It's All About The Hate U Give (Blog #4)

  

PART 1

I created a media-based visualization of the Social Justice Young Adult Fiction novel The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. This novel is a subtopic to my overall topic Social Justice YAL in which I mention when I dive deeper into social justice in Blog 3. Attached is a GIF of the infographic, but this link will bring you to it where you should be able to view the trailer video. 

PART 2

        For my infographic, I decided to use the website Canva to create my project. This digital platform allows anyone to have the creative freedom to create a piece that means something to you in some way. The digital clip art elements are also so easily accessible on Canva rather than limiting you to a select few to choose from and there are so many different features that can be incorporated into your multimedia creation. I wanted a website that allowed me to add what I desired and arrange them in a way that allowed the image in my mind to be created and shown. In addition to being able to include anything I wanted, I wanted to make sure that my final product was something that was easily readable and understood by my audience whoever that may be. Canva also has the option of having moving images and graphics to help liven your creation up and catch one's eye which I enjoyed. 

        When selecting my images for my infographic I wanted to keep them all pleasing to the eye in order to not have any one image, in particular, stand out more than the others. I wanted to keep the soft pallet to ensure it was visually appealing but I also wanted to be able to include everything that I had in mind originally somewhere in the graphic. Specifically, I started my infographic out with the image at the top: the novel's cover photo. Including a photo of the novel's cover was a must for me due to the infographic as a whole revolving around the topic of it. There are images of the movie poster with the actor who played the main character, Starr, as the girl holding the sign, and there were images like the one I decided on. I specifically wanted to keep the original cover creation as my photo of focus since it was the image that the author specifically decided on when she made her novel. Continuing down the page, I have an image of 16 outlined people. This image was chosen towards the end of my creation because I felt the desire to add something to show how united everyone was in the novel. Coming together, like the outlines look to be, is how you get your message heard and is something that Starr ultimately did in the novel. Following that image is a photo of the author, Angie Thomas. I chose this photo specifically because of how happy she looks in it. The novel is a fairly deep read and showing the joy the author possesses was important to keep my infographic lighthearted as well. I did not want to make a gloomy graphic, and this image of Angie Thomas helped it keep some happiness. To the right as well as below the photo of the author are images that I created: a chart of themes and a timeline. Both of these images are in the middle of the page so I wanted to include key information here for people to see right when they open my infographic. The terms and vocabulary used help someone best understand the novel and dive deeper into it which was the whole goal of the infographic. In addition to that, "vocabulary is best taught in context," (Simmons, 13), and the context of the timeline best allows this to happen. Below the timeline is an image of three fists raised in the air which is commonly known to be the symbol for the Black Lives Matter movement. This image was something I wanted to include due to the overall theme of the novel revolving around Black Lives Matter. This image shows right away that the novel involves social justice due to the symbol being so heavily correlated with that topic. I wanted the message to be clear, and I believed that this image would allow it to be clearer. Finally, at the bottom, I included a link to the trailer of the novel's movie as well as an image of the main cast members. Since this infographic is all about The Hate U Give, including aspects from the movie as well as the book was another thing that would allow my audience to understand it even more. Many people strive off putting a name to a face, and some people struggle with that. For instance, in Visualizing for Struggling Readers, the authors mention that they "noticed that many of our reluctant and low-ability readers with comprehension difficulties were not able to describe the pictures in their minds as they read," (Neilsen Hibbing, 758). Including the trailer allows viewers to pinpoint those specifics, and including the image of the actors allows people to visualize better than they may have been able to do simply by reading the novel. Putting a name to a face is important for comprehension in some cases, so my images help viewers with that. 

        Creating this visualization helped to deepen my understanding of the topic in ways that reading alone might not have because it was as if I was putting all of the pieces together that I would need to describe this novel to someone who may know nothing about the book. Breaking it down to pinpoint the main ideas, themes, and timeline of events specifically helped deepen my understanding since I did not think about those consciously while reading. Doing these things allowed me to understand what exactly the important parts of the novel were rather than reading them and continuing along with the book which could lead to forgetting the material. Dissecting a text should always lead to a deeper understanding of what is and is not important and that is what I was able to do. Reading it alone would not have required me to figure out the main ideas, themes, and timeline- putting them all in one place allowed me to understand those parts. Infographics should always include important things since they are not meant to be very wordy and intricate so having that deep understanding to project onto my infographic was key to understanding my topic.

        Finally, this process helped influence my thinking on visualization as a vehicle for learning because of how much more invested I am in this novel, now. I had a fun time dissecting it and finding what I believed to be the key information from the novel and the movie to include for someone who may not have ever heard of The Hate U Give. I think I will use visualization in my future teaching to ensure my students are understanding the text how they should. I believe a visualization similar to the one I created would be a great way to further engagement in classroom material and show the understanding necessary for a summative assessment. Students have the creative freedom to show their understanding of a novel which could be very different than the person next to them since each individual infographic is unique. 

Work Cited

Neilsen Hibbing, Anne, and Joan L Rankin-Erickson. “A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words: Using Visual Images to Improve Comprehension for Middle School Struggling Readers.” The Reading Teacher, 8th ed., vol. 56, International Reading Association, 2003, pp. 758–770.

Simmons, Eileen. “Visualizing Vocabulary.” The Quarterly, 2002, pp. 13–17.

Thomas, Angie. The Hate U Give. Ernst Klett Sprachen, 2022.

YouTube, 24 June 2018, https://youtu.be/3MM8OkVT0hw