Abstract
One of the purposes of the classroom-based research featured in this article was to explore how the ongoing development of young children’s understanding of elements of visual art and design would affect their comprehension, interpretation and analysis of the artwork in a selection of picturebooks. Social semiotics, multimodality, sociocultural theory and transactional theory framed the study, as well as the analysis and discussion of the data featured in this article. Further, the reading of and writing about the picturebooks were situated in the four roles/practices required for reading multimodal and visual texts. During a nine-week period, 22 seven- and eight-year-old students participated in several activities that focused on learning about specific elements of visual art and design. The students read, talked about and responded in writing to a selection of picturebooks. This article features an analysis of the students’ responses to two picturebooks and discusses what the students’ text-based writing reveals about their understanding and appreciation of the artwork in these multimodal texts. The article concludes with a discussion of the importance of teaching elements of visual art and design in order to develop students’ visual literacy skills and repertoires of capability with respect to reading multimodal texts.
Keywords
A picturebook is an art form, a multifaceted aesthetic object. The overall effect of a picturebook depends on its design, the text (unless wordless), the illustrations and the reciprocity between these two sign systems. Indeed, when reading picturebooks readers’ interpretation of the visual text is adjusted in terms of the verbal text, and their “interpretation of the words in terms of the pictures” (Sipe, 1998: 103). Scholars have utilized metaphors, theoretical structures, taxonomies or typologies and phenomenological approaches to categorize or describe the possible relationships between images and verbal text in picturebooks (Pantaleo, 2008; Sipe, 2012). In educational contexts, researchers have explored students’ responses to, and understandings and interpretations of, picturebooks, focusing on both the artwork and the synergistic relationship between word and image (e.g. Arizpe and Styles, 2003, 2008; Kiefer, 1995; Maderazo et al., 2010; Martens et al., 2012/2013; Pantaleo, 2008, 2012, 2014; Sipe, 2008a, 2008b; Youngs, 2012).
Featured in this article are data gathered during a classroom-based study that explored developing primary students’ understanding, analysis and interpretation of elements of visual art and design and narrative structures in picturebooks. Specifically, students’ responses to two picturebooks are shared and discussed with reference to what the text-based writing reveals about students' understanding and appreciation of the artwork. Brief overviews of the theoretical frameworks that guided the research and relevant literature are followed by descriptions of the research context, the instructional unit, the data analysis procedures and the findings. The article concludes with a discussion regarding the importance of teaching elements of visual art and design in order to develop students’ visual literacy skills and repertoires of capability with respect to reading multimodal texts.
Semiotics, social semiotics and multimodality
Semiotics is the study of signs (e.g. images, words, gestures, objects, sounds) and how signs work. Semiotic systems are not “synonymous” (Chandler, 2002) because meaning is created, communicated and interpreted in various ways, from one sign system to another. Suhor (1984) advocated the use of medium-specific analysis – “syntactic analysis that makes use of appropriate analytical tools,” concepts and metalanguage for particular sign systems (249) – when considering both the structure and systems of signs.
Although a multimodal perspective is also informed by semiotics, different concepts, terms and theoretical influences differentiate multimodal approaches from “traditional forms of semiotic analysis” (Machin, 2009: 182). Further, according to Jewitt (2007), a multimodal perspective offers a broader way of conceptualizing texts, sign-makers and contexts. Multimodality assumes that sign-makers have available to them a variety of modes, such as writing, images, speech, gestures and music. Modes are historical, social and cultural resources for meaning-making and each mode has its own set of semiotic resources, organizing principles and affordances (i.e. particular “potentials and constraints for making meaning” (Bezemer and Kress, 2008: 171)). For example, semiotic resources of image include size, shape, space, line and spatial relation. The application of social semiotics theory in the field of multimodality emphasizes the social and cultural nature of the semiotic resources and affordances of various modes, as well as the sociocultural context of a sign-maker’s selection and use of modes and semiotic resources (Jewitt, 2007, 2009).
Transmediation and transduction
Scholars have written about remaking meaning across signs (semiotics) and modes (multimdodality). Suhor (1984) described transmediation as the “translation of content from one sign system into another” (250), a process with the potential for producing new meanings due to “the absence of a ready-made link between the content and expression planes of two different sign systems” (Siegel, 2006: 70).
With respect to multimodality, Kress (1997) coined the term transduction to name “the process of moving meaning-material from one mode to another” (Kress, 2010: 125). For example, “an illustrator or designer might have been asked to ‘draw across,’ to transduct, the written description into the mode of image” (Bezemer and Kress, 2008: 176). Conversely, spoken or written language can be used to communicate the effect that is realized by elements of visual art and design in images, such as colour, point of view or perspective. Kress (2010) writes about the “need to ask seriously how a meaning realized in one mode can be newly articulated as meanings in the new mode(s)” (124). Remaking meaning across modes has significant implications for sign-makers because of the possibilities for meaning provided by the semiotic resources and affordances of each mode. The situated nature of transduction must also be considered when exploring transmodal semiotic work (Kress, 2010).
Picturebooks are multimodal in nature and the semiotic resources and affordances of written language and images can be considered and interpreted both individually and synergistically in these texts. The pedagogy of the study purposefully included instruction about elements of visual art and design to provide students with the requisite knowledge and vocabulary to comprehend, interpret and analyse the mode of image. The students also engaged in transduction, remaking meaning across modes, as they used oral and written language to describe/explain meaning that was expressed or represented through images.
