We commonly think of reading and writing as a pair, and we understand "being literate" as having the skill to do both. At a time when our interest in "visual literacy" is going up and up, it is odd that we are not more concerned about drawing. It seems that writers of English language books were most concerned about drawing at the start of the twentieth century. Why? Because industrialization required clear visual communication for manufacturing needs. Books published around that time had titles like Machine Drawing and Design for Beginners (1908) and Modern Technical Drawing (1913). Drawing was part of understanding and managing a changing world. There is some evidence that we are renewing our appreciation for drawing as tool for learning and communication. This is a topic for another post, but for now I'd just like us to think about how writing practice affects our ability to read. Drawing practice, I believe, affects our ability to understand, interpret, and appreciate images.
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