6. Visual Representation

Lesson 6
Visual Representation


Activity: Teacher opens this page and shows the following visual images to the class. Students work to identify each one, not only what they see but what type of visual representation each is and how you can tell, eg. Van Gogh's starry starry night is a painting, the facebook symbol is an icon to access facebook etc. (15 mins)

{Teacher explains what a visual representation is and how it is relevant to English and to the study of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.}

A visual representation: is a text that conveys meaning through visual means. This can include posters, symbols, signs, maps, videos, films, advertisements etc. Visual texts can be evaluated for the personal, expressive, critical and aesthetic value.

{Teacher hands out an information sheets on the features of visual representations and how they work to create meaning. Below is a digital copy of this information.}

Features of Visual Representations:

Blur - can suggest motion

Colour - can suggests mood or emphasis.

Red: active, passion, masculine, emotion, danger

Orange: excitement, desire

Yellow: warm, cheerful, enlightenment, light hearted

Blue: cool, calm, wisdom

Pink: emotion, feminine, sensuous, romantic

Green: knowledge, hope, promise, envy

Black: evil, mysterious, powerful, fear

White: purity, innocence, timeless, mystical

Purple: passionate, royal, caring, smoldering

Grey: neutral, uncommitted, noninvolvement

Sepia: the past, old

Demand and offers - suggests how the viewer should look at the image. A demand is where a character in the image is looking straight at the viewer demanding their attention. Conversely an offer is where the character is looking away, allowing the viewer to look elsewhere first.

Lines -

Horizontal/Vertical line: suggests stability

Diagonal/Dotted/Broken lines: suggests instability or motion

Mist - can suggest memory, the past, dreams, can give prominence to a figure

Point of view - suggests the emphasis of what to look at, if it's taken from a characters point of view it shows the plot from their figurative point of view

Reading path - suggests direction of how the viewer is supposed to look at by guiding the viewer's eyes around the composition of the image

Salience - the elements that attract attention from the viewer such as being at the front (foreground) or background, size, colour etc

Symbols - suggest an idea within the image, such as a dove for peace or rose for love

Vector - lines (actual lines or abstract lines created by the image) which direct the viewers eye across an image, such as the arms or legs of a person, or a shape.

Activity: Students view the below WWII film poster and apply the features to the poster to understand its possible meaning. Students mind map their ideas, scan and upload them to this blog. (15 mins)

Activity: Students are instructed now to think about a pivotal moment in the novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas such as the moment when Bruno climbs under the fence and enters Auschwitz or when Bruno's father realises that his son has entered Auschwitz. Students are to use the rest of the lesson to create a visual representation of this moment. Students may draw a picture, create a collage from magazine cuttings, or any other visual means they can think of. Students then scan and upload their images to this blog. (30 mins).