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Children's lit…pb rev 19/5/05 5:05 pm Page 1

children’s literature and computer based teaching

Includes
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND COMPUTER BASED TEACHING
CD-ROM
for PC users
“This stellar book extends teachers’ thinking well beyond ‘book
spaces’ and into ‘digital spaces’ by offering theorized approaches to
analyzing children’s literature across media, and careful descriptions
of effective learning activities that are rich in detail and practical
advice. This book (and its digital spaces) is an indispensable guide
to engaging with children’s literature and new digital media.”
Michele Knobel, Montclair State University, USA.
“The book overall is exciting, informative and practical, outlining
children’s
important theoretical perspectives and ideas while also providing
much wisdom and advice to teachers about how to transform their
literary programs.”
Frances Christie, Emeritus Professor of Language and Literacy
literature and
Education, University of Melbourne and Honorary Professor of
Education, University of Sydney, Australia.

This book connects classroom teaching of children’s literature with the

computer based
digital age. It celebrates the charm of children’s literature and its role in
literacy development, as well as the appeal of information and
communications technology (ICT) to students and its capacity to enrich
students’ learning and enjoyment of literary texts.
teaching
The authors outline the ways in which children’s literature is developing
new dimensions, for example:
• The re-publication of children’s books on CD ROM and the
world wide web
• Web resources for working with literary texts, including email
discussion groups

unsworth • thomas • simpson • asha

• Children’s participation in the collaborative construction of
on-line narratives
The book provides practical guidance for teachers who are inexperienced
with ICT. It describes and discusses implementation of activities that
extend traditional approaches to literary texts and take advantage of
available technology.

Len Unsworth is Professor in English and Literacies Education in the

School of Education at the University of New England in Armidale,
len unsworth •
angela thomas •
Australia. Angela Thomas is a lecturer in English and Literacy Education
at the University of Sydney, Australia. Alyson Simpson is a lecturer in
English and Literacy Education at the University of Sydney, Australia.

alyson simpson •
Jennifer Asha is a primary school teacher experienced in teaching
students with a wide range of abilities, and a research assistant and
tutor in education at the University of Sydney and the Australian

jennifer asha •
Catholic University.

Cover design: del norte (Leeds) Ltd ISBN 0-335-21636-6

www.openup.co.uk 9 780335 216369

Children’s literature
and computer-based
teaching
Children’s literature
and computer-based
teaching

Len Unsworth, Angela Thomas,

Alyson Simpson and Jennifer L. Asha

Open University Press

Open University Press
McGraw-Hill Education
McGraw-Hill House
Shoppenhangers Road
Maidenhead
Berkshire
England
SL6 2QL

email: [email protected]
world wide web: www.openup.co.uk

and Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2289, USA

First published 2005

Copyright © Len Unsworth, Angela Thomas, Alyson Simpson and

Jennifer L. Asha 2005

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of
criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher or a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency
Limited. Details of such licences (for reprographic reproduction) may be obtained
from the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd of 90 Tottenham Court Road, London,
W1T 4LP.

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 335 21636 6 (pb) 0 335 21637 4 (hb)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

CIP data applied for

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

Printed in the UK by Bell and Bain Ltd, Glasgow
 Contents

About the authors vii

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

1 Changing dimensions of children’s literature 5

2 Exploring children’s literature on CD-ROM and the www 22

3 Booktalk ‘on-line’
Learning about literature through ‘book raps’ 44

4 Playing in the MUD, performing in the palace 63

5 A snapshot of three teachers’ classroom practices

integrating ICT and children’s literature 89

6 Middle Earth meets the Matrix!

Teachers researching classroom practice using ICT
and children’s literature 106

References 127
Index 137
 About the authors

Jenny Asha is a primary school teacher experienced in teaching gifted and

talented children as well as those with learning difficulties. She holds a
Master’s degree in English and Literacy Education and shares her passion for
conventional and computer-based literacies as a guest lecturer and conference
speaker. As president of an Australian Literacy Educators Association local
council, she leads a group of teachers and librarians interested in promoting
the use of conventional and electronic children’s literature in the primary
classroom.

Alyson Simpson is a lecturer in Primary English and Literacy Education in the

Faculty of Education at the University of Sydney. Alyson is an experienced
classroom teacher, teacher librarian and researcher. Her research projects
include an investigation of the pedagogy of book raps, an exploration of
visual literacy in primary schools and an examination of multimodal learning
environments.

