Pictures

Where do we see these?

Pictures can be seen on walls, in news articles and magazines, on blogs, in textbooks, on social media, in graphic novels and comic books.

How do we read them?

Reading a picture requires us to skim and scan. The process of skimming and scanning a picture is not linear (our eyes do not start in the top left and move to right, along lines).

Skimming is like a bird's eye view of the picture; we are looking at the entire photo, moving our eyes up and down, side to side. We notice big things.

Scanning is like swooping down on a particular section of an image. We notice smaller, more intricate details that give more specific information about the story.

Once we have skimmed and scanned the picture, here are some questions we can ask:

• What do you see in the picture?
• What do you NOT see in the picture?
• What does the image make you think about? What do I already know about the objects in the picture?
• What do you wonder?
• Make a connection between the picture and yourself, another text, and the world.
• How does this picture make you feel or react?
• What is the story behind the picture?
• If there is text with the picture, how are they helping you develop your understanding?