Abstract

In a graduate literacy course, the author as the teacher educator conceptualized “Visual Literacy” into the course. The in-service and pre-service teachers from the inner-city schools in Georgia and Virginia invited the struggling writers to create graphic novels by envisioning life activities, using drawings, and invented spellings as well as conventional words to tell their family stories. This paradigm shift from print-based curriculum to multimodal transmediation opened an alternate pathway to literacy, and the children became enthusiastically engaged. Their graphic novels vivified their life experiences, alleviated their pent-up emotions, and made their struggles visible and their inner voices audible. “Visual Literacy” enabled them to transcend the hardships that confronted them and ushered them into academic success.

Keywords:  envision, multimode, transmediation, visual literacy, graphic novel, critical literacy

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