Angela Thomas is a lecturer in Primary English and Literacy education in the

Faculty of Education at the University of Sydney. Angela is an experienced
classroom teacher, educational consultant and research project manager. She
is the coordinator of the Electronic Literature and Literacies in International
Education (ELLIE) project and website in the Faculty of Education, where she
teaches in the Bachelor of Education (Primary) and Master of Education
programmes.

Len Unsworth is Professor in English and Literacies Education at the Univer-

sity of New England in Armidale, Australia. Len was a classroom teacher in
Queensland before moving into teacher education at the University of West-
ern Sydney, and then the University of Sydney prior to taking up his present
position. His publications include Literacy Learning and Teaching (Macmillan,
1993), Researching Language in Schools and Communities (Continuum, 2000)
and Teaching Multiliteracies across the Curriculum (Open University Press, 2001).
 Acknowledgements

We would very much like to express our deep gratitude and thanks to the
on-line palace community of Middle Earth. In particular, the owner of the
palace, Laurie Sorenson, has been extremely generous in inviting teachers to
bring their classes of children onto the palace, and in preparing a special
section of the palace for this purpose. She has spent long hours in consultation
with the authors of this book in planning the research project outlined in
Chapter 6. We are also deeply indebted to the computer programmer of the
palace, Russel Dell, who listened to the creative ideas for the role-playing and
then wrote sections of complex programming to turn these ideas into reality. A
special thank you is also extended to Lin Ahearn, who has spent time teaching
us Elvish and preparing avatars for the research project. These three members
of the Middle Earth community were also responsible for preparing custom
software for our purpose at no charge (available for free download from the
ELLIE website (http://sirius.linknet.com.au/ellie/) or from the accompanying
CD-ROM), for which we thank them immensely. For teachers visiting Middle
Earth to join us in the research project, please look out for Nimue, Thanatos and
Elrond (their respective screen names) and join us in expressing appreciation
to them for their work.
We would also like to thank the teachers whose exciting classroom work is
showcased in Chapter 5. We are delighted to present their work as exemplary
cases of teachers who are enhancing their classroom work in children’s litera-
ture by the meaningful integration of ICT. These teachers include Mark Pearce,
from Sydney, Australia, and Coco Veillette from Quebec, Canada. We are most
grateful for their contributions to our work in this area. In Chapter 5 we have
also mentioned the contributions of undergraduate students who designed
lesson plans for the class working on an e-book. We wish to thank the Uni-
versity of Sydney BEd primary students who volunteered for the ELLIE project
and made a contribution to the classroom lessons described in Chapter 5. In
particular, we thank Lillian Wassef and Suzanne Teulan.
In Chapter 4 we discuss the work of Swiss educator Edgar Goetschi, who
was kind enough to take us on a tour of his educational palace, Meetpoint, and
to take time to explain how he used his palace in the classroom to teach
foreign languages. We thank him for his time.
The authors would also like to acknowledge the graphic artists who
designed original artwork for the room backgrounds of the Kids, Enfants,
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Kinder palace. These are featured in Chapters 4 and 5. These talented artists
include: Maarten Toner, Dan Backus and David Washington.
Our appreciation is also extended to the following people for giving us
permission to reprint their images: Roger Garland (for his Tolkien-inspired
artwork illustrated in Chapter 6), and Scott Martins, of Worlds Apart Produc-
tions, for allowing us to print a screenshot of the role-playing MUD featured in
Chapter 4. We would also like to thank Lothian Books for permission to repro-
duce the cover and two pages from Dreamwalker by Isobelle Carmody and
Steve Woolman.
 Introduction

Children’s literature continues to develop as a popular and enriching cultural

and educational experience, and as a valued resource for literacy teaching in
schools. More and more computer-based activities related to children’s litera-
ture are now becoming available, but the evidence is that the majority of
teachers, even younger, recent graduates, are in need of guidance in seeking to
make effective use of the computer facilities that are now widely accessible in
their schools and classrooms. At the same time, more and more children rou-
tinely use computers outside of school to access their interests. The burgeon-
ing of children’s literature sites on the internet reflects not only the popularity
of children’s books but also the integral part played by the internet in child-
ren’s experience of such books. The popularity of the computer connection
with children’s literature is also reflected in the recent production of new
CD-ROM versions of classic children’s books such as Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland and The Little Prince and popular contemporary stories such as
Stellaluna and The Polar Express. Exciting new forms of digital narrative for
children are also appearing in CD-ROM format and on the world wide web
(www) and more and more children are communicating their experience of
story via email, and various forms of electronic forums and chatrooms.
This book shows how the use of computers in English teaching can
enhance and extend the engagement of computer-age children with the
enchantment of the possible worlds of literary narratives. The focus is on the
use of computer resources in teaching with conventional book-based literary
texts. While the orientation is one of practical support for classroom teachers,
it is ‘research-led’ support, reporting the results to date of a range of ongoing
studies by the authors, dealing with the nature of image/text relations and
their role in the construction of literary narratives, relationships between con-
ventional book and computer-based versions of ostensibly the same literary
narratives, and the role of on-line communities of various kinds in the critical
appreciation of children’s books and the interpretation and generation of new
forms of multimodal, digital narratives. The teachers we have worked with
2 INTRODUCTION