Four resources/practices
What knowledge and strategies are necessary for individuals to understand, interpret and analyse the visual and multimodal texts that pervade contemporary society? In an effort to explain the repertoire of practices needed by readers when interacting with such texts, Serafini (2012a, 2012b) expanded the four resources model of reading developed by Freebody and Luke (1990), which included the roles of code breaker, text participant, text user and text analyst. Subsequently, Luke and Freebody (1999) changed the terminology of roles to “family of practices” (6) and stated explicitly that the practices refer to both reading and writing.
Although Serafini’s reconceptualization, like the original four resources model generated by Luke and Freebody, focused on only reading, Serafini theorized a reader as a “reader-viewer”. According to Serafini (2012a), the “resources-practices” needed by reader–viewers of visual and multimodal texts are navigator, interpreter, designer and interrogator. In addition to knowing the codes of written language, readers as navigators must negotiate and understand “the codes and conventions associated with design elements and visual images in multimodal texts” (Serafini, 2012b: 28). The reader as interpreter connotes reader agency, and encompasses learners developing interpretive repertoires of capability, constructing understanding from many points of view and “generating viable interpretations” (Serafini, 2012a: 156). Serafini (2012b) describes design as “the process of [readers] organizing what is to be navigated and interpreted, shaping available resources into potential meanings realized in the context of reading multimodal texts” (28). Similar to the original role of text analyst, to be a reader as interrogator involves analysis that focuses on sociocultural and critical aspects. According to Serafini (2012a), understanding the elements of image and design in multimodal texts “requires readers to consider aspects of production and reception, in addition to the aspects of the image and text itself” (160). Like the original model, Serafini acknowledged the interdependency of the expanded practices and the necessity of all practices for readers’ successful transactions with multimodal texts.
As is evident from the description of the study’s instructional unit and the students’ responses below, the students were positioned as navigators, interpreters, designers and interrogators of picturebooks. These multiple practices are considered further in the discussion of the findings.
Sociocultural perspective and transactional theory
Two other theoretical foundations of the research, a sociocultural perspective of literacy and Rosenblatt’s (1978) transactional theory of literature, are consistent with the tenets of social semiotics and Serafini’s four resources practices. Looking through a sociocultural theoretical lens, which draws heavily on Vygotsky’s work (1978), presupposes the situated nature of teaching and learning. Vygotsky theorized the social construction of cognition, explaining how “we learn not only words, but ways of thinking, through our engagement with people around us” (Smagorinsky, 2013: 197). Indeed, as individuals construct understanding in specific social contexts, I understand and respect how student learning during the study was framed and mediated by teacher ideology, classroom discourse, the collection of texts and “the pedagogic processes and practices within which” the texts were embedded (Jewitt, 2007: 276).
The sociocultural context is a fundamental constituent of Rosenblatt’s (1978) theorization of literary transactions. Her transactional theory of reading concomitantly recognizes the synergistic and dynamic roles of reader, text and context. Rosenblatt (1994) stressed both the particularity of the evocation and the diversity of the response, because each reader brings a unique personal, cultural and social history of literary and life experiences to each unique reading event. Rosenblatt also explained how any text can be read from either a predominantly aesthetic or efferent stance, with most reading events falling somewhere along the aesthetic/efferent continuum. When reading from an aesthetic stance, a reader “adopts an attitude of readiness to attend to what is being lived through during the reading event” (Rosenblatt, 1988: 74). Rosenblatt (1978) emphasized that an aesthetic stance requires the reader to pay attention to textual conventions and codes, and with picturebooks, “the cues that will guide” (15) a reader’s attention during the reading transaction include the sign-maker’s selection and use of the various semiotic resources and affordances of the mode of image. During the research, Grades 2/3 students were both expected and encouraged to adopt a predominantly aesthetic stance when viewing and reading, and writing and talking about, the picturebooks.
Related literature
Several researchers have explored students’ responses to and interpretations of picturebooks (e.g. Arizpe and Styles, 2003; Maderazo et al., 2010; Martens et al., 2012/2013; Pantaleo, 2008, 2012, 2014; Sipe, 2008a, 2008b; Youngs, 2012: Walsh, 2003). The findings of these numerous studies have revealed how students, regardless of their cultural or linguistic background, academic ability or age, have articulated insightful interpretations of the artwork in picturebooks.
In a multifaceted study that focused on children aged 4–11 reading and responding to three sophisticated picturebooks, Arizpe and Styles (2003) reported how capably the participants “read colours, borders, body language, framing devices, covers, endpapers, visual metaphors and visual jokes” (224). Multiple studies conducted by Sipe specifically examined young children’s multimodal responses to picturebooks. According to Sipe’s (2008a) data analysis, “an important part of the [children’s] literary understanding of picturebooks was an appreciative comprehension of the form and content of the illustrations, and in learning the language of visual analysis, which enabled and expressed this understanding” (126). Similar to Sipe’s findings, other researchers have written about the pedagogical value of teachers teaching and students’ learning a metalanguage to facilitate talking about elements of visual art and design in their own and others’ visual and multimodal texts (Callow, 2006; Maderazo et al., 2010; Pantaleo, 2012, 2013, 2014).
Research conducted by Maderazo et al. (2010) examined how children’s growing understanding of elements of art and principles of design would influence their reading of both the pictorial and written text in picturebooks. Data analysis revealed that as the Grades 1 and 3 students learned to read “like artists”, their discussions and multimodal work showed development in thinking and enriched comprehension of the picturebooks (Maderazo et al., 2010: 445). Analysis of the data revealed how the students’ discourse included the language they had been taught about various elements of art and the principles of design. In another study involving several of the same researchers, Martens et al. (2012/2013) explored how developing Grade 1 children’s knowledge and appreciation of art affected their reading of literature and composition of multimodal texts. According to the researchers, as the children “grew to understand art as a mode that carries deeper meaning, they read cues in the illustrations that enriched their understandings of stories” (Martens et al., 2012/2013: 291). Finally, findings from studies that involved students reading and responding orally and in writing to picturebooks with postmodern characteristics have revealed students’ engagement with, understanding of and sophisticated responses to the artwork in these multimodal texts (Pantaleo, 2008, 2010).
