Critical visual literacy and restorative practices: empowering talking and listening.

Wilson, Sue

In 2009 I had the privilege of working with a small group of Grade 5 & 6 students to see what events unfolded when these pre-adolescents worked within an environment of Restorative Practices to talk and listen to each other's opinions, ideas and beliefs about the issue of drugs in contemporary society (Wilson, 2009). Restorative Practices was used to promote equity, respect and empathy. This is believed to emphasise talking and listening to cultivate pro-social relationship development and meaningful, honest discussions, with a view to promoting an ethos of thinking dialogue and higher order thinking skills (Thorsborne and Vinegrad, 2006).

The activities employed key aspects of visual literacy to complement and foster critical literacy. Participants were to question and debate in response to the issue of drugs in contemporary society. An emphasis on oracy was important in this study, as a foundation of speaking and listening skills are used to communicate and therefore learn, with reading and writing being developed secondarily (Green and Campbell, 2003).

Using the Restorative Practices guidelines I sought to investigate whether students felt able to hypothesise, justify and debate ideas, 'thinking aloud' to extend their understanding and position regarding a given social issue: in this case, drugs in contemporary society. However the issue could equally have been about body image, mental health, or any number of alternative issues that contemporary pre-teens face with in their day-to-day lives.

The following students (pseudonyms) participated in the study:

-- Samantha, a high achieving Grade 6 girl, with a strength in literacy.

-- Felicity, in Grade 6 has high results in some aspects of literacy and is in many sporting teams throughout the school. Felicity is also a house captain at the school.

-- Rhaki, a Grade 5 girl who achieves well in written literacy, but has struggled with verbal self expression at times throughout her education.

-- David, a boy in Grade 5 is at the expected level of academic achievement for his age.

-- Glenn, also a Grade 5 boy, achieves higher than expected results in literacy, but struggles in mathematics.

-- Stefan, a Grade 6 boy, is exceptionally academic and achieves at well beyond the expected level for his age.

The students each began by sharing a statement about how they feel about drugs in society. They were then given a range of images (independent from the written text) taken from a picture book that explores the social, economic and political impact of drugs. Each student was asked to select a picture, consider events associated with the image and what the illustrator may have been trying to communicate through drawing that picture. These are summarised in Table 1.

Issues of equality and 'voice' during classroom discussions

When sharing ideas, the students were made explicitly aware of the Restorative Practices context. The rules are simple, and unvarying: participants must sit in a circle to promote inclusion, put-downs are unacceptable, there can be only one speaker at a time, and equal respect is expected within the group. (1) By following these procedures it was intended that workshop conversations were as inclusive as possible. Personalities, power and positioning play a large role in how little or much individuals contribute to classroom conversations. I had hoped that utilising this format might equalise some aspects of this.

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Equality?

When considering student equality, an issue of dominance in 'voice' recurred. As with any student group, some members of this study were more assertive and/or vocal than others. Furthermore, some members were also considered more credible regarding the topic. Within this group, Felicity was a confident and vocal participant, adept at finding opportunities to express her opinions and knowledge. When students were asked to discuss media messages in relation to drugs, Felicity began by making a relevant point about celebrities as role models, but quickly moved off-topic to share an anecdote unrelated to media:

   ... This famous athlete, she was caught with steroids
   before the Olympics, and she came first ... now she's
   got a bad reputation and all over the world they know
   that this famous athlete cheated. Then, when we
   came from the Gold Coast, our plane got cancelled
   for 12 hours and ... someone had told us that there
   was [sic] drugs on the plane...

At other times, Felicity spoke when other members had the talking stick, and they felt able to cut her off to have their turn. For example, Felicity had interrupted Samantha to provide her opinion on peoples' perspectives on drugs as they mature. Samantha responded by interrupting Felicity in an effort to tell her story, as required by the task.

Felicity: I reckon in, like, high school, you get a more like.

Samantha: Yeah, and also, when my Dad was little, he was crossing the road and a drunk driver came.

Felicity had firmly developed beliefs as to the topic of drugs in society, yet other members of this group had equally strong perspectives based upon their own knowledge and experience. When participating in an ordering task that required the students to collaborate to order the picturebook images to best depict a story, Felicity was authoritative in her tone, words and body language, leading the activity throughout its duration. During this activity, the Restorative Practices methodology was relaxed in order to correspond with the students' increased engagement. However the students recognised the expectation that the Restorative ethos of respect, collaboration and active listening was to remain.

