Reading the Visual in College Writing Classes

Hill, Charles, A. “Reading the Visual in College Writing Classes.” Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World. Ed. Carolyn Handa. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004. 107-130. Print. 

 

In this article, Charles Hill begins by lamenting the neglect of visual literacy in classrooms. According to Hill, this neglect is largely due to the perception that the visual is some how “less than” the verbal. He claims this idea is based largely on invalid assumptions including that the visual and verbal are separate entities. He refutes this and argues that the visual is not simply another way to say something that can be said verbally.

This idea leads into a discussion for visual rhetoric pedagogy. After posing a list of current questions in the field, Hill tries to answer the question of how we determine which images to consider rhetorical. He identifies “imagistic events”(first-hand images) and “symbolic events” (second-hand images categorized by “intent”) as the two types of visual images. He does go on to caution that these are both subjective; our perceptions of these events are influenced by our cultural values and assumptions.

After discussing the why of visual rhetorical pedagogy, Hill poses suggestions for implementation: 1. looking at the image in the context of American culture by having students consider how images work in society 2. teaching images as rhetorical constructions; students should learn how images are persuasive and 3. teaching the visual aspects of written text as a way to “ease” students into a discussion of visual rhetoric.

Hill then turns to the application in First-Year Composition. He argues that the visual should be taught in FYC because it’s often the only exposure to rhetorical theory that students have in their college careers, and the primary purpose of rhetorical education is to teach students how to respond to messages in the “real world.” He ends the discussion of FYC with the acknowledgement that general education writing courses are considerably over burdened. His solution to that problem is a multi-departmental rhetoric program built around the idea that writing, visual literacy and oral communication are all essential and inexorably intertwined.

Hill gives a lot of good examples to explain his ideas in trying to answer some of the questions that the field has run into. This seems to be his attempt to try and move forward to application with the theories of the “visual” that were circulating. He does seem to differ from George (Blog 2) in that he does still only focus on the analysis and not the production. His discussion of visual elements of text was thorough and again his examples drove the point home-the visual and verbal together help to construct our communication in every way. I particularly found his definition of what images are considered rhetorical and the subjectivity we bring to images to be useful in that it helps to solidify a definition of what we mean when we say “visual.” Not quite sure I can buy into his solution to the whole situation, but the article is useful to start pulling some of the previous theories into the modern classroom.