Belonging

http://intoenglish.com.au/blog/2011/08/29/belonging-analysing-visual-texts/ Belonging: Analysing Visual Texts Need to know more techniques for visual texts' Having problems linking visual texts to Belonging' In preparation for the Area of Study: Belonging Section 1 Reading Task, students often ask me to teach them how to analyse visual texts. So, I have decided to put together a ‘how to’ guide, complete with examples of visual texts that I have analysed and HSC style questions. How to Analyse Visual Texts 1. Consider what the image is suggesting about Belonging. What claims/arguments can you make' - The image shows the desire to belong to a group. - The cartoon suggests that conformity, whilst leading to feelings of belonging, denies individuality. - The magazine cover conveys the high level of importance we, as a society, now attribute to social networking as a means of creating and maintaining a sense of belonging to community. 2. Identify appropriate visual techniques that support the claim you are making. The following sentence structure will help you to be concise in your expression: - The image shows the desire to belong to a group [topic sentence]. This is conveyed through the duckling’s body language [technique] in which the outstretched wings and tip-toes stance illustrate his aspiration for inclusion [effect]. 3. You should aim to identify 4-6 visual techniques that you can relate to aspects of Belonging in the text. The following is a list of useful visual techniques with the correct terminology: - Subject: people/characters/animals in the image - Salience: the object or subject that stands out relative to the other objects or subjects in the image. - Techniques which create salience are: ■Colour ■ Size ■ Angles ■Proportion ■Positioning ■Vectors ■Colour/Hue - Facial expression - Gazes: offer/demand - Angles: low/high/eye-level - Shot: full/long/mid/close-up/extreme close-up - Size: how large or small - Proximity: distance between subjects or objects in the image - Proportion: how large or small something is relative to the other things in the image - Positioning: where a subject or object is placed - Vectors: visible/invisible lines of sight which create a reading path - Visual symbols