New Literacies and the English Curriculum: Multimodal Perspectives 9781474212083, 9780826499455

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The Random House Group Ltd for images from The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed by Helen Cooper and published by Doubleday, for one image from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, published by The Bodley Head, and for images from Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis by Peter Kuper, translated by Kerstin Hasenpusch, copyright 2003 by Peter Kuper, and used with permission of Crown Publishers, a division of Random House Inc. Teacher Created Resources (www.teachercreated.com) for page 36 from the Teachers Resource Book dealing with Tide Pools and Coral Reefs by Jeanne King. Andersen Press for images from One Word by Michael Foreman. Storytellers Productions Inc and Reel Girls Media Inc for images from WildFiles TV Houghton Mifflin for the front cover of The Night of the Gargoyles by Eve Bunting, and for the image from Flotsam by David Wiesner. Harper Collins for an image from Rosie the Night-Fright Monster written by Susan King and illustrated by Ulrike Kundrue People’s Publishing Press, Beijing, China for text and images from Entrance Education, and Word Recognition I Fremantle Arts Centre Press for images and text from Photographs in the Mud by Dianne Wolfer and Brian Harrison-Lever The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery for permission to reproduce the painting by Benjamin Duterrau ’The Conciliation’ 1840. The Australian Children’s Television Foundation for still images from the animated story Taken created by Nathan Burns. Ms Jenny Lee for the student essay in Chapter 10. The New South Wales Department of Education and Training for images from the 1997 ELLA writing test paper.

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The Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney for the National Picture 1985 by Geoff Parr. Brisbane Girls Grammar School and students Jessica Ahmet and Olivia Back for images from student created multimedia texts in Chapter 15. The Catholic Education Office in Sydney for permission to reproduce an image from the 2004 Trial Higher School Certificate English Examination paper

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Contributors

David Baxter was a high school English teacher and faculty head for twenty years with the NSW Department of Education before joining the University of New England in 1996 as a lecturer in English and Literacy education. In 2007 he moved to the Australian College of Physical Education as Associate Dean. Corinne Buckland is a lecturer in English Education at the University of New England, Australia. She is a member of the Centre for Research in English and Multiliteracies Education. Her particular research focus is the ethical dimension of literary texts. Frances Christie is Emeritus Professor of Language and Literacy Education, the University of Melbourne and Honorary Professor of Education at the University of Sydney. Her major research and teaching interests are in English language and literacy education. She is particularly interested in writing development, the relationship of talk and writing, the teaching of literacy to students across the years of schooling from Prep to Year 12, teaching knowledge about language, and in the development of an educational linguistics. Recent publications include: (2005) Language Education in the Primary Years. Sydney: University of NSW Press. (2007) With J. R. Martin (eds). Language, Knowledge and Pedagogy: Functional Linguistic and Sociological Perspectives. London and NY: Continuum. Ann Daly is currently a PhD student at the University of New England in Armidale, Australia. Ann has developed literacy tests for NSW Department of Education and Training for the past ten years. She has a Masters in Language and Literacy and a Graduate Certificate

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in Gifted Education. Ann is also on the Board of the Primary English Teaching Association. Peter Freebody is the Professorial Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at The University of Sydney, Australia. His research and teaching interests are literacy education, educational disadvantage, classroom interaction and quantitative and qualitative research methods. He has served on numerous Australian state and national advisory groups in the area of literacy education and curriculum development. Sally Humphrey is a PhD student at the University of New England and a lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Sydney. During the 1990s she worked as a researcher for the Sydney-based literacy project, ‘Write it Right’ which explored the literacy demands of secondary school curriculum areas. More recently, she was involved (2004–06) in a research project led by Frances Christie and Beverly Derewianka, exploring ‘Key Indicators of Writing Development’. Sally’s current research interest is in describing the different semiotic resources used by adolescents in their academic and public literacy practices. Kay Kimber is Director of the Centre for Professional Practice at Brisbane Girls Grammar School and teacher of English. Particular focus in her research and classroom practice has been on the development of students’ design capabilities in digital environments to both engage young minds and stimulate effective learning. Kristina Love is Head of the Language and Literacy Academic Cluster in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne. Her research and teaching interests are in Educational Linguistics (particularly Systemic Functional Linguistics) and its application to discourse analysis and literacy education. She has developed a number of multimedia resources in the area of language, literacy and learning (including BUILT and LASS). J. R. Martin is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. His research interests include systemic theory, functional grammar, discourse semantics, register, genre, multimodality and critical

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discourse analysis, focussing on English and Tagalog. Professor Martin was elected a fellow the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1998. Mary Macken-Horarik is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of New England, in Armidale, Australia. She has worked for many years in the field of English and literacy education as a teacher, curriculum developer and researcher. Mary has published widely in the field of educational linguistics, focussing particularly on classroom applications of systemic functional linguistics. Her recent work focuses on multimodal discourse analysis. She is currently writing a book for English teachers about systemic functional semiotics. Kate O’Donnell is the Leader of Literacy Test Development at the NSW Department of Education and Training. She has a particular interest in assessment of student writing and has recently been appointed to the position of Chief Assessor of Writing for the 2008 implementation of the National Assessment Program in Australia. Clare Painter is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of New South Wales. Her research interests include systemic-functional theory, language and literacy development and multimodal discourse analysis. Publications include Learning through language in early childhood (Continuum, 1999) and Reading visual narratives: image analysis of children’s picture books (Equinox, forthcoming). Andrew Simpson is a PhD student and casual lecturer at the School of Education at the University of New England in Armidale NSW. He has worked as a research assistant at the Centre for Research in English and Multiliteracies Education at UNE and has taught students at Primary and Secondary level. John Stephens is Professor in English at Macquarie University, Australia. He is author of several books and about a hundred articles, mostly dealing with children’s literature. He is a former President of the International Research Society in Children’s Literature, and Senior Editor of the journal International Research in Children’s Literature. He was recipient of the International Brothers Grimm Award

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in 2007, in recognition of his contribution to research in children’s literature. Angela Thomas is a lecturer of English education at the University of Sydney. Her research interests include digital cultures, new media literacies, multimodal semiotics and digital fiction. She is the author of “Youth Online: Identities and Literacies in the Digital Age” and writes at http://angelaathomas. com/. Jane Torr is Associate Professor and Head of the Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University. Her publications are in the areas of early childhood language and literacy development, with a particular focus on literature for very young children and the implications for children’s learning. Len Unsworth is Professor in English and Literacies Education at the University of New England. 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). His most recent books are: e-literature for children and classroom literacy learning (Routledge, 2006) and [with Angela Thomas, Alyson Simpson and Jenny Asha] Teaching children’s literature with Information and Communication Technologies (McGraw-Hill/Open University Press, 2005). Professor Claire Wyatt-Smith is Dean of the Faculty of Education at Griffith University. She has been a sole or chief investigator on a number of ARC- and DETYA/DEST-funded projects over the last decade, primarily in the fields of literacy and assessment, with particular focus on teacher judgment, evaluative frameworks and the literacy-curriculum-assessment interface. Bette Zhang Bin has worked and studied in New Zealand and the People’s Republic of China. Her Doctor of Philosophy thesis, from which sections of the present chapter are drawn, was completed at The University of Queensland, where she now works. Her areas of research interest are social interaction in everyday life, including representations in text and images, and interactions between paediatric neurologists and their child-patients.

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Preface

The advent of computer-based information and communication technologies and their rapid on-going evolution has emphasized the need for recognition at all levels of education of the complete interconnectedness of literacy pedagogy and the English curriculum. New Literacies do not simply make it possible to communicate meanings in new ways, they make it possible to make new kinds of meanings. So the impact of New Literacies cannot be considered merely as some new kind of utility for mediating the English curriculum. They have been recognized as fundamentally changing what have traditionally been considered core elements of the English curriculum such as the study of established and contemporary literature. It has been pointed out that . . . Electronic media are not simply changing the way we tell stories: they are changing the very nature of story, of what we understand (or do not understand) to be narratives. (Hunt, 2000, p. 111)

And that . . . there needs to be an acknowledgement that textual practices surrounding literary texts are being affected by ICTs and that ICTbased technologies of production are impacting on the character of literary texts themselves (including the production of new forms). (Locke & Andrews, 2004, p.142)

A major dimension of these changes is the increasingly multimodal nature of texts, particularly the increasingly routine inclusion of images. English teaching then needs to be concerned with the

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ways in which the meaning-making options of text are expanded due to their multimodality. The social semiotic nature of multimodal texts has been a growing area of research among scholars working in the tradition of systemic functional linguistics, now more broadly conceptualized as systemic functional semiotics. And a key feature of this research tradition and its ongoing practice is its close working relationship with literacy education researchers and with the teaching profession (Christie & Unsworth, 2005). The research communicated in this book reflects that relationship. This book derives from research papers presented at the National Conference of the Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association, Multimodal Texts & Multiliteracies: Semiotic Theory & Practical Pedagogy, conducted with the Australian Literacy Educators Association at the University of New England, in Armidale, Australia in September 2006. The contributors are in the main established scholars in education, linguistics and functional social semiotics, with some emerging researchers also reporting on their work. The research is contextualized within the range of practical issues concerning New Literacies and the English Curriculum from the early years of schooling to matriculation. The first chapter outlines the broad conceptual framework for the book and indicates the role of the subsequent chapters. These deal with multimodal materials for early literacy pedagogy, multimodal semiotics and the changing nature of picture books for children, multimodal authoring and digital narrative in the middle years of schooling, issues in senior secondary school English teaching and the need for rethinking assessment in the English curriculum at all levels of schooling. I would like to thank all of the contributors for their generosity and patience in helping to achieve the coherence in the book as a whole and for their willingness to publish their research in this volume. The support of Continuum Publishers has been outstanding in bringing this work to publication. I should also like to thank the University of New England for its sponsorship of the conference and ongoing support for the project, and particular thanks are due to Tamar Doff for her editorial assistance. Len Unsworth

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References Christie, F., & Unsworth, L. (2005). Developing dimensions of an educational linguistics. In J. Webster, C. Matthiessen & R. Hasan (Eds.), Continuing Discourse on Language: A Functional Perspective (Vol. 1, pp. 217–250). London: Equinox. Hunt, P. (2000). Futures for Children’s Literature: evolution or radical break. Cambridge Journal of Education, 30(1), 111–119. Locke, T., & Andrews, R. (2004). ICT and literature: A Faustian compact? In R. Andrews (Ed.), The impact of ICT on literacy education (pp. 124–152). London and New York: Routledge/Falmer.

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Chapter 1

Negotiating New Literacies in English Teaching

Len Unsworth University of New England

Introduction On the face of it there seems to be evidence that New Literacies are firmly a part of the English curriculum from kindergarten to matriculation in most English-speaking countries. There seems to be broad agreement that literacy can no longer be thought of as involving language alone and that images, in paper media texts, and also sound, movement and gesture in digital multimedia texts, need to be considered along with language as fundamental meaning-making resources in constructing text. The role of information and communication technology (ICT) in mediating a range of new types of text seems also to be widely accepted as an integral aspect of the English classroom. Formally, New Literacies are an explicit part of government-mandated school syllabi and curriculum documents in Australia and in the National Curriculum for England (Unsworth, in press; Macken-Horarik, this volume). There are issues as to the extent of implementation of such New Literacies aspects of curricula in some schools because of concerns about access of some schools in the lower socio-economic areas to the same level of technology as their more affluent counterparts, and also because of the generational digital divide, which necessitates some, usually but not exclusively, older teachers acquiring professional skills in the use of contemporary ICT

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and associated commonly used software. But in addition to these issues there are significant ways in which the reconceptualization of literacy and literacy pedagogy that is an essential concomitant of the digital multimedia age, presents very significant challenges in terms of its semiotic theorization and pedagogic practice. Fundamental to these challenges is the necessarily iterative nature of this reconceptualization process. Kress (2000a, p. 155) has argued that ‘semiotic theory which does not have an account of change at its core is both simply inadequate and implausible in the present period’. The importance of this ‘deictic’ nature of New Literacies has similarly been emphasized by Leu (2004) and his colleagues, who drew attention to three main sources of the ongoing emergence of New Literacies: r Transformations of literacy because of technological change r Envisionments of new literacy potentials within new technolo-

gies r The use of increasingly efficient technologies of communication

that rapidly spread new literacies. Leu and his colleagues further emphasized that [a]s literacy increasingly becomes deictic, the changing constructions of literacy within new technologies will require all of us to keep up with these changes and to prepare students for a vastly different conception of what it means to become literate. (Leu et al., 2004, p. 1591)

In the face of such very significant challenges to teachers and teacher educators, a viable framework is needed that addresses the integration of constantly evolving New Literacies into educational practice. Such a framework could be derived from a proposal for a developmental perspective on how teachers might conceptualize and implement new digital technologies in their work, which adapted the concepts of assimilation and accommodation from Piaget’s classical developmental theory of learning (Reinking et al., 2000). From this perspective New Literacies are assimilated into literacy pedagogy and research when they are conceptualized in relation to conventional literacy, and implemented in conformity with existing curricula and

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pedagogic practice. Accommodation implies that the understandings and experiences of New Literacies have led to a fundamental restructuring of thinking involving a preparedness to entertain the idea that the very nature of literacy may well be changing. It means understanding that these New Literacies need to be negotiated in their own terms rather than being seen as extensions of established literacies (Lemke, 1998; Leu & Kinzer, 2000). Reinking et al. (2000) point out that accommodation does not mean abandoning research on ways in which electronic texts interface with conventional literacy practices. What is suggested here is that assimilation and accommodation will be required as complementary and iterative processes as school systems negotiate the ongoing emergence of New Literacies. The subsequent chapters deal with aspects of professional learning that will facilitate teachers’ productive entry into and participation in this dynamic. One key aspect is the understanding that new literacies do not simply entail alternative ways of making meaning (assimilation) but also new systems of meaning potential (accommodation). Although the ongoing reconceptualization of literacy will ultimately need to involve the discrete and integrative roles of a range of semiotic systems, this volume will focus mainly on the impact of the increased and changing role of images and image/language interaction. In this chapter the background for this focus will be briefly outlined and some of the implications of reconceptualizing literacy in the light of the changing nature of image/language interaction will be introduced.

Beyond Logocentric Models of Literacy: Addressing the Role of Images in Texts It is now a very routine matter for most personal computer users to be able to integrate images with language in the digital texts they compose and then share via electronic or paper media. This presents obvious challenges to logocentric theories of literacy and the traditional primacy of language in texts (Warshauer, 1999). It has been argued that written elements on screen are now considered to be only what cannot be done in images (Boulter, 1999) and that

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Literacy in electronic environments may have more to do with the production and consumption of images than reading and writing of either hypertextual or linear prose. (Bolter, 1998, p. 7)

The role of images relative to print in the communication of meanings in paper media is assuming greater prominence in texts of popular culture and professional, civic and social life and in school curriculum and educational materials more generally. While most contemporary novels tend to remain ‘pictureless’, there appear to be a growing number of popular exceptions such as Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Fable The Last Hero illustrated by Paul Kidby (Pratchett & Kidby, 2001), the edition of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings illustrated by Alan Lee (Tolkien & Lee, 2002), and the illustrated version of The Da Vinci Code (Brown, 2004), as well as illustrated novels for young readers such as Isobelle Carmody’s Dreamwalker , illustrated by Steve Woolman (Carmody & Woolman, 2001). There is also the enduring popularity of comics and graphic novels (McCloud, 2000; Saraceni, 2003) including the recontextualization of long-established literary works, such as Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (Kafka, 1915/2004) in this form (Kuper, 2003). In the case of picture storybooks the nature and the role of images have undergone major changes with the advent of the postmodern picture book (Dresang, 1999; Dresang & McClelland, 1999; Hollindale, 1995; Lewis, 2001; Lonsdale, 1993; Prain, 1998; Stephens & Watson, 1994; Watson, 1997). The increasing frequency and prominence of images in newspapers and in school science textbooks has been demonstrated by Kress and van Leeuwen (Kress, 1997; Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996; Kress & van Leeuwen, 1995). Kress has also argued that the contemporary integrative use of the visual and the verbal has produced a new code of writing and image, in which information is carried differentially by the two modes (Kress, 1997, 2003). Information that displays what the world is like is carried by the image, consistent with the logic of the visual as arrangement and display. Written language on the other hand, tends to follow the logic of speech in being oriented to action and event, and is thus oriented to the recording/reporting of actions and events and the ordering of procedures.

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While the necessity of rethinking the relative roles of images and language in literacy theory and practices may have been prompted by the impact of ICT (Richards, 2001), it is not simply an artefact of electronic media but applies equally to the use of contemporary texts in paper media (Henderson, 1999; Royce, 1998; Russell, 2000). In fact Kress has argued that it . . . is now impossible to make sense of texts, even their linguistic parts alone, without having a clear idea of what these other features might be contributing to the meaning of a text. (Kress, 2000b, p. 337)

This need to redefine literacy and literacy pedagogy in the light of the increasing influence of images has been widely advocated in the international literature (Russell, 2000). The Handbook of Reading Research, noted as ‘particularly important’ that research be undertaken ‘in the comprehension of graphics and text and the study of whether (and how) referential connections between visuals and text can be explicitly taught’(Kamil et al., 2000). Writing about Books for Youth in a Digital Age, Dresang (1999) noted that [i]n the graphically oriented, digital, multimedia world, the distinction between pictures and words has become less and less certain. (1999, p. 21)

and that [i]n order to understand the role of print in the digital age, it is essential to have a solid grasp of the growing integrative relationship of print and graphics. (1999, p. 22)

In both electronic and paper media environments then, [a]lthough the fundamental principles of reading and writing have not changed, the process has shifted from the serial cognitive processing of linear print text to parallel processing of multimodal text-image information. (Luke, 2003, p. 399)

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Lemke (2006, p. 11) has emphasized the importance of understanding the meaning-making practices people employ in complex virtual environments including ‘how linguistic and visual-graphic meaning-making are integrated.’ Andrews (2004) has explicitly noted the importance of the visual/verbal interface in both computer and hard copy texts: . . . it is the visual/verbal interface that is at the heart of literacy learning and development for both computer-users and those without access to computers. (Andrews, 2004, p. 63)

Resourcing Assimilation and Accommodation of New Literacies in the English Curriculum The motif of reconceptualizing literacy in terms of image/language interaction permeates most of this volume linking fundamental arenas of change that need to be negotiated in the iterative processes of assimilation and accommodation of New Literacies. These change arenas are reflected in the structure of the book. First, it is important that the English curriculum is considered in terms of a continuum from the beginnings of schooling to matriculation. In the first two chapters Peter Freebody and Bette Zhang Bin and Jane Torr are concerned with the role of image/language interaction in early literacy pedagogy. Freebody and Zhang Bin emphasize that early reading materials are not simply ideologically inert resources for developing literacy skills but that they simultaneously construct for children ways in which experience is ‘read-able’ in certain ways. Hence they argue that ‘a semiotic inquiry into the properties of texts aimed at informing practical pedagogy needs to begin with mutually informing examination of both texts and pedagogies’. Pedagogic practice needs to be considered in relation to the fact that images, particularly in early reading materials, are designed to obviate the need for analytic, interpretive work on language, so that what is communicated is represented unproblematically ‘as windows onto reality rather than crafted communications with histories of interpretation’. Torr examines in

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detail the interaction of young children with their preschool teachers and mothers in reading images in picture books. Of particular interest is the discrepancy between adult and child interpretations of pictures, how this is resolved, and what principles children develop for the interpretation of such images and their relation to the language of the stories. These chapters draw attention to the significance of text/context relations and the nature of pedagogic interaction in the ontogenesis of new literacies practices. While there has been a very long tradition of scholarship in formulating various ‘grammars’ and discourse systems to describe the meaning-making resources of language, which have then been available for pedagogic purposes, there has been no comparable tradition in formulating analogous ‘grammatical’ descriptions of the meaningmaking resources of images. However, the development of such a grammar was clearly considered desirable by established scholars of literature for children (Nodelman, 1988: ix), and the need for a metalanguage that included the meaning-making resources of images has been recently emphasized in the light of the increasingly multimodal nature of texts (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000). Initial work towards a ‘grammar of visual design’ (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006), extrapolated from systemic functional linguistic theory (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), provided a substantial basis for further work in this area, but Kress and van Leeuwen (2006: Preface) have maintained that their work in this field remains in its infancy. The section of this volume dealing with ‘[i]nterpreting literary picture books’ introduces new theoretical descriptions of the meaning-making resources of images and implications for the pedagogic use of such descriptions. In Chapter 4 John Stephens examines the use of language and image in the construction of discourses of environment and ecology in literary materials for children, further emphasizing the ‘constructedness’ of perspectives on experience in such materials as introduced by Freebody and Zhang Bin in Chapter 2. Stephens argues that the multimodal resources are marshalled to construct ‘pro-environmental’ stances in which humans are constructed as ‘outside’ of nature with nature being invested with value through the perceptions and caring of humans about it, and hence the texts are ‘anthropocentrically focused on the expression, evaluation and transformation of the self’.