Contextualizing the research
The research site was a dual track (English and French) Kindergarten-Grade 5 public school, located in a low-middle class area of a city in western British Columbia, Canada. The school’s approximately 315 students are both culturally and ethnically diverse, and children who attend the school speak approximately six different languages, other than English. The classroom teacher, Mr D, had expressed interest in working with me on a research project that involved picturebooks when he was enrolled on one of my graduate courses in 2011.
When the research began in Mr D’s classroom in January 2014, the nine Grade 2 students were seven years of age and the 13 Grade 3 students were eight years of age. The families/guardians of the 21 students gave consent for the children to participate in the research. With respect to ethnicity, the students are European Canadian (13), Italian, Aboriginal, Filipino, Chinese and Libyan, and three students are biracial. Two students were English as Second Dialect learners and four students were English Language Learners. Two students had an Individual Educational Plan; one child had an assistant in the morning only, and the other child had a full-time assistant. Six students in Grade 2 and four students in Grade 3 received daily Learning Assistance for Reading. Programme and curriculum adaptations (e.g. reduced output expectations, teacher scribing, additional instructions) were necessary for several students.
First-term student achievement in reading and writing.
Mr D was asked to characterize the students in his class. He described them as an academically “low” group of learners across all subject areas, and in particular, he noted how the students’ listening skills lagged appreciably behind age-appropriate norms. Even though the students received explicit demonstrations and explanations of activities, they often displayed a lack of confidence to proceed independently, especially with respect to open-ended assignments. He explained how many students experienced difficulties in maintaining focus, and consequently tasks regularly took considerably longer than expected to complete. Socially, the children were welcoming, pleasant and kind, and overall, they worked successfully in pairs and small groups. My experiences in the classroom with the children were consistent with Mr D’s description of his students.
Research purposes and investigative procedures
Beginning in January 2014, I worked with Mr D and the students for approximately 85–90 min/day for nine weeks delivering the study’s unit of instruction. Although the research had several overarching objectives, the purpose most relevant to this article was to explore student development in visual meaning-making skills and competencies by focusing on a selection of elements of visual art and design in picturebooks. Specifically, instruction during the research focused on the following: (a) physical aspects of picturebooks; (b) colour; (c) point of view; (d) typography; (e) framing; (f) line; (h) perspective; and (i) narrative structures.
The picturebooks
We began reading and talking about picturebooks on the first day of the study. Tuesday (Wiesner, 1991) was selected as the first picturebook to explore with the students because its wordless nature requires readers to devote their attention solely to the images of Wiesner’s storytelling. Through the use of both a hardcopy and a paperback copy of Tuesday, the students were introduced to several peritextual terms, including dust jacket, jacket flaps, cover, stamping, endpages, frontispiece and title page. Sitting in the carpeted area of the classroom and organized in dyads, the students worked with a paperback copy of Tuesday and engaged in teacher-directed, partner and whole-class conversations about the first eight openings of the picturebook. As each individual opening was talked about, the children were directed to focus on the details of the artwork. Other terms such as double-page spread, full bleed, opening, recto and verso were also introduced during this initial work with Tuesday. The following day vocabulary associated with various peritextual elements and physical features was reviewed before returning to and completing our viewing and discussion of Tuesday.
The sequence of the other focus picturebooks read, discussed and written about during the study was as follows: The Three Pigs (Wiesner, 2001), Flotsam (Wiesner, 2006), Voices in the Park (Browne, 1998), Chester (Watt, 2007), Interrupting Chicken (Stein, 2010) and NO BEARS (McKinlay and Rudge, 2012). I already owned multiple copies of five of the picturebooks listed above. Copies of Interrupting Chicken and NO BEARS were purchased because these two picturebooks extended the variety of narrative structures evident in the focus literature.
Peritextual elements of picturebooks were revisited and reviewed during the discussion of each text. Consideration of the students’ reading abilities and listening skills affected our decisions regarding the pedagogical practices implemented with the picturebooks. Although the specific procedures for reading and discussing the picturebooks varied, the children always had opportunities to consider the books independently, in dyads or small groups, and collectively as a whole class. For example, following the partner talk and whole-class sharing of the peritextual features and first four openings of Flotsam, which transpired while the children were seated on the carpet, the students returned to their desks and finished reading the picturebook independently. Then, working in triads, the students selected three different art elements in Flotsam to share with the whole class. The students were to identify an example of colour, point of view, perspective or framing (the elements they had learned about up to this point in the study) and hypothesize reasons for the intentionality of Wiesner’s artwork or describe how the use of the art element was effective. During the partner, small-group and whole-class talks, teacher statements or questions or prompts that directed or guided the children’s conversations concentrated on those visual elements of art and design the students were learning about, while simultaneously encouraging students' adoption of an aesthetic stance to the literature.
Written responses
It is important to contextualize the challenges experienced by the students, Mr D and myself when we introduced response writing. Mr D explained how, during the term preceding the research, the children had typically completed only one or two open-ended writing assignments per week in impromptu writing sessions. Overwhelmingly, student-writing activities had been highly structured and involved the use of black-line master worksheets. Mr D also communicated that, compared to past years, this group of students had received less explicit writing instruction.
