Digital Unit Plan Template

Unit Title: VISUAL LITERACY: Translating Images Name: Jane Lee

Content Area: English Language Arts Grade Level: 9-12
CA Content Standard(s)/Common Core Standard(s):
SL 11-12.2. Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) in order to make informed
decisions and solve problems, evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source and noting any discrepancies among the data.

SL 11-12.5. Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of
findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.

L 11-12.4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words or phrases based on grade 8 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a
range of strategies.

RL 11-12.2. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters,
setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.

RL 11-12.3. Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.

RH.6-8.7. Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.

R.7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

R.6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

SL.1. Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their
own clearly and persuasively.

Big Ideas/Unit Goals:

Students will develop their visual literacy skills by creating their own comic book in groups after reading the graphic novel, American Born Chinese. After
reading the graphic novel, students will ask themselves how the visual elements of the novel helped assist in delivering the message and theme of the novel.
Then, they will discuss the racial implications the images invoked through the character design, fonts, and language used in the novel. Then students will be
asked to recreate a visual novel about the injustices and prejudices present within our society.

Students will work collaboratively to create a visual novel. They will have the freedom to use any medium: computer, pencil, paint, pastels, etc to creatively
design and produce their own comic. They will then present the comic to the class and work with the school newspaper club to have their comics be published in
the school paper.
Unit Summary:

We rarely take time to stop and consider all of the visual signals that are around us. The images that we see on a daily basis(whether it is advertisements,
cartoons, memes, or pictures) are not just there for aesthetic reasons; each image is created for a purpose, and it is up to us as critical scholars to analyze and
understand what that message is. Often times when we think of literacy, we think of writing and speaking, but often do not understand that that visual elements
need explicating too.
This will unit cover the importance of visual literacy and will ask students to hone their visual literacy skills. Students will learn the common visual cues
present in images that surround them and will critically analyze their use, importance, and message. After reading the graphic novel American Born Chinese by
Gene Luen Yang, students will collaboratively create their own comic strip that utilizes the tools they learned to critically analyze issues in our society regarding
racism, injustice, and prejudice.

Assessment Plan:
Entry-Level: Formative: Summative:
Quick write where students will write about a time First, they will complete an IPad popplet Finally, students will create a final comic strip
where they felt or witnessed prejudice and assignment to identify the different visual project where they will work together to write a
injustice in their lives. characteristics of a page in the graphic novel. comic highlighting injustices within our
Secondly, they will have a short quiz on the 6 communities. Before the final project however, they
principles of design. will compose a narrative to storyboard the comic.
The next assignment will be an organizational
timeline where they will identify and order the
injustices seen in American Born Chinese in
chronological order.
The last formative assignment will be a charades
game where they will be divided up into teams to
guess what their classmates are trying to portray
without using words but only using actions and
drawings.

Lesson 1 (Teacher Lecture)

Student Learning Objective:
Students will receive a brief
lecture on visual literacy
which will explain the
importance and meaning of
certain colors,
perspectives, shapes, and
shadows present in art.
Acceptable Evidence
(Assessments):
Students will follow the
guided notes which will be
used as an exit slip at the
end of the class to make
sure that they understood
the contents of the lecture
Lesson Activities:
Students will see an image with the key visual literacy cues and will have group discussions on what
certain visual elements of the image might mean to the greater theme of the image. Then to make it
applicable to their daily lives, I will also show advertisements in magazines so they they can apply
the visual literacy skills to images they see on the daily basis.
Lesson 2 (Webercise/ iPad Lesson)
Student Learning Objective:
Students will learn to
recognize visual elements
within texts and their
importance to the message
of the text.
Lesson 3 (Graphic Organizer)
Student Learning Objective:
Students will learn to
identify and timeline
moments of injustice in
American Born Chinese to
use as a
guideline/inspiration for
their own personal
narratives
Unit Resources:
Acceptable Evidence:
They will turn in a popplet
assignment identifying
visual elements and
explicating their
importance.
Acceptable Evidence:
Students will turn in a
digital timeline assignment
which will stand as a
formative assessment for
the narrative.
Lesson Activities:
Students will use the App popplet to create an art analysis of the visual elements present in a page
of American Born Chinese. They will have to identify the visual cues as well as explain why it was
used, what emotion it conveys, and the importance of the element.
Lesson Activities:
Using the online timeline making tool, timetoast.com, students will create a timeline pointing out
moments in the graphic novel, American Born Chinese, where moments of injustice occurs. They
will then explain why that moment is an injustice and explicate their reasoning.

https://www.iste.org/docs/excerpts/MEDLIT-excerpt.pdf
https://www.moma.org/interactives/projects/2001/whatisaprint/flash.html
https://www.buffalolib.org/sites/default/files/get-graphic/resources/HowtoReadaGraphicNovel.pdf
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/this-chinese-american-cartoonist-forces-us-to-face-racist-stereotypes

Useful Websites:

https://www.flipsnack.com
https://www.pixton.com/
https://www.makebeliefscomix.com/
https://www.canva.com/create/comic-strips/
https://www.storyboardthat.com/storyboard-creator