ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a descriptions of the social life and learning practices of an urban American high school classroom. It outlines the successes and failures of a specialized high school teaching team created to address the needs of students identified as ‘at risk’. The aim of the intervention was to introduce teachers and students to learning practices that are computer-assisted, discipline-integrating, project-based, all the while emphasizing visual literacy as a complement to textual literacy. In order to enhance the visual literacy skills of students as they pursue projects and explore the Internet, we encourage teachers to introduce elementary concepts of figure, ground, pattern and juxtaposition, and to direct student attention to visual aesthetics and to the role of contrast, simplicity and co-ordination in image construction.