The children were introduced to the expectations regarding response writing after reading and discussing Tuesday. Although we explicitly guided the children through an examination of student-friendly written response examples, grasping the structural and content expectations (i.e. a main idea with supporting evidence or reasons) proved difficult for the students. The day following our first attempts with response writing, we returned to the written response examples, and talked further about the organization and content of these written texts. Mr D created a visual organizer/web on the board to scaffold the students’ writing. The organizer depicted a “big idea” in the centre with spokes for evidence to support or back up the central idea. As a class, we brainstormed a few big/main ideas and identified supportive examples or evidence from Tuesday. Overall, most students found response writing challenging and required continued scaffolding and assistance throughout the research.
Procedurally, the children wrote a personal response in their notebooks following the reading and discussing of each picturebook. Once the students had been introduced to a few of the focal visual elements of art and design, we required them to select a particular visual element (e.g. colour or point of view) and focus their responses on that one element. The students were to provide three examples from the picturebook to support or illustrate the element of visual art of design they chose to write about. However, for NO BEARS, the final picturebook featured in the study, the students were instructed to select four different elements and write about one example for each.
Elements of visual art and design
To introduce the focus elements of visual art and design, the children were asked to consider the ‘ingredients’ artists can use when creating their illustrations (a comparison was made to baking). Our instruction began with colour and selected illustrations from Tuesday facilitated a conversation about the different tones of green in Wiesner’s artwork. Six squares (red, blue, yellow, green, orange and purple) were distributed to the children and the terms primary, secondary, complementary, warm and cool were introduced as the children worked with the six coloured squares on their desks. The students communicated their unfamiliarity with the metalanguage Mr D and myself introduced for describing colours and this terminology was constantly reviewed throughout the study. Other lessons on colour involved the students mixing primary colours to create secondary colours, completing a colour wheel, learning about colour tone by looking at paint chips and various illustrations in picturebooks, and discussing the use of colour in Wassily Kandinsky’s 1913 painting, “Farbstudie Quadrate Mit Konzentrischen Ringen” (Colour Study: Squares and Concentric Circles). Inspired by Kandinsky’s artwork, each student used watercolour pastels and created her/his own two-three block mini-Kandinsky, exploring primary, secondary, complementary, warm and cool colours, and/or colour tone.
After reading aloud Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (Willems, 2003), I engaged the students in a conversation about the different points of view that can be utilized for narration. Subsequently, the children were introduced to the notion that photographers, painter, film directors or illustrators also use various points of view to position readers or viewers in particular ways. Images from various texts were shared with the students to identify and discuss the meaning potential of different visual points of view (e.g. front, back, worm’s eye, bird’s eye, close-up).
Examples from picturebooks, magazines and other texts were used to introduce several terms associated with typography, including typeface, width, height, weight and posture. As each term was presented through visual examples, the students created print on their whiteboards that reflected the specific typeface characteristic under consideration. Through the use of other examples, we talked about how meaning can be conveyed by both the colour and arrangement of letters on a page; again the children used their whiteboards to experiment with arranging letters of words in meaningful ways. Subsequently, the students searched through an advertisement flyer for examples of the typographic features/characteristics discussed during the lesson.
Downloaded and scanned images, as well as particular pages from picturebooks, were used to introduce the students to specific techniques used to create perspective (i.e. depth and distance). A brief conversation about 3D movies facilitated the children’s understanding of the concept of depth. Again, the students used the whiteboards and experimented with various techniques to create perspective in images (e.g. overlapping, decreasing in size, changing the quality or strength of the colour (or black because they had only black markers), making the edges and detail less clear, using shadows, creating linear perspective (although I did not use the latter term with the children)). The students also revisited a double-page spread in Tuesday and identified some techniques used by Wiesner to create depth and distance.
The viewing of scanned and downloaded images, and openings from various picturebooks, expanded students’ schemata for framing beyond a ‘picture frame’. In addition to considering how various types of lines and objects can be used for framing, the students were introduced to other visual framing methods including borders, shapes, colours and superimposition. Finally, instruction about line included introduction of the terms horizontal, vertical and diagonal. The students used their whiteboards and drew various types of lines (e.g. curvy, straight, zig-zag). The children also drew a variety of faces and experienced the potential for conveying various emotions (e.g. surprise, happiness, sadness) by changing the types of lines used for eyebrows and mouths. Examples of illustrations from picturebooks facilitated a conversation about how artists deliberately use the illusion of line to lead the viewer’s eye in various ways.
Due to the contextual factors described above concerning the students’ academic achievement levels, work habits and writing experiences, as well as the multifaceted nature of the pedagogy surrounding the reading, talking and writing about the picturebooks, approximately 3–4 class periods were devoted to each selection of literature.
Narrative structure and student books
Limited details are provided about the instruction regarding the narrative structure of the picturebooks and the creation of the students’ books, as the focus of this article is the students’ written responses to the artwork in two picturebooks.
When the term structure was introduced to the students, we talked about various buildings as well as examples of materials the children had used to build structures. We also discussed how authors build structures – how they use materials and arrange the latter in particular ways to construct a story. A class conversation about Minecraft™, a video game well known to the children, served to emphasize further the concepts of storyworld construction and structure.
Because of the synergistic nature of text and image in picturebooks, instruction and discussions regarding the narrative structure of the books occurred as each picturebook was studied during the research. In general, I created visuals on a whiteboard that depicted the structure of the picturebooks. Together, we reviewed the sequence of a picturebook’s events and the children, who were seated on the carpet with their own whiteboards, created the same structure I was drawing. For nearly all of the picturebooks, I created more than one visual representation of the narrative structure to emphasize how the structure could be represented in multiple ways. The culminating activity of the research involved the students writing and illustrating a story. The assignment criteria required the children to design story structures that included the transgression of the boundaries of their storyworld (a structure evident in 4 of the 7 picturebooks used in the study) and to create artwork for their story that would demonstrate their understanding of colour, point of view, perspective, typography, framing and line. Analyses of these data are reported elsewhere (Pantaleo, submitted for publication).
