1. (15min) Discuss with a partner: What are examples of freedom and confinement in your life, the United States?

• Share back with larger group and create list on board.
• Read Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s quote: “Defined in the simple terms of the secular state, crime means a violation of the law.  Laws change, depending on what, in a social order, counts as stability, and who, in a social order, needs to be controlled.”
• What examples named above have changed over time? Were any of these things formerly in the other column?

2. (15min) What is visual literacy? Create a group definition.

• Compare to this definition: "Visual literacy involves thinking critically and analytically about
  visual information in order to assess both the meaning and the intention of that information as well as using these skills to create new forms of visual communication."  (From ARTiFact Teachers at Stanford University)

3. (15min) Show Hank Willis Thomas’ artwork, "The Liberation of T.O.”
The piece was created by taking all of the advertising words out of the ad by the artist. Lead the group through visual literacy questions:

• Observation: Look deeply (spend 1 minute looking without talking). List everything that you see in the picture.
• Representation: Who is in the picture? Where are they? What can you infer based on the details listed above?
• Action: What are they doing? What do you think is the consequence of their action? What will happen next?
• Meaning: Why did the artist remove the words? How do you think this is different than the meaning intended by the original advertisement?
  

4. (30min) Introduce The Knotted Line – an interactive art piece about freedom and confinement in U.S. history.  Handout worksheet.

5.  (15min) Group share back.
•    Share back from the worksheet with projection and group looking at image. Pay particular attention to ‘V. Connection’. How do these images relate to the list of freedom/confinement the group made in the beginning?
•    What did you notice by using the visual literacy steps in looking through The Knotted Line?
•    Where can you apply visual literacy?

Additional Teacher Resources:

• Visual Thinking Strategies [Teaching Approach]
  
• Literacy and Justice Through Photography [Curriculum Guide]
  

Teacher Questions:

• How does visual literacy challenge different students in different ways? Were their surprises in who engaged or didn't?
• How does the subject matter and content of the images affect the discussion/engagement?
• How did the exercise add more specificity to the knowledge students had when entering? How did it challenge what they know?
  

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