Cirrus@Austlit

This article features Grade 7 students' oral and written responses to Shaun Tan's 2001 The Red Tree, one of the picturebooks used during two multifaceted, classroom based research projects. As well as examining how the students responded to and interpreted texts with metafictive devices, the research explored how students transferred their knowledge and understanding of various literary and art elements in picturebooks and graphic novels when creating their own multimodal print texts. The discussion of one small group's transcript excerpts and written responses reveals how the students engaged in collaborative talk as they worked to interpret the artwork and text in Tan's picturebook, and how their exploratory talk affected their written work. The article concludes by exploring several factors that need to be considered when developing effective pedagogy for classroom talk. [Author's abstract]

'During two multifaceted, classroom-based research projects, Grade 7 students had opportunities to develop their understanding of metafictive devices and art and design elements by reading a selection of picturebooks and graphic novels. The students also had the opportunity to apply their knowledge and create their own multimodal print texts. This article focuses on The Arrival (Shaun Tan, 2006), one of the graphic novels used during the research, and explores the range of emotions that were expressed by the students in their written responses to Tan’s multimodal text. Excerpts from the students’ work are presented as exemplars of the range of negative and positive emotions evident in the written responses. Learning about various graphic novel conventions and art elements contributed to the students’ aesthetic transactions, as well as to their understanding of how representations can structure perception and interpretation.'

Source: Abstract.