Visual Experts

I know a few people have questioned Kress' use of examples from children, but I think they're important to demonstrate our development of (a certain kind of) visual literacy--Kress seems to struggle with the word itself and what kind of meanings it implies, but finds use in it for a term of understanding.  So, I would say that Kress raises, for me, questions about visual literacy--especially a model for a development of a visual literacy (which, as he says, is culturally bound).  I think one thing that is often overlooked in our class is that people are visually literate for the most part.  Since the days of stain glass windows in cathedrals telling stories for the "illiterate" (in terms of reading and writing), mankind has been able to "read" visuals. We're all visual experts but most of us lack the ability to articulate how we are visually literate.  Kress, I feel, understands this; he uses examples from children to show how a child--who may be presumably illiterate or yet-to-be-fully-developed--organizes their visual experiences.  What are the things that catch the attention or interests of an individual and how does that shape how that image's meaning is processed? By understanding how humans become visually literate, a theory for visual rhetoric can be born. 

This is where--I feel--rhetoric and literacy collide.  To make an effective visual--in terms of the success of its portrayal of an idea or concept--there needs to be a degree of understanding about the context your working within.  I think this might tie into his idea of "framing" but I really have no idea.  Every item is processed within a frame of that individual; the individuals' experiences are shaped by the communities that individual has participated within.   The individual's interests shape which aspects to pay attention to--responses to prompts demonstrate our interests which, in essence, demonstrate what kind of person we are.


Who knows if Kress would agree with any of this, but these were the kind of questions I had throughout reading him.  Where does literacy and rhetoric collide? How is visual literacy developed? What is "visual literacy" for Kress, anyway? Things like that.