Visual Approaches to Teaching Writing

Book excerpt: Includes CD-Rom Why are visual approaches to literacy important? Children′s experience of texts is no longer limited to words on printed pages - their reading and writing worlds are formed in multimodal ways, combining different modes of communication, including speech or sound, still or moving images, writing and gesture. This book is a practical guide for teachers in making sense of multimodal approaches to teaching writing. The book covers topics such as: - The design of multimodal texts and the relationships between texts and images - How to build a supportive classroom environment for analysing visual and audiovisual texts, and how to teach about reading images - How to plan a teaching sequence leading to specific writing outcomes - Examples of teaching sequences for developing work on narrative, non-fiction and poetry - Formative and summative assessment of multimodal texts, providing levels for judging pupil development, and suggestions for moving pupils forward - How to write, review and carry out a whole school policy for teaching multimodal writing The book is accompanied by a CD, which contains a range of examples of children′s multimodal work, along with electronic versions of the activities and photocopiable sheets from the book, and material designed for use with interactive whiteboards. It will be a valuable resource for primary teachers, literacy co-ordinators and students on initial teacher training courses.