VISUAL JOURNALING TOWARDS GREATER MEANING MAKING IN THE

SECONDARY ART CLASSROOM

by
Sara Scott
August, 2010
Chair: Dr. Alice Arnold
Major Department: Art Education
pp.1-10
Sketchbooks have long been used in art classrooms; however, the structured
assignments often
leave students feeling disconnected to both the sketchbook and the art
classroom. Recent shifts
in educational pedagogy encourage educators to find ways to connect course
content with lived
experiences. This cultural, social and personal connection results in a deeper
understanding of
course concepts. Within the art classroom visual journals have emerged in
response to this shift
in pedagogy. The visual journal is a place for the student to explore self and
the internal and
external environments that shape the self. The students quest for personal
and aesthetic
meaning making through visual journaling evolves the students concept of
self and offers
opportunity for synthesizing and integrating lived experiences. The purpose
of this paper is to
explore visual journaling as an educational pedagogy that promotes meaning
making in students.
VISUAL JOURNALING TOWARDS GREATER MEANING MAKING IN THE
SECONDARY ART CLASSROOM
A Thesis
Presented To
the Faculty of the Department of Art Education
East Carolina University
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Education
by
Sara Scott
August, 2010
UMI Number: 1484118
All rights reserved
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UMI 1484118
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VISUAL JOURNALING TOWARDS GREATER MEANING MAKING IN THE

SECONDARY ART CLASSROOM
by
Sara Scott
APPROVED BY:
DIRECTOR OF
DISSERTATION/THESIS:_______________________________________________
Alice Arnold
COMMITTEE MEMBER: ________________________________________________
Jim Tisnado
COMMITTEE MEMBER: ________________________________________________
Nanyoung Kim
COMMITTEE MEMBER: _______________________________________________
Robert Quinn
CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF
ART EDUCATION:____________________________________________________
Scott Eagle
DEAN OF THE GRADUATE
SCHOOL:_______________________________________Paul J. Gemperline, PhD
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION..................................................................... 1
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK............................................... 3
Journals as Educational Methodology.................................................... 3
The Students Quest for Personal Meaning Making................................ 4
The Students Quest for Aesthetic Meaning Making................................ 6
The Students Quest for Intellectual Meaning Making.............................. 9
CHAPTER 3: REVIEW OF LITERATURE....................................................... 11
The History of Journaling........................................................................ 11
The Power of Narrative........................................................................ 13
The Power of the Visual........................................................................... 13
The Visual Journal.................................................................................... 14
The Art Classroom.................................................................................... 16
CHAPTER 4: METHODS AND PROCEDURES............................................... 18
Methods..................................................................................................... 18
Procedure................................................................................................... 20
Lesson 1: What is a Thought? ......................................................... 20

Lesson 2: What is an Image? ........................................................... 25

Lesson 3: Seeing and Saying............................................................ 31
Lesson 4: What if No One was Looking? .......................................... 39
Lesson 5: Rise Up and CREATE....................................................... 46
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION..............................................................................
54
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................
56
APPENDIX A: IRB APPROVAL LETTER............................................................. 59
APPENDIX B: PARENT PERMISSION LETTER................................................. 60
APPENDIX C: NCSCS COMPETENCY GOALS................................................... 61
APPENDIX D: STUDENT QUESTIONS.................................................................
63
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1............... 23
Figure 2 ............... 24
Figure 3 ............... 28
Figure 4 ............... 29
Figure 5 ............... 33
Figure 6 ............... 36
Figure 7 ............... 41
Figure 8 ............... 43
Figure 9 ............... 48
Figure 10 ............. 49
Figure 11 ............. 49
Figure 12 ............. 50
Figure 13 ............. 51
Figure 14 ............. 52
Figure 15 ............. 52
Figure 16 ............. 53
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Teaching is a complex, dynamic, and socially constructed activity,
some times impulsive,not always logical, often unpredictable, frequently
intuitive, and invariably difficult to describe and interpret. If we
characterize teaching as a form of creative expression characterized as
multimodal, nonlinear, and multidimensional then it makes sense to search
for ways of understanding teaching that are also nonlinear, multimodal, and
multidimensional (Irwin & de Cosson, 2004, p.45).
There are few places better for exploring the nonlinear,
multidimensional avenues of
teaching than the art classroom. Art teachers engage learners in seeing the
world another way; offering students an opportunity to make sense of things
by engaging with the content rather than memorizing it. One of the most