Data collected during the research included photocopies of the students’ writing, a coloured photocopy of each student’s book, digital recordings and subsequent transcriptions of each student’s individual interview about his/her book, printed copies of e-mail correspondence with Mr D and my field notes and researcher’s diary.
Data analysis
The introduction of the six elements of visual art and design described above was completed prior to the children reading Voices in the Park. The data analysis for this article focuses on the students’ responses to Interrupting Chicken and NO BEARS, because these texts were the last two picturebooks featured in the study. To review, for each picturebook except NO BEARS, the students selected one element of visual art or design and wrote about three supportive or illustrative examples. For NO BEARS, the students chose four different elements and wrote about one example for each. Therefore, with respect to consideration of the focus elements of visual art and design, the two sets of data provide both depth and breadth.
Number of students who wrote about each element of visual art and design for Interrupting Chicken.
Number of students who wrote about each element of visual art and design for NO BEARS.
I then engaged in further content analysis, a “method of making inferences from texts and making sense of these interpretations in a context surrounding the text” that requires close reading of text (Hoffman et al., 2011: 30). Three separate readings of each set of responses resulted in the creation of additional charts for each picturebook. The charts consisted of topics or categories that included both quantitative and qualitative information about each element. Further information about these topics is provided below.
A brief synopsis of each picturebook is followed by the findings of the data analysis. Due to space limitations, the picturebook descriptions neither include information about the peritextual features nor convey many of the details of the artwork. Representative examples of students’ responses are included to illustrate the nature of their text-based writing. All student names are pseudonyms and only the students’ spelling has been conventionalized.
Interrupting chicken
Although chicken promises not to interrupt her Papa as he reads her a bedtime story, she is unable to control herself. As Papa reads the stories, chicken jumps into the storyworlds of the folktales and offers counsel to the characters regarding impending danger or misinterpreted actions. Papa becomes exasperated by chicken’s interruptive behaviour and, when he runs out of stories, he asks his daughter to tell him a story. Chickens writes and illustrates a tale similar in design to those read by Papa. Her story gets interrupted as well – by Papa’s snoring. The picturebook ends with Papa and chicken snuggled in bed.
As is evident in Table 2 below, the children wrote about four different elements of visual art and design in their responses to Interrupting Chicken.
Typography
Content analysis of the data revealed that nearly one-half of the eight students’ examples for typography focused on the appearance of the typeface in the three stories interrupted by chicken. The students wrote about how the typography in the stories changed once chicken entered the storyworlds of the tales. The children also noted how information was conveyed by the posture of the typography of particular words. A few children wrote about the appearance of chicken’s typography in both her own story and the stories she interrupted. In the two responses below, Ezra and Kara consider several typographical aspects in Interrupting Chicken. Ezra: I am writing about typography in IC. When Chicken jumps in the stories the letters in the stories shrink and are blurry because Stein wants you to focus on her speech bubbles. All the letters are different in the titles like in Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood and Chicken Little because it matches their personalities. Hansel and Gretel is a tough story because their dad is a woodchopper and the witch tries to eat them. Little Red Riding Hood is a sweet story because she is skipping to her Grandma’s house. The Dad and the letters [in the word interrupt] are on a slant when he says you are not going to interrupt again because he is saying to Chicken that he is being very, very serious. Kara: I am writing about typography in IC. In Hansel and Gretel the title has different writing than Little Red Riding Hood because it is a different book and Little Red Riding Hood is in handwriting and it makes it look like an old story. Chicken Little has different writing than Bedtime For Papa. Bedtime For Papa is messy and Chicken Little is fancy writing to show Chicken is writing the story Bedtime for Papa. On Opening 12 Chicken is interrupting Papa again and again and the word ‘again’ is in capitals to show Papa is frustrated with Chicken.
Framing
Examples of framing identified by six students included the use of framing in the stories interrupted by chicken and the use of framing in various illustrations of Papa and/or chicken. The students also wrote about the use of framing in chicken’s own story, Bedtime for Papa, and three students included examples of frame breaking in their responses. Below both Benjie, a student designated as ELL, and Link describe how framing was used to create atmosphere and/or emotion, and for structural consistency among various stories in Interrupting Chicken. Benjie: I am writing about framing in IC. The circle is framing all of the old stories that Papa read out to Chicken so the old stories look the same. Papa’s comb is pointing at Chicken just kind of framing him to show that he’s sad because there are no more stories. The full bleed is like a story but the full bleed frames the book that Chicken drew to make it look like the other stories. Link: I am writing about framing in IC. At the end the circle is framing the chickens to show the chickens are happy and sleepy. In the Chicken’s story the yellow is framing the people like the framing in the stories Chicken jumped into.
Colour
Overwhelmingly, the four children who chose to write about colour focused on the colours used in the three stories interrupted by the little chicken. As is evident in the two responses below, other examples included students writing about the colours associated with chicken and her writing. Manish: I’m writing about colour in Interrupting Chicken. Chicken has bright colours and they make me think of energy and happy and Chicken has lots of excitement. All of the books have different colours that match the covers. The stories that Chicken jumps into have light brown and dark colours because they were made a long time ago. Dallen: I am writing about colour in IC. On opening 6 the book that Papa is reading is brown. I think Stein made the book brown to show that it is old. On opening 10 the Chicken Little Story is a faded colour. I think that Stein made it this colour to show that it is an old-fashioned page. On opening 14 Chicken used primary colours for her book. I think that Stein made it red, blue and yellow to show it is a new book.