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In Chapter 5 Clare Painter extends Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) work on a grammar of visual design, focussing on the construction of ambience in children’s picture books, principally through the use of colour in images. Ambience involves the creation or evocation of an atmosphere to which the viewer responds emotionally. A proposed visual system of AMBIENCE is presented, with each different option from the system explained and exemplified in relation to wellknown picture books. This system of ambience is used in Chapter 6 in which Jim Martin explores the ways in which appraisal resources of image and language are mobilized in constructing the discourse of reconciliation in the children’s picture book Photographs in the Mud (Wolfer & Harrison-Lever, 2005), which deals with AustralianJapanese warfare on the Kokoda Trail in New Guinea in World War II. The systems of Appraisal (Hunston & Thompson, 2000; Martin & Rose, 2003) describe the meaning-making options within language for constructing evaluative stance. In Chapter 6 Jim Martin explores the construction of appraisal in images in his analysis of Photographs in the Mud (Wolfer & Harrison-Lever, 2005) and in Chapter 7 Corinne Buckland and Andrew Simpson also use appraisal theory in exploring the ways images and language are deployed in the representation of values in Little Black Sambo (Bannerman, 1976/1899) as originally published and in a contemporary recontextualization (Bannerman & Bing, 2003). The New London Group (2000) proposed that the multiliteracies pedagogy required for contemporary and future schooling needed to be able to use . . . a metalanguage that describes meaning in various realms. These include the textual, the visual, as well as the multimodal relations between different meaning-making processes that are now so critical in media texts and the texts of electronic multimedia. (New London Group, 2000, p. 24)

The authors emphasized that teachers and students need this kind of metalanguage for talking about language, images and sound etc. and their meaning-making interactions. It is a significant (but not sufficient) resource for developing students’ understanding of how the ‘interestedness’ of all texts is frequently ‘naturalized’ or deemed

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invisible by the semiotic choices that are made in constructing the text. This kind of metalanguage gives students and teachers a means of comparing texts, of determining what semiotic choices were made in constructing particular meanings, what alternatives might have been chosen, and the effects therefore, of particular choices rather than others. The problem, of course, is that, despite strong advocacy for its development and some research in this direction, there is as yet no such comprehensive ‘inter-modal’ metalanguage. The research outlined in Chapters 4 through 7 of this volume, goes some way towards providing such a metalanguage for describing multimodal meaningmaking, and its description in the context of children’s picture books presents this emerging metalanguage in a form that can be readily adapted as a pedagogic resource. According to a recent study over half of all American teens, and 57 per cent of those who use the internet, are considered media creators, having published some form of multimedia such as blogs, web pages or videos (Jenkins, 2006a). The vast majority of this teenage multimedia authoring occurs outside of schooling (Jenkins, 2006b) and while many students seem to independently achieve significant expertise with at least the procedural, operational aspects of some commonly used popular technologies, if not those required for more sophisticated digital authorship, there remains a great deal of concern about ‘[t]he challenges young people face in learning to see clearly the ways that media shape perceptions of the world’ (Jenkins, 2006a, p. 3). It has been suggested that teaching students the systems of options for meaning-making in language, image, sound and movement gives them access to multimodal text analysis as a tool for critical multimedia literacy (Kellner & Share, 2007). For this to occur the research imperative is to formulate what these meaningmaking systems are and how they can be deployed separately and integratively (Lemke, 2006). To inform the pedagogic relevance of this kind of research it is useful to be able to articulate how effective multimodal texts constructed by students deploy and interrelate the resources of language and image (and other semiotic modes). In Chapter 8 Angela Thomas discusses student work with machinima – three-dimensional (3D) animated films constructed using game technologies. She focuses on the work of a sixth grade student using the

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Australian 3D multimedia authoring software for children, Kahootz, showing how the co-articulation of language, image and sound weaves intersemiotic coherence and discordance through the text creating a highly effective multimodal narrative technique. Thomas shows that some students are capable of reaching near professional authorship of such contemporary digital narratives. With this in mind Len Unsworth points out in Chapter 9 that the digital multimedia recontextualizations of traditional and contemporary literature (such as the online animated versions of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915/2004) and David Wiesner’s Flotsam (2006)) model the kind of pedagogic tasks that could be pursued with ‘net-age’, ‘digital’ generation students as a means of systematically exploring with them the multimodal ‘grammatical’ design options from which choices can be made in the construction of texts. Such pedagogic tasks suggested by Unsworth align with the suggestions of Reinking and his colleagues (2000). They proposed that the processes of assimilation and accommodation with respect to the use of information and communication technologies in literacy pedagogy might benefit from the provision of opportunities for teachers and students to compare and contrast printed and digital texts (Reinking, Labbo, & McKenna, 2000). For Unsworth, the focus of such comparisons is on explicit development of students’ knowledge of the meaning-making resources of language and image in comprehending and composing digital and paper media texts. The section on ‘Re-thinking text responses in secondary school English’ clearly reflects the assimilation/accommodation processes described by Reinking and his colleagues (Reinking et al., 2000). In Chapter 10 Frances Christie and Sally Humphrey note that in matriculation- level English, students are now frequently asked to study multimodal materials and to provide responses to film, advertisements and other images as well as traditional and contemporary literary texts. However the students’ responses are almost exclusively required in the form of language only. This seems to be an example of assimilation in the school system where New Literacies practices are required in comprehending multimodal texts but within the pedagogic context of established logocentric responses to these texts. In Chapter 11 Kristina Love deals with almost the mirror of this situation. She discusses the challenges for teachers in negotiating New

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Literacies practices in the form of students’ online ‘discussions’ about established literary works. In her detailed analysis of three different online discussion contexts, Love shows how, at a time when online modes are more pervasively being used for appreciating and interpreting prose fiction, it is becoming increasingly important to scrutinize linguistic structures for their structuring potential in that mode, to investigate such issues as what forms of reasoning are under construction, and how intended and consciously valued are those forms. Through their critical analysis of current practice Christie and Humphrey and Love, provide a constructive basis for optimizing learning in current assimilation contexts for New Literacies as well as resourcing teachers for moving towards accommodation. The assimilation/accommodation dynamic is drawn in sharpest relief in contexts of assessment in the English curriculum as discussed in the final section of this volume. Despite the substantial and growing awareness that reading comprehension increasingly needs to be thought of as a process of constructing meaning integratively from language and images, most large-scale group reading comprehension testing programs do not address this reality of comprehending contemporary textual materials. The United States (US) National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) does not include images in its test materials (Institute of Education Sciences, U. S. Department of Education, 2005). In the United Kingdom national testing of students in years three to five in the primary school is not mandatory, but schools may opt to use group tests provided by the National Assessment Authority. In New Zealand there are no reading tests mandated for primary schools but Greaney (2006) indicates that the Supplementary Test of Achievement in Reading (STAR) (Elley, 2001) may be used at least once a year in more than 50 per cent of New Zealand primary schools. This test does not address image/text relations as a dimension of reading comprehension. In Australia, at present, mandatory group reading comprehension tests for year three and year five children in government schools are conducted by the States (although the separate State tests will be replaced by national tests in the near future). A number of the current State tests do seek to assess children’s meaning-making from the integrative use of images and language in the reading materials contained in their colour stimulus

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booklets. In New South Wales (NSW), Basic Skills Tests (BST) have been administered to children in years three and five since 1994. In Chapter 12 Ann Daly and Kate O’Donnell analyze multimodal texts from these reading comprehension tests to identify where the verbal text and images correspond, complement or contradict each other, and then to identify the different reading strategies that students might have used to interpret questions about these multimodal texts. In contrast to most group reading comprehension testing practices, this kind of work clearly illustrates the tension at work with New Literacies in an assimilation context, and the press towards accommodation. In Chapter 13 Mary Macken-Horarik confronts the interface between multimodal assessment stimuli in secondary school English and the required monomodal student written response. She highlights the distinction between the openness of the test questions and accompanying stimuli and the relatively constrained nature of successful written responses to these. The focus is on the linguistic character of the genre of literate description that students produce in response to mostly visual stimuli, and how, once the linguistic features indexical of successful texts can be identified, there is the basis of an explicit pedagogy of assimilation. This amounts to teaching children that, in these assimilation contexts, learning to produce the favoured literate response to multimodal texts is the pathway to institutional educational success. In Chapter 14 David Baxter and Andrew Simpson analyze secondary school writing tasks and model answers to suggest that if students could use analyses based on the appraisal system (Hunston & Thompson, 2000; Martin & Rose, 2003) to specify the realization of evaluative stance constructed in stimulus texts, this would advantage them in being able to produce the valued literate responses which typically attend to such interpersonal features of these texts. In the final chapter Kay Kimber and Claire Wyatt-Smith discuss aspects of New Literacies negotiation from more of an accommodation perspective. Their starting point is the observation that many English teachers in primary and secondary schools weave student manipulation of digital texts into the fabric of their learning environments, but they note that few voices have addressed how student-designed, multimodal texts might be considered or

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critiqued as legitimate assessment items in their own right. The authors propose a criterion-referenced framework that could be used for talking about quality in student-created digital texts. In drawing on samples of eighth grade English students’ work, they demonstrate the utility of the criteria for evaluating the level of student performance in ways that take account of semiotic design, effective use of the affordances of the digital media, and the transformative nature of the learning achieved.

Conclusion An important implication that arises from work presented in this volume pertains to the role of the teacher in new learning contexts that are emerging in response to the exponential rate of change in available technologies and the associated changes in New Literacies. A growing body of research indicates that increasingly, students are coming to school more literate in some dimensions of the New Literacies and ICT than their teachers (Leu et al., 2004). There is a need for curriculum design and classroom teaching to be responsive to these changes and, in so doing to acknowledge the relevant experience and expertise of children. Leu and his colleagues (2004) have indicated the importance of social learning strategies, with teachers no longer the sole source of literacy knowledge, orchestrating literacy learning opportunities between and among students and themselves. They have appropriately argued in such contexts that teachers will become even more important to the development of literacy in a world of New Literacies. However, it is also obviously the case that teachers are in a position to mediate areas of new knowledge and understandings that are not so readily accessible to children. A clear example of this is the emerging theoretically articulated functional grammars of language and image and the associated metalanguage of image/text relations that facilitate explicit discussion about the interpretative possibilities constructed by multimodal texts and strategies for negotiating their critical comprehension and composition. Collaborative work among teachers and researchers will be necessary to progress the formulation of new multimodal and intermodal pedagogic ‘grammars’, and a

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more collaborative pedagogy will be needed to negotiate the iterative processes of assimilation and accommodation of New Literacies in classroom contexts. It is hoped that this book will assist in facilitating productive participation along these lines among the fraternity of researchers and teachers in English and literacy education.

References Andrews, R. (2004), ‘Where next in research on ICT and literacies’. Literacy Learning: The Middle Years, 12(1), 58–67. Bannerman, H. (1976/1899), ‘The story of Little Black Sambo’, in H. Bannerman (ed.), The Little Black Sambo Storybook. New York: Bucaneer Books. Bannerman, H. and Bing, C. (2003), The Story of Little Black Sambo. New York: Handprint. Bolter, J. (1998), ‘Hypertext and the question of visual literacy’, in D. Reinking, M. McKenna, L. Labbo and R. Kieffer (eds), Handbook of Literacy and Technology: Transformations in a Post-typographic World. New Jersey: Erlbaum, pp. 3–14. Boulter, D. (1999), Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Brown, D. (2004), The Da Vinci Code: Special Illustrated Edition. New York: Doubleday. Carmody, I. and Woolman, S. (2001), Dreamwalker . Melbourne: Lothian. Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (eds). (2000), Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. Melbourne: Macmillan. Dresang, E. (1999), Radical Change: Books for Youth in a Digital Age. New York: Wilson. Dresang, E. and McClelland, K. (1999), Radical Change: Digital Age Literature and Learning. Theory into Practice, 38(3), 160–7. Elley, W. (2001), Supplementary Test of Achievement in Reading . Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Greaney, K. (2006), Analysing and reporting reading achievement test data: Issues and implications for the New Zealand Supplementary Test of Achievement in Reading. Paper presented at the Australian Association

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of Teachers of English/Australian Literacy Educators Association, 8–11 July 2006, Darwin, Australia. Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. (2004), An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd edn). London: Arnold. Henderson, G. (1999), ‘Learning with diagrams’. Australian Science Teachers’ Journal, 45(2), 17–25. Hollindale, P. (1995), ‘Children’s literature in an age of multiple literacies’. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 18(4), 248–58. Hunston, S. and Thompson, G. (2000), Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Institute of Education Sciences U. S. Department of Education (2005), National Assessment of Educational Progress (Reading). Jenkins, H. (2006a), Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century [Electronic Version]. Occasional Paper, The MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved 29 June 2007 from http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org/site/ c.enJLKQNlFiG/b.2029291/k.97E5/Occasional Papers.htm. Jenkins, H. (2006b), ‘The war between effects and meaning: Rethinking the video game violence debate’, in D. Buckingham and R. Willett (eds), Digital Generations: Children, Young People and New Media. Malwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Kafka, F. (1915/2004), The Metamorphosis. New York: Bantam/ Random House. Kamil, M., Intrator, S. and Kim, H. (2000), ‘The effects of other technologies on literacy and learning’, in M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, P. Pearson and R. Barr (eds), Handbook of Reading Research (vol. 3). Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum, pp. 771–88. Kellner, D. and Share, J. (2007), ‘Critical media literacy is not an option’. Learning Inquiry, 1, 56–69. Kress, G. (1997), ‘Visual and verbal modes of representation in electronically mediated communication: the potentials of new forms of text’, in I. Snyder (ed.), Page to Screen: Taking Literacy into the Electronic Era. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, pp. 53–79. Kress, G. (2000a), ‘Design and transformation: New theories of meaning’, in B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds), Multiliteracies: Learning

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Literacy and the Design of Social Futures. Melbourne: Macmillan, pp. 153–61. Kress, G. (2000b), ‘Multimodality: Challenges to thinking about language’. TESOL Quarterly, 34(3), 337–40. Kress, G. (2003), Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge. Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996), Reading Images: A grammar of visual design. London: Routledge. Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2006), Reading Images: A grammar of visual design (2nd edn). London: Routledge. Kress, G. and vanLeeuwen, T. (1995), ‘Critical layout analysis’. Internationale Schulbuchforschung , 17(1), 25–43. Kuper, P. (2003), The Metamorphosis. New York: Three Rivers Press. Lemke, J. (1998), ‘Metamedia literacy: Transforming meanings and media’, in D. Reinking, M. McKenna, L. Labbo and R. Kieffer (eds), Handbook of Literacy and Technology: Transformations in a PostTypographic World. New Jersey: Erlbaum, pp. 283–302. Lemke, J. (2006), ‘Towards critical multimedia literacy: Technology, research and politics’, in M. McKenna, L. Labbo, R. Kieffer and D. Reinking (eds), International Handbook of Literacy and Technology (vol. II). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 3–14. Leu, D. and Kinzer, C. (2000), ‘The convergence of literacy instruction with networked technologies for information and communication’. Reading Research Quarterly, 35(1), 108–27. Leu, D., Kinzer, C., Coiro, J. and Cammack, D. (2004), ‘Toward a theory of new literacies emerging from the Internet and other information and communication technologies’, in R. Ruddell and N. Unrau (eds), Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading (vol. 5). Newark, DE: International Reading Association, pp. 1570–613. Lewis, D. (2001), Reading Contemporary Picturebooks. London: Routledge Falmer. Lonsdale, M. (1993), ‘Postmodernism and the picture book’. English in Australia, 103, 25–35. Luke, C. (2003), ‘Pedagogy, connectivity, multimodality and interdisciplinarity’. Reading Research Quarterly, 38(10), 356–85. Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2003), Working with Discourse: Meaning Beyond the Clause (1st edn, vol. 1). London/New York: Continuum. McCloud, S. (2000), Reinventing Comics. New York: HarperCollins.

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New London Group (2000), ‘A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures’, in B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds), Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. Melbourne: Macmillan, pp. 9–37. Nodelman, P. (1988), Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Prain, V. (1998), ‘Picture books in secondary English’, in A. Goodwyn (ed.), Literary and Media Texts in Secondary English. London: Cassell, pp. 81–97. Pratchett, T. and Kidby, P. (2001), The Last Hero. New York: Discworld/Harper Collins. Reinking, D., Labbo, L. and McKenna, M. (2000), ‘From assimilation to accommodation: a developmental framework for integrating digitial technologies into literacy research and instruction’. Journal of Research in Reading , 23(2), 110–22. Richards, C. (2001), ‘Hypermedia, internet communication, and the challenge of redefining literacy in the electronic age’. Language Learning and Technology, 4(2), 59–77. Royce, T. (1998), ‘Synergy on the page: Exploring intersemiotic complementarity in page-based multimodal text’. Japan Association Systemic Functional Linguistics Occasional Papers, 1(1), 25–50. Russell, G. (2000), ‘Print-based and visual discourses in schools: implications for pedagogy’. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 21(2), 205–17. Saraceni, M. (2003), The Language of Comics. London and New York: Routledge. Stephens, J. and Watson, K. (eds). (1994). From Picture Book to Literary Theory. Sydney: St Clair Press. Tolkien, J. R. R. and Lee, A. (2002), The Fellowship of the Ring : Being the First Part of Lord of the Rings. London: Harper Collins. Warshauer, M. (1999), Electronic Literacies: Language, Culture, and Power in Online Education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Watson, K. (ed.). (1997), Word and Image. Sydney: St Clair Press. Wiesner, D. (2006), Flotsam. New York: Houghton Mifflin/Clarion. Wolfer, D. and Harrison-Lever, B. (2005), Photographs in the Mud. Freemantle, Western Australia: Freemantle Arts Centre Press.

