2014
Journeys from Images to Words
Julie E McAdam Evelyn Arizpe Alison Devlin Maureen Farrell Jennifer Farrar
Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 5 Section 1: The thinking behind the project ................................................................................ 6 1.1 Visual literacy .................................................................................................................. 6 1.2 Contexts of Change ........................................................................................................ 7 1.2.1 Diverse classrooms ................................................................................................... 7 1.2.2 Culturally responsive teaching: the value of children’s literature ............................ 9 1.3 Project aims and objectives ............................................................................................ 10 1.4 Setting up and managing the project .............................................................................. 11 1.4.1 Selection of picturebooks and other texts ............................................................... 12 1.4.2 Building collaborative relationships with the schools ........................................... 14 1.4.3 The Workshops: creating a shared understanding of the project ........................... 15 Section 2: Setting up communities of critical readers ............................................................. 17 2.1 Creating a classroom ethos that values diverse language and literacy practices ........... 17 2.1.1 Using Rivers of Reading in the classroom .............................................................. 18 2.1.2 Findings.................................................................................................................. 19 2.1.3 Evaluation of the task.............................................................................................. 22 2.1.4 Extending the task ................................................................................................... 23 2.1.5 Summary ................................................................................................................. 23 2.1.6 Suggested reading ................................................................................................... 23 2.2 Entering the world of the book ..................................................................................... 24 2.2.1 Introducing the books in the classroom .................................................................. 24 2.2.2 Walking, talking and looking through the books .................................................... 25 2.2.3 Findings................................................................................................................... 28 2.2.4 Evaluation of the task.............................................................................................. 30 2.2.5 Extending the tasks: ................................................................................................ 31 2.2.6 Summary ................................................................................................................. 31 2.2.7 Suggested reading ................................................................................................... 31 Section 3: Visual strategies that facilitate critical reading ...................................................... 34 3.1 Annotations: Excavating meaning from images. .......................................................... 34 3.1.1 Using the annotations in the classroom .................................................................. 35 3.1.2 Findings................................................................................................................... 36 3.1.3 Evaluation of the task.............................................................................................. 40 3.1.4 Extending the task ................................................................................................... 40 2
3.1.5 Summary ................................................................................................................. 41 3.1.6 Suggested reading ................................................................................................... 42 3.2 Sharing personal worlds through image: Photojournals ................................................ 42 3.2.1 Creating the photojournals ...................................................................................... 44 3.2.2 Findings................................................................................................................... 45 3.2.3 Evaluation of task ................................................................................................... 46 3.2.4 Extending the task ................................................................................................... 47 3.2.5 Summary ................................................................................................................. 49 3.2.6 Suggested reading .................................................................................................. 49 3.3 Annotations of written texts ........................................................................................... 50 3.3.2 Findings................................................................................................................... 52 3.3.3 Evaluations .............................................................................................................. 53 3.3.4 Extending the task ................................................................................................... 53 3.3.5 Summary ................................................................................................................. 54 3.3.6 Suggested reading ................................................................................................... 54 3.4 The evolving use of illustration ..................................................................................... 55 3.4.1 Using graphic strips to represent text narrative ...................................................... 56 3.4.2 Findings................................................................................................................... 56 3.4.3 Evaluation of task ................................................................................................... 58 3.4.4 Extending the task ................................................................................................... 59 3.4.5 Summary ................................................................................................................. 59 3.4.6 Suggested reading ................................................................................................... 59 Section 4: The impact and reach of the project........................................................................ 61 4.1 Pedagogical implications ............................................................................................... 61 4.1.1 Adopting visual strategies as part of a culturally relevant pedagogy ..................... 61 4.1.2 Building inclusive classrooms ................................................................................ 62 4.1.3 Opening windows and doors: embedding children’s literature in and across the curriculum ........................................................................................................................ 62 4.1.4 Building bridges between school and home ........................................................... 63 4.2 Concluding implications and recommendations ............................................................ 65 4.3 Sustaining practice and building networks .................................................................... 67 4.3.1 Website ................................................................................................................... 67 4.3.3 Knowledge transfer ................................................................................................. 68 4.4 Recommendations for future enquiry .......................................................................... 72 4.5 Concluding remarks ....................................................................................................... 72
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Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the financial support of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the matched funding (in terms of staff time) from the University of Glasgow’s School of Education. This work grew from previous research funded by the United Kingdom Literacy Association in Visual Journeys: Exploring children’s visual literacy through intercultural responses to wordless picturebooks (2009-2010).UKLA continued to offer support and advice through our Literacy Consultant, Ms. Alayne Őztűrk, President of UKLA and member of staff at London Metropolitan University, during her tenure as consultant. The research work was possible as a result of the sustainable networks of support that exist between the School of Education and Glasgow City Council, which enabled us to work in collaboration with the teaching staff and participating pupils of two primary schools: Holy Cross Primary and St Martha’s Primary. Their contribution to the project and to our own learning as researchers has been invaluable. Many people have responded to our research journey by sharing their time and expertise, making contributions to the project in a variety of ways. We would especially like to thank Morris Gleitzman and GRAMNET, the University of Glasgow’s Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network, for their valuable contributions to the project.
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Introduction This report presents a synthesis of the Journeys from Images to Words project, which was funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and based in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow. The project involved researching, testing and evaluating a new approach to teaching and learning in order to enhance the language and literacy of children from diverse backgrounds and improve learning support at a time of changing educational needs. The increasing number of pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds, many of them New Arrivals, presents both challenges and opportunities to schools in terms of teaching and learning. This report describes the potential of visual literacy, an area that is often overlooked in curriculum documents, and considers its role in addressing complex issues of literacy development. The report is written in four parts, each section providing a comprehensive overview of how the project unfolded. In section one, we discuss the project’s theoretical underpinnings, with a particular focus on the use of visual literacy strategies within contexts of change, as these ideas were fundamental to the project’s shape, aims and design. As a research team we value the use of collaborative data collection tools which can double as classroom strategies, keeping in mind Banks’ advice ‘that good research design needs to consider the impact of the tools on the children, morally, emotionally and pedagogically’ (2001:179). It is for this reason that sections two and three have been written as teaching guides, to provide support to those who wish to use visual strategies within their classrooms. We include evaluations of the strategies in practice and suggest ways to extend them. Section four contains a final analysis of the project’s main pedagogical implications and explains how we have already taken these ideas forward to transform and sustain classroom practices in this global era of educational change.
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Section 1: The thinking behind the project 1.1 Visual literacy Reading both images and words with children can build on their existing knowledge of the visual mode and enable them to extend and enhance their capacities for making meaning through images (Arizpe & Styles, 2003; Serafini, 2005; Pantaleo, 2008; Sipe, 2008; Arizpe et al, 2014b). While experts may disagree on an exact definition for ‘visual literacy’, it is hard to deny its significance to Western children today, who receive a constant stream of information, entertainment and cultural knowledge from a variety of multimodal forms. We understand visual literacy to be an active process that can range from an awareness of the codes of visual communication to a more analytical, critical reading of visual texts (Crouch, 2008). Frey and Fisher have expanded this definition, linked it to reading comprehension and to a reader’s interaction with a text: We think of visual literacy as describing the complex act of meaning making using still or moving images. As with reading comprehension, visually literate learners are able to make connections, determine importance, synthesise information, evaluate, and critique. Further, these visual literacies are interwoven with textual ones, so that their interaction forms the basis for a more complete understanding. (Frey & Fisher, 2008: 1) By nurturing and developing children’s visual competences, it may be possible to maximise their enjoyment of images; help them to become more active and critical ‘readers’ of visual messages and enable them to creatively approach both multimodal and print-based texts. Applying a critical lens to this process can open texts up to multiple, alternative readings, and can also lead to deeper understandings of the way texts are constructed, as well as a consideration of wider issues such as identity, cultural difference and inclusion. As Fleckenstein et al have pointed out, focusing on the visual need not mean that pupils’ engagement with language and literature is neglected because, ‘such an endeavour requires that we nuance our sense of meaning by welcoming into our classrooms the necessary transaction between imagery and language’ (2002: 5). In order to carry out activities that promote visual literacy, it is clear that teachers need to be familiar with a wide range of visual texts, have some knowledge of how - and why - they work and how they can be used with students in a diverse and challenging range of contexts. This topic, however, is not always covered by initial teacher education (training) courses or in later professional education. It is also clear that practising teachers rarely have enough time to invest in small group discussions or individual sessions, both approaches that can support a more in-depth study of visual texts. That visual literacy is overlooked by curricular frameworks in England, Wales and Scotland also decreases the likelihood of its inclusion in day-to-day classroom life, an issue we will return to in our final recommendations. However, since the 1990s, some studies have encouraged teachers to foster children’s creativity and visual literacy through the arts, including All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (NACCCE, 1999), and More Than Words 1 & 2 (QCA/UKLA, 2004; 2005). Other studies have highlighted visual literacy’s role in encouraging talk, writing and other creative responses (Fleckenstein et al, 2002; Thibault & Walbert, 2003; Frey & Fisher, 2008). An important UK study into primary school children’s responses to postmodern picturebooks (Arizpe & Styles, 2003) found that ‘careful looking and constructive dialogue enables 6
children (including those who are very young or who do not speak English fluently or do not read print well) to make worthwhile judgements about pictures which are often profound, complex and richly interconnected with other ideas or symbolic systems’ (p51). Subsequent studies (such as Arizpe, 2009, Arizpe, 2014a; Arizpe, 2014b) which focused on learners with English as an additional language (EAL), have found that the combination of words and pictures can enable bilingual children to move beyond literal meanings, consider alternative interpretations and how they are constructed. A context of stimulating dialogue can also allow for the negotiation of meaning (Arizpe, 2009). Additional exploration in this field has been in the form of a Scottish Government funded project, Learning to Read a New Culture: How immigrant and asylum-seeking children experience Scottish identity through classroom books (McGonigal & Arizpe, 2007) and another Esmée Fairbairn Foundation funded project: Promoting Access to the Curriculum through Visual Literacy and Meaning Making in a Community of Inquiry (Baumfield et al, 2008-2009). The results of a larger international inquiry (partially funded by the United Kingdom Literacy Association) have just been published in Visual Journeys through Wordless Narratives by Arizpe et al (2014b; see also McAdam & Sinkie, 2013).1 This research has found that strategies used to read picturebooks and graphic novels can help children to engage in learning activities that support their language proficiency; help them to make links to their own lives and identities as new arrivals; encourage intercultural understanding and create a sense of community among readers with diverse cultural backgrounds. The findings and implications of these studies provide strong support for the inclusion of visual approaches in literacy teaching for all pupils, and in particular, for those who are new to English. Increasing and intensifying the focus on pupils’ visual literacy strengths can support not only their language development but can also help to promote more cohesive and critical communities of readers within increasingly diverse contexts.
1.2 Contexts of Change 1.2.1 Diverse classrooms Population change is one manifestation of globalisation, but just as populations are shaped by social, political and cultural changes, so too are literacy practices. Being literate is far more than using language to communicate to read, write, talk and listen. It means being familiar with a range of texts communicated through diverse media, and being able to use a range of media to communicate with others (Scottish Executive, 2004; Reedy, 2010). Yet using and making texts is not enough: educators must help children to be critical of the texts they encounter in order for them to make value judgements about their intended use and meaning (Arizpe et al, 2014b). Educators with an interest in promoting equality and social justice need to make use of literacy’s relationship with social, political and cultural life if they wish to seriously engage with the issues caused by increased population change, such as the effects of diversity and migration in the classroom. 1
This international project was conducted simultaneously in four different countries: Scotland, Spain, Australia and the USA. It examined immigrant, EAL children's visual literacy and intercultural responses to wordless picturebooks on the topics of migration and journeys. This project explores how the visual image can become a tool for transfiguring new educational and cultural contexts. The picturebooks used in the study were The Arrival by Shaun Tan and Flotsam by David Wiesner.
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Having considered the impact of changes in literacy practices, UKLA has called for educators to move forward with a shared vision of literacy that allows for the creation of pedagogies and curricula that are locally and globally relevant to children (Reedy, 2010). This includes establishing clearer links to home literacies, where children’s previous learning and ‘funds of knowledge’ can be used and built on appropriately within classrooms. In such classrooms, language diversity is seen as an asset, particularly because of its potential to promote greater intercultural understanding (Arizpe et al, 2014a). As educators, we regard children’s literature as a powerful means to improve understanding of the self, and also value its potential to extend the boundaries of children’s personal experiences (Arizpe et al, 2013). Reading literature can allow children to play with language, try out new voices and identities and come to closer understandings of who they are, and the world in which they live. Given the changing composition of many urban areas, such as Glasgow where approximately 15 per cent of young people now use EAL, it seems especially timely and important to develop culturally relevant teaching and learning approaches that aim to enhance the language, literacy and intercultural competences of children from diverse backgrounds, including EAL/ New Arrival pupils. In England, research into the home and school literacies of EAL pupils from different minority ethnic communities (eg. Gregory, 1996, 2004; Kenner, 2000; Drury, 2007) has been reflected in national policy documents such as the National Literacy Strategy: Supporting Pupils Learning English as an Additional Language (DCSF, 2007a) and the New Arrivals Excellence Programme Guidance (DCSF, 2007b). Other researchers have explored how bilingual children construct and negotiate meaning in a new language through picturebooks, texts that can invite all readers to interact with the text (Coulthard in Arizpe & Styles, 2003, Kelly, 2010). Key findings include the fact that readers can achieve deep levels of engagement, satisfaction and pleasure from reading visual texts, with many children forging emotional bonds as they connect the stories in the books with experiences from their own lives. In Scotland, recent attempts to provide examples of best practice with EAL pupils from recently arrived families includes Count Us In:A Sense of Belonging: Meeting the Needs of Children and Young People Newly Arrived in Scotland (HMIe, 2009). This report focuses mainly on general language support and strategies for inclusion. Its authors note that although many Scottish schools have tried to develop positive climates of equality with staff who are caring and supportive, teachers are not always fully aware of the potential emotional, social and educational difficulties that newly-arrived children and their families may experience as a result of the transition to a new country or school: ‘Authorities recognise that there are areas for improvement in relation to staff development and training and a current lack of capacity within mainstream education to address the needs of bilingual/multilingual learners’ (HMIe, 2009). Additionally, the Count Us In: A Sense of Belonging report finds that some teachers do not feel confident in addressing the language needs of newly arrived children. Consequently, it calls for increased, specific, professional development (CPD) and for the sharing of effective approaches that can support newly-arrived children and young people with EAL, including establishing effective partnerships with parents. However, work with visual texts such as picturebooks and graphic novels is not among these suggestions, despite the growing body of research that suggests its potential in this area. The recommendations of the Count Us In: A Sense of Belonging report chime with the aims of Scotland’s new Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), which state that children should be able 8
to develop as successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors; a set of expectations that should be delivered to all children and young people via a curriculum that places the needs of the learner at its centre. Literacy development is regarded as fundamental to the shaping of this collaborative educational future: ‘Being literate increases opportunities for the individual in all aspects of life, lays the foundations for lifelong learning and work, and contributes strongly to the development of all four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence,’(Scottish Executive, 2004). More specifically, the Literacy Across Learning Principles and Practice document outlines the need for educators to provide opportunities for learners to become more critical users of literacy, by providing them with access to a range of texts across multiple contexts. Yet, once again, visual texts are not considered to have a major role in this development. In stark contrast, ‘visual knowledge’ is explicitly referred to as a key area of knowledge in Australia’s recently redeveloped National Curriculum (ACARA 2013), an example that currently remains the exception rather than the rule.