Felicity made defensive statements when challenged about placement of certain images, "That's what I said". Felicity was often authoritative rather than hypothetical when presenting her perspective, "Yeah, he hasn't opened the suitcase" and, "Yeah, but still... It doesn't make sense... It makes more sense like that". Felicity stated her opinion in straight-forward terms, but hers did not align with David's perspective. David was not particularly assertive, querying Felicity's order rather than challenging it. Affirming David's statement, Stefan provided positive feedback and encouragement using a different style of authority. With Felicity refusing to acknowledge an opposing perspective, David continued to put his perspective forward until Glenn offered a rationale that bridged middle ground. He provided a rationale of how a person such as that pictured might behave that seemed credible. Whilst this shows that by drawing upon Restorative Practices, issues of student voicing were addressed to some degree, it is impossible to entirely overcome issues of power and credibility in any group. This is due to the complex cognitive, cultural and social constructions involved in developing our identities and resulting relationships, influencing the way we understand ourselves and one-another (Berk, 1991). For example, Felicity is considered more credible within the group than Rhaki as she is recognised as a successful student as well as a school leader. As such, Felicity is afforded more influence. Whilst Restorative Practices is useful in stabilising the voices of students in discussion groups, just how successful this is in evening the balance of power is reliant on the facilitator. Any group always involves varying dynamics of introverts and extroverts, the powerful and the oppressed, but with explicit awareness of this, and utilisation of Restorative Practices circle time, equilibrium appears perhaps more attainable.

Yet, the relaxation of the Restorative Practices 'rules' mentioned above offers the opportunity for interesting debate and research as to whether such parameters are mutually exclusive to fostering engagement. In this study, such rules provided a means for levelling the contributions that individuals felt appropriate to make, yet it was only when this was relaxed that the levels of engagement increased. This is not to say that the students did not participate in the activities with enthusiasm and interest; however, it was evident that the most engagement was evidenced at times when turn-taking and equity were not emphasised. Unfortunately, the use of the talking stick and strict adherence to turn-taking was stifling to the conversational flow and in this case it is likely that students were prevented from sharing some responses when it wasn't their turn. This would also be likely to affect conversational authenticity in that the natural dialogue that unfolds through statement and response is disconnected.

Promoting metacognitive dialogue

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When the students compared and contrasted their own interpretations of a particular image, evidence emerged that pre-adolescent students can produce dynamic metacognitive dialogue. The students discussed the image Rhaki chose to investigate (See illustration 1), with Rhaki initially stating she thought the baby was suffering from passive smoking. Later, Samantha, Felicity, Glenn and David all provided alternative explanations of how they 'read' the background in the picture, yet each was set within this topic. Samantha assumed that the green shape was a hill, with the blue background representing a night sky with stars, whilst Glenn decided that the uniformity of the background suggested wallpaper. This discussion of different ways in which some students were influenced by their reading of the background supports the proposition that the schemata that each one drew upon determined what they felt the image represented.

When problem solving, such as when the participants within this study discussed alternative interpretations of the picture book images, students can become far more intrigued or interested by conflicting ideas (Morrill, Yalda, Adelman, Musheno and Bejarano, 2000). Student engagement escalated during a phase of my study's second workshop when the students begin to excitedly order the illustrations, having realised there was a strong intertextual relationship between them. This led them to:

* Hypothesise about potential interpretations of images in context with one another, "...they're trying to throw the person out, and then..."

* Rationalise whether ideas were plausible, "They must've been... 'cos remember they're all connected. and then."

* Evaluate whether they had interpreted the images in the most effective way, "And here comes the baby and then the Mum goes before the... oh, no, no, no."

The students debated alternative ways of ordering the images as a group, thus creating their most plausible story. Many indicators of exceptional knowledge formation were demonstrated as they collaborated, hypothesised, rationalised and evaluated their ideas. There is evidence of these students:

* Theorising: "He's running, and while he's running he's checking to see if they're real drugs"

* Justifying their decisions: "That goes with David's guy because they've got the same sleeve"

* Questioning information: "How can you tell he hasn't opened it?"

* Collaborating: "David, here!" "That will help..." "Here, then this. ... Now, which one comes next?"