have enthusiastically taken up the classroom implications of our research and

have adopted an ‘action-research’ orientation, investigating optimal adapta-
tions for meeting the needs of the particular classes of children they teach.
Here we will introduce the theoretical and practical research bases for this
teaching, provide examples of programmes of classroom work, and encourage
our readers to explore the ideas in their own classrooms, seeking support and
sharing experiences on our Electronic Literature and Literacies in Inter-
national Education (ELLIE) website (http://sirius.linknet.com.au/ellie/).
The first chapter deals with the enduring and evolving nature of literature
for children in a world in which conventional and digital multimedia rou-
tinely provide multiple versions of the same ‘story’ and where relationships
among stories and explicit attention to the ‘constructedness’ of story are so
much a part of the engagement of readers/viewers. In this chapter we outline
‘usable’ tools for classroom work on developing children’s understanding of
‘visual grammar’ as a resource for interpreting and constructing images, and
key concepts in a functional approach to verbal grammar as a means of under-
standing how language is deployed to achieve different kinds of meanings. It
is this semiotic knowledge that will assist teachers to work with children on
critically understanding the inter-relatedness of ‘how’ stories are constructed
in both conventional and computer-based formats and ‘what’ the stories are
telling them.
Chapter 2 discusses well-known works of children’s literature that have
been re-published in CD-ROM format and on the worldwide web (www), and
also the sources and types of on-line resources for working with published
children’s literature in book format. In comparing electronic and book ver-
sions of literary texts we make use of the functional approaches to visual and
verbal grammar outlined in Chapter 1 and explore the commonalities and
differences in the interpretive possibilities of the different story versions. As
well as listing many useful websites for enhancing work with particular books
and authors, we also provide a framework for describing the aspects of work
with literature that the on-line materials support. These include the context of
composition, dealing with author background, story sources, unpublished
drafts and related stories; the context of interaction, dealing with the materi-
ally interactive/agentive role of the reader, the blurring of story comprehen-
sion and composition, hypertext and non-linear reading, and ‘search/
selective’ reading of story; and the context of response, concerned with reader–
author and reader–reader interaction via email, chatrooms, on-line com-
prehension and reading extension activities. Finally, in this chapter, we
exemplify various types of on-line resources for working with an illustrated
novel for young adolescents – Dreamwalker by Isobelle Carmody and Steven
Woolman (2001), indicating www sites available to support teaching/learning
activities for this book as well as complementary off-line work.
Chapter 3 is an introduction to ‘book raps’. Essentially a book rap is a
 INTRODUCTION 3