Line
With respect to examples for line, the two students wrote about the use of body as line to convey the emotional or psychological states of characters. One student also wrote about the use of line as a border in the stories. In Liana’s response below she described and interpreted body posture as line. Liana: I am writing about line in IC. How Papa chicken was leaning to talk to Chicken shows that he had a very hard time to make Chicken fall asleep and his body shows that he is angry at Chicken. When Chicken was in the stories she always has a straight body because she is always thinking that they will never do it again. When Chicken was in her bed with her teddy bear her posture showed like she had a pretty promised face.
NO BEARS
Ella, the narrator of NO BEARS, declares categorically that her “Once upon a time” story will not include any bears because she is disgruntled with the inclusion of these ursine characters in books. However, unbeknownst to Ella, a humble and kindly-looking Bear overhears her assertion about “NO BEARS”. In front of readers and using a faux ring-bound notebook, Ella creates her book about a Monster that is intent on stealing a princess (who is Ella herself). Even though Ella’s narrative does not include a bear, the Bear is a fundamental character in her unfolding tale. The final recto depicts the Bear conveying his critical involvement (visually through a thought bubble) in Ella’s story to an enthralled audience of characters from the storyworld of Ella’s notebook.
To reiterate, for NO BEARS, the children wrote about one example for each of four different elements. Although a student’s complete response is featured below, sentences from various students’ responses are used to exemplify the five different elements. Hillary: I am writing about four elements in NO BEARS. On the title page the magic from the wand is framing the word “NO” so we really emphasize it. It shows that Ella does not like bears. On opening 2 the line on the Bear’s face tells us that he is saying, “What is Ella up to?” On opening 9 the Monster is green so he is more scary and his pants are red and green to show he has excitement. On opening 7 it is a worm’s eye view because it makes the Monster look bigger. P.S. On opening 6 it looks like Ella is doing ballet on the ladder.
As is evident from Table 3 below, the children’s written responses to NO BEARS included five of the six elements of visual art and design.
Framing
The children wrote about the following seven examples of framing in NO BEARS: the window framing the shadow of the Monster as he crept up the staircase to the bedroom of the princess on opening 8 (8 students); Ella’s flashlight beam framing the Monster in the forest on opening 5 (5 students); the dashed lines, which represent magic from the fairy’s wand, framing the word “NO” on the title page (2 students); the monster’s legs framing the witch on opening 7 (2 students); the flag framing the Monster’s face on opening 6 (1 student); the red circle of the ‘no bear’ symbol framing the Bear’s face on opening 4 (1 student); and Ella’s book framing the fairy godmother on opening 3 (1 student). Ezra: On the title page the fairy godmother’s magic from the wand is framing “NO” in NO BEARS with a dotted line to tell you right now there are NO bears. Manish: On opening 5 the light is framing the Monster and he’s a main character. Sonith: On opening 7 the Monster’s legs are framing the witch to show how scared she is. Link: The Monster was framed by the window to show he was going to steal the princess. Dallen: On opening 4 the Bear is framed by a red sign. The fairy godmother made it that way to make sure that there is NO bears in the story.
Line
Analyses of the responses revealed the children wrote about the following seven examples of line in the picturebook: the illusion of line and/or leading line (6 students), the dashed lines from the fairy godmother’s wand (4 students), the line formed by Ella’s flashlight beam on opening 5 (3 students), the swirly lines of the Monster’s eyes on opening 9 (2 students), the lines creating the triangle shape of the Monster’s eyes (2 students), and the lines used for the mouths of the Bear (opening 2) (1 student) and for the Monster (opening 5) (1 student). Liana: On the title page the line from the fairy godmother’s wand is circling the “NO” in NO BEARS because the people who made this book were trying to explain that NO really means NO! Marika: On the first full bleed double-page spread the lines for the Monster’s eyes are swirly because he is hurt. Kara: On opening 5 there is a flashlight and Rudge made it a line to the Monster to make it stand out because the Monster has a big role in the story. Benjie: On opening 7 all of the characters’ eyes were looking at the Monster and their eyes were like a line to the Monster. Lisha: The line on the Monster’s mouth is pointing down to show that he is sad on opening 5.
Typography
The 16 children who wrote about typography identified nine examples of this visual element of design. The children wrote about the words “A MONSTER” on opening 5 (5 students), “happily ever after” (5 students) and various other words that were emboldened throughout the picturebook (5 students). One student wrote about the different typefaces used for Ella and for the story she created in front of readers. Overwhelming, the students wrote about the meaning conveyed by the particular features of the typefaces. Benjie: The words A MONSTER is big and bold and in capitals to show you that you are to say it loud to be scary. Felan: When Ella is saying, “This is getting scary” on opening 5 her typeface is mini because when somebody is scared their voice sounds tiny. Lisha: The bold typography on opening 4 shows that it is very loud and showing that Ella is shouting the words out loud to everybody to show that she means it a lot. Liana: In NO BEARS Ella’s voice is a different typeface to the story’s to show that they are different. Grant: Ella is saying “Somebody save me” in bold because she needs help and she is yelling.