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Chapter 2

The Designs of Culture, Knowledge, and Interaction in the Reading of Language and Image

Peter Freebody University of Sydney

Bette Zhang Bin University of Queensland

A picture has been said to be something between a thing and a thought. Samuel Palmer, 1805–1881 (Cited in Symons 1907/1997, p. 247)

Introduction Contributors to this volume are concerned with semiotic analysis and its relation to ‘practical pedagogy’, with particular attention to images and multimodal ensembles. In this chapter we consider the cultural, epistemological, and interactional settings for that relation. A common assumption is that pedagogy can and should be informed, straightforwardly, by the principled analytic study of texts. This assumption reflects a general notion of practical pedagogy, essentially that it refers to a set of practices and understandings that are either too commonsensically known, too obvious and widely understood, or, contrariwise, too idiosyncratic, messy, or inchoate to be an object of principled study – either too well known or too unknown to be analytically knowable. The semiotic analysis of texts, in contrast,

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rests on the idea that texts are straightforwardly amenable to principled analysis; hence it is that text analysts inform practitioners of pedagogy. This is a plausible and productive interpretation: Texts are both products and producers of context, at once informed by and informing the conditions of their use. So analytic work on the affordances of texts, on what might be activated in any given setting, has potential significance for the study and improvement of pedagogy. An aim of this chapter, however, is to illustrate that, for the significance of work in semiotics to be more fully realized in pedagogy, practical pedagogy itself needs to be treated as an object of analytic attention. The term ‘practical pedagogy’ refers to a set of historically valued institutional practices and orientations, valued in the institution of schooling, and valued moreover for their constitutive relationship to the business of that institution (Drew & Heritage 1992; Smith 2002). Pedagogies, whatever else they may do, display for, and monitor and assess in students, distinctive ways of seeing, reading, accounting for, and making texts. To appreciate the limits and possibilities of researchers’ influence on educational work through the provision of more powerful techniques for semiotic analysis, therefore, we need to have some analytic framework for describing pedagogical practices, along with some understanding of what holds them in place, how they evolve, and what makes some of them dominant, residual, or emergent at different times and places. To pursue these issues we first explore what is, for most Englishspeaking colleagues, an unfamiliar site of acculturation, the materials given to students in the People’s Republic of China in their first year at school as part of the beginning reading program. We discuss ways in which these first school reading books combine language and images to acculturate the student-reader both into a particular relationship with authoritative book knowledge and into an authoritative relation to national culture. Second, we emphasize the significance of the epistemological setting of the use of texts in schools, considering first ways in which knowledge formations are used to ‘discipline’ literacy practices. We argue that, as students advance through the school years, practical pedagogy is shaped by the practices associated with various curriculum areas, each evolving in distinctive ways into

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collections of increasingly specific interpretations – ways of reading and writing that constitute ways of describing, believing, knowing, explaining, justifying, and the rest – in the pursuit of disciplinespecific purposes. We turn then to the interactional settings for the use of texts, the ways in which the formats of talk and exchange in classrooms work to organize the moral relationships that frame learning. We show some common, mundane, and, we hope, recognizable ways in which these relationships are embodied and naturalized. We do this to emphasize the authority relations that both disciplinary practices and semiotic materials are recruited to reflect and support. We argue and illustrate, for instance, that one of the ways in which images are used in classrooms, across different disciplines, to ‘ground’ interpretation in ontology, is to allow texts apparently to ‘speak for themselves’. We suggest that one outcome of this ensemble of processes – textual, cultural, epistemological and interactional – is to constrain interpretation and, thereby, the interpretive agency of studentreaders. One aspect of that constraint implicates images in that they are used in many pedagogic events as if they were ‘pre-interpretable’, fundamentals rather than products of knowledge, offering meanings that appear to show transparently the self-evident surface features of experience. Because of that, they need, perhaps even more so than language texts, explicit analytic treatment in educational settings.

Becoming School-Literate in China Introducing yuwen Yuwen is a term used in the People’s Republic of China to refer to the teaching of reading-literature in school. It is difficult to provide an English rendering of the term that adequately reflects the social, political, cultural and disciplinary affiliations embedded in it. Traditionally, the teaching of beginning reading was called ‘interpreting and reading the classics’ (Jianjin Dujin). In the 1920s, along with the establishment of a formal set of school curriculum subjects, the

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teaching of modern Chinese language came under two headings: National Literature (Guowen) and National Language (Guoyu) (Cheng 1998). In 1950 the term yuwen was introduced into the school curriculum, but until 2001 it was used to indicate two related but distinct aspects of teaching Chinese – language (yu) and literature (wen). In the Yuwen Curricular Standard of 2001, yuwen for the first time was used to refer to a singular concept; language-and-literaturestudies, seen as inextricably connected. Yuwen also effectively established putonghua (common language) as the language required for school, bringing with it a simplified character set and particular formats and genres for official, public writing. To align with the new curricular standards, a series of new Chinese textbooks was designed, published, and trialled in a sample of schools. In 2003 the new textbook series became mandatory for all new entrance students (i.e., in their first year of schooling) and replaced previous editions from Year 1–9 in all schools by 2005. It is with a sample of these books that we illustrate our points about the cultural – ideological, historical, and social – affordances of becoming literate. Image and text in yuwen books Our interest here is in how these first school reading books combine language and images to help students become literate-for-school in China, including what these images ‘say’ about childhood, school, literacy, and Chinese education (a fuller discussion is available in Zhang 2006, and the analyses are based partly on Baker & Freebody 1989, and Kress & van Leeuwen 2006). In schools in China, the first three to five weeks of Chinese teaching are often devoted to the specific tasks of ‘entrance education’, learning the alphabetic letters, pinyin, and some basic Chinese characters. Children in schools are prompted to recognize and engage in proper ways of speaking before they are introduced to the recognition of written words (Hudson-Ross & Dong 1990; Sheridan 1990; Tao & Zuo 1997). This initial oral language learning is mediated largely through images. For instance, among the groups of entrance education pictures, the one shown here (Figure 1) is the first in the sequence, and is used to introduce students to recognize school, and schooled forms of demeanour and interaction.

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Figure 1 yuwen entrance education (Courtesy of the People’s Education Press, Beijing, China) In this picture, there are no speech bubbles to give hints about what the characters might or should say. The picture is taken to ‘say without words’, and children would be prompted to ‘look-and-say’. The activities and settings of talking and their potential topics are conveyed in the picture. The human figures presented on the left side of the image are paired, with hands gesturing greeting (teacher-pupil), departing (mother-daughter, and father-son) or talking (two students). According to the teacher’s manual accompanying this book, ‘simple polite language’ is encouraged rather than specified, and the emphasis is on letting the students feel the warmth of the teacher and respect for the country when saluting to the red flag, and so on. Along with meeting and greeting, we see a narrative representation of ‘entering’ school. In this picture, the school fence signifies the border-crossing, in and out the institution. The large letter poster on the fence: ‘Welcome New Students’ conveys a theme for engaging the picture. On the left of the fence, there are eight human figures; on the right, the participants include a building, a flag, trees and a flower

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bed, and four human figures. The strong diagonal line formed by the fence with a gate creates the setting, marked by a dropping shape sign saying ‘New China Road Primary School’ on the right side of the fence, and a small shelter-like building on the left. The sign indicates that this is a school, and a school in China. The human figures on the left of the fence are the most salient participants in the image. The fence line links the actors walking towards the School. In this picture, except for the female figure, we see the Actors standing beside the gate in positions that project their attention toward the school. The three paired figures who appear to be adults and children are linked by raised arms, signifying departure and entering. The children are entering. The picture can also be read using Kress and van Leeuwen’s ‘fourblock positioning device’: On the top section is a school environment, perhaps an ideal one; the bottom section presents a ‘familiar’ scene for young viewers, people accompanying and ‘talking’ to one another. The left side of the picture, as a Given, tells the young readers a fact – the child-characters are now leaving people they know and going, by themselves, independently, into a school. The three children are shown in three distinct phases of movement from their adult parentguardians toward the welcoming teacher: one is already with the teacher with no accompanying parent evident; one is waving to his father from a distance, and one is still with her mother, who is pointing to the gate. School-related elements are presented on the right side as New to new students. Depicted in the right bottom section are, apparently, two schoolmates (their school bags are on their backs and they are walking toward the gate) walking and talking, signifying a new, student-to-student relationship. The school building is accompanied by a rising national flag, the surrounding leafy environment, the fence, and the words on the fence. In this picture, we see a bar fence, which came to replace the traditional solid brick ‘compound’ wall in the 1980s. The bar fence appears to be more transparent than the traditional concrete brick walls. The gate office is marked as Message Office (Chuanda Shi), and the gate officer has power to check incomers. The female figure beside the gate is the only person in the picture facing readers, holding books in her hands. While visual grammars inform us about the

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design of meaning functions of the structure of images, they are less useful in explaining the historical and ideological connotations that some of the iconic symbols afford. To determine which connotations offer valid inferences ‘we have to draw upon our stock of commonsense knowledge in order to make a reading of the image in terms of expressive content’ (Emmison & Smith 2000, p. 47). The picture ‘entrance education’, provided before any explicit word recognition has been introduced to students, affords messages about school culture at the beginning moment of young students’ school careers. With the beginning of learning words, we notice fine-tuning in the integration of written texts and images, each mode giving cues that help construe and contextualize meaning. These emergent integrations are crafted. As Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) have pointed out, visual layout, the manoeuvring of spatial arrangement of blocks of texts and pictures, and the handling of various graphic devices combine to afford and reinforce particular social practices. Here we see graphic devices employed to give meanings to certain discourses prevalent in contemporary China. One such discourse entails a clear physical and social-interactional demarcation of the public/national from the familial/domestic/local. The depiction in Figure 1 provides both a view of that demarcation and a benevolent and ‘everyday’ visual demonstration of the separation process. In the Chinese first yuwen books, textual materials are arranged from top-to-bottom and in a left-to-right horizontal order, in contrast to the traditional Chinese reading path from top left to right in vertical lines. The visual semiotics convey information about the structural order of meanings. As noted, in a typical Western-style layout, according to Kress and van Leeuwen, the top side information is taken to convey meaning of ‘Ideals’ and the bottom side of ‘Realities’. The Ideal is idealized or generalized information; the Real presents more specific, concrete information. The left-side information is presented as Given, and the right side as New. The Given is presented as commonsense, self-evident, or already in semiotic play in the text, and the New is novel, problematic, and/or challenging. Inspecting the visual displays and structures of the Chinese reading books, the typical reading path shows a written text in the upper section and a picture in a lower section of a page. Typical text lessons (kewen) are

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Figure 2 yuwen word recognition (Courtesy of the People’s Education Press, Beijing, China) structured with numbered titles, bodies of texts, key vocabulary and following exercises. The text above the image reads: ‘One [person] goes, two or three li (archaic measure comparable to “league”), four and five cottages (“villages”) with smoking chimneys, pavilions six and seven, and eight, nine and ten branches of flowers’. In Figure 2 the material for the first lesson in word recognition is displayed as a two-page spread. On the left side of the page the top section is a written text, with Chinese characters and alphabetic pinyin above each character. In the bottom section, there is a picture, in this case, inter-textual with an ambience of historicity or ‘ancientness’ (see Martin, this volume), and elaborating on the words in the above texts. On the right page there is a picture in the top section. It is a picture that relates to a contemporary activity, originating from the West, but now globally recognized (a basketball team). Each of the players represented in the picture wears a uniform, with a Western numeral on it, and each has a ball with the same number written as a Chinese character. Beneath the picture are highlighted words

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selected from the text (with the assumption that teachers will have students try to memorize them). On the bottom of the page, there is a demonstration showing the conventional sequence of strokes taken to write the characters. Thus each of the elements posits and pre-structures a learning task, a pedagogic activity, with the reading path designed in the sequential order of: the written text, picture one (on the left bottom, relating to the written text), picture two (on the up right, representing a contemporary scene), and questions and assignments (keywords and exercises). The written text is positioned as Given and Ideal. As Given, the information is presented commonsensically as the material on which the task of learning is to be based, specified in this lesson as material relating to word recognition. Positioning material on the left side signifies that this is the topical focus of the learning, rather than an interpretation or commentary about that material. If readers follow this reading-path in this lesson (that is, if they read the layout pedagogically), as is typical in yuwen reading textbook lessons, they are thereby located within a specific set of pedagogical procedures that will come to be the norm for reading lessons. An alteration of position of the elements of the contents would change the sequencepurpose of the material and thus afford a changed pedagogy. That is, the school textbook directly enables the structures and sequences of these pedagogical practices. Further, the structure of the meaning-making processes is critical in the building of the identity – the skills, dispositions, practices, and place in pedagogic relations – of the readership. In this case, the written text in the Given-Ideal position (top-left) is a classic poem. But it is not formatted classically: The text is designed to be read from left to right order, not in the traditional right-left order, and punctuation is used to break words into sentences. Neither of these design options is used in traditional Chinese texts. When the Chinese adopted the left-right horizontal and punctuated reading layout in 1915 (Wang 2004, p. 1515), the intention was to develop a reading habit that had some transferability, as well as to reinforce a reading order that departed from tradition. As observed by Zhang (2006), in the Chinese school reading texts for very young children, there is a persistent interweaving of modern, traditional, and revolutionary elements, a reflection of what has been summarized as ‘Chinese

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post-Mao-Deng discourse’. In this very first word recognition lesson, an old poem, drawn from an elite literary culture and from a deep national heritage, is predictably positioned as an idealized and generalized text, but it is designed to be read in putonghua and written with modern, simplified Chinese characters. It is in the setting of those tensions and dialectics that its position as Given-Ideal is to be read. The content of the poem itself reflects an imagined ancient community. The top positioning makes this imagined world idyllic, with the imagined world ‘real-ised’ in the picture below. The picture is projected unproblematically; it functions to embody the poem, presenting a specific viewer’s landscape. This landscape is also poetic in ambience, in contrast to the right-top picture. Its tones create an ambience of longevity and historicity (see chapters by Painter and Martin, this volume). The reading of the information presented in the Given side is restrained by what is presented on the side of the New. In this case, it is particularized through the highlighted numbers. While the right-top picture opens other interpretations as well, the lesson tasks on the right-bottom section direct readers to extract a particular kind of information from the picture, the numbers. In this lesson, the layout explicitly constrains the interplay of words and the images, and each directs and constrains the interpretation of the other. Equally salient in this instance is that the format also shapes the interplay of heritage and contemporary activities, both imaginally (in the contrast of ambience and topic of the images) and linguistically (in the parallel contrasts in vocabulary and numerals). Emmison and Smith (2000) suggest that visual materials be analyzed as ‘sources of concrete visual information about the abstract concepts and processes which are central to understanding everyday social life’ and ‘as sites for the explication of common-sense reasoning’ (p. 58). In the special case of beginning school reading materials, we can add that the images do important work in initiating and producing commonsense reasoning about literacy and schooling (including being a student and a student-reader), as well as simply explicating or referencing those reasoning formats. In the case of the Chinese beginning reading materials such reasoning practices include nationalistic, political and ideological practices. In sharp

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Figure 3 yuwen text – Beijing (Courtesy of the People’s Education Press, Beijing, China) contrast to the materials examined by Baker and Freebody (1989) and Luke (1988), however, many of these practices are overt in the Chinese setting. An analysis of Figure 3 allows a view of how these practices are designed in image and words. The text top left says: Mum tells me ‘Along the winding road, you can go away from the mountain. In far away Beijing city is Tiananmen Square. In the Square, the flag-raising ceremony is extraordinarily magnificent.’ I say to Mum ‘How I want to go and have a look.’

The two-page layout shown in Figure 3 is designed in four blocks. In Kress and van Leeuwen’s formulation: The written text (top-left)

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is presented as Given-Ideal, projected as content to be acquired; the picture bottom-left is positioned Given-Real, as an imitation of a reallife situation; the picture top-right is positioned New-Ideal, as new information to learn and value; and the bottom-left picture shows an intentional use of vector via the woman’s raised hand, linking the attention of the woman and the boy to the picture held in the woman’s hand. Thus, the picture affords a narrative and we are visually invited to realize it, with the represented participants, a woman and a boy, commonsensically observable from the informality of the scene as a mother and her son. The picture held by Mother is of Tiananmen Square, in (and as a symbol of) the capital city of China. By setting the storytelling under an old tree and against a background of mountains, Tiananmen is rendered as a distant, unfamiliar and exotic place, supported by the written caption: ‘along the winding roads, you can go out of the mountain’, to a new place, the city of Beijing. Thus the work of nationalism being done here in school is displaced, shown to be done in the domestic setting of a mother and child. The photograph on the right-top of the page shows the flag-raising ceremony in Tiananmen Square. The salient element is the red flag, created through an instance of Symbolic Attributive processes, which accomplish salience by being foregrounded, or perhaps by being represented with the size exaggerated, or particularly illuminated, or conspicuous colour (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006: 108). The salience is reinforced by the soldiers and spectators in the Square whose gazes are ceremonially directed toward the flag. The faintness and schematic nature of the human figures, effected by the dark back shots of the soldiers and the distance of the watchers, together create an abstract viewing space for the student-readers to occupy. The location of the mother-and-boy picture provides viewers with an identifiably ‘real’ setting. By using the strategy of the picture in the mother’s hand, this real setting is made to be abstract, generalizable, and thus applicable to a wide range of identifications. By positioning the Tiananmen photo at the right-top, the new and ideal world is structured as unique, and viewers are unlikely to imagine it as any other place. (As both new information and learning task, these symbols are further specified as nationalistic in the text exercise, ‘I Can Read’, on the subsequent page (104): ‘Beijing is the capital of our

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country. The five-star red flag is our country’s national flag. We love Beijing. We love the five-star red flag’.) The written text displays a mode of telling a story that does not resemble the usual schematic structure of a narrative genre. It is structured as a two-party dialogue. The Sayer, mother, sets the scope – what is sayable. The ‘verbal range’ of saying is to ‘go to Beijing and Tiananmen Square’, represented in juxtaposition with the mountains and roads that surround the setting of the storytelling. The initial action ‘to go out’ is projected as a fact. Here Beijing, as the destination, is nominalized in Tiananmen as part of ‘natural’ environment, just like mountains and roads. By eliminating other locales in Beijing and any other events in the Square, Beijing is embodied in a single captured moment, the flag-raising ceremony. The story is a first-person narration in which the agent of the action to go out, to Beijing, and to Tiananmen, is ‘me’. The social purpose of going is not travelling, but rather becoming a member of the nation. In the ‘I Can Read’ exercise, Beijing and the flag are identified as national symbols: Beijing is the capital; the five-star red flag is the national flag; and ‘we’, as a group, love Beijing and love the flag. Beijing and the flag are legitimated symbols of the nation, and the feeling of love is an emotion legitimately attached to them. The story that Mother tells is not a typical children’s story in the Western style. The pattern of the story is reminiscent of a traditional Chinese children’s rhyme with the repetition: ‘Once upon a time, there is a mountain. On the mountain, there is a temple. In the temple, there is a monk telling stories . . .’, and so on. Yet the content of this story is contemporary and realistic. What Mother and Child are talking about is presented as tangible reality, effectively a recount of what is an aspect of social and national identity. This text serves as a primordial beginning Chinese-reading event (both beginning reading and beginning Chinese) in introducing young readers to the new genre of schooled stories. In this case, the story has a theme, patriotism. The centre of the setting is Tiananmen Square, the icon of the political centre of modern China – a permanent showground, a stage for power performances and ceremonies, protests, demonstrations, repressions, the place where Chairman Mao announced in 1949 that ‘Chinese people are now standing up’, where the 1976 mass

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demonstration led to the ending of Mao’s era, where the 1989 massacre led to the end of Deng Xiaoping’s era – a monumental place, where Western corporations have recently product-placed icons of popular culture, fast food chains, designer shops, grand theatres – in short, a place for competing for, marketing to, and influencing China’s young. It is from this central setting that stories of patriotism are ‘carried out’. Tiananmen Square is both centre stage and political hub. Reading and affiliation The high ratio of images to words in the beginning reading materials in China indicates the significance and multiplicity of the functions of images in the settings in which these materials are to be used. Images do informational as well as decorative, affective, and appraisal work. Learners’ reading materials and practices are co-designed to project learners into settings for reading. In these earliest school reading texts, these target settings comprise aspects of public life, and the projection is from domestic toward public, institutional life. This is in contrast to the beginning school reading books analyzed by Baker and Freebody (1989), who found stories in which teachers showed domestic, family-like interests and activities, parents showed teacher-like interests and activities, teachers visited the family home, and family members visited the school, the consistency lying in a focus on the public construction of adult-child relations: . . . the portrayal of teachers as pseudo-family members and reciprocal portrayal of parents as pseudo-teachers entails a specific reconstruction of both social settings around the same set of generational relations. (p. 62)

A stronger emphasis on public behaviour and public spaces, bringing with it a more evident and linear projection of the student-reader into public institutional life, is evident in the Chinese materials, in particular in the images. Learning to orient to these public formations, to participate in one’s apprenticeship into their practices and discourses, is a salient aspect of learning to read with these materials, and thereby becomes part of the developmental inevitability of

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becoming schooled. These books centre-stage the collective-concept of China as the targeted projection of the reader (and see Woodside 1992), in the way that the corpus of books examined by Baker and Freebody centre-stage adult–child relations.

