Unpacking visual literacy for early years learners.

Barton, Georgina

Introduction

Reflecting back on my teacher training in English there was limited information presented on how to interpret modes other than language, such as image and sound. I do recall one course or subject on media literacy where we would discuss fervently a range of advertising materials--our lecturer always saying that 'sex' sells! Moving through to the present, my experience in studying and working in the arts, and in particular music and visual art, has allowed me to apply this knowledge and understanding when interpreting the current Australian Curriculum: English. However, it is not the case for all teachers of English particularly if limited training or professional development has been provided on the comprehension and composition of multimodal texts.

The Australian Curriculum: English has its focus on the three strands of language, literature and literacy. Throughout the content descriptors we can see a great deal of evidence of creative and multimodal writing and arts-based practice from F-10. Table 1 gives examples. (1)

This brief paper shares ways in which teachers can enhance their practice in supporting students to create effective multimodal texts through the use of image.

Retelling stories via multimodal texts

A common task for early years learners is to retell stories they have read. When my children were young one of their favourite stories was about a cranky dinosaur who one day went roaring and stamping throughout a small village. The frightened people who lived in the village were worried that the dinosaur would destroy their houses and eat their children. However, a tiny girl showed empathy and asked the dinosaur what was wrong. Of course the dinosaur had a sore tooth and just wanted someone to help.

In the classroom children often are asked to 'retell' stories, such as the one above, often resulting in simple sentences with two dimensional drawings (such as the example below). Working with a small school recently, I noticed that many of the children's drawings included a front-on view of the characters looking directly at the viewer. With a lot of my research and teaching focusing on visual literacy I decided to work alongside the children in sharing some further ways in which they could effectively convey meaning through their images. To do this we decided to take to the iPads and toy dinosaurs! We worked through a number of activities together.

Enhancing understanding of image in retelling stories

ACTIVITY 1

Prior to this activity the children participated in a read aloud and shared reading of the story. They were then asked to use their iPads and take ten photos of a toy dinosaur in different locations and positions without any further information. The children are then asked to pick three of their images that they think are the best and share them with the rest of the class.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

ACTIVITY 2

Some explicit teaching around visual literacy then occurs. Utilising the work of Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen (2006), Lorraine McDonald (2013), Painter, Martin and Unsworth (2013), Len Unsworth (2001) and a paper by Len and myself (2014) the teacher shows the children a number of images from picture books and discusses three meta-semiotic meanings: representational or ideational meaning (field), interpersonal meaning (tenor) and compositional or textual meaning (mode).

For younger learners I usually use the following language:

* characters and setting (the participants)

* relationships (between the reader/viewer and author/creator)

* layout (of text, image and so on)

Firstly, the children need to identify who the characters are, how they are portrayed, where they are and how the location is represented (both in the language and the images used). Next the children are asked to talk about how the images make them feel about the characters and the setting. Questions such as: What was the illustrator's purpose? What characters do the children like/dislike? How did the illustrator make them feel this way? are asked.

The elements of image shown in Table 2 are worth discussing (please refer to Lorraine McDonald's (2012) book--Chapter 12 and Humphrey, Droga and Feez (2012, pp. 119-121)):

ACTIVITY 3

With this new knowledge the children are then asked to photograph their toy dinosaur once again but this time they are asked to do the following:

* Take a photo of your dinosaur that shows it is scary.

* Take a photo of your dinosaur that shows it is friendly.

* Take a photo of your dinosaur close up, mid shot and long shot.

* Take a photo of your dinosaur in an interesting frame.

* Take a photo of your dinosaur in a particular environment.

* Use some of the photobooth effects to make interesting images of your dinosaur.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

ACTIVITY 4

The culminating activity is for students to 're-tell' the story with their simple sentences and now using their new and effective images through storyboarding.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Acknowledgement

The author would like to acknowledge the work and contribution of the teacher, students and their parents who provided permission, through the relevant ethical procedures, to release images of their photographs and samples of work.

References

Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2015). Australian curriculum v8, from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/english/curriculum/.

Barton, G.M., & Unsworth, L. (2014). Music, multiliteracies and multimodality: Exploring the book and movie versions of Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 37 (1), 3-20.

Humphrey, S., Droga, L., & Feez, S. (2012). Grammar and meaning. Marrickville, NSW: PETAA.

Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design (2nd ed.). London, England: Routledge.

McDonald, L. (2013). A literature companion for teachers. Marrickville, NSW: Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA).

Painter, C., Martin, J.R., & Unsworth, L. (2014). Reading visual narratives: Image analysis of children's picture books. UK: Equinox Publishing Ltd.

Unsworth, L. (2001). Teaching multiliteracies across the curriculum: Changing contexts of text and image in classroom practice. Buckingham, United Kingdom: Open University Press.

Note

(1.) As this article focuses on early years learners the following content descriptors are from F-3.

Georgina Barton is a lecturer in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University and teaches English and literacy courses in both the primary and secondary programs. She also has been a teacher in schools for over twenty years. Georgina is currently the Vice-President of the Meanjin committee for ALEA. Email: g.barton@griffith.edu.au

Table 1

Foundation: Retell familiar literary texts through
performance, use of illustrations and images
(ACELT1580)

Year 1: Recreate texts imaginatively using drawing,
writing, performance and digital forms of
communication (ACELT1586)

Compare different kinds of images in narrative and
informative texts and discuss how they contribute to
meaning (ACELA1453)

Year 2: Discuss how depictions of characters in print,
sound and images reflect the contexts in which they
were created (ACELT1587)

Use comprehension strategies to build literal and
inferred meaning and begin to analyse texts by drawing
on growing knowledge of context, language and visual
features and print and multimodal text structures
(ACELY1670)

Year 3: Create imaginative texts based on characters,
settings and events from students' own and other
cultures using visual features, for example perspective,
distance and angle (ACELT1601)

Identify the effect on audiences of techniques, for
example shot size, vertical camera angle and layout
in picture books, advertisements and film segments
(ACELA1483)

Table 2

Element of visual image        Examples of meaning making

Colour                         Red, yellow and orange tones amplify
* warm tones                   emotion and bring energy and
* cool tones                   excitement. Blues, greens and cooler
                               colours are more muted and detached
                               or emotionally withdrawn.

Vector                         Vector is about 'reading pathways'.
* line of sight                They can be horizontal, vertical or
                               diagonal. The vector often follows
                               where the character is looking. These
                               are important as they can show
                               movement in the picture.

Camera shot and angle          There are generally 3 types of camera
                               shots--close-up, mid shot and long
* focalisation                 shot. Close-ups indicate more of an
                               intimate relationship with the viewer
* affect                       while long shots create a distant
                               relationship.
* attitude

Layout and positioning         The angle of the shot also impacts on
levels of power distribution   meaning. A high shot shows the viewer
                               as having more power while a low shot
                               portrays the viewer with less power.
                               Eye-level is equal.
                               If a participant in the photo or
                               image is looking directly at the
                               viewer this is called a 'demand'
                               whereas if they are looking away it
                               is called an 'offer'.

Framing and salience           Framing has the viewer focus on a
                               specific part of an image while
                               salience is the most 'attention-
                               grabbing' part of the image. This
                               includes part of the image that might
                               be in sharp focus, high contrast and
                               involves foreground and background.

Texture                        Texture in images is important as it
                               creates certain emotions. Scratchy
* smooth                       and rough backgrounds can make the
                               viewer uncomfortable while a smooth
* rough                        background such as using silky cloth
                               can depict cosy environments.
* scratchy etc.