The 'other' literacy narrative: the body and the role of image production

Literacy literate has become a contested and dynamic concept in the 21st century (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro & Cammack, 2004). Images are increasingly a primary means of communication and they have been emancipated and democratised in the post-literate age. Images are accessible, and are being endlessly reproduced and manipulated on a scale never seen before. Their significance to intertextual narratives cannot be under estimated. Seeing and being seen, or visibility as identity, is an important aspect of self (Jones, 2007) and an important aspect of the learner in the classroom and representation in curriculum (Green, 2010). Its impact on body representations as identity constructs links with the skill of visuality (Meskimmon, 1997; Stafford, 1996; Thompson, 2004; Rose, 2007) and is integral to any pedagogy that purports to be relevant to the contemporary learner and interdisciplinary inquiry. More specifically visual pedagogies are unique in their performative and material practices and are connected in profound ways to experience, meaning and the construction of self. This paper draws on student art examples from ARTEXPRESS and student works completed for the NSW Board of Studies Stage 6 Visual Art Syllabus.