common teaching vehicles for training the student to see the world and
practice art instruction is the sketchbook.
Art educators use sketchbooks as a place for students to experiment,
explore, and express ideas (Sanders-Bustle, 2008). It is believed that this
strategy is a valuable tool for engaging a wider range of learners in the art
experience (Blacher & Jaffee, 1998). Traditionally, art educators have used
sketchbooks as a tool for students to practice skills, experiment with media,
and plan projects. However, a recent shift in philosophy is transforming the
functional role of
the sketchbook to one that crosses disciplinary boundaries, encourages
conceptual development,
and fosters creative and critical inquiry (Sanders-Bustle, 2008, p.9). This
more integrative use
of sketchbooks is called visual journaling.
Visual journaling is an educational tool that is nonlinear, multimodal,
and multidimensional (Irwin & de Cosson, 2004, p.45). The visual journal is
an instructional
medium that allows students the rare opportunity to reflect in action and on
action aesthetically, intellectually, and introspectively (Irwin & de Cosson,
2004, p.85). Visual journals encourage the use of text and images, not
independently, but rather as synergistic tools that empower the student
(Irwin & de Cosson, 2004). The visual journal is a place for the student to
explore self and the internal and external environments that shape the self.
The journals blank pages are a place where identity can be described,
drawn, reflected on, analyzed, and put back into the classroom (Burnaford,
Fischer, & Hobson, 1996, p.10). The students quest for personal and
aesthetic meaning making through visual journaling evolves the students
concept of self and offers opportunity for synthesizing and integrating lived
experiences. The purpose of this paper is to explore visual journaling as an
educational pedagogy that promotes meaning making in students.
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This research is guided by a theoretical framework that combines an
understanding of
educational methodology with various theories about evolution of self.
Merging varied
perspectives on how students learn with theorized developmental models
supports understanding and exploring the medium of visual journals as an
avenue for advancing meaning making, thus learning, in students.
Journals as Educational Methodology
Educational methodology has long encouraged the use of journaling to
augment and affirm both curriculum understanding and personal connection

to content (Tompkins, 2003). Journals are also used as a tool for students to
write about characters, create stories and gain. insight into other peoples
lives and into historical events (Tompkins, 2003, p.438). While traditional
journaling appears frequently from elementary to secondary school in
English classrooms, other disciplines also use variations of the journal to
enhance learning. Science classrooms use journals to record observations
about experiments; math classrooms use notebooks to explore formulas and
theorems; social studies classrooms use a journal variation to document and
explore cultures and historical movements; physical education classes use
journaling to document sports plays or chart student progress; and art
classes use a sketchbook as a tool for experimentation and exploration.
Although art sketchbooks are used to explore ideas and practice
techniques, the only true feature shared with journaling is that sketchbooks
are used for daily art activities. While it is important to explore and practice
art techniques, the spirit and benefit of true journaling is often lost when
used solely for impersonal, overly structured sketchbook assignments. This
does not 4 deny the importance of recording process and practicing
technique; however, when drawings of visual images combine with the
power of personal writing and recollection, a higher level of synthesis occurs
offering students an avenue for personal, aesthetic and intellectual meaning
making.
The Students Quest for Personal Meaning Making
The search for personal meaning in life is the most important work of
teaching and learning (Gibson & Shute, 1994, p. 207). This is particularly
true for educators teaching the adolescent because making sense of the
world on a personal level is essential to development of student self-identity
separate from parents and peers. The English definition of self conjures up
words like selfish or self-centered, words that have an innately negative
connotation. Carl Jung considered self to be something far greater. For Jung
the idea of self was the development and understanding of ones identity
that was so complete that it directly affected surroundings and choices. Jung
spent a lifetime studying and exploring the human psyche (Stein, 1998).
Jung often referred to himself as a pioneer and explorer of the uncharted
mystery that is the human soul (Stein, 1998, p. 2). He believed that selfdiscovery or realization occurred in two broad stages. The first stage
included development from infancy to early adolescents, a period marked by
the emergence of identity and characterized by transition from dependent
and reliant infant, to independent adolescent. The second stage is triggered
by the realization that one can and should exist outside of external forces
like family. This stage, occurring sometime during adolescence, prompts
individuals to consider life changing questions about career, relationships,
and identity (Stein, 1998). The transition from dependency to independence
is a pivotal and provocative change for an adolescent. If during this period
the student fails to gain an understanding of their inner self and a strong