‘Disciplining’ Knowledge and Lessons How school texts become part of literacy learning events, how their features are ‘read into’ and support the organization of day-to-day work in schools, relates to two orders of practice to which teachers and students must orient: an epistemological order – how knowledge is organized for and in curriculum – and an interactional order – how talk is organized for and in lessons. First, we see that reading and writing in the classroom are shaped by syllabuses, curriculum frameworks and disciplines, the variety of sets of criteria for interest, value, and truth that function to maintain professional, institutional and practical regimes, and to organize the interactions among practitioners in a variety of work fields (Becher 1989; Freebody & Muspratt 2007). These we may also see as the epistemological accountabilities to which teachers and students increasingly need to orient as the school years progress and as the organization of knowledge becomes more classified and framed (Bernstein 1975, 1996). How to conceptualize and document these curriculum ‘disciplines’? Traditionally disciplines have been regarded as sets of topic interests, inquiries, and procedural norms for the conduct of inquiry (e.g., Biglan 1973; Haack 1993; Toulmin 1972, 2003), providing coherent sets of answers to what a community of inquiry will count as: evidence, the production and display of evidence, reliable and valid evidence, fact versus opinion and the relative significance of each, right answers and right ways of getting to them, and the nature, significance, and relationship of description, interpretation, and explanation (MacDonald 1994). So the semiotic analysis of how privileged knowledge is offered to students in texts is paying increasing attention to language and image, and to their interaction. But one of the general conclusions available from much of this research is that, while multimodal text analysis has advanced significantly over the last ten years or so, there is a need to accompany descriptions of the structure and

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meaning-making potentials of multimodal texts with descriptions of how teachers and students do and might use those potentials in everyday educational settings (e.g., Kress et al., 2001; Unsworth 2004), and on to a close study of how it is that disciplines, and their curricular manifestations in schools, differently configure and put to work multimodal textual experiences. But secondly, we might ask: What might some features of the use of images be as they are put to work in classrooms? Can we observe them being accorded some special status as objects of communication? One observation that can be sustained is that images are often seen rather than interpreted; that is, they are accorded by teachers a form of self-evidence not generally attributed to curricular language. In Transcript Example 4, for instance, we see a teacher of young students joining with them in an exercise that produces self-evident ‘symbols’: Transcript Example 4: Year 1, Lesson on the weather, Social Studies (students approximately 5 years of age)

1.

t

2. 3. 4. 5.

s t s t

6. 7.

s t

If they said, yes in this country it’s going to be sunny today, what might they put there? They put the weather. And what (.) how do they put the weather? They draw it= =Aah, that’s exactly what I want to hear. They draw it. They draw what it’s like. But, they don’t get out all their colour pencils and everything and go ‘Alright everybody the weather’s going to be sunny, and here’s the trees, and here’s the sun.’ They don’t do all that (.) they just use one one little picture, one little symbol to show the types of weather. That’s what we’re going to do, but you’re going to tell me. I’m going to do the first one for you. Sun// //If I said, if it’s going to be sunny, actually I might make that sunny. If I said it’s going to be sunny today, instead of writing that big word on my page I might do this. (1.0)

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8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

s1 s2 t S(s) t S(s) t

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Sun, a sun There it is So if I said to you, ‘Okay today the weather is ∧ (.)’ /Sunny You would say ∧ (.) Sunny I didn’t tell you what it’s like (1) if you had a look at the picture you can tell what the weather’s going to be like. So my things, my sy:ymbol, my picture for sunny is (.) a sun. You’re going to help me make up some pictures and some symbols for the other types of weather. 14a Okay hands up, if I showed you snow, what might you draw? Dots, dots// //No, your hands not up, what might you draw (.) for snow? Karleena? White dots∧ W White dots

As these are beginning students, the teacher cannot assume that the group as a cohort can reliably write words, and the images that are the topic of talk here are used as ‘pre-literate’ elements in text production. The transfer of the point to new content in the exchange from Turns 14 a–18, using the snow example, confirms for the teacher and students that the point is secure, in particular as Karleena goes beyond the non-accepted out-of-turn bid in 15 with the addition of white. The tightly timed opposing intonaW tions (‘white dots∧ white dots ’) marks the successful conclusion of this introductory explication phase of the lesson. The suggestion is that it is their status as self-evident communication (you can tell), rather than their need for interpretation, that is taken, importantly, by teacher and students alike, to make them appropriate for preliterate children, a stepping stone, as it were, toward reading and writing words. Whether or not this hypothesis about teachers’ use of images as distinctively self-evident, pre-interpreted, is plausible across curriculum areas or grade levels is an empirical question. More theoretically

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consequential is the suggestion that this self-evidence also forms part of the use of those images that are less or not at all representational, such as the kinds of graphs and abstract visual models given heavy duty in some curriculum areas. Transcript example 5 (taken from a project in progress by Freebody, Bahr, Christensen, and Wright) shows an example of a map being used to speak for itself on the matter of cultural influences. Transcript Example 5: Yr 11 South East Asian History (students approximately 16 years of age)

1.

T

2. 3.

Ss T

Conflict just doesn’t happen. This is one of the things we’re going to look at. If we could just fast forward straight to the Vietnam War and say ‘hey look’ (.) bang OK here’s a war (1) means nothing unless you look at what happened beforehand. Wars don’t just ((clicks his fingers)) come out of the blue. OK∧ there’s always some sort of factor leading up to it OK∧ (2) so what we want to look at is the impact of the French specifically (.) in Indo-China (1) question for the day∧ (22) ((teacher writes on the board: What was the impact of the French colonisation of Indo-China?)) Before we get too far down that path let’s look at where we are (.) so to speak. ((overhead projection with map of SE-Asia)). . . thankfully Vietnam is coloured in so you can see where it is. OK so in case you didn’t realise where we’re talking about (3) quick question∧ (.) based on the map (1) what country will always have a humungous historical influence (.) hold on Vietnam? What country will always have a humungous historical influence (.) hold on Vietnam? China∧ W China . It’s called Indo-China for a reason. OK∧ ‘cause India’s just over this way ((pointing to area of the map)) and China is incredibly influential there. What do we know about the Chinese impact? (2) I’m not gonna have it up there for that long. What do we know about the Chinese impact in Vietnam? Was there (.) was there any of it? Was there much of it?=

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4. 5.

S T

6. 7.

S? T

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=Would it have been religion (.) like Buddhism? Yeah Buddhism (.) a::and a certain reasonably influential thinker∧ (.) in China:a∧ (.) Confucius W That was him, well done. Confucius OK alright. A lot of (.) a lot of Vietnamese (.) and Chinese obviously W influenced by Confucian thought. It makes∧ (.) sense ((teacher waving hand across the map)) OK∧ (.) so∧ (.) a lot of Chinese influence over the years ((lesson continues))

The size of China and its proximity to Vietnam are taken, again by teacher and students, to provide a self-evident explanation of China’s ‘humungous historical influence’ over Vietnam. As with the snow as white dots, a form of modal metaphor organizes the knowledge, whereby size and proximity ‘makes (metaphoric) sense’ of historical influence. There is a sense in which Transcript Examples 4 and 5 show instances of reading lessons, in which the teacher co-ordinates a ‘reading’ that involves a distinct kind of sense-making. Reading the objects of attention, the images, is treated as if it entails a process of direct reference, in ways that classroom activities around the decoding of words or comprehension of texts generally are not (as shown in, for example, Freebody & Freiberg 2006; Heap 1990, 1997). If this hypothesis is shown to have some generalizability across the school years and curriculum areas, then a particular form of multimodal literacy is being built through an attachment to ‘grounding’ images of the world; the images establish and clinch the straightforwardness of interpretation. If, as Freebody (2008) has suggested, a prime motivation for many critical-analytic approaches to literacy education is that ‘controlling interpretation, securing both the fact of its determinacy and its particular contents, is thus an ongoing political project, profoundly connecting individual to public interests’, then the argument is that images play a distinctive role in developing the ‘transparently determinable, fixed, singular, and portable’ interpretation of texts. How an image ‘makes sense’, and how it is that ‘if you had a look at the picture you can tell’, become central parts of a program in literacy education – education about literacy – learning about how textual contents

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connect experience to realities through knowledge structures and are brought to educational life through classroom interaction.

Conclusions The most obvious observation that can be made about school books is that they are primarily pedagogic objects, designed to be used as part of conventionally understood teaching and learning activities. We have argued here that this means, among other things, that their design as visual and textual objects is always oriented to at least two orders of organization: the organization of knowledge, as that reflects histories of disciplinary formations, and the organization of lesson activities, including regulating, talking to, and working with the social configurations in which learning is projected to take place. The words and images in these books are crafted with epistemological and pedagogical orientations, to be ‘read’ as and into lessons. A semiotic inquiry into the properties of texts aimed at informing practical pedagogy needs to begin with mutually informing examinations of both texts and pedagogies; the point applies even more forcefully when the agenda include intervening in and changing classrooms and literacy education policies. For instance, the images that accompany language in early reading texts are designed and / or used in classrooms explicitly to reduce the need for analytic interpretive work on the language, aiming to put the text ‘beyond interpretation’, to create the sense that what is seen commonsensically in the text is what indeed is ‘there for the having’, in short, to present texts as windows onto reality rather than crafted communications with histories of interpretation. We began this chapter with a brief analysis of the first reading books used in Chinese schools. This led us to draw some contrasts with the findings from the study of the 20-year-old corpus of Western books reported by Baker and Freebody (1989). One contrast concerns the relation between institutional / public and familial / domestic, a contrast that both corpuses show beginning readers to be important. In the Chinese corpus we find an apprenticeship that entails revisiting

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the ‘everyday’ and restructuring it in particular ways, in this case, as ‘extraordinary’, so that extraordinary phenomena, such as the flag ceremony, Tiananmen Square, ancient scenes and texts, become ordinary, ritualized, predictable parts of the new public world afforded by learning to read. The materials of the mundane are re-encountered via the crafting of words and images that reinvest the everyday with gravity and transcendence; beginning readers, as part of learning to read, learn to invest their families, their games, their schooling, and their ‘being Chinese’ with a monumental and numinous quality. These, we argue, are not just the topics of their reading materials; they constitute the setting and existential grounding of learning to read. Learning to read provides the resources to make experience ‘read-able’ in certain ways, affording a universe that is effortlessly and efficiently interpretable, and thus inexhaustibly ideological. It is probably fair to observe that researchers and theoreticians in the area of literacy education have generally underestimated the significance of images in this process of re-presenting the local actualities of the world of the early years of schooling. The apparently immediate and comprehensive recognition of many images used in beginning reading teaching makes the study of their deployment in classrooms even more pressing.

References Baker, C. D. and Freebody, P. (1989), Children’s First School Books: Introductions to the Culture of Literacy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Becher, T. (1989), Academic Tribes and Territories: Intellectual Enquiry and the Cultures of Disciplines. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Bernstein, B. (1975), Class, Codes and Control. Volume 3: Towards a Theory of Educational Transmissions. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bernstein, B. (1996), Pedagogy, Symbolic Control, and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. London: Taylor & Francis. Biglan, A. (1973), ‘The characteristics of subject matter in different academic areas’. Journal of Applied Psychology, 57, 195–203. Cheng, D. (1998), On the Subject of Chinese [Yuwen Xueke Iun]. Changsha: Hunan Education Publishing House.

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Drew, P. and Heritage, J. C. (eds) (1992), Talk at Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edwards, A. D. and Westgate, D. P. G. (1987), Investigating Classroom Talk. London: Falmer Press. Emmison, M. and Smith, P. (2000), Researching the Visual. London: Sage. Freebody, P. (2008), ‘Critical literacy education: On living with ‘innocent language’, in B. V. Street (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer Scientific, pp. 107–19. Freebody, P., Bahr, N., Christensen, C. and Wright, T. (in progress), Disciplinarity and Classroom Practice: Epistemological Issues in the Analysis and Improvement of Teaching and Learning. Australian Research Council grant, Discovery Program. Freebody, P. and Freiberg, J. (2006), ‘Cultural Science and qualitative educational research: Work ‘in the first place’ on the morality of classroom life’. Qualitative Studies in Education, 19, 709–22. Freebody, P. and Muspratt, S. (2007), ‘Beyond generic knowledge in pedagogy and disciplinarity: The case of Science textbooks’. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 2, 35–48. Haack, S. (1993), Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Heap, J. L. (1990), ‘Applied ethnomethodology: looking for the local rationality of reading activities’. Human Studies 13, 39–72 Heap, J. L. (1997), ‘Conversation analysis methods in researching language and education’, in N. H. Hornberger and D. Corson (eds), Research Methods in Language and Education (vol. 8). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic, pp. 217–26. Hudson-Ross, S. and Dong, Y. R. (1990), ‘Literacy learning as a reflection of language and culture: Chinese elementary school education’. The Reading Teacher , 44, 110–23. Jewitt, C. (2005), Technology, Literacy and Learning: A Mulimodal Approach. London: Routledge. Kress, G., Jewitt, C., Ogborn, J. and Tsatsarelis, C. (2001), Multimodal Teaching and Learning: The Rhetorics of the Science Classroom. London: Continuum.

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Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2006), Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. Luke, A. (1988), Literacy, Textbooks, and Ideology: Postwar Literacy Instruction and the Mythology of Dick and Jane. London: Falmer Press. MacDonald, S. P. (1994), Professional Academic Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Carbondale, ILL: SIUP. Martin, J. R. (2008), ‘Constructing knowledge: A functional linguistic perspective’, in F. Christie and J. R. Martin (eds), Knowledge Structure: Functional Linguistic and Sociological Perspectives. London: Continuum, pp. 34–64. Sheridan, E. M. (1990), ‘Primary Chinese language instruction in the People’s Republic of China’. Reading Psychology: An International Quarterly, 11, 141–50. Smith, D. E. (2002), ‘Texts and the ontology of organizations and institutions’. Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies, 7, 159– 98. Symons, A. (1907/1997), William Blake. New York: Kessinger. Tao, L. and Zuo, L. (1997), ‘Oral reading practice in China’s elementary schools: A brief discussion of its unique roots in language, culture, and society’. The Reading Teacher , 50, 654– 65. Toulmin, S. (1972), Human Understanding . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Toulmin, S. (2003), Return to Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Unsworth, L. (2004), ‘Comparing school science explanations in books and computer-based formats: The role of images, image/text relations and hyperlinks’. International Journal of Instructional Media, 31, 283–301. Wang, H. (2004), The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought. Beijing: Sanliang. Woodside, A. (1992), ‘Real and imagined continuities in the Chinese struggle for literacy’, in R. Hayhoe (ed.), Education and Modernity: The Chinese Experience. Oxford: Pergamon, pp. 23–46. Zhang Bin, B. (2006), ‘Becoming school-literate in China: Historical, semiotic and interactional analyses of yuwen texts’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation; The University of Queensland, Australia).

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Appendix: Transcription Conventions Used in this Paper r r r r r r

r r r

r

// means interruption; [means beginning of overlapping talk; ] means end of overlapping talk; (talk) shows transcriber’s best guess at difficult-to-transcribe talk; ((comment)) shows transcriber’s comment about talk or about actions observed at time of talk; (x.0) means a pause of about x seconds; (.) is sometimes used to indicate a brief, untimed pause; talk indicates emphasized talk relative to the surrounding talk; ta::alk means elongated vowel sound; punctuation marks are used to indicate intonation – a period shows a stopping fall in time; a comma shows continuing intonation; a question mark shows rising infection; Bolding indicates a move of interest to the following discussion.

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Chapter 3

Multimodal Texts and Emergent Literacy in Early Childhood

Jane Torr Macquarie University

Introduction With new technological developments has come an awareness of the prominence of visual images in the representation and exchange of meanings. One type of multimodal text, the picture book, has long been regarded as a natural form of literature for very young children, who can neither read nor write in conventional terms, possibly on the assumption that visual images are easier to interpret than verbal text. Yet as Meek (1988), Nodelman (1999), Doonan (1993) and others point out, children must learn to ‘read’ pictures just as they learn to read written texts: ‘Even representational pictures – the ones we call realistic – exist within systems of learned codes, and thus make little sense to anyone without a previous knowledge of those systems’ (Nodelman 1996, p. 217). While much research has focused on how children learn to communicate using oral and written language, less is known about the processes involved in learning to read the visual. In this paper I shall focus on the manner in which 24 young children interpreted the visual images they encountered during shared readings of two highly regarded picture books. Of special interest were those conversations where there was a disparity between children’s and adults’ interpretations of the meanings expressed in the pictorial text. What principles

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are children drawing on when they interpret pictures? What do their interpretations suggest about their emerging awareness of the ‘grammar’ of visual design? Can an analysis of young children’s responses to pictures contribute to our understanding of the ontogenesis of ‘visual literacy’ in early childhood?

A Language-Based Theory of Learning The following analysis is underpinned by systemic functional linguistic theory, which provides researchers with a framework for interpreting children’s engagement with visual and verbal texts in terms of a language-based theory of learning (Halliday 1993; Painter 1999). Halliday (1993) characterizes the relationship between language and other types of learning in the following way: When children learn language, they are not simply engaging in one kind of learning among many – rather, they are learning the foundation of learning itself. The distinctive characteristic of human learning is that it is a process of making meaning, a semiotic process; and the prototypical form of human semiotic is language. Hence the ontogenesis [development] of language is at the same time the ontogenesis of learning. (p. 93)

In placing language at the centre of learning, including learning how to mean in a range of semiotic modes, Halliday is making explicit what, in much early childhood pedagogical material, is also recognized. McGee and Richgels (2003), for example, state that ‘spoken language is one of the critical underlying conditions that support children’s later reading and writing’ (p. 68). One of the instruments used to evaluate the quality of literacy environments in early childhood centres, the Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation toolkit (2002), ranks most positively those environments where adults interact with children about their experiences with texts of various kinds.