1.2.2 Culturally responsive teaching: the value of children’s literature While educational policy has generally developed and responded to the current population trends in a sensitive and worthwhile manner, an analysis of the discourse in the policy documents directly related to the needs of New Arrival children (DCSF, 2007a; DCSF, 2007b; HMIe, 2009) has little to say about their culture and identity. If we accept that language and culture are intertwined (Gee, 1990), then teachers need to embrace the complexity of the relationship between who the children in their classroom are and what they say, finding sensitive ways to confidently encompass this diverse range of talk within the context of everyday school settings. Every New Arrival child brings with them a personal narrative of who they are and why they have come to live in Glasgow, as well as some knowledge of the journey that brought them to Scotland. As with many other sensitive issues, some children are forthright about their stories, while others are more wary. Storytelling is a fundamental human activity, an endeavour that can allow us to make sense of our individual and collective experiences and to construct further knowledge by sharing, listening and exploring. According to St Amour, ‘stories are the foundations of our identity’ (2003: 47). Through the act of reading about - or listening to - stories from worlds and lives that are different from their own, children can explore new understandings by analysing their own life circumstances, a process that can lead to changed perspectives and greater appreciation of their own cultures and lived experiences (Gopalakrishnan, 2011). As a growing body of research suggests, children’s literature has an important role to play in the ongoing identity constructions of younger readers by offering them opportunities to explore and interpret not only who they are, but how they perceive and interact with others (Nikolajeva, 2012). That so many contemporary children’s texts present plot-lines from varied perspectives with multiple, often ambiguous outcomes, may also encourage or inspire children to share the stories of their own lived experiences. In a school-based project, Hope (2008) found that using a range of texts on the theme of migration could begin to validate refugees’ life experiences, increase understanding of migration and life as a refugee, as well as challenging stereotypes and racism. Yet, while it seems that books have the potential to break down borders and barriers, it is important to emphasise that texts cannot do this by themselves: such goals can only by achieved by 9
embracing critical reading pedagogies (Ryan and Anstey, 2003; Souto-Manning, 2009; Arizpe et al, 2013). Consequently, an aim of this project has been to use children’s literature in conjunction with key ideas from culturally relevant pedagogy, using strategies that value active and inclusive learning, make links to the home lives of children, and allow for the exploration of participants’ culture and identity (McAdam & Arizpe, 2011; Arizpe et al, 2014a; Arizpe et al, 2014b). The working relationships that we formed were collaborative and grounded in an ongoing dialogue between researchers, teachers, children and parents. The texts selected for this project provided a way into meaningful discussions of issues that surround different cultures, beliefs and languages. As we will discuss in section two, pupils’ responses to the books revealed an increased understanding of issues around forced migration and colonisation in an affirmative and compassionate manner. These understandings contributed to a broadening of the intercultural knowledge of the ‘host’ pupils, with some moving beyond aspects of their own lives to empathise with the characters and contexts in the books; reading and connecting with the texts also caused some New Arrival pupils to participate more fully and confidently in the ongoing work of the class/school.
1.3 Project aims and objectives The visual strategies used in this project had been successfully employed in a previous study involving smaller groups of readers (Arizpe, 2009). An aim of this project was to adapt and extend them for use in a broader context. Using a variety of texts containing different combinations of words and images, we explored how the strategies might extend the language and literacy of pupils in a mainstream whole class setting. Our aim was to enhance the language and literacy of children from diverse backgrounds and provide improved learning support in a time of rapidly changing educational need. The visual methods described here illustrate the potential of image and visual strategies to address some complex issues of literacy development. To achieve these aims, various objectives were introduced. These were: •
To invite home visual and text-based literacy practices into the classroom through a visual medium
Although current pedagogical thinking and policies stress the importance of valuing home languages and cultures (Cummins, 2001; Gregory, 1996; Gonzalez et al, 2005) visual knowledge and skills obtained through home literacy practices (i.e. the use of gaming, internet searching and watching film or television) there is a clear need for more information on these literacy practices and how they can best be invited and incorporated into classrooms. Knowledge of how home practices converge and diverge with school-based literacy practices can provide teachers with invaluable insights, allowing them to build on and integrate the skills pupils bring with them to the classroom. •
To create communities of readers
Previous research has highlighted the benefits of creating classroom reading communities that value reciprocity and interaction (Cremin et al, 2009). Other studies have shown that the practice of interpreting visual texts can also help to form communities of 10
readers because they can enable pupils from all backgrounds to share their experiences, their meaning-making strategies and their enjoyment of texts (Arizpe, 2009; Farrell et al, 2010). Building on some of these ideas, an aim of this study was to create a group of involved readers who felt comfortable sharing their oral, visual and written responses on particular themes. • To develop a partnership with teachers
We aimed to develop a close working partnership with teachers to enable a more effective model of practice to evolve. This included pre- and post-project workshops; the selection of texts and discussion of research articles; the trialling of visual strategies with the teachers themselves; frequent communication (and co-teaching when necessary) during the process, and post-project evaluative interviews. •
To use visual strategies for both images and words
Texts used in the project ranged from a wordless picturebook to a chapter book with no images. By introducing pupils to a range of creative multimodal reading strategies, we hoped to encourage them to use their own visual skills in order to read more critically. •
To engage with a particular theme: migration and journeys
This project aimed to create more opportunities for pupils to share the experiences they bring to their reading. In the case of multicultural classrooms, the process of sharing can be particularly important for developing intercultural understanding around often controversial topics, such as migration. There are many high quality fiction texts for children and adolescents that use both words and pictures to address this theme in sensitive yet powerful ways. The teachers picked out texts to use with their classes from a wide range. •
To obtain evaluations from all participants
A final objective was to involve all the participants in evaluating the efficacy of these strategies, which was done through focus groups with the pupils, interviews with teachers and an invitation to parents/carers to comment on a visual display of the children’s work.
1.4 Setting up and managing the project In setting up the project, several equally important aspects had to be considered: •
selecting appropriate texts to use within classrooms
•
building collaborative relationships with schools
•
creating a shared understanding of the project
•
obtaining ethical approval from the local authority and the School of Education at the University of Glasgow
Each of these aspects will be discussed and described in detail, establishing ethical and collaborative ways of working was fundamental to maintaining sustainable ways of working with the education community.
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1.4.1 Selection of picturebooks and other texts When selecting texts, we were guided by the idea that a ‘horizontal and multiple reading’ (Sumara, 1998: 207) of texts encourages critical reading, especially when the texts are multimodal and related by theme. By reading related texts, children’s analysis of key themes can develop and grow. During the project, we moved from reading texts with a high visual content towards texts with a high level of printed text. The rationale behind this movement was to allow the children to initially gain confidence from using and applying the strategies to visual texts, and then to apply them to the printed word, thus enhancing their reading experiences of texts that are often perceived to be more challenging. By using visual strategies we hoped to enhance readers’ appreciation of description, metaphor and other figurative language used in the word-only texts, techniques used by writers to fix mental images in the minds of their readers. The table below articulates the relationship between the texts we used in terms of their visual content.
All Images
‘Transition’ text(images + words)
All words
Predominantly images
A blend of images A chapter book/ novel (illustrations and consisting entirely of photographs) along with a words/text greater amount of written text
The Rabbits by John Marsden and illustrated by Shaun Tan
Gervelie's Diary: A Refugee Boy Overboard by Morris Diary by Anthony Robinson, Gleitzman Annemarie Young & June Allan (illus.)
Figure 1: Schematic representation of the three texts used in Journeys from Images to Words project.
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While we will discuss the texts we used in some detail, it is important to emphasise that the books used in this project are merely representative of the types that could be used, for a multitude of alternatives also exist. Further discussion of these texts from a pedagogical perspective will be provided in section two along with suggestions for further texts on the theme of migration. The Rabbits: predominantly image, minimal text Picturebooks are now considered to be effective tools for teaching language and literacy, not only in the early years, but also in the later stages of primary school and even secondary. The sophisticated nature of many postmodern picturebooks makes them ideal sites for the exploration of complex literary and artistic concepts, such as intertextuality, metafiction and irony. An increasing number of studies show how using picturebooks in the classroom can support visual literacy, literary understanding and art education (Kiefer, 1995; Serafini, 2005; Arizpe & Styles, 2008; Sipe, 2008; Pantaleo, 2008; Evans, 2009.) Multiple meanings, intertextual allusions and the interdependency of word and image are among the features that make The Rabbits a prime example of a postmodern picturebook (Anstey, 2002). The book is a fable of colonisation, told from the perspective of the colonised. Starting with the arrival of the ‘rabbits’, we see the impact these creatures have on the land and those who already live there. Despite being named Picture Book of the Year by the Children’s Book Council in 1998, the book’s themes have caused controversy and it has been criticised by the right wing for being ‘politically correct’. It is worth noting that Marsden (author) and Tan (illustrator) did not meet while writing the book; perhaps it is this collision between words and illustration that make this a visually complex book, one that easily captures the imaginations of young readers. For an interview with Shaun Tan that provides an insight into the creative thinking behind the illustrations in The Rabbits see: http://www.shauntan.net/images/essay%20Rabbits%20interview.html
Gervelie’s Journey: a blend of words and pictures Gervelie’s Journey is one of four books in a series that recounts the life stories of refugee children. Authors Anthony Robinson and Annemarie Young wanted to find a way to give ‘a voice to the voiceless’ and ‘allow children to put their feet in other children’s shoes’ (Thomson, 2011). The book tells the story of Gervelie’s life in the Congo and her need to flee the civil war that rages there. Gervelie’s life is illustrated using a combination of fine line drawings by June Allan and authentic photographs showing Gervelie during various stages of her journey. To create the text, both authors contacted the Red Cross and the Refugee Council and asked for their help in identifying children who wished to share their refugee stories. Working with the ‘essence’ of the children’s stories, Robinson and Young created their own but shared all drafts with the children and their families before publishing the books. For further information on the author’s process of creating Gervelie’s Journey refer to The Refugee Diaries article online at Carousel: http://www.carouselguide.co.uk/pdf/49refugeediaries.pdf
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Boy Overboard: all words When selecting a chapter book, we were conscious of the challenges that a book without images could pose to many children; we were also driven by the need to find a text that could appeal to ten and eleven year-old readers from diverse backgrounds. Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman is a chapter book with global appeal: it is the story of two children, Jamal and Bibi, who live in Afghanistan and who make an incredible journey to reach Australia. Although the book has no illustrations, the author frequently uses language and humour to create memorable mental images of settings, characters and feelings, such as: ‘My insides are quivering like goats in a bombing raid’. As Gleitzman explained during a workshop session for project participants, finding an opening sentence that hooked young readers into a book about war, despair and hope was vital. With this in mind, he selected the theme of football as his ‘way in’, a motif that carries the plot forward from the first sentence: ‘I'm Manchester United and I've got the ball and everything is good.’ Using the strong female characters of Bibi and her mother, Gleitzman tackles important political issues connected to the suppression of woman, human rights and culture. He also addresses the dangerous nature of the refugees’ journey. Significantly, the novel offers a number of perspectives on the issue of immigration and asylum, such as those of the refugees and the communities that provide them with shelter. Its poignant conclusion, which sees Jamal and Bibi reach an internment camp on an Australian island, can also leave readers feeling uncertain about the kind of ‘welcome’ that refugees can expect to receive after their traumatic journey. Ideas and issues linked to internment feature in the follow-up novel, Girl Underground. For further information on Morris Gleitzman and his intentions as an author refer to his own webpage or Facebook page. http://www.morrisgleitzman.com/
1.4.2 Building collaborative relationships with the schools Two primary schools in Glasgow City Council with a large proportion of New Arrivals in their catchment areas were involved in the study. One is located in the South side of the city in an area which has been home to waves of immigrants since the turn of the century. The diverse community living here have welcomed New Arrival families from Ireland, Pakistan and more recently Eastern Europe. The other school, in the North East of the city, is located in an area of high-density social housing, which was used to house refugee and asylumseeking families when Glasgow was contracted as a dispersal centre. In addition to pupils from Scottish backgrounds, the area is now home to a large number of newly arrived families from areas of Africa (particularly Somalia and the Republic of Congo), Pakistan and from areas in the Middle East. Throughout the report the schools will be referenced as the Southside School and the North East School. Approval was obtained from the Director of Education at Glasgow City Council, as well as from the head teachers of both schools, who were keen to have their teaching staff working in partnership with the the University of Glasgow’s School of Education. In accordance with ethical procedures, plain language statements and consent forms were issued to all parents of pupils at both schools so that we received fully informed consent for children to participate in the project. Therefore, all parents were fully aware of the project, with some becoming actively involved in its later stages (see section four for further details of the parental involvement in the exhibition of work). 14
Studying the texts and then implementing and evaluating the new strategies was an intense task that lasted approximately one school term. University staff made a minimum of 12 scheduled visits to each school during the project, with some additional visits arranged to support children who had volunteered to lead on the creation of displays for the parents’ event and other data collection activities. University staff worked closely with classroom teachers throughout, with interim meetings scheduled around the requirements of each teacher. The university team provided support in the form of books and disposable cameras, and also in the preparation of some teaching materials. Each school received a series of support and feedback visits from more than one of the tutors, and university staff also participated in several classroom tasks to support teachers, which included leading teaching and discussion sessions on occasions. For the university team, this led to a blurring of the traditional boundaries between educational ‘research’ and ‘practice’, a flexibility that in turn led to deeper understandings of classroom dynamics, pupils’ responses and of individual pupils’ experiences and needs.
1.4.3 The Workshops: creating a shared understanding of the project In order to create shared understandings and to benefit from the collaborative nature of the researcher/ classroom practitioner/ EAL specialist relationship, two workshops were held. The first workshop established the context for the study by discussing findings from an earlier stage of The Visual Journeys project and its impact on learning and teaching. We also wanted to discuss the need for new and improved strategies for teaching in modern, diverse classrooms. The session had a particular focus on the need to support the literacy and learning of New Arrival children, and also explored ways of supporting teachers who have a large number of newly arrived children in their classrooms. In the first workshop we explored: •
Gaps in the literacy curriculum: How teachers can create spaces for the cultures and languages of New Arrival children in their classrooms.
•
Why some children, especially boys, appear to disengage from the reading process and do not seem to respond to traditional reading materials.
•
The literature and policy surrounding these issues and why more needs to be done to address this shortfall.
•
A range of texts on the theme of migration. With the make-up of their classes in mind, the teachers worked together to select the texts discussed in section 1.4.1
•
How to timetable and implement the teaching of the new texts across the two schools. By synchronising the work done in each school, ideas and suggestions for change could be shared as the project progressed.
