If a picture's worth a thousand words, why don't we teach visual literacy?
Interestingly (at least to me), while the term "visual literacy" is credited to Jack Debes, co-founder of the International Visual Literacy Association around 1969, it did not come across my radar as a school psychologist and educator until very recently. Similarly, while Mary Alice White, a researcher at Columbia University's Teacher's College has found that kids learn more than half of what they know from visually presented mediums, few schools consciously teach students how to evaluate and think critically about visual data. In fact, until VERY recently, there was little or no emphasis on visual literacy.
How, if at all do you teach visual literacy? I post strategies, websites and books to help develop visual literacy skills on my blog for specific http://departingthetext.blogspot.com.
One non-visual exercise would be meditation.
Just thinking about it now, how about presenting an odor to them -- a perfume, herb, or some other aromatic - and asking them to verbally describe it? They could pass around something doused with the aromatic. Then ask them to use a metaphor, simile, or other semi-poetic word or expression to describe it. You might then pass around something else imbued with another aromatic and ask them to compare the two. This could be done in groups.
After this non-visual exercise, present them with a picture and ask them to react to it. I think of the picture of Adlai Stevenson's shoe with a hole in it during the presidential campaign in 1952(?), asking your students (after explaining who Stevenson was), "After seeing this picture, would be more or less likely to vote for this man?" Or showing them a picture of a melting glacier, perhaps a before/after picture, and asking them, "How does this picture change the way you live your life?"