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How Images Mean According to Kress and Van Leeuwen (1990, 1996), images express meanings which in some ways are analogous to the semantic patterns realized in the words and structures of language. Three types of meaning – ideational, interpersonal and textual – are expressed, or realized, simultaneously in the words and structures of all clauses (Halliday 1994). Likewise, visual images also embody these three types of meanings, although their realization occurs through colour, line, framing, placement and many other pictorial elements (see Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996 for a detailed exegesis). The choices speakers and image makers make are systematic and motivated by contextual factors, thus the theory may potentially account for how visual and verbal texts jointly work to construct meaning. Just as the ideational function of language provides speakers with a resource for representing reality in terms of the participants, processes and circumstances they experience, so too one of the functions served by visual images is to represent pictorially participants, actions and settings involved in a particular situation. The interpersonal function of language serves to establish relationships between speakers, and to express points of view. Visual images also realize interpersonal meanings, through the construction of social distance and attitude, both between the creator of the image and the viewer, and between the represented participants. The textual function of language integrates the ideational and interpersonal meanings into cohesive text. In visual images, compositional elements integrate the various elements into a coherent whole.

Methodology The following discussion draws on the conversations of 12 mothers reading to their 4-year-old children in their homes, and 12 early childhood teachers reading to a child in the preschool. The adults were asked to audiorecord themselves reading two picture books in as natural a way as possible, and to include all the talk which occurred during the reading sessions. The audiotaped conversations were transcribed by an educational linguist and divided into clauses. The total corpus

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comprised approximately 5,300 clauses (excluding the actual read texts). In the following examples, the words of the actual read text are in upper case.

The Picture Books Two picture books were used in this study: Sleepy Book (Zolotow & Bobri 1960) and The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed (Cooper 1996). I shall describe each book in greater detail in the following discussion. The fact that each dyad read the same two picture books was important, as it provided a common backdrop against which the children’s and adults’ responses could be analyzed. Both books were considered suitable for children aged 3–5 years. The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed has recently won a prestigious Kate Greenaway Award for Children’s Illustrations. It has also been the subject of an honours thesis (Gill 2002). I invite readers to read the picture books in their entirety to appreciate the manner in which the children responded to all aspects of the books, including colour and sequence from one page to the next.

Learning How to Read Images Any conclusions about how young children interpret visual images must remain tentative. As Benton (1996) notes, in relation to studies of older readers, ‘the subject of the reader’s response is the Loch Ness Monster of literary studies: when we set out to capture it, we cannot even be sure that it is there at all’ (p. 70). This is especially relevant in developmental studies of young children who are still engaged in the process of learning their first language, even while they are immersed in conversations surrounding the illustrations in picture books (Arizpe & Styles 2002; Crago & Crago 1983; Minns 1997; Wolf & Heath 1992).

Findings Much of the talk between the children, mothers and preschool teachers focused on the pictures. Many of the children asked questions

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and made comments which indicated that they expected the visual and verbal texts to be consistent and to support each other. On several occasions, it was clear that there was a difference between the children’s and adults’ interpretations of the unfolding narrative. I shall now consider some of these differences, and interpret them in terms of the children’s ability to ‘read’ the ideational, interpersonal and compositional meanings of the illustrations, according to the theory of visual design proposed by Kress and Van Leeuwen (1990, 1996).

Interpreting variations in modality in terms of the narrative structure The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed is a narrative depicting a young child’s efforts to avoid going to sleep. When his mother tells him that it is time for bed, the Baby (who is never referred to by name) defiantly refuses to obey, and takes off in his car on a journey through a dream-like landscape. On his way he encounters several animated toys and animals, much larger than he is, each of whom refuses his request to play. Instead, they exhort him to go to bed. Finally, even his little car goes to sleep, and the Baby is left alone. At this point, however, a tiny yellow light is depicted in the top right hand corner of the double-page spread. The light is in fact the Baby’s mother, who carries him to his bedroom, where he falls asleep at last. At this point, adult readers recognize that the personified toys and animals which the Baby encounters on his fantasy journey are actually his own everyday playthings, which have been brought to life through his imagination but which are depicted realistically in the final picture of his bedroom. The fact that the journey is to be read as an inner, psychological one, not a literal one, is expressed entirely through the visual images, particularly through shifts in modality. The illustrations depicting the dream-like landscape are rendered in colours which are less saturated and less differentiated than those depicting the real world of the child’s mother, home and bedroom. A reduced palette of reds, oranges and yellows deepen in hue as the child’s journey continues and night falls (see Figure 1).

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52 Figure 1 Reduced palette as Baby’s journey progresses (Cooper, 1996)

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The use of the illustrations to convey a child’s shift from reality to fantasy, or from conscious to unconscious awareness, is also evident in picture books such as Where the Wild Things Are (Sendak 1970). In Gorilla, Browne (1983) subtly conveys to the reader the nature of the protagonist Hannah’s inner experience of the world, through the use of washed-out, relatively undifferentiated colours. Despite the fact that The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed is written for an implied child reader, there was no evidence in the actual children’s responses that they interpreted the journey as anything other than a concrete, literal experience for the Baby. In the following example, one of the mothers tries to explain to her daughter Phoebe why the Baby’s car has stopped, by invoking the fictional world created in the narrative. Phoebe, however, insists on providing a realistic ‘commonsense’ explanation: Mother: (reads) NOW THE BABY HAD TO PUSH THE CAR IN THE DUSKY DARK. IT WAS HARD WORK. Phoebe: He should . . . It needs petrol brmm brmm brmm. Mother: Does it? Petrol. Do you think that’s what it needs? I think this little car must have just got tired. It’s fallen asleep. Phoebe: I don’t. I think the car needs petrol.

Explaining the narrative through attending to ideational meanings Several preschool teachers and mothers attempted to nudge the child towards the realization that the Baby’s journey was a fantasy or dream, so that the child could appreciate this important feature of the narrative structure and thus gain a deeper understanding of the thematic content of the picture book. A common strategy was to draw children’s attention to the connection between the toys depicted in the final bedroom picture, and the toys that the Baby meets on his journey as depicted in the previous pages (see Figure 2). The following example is typical: Teacher: Have a look and see . . . in all the carriages . . . the trains got . . . ? Alison: People in them.

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54 Figure 2 Return to “reality” in Baby’s bedroom (Cooper, 1996)

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Teacher: People . . . or toys? I think they’re all the toys that are in the baby’s bedroom. You watch. If we go back and have a look at the baby’s bedroom. Let’s have a look at the baby’s bedroom. Look. He’s got all sorts of things standing around on the floor. There’s the train . . . and he’s got . . . there’s the tiger . . . and there are all the other things . . . the soldiers and the castle . . . See they’re all things that are in his bedroom. Alison: He went driving in his bedroom. Teacher: He was, wasn’t he? He was going round and round. I think this little boy was dreaming, wasn’t he?

The notion that these quite different representations of the toys – the giant tiger, the musicians, the train, the soldiers – are the “same” as those in the Baby’s bedroom, while obvious to adult readers, was not self-evident to the children. This is a challenging concept in terms of the ontogenesis of visual literacy. Interpreting what is salient in illustrations The crisis in The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed occurs when the Baby’s car goes to sleep, and the Baby is alone in an almost dark landscape. The double-page illustration is rendered in deep blues, grey and black. In the top right-hand corner is a small splash of yellow. Like many pages in this picture book, the point of view is marked. The viewer is positioned at bird’s-eye level in the trees, looking down through the branches at the tiny Baby on the path below. In the foreground, sitting nestled on the branches, are sleeping birds. Close scrutiny reveals that these are clockwork birds with a wind-up key in their backs (see Figure 3). The author-illustrator has created a visual and verbal puzzle on this page. The written text reads: ‘And soon he’d gone as far as he could. So he stood quite still, all alone, with the sleeping world around him. But there was someone else who was not asleep. Someone who was looking for the baby. . . .’ After reading the above sentence, most of the adult readers paused, and asked the child to guess who was looking for the Baby. Although some children were able to guess correctly that it was the Mother, this was not evident to many children. In the following two examples, it

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56 Figure 3 A visual and verbal puzzle for the child reader (Cooper, 1996)

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can be seen that the children believe that one or more birds were looking for the Baby: Mother: Who do you think was looking for the baby? Phoebe: Them. Mother: Birdies? No, all asleep. Who’s looking for their baby? Phoebe: Umm . . them. Mother: Who do you think might be looking for this little baby boy? Phoebe: Those two. Mother: Do you? They’re asleep. Let’s have a look. Who do you think might be looking? Phoebe: The mum. Mother: Of course, the mummy. Teacher: (reads) THERE WAS SOMEONE ELSE WHO WAS NOT ASLEEP. SOMEONE WHO WAS LOOKING FOR THE BABY. Who was that? Alison: The owl. Teacher: The owl’s not asleep. Why is the owl not asleep? Alison: Because he’s looking.

Can the children’s interpretation that the birds, not the Mother, are looking for the Baby, be explained in terms of the children’s emerging knowledge of the ‘grammar’ of visual design? According to Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996), some elements in a visual image have greater visual weight, or importance, than others: ‘it is the function of visual weight to create a hierarchy of importance among the elements of spatially integrated texts, to cause some to draw attention to themselves more readily than others’ (p. 96). This visual weight, or salience, may be expressed through features such as size, placement on the page, distance, colour contrast and saturation. It seems reasonable to speculate that the children above were responding according to their notion of salience as an organizing principle for reading images. The birds are salient because they are in the foreground and are relatively larger than the Baby or the Mother, so it makes sense that the children in this study sought the identity of the character “who was looking for the Baby” in this way.

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The illustrations in many contemporary children’s picture books contain unusual shifts in perspective and playful inversions of many visual and literary conventions, thus producing a marked, or noncongruent, realization of elements such as salience, perspective and point of view. These techniques serve to engage and stimulate young readers and to allow them to actively participate in the construction of the narrative. In order to appreciate the artistry involved in many picture books, or even simply to follow the narrative thread, children must first become aware of the unmarked, or congruent, expression of meanings. An understanding of salience as an organizing principle in visual images may also explain the child’s puzzlement in the following interaction. Phoebe and her mother are looking at the cover of the The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed. (Figure 4). The picture of the tiger almost fills the top right quadrant, and is placed adjacent to the printed title of the picture book. In contrast, The Baby is depicted in the lower left quadrant, and is even smaller than one of the tiger’s paws. From this image, it is reasonable to predict that this picture book is going to be about a tiger, not a baby. Mother: How about this one now? Can you remember what it’s called? Phoebe: Yep. Mother: What’s it called? Phoebe: The . . . lion . . . um . . . that wouldn’t sleep. Mother: The baby who wouldn’t go to sleep. Phoebe: The baby who wouldn’t go to sleep by Duna Ackrins. Mother: Ha . . . Helen Cooper. Phoebe: (laughs) Funny. Mother: Do you think so? OK. Let’s have a go. THE BABY WHO WOULDN’T GO TO SLEEP. PICTURES AND STORY BY HELEN COOPER. Mother: Here we go. ‘BEDTIME!’ SAID MOTHER. ‘NO!’ SAID THE BABY, PLAYING IN HIS CAR. ‘IT’S STILL LIGHT’. Mother: Wow that’s a flash car isn’t it?

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Figure 4 Cover design (Cooper, 1996) Phoebe: Is . . . you said he was a tiger . . . a little baby tiger mum. Mother: No I didn’t. I said it’s the baby who wouldn’t go to sleep. Phoebe: Yeah . . . is it just the picture that was wrong? Mother: Well I think we might see that picture, OK?

So far I have focused on some of the conversations surrounding The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed, especially those where there was some disparity between the interpretations of the children and adults. I have suggested that one way to interpret the children’s ‘errors’ is in terms of their emerging understanding of the way in which meanings are represented visually.

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The Sleepy Book differs from The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed in many ways. Published over four decades ago, this picture book compares and contrasts the manner of sleeping of several different animals and insects. The written text uses timeless present tense throughout to make generalizations about the animals and their sleeping patterns, for example: Bears sleep in their dark caves the long winter through. Pigeons sleep in a row pressing against each other for warmth. Fish sleep among the green water ferns with their eyes and mouths wide.

The illustrations are spare and subdued, with a limited palette of grey, black and white, and with minimal detail. None of the animals is humanized; they are depicted simply as existing in their natural environment. Yet there is not a high degree of realism. Many pictures are ambiguous, in the sense that they are in some ways conceptual (the animals are there for us to observe in a detached way) and yet the images are not represented realistically. This may explain why many of the adult–child conversations were concerned with identifying and naming the entities depicted, as can be seen in the following example. Teacher: SEALS SLEEP WITH THEIR FLIPPERS FLAT AGAINST BLOCKS OF ICE. Teacher: Can you see where the seal is? That’s his flipper. Alexandra: He got a whale. He got a head. Teacher: What do you think that is? Alexandra: It’s the head of the whale. Teacher: You think he’s on a whale, do you? Could be a white whale. Could be some white ice.

Affective responses I have suggested that the 4-year-old children in this study were showing some evidence of understanding how pictures ‘mean’, particularly in terms of compositional elements such as salience. Other aspects of visual design, such as the manner in which realizations of low modality are used to suggest uncertainty, or fantasy, were not, however,

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understood by the children. I shall now explore how the children responded to the images in terms of the feelings they engendered. Kress and Van Leeuwen (1990) have pointed out that the evaluation of pictures in terms of affective characteristics has not yet been theorized: ‘there are some systems which we have not, as yet, been able to deal with in a satisfactory way. We have, in particular, not dealt with the emotive effects of aspects of the image’ (p. 117). Any account of children’s responses to multimodal texts would be incomplete without reference to their emotional reactions to the visual and verbal art they experience. Schwarcz (1982) regards the affective response as primary: ‘a picture attracts affectively first, followed by an attempt to understand what it contains and what it means’ (p. 171). In this corpus there were relatively few comments which explicitly expressed affect. Many were global comments, for example that the book was ‘funny’ or ‘nice’. The following is one of the few examples where the mother referred directly to the feelings that were stimulated by the images. Mother: (referring to page with train): You know what I like about this page? Byron: What? Mother: The pretty colours. They’re very sleepy colours, I think. Byron: Mm. Mother: Purple and orange. And it makes me feel sleepy.

The scarcity of direct reference to emotions does not mean, however, that the children were not moved in some way. Children frequently responded excitedly to pictures that stimulated associations between the fictional literary world and their own lives. Most of the children’s comments were about things they owned or places they had been. An example follows: Teacher: ‘NIGHT TIME IS FOR RESTING, NOT RACING’, SAID THE TRAIN. ‘I’M GOING HOME TO MY DEPOT, AND SO SHOULD YOU’. Ashley: I have the train track of those. And you . . . and that . . . but it sometimes . . . it . . . the battery gets run down.

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Teacher: Oh does it? And what do you have to do then? Ashley: Well we . . . we don’t have any batteries. I asked my dad and he said we don’t have any. Teacher: (resumes reading) BUT STILL THE BABY RUMBLED ALONG THE ROAD.

This pleasure of recognition was so ubiquitous that it appears to be an important element in children’s responses to visual imagery. What is noticeable in these conversations is that, despite the intensity of feelings expressed, there is little exploration by the teacher as to why the picture engenders such feelings. This is possibly because of the lack of a ready vocabulary for talking about pictures and how they affect us. As Doonan (1993) points out: ‘Every experienced reader is confident with written material, but how pictorial art communicates is, for many, unfamiliar territory’ (p. 7). Aesthetic responses In this corpus there were few interactions where the participants explicitly evaluated the effects of colour, line and other visual elements on the meanings expressed. Yet the following example supports Cox’s (2005) claim that even very young children ‘are capable of making aesthetic judgements about pictures and engaging in critical discussion about art’ (p. 47). Mother: THEY LOOK LIKE LITTLE WHITE LEAVES ON WALLS AND WINDOWS. Phoebe: Look at their colour on the wings. I like those the best. Mother: You do? Phoebe: Mmm . . . yeah . . . Look kinda funny. Mother: Oh ‘cause they’re not black and white? Phoebe: Yeah. Mother: They have colour on them yeah. Phoebe: I think some bad children did that. Mother: No . . . that’s what . . . No it’s part of the book. I think they just decided to decorate. Phoebe: Mummy why is the colour like that? Mother: I guess they just decided to decorate the moths. I’m pretty sure it’s part of the book.

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Phoebe: Mummy? Mother: Yeah? Phoebe: What’s that? Mother: It’s a squiggle moth. Phoebe: It’s not a squiggle moth (exaggerated playful tone). Mother: (laughs) It’s got squiggles on though. Phoebe: But mummy . . . remember the Aborigine draw . . . paintings and we saw on TV? They . . . they look like that . . . kind of. Mother: They do . . . You’re right.

Together, Phoebe and her mother are discussing the nature of representation, the constructedness of visual texts, intertextual connections, the role of the artist and the viewer, and that different perspectives are possible.

Discussion and Implications for Teachers What emerges from this study is that the meanings of the pictures in picture books are not necessarily transparent to young children. This may be especially true of those picture books which are highly valued by adults, perhaps because these books often play with literary conventions in ways which are interesting and engaging for adult readers. Several researchers have illuminated the sophisticated layers of meaning in picture books, using Kress and Van Leeuwen (1990, 1996) as an informing framework (Gill 2002; Lewis 2001; Unsworth 2001; Williams 1998). For young children to fully appreciate and participate in the story making or information sharing, they need a great deal of experience with pictured texts of all kinds, but particularly picture books. For example, the children in this study enjoyed and talked about The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed, without recognizing the significance of the journey as a dream or pretence. Several readings, however, would potentially allow children to gain a deeper understanding of the way modality is used to suggest levels of certainty or reality, thus fostering their social and cultural learning, as well as their literary and visual literacy. In terms of visual literacy and language development, both the characteristics of the picture book and the adult–child talk surrounding it

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have the potential to enhance children’s understanding of how visual images mean. For early childhood teachers, an understanding of the codes and conventions of visual images in representing and communicating meanings is helpful in understanding where children are developmentally, thus allowing educators to provide learning experiences which can build upon children’s current knowledge and skills. Many children’s responses which appear puzzling or idiosyncratic, may be explained in terms of a systematic reading of, say, salience. The choice of picture book is crucial. Children need literature which will engage them deeply, address their concerns, and at the same time provide them with subtle clues about reading (Meek 1988). Many encounters with picture books are necessary for children to fully experience their possibilities (Minns 1997), and there must be plenty of time for a one-to-one discussion. As Benton (1996) states, ‘the best sort of criticism of children’s literature [is] the ability to listen to children’s responses to a book and to “read” these with the same effort of attention that is afforded to the text themselves’ (p. 84). Shared reading in group times in an early childhood centre is not likely to extend children’s emergent literacy development, because of the variability in children’s interest, personal preference and experience with texts.

Limitations of this Study There are several limitations of the present study. As this was the first reading of the books for the children, there was limited opportunity for them to explore the images in detail. Also, as Lewis (2001) points out, it is necessary to observe children in detail and on many occasions, in order to gain insight into ‘the processes active in the ecological interchange between picture and word, reader and text’ (p. 59). Any conclusions about how very young children interpret visual images must remain tentative and speculative.

