CCSS for Visual Literacy and NES text pages 136-140

Looking at the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), it is not easy to first identify where visual literacy can be found as it does not have its own section like other forms of literacy. Visual literacy can be found as a small section of every part of literacy which is labeled in "Integration of Knowledge and Ideas" section of each grade level of all literacy sections. Visual literacy are designed in the CCSS as a way to analyze a separate piece of literature or informational text. Being literate in visual media is not the goal expressed in CCSS. The goal still remains to examine written media with slightly more insight.
Visual media is everywhere. It is the primary form of media people are exposed to in first world countries. We are barraged with advertisements, movies, video games, music, memes, and so much more every single day almost constantly. The world still retains and, I hope, enjoys literature but that is no longer the primary form of entertainment in our society. Kids very rarely sit down to read a book on a Sunday afternoon; they are on the console or computer playing one of millions of games that are a quickly growing area of media. When one wants to enjoy a story, a movie is what is brought out.
Reading is important and can teach us many things. It is still important to know how to read books for fun and for information, but other types of media and literacy need to be taken into account. I'd argue that visual literacy is more vital to everyday function than any other type of literacy and CCSS fails to accommodate the needs of our modern society that prefers the visual over the written and the picture over the written word. It is interesting that visual literacy is still expected as a knowledge of teachers of ELA to teach when it is not expected for the students to know. 

What's your familiarity with graphic novels? Why/how might graphic novels be useful for the secondary English language arts classroom?

What's your familiarity with graphic novels? Why/how might graphic novels be useful for the secondary English language arts classroom?

I am an avid reader of graphic novels, comic books, and Japanese manga. I have experienced so many different styles of artwork and a variety of genres that I can not recount them all. My experiences with graphic novels is primarily of my own devices. As a kid, my parents would do weekly visits to the library. Graphic novels were some of my favorite pieces to check out of the library. I read manga meant for children, collections of Garfield comics, and even the occasional super hero comic book. At school, the library was limited especially when it came to graphic novels. The library at my elementary school had a graphic novel called Bones and some books with classic comics from the newspaper (like Garfield and Foxtrot). I was regularly discouraged by my teachers for reading graphic novels so often instead of "real books". I stopped reading graphic novels at school and kept it to my home life until I got to high school. I had become friends with some other students who liked graphic novels and the teachers didn't judge me for reading them. It wasn't until college that graphic novels were used as part of the course material. In my "Intro to Fiction" class with Dr. Ian Green, Green assigned a graphic novel, a famous Batman comic, as part of pur reading list.
I believe graphic novels have a great potential for use in classrooms. It allows for a different platform and genre for students to explore as well as create a foundation for analyzing visual media. Visual media is everywhere and is viewed more often than written media nowadays. Graphic novels can provide literary pieces that need to be analyzed visually and as a written piece since there is almost always some kind of story behind the visuals. I find graphic novels to provide a more entertaining way of looking at visual media than commercials and common images in everyday life. Visual media also allows teachers to work with more aspects and ideas with a single piece of literature than a standard novel could due to the many aspects involved in a graphic novel which would allow teachers more time to teach more things or lessons more in depth.

Professional Educator Standards Board Competencies & Common Core State Standards

I find it interesting that, although the focus is English, the structure and cultural meanings of other languages is important and kept in the PESB competencies. I’ve studied a couple languages myself (French, Greek, Japanese, and Latin) and each further develops my understanding of the English language. In a school setting, students come from all different backgrounds. English can be another language to the students. Although some languages have similar grammatical structure, most languages have a different structure from English which can lead to some students having different grammar. English has changed over the centuries. Some words contain the old roots and grammatical structures from earlier times, like irregular verbs. The irregularities make English difficult for students as it is inconsistent making it more difficult to learn, even for some native speakers. Again, diversity in language is emphasized later when it comes to literary texts. Competency 4.A.1 refers to having knowledge and including global literature rather than just American and English literature. When I was in middle and high school, I was never required to read books outside “the classics”. My knowledge of literature was limited to American literature, English literature, and the few pieces of French literature that talked my teachers into counting as classics for our independent reading. In my personal time, I consumed Japanese, Chinese, and Korean media primarily, but I enjoyed looking into foreign literature. Looking into different wasn’t a priority in my classes unless we were studying a foreign language which then required us to study the culture of the peoples that spoke that language. Even so far as studying communication, social and cultural factors were rarely considered. There has been little focus, in my education experience, on communication skills especially in a cultural context. Being at EWU, I’ve had the chance to interact with a more diverse group of people. Every culture I encounter has different ideas and beliefs in what is important. There very speech emphasizes certain words that I wouldn’t in my speech. All of them have different perspectives than I do. I think this expanding diversity in understanding English and Language Arts leads to a greater understand of language and culture. Learning another language, expands on a person’s understanding of their own language (such as when I learned French, it taught me more about the structure of English). Hearing how others emphasize different parts of their speech to get different ideas across has improved the way I communicate with others.