conversation about reading a book that takes place on-line among school
children over a number of weeks. In this chapter we propose participation in
book raps as a useful addition to within-class discussion of books. We explain
how teachers can organize for their classes to participate in book raps and
indicate a range of websites that conduct raps. Illustrative evidence for the
benefits of book raps to student learning is included as is a sample unit of work
showing how participation in a book rap can be incorporated into the regular
classroom teaching programme. Teachers and their students can participate in
book raps at different levels of involvement from passive observation to the
generation of new raps. Book raps are also one area where the application of
ICT to classroom learning can be achieved without requiring teachers to have
high levels of technological expertise.
Chapter 4 explains two different types of on-line communities or ‘virtual
worlds’: a MUD (multi-user domain or multi-user dungeon) and a palace. A
very large number of these virtual worlds exist in cyberspace. People of all ages
join these worlds for the enjoyment of interaction with the communities.
Many virtual worlds involve intensive role-playing as a means of constructing
a collaborative narrative. Participants communicate through a wide range of
literate practices from spoken text, to computer commands, to visual images,
to the use of sound effects or sound bytes. We describe how these virtual
worlds operate and provide examples and discussions of the types of collabora-
tive literary narratives in which children can participate on-line. One of these
is a MUD called ‘Moose Crossing’, which was designed by children for children,
and another is a palace called ‘Kids, Enfants, Kinder’. In each case we detail the
multiliteracies (Unsworth, 2001) children are learning through their participa-
tion and we also show how these virtual worlds can enhance classroom work
with children’s literature and literacy.
In Chapter 5 we illustrate the work of three teachers: Jenny, Mark and
Coco, who have gradually been integrating the use of computers into their
classroom practices. The snapshot of Jenny’s classroom illustrates a teacher
beginning to include websites to enrich literature-based units of work that
have a focus on visual literacy and narrative structures, putting into practice
some of the ideas outlined in Chapters 1 and 2. Her unit of work described in
this chapter is designed for younger children aged 7 to 9. The snapshot of
Mark’s classroom reflects his efforts to engage his class, in which many of the
children have English as a second language, in interactions with children from
Finland. He worked with the authors on a project called ELLIE (Electronic
Literature and Literacies in International Education) to explore the use of elec-
tronic forums (similar to the book raps described in Chapter 3) to excite and
stimulate children’s discussions about novels and e-books. Coco’s snapshot
represents a teacher with an interest in developing her children’s collaborative
narrative writing using the on-line virtual environment of the palace, as
discussed in Chapter 4.
4 INTRODUCTION

In the final chapter, we invite teachers to undertake a programme of work

with their own students, which adopts the transformative classroom literacy
practices we have described in the previous chapters. We suggest an action
research approach investigating the impact of the changes on student learning
as part of the normal classroom teaching/learning programme. To this end we
outline a research plan and provide the tools to begin the work. We offer a
programme of lesson plans, teaching strategies and methods of observing
and analyzing what children are doing with children’s literature and ICT,
focusing on the world of Tolkien: Middle Earth. The main site for classroom
work and associated action research will be the Middle Earth palace (Sorenson,
2000–2004, on-line), a g-rated visual virtual world. We also offer a means of
sharing classroom experiences and communicating the research outcomes,
through publication on the ELLIE website.
Our aim is to collect teachers’ reports about the research to share with
others, and to develop a network of educators who are willing to trial and
explore the most effective means of developing children’s multiliteracies in
digital contexts. We hope that this book will help introduce more computer-
based activities related to children’s literature into primary classrooms.
1 Changing dimensions of
children’s literature

Introduction

Many children today are well oriented to engaging with the ‘radical change’
in narrative form and presentation of contemporary children’s literature
(Dresang, 1999) because their out-of-school experience with fictional narrative
characters often embraces their various incarnations in picture books, car-
toons, videos, DVDs and CDs, as well as in traditional and electronic games.
While children’s out-of-school experience of fictional narrative may ‘tune’
them to much of the innovative narrative form and technique of contempor-
ary picture books and novels (as well as accompanying multimedia ‘back-
stories’ and para texts), this is frequently not the case for their teachers (and
their parents). Nevertheless, children’s literature continues to be seen as a
crucial resource in nurturing the child’s progress from basic literacy to a level
of critical and cultural literacy necessary for effective adult life (Hollindale,
1995). As Margaret Meek has long pointed out, it is the kinds of texts that
children have access to and the kinds of interactions they experience around
those texts that influence the kinds of readers they become (Meek, 1988). To
sustain the facilitative role of children’s literature in classroom literacy devel-
opment we need to understand the evolving nature of children’s books as
objects in their own right and also how they are positioned by publishers,
educators and readers as phenomena in the new multimedia world in which so
many children move so easily.
In this chapter we will focus on children’s books as objects in their own
right. First, we will indicate some of the key aspects of ‘radical change’ that
characterize current and emerging literary texts for children. Second, we will
outline recent work on a ‘grammar of visual design’ (Kress and van Leeuwen,
1996), which provides an accessible and systematic description of the mean-
ing-making resources of images and helps us to understand the changing
narrative role of images in children’s literature. Third, we will show how func-
tional descriptions of verbal grammar (Halliday, 1994; Matthiessen, 1995) can
6 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

provide both an accessible interpretive resource for teachers and children

working with the text of literary narrative and a common theoretical basis
with the functional grammar of images, facilitating understanding of image–
text interaction in meaning-making. In Chapter 2 we will take up the position-
ing of children’s literature in the multimedia world, the contextualization of
children’s books on the internet and the recontextualization of some literary
texts in electronic format on CD-ROMs and on the worldwide web.