References Arizpe, E. and Styles, M. (2002), ‘On a walk with Lily and Sitoshi Kitamura: How children link words and pictures along the way’, in

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G. Bull and M. Anstey (eds), Crossing the Boundaries. Sydney: Pearson Education Australia, pp. 34–47. Benton, M. (1996), ‘Reader-response criticism’, in P. Hunt (ed.), International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature (). London: Routledge, pp. 71–88. Browne, A. (1983), Gorilla. London: Julia MacRae Books. Cantor, P. (2001), ‘Computers and the very young’. Focus on Infants and Toddlers, 13(4). Retrieved 13 June 2006, from http:// www.acei.org/inf.vol.13.4.htm Cooper, H. (1996), The Baby who wouldn’t go to Bed. London: Doubleday. Cox, M. (2005), The Pictorial World of the Child. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Crago, M. and Crago, H. (1983), Prelude to Literacy: A Preschool Child’s Encounter with Picture and Story. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Doonan, J. (1993), Looking at Pictures in Picture Books. Stroud, Glos: The Thimble Press. Education Development Center Inc. (2002), Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation Toolkit (Research edn). Baltimore: Brookes Publishing Co. Gill, T. (2002), ‘Visual and Verbal Playmates: An Exploration of the Visual and Verbal Modalities in Children’s Picture Books’ (unpublished honours thesis; Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney). Halliday, M. A. K. (1993), ‘Towards a language-based theory of learning’. Linguistics and Education, 5(2), 93–116. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994), Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd edn). London: Arnold. Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (1990), Reading Images. Geelong: Deakin University Press. Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (1996), Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. Lewis, D. (2001), Reading Contemporary Picture Books: Picturing Text. London: Routledge Falmer. McGee, L. M. and Richgels, D. J. (2003), Designing Early Literacy Programs: Strategies for At-Risk Preschool and Kindergarten Children. New York: Guilford Press.

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Meek, M. (1988), How Texts Teach What Readers Learn. Exeter, England: Thimble Press. Minns, H. (1997), Read it to Me Now! Learning at Home and School (2nd edn). Buckingham: Open University Press. Nodelman, P. (1996), The Pleasures of Children’s Literature (2nd edn). New York: Longman. Nodelman, P. (1999), ‘Decoding the images: Illustration and picture books’, in P. Hunt (ed.), Understanding Children’s Literature: Key Essays from the International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature. London: Routledge. Painter, C. (1999), Learning through Language in Early Childhood. London: Cassell. Schwarcz, J. H. (1982), Ways of the Illustrator: Visual Communication in Children’s Literature. Chicago: American Library Association. Sendak, M. (1970), Where the Wild Things Are. London: Bodley Head. Unsworth, L. (2001), Teaching Multiliteracies Across the Classroom: Changing contexts of text and image in classroom practice. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Williams, G. (1998), ‘Children entering literate worlds’, in F. Christie and R. Missan (eds), Literacy in Schooling . London: Routledge, pp. 18–46. Wolf, S. A. and Heath, S. B. (1992), The Braid of Literature: Children’s Worlds of Reading. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Zolotow, C. and Bobri, V. (1960), Sleepy Book. Kingswood, Surrey: The World’s Work Ltd.

Acknowledgements This research was funded by a Macquarie University Research Grant. I gratefully thank the mothers, teachers and children for participating in this research.

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Chapter 4

Anthropocentrism and the Haecceitas of Nature in Multimodal Ecological Discourses for Children

John Stephens Macquarie University

Introduction The discourses about environment and ecology produced for child audiences remain pivotally shaped by anthropocentric assumptions, a construing of natural phenomena in a way that sustains a central place for human participants. The centrality of the human is perhaps not surprising, insofar as these discourses about environment/ecology are formed as homologies with social discourses and normally grounded in human-nature homologies. In other words, a social semiotic provides a model for a way of talking about the ‘natural’, and produces a convergence of multiple modes as texts strive to produce immersive experiences that are both ideational and aesthetic. If, however, authors aspire to express a shift from anthropocentric to ecocentric perception, or, in Glen A. Love’s terms, ‘to move beyond a narrow ego-consciousness toward a more inclusive eco-consciousness’ (2003, p. 25), and hence aspire to construct a text that primarily expresses a ‘deep’ ecological apprehension of the haecceitas, or thisness, of the natural world, how will the multimodal text shape the ideational and interpersonal metafunctions of language? Although some texts do gesture toward such an effect, it is not possible to sustain a high

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modality in multiple modes (in that haecceitas presumes high modality) while at the same time modifying the interactive functions of language away from anthropocentrism. The texts I am concerned with here are multimodal in two senses. Broadly, any bundle of texts about environment/ecology for young readers (children and young adults) will be multimodal insofar as they deploy a range of existing genres – visual, narrative, and so on – so that readers pursuing the topic will encounter numerous modes. Secondly, individual texts are multimodal in their deployment of various discourse types brought together at a high level of cohesion. Picture books are routinely pointed to as an example of such a multimodal discourse to which children are exposed from an early age, as are the multiple modes of film and television.

Risk Consciousness and Advocacy Ecology texts for young readers fall into two broad categories: information texts which inform audiences about some aspect of the natural world and are primarily descriptive; and consciousness raising texts which strive to educate audiences about threats to the natural world posed by human activity. The creation of risk consciousness may be implicit in the former category, and there are varying levels of advocacy in the second. John Burningham’s picture book Oi! Get Off Our Train (1989) is a clear example of a text which creates risk consciousness, which it does by presenting a repetitive series of animals and birds facing extinction. Since these extinctions are future, if imminent, possibilities, the verbal text is lower in modality than the normal high modality of picture book texts (see Stephens 2000): it is predominantly shaped by modals of epistemic possibility linked in causal relationships (‘It think there is going to be . . . If there is we can . . .’; ‘Someone is coming to [perform a destructive action] . . . and soon there will be [none of us left]’). The effect is linguistically unusual for a picture book, but in close accord with some normative assumptions in children’s literature concerning personal growth and development. As with other narratives about environmental degradation, it seeks to position its audience more particularly within a

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process summed up by Eggins and Slade as follows: ‘Our negotiation of the world involves exploring how things do not always happen, nor are they always definitely established. The variability and uncertainty of our world view becomes part of what is negotiable, and part of our identity’ (1997, p. 99). The consciousness raising ecological text, however, ties identity to social responsibility and affirms the desirability of shaping how things will happen. The highly dialogic structure of Oi! Get Off Our Train is characteristic of Burningham’s work, in its framing contrast between the mundane everydayness of the adult world and the inventive childhood world of imaginative play. After an opening in which a mother interrupts her son, who is playing with a toy train instead of sleeping, and puts him to bed with his ‘pyjama-case dog’, the boy and dog undertake a dream journey on the train. The journey alternates between games and encounters with the endangered creatures who, after initial rejection, are allowed to join the train once their plight has been explained. The encounters are illustrated in low modality: the creatures are cartoon-type figures, anthropomorphized by posture; the background is white space, with sometimes a pencil line or a sparsely pencilled segment of a train carriage; colours are flat, pale and used sparingly, and the palette is restricted. In contrast, pages depicting travel or play are saturated with colour produced by a variety of media, including crayons, charcoal, watercolour, cellulose paints, and pastels, and the consequent multitextured effect envisages a world in which human and non-human exist in unity. The penultimate illustration, in contrast, depicts a dark night scene illuminated by the yellow glare of industrial pollution, invoking the ‘dark Satanic Mills’ of William Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’: for the child in the text, and the audience of the text, the issues to be negotiated in order to live responsibly in the world are thus made very clear. The fully saturated illustrations are still low modality but, as I have argued elsewhere (Stephens 2000), what is perceived as ‘real’ in picture book illustrations is not photographic naturalism (see Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996, p. 168) but a somewhat lower modality. The widespread use of such media as watercolour, crayon or collage serves to reinforce the continuance of low modality as the yardstick, but the cartoon figures and flat colours still preclude any effect of haecceitas.

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Moreover, because the safe haven is the boy’s train, which becomes metonymic of his responsibility for the world, and the interpersonal functions of the dialogue maintain the boy’s power over the animals both as supplicants and as playfellows, the text’s perspective is dominantly anthropocentric. The dream space, the train, and a sequence of drastic climate contrasts in Oi! Get Off Our Train locate events in a liminal space which enables an imaginative renegotiation of the world. In the rest of this paper, I will consider some multimodal environmental texts which invoke liminality by focusing on littoral places, those liminal boundary regions where land meets water.

Where Land Meets Water – Littoral Sites as Liminal Experiences In a short Aboriginal Canadian film, The Legend of the Giant Beaver , the story-teller describes the wetlands created by beaver activity as, ‘a special place where the water beings and the beings from the land can come together’. I’ll say a little more about this production later, but just for now want to point out that it uses its multimodality – wildlife photography, computer animation of paintings by an Aboriginal artist, framing narration and embedded narration, music – to construct a perspective that tries to avoid anthropocentric discourse. It thus contrasts with the general range of texts dealing with this theme, which characteristically express the ‘meaning’ of nature from an anthropocentric perspective, a tendency all the more evident because of the way such texts employ their multimodal discourses. By focusing on liminal spaces, such texts implicitly or overtly evoke a version of being-in-the-world which corresponds to Victor Turner’s (1969) well-known rite of passage narrative structure: separation; liminality; reintegration into society. Children’s books are not often read in relation to this structure, but when Robyn McCallum (1999, p. 3) argues that in children’s literature representations of subjectivity ‘are intrinsic to narratives of personal growth or maturation, to stories about relationships between the self and others, and

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to explorations of relationships between individuals and the world, society or the past,’ she is effectively pointing to the underpinnings of rite of passage narrative and its operation across a range of literary genres.

Two Key Environmental Discourses Informing Texts for Children Environmental self-consciousness, as distinct from anthropomorphic stories about animals, enters children’s literature in a significant way in the late 1970s, but as anthropocentric narratives focused on or through human subjectivity. There are thus two key aspects to the modes of representation in environmental texts: first, the represented participants, images reproducing in some way the empirical reality of the natural world – these may, or may not, include human figures; in the texts I will focus on here human participants are an integral part of the scene, and hence the second aspect of representation involves interactive participants and the shaping of their attitudes toward represented participants. Both categories of ecological text identified at the beginning of this chapter may, in principle, range between two emphases. The first pivots on affect, and assumes or promotes an attitude of caring, wonder and understanding of the natural world, or an awareness of environmental issues. This discourse aligns, consciously or not, with a strand of ecofeminist theory which envisages caring relationships both as models for sustainable living and as important sources of social empowerment. In the children’s texts, however, humans are embedded in the environment to only a limited degree, and are rather positioned as outside of nature and able to invest nature with value by their actions. As caring becomes a social performance in response to the question, ‘What can we do?’ – the pivotal question in advocacy texts, as evidenced in Foreman’s, One World (1990) – action merges with the expression, evaluation and transformation of the self which is supremely the domain of language in children’s literature.

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The second ‘pro-environment’ discourse draws on a natureassociated position which has affinities with deep ecology: intrinsic value is ascribed to all living beings, and human beings are not attributed with any kind of privileged status. There is an element in deep ecology that aspires to the production of an animistic, or shamanistic, language which might enable the silenced world of nature to rediscover a voice. A common turn here is to look to indigenous narratives from various parts of the world as models. An ideal text of such a kind might entirely efface a human presence, but in practice this is impossible, and the most that can be expected is an uncentred, unhumanized perspective, as ecocritics concede. Kate Rigby expresses the position precisely: ‘An acknowledgement of the centrality of the human actant, however contingent, contextualized, and decentred she might be in herself, is also a necessary condition for there to be such a thing as literature’ (2004, p. 427; see also Stephens 2006). Multimodal texts may offer a little more potential for producing what deep ecologists think of as an uncentred, unhumanized perspective, insofar as visual images may be used to evoke the thingness of an object, but visual images normally imply a perceiver point of view, and in picture books, for example, that most often is shaped by interactions with verbal text or with pictorial narrative sequencing. Informational ecology books establish such a point of view by positioning readers as direct addressee, either by frequent use of second person you or by use of commands, and by constructing some form of dramatic narrative. A simple example can be seen in the entry for the ‘Growling Frog’ in Doug Priestly’s Australia’s Wonderful Water Creatures (1995, p. 11). The page consists of a photograph and a description which begins, ‘Don’t be fooled by the bright colours and harmless appearance of this frog. The growling frog is a cannibal! It eats other frogs!’ Any potential that the photograph might have to communicate the particular frogness of this Growling Frog is foreclosed by the bundle of human perspectives shaped by the language, especially ‘don’t be fooled . . . harmless . . . cannibal’. In other words, multimodality is more inclined to centring than to uncentring. The possibility of a position that is ‘contingent, contextualized, and decentered’ itself becomes slighter

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in children’s literature because of the almost universal focus on narratives of human subjectivity and growth, with the concomitant demands of characterization, events, and narrative point of view.

Narrative Form and Pedagogical Function The most common criterion of value applied to picture books concerns the extent to which a book’s dual semiotic modes complement one another: do they combine dialogically to open up possibilities of meaning and hence to produce a supertext greater than the sum of the two parts? Because ecological texts are to varying degrees educational and ideological, there is a stronger tendency for the varying modes to converge, reinforcing information or message, or a connectedness between information and message. This convergence is accentuated by an assumption underlying most ecological texts for young audiences that a represented landscape (i) must include either humans to perceive it, or animals attributed with often anthropomorphic perception; and (ii) will be the site for some kind of narrative, and within that narrative represented human participants will grow and develop through contact with nature. Such a text has a broad pedagogical function, in that it uses its converging discourses to model an attitude and encourage particular behaviours. The process may be taken still further, as in for example teachers’ resource books which take one or two picture books and from them generate a range of classroom activities, from vocabulary building to mathematics, creative composition, puppet making, and so on. An example pertinent to my focus here is Jeanne King’s Tide Pools and Coral Reefs (1993) (Figure 1). This particular page appears to be intended to get pupils to review information given over the preceding five pages (What does a shark look like? What range of creatures occupies this ecology?), but as an exercise in directional orientation it is all about the centredness of the viewer and thence models a hierarchy in which interactive participants mentally control represented participants. While it may

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Figure 1 Tide Pools and Coral Reefs seem that the point of the source text(s) has been fragmented and lost amongst the lesson plans, it is also arguable, nevertheless, that the point becomes naturalized by its very dispersal amongst texts and activities in very diverse modes: it becomes an integral part of the fabric of school experience.

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Constructing Children as Environmentally Responsible Citizens Rather than focusing on the classroom spin-offs, however, I want to look briefly at Michael Foreman’s much celebrated picture book One World (1990), and make some comparisons with David Bellamy and Jill Dow’s The Rockpool (1988). Both books thematically instantiate versions of the rite of passage narrative, while the art work employs a lower modality than employed in information books, which favour photographic realism or diagrammatic representation. For example, Anita Malnig’s information book, Where the Waves Break: Life at the Edge of the Sea (1985), employs photography throughout, and hence its establishing shot of the beach is much higher in modality than the corresponding openings in The Rockpool or One World. It is a marker of the distance the latter two move from informational genre that they use versions of the low modality which is the visual norm of picture books (in which photographic realism equates with the hyperreal). The Rockpool is nevertheless primarily an information book: the stories it tells are about creatures of the seashore, and the disastrous impact of an oil spill. Both text and pictures position readers accordingly; a structure of separation, liminality, and return is attributed to the ecology itself as it endures and recovers from the oil spill. Not surprisingly, its modality is distinctly higher than that of One World. When The Rockpool includes an image of a hermit crab it is concerned to represent the creature for its own sake, so we can see the information, ‘When the crab is disturbed it retreats inside the shell and closes up the entrance with its large claw’. The hand holding the crab is itself carefully realized, as are limpets on surrounding rocks, although in general the book’s human participants are depicted in a lower modality than this. In contrast, a crab depicted in One World is not represented for its own sake, but as part of the children’s newfound caring activity in restoring an environment they had initially depleted. It is a much smaller component of the picture, but I think it is still valid to say that Foreman has not attempted to render the haecceitas of the crab or of the background. It seems that the lower modality underlines a contrast here between being and doing, and points to a more thematic, even symbolic, effect of discourse.

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As is normal in environmental discourses targeting young readers, the discourse of both books is framed by human subjectivity and narrative, but Foreman’s story is about the human participants’ engagement with an ecology. By the fourth opening of One World, the text has developed a setting in time and place, participants, and incipient action. It tells the story of two children playing on a seashore where they deplete a rock pool of its marine life in order to create their own ‘world’ in a bucket, and in doing so leave behind nothing but pollutants. In thus pillaging natural ecology for human gratification, humanity is separated from the natural world, and the building of a micro-environment at the expense of the naturally occurring environment figures a progressive liminality. The turn back toward reintegration with natural ecosystem occurs when ‘[t]he pool which had reminded the children of the beauty of the world, now showed how easily it could be spoiled’. The children, in what is a significant lifestyle choice, then elect to unmake the artificial micro-environment in the bucket and return its contents to the rock pool, from which they remove the pollutants, and resolve to gather their friends the next day and clean up as many pools as they can. The urge to possess (and thereby destroy) is thus replaced by an environmentally aware desire to preserve, and thence integration of humans and environment. The moment at which separation occurs, and the destruction is set in train, comes in the book’s fifth opening, in which the children are depicted looking into the pool (Figure 2). The picture book’s dual semiotic modes converge quite dramatically in this opening, especially in the visual contrast with earlier openings and the relationship of visual and verbal here. The viewer’s position is for the first time dropped very low, in a contrast set up by opening 4, in which the position of view is the most conventional employed in picture books: precisely centred on both horizontal and vertical axes.1 In opening 5, the position of view is still centred, but now placed as if below the surface of the water, looking up through the seaweed toward the children at the top of the picture. The foreground colours are saturated and vibrant, whereas Foreman has exploited his watercolour to depict the children in pale, almost translucent, colour. An immediate impression a viewer might get, then, is of the haecceitas, the thisness, of the marine objects, even though their modality

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Figure 2 One World

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is actually quite low. The effect is reinforced by the first paragraph of verbal text: Each time a wave washed through a gap in the rocks, dark forests of weeds waved as though they were trees in the wind. Tiny fish darted into the shadows past sea anemones like flowers in a secret garden.

The language seems to describe the scene as if free of human observation (participants and the experiential functions they perform are all situated within marine nature), although this effect is manifestly broken by the humanly imagined simile at the end, ‘like flowers in a secret garden’, and less obviously by the figurative sequence that encodes this small ecosystem as if it were a much larger landscape: ‘dark forests of weeds waved as though they were trees in the wind’ (my emphasis). Once the language has overtly disclosed a human speaker, the boy breaks in with an analogy that belongs entirely to human discourse: ‘Look at that tin can’, cried the boy. ‘It’s a sunken ship full of buried treasure.’ And as they watched they saw starfish move slowly amongst a galaxy of shells and pebbles round as moons. On the surface of the pool, two feathers bobbed in a blob of oil.

