ENGL 442

Seminar In Visual Literacy
This course focuses on the impact of new media on an evolving visual and technological literacy. The course will examine literacy development and expectations in contemporary communication forms. To ground the study we will begin with a solid history of literacy development, both visual and textual, across cultures. The course goal is both to understand how we see and how we communicate in various cultural contexts. Practical applications will include both composing and designing in the computer-mediated classroom. We will explore art history, reading and writing theory, and the evolution and sociological expectations of literacy development. Technology’s impact on our literacy practices is great in scope; only by comparing print literacy with electronic literacy can we truly begin to understand, interpret, and create documents that meet contemporary visual and textual literacy expectations.