The second workshop was held at the beginning of the next school term when work on all three books was complete and staff had reflected on the process. The session was an opportunity to validate the data collected and guide the analysis in a collaborative manner. The project’s ‘critical friend’ Alayne Öztürk, then President of UKLA, also participated in this workshop and offered helpful feedback on the project and its findings. 15
In the second workshop: •
The group shared and discussed the main findings from teachers, parents and children and provided the researchers with feedback on the strategies used. This served as a quality assurance step for the research findings.
•
The teachers suggested ways of structuring a package of teaching materials, to guide other teachers through the texts and strategies.
•
The teachers discussed how they hoped to use the strategies in different learning contexts with a variety of texts.
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Section 2: Setting up communities of critical readers The next two sections are an overview of the strategies we used to achieve the aims of the project. For each strategy, we provide a clear description to help other educators adapt the ideas to suit their own contexts and texts, as it is important to emphasise that these overviews are not prescriptive. In section two, we consider how creating visual collages known as Rivers of Reading may help to establish a classroom ethos that values diverse language and literacy practices and promotes ‘talking about books’. Next we describe how repeated walk and talk throughs of books can provide children with multiple opportunities to enter the world of the book, allowing them to make links to their own lives and experiences along the way. Adopting this approach can help children to develop a degree of familiarity with the themes being explored, providing them with space and time to develop their initial impressions about the plot, ideas and characters involved. In section three, we discuss strategies that can encourage multimodal responses and promote the development of critical reading skills; tools that can enable readers to move beyond aspects of their own lives to identify, question and empathise with the characters and contexts represented in the texts they read. For each strategy, we discuss its theoretical underpinnings and also provide practical advice for possible classroom implementation. Photographs of children’s work have been provided as examples of what can result from the tasks. We have also included text boxes that contain possible questions/activities for teachers to use, both general and specific. In addition, extracts from the project are presented to illuminate the benefits of each strategy and to provide examples of evaluative comments from students and teachers. We also suggest how tasks can be extended and consider their assessment potential where applicable. Each section concludes with a snapshot summary and useful suggestions for further reading.
2.1 Creating a classroom ethos that values diverse language and literacy practices The Rivers of Reading task (Burnard, 2002; Winchester, 2008; Cliff-Hodges, 2010) is designed to investigate children’s out-of-school literacy practices, and is premised on the central idea that all children are involved in a rich patchwork of literacy activity that extends beyond the school gates. As the following example (figure 2) illustrates, children can use the metaphor of a river to build a visual representation of their literacy practices outside of school. This concept can be extended to include the ‘tributaries’, or practices of other household members, in order to show how different literacies can flow together through families and cultures.
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Figure 2: Example of River of Reading (female child, Southside school)
The visual nature of this task allows children to respond creatively to questions about their reading habits and can help to increase pupils’ overall awareness of their literacy use outside of school. The task can also provide teachers with a valuable opportunity to assess the types of literacy practices that pupils engage in at home, with a view to incorporating them into future reading activities.
2.1.1 Using Rivers of Reading in the classroom In order to maximise children’s involvement and engagement, it helps if teachers create a template or provide pupils with a model. This also allows classteachers to highlight their own use of multiple literacies outside of the classroom. In the example shown below, the River of Reading created by the EAL teacher at the Southside school highlights the other languages he uses in his life. He has included hand-written examples of Aramaic and Italian to show that when actual samples from printed texts are not available, then drawings and/or words can be used to symbolise items that have been read or used. Once complete, the teacher’s collage can be used as a stimulus in class discussions to demonstrate how an initial analysis of reading practices might take place.
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Figure 3: Example of River of Reading (EAL teacher, Southside School)
Ideas for practice: questions to help understand, analyse and evaluate the River of Reading • Construction: Why have the titles of the Evening Times and the TESS been drawn in
this example? Could we use a similar method when we create our own Rivers of Reading? • Analysing content: How many different types of text have been included? When we
read these types of texts, is it for enjoyment? Is it for information? Why did the teacher include a letter from his friend in another language? •
Purposes of texts: What other types of reading do we do? Have any types of reading been missed out from this example?
2.1.2 Findings In order to analyse the pupils’ completed Rivers of Reading, the project team used some of the categories developed by Cairney & Ruge (1998) and Marsh (2004). We found that the children had collected and displayed texts for the following purposes: • literacy for accessing or displaying information (domestic or environmental) • literacy for pleasure and or self expression • literacy for establishing or maintaining relationships • literacy for skills development • literacy for religious practices
From our analysis of pupils’ Rivers of Reading, a collective picture of children’s reading habits began to emerge. As some of the studies referred to above have also shown, the main uses of literacy outside of school are often functional, something that was has been echoed by 19
our project’s findings. The majority of examples included by the children could be categorised as ‘literacy used for accessing and displaying information’ with the next most popular category being ‘literacy for pleasure.’ As the table below shows, the examples selected and displayed by the children on their Rivers of Reading covered a wide range of literacy purposes and modes: Literacy for accessing or displaying information
Literacy for establishing or maintaining relationships
Literacy for pleasure
Literacy for maintaining religious or cultural practices
Literacy for skills development
Environmental text
Maps CD/DVD covers Beauty products* Money Travel tickets Badges Clock* Dictionary Horrible Histories A fiddle tuner Car plates House numbers Score music Guinness World Records Newspapers* Food labels* Medical labels Celtic football programme Flier for Woman’s Day* Catalogue Recipe Books Adverts* Plastic Bag* TV magazines* Menus* Street names Shop names Food shopping
After school care consent forms Family poems School letters Letters from grandparents* Emails Bedtime stories
Book covers Lists of book titles Newspaper articles Football fanzines (Celtic View) Celtic Annual Trading cards Bedtime stories Comics* (Simpsons) Magazines ‘Happy ending’ books
Birthday cards Valentine’s Day cards The Quran The Bible
Homework jotter
Moving image
Subtitles on TV Video subtitles
Phone SMS/ texts Watching TV
Watching TV Watching football
Multimodal
Google Virgin Media interface*
PSP/Xbox games (Call of Duty; Black Opps; FIFA) YouTube Phone games (Angry Birds)
Brain training Nintendo DS Racing computer games
Table 1: Examples of home literacy use (*denotes more than one example)
We found that the Rivers of Reading task could highlight the range and variety of texts that children use in their home lives. It provided us with a valuable starting point for classroom discussions about why some texts are used more often than others. As suggested above, the task also gave teachers ways to extend pupils’ reading in class and created opportunities for children to explain the rationale behind the texts they included on their Rivers. We have 20
provided three examples of Rivers of Reading produced by the children along with a commentary that provides further insights into what these tasks can tell a teacher about home literacy practices. The example below (figure 4) contains the names of the texts read by one pupil over a weekend. Many of the examples he includes fall into the ‘literacy for pleasure’ category, such as the names of the two books he was currently reading: Edge of Disaster and The Celtic Annual 2011. The Rivers of Reading task offered a glimpse into the types of fiction and non-fiction that were important in this student’s life, providing his teacher and peers with some valuable insights.
Figure 4: Example of River of Reading (male child, Southside school)
As the next example shows, this pupil has blended actual samples of texts with the names of eight books she has read. (NB. we surmised that she did not read all the books over the weekend - the period of time that the River of Reading is intended to represent - but interpreted her inclusion of all eight books as an indication of her love for reading.) She has included several books that she has enjoyed reading at home and has added a caption stating that reading is ‘fun, fun, fun, fun.’ This particular child uses English as an Additional Language and attends mosque school at weekend. While she did not include any examples of Arabic or Urdu in her River, she later brought in a book that contained sayings of the Prophet Mohamed (PBUH).
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Figure 5: Example of River of Reading (female child, Southside school)
2.1.3 Evaluation of the task When participant children and teachers finally evaluated the task, one of the main feelings to emerge was that it had increased their awareness of how much reading took place outside classroom contact time. Before the project, according to the reports of some teachers, conversations about reading with children often proceeded along these lines: Teacher:
What do you like reading?
Child:
I don’t read at the weekend.
Yet by the end of the project, some children described how the task had focused their minds on the act of reading: Child A:
... when we got the Rivers of Reading...everybody was saying that we don’t really read anything, but then we ended up with a river full of stuff. Just like normal stuff that we didn’t even know that we actually read.
Child B:
You don’t notice how much you read.
Teacher:
Everywhere looking around, even those posters here, I keep on reading them. Like everywhere you go there’s stuff to read obviously but you just don’t notice it.
As these comments suggest, children who had previously not thought of themselves as readers began to increase in confidence once they realised the amount of reading that they actually engaged in. In addition, they showed a willingness to try out different types of texts, and expressed an interest in discussing them with their parents or families.
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2.1.4 Extending the task The Rivers of Reading task can be extended for classroom use in three main ways:•
To examine children’s knowledge and use of languages: The task can be adapted and used to discuss wider aspects of literacy and language development. Children can collect samples of languages used at home and across their communities, and discuss ways to represent these on their River of Reading. Food packaging and newspapers can be useful starting points, but for languages which are used orally, symbols or actual words can be recorded.
•
To engage children in analysis of their literacy and language use: Once the information from the different Rivers of Reading has been collated, children can get involved in its analysis, providing cross-curricular links to subject areas such as numeracy. Tables or graphs can be created to show the most frequently used text types.
•
To assess the range of texts selected and used by children over a longer period of time: The task can provide an ideal opportunity to gather data on the children’s home reading practices. Each completed River of Reading is a snapshot of literacy habits, which can be added to as the child moves through the school year in order to illustrate how their awareness of text has changed. Completed Rivers of Reading can be shared/ added to with parents during parent teacher conferences.
2.1.5 Summary The Rivers of Reading task is a useful way of promoting discussion about literacy practices at home and school. It allows children opportunities to connect their home practices to those of the school and it also provides teachers with valuable insights into the out-of-school interests of the children they teach, leading to more enhanced and culturally sensitive individual planning. The task increases awareness of what it means to read and can enable children to become more confident about the role literacy plays in their daily lives.
2.1.6 Suggested reading For further information on Jackie Marsh’s work on children using digital texts and popular culture at home see the ‘Digital Beginnings’ report. This research was funded by BBC Worldwide and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation: http://www.digitalbeginnings.shef.ac.uk/ • For further information on Rivers of Reading look for the short article by Winchester in
English Four to Eleven: Winchester, D. (2008) Rivers of Reading. English Four to Eleven 33, Summer, 19-21. A useful article on the Rivers of Reading strategy by Gabrielle Cliff Hodges can be found in English in Education: Cliff Hodges, G. (2010) ‘Rivers of reading: Using critical incident collages to learn about adolescent readers and their readership’, English in Education, 44(3), 181-200. 23
• For further information on links between home and school, especially in the area of digital
literacy see the Futurelab report. The Futurelab website contains many useful resources on literacy for the 21st century: Grant, L. (2010) ‘Connecting Digital Literacy Between Home and School’ Futurelab at: http://www.futurelab.org.uk/sites/default/files/Connecting_digital_literacy_between_home_a nd_school.pdf
2.2 Entering the world of the book Starting to read a book with a class may seem simple enough, but it is always important to consider how a text is introduced so that the children are not only interested in reading it, but are also willing to participate in any linked activities that follow. After the Rivers of Reading task, we found that the children were keen to talk about reading and books, just as we were also keen to capture and utilise this positive momentum. In this section, we will discuss strategies for introducing books as well as strategies for walking, talking and looking through the words and images in order to promote more in-depth discussion of their themes and to allow the children to make links from the books to their own life experiences.
2.2.1 Introducing the books in the classroom As obvious as it seems, it is important to talk about the key themes that will be explored and to share the main learning intentions. This means the children can begin to activate any prior knowledge on the topic, in this case, on the theme of migration, and can think carefully about the role that visual texts already play in their lives. The example that follows is from the start of our project and is intended to illustrate how we introduced The Rabbits to the children and how we started to work with a predominantly visual text. We aimed to highlight the role of visual texts in meaning making and also aimed to address any scepticism caused by the prospect of reading picturebooks. We include it as a rough guide rather than a definitive lesson plan and emphasise that the approaches described here could equally be employed with other texts. • First of all, we shared some of the written text from The Rabbits with the children and
asked them to illustrate the words using their own ideas. • As Figures 6 and 7 below show, the children tended to focus on the participants and places
within the text and seemed to rely on previous cultural knowledge to produce their illustrations. Based on their interpretation of the words only, many of the children produced images of stylised, ‘cute’ bunny rabbits. Yet, when the text progressed and the rabbits’ colonial intentions became clearer, the children’s images begin to change and became increasingly more sinister. • Following on from this task, we discussed the interaction between images and words and
how they work together to create meaning. Such discussions could also be extended to include the relationship between authors, illustrators and the publishing process. It could also be a good time to look at authors’ websites, presenting teachers with a chance to promote critical discussions about how and why particular authors may have written particular texts. 24
• Overall this task served as a way of introducing the picturebook to the children and
emphasised the importance of using visuals alongside printed words in order to make meaning. The children could not wait to read the entire picturebook and spent time dwelling on the parts they had visualised, reading backwards and forwards through the book to confirm their interpretations.
Figure 6: Example of children’s illustration of The Rabbits after only hearing the written text.
Figure 7: Example of children’s illustration of The Rabbits after only hearing the written text.
2.2.2 Walking, talking and looking through the books One of the most important aspects of reading is the ability to make links to texts in terms of how they connect with your own life and experiences. Children need frequent opportunities to enter the world of the book and to share their thoughts and feelings in response to its words and images. The ideas box below presents some generic, practical suggestions for teachers who want to organise group work and discussions around books. These suggestions are intended to maximise the potential of looking at and talking about texts in small groups. This 25
section also contains some generic questions or prompts that could be used when beginning to read any book. We have also provided some prompts that we used during our work with Gervelie’s Journey, where we loosely structured our questions around categories created by Sipe (2008).
Ideas box: use these suggestions to facilitate the walkthrough of any text • Spend a considerable amount of time looking at the front and back cover, the end
papers and any information provided on the text, such as the publisher’s details. Teachers may wish to talk about the relationship between the author and the illustrator, expanding the different ways that they work together. This discussion could also be extended to include the role of the publisher in the decision-making process. • Prepare a set of prompt questions to accompany each text. While it is important to make
your questions as open as possible, bear in mind that some pupils may initially benefit from the ‘safety’ that closed questions may provide. In general, prompt questions could include: what can you see; what does it remind you of, what do you think, why do you think? (See below for examples, also Arizpe and Styles 2003.) • Provide clear guidance to the children by modelling the process of looking, thinking
and responding to each double page spread within a picturebook. Model the questions that you wish to be used and, when required, model the types of answer that facilitate the think, look, respond pattern. • Invite children to take turns at being the facilitator and instigating the ‘look, think,
share’ pattern of response. • Establish turn-taking strategies that allow each child time to respond and listen. • Encourage the children to begin the looking and talking process in twos or threes. • Take notes of the questions and themes discussed by children in small groups - or
encourage the children to do so - and share these in whole class plenary sessions.
