Duelling poets and visual representations

Students are learning to: 

• play with language to express an opinion 
• understand how visual features convey meaning 

Glossary of terms:  

Framing: The way in which elements in a still or moving image are arranged to create a specific interpretation of the whole. Strong framing creates a sense of enclosure around elements while weak framing creates a sense of openness. 

Gaze: The directed look of either a viewer or figure in an image, including demand and offer. 

Reading path: The manner in which the eye of the viewer is led round an image, usually by drawing the viewer to the most salient or important elements in the composition. 

Salience: A strategy of emphasis, highlighting what is important in a text. In images, salience is created through strategies like placement of an item in the foreground, size, and contrast in tone or colour. In writing, salience can occur through placing what is important at the beginning or at the end of a sentence or paragraph or through devices for example underlining or italics. 

Vector: An item that directs our eyes towards a focal point, for example when the subject in a visual text is pointing or looking in a certain direction. As the reader or viewer, our eyes will follow the direction in which they are pointing or looking 

Visual features: Visual components of a text for example placement, salience, framing, representation of action or reaction, shot size, social distance, and camera angle. 

Visual language: Language that contributes to the meaning of an image or the visual components of a multimodal text and are selected from a range of visual features like placement, salience, framing, representation of action or reaction, shot size, social distance, and camera angle. Visual language can also include elements, for example symbol, colour, scene and frame composition, setting and landscape, lighting and the use of editing. 

Visual literacy: The ability to decode, interpret, create, question, challenge and evaluate texts that communicate with visual images as well as, or rather than, words. Visually literate people can read the intended meaning in a visual text such as an advertisement or a film shot, interpret the purpose and intended meaning, and evaluate the form, structure and features of the text. They can also use images in a creative and appropriate way to express meaning. 

From: NSW Education Standards Authority Glossary