Reading Images Part 1

Illuminating Texts by Jim Burke devotes a chapter to “Reading Images”.

When readers look at written narrative we look for certain obvious design clues. For example, in English our eyes begin at the upper left corner and move to the bottom right corner.

Burke writes that when looking at images and nonword texts, the reader must ask “Where do I begin?”

He goes on to say that visual text “requires a level of reading, of active meaning making through construction and inference using a variety of strategies.”


He describes touring Chartres Cathedral in France. The tour guide “regards the cathedral as a multimedia text consisting of engravings, stained-glass windows, paintings, words, images, and the performed texts of sermon and song. And they interact with one another according to their form and function the very architecture reflecting the principles of universal order that are similarly embodied in stories told through images that surround visitors to Chartres.”

The guide reads the images then incorporates them using “all the same skills we typically use to read a poem or an essay, which are based on knowledge of:

• Design
• Features
• History
• Language
• Original content
• Relationships
• Style
• Symbols

The guide explains the story being told by drawing on his knowledge of Christianity and Art History. “So it goes with poems, speeches, even statistical information, all of which, like the Chartres portal, are situated in a time, a tradition, and a technique with features, that if read patiently and intelligently, can help us understand the story the artist wants to tell.” The guide narrates the textual images in the cathedral. He uses textual details such as the way a sculpture’s “hands are arranged or how a lamb is curled up at another’s feet.”

The guide asks the following questions:

• What are we looking at?
• Why are we looking at it?
• What questions does it bring to mind?
• Why did the artist make it?
• How did the artist make it?
• Why did the artist place it here?
• Why did the artist choose the materials?
• What did it mean to people back when it was originally made?
• Why didn’t the artist sign his name to these works of art as today’s artists do?

In exploring the answers these questions the viewer/reader learns a powerful story. The viewer/reader goes on to make meaning by drawing on Discourse and literacy strategies.

Images are so important in the classroom. An obvious example of reading images in my classroom is the field trip. Students can experience text by becoming part of it!