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Generic suggestions/ prompts for using texts • Talk about what can be seen on the front/ back cover. What does it make the children
think about? Is there anything there that we might/ might not expect to see on the cover of a book? What kind of book might this be? What makes a front cover effective? What does the cover tell us about the book? Who makes the decisions about what goes on a front cover? • If your copy of the text has a biography and photograph of the author(s) and/ or
illustrator on the front and back flaps, refer to these to draw out the role of each as well as the relationship between them. How do they work together? • Draw the children’s attention to the endpapers. Have they been used to help tell the
story at all? • Look at the dedication page and the acknowledgements. What extra information or
clues do they give us, if any? • For subsequent pages you could use some/ all of the following prompts: • Can you talk to me about what you’re seeing and what it makes you think about? • Does it remind you of anything you know or have seen before? • Do you notice anything special/ interesting about the way the author/illustrator
• • • • • • •
has used colour/ perspective/ patterns/ shapes/ the space on the page? Why do you think the pictures have been drawn this way? Can you speak aloud your thoughts as you look at this page? The artist is making a story in pictures. What story do you see? Is it the same as the story in words? Do you find the words or the pictures more interesting? Would the words still be good without the pictures? Would the pictures still be good without the words? Choose one spread that you find especially interesting/challenging/surprising. Can you explain why it makes you feel like this? Is there anything you don’t understand? Are there any questions that you’d like to ask either the author or illustrator if you had the chance? What is this book about?
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Prompts/ areas of focus that could be used with Gervelie’s Journey Personal Can you think of a journey you/ your family have made? How did you feel? Why were you making the journey? Intertextual What other types of books can tell us about journeys? What features make them the same as/ different from this book? How would you feel if you had to make Gervelie’s Journey? Compositional Why do you think the illustrator has included both photographs and pictures? There are two pages without pictures at the back of the book, one called “Did you know?” and the other called “What happened?” Why do you think they have been included in the book? The book includes some black and white pictures of other books in the series. Why do you think these are included? Analytical The story is written in the first person, as if is from Gervelie’s point of view. Why do you think the authors decided to tell the story this way? What do the authors want us to think about Gervelie’s journey?
2.2.3 Findings Studies on children’s responses to picturebooks and texts have alerted us to the fact that children make responses that fulfil a number of purposes (Sipe, 2001; 2008). As the children walked, talked and looked through the books in our project, they developed their knowledge of the theme of migration in a number of ways: •
Personal: pupils linked aspects of the text to their own lives. Connections varied in complexity: one pupil recalled a family trip to a desert and compared it to the landscape of The Rabbits, while another observed that ‘my mum is an immigration officer so I know that you need to have the correct papers to enter the UK’.
•
Intextextual: pupils made links to the other forms of media in their lives such as books, television, films and Xbox games. Many of the children drew upon experiences 28
of watching the news with their family and some found that their prior knowledge of the Afghanistan war helped them connect with the issues raised in Boy Overboard. •
Analytical: pupils discussed plots, characters, settings and themes. They also hypothesised about narrative outcomes and authorial intentions. The children were particularly engaged by Bibi’s headstrong character, the reasons she was not able to play football, and the concept of playing football in the desert among deadly mines.
•
Compositional: pupils discussed the use of layout, colours and borders. In Gervelie’s Journey, many remarked on the differences between the photographs and the linedrawn illustrations, as well as the striking border patterns used on some pages. Many replicated these patterns when they created their own photo-journals (see section 3.3).
We suggest that children should be given opportunities to make these types of responses in order to process the main themes over a range of levels. In a study of children’s responses to a set of thematically-related texts, Sipe noted that the children’s intertextual links increased as they progressed through the set, showing an enhanced understanding of the way texts worked (2001). Such progress was also evident in our own project: as the children worked through the three texts, their knowledge of migration and refugees developed to such an extent that by the final story, Boy Overboard, some of the children began to discuss ways of taking social action in order to make other people’s more aware of what it means to be a refugee as well as other issues raised by the text, such as access to education and gender equality. In addition, we noticed changes in the content of the children’s group discussions as we progressed through the set of texts. They began to challenge their existing knowledge, share new ideas and hypothesise about possible themes and authors’ intentions. This coconstruction of knowledge through talk was vital and the teacher’s role in guiding the acceptance and rejection of ideas was key to the reading process. Teachers had to find a balance between moving tangential dialogue forward and providing key questions to facilitate further dialogue. Researchers and teachers often had quick conversations on the classroom floor to clarify and share themes emerging from the pupils’ dialogue, which were often explored further in whole class plenaries. Broadly speaking, the themes that emerged from the discussions across the books focused on three key ideas: the importance of visuals, feelings of empathy and the pursuit and development of intertextual links, such as text to text and text to life connection Visuals: When reading The Rabbits, the children spent lots of time looking and talking about the lists of the things they could see in the images. We noticed that pupils had a tendency to note the main participants (monkeys, guns, rabbits, ships) in each visual, rather than focusing on the actions they carried out. Pupils responded to images’ geographic settings and colours, often because they reminded them of locations they had already visited or viewed (from a desert in Egypt to a farm in Canada at night, the Wild West, and ‘it looks like France because of the poppies’). In Gervelie’s Journey, while the children started to make use of both the words and the visuals to explore Gervelie’s feelings, they relied on the body language of the people shown in the images to make meaning. Empathy: Reading Gervelie’s Journey elicited responses that showed the children’s growing empathy for the main character, Gervelie. They showed an awareness of danger when they discussed how the refugees felt while fleeing from the soldiers and burning villages. This 29
discussion extended into an appreciation of the difference between feeling scared ‘in real life’, because of what is actually happening around you, compared to the feelings of fear that can occur when reading a book or watching a film that can easily be stopped or closed. Pupils reading Boy Overboard responded empathically to episodes that dealt with football and the banning of education for woman, perhaps because of the connections these topics offered to their own lives. As the book progressed, this initial empathy carried forward into in-depth discussions about movement and migration. All the children were able to think about what they would miss if they had to leave Glasgow and what they would take with them if they had to leave. Boy Overboard invoked a serious level of dialogue around the issue of migration and asylum seekers, with many of the children wishing to take social action in order to raise awareness and implement change in the treatment of refugee children. In the North East School one child participating in the evaluation shared his thoughts on the potential of the text as a window onto the world that allowing his fellow students to understand the challenges and hopes of refugees, ‘ See, I’m a refugee person, so I got lots of information about it and what did the other refugees do and that. I haven’t had any story about it. And so it tells people that are not refugees how we have to survive to get to a new country and to be safer and happier.’
Intertextuality: Pupils extended their knowledge and understanding by referring to the differences between the invading colonials and the indigenous inhabitants; the concept of invasion, and many of the children made links to previous school work on the Vikings and the Highland Clearances in Scotland. Flags were discussed as symbols of colonisation and there were also discussions linked to concerns about destruction of the environment. By discussing the use of a diary format to tell the story of Gervelie’s Journey, it was possible to raise pupils’ awareness of how some texts work. The story of Gervelie’s experience also led to some significant text-to-life intertextual connections, with pupils sharing their often quite specialist knowledge of how the immigration process operates, from a variety of perspectives.
2.2.4 Evaluation of the task Although none of the children or teachers explicitly referred to the concept of the walk and talk throughs in their evaluations, their positive effects were implicit in the feedback we received. The children appeared to use the information they gleaned from the extended discussions to evaluate the texts as a whole, and their own learning in particular. Child A:
I like ‘The Rabbits’ because there were more pictures to tell like the story.
Child B:
I liked all the pictures because I know there was a little bit of words but I liked the pictures just because you’ve got to think of what could happen.
Child C:
We learnt that people conquered these places, they don’t care what they do. Just that it’s their land. In ‘The Rabbits’ [they] built big cities over like where the kangaroos were staying and that. They put them out.
From the teachers’ perspective, the discussion time was necessary for moving onto the deeper levels of understanding as it created a space for the children to think, make links and ask questions. The texts exposed gaps in the children’s knowledge, which they were all keen to explore further. Through dialogue, the children moved beyond the text and began a journey 30
of learning about others. One of the teachers from the Southside school summarized his views on this task highlighting the way the text allowed the children to think critically about the themes under discussion, ‘They could actually understand an army of other people went from another continent and split the people that already existed there, they collected their children and threw them out so they had a very good understanding of what colonisation was and what being a settler is, so that was critical as well, So it is the material that they have been given that makes them think.’
2.2.5 Extending the tasks: • Reading these texts in classrooms produced a richness of discussion that has been
impossible to capture in its entirety. Teachers using these strategies face the equally hard challenge of deciding how to make use of small group discussions in their classrooms and how to build upon the fertile dialogue that can emerge. • To manage a reading group of nine, we used a small hand-held recorder to capture the
children’s discussions. The children knew that they could speak when they held the recorder, while others had to listen; they also knew that these recordings could also be listened to again as an aide memoir of their thinking and talking. • Within their small groups, the children were encouraged to record and evaluate their
knowledge using techniques such as the KWL approach (know, want to know and learned) which also generated questions to be shared in whole class plenary discussions. In this way, the teachers were able to monitor pupils’ progress and decide where further support was needed.
2.2.6 Summary Entering the world of the book through the ‘walk, talk and look’ stage is vital for children to understand the purpose and content of a text. It can allow children to make text-to-life and text-to-text connections, and provide teachers with an insight into how pupils are making sense of the book’s plot, themes and structure. By creating space and time for looking at and talking about a set of related texts, teachers can encourage critical reading skills.
2.2.7 Suggested reading Bothelo and Rudman (2009) advocate a strategy known as ‘horizontal reading’ where the teacher introduces children to a collection of texts on a similar theme. The texts can be varied in type - such as non-fiction, images, video clips - but should also explore the themes presented in the key text. Teachers can make cross-curricular links to find information visual or otherwise - on the countries involved and can encourage children to look beyond their own life experiences to make sense of the books and the themes they explore. For example, before commencing work on Gervelie’s Journey, teachers could establish the locations of the Republic of Congo, the Ivory Coast and Ghana; before working on Boy Overboard, teachers could find out what pupils already know about Afghanistan and how they know this information. It is important to find ways to extend children’s existing knowledge and this can be done by looking at ‘sideways’ texts that are connected to the countries where the novels or texts are set.
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Teachers may wish to use the following websites, which are related to the texts and the authors of the texts. These offer practical advice and suggestions on how to extend the use the books across the curriculum. The Rabbits by John Marsden, illustrated by Shaun Tan Shaun Tan’s website is a useful source of information on the author and his catalogue: http://www.shauntan.net/books/the-rabbits.html John Marsden has his own website and blog: http://www.johnmarsden.com.au/home.html This YouTube clip shows the book set to music written by Bernard Kotze: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTvXe84UqIQ The following teaching notes by Nancy Mortimer provide examples of further suggestions for working with the book: http://www.thearrival.com.au/downloads/TG_TheRabbits.pdf This British Council article discusses the use of picturebooks for all ages and for children learning English as a second or additional language: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/picture-books-all
Gervelie’s Journey by Anthony Robinson and Annemarie Young For further information on using Gervelie’s Journey or to contact the authors, refer to The Refugee Diaries article online at Carousel. The article also discusses the other books in the series, Mohammed’s Journey, Hamzat’s Journey and Meltem’s Journey: http://www.carouselguide.co.uk/pdf/49refugee-diaries.pdf
Boy Overboard by Morriz Gleitzman Morris Gleitzman has his own website which is full of interesting information; also look out for his Facebook page, which records his recent thoughts and publications: http://www.morrisgleitzman.com The Penguin Australian website has a set of teaching notes to guide discussion of the text and its major themes, including conflict, survival, family, culture and power. There are also suggestions for discussing and developing ideas about the characters. Importantly, the notes provide guidance on ways of moving beyond the text to discuss social and political issues related to human rights and gender issues. http://www.penguin.co.nz/webfiles/PenguinGroupNZ/files/BoyOverboardTeachNotes.pdf For further examples of texts on the theme of migration see the following website: http://www.playingbythebook.net/2013/06/19/refugee-week-recent-childrens-books-aboutthe-refugee-experience/ We have included some further examples of texts under the categories discussed in section one taken from similar experiences of working on the Narrative of Change Knowledge Exchange Project (http://narrativesofchange.education/) with teachers. 32
All Images
‘Transition’ text(images + words)
All words
Predominantly images
A blend of images A chapter book/ novel consisting (illustrations and entirely of words/text photographs) along with a greater amount of written text
Choi, Y. (2001) The Name Jar, New York: Drangonfly Books Hoffman, M. and Littlewood, K. (1992) The Colour of Home, London: Francis Lincoln Children’s Books Miller, D. (2003) Refugees, Melbourne: Lothian Books Munsch, R. and Askar, S. (1995) From Far Away, New York: Annick Press
Robinson. A. (2009) Hamzat’s Journey, London: Francis Lincoln Children’s Books Robinson, A. and Young, A. (2009) Mohammed’s Journey, London: Francis Lincoln Children’s Books
Cross, G. (2013) After Tomorrow, Oxford, OUP Cornwell, N. (2006) Christophe’s Story, London: Francis Lincoln Children’s Books Gleitzman, M. (2004) Girl Underground, London: Puffin Benjamin, F. (1995) Coming to England, London: Walker Books (Autobiography)
Table 2: Suggested texts on the theme of Migration
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Section 3: Visual strategies that facilitate critical reading 3.1 Annotations: Excavating meaning from images. When walking, talking and looking through books, children will often focus on certain elements and spend time discussing them in detail, while glossing over other aspects in a rush to find out the answers to questions or what happens next. Because of this, it is sometimes necessary to slow the reading process down by using strategies that allow children to examine the visuals in more detail. The annotations strategy we describe here is a refreshing and creative tool that can encourage a more careful reading of images, especially when used in conjunction with walking and talking through books as discussed in section two. In addition, any new vocabulary or concepts that emerge in the first stage can be reinforced and/or extended by the annotation task. In order to help other teachers implement the annotation task, here we present an account of how the activity was realised during our project. At the end, we provide a brief list of points and recommendations, which are based on our own experiences but are not intended to be exhaustive.
Figure 8: An example of an annotated spread from The Rabbits, (Southside School)
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Figure 9: An example of an annotation from The Rabbits (North East School)
3.1.1 Using the annotations in the classroom To prepare for the annotation task, we made several A4 colour photo-copies of images selected from the books and stuck them onto A3 sheets of white paper, which created a border or margin for the pupils to annotate. The children can highlight areas, add comments and write down ideas and questions about the image in the border area around the image.
The image is pasted in here
speculations
comments question s
Figure 10: Outline of a spread prepared for annotation
After reading through the text, the children were given the photocopied spreads and were invited to write in the margin/border, using arrows or lines to link their comments to the relevant parts of the image. They were encouraged to: • make comments on what they saw • make notes about their thoughts 35
• write down questions about the image or parts of it • draw speech or thought bubbles for the characters who appeared in the images.
