Module 2 Exam: Picturebooks

Module 2 Exam: Picturebooks

1. Genre

   • Visual Literacy
     • Iser's Reader Response Theory
       • Active part in constructing meaning
       • Connects structures to own experiences
         • Colonialism knowledge
     • Different reading process
       • Images scaffold
       • Eyes move between verbal and visual text
     • Information Age
   • At least one picture on each double spread
   • Traditionally children's genre
     • "Foremost an experience for a child" (Bader, 1976)
     • Our society values visuals
     • Dual audience (Wall, 1991)
   • Iconotext
     • Nikolajeva & Scott iconotext typology
       • Function and interplay
   • Multimodal

2. Analysis

   • Paratext/the object
     • Front and back covers
       • Green in colour, expecting a nice story
     • Title page and endpapers
     • Size, format, fonts, colours
       • Format: story development
       • Serif fonts, serious
         • Handwriting, messy
     • Interaction of pictures and verbal text
       • Iconotext and new literacy
       • Anchorage and relay (Barthes)
         • Anchorage: image can have multiple meanings and text is used to support one of these. A meaning imposed on you
           • Wouldn't get the aboriginals' perspective without text
         • Relay: words and pictures tell a story equally, complement each other
           • Complement and enhance
   • Verbal text
     • Central idea, tone, mood
       • Exploiting nature
         • No colours, not a cheery mood
       • Colonialism and the state of perplexity the aboriginals are in
         • Gets darker the sadder it is
     • Imagery, exaggerations, puns
       • Exaggerating that the buy continuously takes from the tree
       • Imagery: "Rich dark earth brown and moist"
     • Vocabulary, structures, grammar
       • Simple language, child friendly
         • Repetition
   • Setting
     • Mimetic and diegetic (Nikolajeva & Scott)
       • Images show, words tell
       • Freedom of interpretation with images
     • Space
       • By the tree, cant see forest (mentioned)
     • Time
       • Boy ages to an adult
       • The sky, time of the day
     • Movement
       • Blurs, motion lines, disortion of perspective
         • Boy running to tree; three of him
       • Left to right
       • Verso and recto of double spreads (development)
         • Torn/ripped illustrations, darker area and develops on recto
   • Perspective
     • Narrative voice: Who tells
       • Third-person perspective
         • Third-person perspective
       • Verbal text
     • Point of view: Who sees
       • Can be fixed; certain perspective imposed by the author
       • Position of characters; power
   • Plot and characterisation
     • Static characters
       • Little room for character development due to little text
     • Words can capture complex emotion and motivation
       • The tree's feelings, dialogue
   • Intertextuality/symbols
     • Allusion, hypotext, references
       • Reference to colonisation
       • Climate change
     • Cultural expressions
     • Tree = (mother) nature, boy = humanity and greed, apple = temptation, green = greed and nature
     • Rabbits = rebirth/resurrection, luck
   • Themes
     • Unconditional love, abusive relationship, dependence, loyalty, environment and global warming, greed.
     • Violence, conflict, colonization, natives, sadness, erasing culture
   • Audience
     • Dual address (Wall, 1991)

3. Classroom Teaching: The Rabbits

   • Linguistic issues
     • Pictures scaffold and provide visual support
     • Written text of manageable length
       • Opportunity to read a whole story
       • Motivates reading (Krashen)
     • Good for differentiation
       • Rely on words or images according to cognitive strength
   • Thematic issues
     • What readers "think it is about"
     • "What the work says about the subject"
     • Critical literacy
       • Problem posing
         • Why, how and to who
         • Used mainly for disagreements and argumentation
         • Aware of the message
   • Activites
     • Focus on language
       • Words and phrases that create suspense
     • Create your own picturebook
       • Reflect on iconotext, posing questions
       • Reflect on colours, format and fonts
       • Key Features
       • LK06: "create, communicate and converse about own texts inspired by English literature"
   • LK06
     • "Language learning occurs while encountering a diversity of texts, where the concept of text is used in the broadest sense of the word. It involves oral and written representations in different combinations and a range of oral and written texts from digital media."
     • Culture, society and literature
       • "Oral, written and digital texts, films, music and other cultural forms of expression can further inspire personal expressions and creativity."
   • Good introduction to British Empire and Australia - basis in English speaking countries