* Supporting one another's ideas: "Yeah, good thinking. I think he's standing there"

* Reflecting upon their success in the task: "I think we all worked together"

Investigating images required the students to closely focus on visual details, applying past knowledge to the existing situation and developing ideas through verbalisation and explanation (Heath, 2000). The students compared visual features from one image to another, focusing on small details. This involved sustained incorporation of several higher-order-thinking practices, facilitating valuable growth in strategic development (Heath, 2000). Talking through the ordering task, 'playing' with the images, and listening to one another helped the students rationalise their thinking and decision-making. The 'learning community' model of practice provided through the Restorative methodology made this possible.

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Requiring explanations and justification of their story upon completion provided an opportunity for meta-talk. Students spoke explicitly of their thinking and how they rationalised difficult decisions. Talking through the ordering task then describing the resulting story not only provided opportunities to succeed, but also to consolidate problem-solving and critical analysis skills in a way that has been shown to assist learning retention and application in future, varied situations (Heath, 2000).

It is interesting to note that the students did not agree on a single ending when they ordered the images to create their own collaborative story. Once they had ordered the images in a sequence that satisfied all participants, they created three possible endings relating to the image of the baby that they had placed as the concluding item.

This is the baby that's now poor because of the drugs.

OR ... the baby took the drugs

OR ... the baby's upset at someone else because they took drugs

The students seemed extremely satisfied at this point that, whilst they had created a story that each agreed with, the final image could be interpreted differently. The alternative readings provided conclusions that showed different outcomes yet each demonstrated negative societal impacts. Group members indicated that their story was advising viewers of the negative social effects of drugs.

Researcher: So what's your story trying to tell people?

Stefan: Don't get trapped!

Glenn: Just stop buying drugs and look after your family.

Felicity: Yeahhhh!!!

Conclusions

Evidence from this study of Grade 5/6 students indicate two significant points in relation to empowering talking and listening as a means for fostering thinking development.

* Firstly, it highlights the importance of the teacher providing a safe and fair environment for empowered talking and listening without inhibiting engagement and enrichment.

* Secondly, it reveals that issues of power and credibility impact on students' identities, consequently influencing their ability to contribute to collaborative discussions.

This study indicates that whilst the Restorative Practices has increased awareness of the need for equality within the group, in reality, some members are vocal and/or assertive, whilst others elect to remain somewhat reticent. The emphasis on fairness moderates equality of 'voice' between group members, but this can be at a cost to student engagement, hypothesis and evaluation. Using Restorative Practices in this classroom was successful in formulating a safe environment, which is pivotal for student success and risk-taking. However the structure was seen at times to inhibit deep engagement and aspects of enrichment such as collaboration and active debate.

With further documentation of teaching and learning experiences in the area of empowering talking and learning, perhaps educators can share their successes and knowledge, with a view to promoting interesting yet equitable learning environments for students to develop higher order thinking skills, in order to foster new generations of citizens who can effectively scrutinize information in order to develop their own perspectives and values.

References

Berk, L. (1991). Child Development (5th Edn). Allyn & Bacon, Boston.

Green, D. & Campbell, R. (Eds.). (2003). Literacies & Learners: Current perspectives, Pearson Education Australia Pty Ltd, Frenchs Forest, NSW.

Heath, S. B. (2000). 'Seeing our way into learning'. Cambridge Journal of Education, 30:1, 121-132.

Morrill, C., Yalda, C., Adelman, M., Musheno, M. & Bejarano, C. (2000). 'Telling tales in school: Youth culture and conflict narratives'. Law and Society Review, 34:3, 521-565.

Thorsborne, M. & Vinegrad, D. (2006). Restorative Practices in Schools: Rethinking Behaviour Management. Inyahead Press, Buderim, Queensland.

Wilson, S. (2009), Critical Visual Literacy: A Theoretical and Practical Exploration. Honours Thesis, Monash University, Clayton Campus.

Two critical visual literacy workshops were imp|emented with six Grade 5/6 students. Both sessions began with a scripted introduction which was developed in conjunction with a Restorative Practices framework. The script was designed as an introduction to each workshop, but then discontinued in order to reflexively focus upon the research goals

The main activity involved the students working with images taken from a picture book that explores the social, economic and political impact of drugs.

The students were required to collaboratively decide an appropriate sequence for images to best depict an interesting story of their choice. This involved problem solving and deep-thinking to consider positioning and power, alternative interpretations and credibility. This them to hypothesise, rationalise evaluate their opinions about the illustrations.

(1.) During restorative 'circle time' teachers or other leaders who usually hold a position of power facilitate the session, but they are considered equal members of the group rather than authorities.

Sue Wilson currently teaches Grade 5 at Fountain Gate Primary School in southern metropolitan Melbourne.