Lesson 5: Teaching Viewing

LESSON 5:
TEACHING VIEWING

INTRODUCTION
Viewing skills have become one of the most important skills in communication
because we are living in a visual world. The advent of the internet and the digital
revolution, the ubiquity of mobile devices which allow people to capture still and
moving images easily, the presence of video-sharing platforms such as Youtube, and the
emergence of social media networks have all contributed to the rise in visual
communication and to the image becoming the primary mode of communication
around the world.

The majority of texts young people are encountering and creating are multi-
modal - the meaning is communicated by more than one mode. The fact that
communication at present time is largely multimodal, this has created changes in the
construct of communicative competence. Due to this changing nature of
communication, many countries, including the Philippines, have added “viewing” as the
fifth macro-skill in communication.

As future teachers of the 21st century, emphasis should be given on developing

the viewing skills of students as these skills enhance both their reading and listening
skills. According to Ignatius Joseph Estroga (2012), viewing enhances listening skills
when students attend to non-verbal communication and visual elements of video,
television, film and multimedia presentation. Furthermore, viewing enhances reading
when students attend to visuals accompanying print.

In this lesson, you will gain better understanding of the importance of viewing
skills, the characteristics of active viewers, and the strategies on how to develop
viewing skills.

Time Frame: One week; 9 hours

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 Lesson 5: Teaching Viewing

Objectives
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

 determine the importance of viewing in a language classroom

 identify the characteristics of effective and active viewers;
 explore tested frameworks in implementing viewing in the language classroom to
improve students’ viewing skills.

Engage V5

How critical are you as a viewer? Study the pictures below and do what is asked.

Speculate. Would you say the

person in the photograph is posing
a problem or presenting a
solution? Why?

Analyze. What sort of problems

might someone encounter while
wading this stream?

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How did you find the activity? Were you able to use your viewing
skills to speculate and analyze the pictures?
If you had a hard time answering the questions, Lesson 5 will help
you learn strategies on how to improve your viewing skills. The
experience will be helpful when your turn comes to teach the skills to
your students.

Explore V5

See, Think, and Wonder

Study the picture above and answer the questions given.

 What do you see?

 What do you think about what you see?
 What does it make you wonder?

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Explain V5

1. What is viewing and why is it important?

2. What processes does a viewer undergo when doing a viewing activity?
3. What strategies may be employed to help students become effective
viewers?
These questions will guide you as you read the study notes provided below.
Read and understand them well.

What is viewing?
In the Canadian Common Curriculum Framework, viewing is defined as follows:
‘An active process of attending and comprehending visual media, such as
television, advertizing images, films, diagrams, symbols, photographs, videos, drama,
drawings, sculpture and paintings.’
This means that viewing is similar to reading as one is expected to analyze,
ealuate, and appreciate visual texts. Viewing is an active rather than a passive process.
The International Reading Association/National Council of Teachers of English
(1996) agreed that being literate in contemporary society means being active, critical,
and creative users not only of print aand spoken language but also of the visual lnguage
of films and television, commercial and political advertising, photography and more.

Why is viewing important?

We are language teachers. It is essential that we focus on the written and

spoken word in our classes as well as multimodal texts that use images. This is due to
the fact that majority of texts our 21st century learners are accessing outside the
classroom are visual texts and multimodal texts which use images that require analysis
and evaluation. Furthermore, the majority of these multimodal texts – Youtube videos,
infographics, websites, blogs, social media sites – are a combination of print text and
image.

Therefore, viewing is crucial for the students to become more effective, active,
and critical viewers in order to participate fully in society. Among the 21st century skills,
information and communication technology (ICT) literacy, media and internet literacy,
data interpretation and analysis, computer programming are deemed critically

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important to success in today’s world, particularly in collegiate programs and

contemporary careers and workplaces (Glossary of Education Reforms).
Viewing helps students develop the knowledge and skills to analyse and
evaluate visual texts and multimodal texts that use visuals. Viewing also helps students
acquire information and appreciate ideas and experiences visually communicated by
others.

What do active viewers do?

According to the Canadian Common Curriculum Framework, active and effective

viewers would ask themselves a series of questions such as:

 What is the text representing?

