Teaching with visual symbols

“Visual symbols will be made meaningful if we can use them as summaries of our own indirect experiences…A little can stand for a lot!”

Visual symbols

Include drawings, cartoons, strip drawings, diagrams, formulas, charts, graphs, maps, globes.

Activity

Read these words. Analyze them for meaning without referring to the graphs below and study them.

…believing that it is very important to be very well-off financially, and having seen their affluence ratchet upward little by little over four decades are Americans now happier?

The research finding shows that those reporting themselves “very happy” has, if anything, declined slightly between 1957 and 1998 from 35 to 33 percent, twice as rich but no happier.

After reading the paragraphs and studying the graphs, answer this question: which was easier to understand? The words or the graphs?

Abstraction

A graph is “worth a thousand words.” A graph and any visual symbol for that matter such as drawings, cartoons, strip drawings, diagrams and maps are worth a thousand words. They are more clearly understood than mere words.

DrawingsA drawing may not be real thing but better to have a concrete visual aid than nothing. To avoid confusion, it is good that our drawing correctly represents the real thing.

Here are some samples of stick drawings:

cartoons

another useful visual symbol that can bring novelty to our teaching is the cartoon. A first-rate tells its story metaphorically. The perfect cartoon needs no caption. The less the artist depends on words, the more effective the symbolism. The symbolism conveys the message.

Sample of cartoons

Sources of cartoons

You can easily collect cartoons for instruction. They appear often in newspapers and magazines. In class, you can give it to individual study or project it by an opaque projector. Depending on themes for the week or the mouth, you can display these cartoons on the bulletin board. One creative teacher arranged for a “cartoon of the month” and displayed and changed her display every end of the month.

Sketching cartoons

Where to use Cartoons in instruction

You can use this as a springboard for a lesson or a concluding activity. It depends on your purpose.