Visual Texts also Tell Stories!

When we read literary texts, we can learn about others, share experiences, and make personal connections. When we view visual texts, we can also learn about people, share experiences, and make connections to the text. The visual, like a short story, also conveys intended meaning and messages for the viewer. When we view and reflect about our ideas and impressions of a visual text, we are creating a visual reflection, just as we might do for a written literary text. In a written visual reflection, we can write about any ideas or impressions that are inspired and supported by the visual text. As a viewer you will bring your own life experience to the visual text, and other viewers may connect in very different ways to the same visual text. In this way, a visual reflection allows you the freedom to express your own personal connections in a variety of ways. In this sense, a personal reflection is quite unique to the individual.

Written personal responses to a visual can be done in many different forms. Following are just a few of the formats that may be used for personal responses.
(Click on each of the following to see the characteristics of the different writing formats.)

Journal
Friendly Letter
Creative Writing
Journalist Article
Memoir
Script

When responding personally, the viewer has a wide array of choices as to what type of perspective he/she will use for the response. When we write personally, we might think about becoming one of the following:

A character within the visual
A third party person looking at the visual
A photographer
A reporter
A person experiencing a memory
Etc.