Before starting work, the children were shown an example of an annotated spread: the one we used had been done by children in a previous project, but teachers could create a model of their own to share, or perhaps co-construct an example with the whole class on a whiteboard, a process that would also allow the teacher to demonstrate how to annotate the projected image. In one of the schools, the children were tasked to annotate the spreads in pairs. Each child used a different colour of pen to allow us/them to identify who had made which comment during later discussion or assessment stages. Working in this way led to the spreads being split roughly down the middle and we found that the children tended to study half of an image each, rather than considering the page as a whole. As a result, we would advise teachers to remind their pupils to annotate the whole image, encourage them to discuss or swap seats if necessary. Lower pupil numbers in the second school meant it was possible for each pupil to annotate their own spreads. Despite these minor points, we feel that the strategy worked equally well, regardless of whether the children worked in pairs or as individuals. While working in pairs imposed some limits (see above), an advantage was that it enabled the children to discuss and compare their ideas. This task was especially helpful to EAL pupils who benefited from peer writing support. In one example, EAL pupils with a common first language discussed the image in their home language, then wrote their ideas in English. Equally, an advantage for pupils working as individuals was a stronger sense of ownership and an obvious freedom from ‘having to share’. We observed that most children could comfortably complete one spread within a 40 –50 minutes session, with a significant number able to start work on a second annotation. We would encourage teachers to consider the following key points when preparing for the task: • Model the process by co-constructing an annotation as a class • Encourage the children to make comments, ask questions, draw speech or thought bubbles,
use prompt questions from section 2.2.2 • Consider whether individual or paired working will best suit the needs of your pupils • Allow for at least 40 minutes to complete the task but have additional images/ spreads
prepared • Factor in time for discussion during and after the task.
3.1.2 Findings Children from both settings engaged in the annotation tasks with much enthusiasm and enjoyment. Some of the children - especially those who had engaged with the discussions from the walk and talk though activities - immersed themselves in the annotation activity. In the previous section (2.2.3) we drew on the work of Sipe (2008) to frame our analysis of the children’s oral responses, but as this task required the children to respond to visual texts with written responses, the research team referred to the work of Halliday (1973), as adapted by Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996). According to this influential body of work, textual meaning is comprised of three metafunctions: the experiential, the interpersonal and compositional. 36
Influenced by our previous analysis of children’s annotated responses to images taken from Flotsam by David Wiesner, we extended the functions in order to categorise the children’s written responses (Farrell et al, 2010). We understand the experiential level as referring to what is actualised between participants, actions and settings; the interpersonal constitutes the ‘social relations between interactants, as well as the evaluative orientation that participants adopt towards each other and to the represented world of the text’ (Baldry & Thibault, 2005: 39), while compositional is understood as referring to arrangements such as colour, gaze and perspective. The table below shows how the three levels can be realised by extending the generic response prompts mentioned in 3.1.1. and provides examples of how the children may respond using all three metafunctions. Types of responses
Description/ guidance
Example of Children’s Written Response
The Experiential Level (Baldry & Thibault, 2005):
Who, What, When, Where? Labelling; Describing; Questioning; Speculating.
See Figures 9, 11 & 12 Why does the flag have a clock in it? Why do they want to fight? The rabbit has three eyes and rather different than the others.
The Interpersonal Level
(Relationships) Relationship to Author; Adding voices/ characters thoughts, affective, intra-textual, inter-textual, relating to own experience (cultural, as a reader, as immigrant); Questioning Speculating/ Hypothesising.
See figure 13 She thinks about getting sent home”....then a speech bubble containing the words: ‘I miss my Mum She looks happy in her school uniform. She looks quite sad... I think she misses her Mum.
The Compositional Level (Textual) How? : Questioning and (Kress and Van Leeuwen, speculating based on colour and 1996) shade; perspective, gaze and design
See figures 9 and 13 The sky is turning a different shade. Why are the clouds so yellow. Why is there shadows when it is dark?
Table 3 : Categories of analysis along with examples
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Figure 11: An example of experiential meaning-making
Figure 12: An example of compositional meaning-making.
While it could be argued that there is less scope for imaginative thought in Gervelie’s Journey because it is based on a true story, we found that the children used their visual strategies to read the text and the images in a deep and meaningful manner that revealed empathy and an interest in children living in conflict zones. In fact, the children’s responses 38
seem to have been heightened by the fact that this young girl’s diary was based on real events, feelings that were also reflected in their interpersonal and interpretive responses. While some children took note of cultural issues such as the patterns on the border of the pages, others were able to use their own culturally specific knowledge to identify the invading military forces that Gervelie flees from: ‘[They are] trying to get away from Cobra Militia,’ (Newly Arrived P6 Boy from Congo, North East School). Others responded with empathy to the text’s diary format and the sense of intimacy this created with the characters: ‘Gervelie has recorded her memories. Everybody feels tired. Many people have been turned into refugees,’ (Native Scottish P6 Boy, North East School). Some children drew on their imaginative powers and added more pictures to their spreads in order to plug ‘gaps’ in the story’s illustrations: by adding a boat and an aeroplane, one pupil was able to document more accurately how Gervelie travelled from the Republic of Congo to the Ivory Coast and onwards to Europe.
Figure 13: Children add detail using additional illustration (North East School)
Some children used the annotations to refer to their own experiences of journeys, or to reflect on what was important and valuable to them. Such critical reflective skills are invaluable and can help open up and broaden children’s ‘awareness’ to other ways of living and reading. However and perhaps most importantly, the child-centred nature of this task gave pupils an increased sense of ownership and empowered them as learners by validating the multiple interpretations that emerged and creating time and space for the development of individual contributions. We feel that this visual strategy can provide support to all young readers since it has the potential to: •
give currency to young people’s ideas
•
encourage the sharing of ideas that may previously have gone unsaid
•
acknowledge and encourage each child’s input 39
•
encourage shy pupils to participate by providing them with a prop to refer to when speaking
•
create a more level playing field because the strategy is new to all, not just Newly Arrived pupils
3.1.3 Evaluation of the task The annotation task was mentioned in the final evaluations, where there was discussion of how much the children had enjoyed this activity. The pupils explained that writing notes and comments about the images helped them to notice more and deepened their understanding. During a focus group, some pupils commented on the effects of reading picturebooks in comparison to (written) text-only books. According to a boy from North East School: ‘Well, reading pictures you read with your eyes but when you’re reading, you read with your mind.’ Another boy from the same class described the experience as: ‘[when] you’re looking at the picture, it gives a lot of information...what transport they coming from. What they are doing. What they are building. What they’re trying to do.’ When asked about the impact of the activities, such as the annotation task, the same pupil explained that writing about the images could ‘help you understand what was in the pictures.’ The teachers were also impressed by the pupils’ level of engagement, enthusiasm and willingness to discuss what they had found in the texts. In the final evaluation, an EAL teacher from North East School drew attention to the benefits of reading and discussing visual texts: ‘They said some wonderful things though as well and they noticed so much that I didn’t notice. They highlighted things that I wouldn’t even have thought of because they are seeing it through their own eyes and then sharing it with one another.
3.1.4 Extending the task From a practical and sustainable perspective there are two options for avoiding the high cost of colour photocopies. One is to use black and white copies while simultaneously projecting a colour scan onto a whiteboard. The other is to use laminated colour copies that can be wiped clean and re-used after being stuck onto A3 sheets with sticky tack. In order to support some EAL pupils, it may be necessary for their comments to be scripted by either a peer or teacher. It is important to model the task beforehand as most pupils are usually surprised by the idea of drawing arrows across pictures and are often unsure of what to write at first. Teachers can remind pupils of the comments made during the walk-throughs to help generate material for annotations. From our experience of working with this task we suggest some practical ways of extending the annotation task to meet individual needs and to explore themes in more detail. Ways to support and extend the task: • Hold a plenary discussion after the first annotations have been added to the spreads. This
can enable children to explain their understandings and explore their interpretations of the texts in a larger peer group. Teachers can summarise key points on the board for the whole class to access and build from • Working in groups, ask the children to create a bank of interesting or significant words that
have come up in their annotations and discuss what they mean. This can encourage the 40
development and use of a specialist metalanguage, including terms related to artistic features of images, such as perspective or shade, as well as technical terms like experiment or investigate. By gathering together the key words that have been stimulated by talking and thinking about pictures, the children may begin to see how reading images can make an explicit contribution to the building and broadening of their English language vocabularies. • Use the image to stimulate predictions about narrative and story structure by asking the
children to predict what happened before and/or after the image. This can prompt the children into interpreting and experimenting with the sequence of the story line and may heighten their awareness of processes and concepts such as story-boarding, narrative structure and the possibilities of multiple interpretations. • Hold plenary discussions on the books’ theme(s) with the aim of developing children’s
inferential understanding of key ideas. Try to find ways to establish links between the themes and the children’s experiential knowledge and where possible, re-visit these themes in later lessons across the curriculum.
3.1.5 Summary Annotating images with pupils’ thoughts, feelings and questions is one way to encourage a more critical approach to reading because it can foster reflection, lead to the interrogation of taken for granted ideas and promote imaginative, empathic responses to texts. Completing the annotation task appeared to bring reading alive for many of the children in our study and gave teachers and pupils a tangible outcome, as well as the opportunity to revisit, reconsider and revise their ideas on the text. We suggest, therefore, that the annotation task can be a helpful strategy for eliciting and encouraging meaningful responses. Interestingly, pupils’ responses to Gervelie’s Journey tended to focus more on the thoughts of the characters, often using speech bubbles to express them, which could also suggest the strong sense of empathy the children had for Gervelie and her family. Subsequent discussions around the annotations also increased pupils’ awareness that some of their fellow classmates had actually undergone similar journeys as a result of forced migration. From our readings of the annotated spreads, we could see how the children’s word choice reflected characters’ feelings of fear and distress; even when Gervelie was safely settled in the UK, the children still showed an empathic understanding of how she must have missed her mum, her own country and culture.
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Figure 14 : An example of an annotation from Gervelie’s Journey of an (North East School)
3.1.6 Suggested reading The following texts provide further reading on the subject of annotations. Farrell, M., Arizpe, E. and McAdam, J. (2010) ‘Journeys across visual borders: Annotated spreads of 'The Arrival' by Shaun Tan as a method of understanding pupils' creation of meaning through visual images.’ Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 33 (3). pp. 198-210. Bednall, J.,Cranston, L. with Bearne, E. (2008) ‘The Most Wonderful Adventure…Going beyond the literal’, English Four to Eleven 32 (19-26)
3.2 Sharing personal worlds through image: Photojournals This task was linked to the second text used in the project, Gervelie’s Journey, a highly visual text because of its combination of illustrations and photographs. Throughout the text Gervelie creates her own ‘photojournal’ as she moves from the Congo to the UK.
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Figure 15: Double spread from Gervelie’s Journey showing her looking at her journal Copyright © Annemarie Young and Anthony Robinson 2009. Reproduced by permission of Frances Lincoln Ltd.
Using photography as a tool in the classroom is not new (Moss, 2001), yet its potential is not often exploited, usually because of the cost of disposable cameras or worries about handling expensive machines. With mobile phones, however, it may be possible to make more use of photography and to take advantage of children’s knowledge of handling digital images. The popularity and accessibility of social networking also means that many children are more used to creating, playing with and sharing photographic images. Like the other visual tools described in this project, photography is particularly powerful when working with children who struggle to express themselves orally or in writing (Arizpe & McAdam, 2013). Additionally, cameras can give users control over the images they choose to capture, edit and share. The photojournal format we describe here invites children to express what can often remain unexpressed in the classroom by enabling them to share elements of their home life in school. The creation of these texts can help to provide meaningful contexts for border crossing conversations between members of the class community. Each child has a unique story to tell: for some, the outside environment is key to self expression (Sharples et al, 2003), while for others, the family is more centrally tied in to expressions of identity. Teachers can encourage children to explore and express their identity (Orellana, 1999) through this visual medium, helping them to organise their pictures into collages that tell personal stories and build on the bridges that link home and school.
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Figure 16: Children selecting and re-storying their photojournals (Southside School)
The photojournal strategy can support different ways of talking and listening, reading and writing by juxtaposing visual and printed texts, which can then be shared in an oral form. It can help to develop higher order thinking skills, particularly decision making, and can also draw pupils’ attention to the selective and subjective nature of the act of text creation by promoting discussions about what pictures could take and why; how they could compose the shot; which pictures to select for the final text and how to create a narrative by placing the images in a particular order. Pupils can choose to decorate their journal, for example, by drawing a margin similar to the one found on the pages of Gervelie’s Journey. Finally, they can develop their oral skills by describing the motivations behind their photo journals and explaining the process by which they were created. The process of reflection and answering questions from peers will also require pupils to consider the needs and interests of their audience.
3.2.1 Creating the photojournals In this strategy, photography was used as a whole class activity with the aim of promoting intercultural communication by sharing glimpses of children’s out of school lives. For teachers, using photography as a tool presented them with a non-intrusive way of finding out more about children's home languages and literacy practices. Ways of using the cameras were tailored to fit in with established patterns of classroom learning and the children were invited to compile a photo journal in the style of Gervelie’s Journey. To do this, the children took home a single-use disposable camera (24 frames) and were encouraged to take as many photographs as they could. Once the cameras were collected in and the films developed, the children selected images (on average 5 or 6), arranged the pictures on A3 paper and wrote captions to explain them. The photojournals were first shared within the classroom and then displayed as part of a lager presentation to peers and parents. 44
Figure 17: Creating journals with added captions
3.2.2 Findings After analysing the photojournals individually, we traced four distinct narrative threads: •
People who matter in my life (parents, family, photographs of people, teachers)
•
Places that matter in my life (school, home)
•
Artefacts that matter in my life (electronic gadgets, gifts, photographs)
•
Representations of what I do outside my home (day trips and activities)
These narratives highlighted different parts of pupils’ identities and indicated the children’s willingness to share personal aspects of their lives as well as details of their relationships with the people and objects surrounding them. Eight journals consisted mainly of photographs of people ‘who matter’, such as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and teachers. Seven children provided reasons for the images’ inclusion that often explained the relationship and its significance to them: ‘This is my big sister. She always helps me get ready and we both really love each other.’ Pupils may well have been influenced by format of the Gervelie text, which contains many domestic images of people close to the main character, yet their captions reveal the importance of family. An abundance of the language used in the captions focused on the positive aspects of those represented: ‘This is my teacher; we need teachers to learn.’ Three of the children incorporated images linked to their religious practice: a prayer mat; a framed picture of Medina and a framed picture of the Kabah door. All of them provided reasons for including these artefacts: ‘This is a picture of Medina. When I finish praying I go and kiss this picture. I always kiss it before coming to school and I kiss it for good luck and to do well in school.’
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Figure 18: Example of artefacts that are important in a child’s life
The complexity of this task is not to be underestimated as capturing snapshots of family life on film is not always straightforward: individuals have to agree to be photographed, and an element of forward planning may be necessary to organise and locate those who are to be included in each shot. These organisational issues may perhaps explain why some children used artefacts and places to represent their families or special events rather than pictures of the people themselves: ‘This is my keyboard. This is special because my dad gave it to me. It reminds me of him when he is away.’
