The Jabberwock

I was reading a book for another of my grad classes and came across a passage that I found not only interesting but meaningful for this class as well. The book is Probing Understanding by White, R. and R. Gunstone (1992). The book starts with breaking down types of understanding so that we - as educators - can see if our students "understood" what we have been teaching. In the fourth type: Understanding Extensive Communications they talk about how long pieces of work are understood through a process and not static single elements. The idea that you watch an entire ballet to understand and not try to pick apart each dance step to find the meaning. The authors then use a passage from Lewis Caroll's poem Jabberwock.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

I thought this linked very well with our look into what makes signs or photos compelling. The main idea that you don't have to understand what uffish means to get a sense of what the poem is saying. Imagery can be comprised of very confusing bits (like the travel ticker photo from the video we watched) but give a sense of feeling and lead to an understanding through that.

I think people too often try to understand each little bit and dissect it until they think they find the meaning when the intended meaning was right there all along if they looked long at the whole and not dissect the parts.