 How is the text constructed?
 What assumptions, interests, beliefs, biases and values are portrayed by the
text?
 What is the purpose of the text?
 To whom is the text directed? Who does the text exclude?
 What is my reaction to the text? What causes this reaction?
 What personal connections and associations can I make with this text?

It’s important that students are aware that understanding the viewing process is as
important as understanding the listening and reading process. Students should
understand that effective, active viewers engage in the following procedure:

1. Pre-viewing: Students prepare to view by activating their schema (the prior knowledge
they bring to the study of a topic or theme), anticipating a message, predicting,
speculating, asking questions, and setting a purpose for viewing.

2. During viewing: Students view the visual text to understand the message by seeking
and checking understanding, by making connections, making and confirming predictions
and inferences, interpreting and summarising, pausing and reviewing, and analysing
and evaluating. Students should monitor their understanding by connecting to their
schema, questioning and reflecting.

3. After viewing / responding: Students should be given opportunities to respond

personally, critically and creatively to visual texts. Students respond by reflecting,
analysing, evaluating and creating.

VIEWING FRAMEWORKS

We’re now going to explore three frameworks which have been developed by
prestigious institutions to help students become better viewers. These models help to
systematize viewing effectively into the language classroom.

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A. Film and video: The 3Cs and 3Ss

This framework was developed by Into Film and is used widely in schools in the UK. The
3Cs (Colour, Camera, Character) and the 3Ss (Story, Setting, Sound) framework can be
used to help students discuss and analyse all the elements of a film text.

Story, Setting, Sound, Colour, Character and Camera are simple headings with
discussion questions teachers can use as an easy way for exploring any film. Here are
some of the discussion questions:

Colour
 What colours do you see?
 What do the colours make you feel?
 Why do you think certain colours are used?
 What mood do you think the colours create?

Camera

 What shots have been used? Can you name them?

 Through whose eyes do we see the story?
 When do we see different characters’ point of view?
 When does the camera move and when does it stay still?

Character

 What do the main characters look like?

 How do they speak and what do they say?
 How do they behave?
 Which character interests you the most? Why?

Story

 What happens in the beginning, middle and at the end of the story?
 What are the most important things (events) that happen in the story?
 How do we know where the story takes place?
 How long does the story take place in ‘real’ time?

Setting

 Where does the action take place?

 When and how does the setting change?
 How could you tell where the story was taking place?
 How could you tell when the story was taking place?

Sound

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 How many different sounds do you hear? What are they?

 How does the music make you feel?
 Are there any moments of silence?
 Can you hear any sound effects?

The simplicity of the 3Cs and 3Ss framework makes it easy to remember and use.

B. Paintings and photographs: See, Think, Wonder

The See, Think, Wonder routine is one of the Visible Thinking Routines developed by
researcher-educators for Project Zero at Harvard University. This routine helps students
make careful observations and develop their own ideas and interpretations based on
what they see when viewing a painting or photograph by asking these three questions.

 What do you see?

 What do you think about what you see?
 What does it make you wonder?

By separating the two questions – ‘What do you see?’ and ‘What do you think about
what you see?’ – the routine helps students distinguish between observations and
interpretations. By encouraging students to wonder and ask questions, the routine
stimulates students’ curiosity and helps students reach for new connections. This
routine is designed to be easy to remember, practical and invite a broad range of
thinking moves.

C. The Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)

The Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) approach was co-developed by Abigail Housen and
Philip Yenawine 30 years ago. It finds meaning in imagery and develops visual literacy
skills through learning in the arts, fostering thinking and communication skills through
listening carefully and expressing oneself. The approach works in the following way:

 Students silently examine carefully selected art images

 The teacher asks these three open-ended questions
o What’s going on in this picture?
o What do you see that makes you say that?
o What more can we find?
 Students then …
o Look carefully at the image
o Talk about what they observe
o Back up their ideas with evidence
o Listen and consider the views of others
o Discuss many possible interpretations
o Construct meaning together