3.2.3 Evaluation of task Evaluations of this task by both pupils and teachers were positive. The children’s enthusiasm was infectious and those who attended the final family event spent a long time reading the photo journals, discussing the photographs and the concept of the journals as a whole. ‘I think that the good thing was…the photos and talking about it because the photos, because the same thing as Gervelie’s Journey because they let you know about your own style of life and what you do and talking about it so you can understand things properly and stuff like that.’ (Student from North East School) ‘I liked the photographs…I felt they really enjoyed the photographs because it gave them a chance to bring a wee bit of their life into the school and write about it [knowing] that they [as individuals] were valued. That kind of idea was important to them. They really enjoyed that and some of them really enjoyed decorating [the photo journal] as well. And … they took the responsibility of being given the camera.’ (Teacher from the North East School) ‘I think I definitely would do the camera thing. It would be great if we were going on a specific journey as a class and could record the journey together.’(Teacher from the Southside School) 46
3.2.4 Extending the task When working with cameras and photography there are particular issues which must be considered. These are: • Timing: Consider how long the children will have the cameras for. If the period of time is
too long (over the holidays for example) they may get lost; establishing a set time (eg over a weekend) can sustain pupils’ interest in the completion of a particular type of task. • Ethics: Teachers must ensure that photographs containing people are presented according to
the school’s policy. • Technical issues: Ideally there should be some discussion of the ways cameras work, such
as reminding pupils of the need to use a flash in darker conditions or basic information about focus. • Presentation and content: it is important that the children write a caption to explain what the
photograph is meant to be and why they took it. • Other technologies: consider the fact that it may be possible for children to take
photographs on mobile phones that can be transferred onto computers in school. If a limited number of digital cameras are also available, suggest that the pupils take them home from school for a day and tailor the timings of the task to suit this option. This task could be extended in several ways: • Compiling a photo journal of a trip can lead to broader discussions of issues linked to
migration or places that are special to pupils. Journals could contain pictures of the items pupils would take with them on a trip or if they were forced to flee. Such a task can help to bridge the gap between home and school and may promote the exchange of cultural experiences within a safe environment. • Photographs can be arranged into collages or made into power points, promoting cross-
curricular links with technology curriculums. Follow up discussions can be used to illuminate the different ways that each child interpreted the task and selected their photographs. • Children’s knowledge can be further extended with access to analytical tools and critical
vocabulary. Encourage children to consider how elements of composition (light, angle, perspective etc) are at work in their own images as well as examples drawn from more famous photographers.
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Figure 19: Children working in groups to create their photojournals (North East School)
Figure 20: Children viewing each other’s photojournals at the community exhibition of their work (North East School)
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3.2.5 Summary This task helped the children to learn about using cameras and encouraged them to reflect on the usefulness of photography as a mode. It helped to create bridges between home and school, promoted greater intercultural communication and highlighted the benefits that can be gained from a focus on both visual and digital literacies. The task could be extended in many ways, depending on the teaching and learning goals (it could be used to analyse photographs in non-fiction texts or advertisements, for example). The photographs taken by children can act as windows into their lives and can ultimately increase peer to peer intercultural awareness. In addition, they can support teachers who wish to develop a more holistic knowledge of the children they teach by promoting the exchange of life narratives. Positioning children as active participants in the learning process can lead to more motivated pupils who can engage in increasingly reflective, critical reading of texts. Crucially, the visual nature of this task helped some of the more reticent children to grow in confidence when telling their own stories and provided some of the more reluctant writers with an impetus to add captions to their photographs. Moving towards printed texts in this way, we provided a supportive and structured way approach into the final text, Morris Gleitzman’s Boy Overboard, which will be described in the next section, 3.3.
3.2.6 Suggested reading Useful Links and websites/texts There are a multitude of websites with ideas for using cameras, particularly digital cameras, in the classroom so it is helpful if teachers have a clear idea of their aims before consulting them. Many ideas can be found embedded in websites on ICT and literacy in general. Other useful links are: • http://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/resources/photo_opportunities/files/background_to_usi
ng_photos.pdf This helpful pdf from Oxfam contains advice on using photos in the classroom. It makes reference to research into how children ‘see’ photographs and has links to key literacy, numeracy and communication skills. • http://www.zardec.net.au/keith/visual.htm This useful website on visual literacy in the
classroom has plenty of good ideas and offers further links to other sites. • http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/self-
training_resources/eadp_report/photo_changes.html This site offers useful information on using photography and ethics (from the National Press Photographers Association, USA) • http://eprints.qut.edu.au/19232/1/Bridgette_McKelvey_Thesis.pdf An interesting thesis on
photography in picturebooks (including authors such as Lauren Child and Shaun Tan). • http://www.thebookchook.com/2010/11/crafting-picture-book-with-photos-guest.html
Provides some easy tips on how to create a photo picturebook.
These academic texts provide further examples of instances where photography has been used in classroom settings. Arizpe, E. and McAdam, J. (2011) ‘Crossing Visual Borders and Connecting Cultures: Children’s responses to the photographic theme in David Wiesner’s Flotsam,’ New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship, 17 (2) pp. 227-243. 49
Carter Ching, C., Wang, C., Shih, M. and Kedem, Y. (2006) ‘Digital Photography and Journals in a Kindergarten-First-Grade Classroom: Toward Meaningful Technology Integration in Early Childhood Education’, Early Education & Development, 17(3) pp.347371 Moss, G. (2001) ‘Seeing with the Camera: Analysing Children’s Photographs of Literacy in the Home, Journal of the Research in Reading, 24:3, pp279-92
3.3 Annotations of written texts This task was delivered using Morris Gleitzman’s Boy Overboard (2002). Up until this point in the project, the children had been working predominantly with images, illustrations or photographs. Next we began to apply the visual strategies to print-based texts. This allowed children to build on the confidence they had developed while annotating visual texts or creating photojournals. As other researchers have shown, marking and annotating texts can promote close looking ( Harvey & Goudvis, 2000:40, Gamble & Yates, 2008) and here our focus shifted from close looking at images to close looking at written text. Based on our findings, we suggest that annotation can be used as a tool to develop readers’ comprehension, to enhance their understanding of key ideas, and to provide insights into how they make link to their own lives, as well as those of others. The tasks incorporate several of the key ‘resources’ identified by Luke & Freebody (1999), which emphasise the now multiliterate requirements of readers in a multimodal world, such as the ability to decode, analyse and use a range of texts. Additionally, using these strategies can address some of the outcomes of the Curriculum for Excellence by encouraging pupils to find and use information; analyse and evaluate texts and explain and evaluate their own responses to texts (Scottish Government, 2008). Strategies that help to develop positive attitudes towards reading and understanding texts are also promoted in the English National Curriculum (DoE, 2013).
3.3.1 Using Text Annotations in the Classroom This is a complex task that demands a high level of reading comprehension and higher order thinking from the children. Many of them will be used to accepting the authority of the written word without challenge, and may also expect questions on the text to be posed by teachers. One of the benefits of this activity is that it hands over interpretive and critical responsibility to readers and provides them with more freedom to ask the questions that are relevant to them, rather than those derived from their teacher’s understanding of the text. Placing emphasis on pupils’ visual responses to texts requires close reading skills, develops pupils’ ability to categorise responses and can encourage thinking beyond the written text. In section 3.1.1 we described how to annotate visual texts and the same process can be used here. We started by placing the text in the middle of an A3 page, leaving wide margins for pupils’ comments. At the outset, we modelled how the children could approach the task, using an extract enlarged on a visualiser or on an interactive whiteboard. We highlighted lines of text that were of interest using pens, underlining, circling and using lines or arrows leading to the accompanying comment in the margins.
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Figure 21: Example of annotations of Boy Overboard, chapter 2, pages 7/8
We reminded the pupils that their responses could be in the form of notes, questions, speculations or illustrations and that they could focus on specific words, individual sentences or paragraphs. While they worked, we shared ideas with members of the class who struggled to begin. Revisiting the task in the plenary session also helped to clarify the processes and reassured children of the validity of their responses.
Figure 22: Examples of text and illustrative annotations in response to Boy Overboard, chapter one, pages 4-6.
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3.3.2 Findings Responses to the written text Children’s questions on the written text were predominantly factual queries. The vast majority of the annotations were linked to content and included the word ‘why.’ Questions posed ranged from ‘why is Bibi in serious trouble?’ to ‘why is it against the law for girls to play football?’ and ‘why would you play football in your bedroom?’ There were also some examples of genuine vocabulary questions, such as ‘what is the horizon?’ or ‘what is a sand dune?’ Very occasionally we found an example that related to the author’s use of figurative language: ‘Why does his inside turn to yoghurt?’ The most sophisticated example of this was found on two scripts based on the children’s interpretation of the following description: ‘The ball at my feet is just a blur, and not just because the heat coming off the desert is making the air wobble.’ The children wanted to know ‘why is the desert making the air wobble?’ Other comments and observations were largely to do with feelings, based on descriptions found in the text or inferred from reading it closely. Responses included: ‘Jamal feels scared’; ‘she hates being stuck indoors’; ‘I wonder how scared Jamal is?’ There were also a few interpretive or evaluative comments: ‘Zoltan is being selfish’; ‘these are scary but he is used to these things in life’ and ‘it is very stupid that school is not legal in Afghanistan.’ Interestingly, we had very few speculative and inferential responses to the written texts and some children struggled to make a written response at all. This was in contrast to the children’s enthusiastic responses to the image-based annotation task. At the point of moving on to the text-based task, many children expressed concerns that it would be much more difficult. These admissions suggest there is a need for extended preparation in conjunction with clear demonstrations of whole class practice. However given the critical importance of developing analytical skills, this is a task worthy of development and use. Responding with illustration An important finding to emerge from this task is that some of the children decided to provide visual illustrations in response to the written extracts from Boy Overboard. Through drawing, the children were able to show their comprehension and feelings towards detailed aspects of the narrative, particularly when they related to characters and specifics of place. For example, some children related to the central character’s love of football and began to imagine what Jamal might look like if he played football in a Manchester United strip. The children also imagined what Bibi’s dress might look like: while some drew on stereotyped notions of dresses that would not look out of place in a Western adaptations of Arabian Nights, others created costumes that clearly drew on personal knowledge of dress in the region. The children seemed to be making intertextual links to a wide variety of popular visual sources from their lives. These visual references provided ample opportunities for intercultural discussions, in this case, on dress culture. Such discussions have the potential to expand children’s understanding via intertextual links, their imaginations and experiential knowledge. Section 3.4 discusses the ways in which the children developed this strategy even further.
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Figure 23: Examples of the different ways that Bibi’s dress has been depicted
3.3.3 Evaluations When evaluating this particular strategy, some of the children mentioned their use of illustrations to annotate the text: ‘… they were actually quite fun because like I drew some pictures like when he says, ‘My insides felt like yoghurt’ and I put all yellow all down there and when Bibi says ‘You big lump of camel snot’ I draw a camel with a big…’ The teachers’ evaluations of the task were also very positive. We have quoted this teacher’s comments at length to demonstrate the benefits of the task in terms of developing and supporting the reading process: ‘They did have to look for detail and information in the book as well, so they are doing that but they are doing it in a way that they are finding the information and then they are having to illustrate it, demonstrate their knowledge through the illustration. So it is all about detail in the illustration and detail in the book so they are doing the skills. They are reading, but not answering a question like ‘who was wearing the Newcastle strip? or who was the goalkeeper?’ They are demonstrating their knowledge by illustrating [...]That’s them visualising it from the book and then putting [the book] down. So you could very much assess that.... I noticed that K had to look very closely at the chapter again which was great. She was looking in great detail at chapter ten yesterday in order to do the illustration so she was reading it again because she knew that she had the task of illustrating it so she was looking. So that itself was an incentive for her…’ (Teacher from Southside school)
3.3.4 Extending the task • Be prepared to factor in plenty of time for the children to complete their visual and written
annotations of the text. It is also important to remember that not every child likes to draw, so offer other options, such as making collages or finding images on the internet. 53
• Extend the task further by using response partners, which can include pairing EAL students
with more fluent speakers. Ask other children to respond to the annotations either by adding to them, by seeking clarification or indeed disagreeing with them. In turn, this may lead to whole class discussions about the personal nature of responses to literature, including the fact that there is no ‘correct’ response to a text. Such discussions can present teachers with opportunities to validate the possibility of multiple interpretations, all of which depend upon the perspective of the reader and the evidence they decide to select. • This task can provide information for both formative and summative assessments. Students
can be assessed in terms of their comprehension and evaluation, as well as their ability to find evidence from the text and to make inferences about its meaning. It can also be used as a tool for analysing how writers construct texts, for example, identifying the type and purpose of figurative language. Additionally, the task could be used diagnostically: make pupils’ difficulties with the texts - or indeed the task - the object of direct teaching. • Take a note of the questions that children ask about the text and consider how they may be
linked into forward planning across the curriculum and to the specific development of visual literacy skills. • Use this task as an opportunity to introduce the children to the concept of coding as a way
to organise and interpret their ideas. In the early stages, it might be useful to agree on some common codes: e.g. R- reminds me of; T-S- text to self connection; T-T - text to text connections; T-W - text to world connections; ? – questions I have about the text or I would like to ask the character. This ensures that there is some consistency within the class although the children should be encouraged add to the coding system as new and more extended responses emerge.
3.3.5 Summary The annotation of text task requires more complex evaluative judgement and consequently greater concentration. While it may seem that the preparation for this task requires time, plenty of practise and reassurance, the benefits are many and potentially long term. This task extends naturally from annotating the visual elements of books. It requires close reading skills and develops pupils’ ability to categorise responses, or at least, to recognise the different kinds of responses that can be made. Placing emphasis on visual responses to texts can add considerably to the overall comprehension of the book and can encourage thinking beyond the written text. Children can decode meaning and show their comprehension of text in an alternative mode to writing, so it is particularly beneficial to children who can be overwhelmed by constant requirements to respond in written formats. Finally, it can be used as a preparatory tool for the kinds of critical reading tasks that will be encountered in secondary education and beyond.
3.3.6 Suggested reading As the annotation task is a new strategy, the readings listed below are not directly linked to it. However, we think they provide useful guidance and information on the broader field of visual texts.
