Response #2 (Online Assignment): Visual Literacy & Poetry Explication

Because I will be attending the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Conference, Blog Response #2 will be an online assignment due before and during class time on Monday, April 16th. Note that this assignment has two parts, Part A and Part B.

For this blog post, you will analyze the Linguistic Shape of You project of another classmate. I have scanned and uploaded all of the images that I received, and they are pasted as jpeg and pdf files on the same post.

Read a bit of information about visual literacy below:

Visual Literacy Inquiry

Graphic designer Erin Riesland (2005) suggests that students who are learning to
incorporate visual literacy into their thinking consider the following questions:

  • What am I looking at?
  • What does this image mean to me?
  • What is the relationship between the image and the
    displayed text message?
  • How is this message effective? (Riesland, 2005, para. 10)

The Grammar of Visual Design

  • A grammar is the rules and constraints on what can be represented.
  • A grammar is a social resource of a particular group.
  • Visual grammar is not transparent and universally understood. It is culture specific.
  • Visual grammar cannot be separated from verbal grammar or any other grammar.
  • Individuals freely combine elements from languages they know to make themselves understood.

Visual literacy is the ability to analyze images, which often includes some text. The assignment from Essay 1 integrates both visual and linguistic grammar. What can a close reading of these projects tell us about each other?

ASSIGNMENT TASK-PART A: Due before 9:15am

  1. Review each of the linguistic bodies posted on the Essay 1- The Linguistic Shape of You post.
  2. Choose ONE body to focus on.
  3. Answer the four questions from Riesland’s Visual Literacy inquiry that are listed above. Be sure to support each response with evidence from the image. Be specific!
  4. Answer the following additional questions: Idiolect is a word that refers to the language variety that is unique to an individual. We also refer to this as one’s linguistic repertoire. What does your chosen body reveal about your classmate’s linguistic repertoire? What does the word choice and placement reveal about your classmate’s personality?
  5. As with all blog posts, your response should be 250-300 words. Post all of your responses as new comments underneath the ‘Linguistic Shape of You’ post. DO NOT post your comments here. (Let’s see who is reading closely…)
  6. Your blog response is due before 9:15am on Monday, April 16th. I will not be available to accept the comments, so they will not post immediately. However, each comment will receive a timestamp, so ensure that yours is posted before 9:15am.

ASSIGNMENT TASK-PART B: Due before 10:15am

  1. Choose ONE poem or section of a longer poem that we have been assigned to read so far.
  2. Read through this handout from Duke University on writing a poetry explication.
  3. Craft a poetry explication by answering the following questions:
    • Who is the speaker?
    • What is the structure of the poem? Does it rhyme? Is it divided into clear stanzas?
    • Does the poem fall into an identifiable subgenre—for example, is it a sonnet, ballad, haiku, or dramatic monologue?
    • What, primarily, is the poem about, and how do you know that?
    • Diction (word choice): Why has the poet chosen these particular words? What words might she have used instead, and why were they rejected in favor of others?
    • Imagery: What images does the poem evoke? How are they evoked? How has the poet placed them? How do different images connect or contrast with one another?
    • Literary devices: What kind of figurative language is the poem using—for example, simile, metonymy, hyperbole, apostrophe, or conceit? What about symbolism or literary allusions?
    • Other aural and visual details: What about punctuation? When read aloud, do the sounds of the words contribute to the poem’s meaning?
  4. Your explication should take the form of 1 well-organized paragraph. Post all of your explications as new comments underneath THIS POST.
  5. Your poetry explication is due before 10:15am on Monday, April 16th. I will not be available to accept the comments, so they will not post immediately. However, each comment will receive a timestamp, so ensure that yours is posted before 10:15am.

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