ArtPlantae Today

Ask and they will see.

In What Do You See?, professors Julianne Maner Coleman and M. Jenice “Dee” Goldston explain how to implement questioning strategies to enhance visual literacy in students.

What is visual literacy?

Visual literacy has to do with the ability to interpret the diagrams, charts, tables and illustrations that accompany text. Science textbooks contain many photographs, graphics and scientific illustrations. But do readers really understand them? Do they even look at them? Do teachers spend time discussing them?

After reviewing the teacher’s guide to a popular K-6 science textbook series, Coleman and Goldston (2011) concluded that teachers were probably not spending much time discussing the diagrams in their science textbooks. During their review, they found that the teacher’s guide provided little instruction about how to incorporate textbook diagrams into conversations about content. In their paper, Coleman and Goldston (2011) offer a solution to this problem and show how teachers can use “purposeful questions” (Coleman and Goldston, 2011) to enhance visual literacy and student learning.

The authors present their solution in a vignette in which a 4th grade teacher guides her student’s review of a plant cell diagram. The diagram students analyze is a cutaway diagram showing the structure of a plant cell and its contents. In the vignette presented by Coleman and Goldston (2011), the teacher guides her students’ review of the cell by asking questions such as:

• Why did the authors include this diagram?
• What do you see in this diagram?
• What in the diagram helps us to know what we are seeing?
• What can we learn about plant cells from the diagram?
• How does the artist show the cell is like a water-filled baggie and not flat like the paper?
• How does the artist draw the plant cell to show its depth?

These questions spark much discussion about what the students see in the cutaway diagram. It becomes clear that students understand the authors of their textbook included this particular diagram because they wanted students to learn what plant cells look like and what’s inside of them.

Because of their teacher’s thoughtful questioning, students make insightful observations about how the artist used a line to mark the cell’s edges and used different colors to make it look three dimensional. The teacher supports her students’ observations by explaining how artists use shading, lines and other techniques to present information that is otherwise not easy to see (Coleman & Goldston, 2011).

In the vignette, this conversation is followed by an activity in which students use microscopes to observe onion cells, Elodea cells, and then compare these live cells to the diagram in their book.

In What Do You See?, the dialogue between the teacher and her students is written out in detail and clearly demonstrates how purposeful questioning can support student understanding of diagrams and other graphics used in science textbooks.

In their paper, Coleman and Goldston (2011) provide three tools teachers can use to enhance the visual literacy of their students. These tools are:

• A classification guide describing the types of diagrams found in textbooks.
• A sample evaluation sheet students can use during inquiry activities.
• A guide to questioning strategies and examples of the type of purposeful questions teachers can ask their students.

What Do You See? is recommended reading for anyone with an interest in visual literacy and the role images play in science education.

This paper can be purchased online (99¢) from the National Science Teachers Association. Alternatively, you can search for a copy of this article at your local college library.

Literature Cited
Coleman, Julianne Maner and M. Jenice “Dee” Goldston. 2011. What do you see? Science and Children. 49(1): 42-47.

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