Point of view
The children wrote about particular images in NO BEARS that feature a worm’s eye view (5 students), a front view (4 students), a bird’s eye view (2 students), a close-up view (1 student) and an eye-to-eye view (1 student). Trista: A Monster is over the home. For Ella it is a worm’s eye point of view to show she is scared and to show that the Monster is big. Sonith: On opening 4 it is a bird’s eye view because it is a map and if it was not a bird’s eye view and you were on the Kitty Cat land, you would only see the cat. Enzio: The Monster looks big on page 8 to show he is a monster and it is eye to eye to show he’s big and scary. Felan: When Ella is looking at the Monster on opening 5 it’s a worm’s eye view because she’s looking up and it makes the monster be huge. Liana: On opening 10 at the party the illustrator made it a front view so we could see everything that was happening at the party.
Colour
Analyses of the students’ responses revealed that 11 children wrote about nine examples of colour. Two children wrote about the significance of the use of red on the ‘no bears’ symbol and two children commented on the warm colours of the Monster’s pants. Each of the following colour examples was written about by one student: green to indicate the Monster’s envy, green tones for stairs to generate a 3D effect, green tones on the Monster to make him seem scary, warm colours to create excitement, dark colours for shadows, the varying colour tone used for the words NO BEARS on the cover, and the dark colours of the woods. Enzio: For colour, the Monster’s pants are warm colours to show he has energy. Kara: On opening 4 the colour around the circle of the No Bear’s allowed sign is red and red means stop – Don’t let bears in the village. Hillary: On opening 9 the Monster is green so he is more scary and his pants are red and green to show he has excitement. Ketina: On opening 3 the stairs of the castle are dark green and light green to make it look like they are 3D. Lisha: I think Leila Rudge put a lot of green on a lot of the pages because the Bear is envious of Ella because he wants his own book.
Discussion
Discussion of the data analysis, which is situated in the theoretical frameworks and relevant literature reviewed at the beginning of the article, should be contextualized with respect to the information provided previously about the students’ academic achievement levels, work habits and writing experiences, as well as the unit of instruction.
The content of the students’ responses reveals medium-specific analysis (Suhor, 1984) of the artwork in the picturebooks. Using appropriate metalanguage for the mode of image, the children engaged in critical visual analysis as they described, identified and interpreted various semiotic resources and affordances of the artwork in the picturebooks. The children’s inferences, ideas and opinions about the meaning potential of colour, typography, line, point of view and framing in the two picturebooks reveal their semiotic work as active perceivers and thinkers. The students interpreted the elements of visual art and design as conveying information about the plot (events and conflicts), the characters’ affective states, and the mood or atmosphere of events. As well, the students noted how the elements under study: communicated meaning symbolically, such as differentiating various diegetics (i.e. storyworlds); emphasized the importance of a character, object, event or action by focusing the reader's attention; enhanced the appreciation/understanding of characters’ actions and their words; and communicated information about character relationships. Indeed, the students’ observations, inferences and judgements reflect the attention paid to the artists’ craft, recognition of the meaning-making potential of specific visual elements of art and design and an understanding, albeit nascent, about the intentionality of design in images. The above findings both corroborate and extend the results from other research that has examined primary students’ responses to and interpretations of the artwork in picturebooks (e.g. Arizpe and Styles, 2003; Maderazo et al., 2010; Martens et al., 2012/2013; Pantaleo, 2008, 2010; Sipe, 2008a, 2008b).
Congruent with a social-semiotic analysis of image, the children were asked to consider a sign-maker’s choice and deployment of the semiotic resources and affordances of this mode, and to think about how the latter represents and shapes particular meanings in texts (Maderazo et al., 2010; Martens et al., 2012/2013; Pantaleo, 2008, 2012, 2014). As well, the children’s sign-making, their interpretation and analysis of the texts, was socially embedded in a particular context. Further, the students’ written responses reveal their engagement in transduction – they were required to think about and interpret how meanings were “realized in one mode” (Kress, 2010: 124), in image, and to use different modes, oral and written language, to communicate those meanings.
As explicated previously, a sociocultural framework recognizes the socially situated and contextualized nature of children’s learning. Student learning during the research was affected by the “semiotic landscape” of the classroom, described by Jewitt (2009) as “the way semiotic resources are used in a specific historical and social-cultural setting … [including] people’s attitudes towards specific semiotic resources, and the way in which their use is learned and regulated” (304). The students’ participation in particular activities and textual practices during the research influenced their knowledge base, including their vocabulary to talk and write about the mode of image, which affected their reading of the artwork in the picturebooks. The children came to understand that “the role of visual analysis significantly implicates the textmaker and the viewer as active and critical makers and readers of visual texts” (Albers et al., 2011: 200). Indeed, the students’ meaning-making of the artwork in the two picturebooks, as revealed by the content of their responses, indicates the engagement of critical thinking skills such as discriminating, logical reasoning, creating interpretations, inferring meanings and judging. The demonstration of these higher level thinking skills resonates with the findings from other studies that have explored young students’ responses to artwork in picturebooks (e.g. Arizpe and Styles, 2003; Maderazo et al., 2010; Martens et al., 2012/2013; Sipe, 2008a).
The nature of the “attitude” towards the mode of image and its semiotic resources that was modelled by the adults in the classroom, and expected from and promoted in the children when reading, and talking about writing about the picturebooks, was a predominantly aesthetic stance. In consideration of Rosenblatt’s (1978) statement that textual conventions and codes direct readers’ attention during the aesthetic transaction, the students’ responses provide evidence of their attention to the “cues” in the images as well as their overall engagement with and enjoyment of the picturebooks. In addition, the students’ written texts reveal an understanding and appreciation of the craft of artwork, as well as reflecting a developing recognition that a reader’s responses are influenced by specific elements and qualities of the artwork. Indeed, I believe students’ aesthetic responses can be enhanced/developed when they understand how elements of visual art and design are used deliberately by sign-makers (Pantaleo, 2013, 2014).
