From analysis to design: Visual communication in the teaching of writing

In an attempt to bring composition studies into a more thoroughgoing discussion of the place of visual literacy in the writing classroom, I argue that throughout the history of writing instruction in this country the terms of debate typical in discussions of visual literacy and the teaching of writing have limited the kinds of assignments we might imagine for composition.

How's this for a visual argument: In response to reading Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost,1 Boikhutso Jibula, a first-year student from Botswana, reproduces three maps of Africa, each on a transparency. In the first, the continent is empty except for what look like random circles primarily in the subSaharan region. The circles outline areas traditionally occupied or claimed by various tribes or communities before colonization. Boikhutso then superimposes a second map-this one of colonized Africa. He points out the English, French, and German names of places that now have well-defined borders, most of which cut through the original circles, splitting traditional regions into new nations, neither named for nor controlled by the people whose places he had identified in the original map. Over that second map, Boikhutso superimposes a third-this one is postcolonial Africa. The names, he points out, are changed. German East Africa is now mainly Tanzania. The Congo Free State is, on this map at any rate, Zaire. Colonization has ended, he tells us, but the boundaries are much the same, the people dispersed or gone, the languages and kingdoms and villages still split or destroyed. It takes very few words for Boikhutso to tell the class what these maps show them: Precolonial Africa cannot be recovered. There is no possibility of going back to what was there before the colonizer. African people must work as nations within the nations now outlined on this third map.

Or picture this: In the same course, Grace VanCamp from lower Michigan creates a dinner place setting, Judy Chicago style. On a place mat, she arranges a plastic plate, knife, fork, spoon, and Coca-Cola(C) glass. On the face of the plate, Grace has glued a map of the African continent. The place card reads, "King Leopold."

And finally: Deirdre Johns shows the class a remaking of Leopold of Belgium's Congo Free State flag. Like the original, her...