Designing Texts ─ Teaching Visual Communication

ABOUT THE BOOK Designing Texts is an edited collection dedicated to teaching visual communication in non-visual disciplines, with a particular focus on the fields of technical and professional communication, rhetoric, and composition. The collection offers readers theoretically motivated, research-supported, classroom-tested insights on the teaching of visual communication.Visual literacy entails looking, seeing, thinking, and producing, and Designing Texts reflects these areas, with sections dedicated to visual thinking and problem solving; contexts for teaching and learning; evaluation and assessment; and tools and technologies. Each section includes an introduction that relates the individual chapters to one another and to the teaching of visual communication more broadly; additionally, the contributors draw attention to the connections among the chapters. The chapters demonstrate a diversity of perspectives and approaches that characterizes visual communication, integrating Gestalt Psychology, rhetoric, and aesthetics, and spanning disciplinary boundaries rather than reinforcing them. Throughout, readers will find material focused on both theoretical and practical issues that they can apply directly to their own teaching of visual communication. Included are assignment suggestions, sample evaluative rubrics, and numerous visual examples that illustrate the authors' points. The collection concludes with an annotated list of resources that readers will find helpful for learning more about the teaching of visual communication.Intended Audience: The primary intended audience is instructors of undergraduate courses that include visual communication either as one component among many or as the primary content for the course. In particular, the collection addresses instructors in two disciplines that have traditionally not been visually oriented: technical/professional communication and composition. The book may also attract readers from other disciplines in which visual communication is assuming greater importance, such as communication studies, rhetoric, information science, information technology, educational technology, and other related fields.

Eva Brumberger is an associate professor and director of the Professional Writing program at Virginia Tech. She has worked in the computer industry as a technical writer and continues to do freelance writing, editing, and design. Her research interests include visual rhetoric and document design, pedagogy, and intercultural professional communication. She is a vice president of the International Visual Literacy Association.Kathryn Northcut is an associate professor of technical communication at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, MO. Her research interests are rhetoric of paleontology and visual communication in science. She received a doctorate degree in Technical Communication and Rhetoric from Texas Tech University in 2004.