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Useful Links and websites/texts This blog has a good bibliography: http://doctorcomics.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/teaching-literacy-through-comics.html A link to an award winning documentary film about comics in the classroom and beyond: http://www.comicbookliteracy.com/ Further reading Burmark, L. (2002) Visual Literacy. Learn to see, see to learn. Alexandria, V.A.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. (If book is unavailable, Burmark has several online publications: http://mat-tech.net/COTF%20CD/WhyVisualLiteracy.pdf or http://www.tcpd.org/burmark/handouts/wygiwys.pdf Dewey, J. (1978) Art as Experience. New York: Doubleday. Frey, N. And Fisher, N. (eds) 2008 Teaching visual literacy. Using comic books, graphic novels, anime, cartoons and more to develop comprehension and thinking skills. London: Corwin Press. Gardner, H. (1980) Artful Scribbles. London: Jill Norman Ltd. Rabey, K. (2003) ‘Thinking aloud: looking at children drawing in response to picturebooks.’ In Arizpe, E. and Styles, M. Children Reading Pictures, London: Routledge, 117-143. UKLA/QCA (2004) More Than Words: Multimodal Texts in the Classroom, London: QCA UKLA/QCA (2005) More than Words 2: Creating Stories on Page and Screen, London: QCA
3.4 The evolving use of illustration This section covers three tasks that are based on drawing and illustrating. Although each of them has a particular link to one of the books used in the project, they can be adapted for use with different texts. Research has shown that children around the ages of 8 and 12 tend lose their confidence in their ability to draw (Davis, 1993). In part, this has to do with the tendency in primary schools to stress the primacy of language over image as a means of communication and therefore the attempt to ‘move’ children from drawing to writing (Gardner, 1980). As both Gardner (1980) and Dewey (1978) suggest, thinking in terms of images is a different cognitive operation from that of thinking in terms of words, with some values and meanings best expressed through visual, rather than textual qualities. Teachers can help children to develop their visual skills by providing them with opportunities to explore and understand aesthetic forms of communication. Such exposure may help those who lack confidence in their artistic abilities to derive pleasure and understanding from creating visual texts in response to reading (Rabey, 2003).
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3.4.1 Using graphic strips to represent text narrative While the tasks that follow have clear, text-specific aims, they can be used to encourage drawing at a level the pupils feel comfortable with. Pupils can be encouraged to share and display their drawings, while the creation of the captions involves thinking and writing about the relationship between image and words. The tasks draw on both graphic and mental imagery and can lead to enhanced understandings of metaphor and other literary elements. Additionally, these tasks can develop skills such as listening, organising a narrative sequence and creative expression. Altogether, they contribute to pupils’ deepening understanding of the interaction between written text and images – even when there are no images in the text.
3.4.2 Findings Using illustration captured the imaginations of many children who felt free to express themselves in this medium. Two main purposes developed: using illustration to communicate meanings about an existing text, and illustration as a means for children to tell their own stories. Illustrating an Existing Printed Text Some of the children working with Boy Overboard expressed a desire to illustrate entire chapters. We welcomed their suggestion and accordingly gave each pupil an A3 sheet divided into boxes with the idea that they could develop their visual responses across the six frames. While reading the text closely, we asked pupils to imagine characters, action and landscape based on the author’s description and imagery. For most pupils, this meant trying to imagine a different culture and context. It also involved their comprehension skills and sequencing. Pupils’ use of speech and thought bubbles indicated their understanding of (and empathy with) each character’s feelings. Rooted in storyboarding techniques, this task could be further extended through the exploration of comics and graphic novels.
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Figure 24: An example of an entire chapter in illustration
Children sharing their own stories through illustration This was linked to our work with Gervelie’s Journey. Although we had used graphic strips in a previous project (Arizpe et al, 2014b), we had not originally planned to use this strategy with this particular project. However, we decided to use it in one school in response to a pupil’s positive response to the narrative. One male pupil, a refugee, was excited to realise that he could draw and write about his own migrant journey, just like Gervelie had done, and we wanted to build on his enthusiasm. The EAL support teacher worked with a small group of refugee and asylum seeker children to help them tell their journeys through pictures and words. The children were comfortable and confident about sharing these journeys with their peers and also enjoyed displaying them to a wider audience, when parents and carers were invited in to see their work. This task involved thinking about events, putting them into sequence and adding short captions or speech and thought bubbles. It also meant remembering the past and thinking about the future. We also noted that in the Southside school many children ended the project by illustrating their own learning journeys.
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Figure 25: An example of a graphic strip produced by a child in the North East school
3.4.3 Evaluation of task The children reacted positively to using illustration and their teachers’ detailed comments provided us with feedback on how the strategies had benefits for all the children in the class, but in particular the New Arrival children. They did have to look for detail and information in the book as well, so they are doing that but they are doing it in a way that they are finding the information and then they are having to illustrate it, demonstrate their knowledge through the illustration. So it is all about detail in the illustration and detail in the book so they are doing the skills. They are reading, but not answering a question like ‘who was wearing the Newcastle strip Yusuf or who was the goalkeeper?’ They are demonstrating their knowledge by illustrating….(EAL teacher in the Southside School) In this extended extract, an EAL teacher described the ways in which the task allowed the classteacher to assess the child’s reading comprehension using the supportive medium of illustration rather than reading aloud. The pupil referred to had been in the class for six months: One of the girls had made an illustration and it was at the stadium where the soldiers come in and they bring the women out and their hands are tied. She was trying to draw the rope... The rope was tied round their hands and she had the woman lying down on the ground and she had her hands tied. So that’s lifted straight out the book. That’s them visualising it from the book and then putting it down so you could very much assess that.... I noticed that K had to look very closely at the chapter again which was great. She was looking in great detail at chapter ten yesterday in order to do the illustration so she was reading it again because she 58
knew that she had the task of illustrating it so she was looking. So that itself was an incentive for her... According to one classteacher, the illustration tasks were ‘the ones that I found the kids were most engaged with and that you could really see the comprehension of the text through them and I’m still using them now for [another book].’
3.4.4 Extending the task This task could be extended in several ways: • All the children could do a graphic strip about a journey and add both illustrations and photographs, combining the photo journals with this task. The Arrival by Shaun Tan (see list of suggested texts in section 1) is a graphic novel about immigrant journeys which has been successfully used for this task (Arizpe et al, 2014b). •
Other books by Shaun Tan can be used, with different groups reading a different text or with the whole class reading several different texts and then talking about his particular style.
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The children could imagine a manuscript has been sent to them for illustration. Some children could be the ‘authors’ or ‘editors’ who discuss the visual possiblities with the others. This can be done with fiction or with non-fiction texts, linking the task to science or social studies. Follow up discussions with the children could illuminate the ways in which each child interpreted the task and how they made decisions about what to draw.
3.4.5 Summary The literacy curriculum often neglects the potential of visual literacy as well as children’s skills and existing knowledge of drawing and art. Approaching texts through the mental imagery that words create can be a fruitful way of encouraging pupils to bring and/or develop their artistic skills in the classroom. It can also promote a deeper comprehension of the text by providing a space to think about sequencing, character, dramatic action, metaphor and other aspects of story. It allows for close looking and talking about descriptive detail. Finally, these tasks have the potential to be extended in a variety of ways which can make the most of the wealth of images, both graphic or literary, in children’s books.
3.4.6 Suggested reading This blog has a good bibliography: http://doctorcomics.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/teaching-literacy-through-comics.html A video and other information and events: http://www.comicbookliteracy.com/
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Further reading Burmark, L. (2002) Visual Literacy. Learn to see, see to learn. Alexandria, V.A.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. (If book is unavailable, Burmark has several online publications: http://mat-tech.net/COTF%20CD/WhyVisualLiteracy.pdf or http://www.tcpd.org/burmark/handouts/wygiwys.pdf) Dewey, J. (1978) Art as Experience. New York: Doubleday Frey, N. And Fisher, N. (Eds) 2008 Teaching visual literacy. Using comic books, graphic novels, anime, cartoons and more to develop comprehension and thinking skills. London: Corwin Press Gardner, H. (1980) Artful Scribbles. London: Jill Norman Ltd. Heath, S. B. (2002) ‘Seeing our Way into Learning,’ Cambridge Journal of Education, 30, pp 121-32 Heath, S. B. and Wolfe, S. A. (2004) Visual Learning in the Community School. London: Creative Partnerships Igoa, C. (1995) The Inner World of the Immigrant Child, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Rabey, K. (2003) ‘Thinking aloud: looking at children drawing in response to picturebooks,’ In Arizpe, E. and Styles, M. Children Reading Pictures, London: Routledge, pp 117-143 UKLA/QCA (2004) More Than Words: Multimodal Texts in the Classroom, London: QCA UKLA/QCA (2005) More than Words 2: Creating Stories on Page and Screen, London: QCA
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Section 4: The impact and reach of the project This section overviews the impact of the project on the school communities we worked with. First of all, we summarise its pedagogical implications for teachers and pupils working within a mainstream, inclusive setting. Secondly, we review its attempts to build bridges between home and school. Additionally, we consider the longer term implications of the project, in terms of its reach and dissemination, as well as its potential contribution towards sustainable and collaborative educational research. Finally, we suggest how educators can take this work forward within their own curriculum contexts (with support from the Journeys from Images to Words website, see 4.3.1 below for link) to harness the dual potential of children’s literature and visual strategies in a bid to create more inclusive classrooms that are fit for 21st century learners.
4.1 Pedagogical implications In section one, we established the project’s rationale and argued that both visual literacy and children’s literature are tools with potential for working within contexts of change. Here, we summarise how this thinking has been put into practice, highlighting what we feel are the main pedagogical implications for teachers and, consequently, for the children they work with.
4.1.1 Adopting visual strategies as part of a culturally relevant pedagogy Using visual strategies can encourage greater participation from children and increase the incidence of ‘pupil voice’, providing each child with a new way to respond personally to a range of texts. The New Arrival children we worked with were engaged by the themes they encountered within the literature and were excited by the possibility of recounting their own journeys. In turn, their acts of storytelling created a greater sense of an inclusive community within the classroom. Many of the children were able to expand their communicative language competencies, using newly learned vocabulary to express complex ideas about the plots, characters and visual aspects of the texts we read together. By the end of the project, the children had learned how to work with visual texts: they looked closely at images, reflected on their role and understood how meaning could be made from visual features such as colour, symbol, body language and gaze, as well as from features of the written text. Newly confident at deconstructing visual texts, some of the children began to use these skills to approach written texts more critically. Exploring figurative language graphically gave some children a different point of access to the printed text and allowed them to probe and clarify concepts and emotions from the vantage point of an alternative mode. Although moving from visual to printed texts can be challenging, we found that with careful modelling, the strategies could aid pupils’ engagement. Additionally, the children started to show an enhanced understanding of the roles of print and visual texts and the different ways to combine these to make meaning. They demonstrated this through their discussions of the differing merits of each mode. During one such discussion, one pupil from the Southside school explained her preference for reading texts with no illustrations: ‘…if there are pictures then you can really see it but if you just imagine how they look like and then you can really see and imagine yourself you don’t even want to know the illustrations.’ A second pupil built on this by arguing that: ‘They [picturebooks] give you more information 61
so you can look to see all the small bits but you can’t see in the (chapter) book because there’s no pictures.’ Succinctly, one child noted that: ‘with Gervelie’s Journey you get all the pictures, in Boy Overboard you can just imagine what’s happening yourself.’ This highlights the very title of our project, Visual Journeys: From Images to Words and the ways in which the children showed us that these journeys were circular and complex and led to an enhanced understanding of their own reading identities (Ryan and Anstey, 2003).
4.1.2 Building inclusive classrooms The outcomes of this project show how children’s literature can be embedded at the heart of mainstream classroom practices and used alongside an innovative set of visual strategies to promote more intercultural, inclusive spaces for language and literacy development (Arizpe et al, 2014b). Selecting texts that deal with intercultural issues such as migration can create authentic contexts for classroom-based discussions, while providing children with access to strategies with a visual emphasis can enable them to respond in ways that suit their differing levels of language and literacy competence (Arizpe et al, 2014a). Using visual strategies can create more equitable conditions in the classroom simply because the approaches are new to all pupils, and, unlike many traditional reading and writing activities, are not already weighed down by assumptions of what constitutes success and failure. Most of the children we worked with - including EAL learners, visual learners and struggling readers - seemed to feel comfortable and confident with the strategies. In their final evaluations, the teachers confirmed that pupils’ confidence had increased during the project. Noting how the approach encouraged children to make use of their prior knowledge and construct shared meanings, they also observed the positive impact this validation could have upon the New Arrival children. Many of the teachers expressed an intention to use the strategies with different texts, with an overarching aim of widening classroom participation and creating more inclusive learning communities.
4.1.3 Opening windows and doors: embedding children’s literature in and across the curriculum In section one, we discussed the potential of children’s literature to act as a mirror, window and door; a metaphor we illustrated with extracts from the children’s discussions of intercultural topics that had been suggested by the texts we read. Reading and talking about the books can allow sensitive and complex issues to be discussed at both conceptual and personal levels, leaving children free to decide if they want to listen, to share their own stories or comment on those of others. From the pupils’ empathic responses to the characters, their migration stories and those of their classmates, we can see see how the strategies and texts have had an impact on the pupils’ affective domain, increasing their awareness of how texts relate to life experiences including those of their classmates. During the project, the children developed an increased understanding of the issues surrounding forced migration and colonisation, and voiced compassionate feelings at the plight of the child characters. For example, as the following extract illustrates, a child from the Southside school describes what it means to be an asylum seeker: Child A: Miss, you know asylum, does that mean where people get tortured and stuff? Child B : It’s a safe place, people seeking a safe place. …Well say like this country was going to get flooded and you had, if you couldn’t swim or anything and you had to go to another country that didn’t have like a flood, you would have to go to that country basically. 62
Towards the end of the project, many of the children expressed a wish to take some form of social action (Short, 2011) on issues linked to diversity and migration. The following examples from the Southside school show the ways in which the children began to think about the form that action could take. Building on this interest in civic social action could present teachers with ways to extend the work across the curriculum into areas connected to citizenship and social justice. Child A: I want to make like a big, like see the things that you do on the advert, yes a campaign. Like make a campaign for them and see how many people would join in. Child B: It’s made me like want to just like raise money, like whatever money I get like say for instance like just give it to charity because like it’s so sad what happens to them. They don’t have a normal life because like they have to work every single day and they don’t have food.
4.1.4 Building bridges between school and home Our account of the Rivers of Reading tool (section two) and the photojournals (section three) mainly focuses on how the strategies within their classrooms. Yet as Banks (2008) notes, while many educators may instigate initiatives for social change in school, transformation must take place across all areas of the school social system if the needs of diverse learners are to be truly met, and this includes links with the community and home. By acknowledging the impact of home literacy and language practices, our strategies highlight the potential - and value - of embedding home language and culture within classroom contexts.
Figure 26: Children sharing texts from home during morning break
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On-going dialogue over the learning activities crossed bridges between home and school as when the classroom-based work came to a close, the children’s parents, carers and friends were keen to attend the final presentations. In each school context, the children worked alongside their classteachers to decide how the breadth and depth of their learning journeys should be shown. In the Southside School, the children opted for a formal presentation of their learning in chronological order, followed by small group conversations about specific tasks. In the North East school, the children the children created a more interactive show and tell type exhibition and invited the community to leave feedback.
Figure 27: Presentation of work to parents, carers and community members
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Figure 28: Parents viewing the exhibition of work in the North East school
Figure 29: Morris Gleitzman, author of Boy Overboard holding a workshop with the children involved in the project (September 2012)
4.2 Concluding implications and recommendations In summary, we suggest that visual strategies have the potential to encourage multimodal responses and create communities of readers that are inclusive, socially engaged and supportive of the language and literacy development of children from diverse backgrounds. In terms of learning support and pedagogy, we recommend that there should be:
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A wider use of picturebooks and other children’s literature in the classroom that contain meaningful and contemporary themes related to children’s lives;
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A more holistic vision of literacy development which includes language, emotions and the everyday home and popular culture literacy practices of all pupils;
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A wider space for critical readings of multimodal texts that includes increasing pupils’ awareness of the codes of visual communication; A greater sense of how culturally responsive pedagogies can be used across the curriculum; A classroom ethos that encourages enjoyment and engagement in learning tasks and enhances links to communities beyond the school.