As described previously, Serafini’s (2012a) reconceptualization of the four resources model described reader–viewers of visual and multimodal texts as needing to engage in the synergistic and social “resources-practices” of navigator, interpreter, designer and interrogator. In order to navigate multimodal texts successfully, readers need to learn about the codes, conventions and structures of image. As detailed above, the children received instruction about particular elements of visual art and design during the research. The students’ responses reveal how they learned about the what, how and why of reading the artwork in picturebooks. The children were encouraged to experience how artists’ use of particular elements of visual art and design affected their navigation of the artwork. The lessons were designed to provide students with engaging and intentional opportunities “to learn to see and talk about visual qualities” in images (Eisner, 1982: 12). As interpreters, the students were expected to use their knowledge of the latter when constructing possible interpretations of the artwork. The students’ developing schemata about elements of visual art and design affected their growing agency and confidence to engage in deep thinking, make inferences, and propose informed interpretations of the artwork. The students’ use of the metalanguage that they were taught during the unit of instruction reflected their awareness and understanding of the semiotic resources available to artists to create and communicate meaning.
With respect to the role of designer, the children organized and shaped the semiotic resources of image into potential meanings (Serafini, 2012b). Within the classroom the children were positioned as readers who were most capable in applying their knowledge of elements of visual art and design to “construct their own reading path” (Serafini, 2012a: 158), as they explored both the written and visual texts in the picturebooks. Finally, when considering the role of interrogator, the meanings constructed by the students of the specific texts used in the research occurred in a particular social context, a particular interpretive community where reader–viewers were expected to embrace a particular stance when engaging with picturebooks. The children were indeed expected and encouraged to engage with the work, and to appreciate the craft of the work (Soter et al., 2010). Although cultural, political and historical factors were not contemplated when reading and responding to the picturebooks, as noted above, the meanings and interpretations constructed by the students were socially embedded and therefore affected by numerous aspects of the social context – of the semiotic landscape of the classroom.
Conclusion
Case-study research produces context-dependent knowledge and as such the reader needs to consider the various contextual factors shared previously about the students and the unit’s pedagogy when reflecting on the findings reported in this article. The reader is also reminded that data were collected on a limited number of participants and only one data source has featured in this article. However, consistent with the goal of case-study research to produce in-depth understanding (Yin, 2012), the detailed descriptions of the classroom-based research and the students’ work serve to enrich the reader’s understanding of the potential of students’ visual meaning-making when they receive instruction about the elements of visual art and design.
As a final caveat for the reader, the focus on the mode of image is not intended to either prioritize or privilege visual over verbal text in picturebooks, or to ignore the design features of these multimodal texts. Indeed, students need to understand, appreciate and interpret how meaning is represented both individually and synergistically by written language, and elements of visual art and design in picturebooks. However, although “we live in an increasingly visual culture where they [youth] both consume and create visual images, they are not at the same time skilled in understanding the codes, conventions, values or consequences of those messages” (Considine, 2008: 65). Thus, in order for students to become visually literate, they need explicit instruction in order to learn “how to analyze the ways images make meanings, [and] they need to gain knowledge of the visual meaning-making systems deployed in images,” including the appropriate metalanguage (Unsworth et al., 2005: 10). Indeed, a review of the research into children’s responses to multimodal texts revealed that “providing or expanding the terms or metalanguage to discuss visual aspects is crucial to developing better [student] understanding of the texts” (Arizpe and Styles, 2008: 369). Learning the discourses associated with various modes can broaden students’ semiotic toolkits and expand “both their observational powers and their repertoire of analytical categories” (Suhor, 1984: 249) for reading, talking and writing about, as well as composing, multimodal and visual texts.
Learning about the artwork of picturebooks can afford students authentic opportunities to develop and improve their visual literacy competencies, thereby enhancing their visual perception (Maderazo et al., 2010; O’Neil, 2011; Pantaleo, 2008, 2012, 2014). Teachers need to design lessons that demonstrate the value and importance of looking carefully at images, and of considering the significance of various affordances of this semiotic resource. Some educators may need to expand and deepen their understanding of the elements of visual art and design in order to plan and deliver appropriate instruction about the images in picturebooks (or other visual texts). Teachers must also be cognizant of and reflective about the nature of the oral discourse that they model and endorse, as their talk will influence students' exploration of, learning about and attitudes toward visual images. Indeed, teachers and researchers need to consider carefully the processes used to explore and teach about the artwork in picturebooks as well as the selection of the picturebooks themselves.
As discussed previously, as well as considering each mode or semiotic system individually in picturebooks, the reader needs to learn how to “use one sign system to mediate another” (Siegel, 1995: 461) in order fully to understand and appreciate the synergistic relationship between text and images in picturebooks. Indeed, the responses featured in this article reveal how students' aesthetic response can be enhanced/developed when students understand how elements of visual art and design are used deliberately by sign-makers, and that “the make-up, the shape of texts” affords “potentials for learning” (Bezemer and Kress, 2008: 168) and for communicating. Students’ abilities to navigate, interpret, design and interrogate (Serafini, 2012b) multimodal texts could be extended by teaching students about other elements of visual art and design, beyond those featured in my research, and by expanding the range of texts to include other print, as well as online and digital texts. Further, as suggested by Sipe (2008b), “longitudinal studies of children’s visual interpretive abilities (with attention to multiple exposures to books) would illuminate the development and integration of these abilities over time…[as] rich response grows slowly and organically” (388). Pedagogy about elements of visual art and design can be integrated throughout the year and across curricular areas. The language and literacy curriculum documents and assessment practices at all grade levels need to reflect the importance of valuing, and of teaching with and about visual and multimodal texts.