A visual narrative is a story told with pictures and images rather than only with words. One of the basic ideas of Beyond Borders is that all kinds of expression tell stories and form arguments. Therefore, they can be read, just as we would a  piece of writing. Every time we see an image, whether in an advertisement or on television or in a book, we're reading that image. Like written texts, we can choose to do a superficial or literal reading of the text/image or a critical and analytical one. Images tell stories differently from written texts by being both more explicit in some ways, and having the freedom to be more ambiguous in others. That is, graphic images show, and therefore make their meaning more apparent; on the other hand, images don't have to fill in all the words in order to convey a meaning and therefore leave other things more to the imagination. In addition to the selections in the Image Portfolio, many selections in Beyond Borders combine visual and written narrative.

In Beyond Borders:  See Leonard Kriegel, "Tunnel Notes of a New Yorker"; Ruben Martinez, "Going Up in LA"; Art Spiegelman, "MAUS"; Jack Jackson, "Comanche Moon"; Image 9, Paul Fusco, New York City: September 11"; Image 22a, 22b, Peter Menzel, "The Ukita Family" and all their material possessions 1992 and 2001, and Image 17, "Live Without Dead Time." 

In Beyond Borders Online:  See Web Research Activities, "The Shape of Stories: Digital Storytelling, Hypertext Poetry, and New Multimedia Expressions" and "Virtual Tourism."

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