Visual Communication Skills

The development of these competencies is fundamental to normal human learning. When developed, they enable a visually literate person to discriminate and interpret the visible actions, objects, and/or symbols, natural or man-made, that are [encountered] in [the] environment. Through the creative use of these competencies, [we are] able to communicate with others. Through the appreciative use of these competencies, [we are] able to comprehend and enjoy the masterworks of visual communication (Debes 1972: 7).

Nevertheless, visual literacy has become one of the basic skill of communication that need to be taught. It is important because the way of our world right now is dominated by images. We cannot deny we rely on images a lot such as TV shows, advertisements, the internet. And this skill is needed to succeed in current multimedia driven

These results show that comic book reading certainly does not inhibit other kinds of reading, and is consistent with the hypothesis that comic book reading facilitates heavier reading (Krashen, quoted in Elder 2014:15).

This statement is strengthen by Hartley, an instructional designer, that:

Clearly the affective role of instructions is... to attract and motivate less-able learners. ... The general picture that emerges from studies of text with cartoon embellishments is that cartoons often enhance motivation (1994: 87-88).

These images of cartoon is what enhance – spark an interest to pick up the book and flip the pages to know more out of curiosity. Styles and Arizpe (2003:57) use Satoshi Kitamura’s Lily Takes a Walk (Fig.xx), and found out that even though inside the story there is something scary for the children, and they know about the scariness, in the mean time they are expecting ‘funny’ because of the cartoonish style. They also feel that the visual is what makes it so familiar – they can relate it with their own experiences. Moreover, ‘it makes you keep thinking about things’ (Styles and Arizpe, 2003:227) as one of the children

Children’s self-created comic book about gang violence in

The Comic Book Project.

In the end of The Comic Book Project, every student and instructor is asked to complete a survey. According to Bitz, when asked if the students were getting better at writing as a result of The Comic Book Project, 86% of the students responded “agree” or “strongly agree” to the statement, and 90% of the instructors responded the same.

While it is a fun and engaging project, this Comic Book Project has one another goal. It is to meet the New York State Learning Standards for English Language Arts, which are reading, writing and speaking for: information and understanding, literary response and expression, critical analysis and evaluation and social interaction. Bitz conclusion (2004:584) that all of these criteria are achieved through creating the manuscript for comic books, final production of comic books, class discussions and group