The scene is now focalized by the two children, signalled by the injunction to look and their subsequent observation, by the reencoding of perceived objects as a fictional story (‘tin can . . . ship . . . treasure’), and by the strategy of perceiving a macro-landscape in the micro (i.e., the lexical set of ‘star[-] . . . galaxy . . . moons’). The verbal text thus constitutes the children as givers of meaning. While truth is established through the authority of the narrator in literary fiction, as Kalle Pihlainen argues (p. 52) it is effected specifically through interventions and shifts in perspective such as the switching between narration and character focalization, especially in the ways that focalization is used to introduce narrative elements and to supply motivation for them. There is a comparable move in the visual text. While the angle of the seaweed affirms a strong left-to-right flow, there is tension between the principal salience markers in the picture because the almost empty margins of the pool constitute vectors forming a pyramid with the children at the top. Despite the contrast

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between saturated and pale colour, the layout of the scene invokes the assumption that the natural world has meaning because perceived by humans, and thus the scene is set for their self-regarding exploitation of it and, eventually, the text’s shift from the ideology of human dominance to that of participation and care. They don’t focalize the oil, and the visual scene suggests they cannot see it where it floats at the top right-hand side of the pool. Transformed by the insight that the natural world should remain untouched, and their only intervention must be to undo the effects of human pollution, the children return home in the evening resolved to instigate a clean-up campaign and recruit ‘the other children’ to help. The illustration of them leaving the beach (Figure 3) is an example of rather unorthodox art work which is, nevertheless, quite common in picture books. In a wide angle, long distance view, the centre of the picture is effectively empty, with just sea and sky above the image of a wave breaking on a rock, while the picture is highly organized at the edges with strong vectors connecting key components contrapuntally. The children are tiny figures with their backs to the viewer, moving leftward and upward against the normal directional flow of a picture book, beneath the pictorial weight of billowing smoke stacks. This juxtaposition of the ecologically sound and unsound at this moment indicates that the child’s responsibility for the world will occupy their future. It is further underlined by the representation of the most prominent living creature in the scene, an oil-afflicted cormorant in the lower right-hand corner. The symbolic, effectively iconic, force of this image is confirmed by a comparison with the equivalent page of The Rockpool, in which a cormorant, also oil-covered, occupies the same position. Picture books only sporadically use the lower righthand quarter to signify the real and the new, but these pages seem to be clear examples.

Environmental Television Texts for Children Both of the books discussed in the last section are concerned with the way participants fit together to make a larger whole, and this seems to me to be very characteristic of how environmental discourses for

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Figure 3 One World

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young audiences position their human participants. To conclude, I want to consider a sample from two Canadian educational environmental TV series which reproduce the concerns and emphases I have been discussing: Wildfiles.TV and Stories from the Seventh Fire. Both series have won numerous awards nationally and internationally for their environmental insights and/or interactive qualities. Both are highly successful in organizing their multimodal discourses into an immersive aesthetic experience which enables users not only to process information but to visualize and interact with it. Both come with Teachers’ Guides, in which various curriculum objectives are identified, and the thematic import of the program is suggested:

Stories from the Seventh Fire (Sample: ‘Legend of the Giant Beaver’)

Wildfiles (Sample: ‘The Frog who would be Prince’

Applications to learning: Language Arts, Visual Arts, Environmental Studies, Music

Applications to learning: Science, Outdoor and Environmental Education, Social Studies, Health and Life Skills, Language Arts, Fine Arts, ICT

Themes: Working together accomplishes more than working alone. We should use the special gifts that we each have to make our world a better, safer place. We should respect the power of mother-earth, which can generate weather changes, over long periods of time, that affect the environment. We must understand the importance of wetlands which Beaver help create and maintain.

Themes: Lucy wants to be considered grown-up (she’s almost 13), and can’t understand why her mother won’t let her dye her hair green. She wants to use the life-cycle of frogs as an argument about human metamorphosis, but after spending time studying frogs comes to understand that growing up can’t be rushed and that ‘the laws of nature’ dictate that both kids and frogs must go through a long process of transformation before they become adults.

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The Teachers’ Guides also include suggestions for numerous activities arising from watching the programs – these are generic activities, and many are similar to those described in Jeanne King’s Tide Pools and Coral Reefs. Nevertheless, we are looking at a very multimodal textuality. As well as including games and quizzes as part of the DVDROM, Wildfiles builds various activities and experiments into its narrative movement, which is simultaneously interrupted and carried forward by split-screen inserts and multi-screen hook-ups between field observations and archived material sent out from home base. Embedded nature photography gives perspective, long shots, and close-ups. Holding it all together is the human–animal analogy and the two kinds of discovery-learning Lucy, the child participant, is undergoing. The capacity to split the screen and layer two locations is used to enable the adults to express concerted horror when Lucy announces she plans to quit school, and a subsequent explanation that we all have to ‘stick to the pond’ until the appropriate time. The education of Lucy is a marker of the extent to which the multiple semiotic modes of Wildfiles function to map the natural world and social world onto each other. Once wood frogs mature, they leave the pond (returning only at breeding season): the transformation of this behaviour into a metaphor for human maturation – ‘sticking to the pond’ until the proper time – can be understood in two ways: the cultural, or social world takes its meaning from the natural world; or the natural world, just as much as the cultural, is moved by conventions. Because the natural is relative to the orientation and hence point of view of the observer, in semiotic terms the natural is shaped by the cultural, and so the possibility of expressing the haecceitas of an object in nature diminishes. Thus the embedded representation of a wood frog catching and eating an insect cannot express the haecceitas of the moment, because the edge of the screen on which it appears remains always visible. A similar issue of orientation and point of view occurs when Lucy wants to touch a frog to find out how ‘slimy’ it is, and how ‘gross’ the experience will be, and is told she first must rinse her hand in pond water. As she stoops to do this, she is caught in a freeze frame while the head of Chris, the expert, is inserted explaining about the porous and absorbent qualities of a frog’s skin (Figure 4).

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Figure 4 Wildfiles TV : how to touch a frog The visual orientation of the scene positions the here absent frog as an object of attention and action rather than as an entity in itself. As remarked earlier, the ‘Legend of the Giant Beaver’ from The Seventh Fire series uses its multimodality to construct a perspective that seeks to avoid anthropocentric discourse. By continually shifting between modes within a narrative frame, it has the potential to foreground apperception, and hence promote thoughtful responses to a narrative about ecological change and evolution, even as it blurs temporality (our time shares qualities with that sacred time). The framing situation is animistic (Figure 5), granting equal status to humans and animals, although the dressing of the animals in human clothing suggests rather a fusion of human and animal totem. The privilege of storyteller on this occasion is granted to ‘Sister Wolf’, whose story is not about wolves themselves but beaver, and the only human figure, which appears for a couple of seconds within Sister Wolf’s embedded narration is a shaman, who in principle represents an uncentred human actant, in touch with the non-human voices of the world in a spiritual dimension. However, the representation through film

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Figure 5 Legend of the Giant Beaver

animation of an interactive storytelling session involving a mother wolf and her three cubs is inevitably based on human storytelling and the emotions expressed by the young wolves in response to the experiential world are human emotions. The third mode of representation – wildlife film – is shaped at the film’s close to express one of the asserted learning outcomes of the story: an understanding of the importance of wetlands, so that apperception turns out to be quite well controlled. Pedagogy inevitably merges with ideology, and in employing those most human traits of language and storytelling, the best-intentioned, indigenous film can only gesture toward the haecceitas of nature. As with the other texts considered here, participants represented at the interface between the human social world and the natural world, overtly or implicitly figured in the liminal and ever mutable space of littoral zones, have very little potential to offer an uncentred, unhumanized perspective. The multimodal texts used to depict that interface in general tend toward focusing the message from an anthropocentric perspective rather than rendering uncentred states.

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Conclusion Quite unsurprisingly, I think, multimodal texts with a strong ‘proenvironment’ persuasive intention continue to conform with an environmental discourse of understanding and care. Humans are positioned as outside of nature and their engagements with it figure entrance into liminal space. They invest nature with value by their perceptions and caring actions, but those perceptions and actions are also anthropocentrically focused on the expression, evaluation and transformation of the self, a process underlined by the convergences of different modes to create a strong sense of cohesive vision.

References Bellamy, David and Jill Dow. (1988), The Rockpool. London: Macdonald. Burningham, John. (1989), Oi! Get Off Our Train. London: Jonathan Cape. Eggins, Suzanne and Diana Slade. (1997) Analysing Casual Conversation. London and Washington: Cassell. Foreman, Michael. (1990), One World. London: Andersen Press. Kress, Gunther and van Leeuwen, Theo. (1996), Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London and New York: Routledge. King, Jeanne. (1993), Tide Pools and Coral Reefs. Westminster, CA: Teacher Created Materials, Inc. Love, Glen A. (2003), Practical Ecocriticism: Literature, Biology, and the Environment. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press. McCallum, Robyn. (1999), Ideologies of Identity in Adolescent Fiction: The Dialogic Construction of Subjectivity. New York: Garland Pub. Malnig, Anita. (1985), Where the Waves Break: Life at the Edge of the Sea. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, Inc. Mol, A. J. P. (2000), ‘The environmental movement in an era of ecological modernisation’. Geoforum, 31(1), 45–56. Pihlainen, Kalle. (2002), ‘The moral of the historical story: Textual differences in fact and fiction’. New Literary History, 33(1), 39–60

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Priestly, Doug. (1995), Australia’s Wonderful Water Creatures. Ringwood, Vic.: Puffin. Reel Girls Media Inc. (1999), Legend of the Giant Beaver: The Four Seasons (Tales from the Seventh Fire): Spring. Edmonton, Ca.: Reel Girls Media Inc. Reel Girls Media Inc. (2004), Wildfiles. TV. Edmonton, Ca.: Reel Girls Media Inc. Rigby, Kate (2004), ‘Earth, world, text: On the (im)possibility of Ecopoiesis’. New Literary History, 35(3), 427–42. Stephens, John. (2000), ‘ Modality and space in picture book art: Allen Say’s Emma’s Rug ’. CREArTA, 1(1), 44–59. Stephens, John. (2006), ‘From Eden to Suburbia: Perspectives on the natural world in children’s literature’. Papers: Explorations into Children’s Literature, 16(2), 40–5. Turner, Victor. (1995), The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (1969). Piscataway, NJ: Aldine Transaction.

Note 1. Because the norm in picture books has been to centre viewing position at the midpoint of both the vertical and horizontal axes, there is a distinctive counterpointing effect when the position of view is visually shifted.

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Chapter 5

The Role of Colour in Children’s Picture Books: Choices in AMBIENCE

Clare Painter University of New South Wales

Introduction Standing in a library or bookshop and browsing through the large selection of children’s picture book stories available, a prospective reader or buyer gains an immediate impression of a book from the general ‘style’ of the pictures. Even without attending to the verbal text at all, one can make ready judgements that a particular book is light-hearted or dramatic, cheery or macabre, quietly reflective or full of excitement. While emotional responses to the images are influenced by many factors, including the content of what is depicted (e.g., animals in clothes vs. grandpas in hospital) and the style of character depiction (e.g., cartoon-like or more naturalistic), probably the most important aspect for setting the emotional key is the way colour is used. This paper will explore some of the meanings conveyed by choices in various aspects of colour within picture book narratives, focussing in particular on the role of colour in creating an emotional mood. Insights into the role of colour in picture books can be found in a number of sources, such as Bang (1991), Moebius (1986/1990) and Nodelman (1988), all of which point up the fact that colour choices play multiple roles in these stories. In respect of this point, the ‘social semiotic’ framework of systemic-functional (SF) theory has

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a particular value by positing three broad areas of meaning simultaneously present in any text (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004). These three regions of meanings, known as ‘metafunctions’, are referred to within SF theory as the ‘ideational’, the ‘textual’ and the ‘interpersonal’, and are relevant for visual as well as verbal forms of text (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006, Painter, 2007). The ideational metafunction relates to the content of what is represented, the textual to the organization of the text and how it links to co-text and context, while the interpersonal metafunction concerns the roles, relations, feelings and attitudes of text producers/receivers and/or the characters being represented. The different functions for colour can readily be understood in terms of these three metafunctions. For example, in the use of yellow for a duckling or red, white and blue for a Union Jack flag, the colour choice is determined by the content of the image and thus connects to the ideational metafunction. On the other hand, a certain colour may be chosen to make one element in a picture particularly noticeable by contrast with the rest, or repeated choices of the same colour may be used to provide forward and backward connections within the overall story. Such foregrounding or cohesive uses help organize the text and belong within the textual metafunction. Finally, there are those aspects of colour already mentioned – those that relate to our emotional response and engagement with the text and which are therefore the province of the interpersonal metafunction. The most important analyses of the visual modality from an SF perspective are to be found in O’Toole’s (1994) account of the semiotics of artworks and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) more general ‘visual grammar’ which is intended to have application to any kind of visual text (including picture books). Kress and van Leeuwen (2002, 2006) introduce colour into the analysis in at least two ways. On the one hand, colour is discussed as a system of expression with various technical characteristics and which can serve a number of different functions as already pointed out above. On the other hand, colour also receives particular attention in relation to their analysis of the interpersonal metafunction. They propose five visual meaning systems relevant to this metafunction, with that of MODALITY or ‘degrees of certainty’ singled out as the one partly realized by aspects of colour.

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However, their account of the interpersonal metafunction does not elaborate any systematic account of the construction of feeling, something that has a very high priority in relation to picture book data. This chapter, then, aims to build on the insights from earlier picture book research and to extend the analyses provided by Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) visual grammar by outlining those interpersonal meaning choices utilized by picture book images that work on the viewer’s feelings by creating a mood or ‘ambience’. In using the term ambience, an analogy is being made with the semiotics of threedimensional space and the role of such things as colour, lighting, texture and music to create a particular emotional atmosphere (see Stenglin 2004 for an account of ambience in exhibition spaces). While a two-dimensional image does not have the same affordances for ambience as a room or building, it can create comparable effects using some of the same resources. The rest of this chapter will outline the meaning options being proposed for the system of AMBIENCE1 in picture books, drawing on collaborative research into the visual semiotics of a corpus of over fifty narrative texts aimed at readers of different ages and levels2 . It will conclude with a discussion of the unfolding choices within a single text – Anthony Browne’s (1986/96) Piggybook – in order to illustrate further the contribution of successive ambience choices to the meaning of a text.

The System of AMBIENCE The particular visual semiotic choices to be discussed and illustrated in this chapter are summarized below in Figure 1. This figure is a ‘system network’ as used in SF linguistics and is to be read from left to right, with the broadest distinctions on the left and more ‘delicate’ sub-distinctions displayed as leading from these towards the right. A system network of this kind presents sets of choices for meaning together with the form of expression that realizes that meaning. (The sloping arrows in the diagram connect the meanings with the (visual) forms of expression). It should be noted that although the diagram presents choices in meaning as diametrically opposed categories, there is in fact a continuum of possibilities in each case

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Key: a b

vibrant

a or b

high saturation VIBRANCY

a b x

light a or b and x or y

muted

+ white

lower saturation

y

WA RMTH

dim + black

warm red, yellow hues

activated ‘is realised by’

cool

+ colour

blue, green hues

familiar

infused

high differentiation

FAMILIARITY

denied

black only

removed low differentiation

ambient dramatised + lighting

defused − colour + texture

non-ambient

flat − lighting

outline drawing

Figure 1

AMBIENCE

network

with only the most extreme points represented. In what follows, each meaning choice in this figure will be explained and exemplified in turn. Images without colour: ambience absent or defused The default choice for the colour of a page in any book is white, and for print on that page, it is black3 . We do not have any particular emotional response to this combination, nor to an outline drawing in black on a white page background, as found in many diagrams, cartoons or in an image such as Figure 2 below. Such an image does not create any emotional ‘atmosphere’ (other than what may be evoked by the ideational content) and is thus [non-ambient]4 . Non-ambient images are of course rare in picture books because of the role these texts play in apprenticing the very young into literacy, a key aspect of which involves the child coming to enjoy a communicative and affective relationship with an object (the book) rather than a

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Figure 2 Picture without ambience human being. An image without ambience foregoes the opportunity to evoke a bond in this way and requires the reader to attend reflectively to the ideational content of the image rather than to respond more viscerally. One children’s text which does make use of the [non-ambient] choice is John Burningham’s (1988) Granpa, where the left page of most double spreads contains a few lines of printed dialogue above an outline sketch, while the facing right-hand page is entirely taken up with a coloured picture. The contrast is striking and the reader must work hard to establish the relation between each pair of facing images. The coloured images all show scenes of a small girl with her grandfather while the non-ambient drawings appear to depict remembered or imagined scenes. For example, we see grandpa and grandchild singing together in one coloured image, while opposite

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there is a drawing of three children in old-fashioned clothes singing by a piano – presumably a memory from grandpa’s childhood. The effect of this pattern is to keep the reader emotionally focussed on the actual living relationship between the child and the old man shown in the coloured images, while inviting a more reflective scrutiny of the drawings for clues as to what is being depicted and why. The book manages to be simultaneously very accessible in terms of emotional engagement, while quite challenging cognitively for an immature reader. (See Painter 2007 for some discussion of the ideational meaning in this text.) Some of the drawings in Granpa do make use of some shading, crosshatching or dotting to give a more textured effect than that provided by a simple outline, and where such a choice is taken up, we can regard the ambience as [defused] rather than entirely absent. However, in the rare picture book that is produced entirely in black and white or greyscale, the potential of this [defused] option is likely to be greatly enhanced by including strong ‘lighting effects’. Books such as Van Allsburg’s (1990) Jumanji or Bunting and Wiesner’s (1999) Night of the Gargoyles use no colour but create a sinister and somewhat eerie atmosphere in many images through the depiction of a light source with resultant contrasts, as shown in Figure 3 below. The use of lighting effects in these drawings enhances the disconcerting nature of the ideational content of the image, creating a sense of heightened drama compared with the emotionally ‘flat’ effect favoured by Burningham. Thus for images without colour in picture books, the meaning possibilities for ambience (see Figure 1 above) can be summarized as either [non-ambient] or with [defused] ambience. If [defused], then either [flat] (with minimal ‘texturing’ effects) or [dramatized] as in Figure 3. Images with colour: ambience infused The typical picture book is full of coloured pictures and can thus be considered as ‘infused’ with ambience. In this section, different aspects of the use of colour will be discussed, together with the meanings they create for readers and how those meanings relate to specific

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Figure 3 Defused ambience with [dramatized] option

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picture book examples. First however, it is necessary to consider the special case of black as a colour. While black printed text or an outline drawn on the backdrop of a white page has no ambient effect, the same cannot be said of a black page as background. Consider the difference between the effect of the background in Figure 2 above and that of Figure 4 below. The use of a black background is a marked choice that carries its own ambient effect while preventing the various emotional effects that are otherwise available through the use of colour (to be discussed below). Thus it is a special case, in which the infusion of ambience is [denied] rather than [activated]. Just as entering a pitch black room is not a neutral experience, but frustrates any response to one’s surroundings, so a black background on the page is not neutral like a white one but still prevents access to the otherwise available effects

Figure 4 Ambience denied.

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of infused ambience. For obvious reasons it is not a common choice, but examples can be found in Burningham’s (1999) Whadyamean? as well as in Figure 5, from Browne’s (1989/1997) The Tunnel, where its use as a deep frame to the central image creates an additional sense of containment or entrapment. Where colours other than black are in play and infused ambience is [activated], the various features of colour as a form of expression can be utilized to enable three regions of meaning, those of ‘VIBRANCY’, ‘WARMTH’ and ‘FAMILIARITY’. It is these three regions that are most significant in creating ambience in picture books.