sense of care for themselves, they will not be able to care for others or 5
their education (Noddings, 2003).
The development of independence is marked by the ability to give care
to self and others; in schools the teacher should facilitate this development.
Educators should serve as facilitators, bringing together fragmented bits of
information being ingested and personal meaning making that leads to selfdevelopment (Gibson & Shute, 1994, p. 208). The art teacher has a unique
opportunity to provide students with tools to aide in self-realization, one of
which is the visual journal. Visual journaling prompts a student to evaluate a
moment, experience, feeling or idea through the combination of words and
images (Springgay, Irwin, Leggo, & Gouzouasis, 2008). While words provide a
static and defined explanation of an experience, when paired with an image,
a visual descriptor of that moment, a more expansive and inclusive
representation is created (Springgay, Irwin, Leggo, & Gouzouasis, 2008). It is
within this space that students have the opportunity to explore identity. The
artistic or cognitive thinking processes never begin with the urge to act;
however, the sudden anticipation of what-is-soon-to-happen is often so
immediate and strong that forefronts my awareness. (Springgay, Irwin,
Leggo, & Gouzouasis, 2008, p.25-26). While the pages of the journals may
not appear to hold the secret Jung so passionately researched, those very
pages begin a process that allows the student to look introspectively,
develop a sense of self, and realize a uniqueness that deserves caring and
investment. Visual journaling informs the student immediately, through
images and words on the page; however, the journal also benefits the
student long after they put the pencil down. The creation of the journal page
begins a complex process of self-discovery, marked initially with the
development of a sense of care for themselves (Noddings, 2003).
A teaching philosophy characterized by caring is the fundamental
theory behind
educational concern for student self-discovery. Establishing self-care in a
student is directly related to fostering an ability to care for others (Noddings,
2003). Nel Noddings, professor of education at Stanford University, has
explored in depth the philosophy of caring. In her book Caring: A feminine
approach to ethics and moral education (2003), she establishes the basic
rationale for care in schools.
Available empirical evidence suggests that individuals only rarely
consult moral
principles when making decisions that result in the prevention of harm.
More often, people respond directly as carers (out of sympathy) or as
faithful members of a community that espouses helping and not
harming. In considering education, then, we have to ask how best to
cultivate the moral sentiments and how to develop communities that
will support, not destroy, caring relations (p. xv).

In the spirit of Noddings and Jung, the visual journal combines writing
and images to begin identifying a sense of self, a care for self, and the
emerging ability to care for others.
The Students Quest for Aesthetic Meaning Making
While personal meaning making is imperative for fostering the
development of
independent adolescents, aesthetic meaning making is a primary goal of the
secondary art experience. Jung and Noddings theories provide a foundation
for the importance of self awareness, the knowledge of self does not just
create personal meaning; rather, this emergent knowledge of self fuels a
process that uses past experiences and outside materials to create a new
aesthetic meaning for the student. John Deweys theory of the aesthetic
experience explains the transition from awareness of emotion to aesthetic
meaning making. Dewey believed that while emotions were the basis for
artistic expression, much more was needed to translate that emotion into an
aesthetic experience or opportunity for aesthetic meaning making.
Impulsion for need starts an experience that does not know where it is
going; resistance and check bring about the conversion of direct
forward action into reflection; what is turned back upon is the relation
of hindering conditions to what the self possesses as working capital in
virtue of prior experiences. As the energies thus involved re-enforce
the original impulsion, this operates more circumspectly with insight
into end and method. Such is the outline of every experience that is
clothed with meaningYet what is evoked is not just quantitative, or
just more energy, but is qualitative, a transformation of energy into
thoughtful action, through assimilation of meanings for the background
of past experiences. The junction of the new and old is not a mere
composition of forces but is a re-creation in which the present
impulsion gets form and solidity while the old, the stored, material is
literally revived, given new life and soul through having to meet a new
situation. (Dewey, p. 62-63)
According to Dewey mere awareness of self and expulsion of emotion
is not enough to create an aesthetic experience; rather the artist must first
experience an emotion or event, relate that experience to past experiences
and finally use outside tools and methods to create a product. It is through
this process of experience, reflection and action that the artist engages in
aesthetic meaning making (Dewey, 1934). In Art as Experience (1934),
Dewey compares this process of aesthetic meaning making to the
development of a child. As infants, children cry to express a variety of needs;
however, this general outcry of emotion slowly begins to develop and
transform in a myriad of emotional responses. As the child matures the once
universal cry evolves into a purposeful expulsion of emotion, a cry no longer
represents all of the childs needs; instead, the child learns to smile, coo and