 The teacher …
o Listens carefully to each comment

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o Paraphrases student responses demonstrating language use

o Points to features described in the artwork throughout the discussion
o Facilitates student discussions
o Encourages scaffolding of observations and interpretations
o Validates individual views
o Links related ideas and points of agreement/disagreement
o Reinforces a range of ideas

Close Viewing Protocol

Like close reading of text, close viewing of film media is carefully and
purposefully viewing and reviewing a film clip in order to focus on what the filmmaker is
trying to convey, the choices the filmmaker has made, the role of images, narration,
editing, and sound, and what the film’s purpose might be. Close viewing ensures that
students become critical viewers of film content and that they really understand what
they’ve watched. Skillful close viewing is also an important foundation for helping
students develop the ability to justify their claims in class discussions and writing
assignments with specific evidence. The following sample protocol is meant for use with
a short (five- to ten-minute) film or video clip.

Procedure

1. View the Film Clip Together

After watching the clip, ask students to write down their general thoughts and
reactions. You might prompt them with questions such as: What stands out for
you? What resonated with you? What do you have questions about?

Note: Before moving on to Step 2, it might be helpful to go over a few of these

basic recall questions with students:

1. Who are the characters/people involved?

2. What is going on? What is the basic storyline?
3. What is the setting? Time period? Physical location?
4. What is the point of view? Whose story is this?
5. What is the theme/mood?
2. Students Answer Film-Dependent Questions

After this viewing, a teacher could ask “film-dependent questions” to focus

students’ understanding of specific moments from the film. These are questions
that students can answer entirely based on information and evidence provided
in the film.

3. Small Groups Practice Focused Viewing

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Have each student or small group take notes based on only one of the following
lenses to focus their viewing of the film. Each lens includes “questions” to ask
oneself.

 Sound: Focus on the music in the film as well as the sound effects. What
do you notice? What stands out to you?
 Editing: Focus on the way that the interviews, photos, and video are
edited together. What choices did the filmmaker make in terms of
scenes or parts to show, represent, or emphasize?
 Images: Focus on the visual experience; do not pay attention to the
audio but simply take note of the images that are featured. What do
you notice? What choices did the filmmaker make? What is the impact
of these choices?
 Storyline/Historical Facts: How is the story unfolding? What are the
objective, historical facts that are portrayed in this film?
 Human Behavior: How do you see the range of human behavior
represented in this film? Where do you see the theme of choices or
decision making?

Have each group report on its lens and what its members observed. Ask each
group to reflect on the following question: How was your viewing of the film
affected by the specific lens through which you viewed it?

4. Debrief

Bring the small groups back together and ask that students take turns
responding to the questions below.
 What is the purpose of this film? Is it to teach, entertain, or do
something else? How well is it doing this?
 Who/what is left out of the message?
 Whose interests are served by telling/showing the message in a
particular way?
 What motivations might the filmmaker have? How are these manifested
in the film?
 What do you already know about the topic? How might your prior
knowledge of the topic change how you experience the film?

(Source: https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies/close-viewing-
protocol)

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40 Viewing Comprehension Strategies That Help Students View

Videos Like They Read Books
Before Viewing Anchor Strategies: Viewing Purpose, Preview, Predict,
Comprehension Strategies Connect
1. Set a viewing purpose
-promote understanding of 2. Predict (e.g., sequence of events, video creator’s position on a
video and streaming given topic, etc.)
content. 3. Preview video (editing conventions, length, title)
- 4. Identify media connections (e.g., I read a book on a related
topic recently; I saw a tweet that described this same idea but
in sarcastic terms, etc.)
5. Make True/False statements about general video topic
6. Begin KWL chart
7. Roughly summarize (e.g., what they know about topic. video
creator, channel, etc.)
8. Concept map the video topic in a given or self-selected context
9. Complete Anticipation Guide
10. Create self-produced guiding questions

Anchor Strategies: Stop, Clarify, Question, Infer

During Viewing 1. Stop (or pause) the video while viewing based on viewer
Comprehension Strategies preference and monitoring of own understanding
2. Rewind to clarify understanding or uncover subtle data/events
-promote understanding of 3. Rewatch video with new purpose and perspective
video and streaming
4. Form relevant questions based on viewing
content.
5. Clarify (e.g., information, bias, fact/opinion, ‘author’ position,
etc.)
6. Monitor & Repair Understanding
7. Evaluate use of primary and secondary modalities
8. Make meaningful and personalized inferences (e.g., primary and
secondary audiences)
9. Infer underlying assumptions of video
10. Adjust viewing speed (i.e., use slow-motion) if available (e.g.,
physics videos)

