George.+From+Analysis+to+Design

=George, Diana. "From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing."= //CCC// 54.1 2002. 11-38. Print.

=Abstract= In an attempt to bring composition studies into a more thoroughgoing discussion of the place of visual literacy in the writing classroom, I argue that throughout the history of writing instruction in this country the terms of debate typical in discussions of visual literacy and the teaching of writing have limited the kinds of assignments we might imagine for composition.

=Argument= George begins her argument for increased visuals in composition by giving several examples of the variety of works produced by her students in response to a visual project assignment. She searches to examine “how does the visual both promise and threaten to change the composition course?” She discusses briefly the history of visual usage from elementary education onwards, citing the New London Group report on the necessity to teach “visual images and their relationship to the written word” and arguing for the need of visuals to develop from analytical use to a strong place in production. George supports her theory with discussion on the influence of the visual nature of design and its growth from formatting in research papers and word processing to graphics and web design. She concludes with debate amongst colleagues over her own assignments and her opinions on the future on composition courses.

=Key passages= “…there remains much confusion over what is meant by //visual communication, visual rhetoric,// or, more simply, //the visual// and where or whether it belongs in a composition course,” (13). “I actually believe that some tug of war between words and images or between writing and design can be productive as it brings into relief the multiple dimensions of all forms of communication,” (14).

“…I would argue that if we are ever to move beyond a basic and somewhat vague call for attention to ‘visual literacy’ in the writing class, it is crucial to understand how very complicated and sophisticated is visual communication to students who have grown up in what by all accounts is an aggressively visual culture,” (15). “Yet, without a concept like the notion of design, these older media assignments seem to be stuck in a kind of literacy civil war---one that pits poetics against the popular and words against pictures,” (19).

“As with written compositions, Web pages must have an internal coherence; they must, in other words, be navigable,” (26).

“For students who have grown up in a technology-saturated and image-rich culture, questions of communication and composition absolutely will include the visual, not as attendant to the verbal but as complex communication intricately related to the world around them,“ (32).

=Selected Works Cited= Bartholomae, David and Anthony Petrosky. 1987. //Ways of Reading.// Boston: St. Martin's.

McCrimmon, James. 1950. //Writing with a Purpose.// Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

New London Group. 1996. "A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures." //Harvard Educations Review// 66:60-92.

Trimbur, John. 2002. "Delivering the Message: Typography and the Materiality of Writing." //Composition As Intellectual Work.// Ed. Gary Olson. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP 188-202.