Reading the Visual: An Introduction to Teaching Multimodal Literacy

Language and Literacy

by Frank Serafini

Today’s teachers need up-to-the-minute information to help their students make sense of the multimodal texts they encounter daily in and out of school. Reading the Visual is an essential introduction that focuses on what teachers should know about multimodal literacy and how to teach it. This engaging book provides theoretical, curricular, and pedagogical frameworks for teaching a wide-range of visual and multimodal texts, including historical fiction, picture books, advertisements, websites, comics, graphic novels, news reports, and film. Each unit of study presented contains suggestions for selecting cornerstone texts and visual images and launching the unit, as well as lesson plans, text sets, and analysis guides. These units are designed to be readily adapted to fit the needs of a variety of settings and grade levels. Book

Genres: Nonfiction, Research, Teaching

208 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 2013

About the author

Dr. Frank Serafini is an author, illustrator, photographer, educator, musician, and a Professor of Literacy Education and Children’s Literature at Arizona State University.
Frank has published seven books with Heinemann, including: The Reading Workshop, Reading Aloud and Beyond, Lessons in Comprehension, and Around the Reading Workshop in 180 Days and Classroom Reading Assessments which will be available in 2010. In addition, Frank has published Reading the Visual (2014) and Beyond the Visual (2022) with Teachers College Press.
In 2008, Frank began writing and illustrating a series of non-fiction picturebooks focusing on nature with Kids Can Press. The Looking Closely series contains books about the desert, garden, pond, rainforest, shore and forest. In 2009, Looking Closely Along the Shore won an International Reading Association’s Teachers’ Choice Award, and Honorable Mention from the Society of School Librarians International.
A true “Renaissance Man,” Frank loves to travel, sing, play guitar, cook, draw, read, visit art galleries, and watch movies. His workshops are packed with important information and practical ideas, all delivered with a great sense of humor.

Reviews

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Reading the Visual (2014) Serafini masterfully accomplishes his purpose of providing “theoretical, curricular, and pedagogical frameworks for teachers to use to help students make sense of the visual images and multimodal ensembles they encounter in and out of school settings (p. 3). Serafini’s succinct thinking and writing style makes complex ideas from various fields of study (art history, semiotics, media and cultural studies, etc…) accessible to the classroom teacher. I want each teacher under my leadership to implement the units of study plans he provides. I also look forward to sharing this book as a touchstone text in the university literacy courses I teach. The only reason this is not a 5-star read for me is because of the economic limitations of design. As Serafini was sharing rich tools for reading the visual, I wanted a visual image to read. I understand the cost constraints of printing images, but I really missed them in this book. Thank you, Serafini, for expanding my thinking and providing useful tools for “reading the visual” in my world.

[Boonchandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great review of the theory of multimodal learning. Parts 1 and 2 are well done. Lesson plans are good but lack SMART outcomes.

[Rahmawati Arjunaputri]

Read for a uni course

[Diz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great introduction to teaching multimodal literacy. To clarify, a text is multimodal if it communicates in more than one way. For example, a newspaper article includes text and photos to communicate its message. If you're new to this field, you can pick up a lot of ideas for background reading. Additionally, the author provides some simple lesson plan guidelines for a wide variety of multimodal texts.

[Lilian · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the title indicates: it's a good introduction to teaching multimodal literacy. If you don't have time to read Kress and van Leeuwen's The Grammar of Visual Design and Lankshear and Knobel's New Literacies, this book can give you a concise theoretical grounding in multimodal literacy. The curricular parts are good and have lots of ideas and genres for consideration in the class.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly insightful book on teaching multi-modal literature, including visual and information literacy. Uses Caldecott books as a great example of multi-modal communication and explains how to teach it in a library instruction classroom. Great read! One of the best reads for my Sabbatical (2015).

[Mills College Library]

370.115 S481 2014

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very technical but a must-read for anyone interested in reading/literacy instruction.