Radical change in children’s literature in a

screen-age culture

Children growing up in the early years of the twenty-first century have been
born into a culture that differs immeasurably from past cultures. These chil-
dren are the ‘net-generation’ who take the personal computer and the internet
for granted. Communication in this digital culture is marked by the interactiv-
ity, immediacy, and complexity of both images and text. This is a culture that
has facilitated and promoted the ‘radical change’ in books for children in a
way that has never been done before (Dresang, 1999). The construct of radical
change was developed by Dresang (1999) to identify and explain books with
characteristics reflecting the interactivity, connectivity and access that charac-
terize our emerging digital society. Some books with these characteristics pre-
date contemporary digital culture as noted by Dresang and by Mackey (1994),
but for the net-generation, semiotic devices such as cuts, flashbacks, split-
screen images, hyperlinks and non-linear progression, multiple conclusions,
etc., are very much the norm. Increasingly, these devices are deployed in ways
that integrate the use of language and image. In a textual habitat saturated
with images, moving and still, alone and in all manner of hybrid combin-
ations with texts and sounds, today’s children are likely to possess a richer and
more acute understanding of visual imagery and its modes of deployment
than any other generation (Lewis, 2001). Children’s literature is a key source of
sustained reading by net-generation students, but to optimize its potential for
learning, teachers need to appreciate the nature of the radical change in these
books, which engage young readers.
Three categories of radical change are identified by Dresang: (1) changing
forms and formats; (2) changing perspectives; and (3) changing boundaries. In
the latter category, Dresang discusses the complex ways in which characters
are presented and the greater frequency of ‘unsolved endings’ as well as the
representation of new communities and treatment of previously ‘forbidden’
topics. The focus here will be more on the first two of Dresang’s categories,
dealing with aspects of narrative technique.
 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE 7

Changing forms and formats

David Macaulay’s (1990) Black and White is cited by Dresang as exemplifying

in its narrative technique the non-linearity of hypertext. It consists of inter-
related storylines involving parents and their children, a herd of cows, a train
journey, and an escaped convict. All four storylines are represented on each
double-page spread, each illustrated with a distinctive style and palette and
each with some connections woven into the others. Towards the end of the
book, the four storylines break through their borders and come together, but
the reader is left to speculate on the uncertainty of what happens next.
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (Scieszka and Smith,
1992) is metafictive work in that it explicitly draws attention in the text to its
status as a constructed piece of fiction. In this story two narrators, Jack (of the
beanstalk) and the Little Red Hen, interrupt the story and each other, present-
ing an ironic and non-linear narrative where words become pictures, and the
pictures not only illustrate the content but also the playful disruptions to the
narrative. David Wiesner’s The Three Pigs (Wiesner, 2001) is also a metafictive
tale. The wolf’s huffing and puffing blows the first pig right out of the story.
One by one, the pigs exit the story frame and follow their own adventures.
After folding a page of their own story into a paper plane, they fly off to visit
other storybooks. Again, variation in illustrative style and fonts and shifts in
perspective are used to provoke readers to ponder the conventions of story as
they engage with an unconventional story form.
Not all books reflecting the non-linear organization and format of digital
media are picture books. Similar innovative formats occur in novels for
young readers such as Spring-Heeled Jack by Philip Pullman (1989), which is
fragmented, with multimodal pages, and quirky organization (Bearne, 2000).
Other examples of novels using the non-linear organization characteristic
of hypertext cited by Dresang are Whirligig (Fleischman, 1998) and Holes
(Sacher, 1998).

Changing perspectives

The construction of story from a singular point of view via a distanced

omniscient narrator has given way to some extent in contemporary fiction to
more frequent inclusion of multiple points of view often voiced by characters
who ‘speak for themselves’, or by a narrator who adopts variable points of view
throughout the story. These have been referred to as polyphonic narratives
(McCallum, 1999). Dresang (1999) cites recent examples of polyphonic narra-
tives. For example, Making up Megaboy (Walter, 1998) is the story of an ‘average
kid’, Robbie Jones, who, on his thirteenth birthday, shoots a Korean shop-
keeper. The story is told in short media-like accounts and computer-generated
graphic representations of 19 people associated with Robbie – his parents,
8 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

friends, minister, teacher, a lawyer, a news anchor-person, the barber and

others. Robbie never speaks for himself. The story raises questions about how
such a thing could happen and the community in which the boy lived could
not imagine why he would do it. But shifts in point of view also occur in
more light-hearted stories such as ‘Unhappily Ever After’ in the collection
Quirky Tales by Paul Jennings (1987). In this story, a young boy, Albert, is about
to receive corporal punishment from his balding old headmaster for allegedly
circulating a note (‘BALD HEAD BROWN WENT TO TOWN RIDING ON A
PONY’). The story begins from Albert’s point of view:

Albert pulled up his socks and wiped his sweaty hands on the seat of
his pants. He did up the top button of his shirt and adjusted his school
tie. Then he trudged slowly up the stairs.
He was going to get the strap.
He knew it, he just knew it. He couldn’t think of one thing he had
done wrong but he knew Mr Brown was going to give him the strap
anyway. He would find some excuse to whack Albert – he always did.

Then there is a shift to Mr Brown’s point of view as Albert knocks on

Mr Brown’s door:

Inside the room Brown heard the knock. He said nothing. Let the
little beggar suffer. Let the little smart alec think he was in luck. Let
him think no one was in.
Brown heard Albert’s soft footsteps going away from the door.
‘Come in, Jenkins,’ he boomed.

Such changing perspectives are also a feature of contemporary picture books

where both language and images are used to construct different points of view.
Anthony Browne’s Voices in the Park (Browne, 1998) constructs the ‘same’
event of a visit to the park from the point of view of a mother, her son and a
father and his daughter. Not only is the representation of the event quite
different in each case, but also the appearance of the park changes according
to the perspective of the character from whose point of view the event is
communicated.
The role of images in the construction of complex variation in point of
view in picture books has been demonstrated by Williams (1998) in his discus-
sion of images in Anthony Browne’s Gorilla (Browne, 1983). Williams notes
the association of changes in vertical angle with variation in point of view.
Initially the high angle views of Hannah position the reader as more powerful
in observing ‘just a little child’. However, when Hannah makes a request of
her father in the fourth image, the reader takes up a vertical angle, which is
much lower and is, in fact, an exaggeration of Hannah’s perspective. ‘The
 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE 9

reader is no longer positioned as just an observer of the girl, but literally

associated with her perspective by taking on a similar power position with
respect to the father’ (Williams, 1998: 29). Williams goes on to point out that
there is no stable relationship with respect to power between the reader
and the focalizing character, so the child reader cannot simply associate
with Hannah’s orientation, at least not in any simple sense of identification.
Williams sees this aspect of the visual construction of point of view as most
important for discussion of children’s entry into visual practices in that young
readers are simultaneously positioned as both engaged as part of the narrativ-
ized experience and somewhat detached from it as observer of Hannah’s
actions and responses.
The kind of image analyses in Williams’ work with Gorilla has also been
useful in explicating changes in point of view that occur when picture books
are recontextualized in multimedia CD-ROM formats. Stellaluna (Cannon,
1996) is constructed from quite different points of view in the book and elec-
tronic versions (Unsworth, 2003b) and the animated images in the CD-ROM
version of The Little Prince (de Saint-Exupéry, 2000) also construct different
points of view from those in the linear and book versions (Unsworth, 2003a).
In the next section we will explain this kind of image analysis and further
indicate its usefulness in working with children’s literature.

Re-thinking reading images in picture books:

a ‘grammar of visual design’

The interactivity of contemporary literature for children constructs young

readers as active meaning-makers ‘filling in’ the possibilities left by interpre-
tive ‘gaps’ or ambiguities within the text, images or the interaction between
them (Lonsdale, 1993; Meek, 1988; Prain, 1998; Stephens and Watson, 1994;
K. Watson, 1997; Williams, 1987). But the extent to which such active inter-
pretive reading is taken up is also influenced by the kinds of shared talk
children experience about texts. Teachers, parents and other co-readers who
appreciate the interactive complexity of children’s books and can enjoy with
children both the story and the visual and verbal means by which it is con-
structed, not only encourage pleasure in reading, but also enhance ‘net-age’
children’s analytic satisfaction of understanding the ways in which the text is
producing pleasure and how it is positioning them as interpretive agents
(Chambers, 1985; Meek, 1988; Misson, 1998). In order to facilitate such inter-
actions, this section of the chapter addresses the role of explicit, systematic
knowledge about the meaning-making resources of images.
Far from lessening children’s enjoyment of literature, analyzing the means
by which images make meanings helps them feel they are getting closer to the
texts and what it is they enjoy about them (Misson, 1998: 108; Nodelman,
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