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How children’s literature is used within diverse classrooms is ultimately influenced by the dominant political ideologies of the milieu (Meek, 2004). In an overview of recent UK policy that relates to literacy and the potential role of children’s literature, McAdam and Arizpe (2014) highlight the need for a transformation of pedagogy and on-going teacher development to account for the changing needs of diverse classrooms. In order to secure the pedagogical recommendations of this project, we have looked to national policies that highlight themes of inclusion, unity and citizenship. As the following points indicate, this report’s recommendations could be embedded within the curricular frameworks of Scotland, England and Wales as they currently stand: • Current policy in Scotland (Scottish Executive, 2004) supports culturally appropriate pedagogy and expresses a commitment to using children’s literature, particularly within literacy teaching (Education Scotland, 2008). While literacy is initially subdivided into reading, writing, talking and listening, it is later divided further into sections which appear to embody some of the key concepts of text competency (coding, semantic, pragmatic and critical) as described by Luke and Freebody in their Four Resources Model (1999). Teachers in Scotland are required to plan experiences that allow children to make choices and enjoy a selection of texts types. • Promoting Diversity and Equality: Developing Responsible Citizens for 21st Century
Scotland (Education Scotland, online), which was developed in light of the 2010 Equality Act, challenges schools to develop children as responsible citizens who show respect for each other: ‘Children need to know that discrimination is unacceptable and know how to challenge it (1)’. Policy could be shaped to include examples of quality children’s literature that could be used to promote diverse classrooms. • According to the opening lines of the English National Curriculum Program of Study,
literature plays a key role in children’s cultural, emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual development (DoE, 2013), while overall language development is seen as key to becoming an effective citizen.
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4.3 Sustaining practice and building networks As stated earlier, we wished to collaborate with schools to ensure that the project’s outcomes could contribute to the professional development of the teaching staff involved and create models of sustainable practice. Drawing upon Weber and Raphael’s principles for effective professional development (2013:475), we created a design that enabled teachers to participate in a practice-based inquiry over an extended period of time. As described previously, schools were keen to develop a shared vision: they took ownership of the project and organised school displays of the children’s work that involved and embraced the influence of wider community. In a reciprocal move, the research team organised an exhibition of the children’s work for academics, teacher educators and stakeholders at the University of Glasgow. All of the children involved in the project were invited to an event with author Morris Gleitzman to discuss the themes he explores in Boy Overboard; we also promoted school links with Scottish Refugee Council. The collaborative aspect of this work was awarded the BCF/BERA/Routledge prize for joint development work between schools and universities in September 2013 and has paved the way for on-going collaborative work with Glasgow City Council’s International Education Office, the EAL Service and Glasgow Life (Libraries and Museums) Outcomes from this joint work have been disseminated in three main ways across a range of media, all with the intention of building and promoting sustainable communities of practice that apply the outcomes of the project within meaningful contexts.
4.3.1 Website Our website: http://www.journeys-fromimagestowords.com/ plays host to the project’s main findings and provides practical examples of the work that emerged. It carries information on the strategies we used and mirrors the sections found in this report. The website has provided vital support for our other forms of dissemination by providing us with a repository for more in-depth information on the project’s aims and outcomes. The main areas of the website are: an overview of the research; a description of the teaching tools used; a formal account of the research outcomes; details of the books used, and information on the research staff involved. The website averages at around 120 visits per month, with the majority of the visits coming from the UK and Australia. The Australian interest is noteworthy given the fact that the country’s national curriculum now contains a explicit focus on how the visual elements of a text contribute to the creation of meaning (ACARA, online).
4.3.2 National dissemination seminar The website was launched during a national dissemination seminar in June 2012, when we also reported on the project’s main findings. Joined by some of our major stakeholders, together we discussed ways extending the project and invited those present to disseminate the project’s outcomes even more widely within their own educational contexts, with or without the involvement of the project team. The wide-ranging nature of the project is illustrated by the stakeholders involved, which included: • Primary school teachers • EAL support teachers* • The Area Education manager and others on the Education Leadership Team in Glasgow City Council • Glasgow Life (Library and Museum Service) • Glasgow City Council International Education Office 67
• • • • • • • •
The HMIe Inspectorate Glasgow Asylum Seeker Support Programme (Glasgow City Council)* Learning & Teaching Scotland (LTS, now Education Scotland) Literacy Team* General Teaching Council (GTC, Scotland) Glasgow Refugee, Asylum Seeker and Migrant Network (GRAMNet)* UK Literacy Association (UKLA)* Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE, London)* The Scottish Book Trust
(Additional workshops/seminars have been organised for organisations marked with a *. ) The following comments reveal the nature of professional interest in this developing field: ‘Thank you for a very interesting day at the seminar. In addition to hearing about the research project itself, it has prompted many offshoots in my mind. I would be very interested in seeing the teaching pack that was mentioned in the seminar. Although I would not be looking on it in the same way as a classroom teacher, we try to ensure that we are aware of teaching practices so that our services are supportive of them. The type of strategies that were employed during the project is the good practice that we want to reinforce.’ (Laura Hogg, School Library Outreach, Glasgow Life) Following last week’s excellent seminar I have briefed my colleagues here about the project. [We would be] willing to act as critical friends by reading and commenting on drafts of the learning and teaching materials. At our Education team meeting yesterday we also agreed that the teachers involved in the project should consider applying to GTC Scotland for Professional Recognition. (Ian Matheson, GTC Scotland) Thank you very much for this link – the website is fantastic! We are currently developing a twilight CPD for teachers to introduce some ideas for using picturebooks with older children. Would you be happy for us to reference the project and the site and include it in the list of available resources we handout? It is such a useful approach and I know that the teachers we talk to would be so excited to hear about it. (Philippa Cochrane, Head of Learning, Scottish Book Trust) In addition, the findings we presented at the seminar were covered in articles published by the TESS and The Herald newspapers.
4.3.3 Knowledge transfer The third form of dissemination is the continuation of knowledge transfer, which has taken place through on-going research and development by the project team members in two main areas, pedagogical and research training. As indicated in section 4.2, the main thrust of the knowledge transfer has been under the auspices of projects that highlight themes connected to diversity and inclusion. These projects provide further examples of the positive effects of using children’s literature alongside visual literacy strategies. Examples include: • An exhibition of the project and a public workshop during Refugee Week (May 2011) at the Hillhead Library, Glasgow 68
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Inclusion in a portfolio of key successful literacy projects in Europe (compiled by UKLA) • Website reviewed (and key points translated) in GRETEL portal of the University of Barcelona http://www.literatura.gretel.cat/es/recomanacions-estudis/2013recomendacion-estudio-febrero The research work that has emerged from the Journeys from Images to Words project has been incorporated into the two Comenius funded projects, which have themes linked to diversity and EAL. The Comenius Regio Project: Education for All (Glasgow and Marseille) has embedded the outcomes of the project in professional development pathways that are designed to meet the needs of teachers who are working across a continuum of development (from initial teacher education to leadership). This Comenius project will be further sustained by Scottish Government, which has provided funding for 20 student places on Texts for Diversity, a Masters-level module run at the University of Glasgow, which examines many of the key findings discussed in this report and provides further support in the area of on-going teacher education. Similar work has been developed for the Comenius Portfolio of Integration project (Italy, Greece, Turkey, Poland and Scotland). A series of inputs designed around key themes resulting from the empirical work have been embedded training sessions for a cluster of secondary schools, which were delivered in South Lanarkshire from January – May 2013. These sessions have since been adapted and added to the European Erasmus training database as intercultural training courses suitable for European educators. The outcomes of these transformative knowledge exchange projects have also been disseminated through collaborative papers with educators at the HMIe Education for Diversity Conference (May 2013); the European Learning and Teaching network Conference (September 2013) and SERA (November 2013). The creative strategies we described in sections two and three have been embedded into the following reports: • Baranowska, W., Kosiorek, M., Luatti, L., Ntelli, N., McAdam, J., McKinney, S., and
Sahin, M. (2012) Portfolio of Integration Scotland: Need Analysis. Project Report. European Commission. • McKinney, S.J., McAdam, J., Arizpe, E., Crichton, H., and Britton, A. (2012) Portfolio
of Integration (Scotland). Project Report. Oxfam Italia. (Unpublished) Aspects of the project’s findings have also been embedded into the Sustainable Glasgow: Narratives of Change, a Knowledge Exchange project that has been funded by the University of Glasgow and Glasgow City Council, which supports teachers in using children’s literature as a means of promoting social action. The second area of knowledge transfer has been in the area of research and training development within Social Sciences. Members of the team have been invited to deliver academic presentations that touch on the issues of researching alongside vulnerable and marginalized communities.. These presentations have varied in breadth and scope but all touch on the idea that pedagogical strategies can be regarded as culturally relevant data collection tools for use in sensitive research contexts. The presentations have included: 69
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The Keynote Presentation: ‘Entre imágenes y palabras: la investigación que promueve comunidades lectoras inclusivas y creativas’ International Symposium, La literatura que acoge: infancia, inmigración y lectura, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona 2011.
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‘Using Culturally Responsive Data Collection Tools to Investigate Home/School Literacy Practices’, Paper presented at ECER, 13- 16th September 2011 at Freie Universität, Berlin
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‘Journeys from Images to Words: Evaluating a collaborative visual approach to literacy research and pedagogy’, UKLA 48th International Conference, Leicester 2012
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‘Translating the Migrant Experience into Words and Pictures: How it can work in an inclusive classroom’ and ‘Resilient Refugees and Empowered Readers’, 33rd International Board on Books and Young People (IBBY) International Congress, London 2012
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‘Minority Voices Create Words for Wordless Picturebooks’. Paper presented at the 32nd International Board of Books for Young People (IBBY) Congress, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 11 September 2010. http://wowlit.org/wp-content/media/Documents/Arizpe%20comunicaci%F3n.pdf
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‘Journeys of Hope: Freirian Culture Circles of Enquiry’, Paper presented at Scottish Educational Research Association Conference, November 2013, University of Glasgow, Scotland.
Interest from the research community meant that the work has also been incorporated into research training seminars and conferences, which has built significant research capacity and networks amongst researchers working in similar areas. •
Intercultural Perspectives: ‘Refugee, Asylum and Migration - A Seminar Exploring Matters of Language and Intercultural Communication’ GRAMnet Seminar, University of Glasgow, 2012.
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‘Intercultural and multilingual skills in postgraduate education, research and beyond: Creative approaches for exchange’ HEA- AHRC symposium, University of Glasgow, June 2014.
The project has also contributed to the following academic publications, some of which have been referred to during this report:
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Arizpe, E., Bagelman, C., Devlin, A.M., Farrell, M., and McAdam, J. (2014) ‘Visualizing intercultural literacy: Engaging critically with diversity and migration in the classroom through an image-based approach,’ Language and Intercultural Communication . ISSN 14708477(doi:10.1080/14708477.2014.903056) Arizpe, E., Colomer, T. and Martínez-Roldán, C. with Bagelman, C., Bellorin, B., Farrell, M., Manresa, M., Margallo, A., McAdam, J. and Real, N. ( 2014b) Visual Journeys through Wordless Narratives: An international inquiry with immigrant children and The Arrival. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Arizpe, E. Imágenes que invitan a pensar: el 'libro álbum sin palabras' y la respuesta lectora,’ Reflexiones Marginales, 3 (18). Arizpe, E. (2013) ‘Meaning-making from Wordless (or Nearly Wordless) Picturebooks: What Educational Research Expects and What Readers Have to Say’, Cambridge Journal of Education 43 (2). Arizpe, E. (2012) ‘Entre imágenes y palabras: la investigación que promueve comunidades lectoras inclusivas y creativas’, in T. Colomer & M. Fittipaldi (eds) La literatura que acoge: inmigración y lectura de álbumes. Barcelona: Banco del Libro – GRETEL y Fundación SM. pp 44-68 Arizpe, E. and McAdam, J. (2011) ‘Crossing Visual Borders and Connecting Cultures: Children’s responses to the photographic theme in David Wiesner’s Flotsam’, New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship, 17 (2). Arizpe, E., Farrell, M., and McAdam, J. (2013) 'Opening the Classroom Door to Children’s Literature: A Review of Research' in Hall, K., Cremin, T., Comber, B. and Moll, L. (Eds) International Handbook of Research in Children's Literacy, Learning and Culture, Wiley Blackwell (in press). Farrell, M., Arizpe, E. and McAdam, J. (2010) ‘Journeys across visual borders with The Arrival by Shaun Tan: Annotated spreads as a method for understanding pupil’s creation of meaning through visual images’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 33 (3). McAdam, J., and Arizpe, E. (2014) ‘Childhood and diversity,’ in: Carroll, M., and McCulloch, M. (eds.) Understanding Teaching and Learning in Primary Education. SAGE, London. ISBN 9781446254820 McAdam, J. and Arizpe, E. (2011). ‘Journeys Into Culturally Responsive Teaching’, Journal of Teacher Education and Teachers' Work, 2 (1), pp. 18-27. McAdam, J. and Sinkie, H. (2013) ‘Picturebooks: Opening pathways for new arrival children’. English 4-11, Spring, 16-20.
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4.4 Recommendations for future enquiry While the work of the project has already been extended in new directions, we are also keenly aware that other areas that could benefit from further academic enquiry. These are further research into the: • •
literacy backgrounds and needs of both New Arrival and indigenous children with a focus on how they can be integrated into the curriculum; cognitive and affective processes that are involved in reading words and images in order to further develop pupils’ deeper understandings of verbal and visual texts;
•
potential of intercultural resources, especially children’s literature;
•
professional needs of teachers, with a particular focus on the development of visual and culturally responsive pedagogic approaches. ethical use of visual literacy tools in culturally diverse research settings.
•
The project team at the University of Glasgow continue to extend the on-going process of knowledge exchange and have further expanded their reach through the creation of a Masters in Children’s Literacies and Children’s Literature. In addition, the team is now supervising a growing number of PhD students, who are working on projects related to many of the areas identified above.
4.5 Concluding remarks While the funding has enabled the project team to take forward their aims, it has also helped us to develop professionally as collaborative educators and researchers working within the diversity and inclusion agenda. The team continues to contribute to on-going dialogue and research on the potential of visual literacy on national and international levels, influencing research and curriculum agendas. We would like to leave the final remarks to one of the pupils, who sums up his hopes and ours for a better future. I enjoyed this whole project [... ] It’s something that’s you’re learning and having fun at the same time [...] I’ve learned a lot because when you’re looking at the stories, we didn’t really know much about asylum seekers, you know, other people that are in need [and] the world shouldn’t be like this. It should be better and everybody should be at peace so they should. (Pupil from North East School)
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