this is squishy: visual literacy, Delonte West & doodling
(Part of a student’s response to this prompt. Note the note on the bottom.)
Delonte West had an English teacher who let him doodle:
Dunbar, West’s sophomore year English teacher, took an interest in his drawings. She encouraged the student-athlete to continue developing his talent.
“I like to see students express themselves the best they can and if it means in an unconventional way at times, then so be it,” Dunbar said.
Yes. Doodling is visual literacy. Doodling is representing-to-learn.
West, who is bipolar, said this: “Art, I use it as therapy for myself. Just dealing with being bipolar, my life, things like that just allow you to relax and just get away, let your mind just create.”
Beyond its therapeutic potential, doodling helps students to be aware and present. Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing highlighted Sunni Brown’s TED Talk on doodling:
… doodling means they probably are paying attention. “Doodling is a pre-emptive measure to stop you from losing focus.” Research has shown that you retain information better when it is combined with some kind of stimulus. Doodling helps with retaining information, because when you are doodling it engages four types of stimulation: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic.
Doodling is “a portal to move people through higher levels of visual literacy.”
Squishy teaching = lots of doodling.
