Working with Dr. Alice Hays Again, Year Four, As We Piece Together Our Thinking on Visual Literacy and WGI

I think we're closer this year, year four, with what it is we've been trying to say, and I'm glad we have moved our study to a multi-year project. In year one, Dr. Alice Hays, UC Bakersfield and a WGI judge, and I sat down simply to discuss shows and, well, for her to teach me the vocabulary of judges. This, of course, turned into a yearly roundtable to discuss a show with participants during a Sports, Literacy, and Culture session each year at NCTE. At first, we simply discussed the 'assessment' of shows, which happens to be very similar to the ways English teachers discuss poetry. Year two, we looked to the ways that shows tell stories through equipment work, flooring, design, costuming, and performance. Last year, we highlighted two groups that had shows that were inclusive: one featuring deafness and another highlighting blindness. This year, the theme is to Dream Boldly, and when choosing shows we found one that is visually a dream (oxygen and air) and the other which is a celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which, we have named, offers us hope in a time when the oxygen is being kicked out of us on the regular as politics have drastically undone normalcy in our schools and professions. 

Music changes to more orchestration, and flags representing pastels from yellow to pink to blue, create a tapestry by the performers and above the performers…before moving to a staged congregation and a reading of the rights in several languages, providing an international understanding of what it means to be a human being. Everyone has a right to life, liberty, and the security of the person. Show finishes with Malala.

It's fascinating hearing judges discuss their interpretation of a show's intent, especially as the use of flags, sabres, and rifles help to tell the story to their audiences. Alice and I will be presenting on this a week from yesterday and even if we are behind, not as attentive to this project as we should be, it's always wonderful to collect our thoughts each year as we move our thinking towards writing something for an academic journal (we just don't know what yet...but I think we're getting there) 

Exemplar One: El Dorado High School, Placentia, California (2025), Scholastic World 4th Place

Exemplar Two: Ayala High School, Chino Hills, California (2024) - Scholastic Open, 1st Place