacing, layout, and cover design?
When students take notes, should we allow visual representations of ideas?
When students study film, should they study angle, shot composition, and lighting?
When students create multimedia presentations, should teachers evaluate the “effectiveness” of slides?
Some Suggestions:
Practice what we preach. Obviously teachers should not be expected to deliver formal presentations in every block of every class, but perhaps we should set aside more time for formal presentations presented by the teacher, as well as by the students.
Encourage students to investigate design strategies, read well-designed blogs & websites; investigate poetry, short story and novel formatting.
Coordinate activities with Art, Drama, and IT classes
Encourage both WAC and DAC (Designing Across the Curriculum). I just made this term up, but I would love to design a presentation rubric that could be easily modified for each subject, creating some similar design standards for all students.
Watch professional presentations not only for content, but also style and technique (like we do when we read literature)
