This document discusses using visuals to help second language (L2) writers develop their writing skills. It argues that L2 writers often misunderstand writing prompts due to uncertainty in expressing themselves fully in their non-native language. The author proposes having L2 writers analyze images and relate them to writing prompts to scaffold their understanding. Students would describe images, reflect on connections between images and concepts, and use this visual analysis to develop reflections and discover their writing voice. The author believes this approach can help L2 writers enter vocabulary, make associations, discuss experiences, and share emotions through writing.

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Art+Meta+Write: Visuality and Second Language Writers / By Jan Wiezorek
Problem: Second language (L2) writers are often at a place that A. F. Wysocki and J. L.
Jasken (2004) call an interface—a borderland where systems meet. In this place between
understanding and misunderstanding, L2 writers profoundly desire to express themselves fully but
are uncertain how to do it in the moment. This uncertainty affects their confidence as writers.
One student from Benin, who witnessed a car accident in America three months ago, says,
“I was terrified and felt guilty because if I could speak English, I could have had done
something.” Other L2 writers use “confused,” “nervous,” “disappointed, and “fear” to describe
encounters with English speech and writing. Even when going to a movie, one student finds no
pleasure in it, writing, “I don’t understand, and I always misunderstand the moment.”
I argue that L2 writers “misunderstand the moment” offered to them for communicating
through writing. Such misunderstanding causes delay in their response, and delay is traumatic
when too much time elapses between reception of a message and a response to it (R. Barthes
[1977]). With practice in responding to the immediacy of visuality, students can learn to blend
systems in an interface situation, scaffold their understanding, and find a writer’s voice.

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Pedagogy from M. B. McVee et al. (2008) and F. Serafini (2011) suggests that L2 writers have
limited academic vocabulary and an unclear sense of the crossover between denotative and
connotative meanings, which reduces effectiveness in establishing a writer’s voice. McVee
(2008) advocates making meaning by “moving freely from one sign system to another.”
Method: By combining visuals with writing, students will “reimagine” contexts and
consequences (J. Shipka [2005]). Visuality provides entry into deeper understanding about
writing. In one activity, “metajournaling,” students look at images before writing what they see
and feel. Writers use denotation with images as a scaffold into the shifting cultural and contextual
aspects inherent in connotation. These connections provide a broader understanding of meaning-
making and help writers to draft reflections and discover voice. I enabled students to choose
images, write denotative and connotative expressions, and to “metajournal” about the connections
among images, thoughts, and writing. To assist students, I prepared a variety of worksheets that
posed questions concerning the interface of images, words, culture, and context.
Implications: Visuality offers useful implications for L2 students and compositionists.
 Visuality is a pathway for entering into vocabulary, rich associations, and complex ideas.
The ability to see an image and transfer it into words is a complex activity that echoes what
L2 learners do when they grapple with language skills. Images reinforce new language
acquisition, and they link writers to abstract, complex ideas.

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 Visuality enables students to question themselves and reflect upon experience. When students
use writing to talk about their own experience, they often require a prompt. The author
believes visuality is the best way to bring forth reflection, enabling students to discuss how
experiences relate to a culture they are learning to navigate.
 Visuality assists L2 writers in sharing emotions. Images open emotional floodgates. L2
writers become witnesses to the power of visuality to unleash emotions in writing. They use
image and alphabetic-text connections to wrestle with emotional and cultural situations.
 Visuality becomes a bit of knowledge to make meaning in an unstable world. The image is
one bit of information that assists in meaning-making. Art+Meta+Write connections enable
educators to generate assignments that rely on a combination of imagistic and alphabetic texts
to help L2 writers enhance meaning within shifting sociocultural contexts.
Acknowledgements: I thank L2 writers at BIR Training Center in Chicago for their willingness
to explore interfaces among images, metacognition, and writing. I especially thank my mentor, Marcia
Buell, Ph.D., English Professor at Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, for her insights that
strengthen connections between theory and praxis.

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Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. Image – Music – Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Hill and Wang,
1977. Print.
McVee, Mary B. et al. “Using Digital Media to Interpret Poetry: Spiderman Meets Walt
Whitman.” Research in the Teaching of English. 43.2 (2008): 112-43. Print.
Serafini, Frank. “Expanding Perspectives for Comprehending Visual Images in Multimodal
Texts.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 54.5 (2011): 342-50. Print.
Shipka, Judy. “A Multimodal Task-Based Framework for Composing.” College Composition
and Communication. 57.2 (2005): 277-306. Print.
Wysocki, Anne Francis and Julia I. Jasken. “What should be an unforgettable face . . . .”
Computers and Composition. 21.1 (2004): 29-48. Print.
Jan Wiezorek (janwiezorek@comcast.net) teaches international L2 students as
faculty member at BIR Training Center in Chicago. He is an adjunct professor at St. Augustine
College, Chicago, and at Harper College, Palatine, Illinois. Jan authored Awesome Art Projects
That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). Visit his website: jgwiezor.wix.com/artmetawrite