eventually talk to express self needs. Dewey suggests that the evolution of
the universal cry into purposeful expression and eventually articulation
mimics the artistic process that results in an aesthetic experience. However,
while the child transforms a cry into expression and words, the artist
transforms an isolated emotion into an aesthetic response. The entire
experience, facilitated by the emotional and aesthetic experience, is
solidified when the artist purposefully uses materials to create a physical
product fueled by the initial raw emotion, past experiences and aesthetic
knowledge.
Dewey believed that what constitutes a work of art is not an
instantaneous reaction to an isolated event but rather a process that occurs
over time. Essentially the acts of feeling and creating are not isolated events;
they are simply part of the aesthetic process that results in both entities
acquiring a form and order they did not at first possess (Dewey, 1934, p
68). Between the space of emotion and creation there lies a world that is far
more complex and involved, and this is where the aesthetic experience
exists. This world is a complex web of past experiences, related imagery and
symbolism. These factors are what solidify aesthetic meaning making for an
artist. The artist must sort through the vast depths of pre-existing
experiences and knowledge, then select relevant material and organize this
material in a way that expresses the fueling emotion. Once organized, these
experiences can then be used as a tool in artistic expression.
Dewey discusses how the selection and manipulation of media mirrors
the internal process of selection and organization. Just as an artist
manipulates a ball of clay to create a, so do they mold and change prior
knowledge and experiences into something relevant to the emotion or
experience that began the artistic experience. Once initial emotion or
experience has been processed and meshed with previous memories and
ideas, then the artist can begin to manipulate the art media to create an
aesthetic response. Dewey believed that just as words and expressions
represent universal emotions, so do lines and colors. The belief that art
expresses what words cannot is central to Deweys theory. Just as a word
taken out of context loses its meaning, so does a brush stroke; it is not
merely the application of paint to canvas that creates a work of art, it is the
process that informs the selection of the brush, the color and the placement
of the paint. Taken out of context, the creation of a painting does not create
meaning for the artist or the viewer; rather it is the process of feeling,
relating, selecting, organizing, and creating that generates a meaningful
product.
The visual journal encourages the student to mirror Deweys
description of the aesthetic experience. The art educator guides the student
through a process that encourages identification of a current event or
emotion, promotes the student to reflect on that emotion and build a mental

frame of reference, and finally offers the student an artistic medium to

express this new meaning aesthetically. The goal of the visual journal is to
encourage the student to evaluate emotions, draw on past experiences and
then use art mediums to create a representation or outcome of that process.
The visual journal is not meant to contain a series of individual artworks, but
rather to encourage the student to understand how to convert lived
experiences into aesthetic experiences.
The Students Quest for Intellectual Meaning Making
And is not the task of aesthetics precisely to ground the fact that the
experience of art is a mode of knowledge of a unique kind, certainly
different from that sensory knowledge which provides science with the
ultimate data from which it constructs the knowledge of nature, and
certainly different from all moral rational knowledge, and indeed from
all conceptual knowledgebut still knowledge, i.e., conveying truth
(Gadamer, 1960, p 98)?
Hans-George Gadamer, similar to Dewey, believed that the aesthetic
experience is a process that is solidified when the artist works through an
intense personal process and then uses art media as a means of expressing
the results of this personal experience. While Dewey believed that this
process involved the artist in both a personal and aesthetic growth
experience, Gadamer believed that the process resulted in the unveiling of
significant meaning. Both Gadamer and Deweys theories foreshadowed
what research into cognitive thinking would soon prove, that in order for
knowledge to become truly useful to an individual, the individual must
question, examine, organize and build on prior knowledge; eventually
building new areas of knowledge ( Hurwitz & Day, 2001). Essentially
cognitive thinking is what occurs during the aesthetic processes that Dewey
and Gadamer theorized. As an individual experiences the world, they
encounter both words and images that they identify and categorize.
Research in cognitive psychology has shown that these experiences are the
foundation for acquired knowledge. Thus, visual journaling not only allows
students an experience of personal and aesthetic meaning making, it also
fosters intellectual development and potentially, knowledge retention in
students. Because visual journals promote integration and synthesis of lived
experiences, in high school students this would include personal realities and
insights gained through educational encounters. One would expect the
artistic products displayed in the journals to incorporate both the personal
and academic world of the student.
When considering this research it becomes evident that Jung,
Noddings, Dewey and Gadamers theories support the idea that personal
meaning making and intellectual meaning making is solidified by aesthetic
meaning making. Visual journaling is an educational tool that offers
opportunity for the student to display all of these forms of meaning making.

In this research the goal is not to identify or isolate instances of personal,

aesthetic or intellectual meaning making; but rather, to demonstrate how
visual journaling can serve as a powerful form of educational pedagogy that
allows students to create multiple types of meaning in the art classroom.
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