After Viewing Anchor Strategies: Summarize, Analyze, Create, Socialize

Comprehension Strategies 21. Retell what happened; Paraphrase “standout” ideas
22. Summarize main idea and key supporting details
-promote understanding of 23. Recall own thinking and/or emotions during video
video and streaming (metacognition)
content. 24. Modality Analysis (e.g., identify and analyze prevailing
modalities and their effect)
25. Metric Analysis (e.g., to infer social context with respect to
total views, currently watching, social shares, etc.)
25. Metric Analysis (e.g., to infer social context with respect to
total views, currently watching, social shares, etc.)
26. Analyze idea organization of video
27. Create a word cloud (e.g., that reflects diction, tone,

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theme, etc.); Tweet, comment on, blog, or otherwise socialize

initial impressions in a way that reflects digital citizenship
28. Socialize extended responses (e.g., in writing, on social media,
etc.)
29. Categorize information and perspectives
30. Separate explicit and implicit ideas

Extended Comprehension Anchor Strategies: Reflect, Create, Critique, Design

Strategies 31. Reflect on ‘fit’ of video with regards to Viewing Purpose
-meant to 32. Compare & contrast video with similar video content
provide extended learning 33. Create Anticipation Guide (for viewers who haven’t seen
around video and video)
streaming content, as well 34. Identify ‘big idea’ of video
as opportunities for more 35. Critique video for which modalities supported video purpose
complex thinking about and theme, and which seemed to distract
that content. 36. Roughly determine history of topic in similar and dissimilar
media
37. RAFT thinking & extension (Role, Audience, Format,
Topic/Theme)
38. Prioritize ideas & information from least to most important
39. Distinguish between tone and mood of video
40. Design follow-up medium that extends and deepens purpose
of video

(Source: https://www.teachthought.com/technology/viewing-comprehension-strategies-watching-videos-like-you-
read-a-book/)

Elaborate V5

The 4Ws activity is an example of a Visual Thinking Strategy that helps students to
make observations, connections, and inferences about an artist’s agenda and
develop ideas about a work’s significance. Using this photo of Amorsolo, do the 4Ws
activity that follows.

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Lavanderas by Fernando Amorsolo

(Source: Google.com)

Prompts Answer
What do I see?
(What do you observe?
What else?)
What does it remind me
of?
(Another image? A
personal experience?)
What’s the artist’s
purpose?
(To analyze? Persuade?
Express? document?
Entertain?)
So what?
(Why does it matter?
What is the significance?)

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Evaluate V5

Based on your own understanding, make a summary of the important insights you have
gained from Lesson 5. Use the given topics as outline of your summary. Use A4 bond
paper for your output.

 The importance of viewing in a language classroom

 The characteristics of effective and active viewers;
 Strategies to use in teaching viewing in the language classroom

Response Writing Rubric

Criteria Excellent Good Below Average Ineffective Total
4 3 2 1
Main Idea Clear main idea Mostly clear Main idea is not Main idea is not
in the first main idea in clear in the first present in the
sentence the first sentence-not first sentence.
sentence specifically
stated.
Details All important Important Some critical Contains only
details are details are information is some details.
included. included but missing.
some might be
missing.
Order Ideas are Ideas are in Ideas are in Ideas are not in
connected to logical order. random order. logical order.
make the writing
flow..
Paraphrase Author writes Author uses Author uses a Author does not
their own words their own few sentences use their own
to create a words to write that sound too words to write
summary that summary. similar to the summary.
includes great text and not
word choice. enough of their
own words.
Conventions No spelling, 1-2 spelling, 3-4 spelling, 5-or more
grammar and grammar and grammar and spelling,
conventions conventions conventions grammar and
errors. errors are errors are found. conventions
found. errors are
found.
Total Score

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