VIBRANCY

The vibrancy of a picture is realized by the degree of colour saturation. A certain style of preschooler text, uses very bold, bright, fully saturated colours, creating the visual equivalent of loudness in sound and generating an ambience of excitement and energy. Where saturation is maximal like this, the choice within VIBRANCY is for the option of [vibrant], while reduced saturation in the colours results from a choice of [muted] (Figure 1 above) and creates a quieter feeling. Classic texts by Raymond Briggs, such as The Snowman (1978) or The Bear (2000) use this [muted] option in vibrancy to good effect. The Bear , for example, is the gently humorous story of Tilly and her experience of being visited by a polar bear for whom she then takes on a parental role: feeding, bathing, cleaning up and generally getting him to behave appropriately. On the one hand Tilly is delighted with her new companion and charge, while on the other there are occasions of frustration and crossness on Tilly’s part as she experiences the downside of taking responsibility for another. The uniformly [muted] choice for vibrancy, however, is part of the reason that Tilly’s grumpiness comes across in a low-key way that we can enjoy chuckling over, rather than as anything serious and dramatic. One significant feature of colour as a form of expression is that it is not possible to reduce the saturation of any hue without simultaneously either lightening or darkening the colour. Thus the option of [muted] entails a further choice of either [light] or [dim] and in

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many books, such as The Bear , most individual images will have lighter and dimmer elements within them. In other cases however, there is more uniformity across the whole text, contributing to either a generally ‘light’(hearted) or emotionally ‘dark’ ambience. The classic preschooler text Rosie’s Walk (1970) by Pat Hutchins is one exemplifying the choice of [muted:light] throughout, creating an ambience that is gentle rather than strident (because muted) but consistently upbeat (because light). A contrast is provided by Hathorn and Rogers’ (1994) book for older readers, entitled Way Home. This is a story about a homeless boy negotiating the sights and dangers of the city at night as he makes his way to the little refuge where he sleeps. The book has a serious and somewhat dark theme evoked by the [muted: dim] ambience on every page. Often of course what is interesting is how choices in ambience play out over the course of the narrative and Browne’s (1989/1997) The Tunnel, a story about a feuding brother and sister, provides a nice example of changing VIBRANCY choices. In the opening pages of this book the colours are light but quite vibrant. But at a turning point in the story, the sister has to pluck up courage to crawl through a drainlike tunnel in search of her brother. In the next double spread of four small images, the ambience gradually gets dimmer as she crawls through the tunnel, finally emerging into a light but eerie wood. The wood becomes frightening and fantastical and the terrified girl runs and runs till she catches sight of her brother in a most arresting blackframed image, from which almost all colour has been drained. See Figure 5. Following this picture, there is a further series of four small images, mirroring in layout those of the girl’s journey through the tunnel, in which we see her (she alone in full colour) hugging her ‘petrified’ brother, initially from behind. In each succeeding picture of the four, the boy and the setting gradually become lighter and more vibrant in colour until in the final one the brother has turned to hug his sister face to face in a bright, cheerful scene depicted in rich colours. Browne’s use of choices in ambience to show the world restored to light, and the boy’s stony state reinfused with vibrancy through his sister’s love, make the story’s theme very accessible to young readers.

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Figure 5 Petrified boy from A. Browne’s The Tunnel WARMTH

The sister in The Tunnel wears a red coat as she hugs her brother back to life and this choice of hue relates to another sub-system of [activated] ambience: that of WARMTH. It has often been observed that different choices of colour hue have a different emotional effect on viewers with the most significant difference being between ‘warm’ and ‘cool’ colours. Quintessentially warm colours are shades of red, orange and yellow, while cool ones are the various shades of blue, green and aqua. The contrasts can readily be seen in Van Allsburg’s (1990) Just a Dream, in which a sleeping boy travels in his bed to different locations in the world to view them in their future ecologically degraded state. A literally cold location like Mount Everest is depicted in shades of blue with white, while a hot desert-scape is in shades of orange. Thus the climatic aspects are reinforced by the colour choices.

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But warm and cool are also psychological states that can be evoked by these colour choices: for example, the cool blue-green walls of the kitchen in McKee’s (2004) Not Now Bernard, where the preoccupied mother ignores her son’s approach, seem more obviously to reference the cool detached relationship between the two than to depict the physical setting. A similar choice is made in Browne’s (2004) Into the Forest, when mother and son sit at breakfast, with a large expanse of blue-green wall behind them, creating an appropriately cool ambience as they sit preoccupied with their own worries about the father’s departure. By contrast, warm yellow hues are used towards the end of the story as the boy is united first with his grandmother and then with the father. In these pictures, Grandma is initially depicted in close-up against warmly yellowish bedding and then, as the two embrace, she is shown surrounded by a sunny, warm setting of walls. On the next page, the walls, ceiling and floor of the room in which Dad is found are a similarly warm yellow, evoking the warmth of the reunion. In terms of the visual semiotic, then, it may well be the case that the visual depiction of settings is often more important for its interpersonal than its ideational function; that is, the capacity of the setting to carry ambience may be more significant than its potential for providing details about the spatial location depicted. Since choices in WARMTH are in play simultaneously with choices in VIBRANCY, it can be noted that the particular instances of both [cool] and [warm] choices discussed above are mainly used in combination with the VIBRANCY option of [muted:light]. By contrast, Helen Cooper’s (1996) The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed is a story that combines choices in WARMTH with the [muted:dim] option in the depiction of the baby’s evening adventures. A nice contrast is made in this book between the cool, dim ambience of the page where the baby had ‘gone as far as he could. So he stood quite still, all alone. . .’, and the following pages where he is united with Mum, and a lovely warm ambience surrounds them both as they meet and hug.

FAMILIARITY

The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed is also interesting in relation to a final region of meaning that is in play simultaneously with the

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systems of VIBRANCY and WARMTH: that of FAMILIARITY. Choices here relate to whether the reality depicted has the quality of the familiar and everyday on the one hand, or of something removed or distanced from that on the other. It is an area of meaning related to what Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) discuss under the heading of ‘modality’. The realization of the system of FAMILIARITY is colour differentiation – that is, the range of different colour hues used within the image. Where a full palette of colours is used, a sense of the familiar is created, while restriction to shades of one or two colours renders what is depicted as removed in some way from everyday reality. In The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed, the opening images show the baby driving his toy car in his home and negotiating with his mother about bedtime. These pictures use quite a wide range of colours: the setting is in shades of green, while the car is red with a blue and yellow badge and Mum wears purple, white and blue clothes. Through this choice of high colour differentiation, a sense of the familiar is created. However, as the baby exits through a doorway, the landscape beyond is shown with a more monochrome effect, the sky, fields and road all being suffused with yellowy-orange shades. In all the spreads that follow, the baby is to be understood as on some kind of imaginative or dream journey and the limited colour differentiation in all these images helps create this sense of being removed from the familiar. Similarly, the image of the petrified boy in The Tunnel uses only shades of green and grey suggesting some fairy tale-like location. The gradual change in VIBRANCY over succeeding images (described above) is simultaneous with a change from [removed] to [familiar], signifying the return from the nightmare magical realm back to the everyday, after transforming experience. In different stories where there are pictures with a low degree of colour differentiation, the particular meaning of [removed] may vary. For example, rather than being removed into a world of dream or fantasy, the relatively monochrome nature of an image may serve to imply emotional removal, as in Crew and Rogers’ (1992) Lucy’s Bay. In Lucy’s Bay the sense of removal generated is one of emotional withdrawal from others as the boy reflects on and grapples with the memory of his sister’s death. On the other hand, in Wolfer’s (2005) war story, Photographs in the Mud, the characters are more literally

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removed in that the whole story is set in the distant time period of the Second World War. At the same time, the restriction to pale brown and dull green in the images depicting the soldiers in action also emphasizes the men’s removal from ordinary family life and the loving relationships that sustain it, into a domain where other values must dominate. This story also exemplifies a further possibility once the [removed] option has been taken up, which is a particular monochrome effect using sepia tones in the style of early photographs. In Photographs in the Mud, the images (within the larger pictures) that are intended to be understood as family photographs are presented in these sepia tones, clarifying both their nature as photographs and the time period of the story. In Jorgensen and Harrison-Lever’s (2002) In Flanders Fields, set in the battlefields of World War I, the whole text is painted in sepia tones to symbolize the time period and its distance from the present. In Figure 1, this specific choice is termed [historicized] to indicate its function in referencing the particular time period of the early twentieth century and actual historical events.

Interplay with the Textual Metafunction Thus far, picture book images have been discussed as though ambience choices were necessarily uniform for any image, but as this is not necessarily the case, various possibilities for contrasting ambience need to be taken into account. For example, sometimes an image appears ‘split’ in its ambience choices, perhaps with one side being light and another dim, or one part warm and another cool. In such a case, the significance of the ambience choices will need to be read in relation to what is depicted in these different sections of the image and perhaps in relation to interpretations of the page layout in terms of Given and New or Ideal and Real structures (See Kress and Van Leeuwen 2006). Similarly, a coloured frame or border around the picture may either match or contrast with choices of VIBRANCY and WARMTH made within the image itself, amplifying or counterpointing the meanings of those choices.

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envelop

splash

Figure 6 Interplay of enveloping ambience with a contrasting ‘splash’ Most importantly, there may also be a contrast between the ‘enveloping’ ambience of the setting and a smaller ‘splash’ of ambience created by a particular element within the picture, such as a character, as shown in Figure 6 above, where the background in the original is blue and the figure is red. One picture book that makes use of the interplay of enveloping ambience with a contrasting splash is Jorgensen and Harrison-Levers’ (2002) war story, In Flanders Fields. In this book, apart from red poppies on the final page, the only elements not presented in sepia tones are the dully glowing coals of the soldiers’ burning brazier and later, a small, red-breasted robin. The red colour of the bird makes it textually (i.e., compositionally) salient despite its tiny size, but the fact that it is [vibrant] and [warm] in ambience is also relevant to its meaning in the narrative, since – as the soldier takes a risk to rescue the tiny bird from the barbed wire – its warmth and vibrancy in the context come to symbolize hope for human caring, decency and continuing life in the face of brutal conflict and death. Another interesting example of the interplay between the enveloping ambience choices and a contrasting splash is provided by the first full page illustration in Browne’s (1992) Gorilla, which depicts a breakfast scene with the child protagonist, Hannah, and her father.

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Hannah is in the foreground of the picture with her back to the viewer and the father is facing us at the opposite end of the table, reading his newspaper. What is interesting is that Hannah on her chair is depicted in warm, fairly vibrant colours (e.g., wearing a bright red garment), while everything else has contrasting choices. Everything that Hannah can see – the cereal packet on the table, the father, the kitchen cupboards and utensils behind him – is depicted in cool blue tones and has a pale, washed-out appearance, reduced in vibrancy. The effect is not just a textual one of making Hannah more prominent, but carries the implication that since everything Hannah sees is [cool] and [removed] in ambience, she herself is in an emotionally depressed and isolated state. Thus Browne implicitly teaches the young reader the literary convention of reading the character’s emotional state from the depiction of the setting here. Moreover, he provides a beautifully contrasting scene later in the book when Hannah sits across the meal table from her ideal fantasy father in the form of a gorilla. In this picture, the colour choices are uniformly warm and rosy, signifying Hannah’s joy – though ambience is still [removed], suggesting that this is indeed a fantasy. (The choice of [familiar] is restored when she is shown at the end of the story interacting positively with the real father in an image making use of a wide range of colours.) While either a coloured setting or a coloured page background can provide an enveloping ambience for a picture, picture books may also take up the option of presenting a character (or other depicted element) against the empty background of the white page, in which case there is only a ‘splash’ without any enveloping ambience. The effect of removing any enveloping ambience seems to be largely an interpersonal one, either intensifying the effect on us of the character’s depicted emotion or else provoking feelings or other ‘attitude’ from us (see Martin and White 2005 for discussion of attitude in verbal text). Thus the removal of the setting at the end of Browne’s (2004) Into the Forest, where the mother is shown smiling at us with open arms, enhances the effect of her joyful expression and stance so that the reader participates in the child protagonist’s joy in the greeting. Similarly, in Norman and Young’s (1998) Grandpa, we can contrast an earlier picture of the grandfather sitting in his chair in an ambient garden setting, with a later picture, after his death, of the

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empty chair isolated against the background of the white page. While the chair itself can have no feelings, its placement on the bare page in this way invites a strong emotional response in the reader, who is also therefore likely to read ‘between the lines’ in the verbal text in such a way as to evoke feelings.

Ambience Choices in Anthony Browne’s Piggybook While no single text can illustrate all the possibilities for ambience that have been discussed in this chapter, a consideration of successive choices within a single text helps to show how ambience choices can contribute to the narrative meaning alongside all the other visual and verbal choices at play. In this final section of the chapter, Anthony Browne’s (1986/96) Piggybook has been chosen as a widely known and easily accessible story that can be referred to in the following discussion outlining the role of ambience within a single story. In what follows, the first few images will be described and then selections from further in the text to show how the instantial unfolding of ambience choices contributes to meaning. The book opens by introducing the three male members of the Piggott family, father and two sons, standing smugly in front of their ‘nice house with a nice garden, and a nice car in the nice garage’ (Browne (1986/96) first page). The enveloping ambience is [muted:light] and [cool] but with some [vibrant], [warm] splashes provided by the boys’ school blazers. These splashes extend the palette to make the overall ambience [familiar] and also to textually align the boys as two of a kind. This orienting page therefore sets up a baseline norm for the text in terms of VIBRANCY, WARMTH and FAMILIARITY. Over the page is a double spread of the three males at the breakfast table calling out to Mum to hurry up and serve them their meal. The boys in their cool blue-grey shirts have wide, circular, open mouths (calling out to nag Mum) and, while Dad is hidden behind his newspaper, every image in that paper is of a face with a shouting mouth. In terms of ambience, the most striking fact about this scene is that it has no ambient setting – just the background of the white page. This lack of an enveloping ambience in the initial depiction of male behaviour

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functions to emphasize the boys’ faces and their demanding mouths, both amplifying their depicted bossiness and provoking the reader’s negative judgement of it. Thus appraisal of the males is set up in the initial stage of the narrative through the absence of an ambient setting in conjunction with the depiction of the characters’ faces. In the following double spread come the first depictions of Mrs. Piggot, in four smaller pictures showing her facelessly doing all the household chores before leaving for work. These images are striking for the shift in ambience made, all being [muted] and [warm] in the enveloping choice of dull amber tones, with Mum herself cooler, but not greatly contrasting, in her dingy greenish clothing. Most striking is not simply the warmer setting, but the lack of differentiation in the overall colour scheme, setting these scenes up as [removed] in a contrast with the norm established in the opening picture. There are in fact a number of ways in which Mum can be read as ‘removed’ here. Most obviously, she is removed from the males in being placed alone in her own female sphere – that of domestic chores; secondly these images arguably remove her from the here and now moment, in that the symmetrical layout, in conjunction with the verbal text, every day she . . . , generalize the chores as repeated and typical rather than presenting them as specific narrative incidents. Together with the [removed] choice in ambience making these scenes ‘unfamiliar’, this emphasis on repetitiveness allows the possibility of reading her behaviour as itself open to judgement as being somewhat excessive and martyred. Certainly a third meaning suggested by the ambience is that Mum is emotionally isolated, perhaps from both the males and from engagement with her current life. This indeed proves to be the case once the narrative problematic emerges a few pages later. By this point there has been a second page of pictures of the mother doing chores, imbued with exactly the same [removed] ambience as the initial ones. This page contrasts in VIBRANCY (having very muted colours) and FAMILIARITY (having low differentiation), as well as ideationally and textually, with the following expansive double spread in which the three males loll about in front of the television. These images of the characters conclude the first stage of the story, one in which ambience has played a key role in setting up contrasts between the family members, tuning the reader

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into their emotional states and provoking an attitudinal response to them. The narrative complication starts when the males return home one day to find the mother gone. A subtle ‘splash’ here is the greenish column of wallpaper revealed in the open doorway behind the boys as they enter the room. This splash interrupts the warmer ambience of the rest of the setting and hints quietly at a negative change to their cosy life. This manifests as a note from the departed mother in which she castigates her family as ‘pigs’, by which point Browne’s depictions actualize the metaphor by morphing the male characters into humanized pigs. A striking play with ambience occurs in the first image of the helpless pig-males in the kitchen trying to cook after the mother’s departure. In this image, the dim, warm, undifferentiated amber tones of the ‘Mum’ pictures are reproduced. Now it is the males who are removed – into foreign territory – away from their former overbearing selves and into the female sphere of domestic toil. After this, they are next depicted with a cool, dim enveloping ambience that directly contrasts with the warm, light ambience of their previous joint appearance just before the mother’s departure. The mother’s re-entry is dramatically portrayed, again with the help of ambience choices. Against the dim, cool, blue-green colouring of the enveloping ambience, the open doorway provides a warmer, lighter, pink-toned background, like a shaft of hope, framing her shadow. The image recalls the opposite choice of the coolly open doorway at the first hints of her departure, this reversal suggesting a contrasting change for the better. The males are soon shown pleading with Mum to return in what is the second image in the book to lack any background context. On the plain white page, the three pig-males are shown on their knees facing Mum (and the reader), looking up with doleful, pleading expressions. The marked choice of removing the enveloping ambience not only foregrounds the emotional state of the pig-males but signals the beginning of the resolution of the narrative. There are three further images towards the end of the story where the characters are similarly presented on a blank white page. One shows the (re-humanized) males engaged in household tasks, the boys making their beds and the father contentedly doing the ironing.

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These are not close-up views focussing on facial expressions, but they still foreground attitude in two ways. On the one hand they indicate the males’ new willingness to participate competently in housework, and on the other hand they invite the reader to make a judgement about this – that it is a positive change. The males are then shown together as happy cooks in a picture where the ambience is [muted: light] and [familiar]. A new norm of behaviour has been arrived at in the Piggot household. The story is rounded off with further decontextualized pictures, affording no enveloping ambience, this time of the mother, and once again inviting attitude. In complete contrast to the [removed] fulllength faceless images of earlier in the story, Mum is now shown in a splash of vibrant colours, smiling out at us, amplifying the verbal text, ‘Mum was happy too . . .’, a state we respond to approvingly. Then over the page we see her smiling again and it is revealed that she is happy not just at the change in her family but in her new role as family car mechanic. Again there is no enveloping ambience and we are invited to empathize with her and share in the little surprise that lifts the story away from any overly didactic tone. This consideration of the ambience choices as they unfold in the text does scant justice to the impact and complexity of the book, since the ideational, textual and other interpersonal choices all work in concert with ambience, along with the carefully chosen verbal text (see Williams 2000 for some discussion of the latter). Nonetheless, observing the way choices unfold over the course of the text gives some sense of the contribution that this meaning system makes to the overall narrative. Piggybook illustrates the way choices gain significance, not simply against other possibilities available in the system, but against other choices already made in the text, setting up a series of similarities and contrasts that interplay with the narrative structure to create a picture book that is at once highly accessible and highly sophisticated.

Conclusion This chapter has proposed AMBIENCE as a significant semiotic system within the interpersonal metafunction, borrowing the term from

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analysis of three-dimensional spaces. It comprises a set of options for creating an emotional mood or atmosphere realized through various choices related to colour. In images without colour, ambience is either absent or [defused], and in images using colour, the three most significant sub-systems have been termed VIBRANCY, WARMTH and FAMILIARITY, all three being in play simultaneously. In addition, the interplay of ‘enveloping’ and ‘splashing’ possibilities enables more complexity in the use of the system. In the discussion it has been suggested that the circumstantial settings in picture book images are significant not only, or even primarily, for their ideational content, but rather for their capacity to carry these interpersonal choices in ambience. Similarly an absence of the ambient setting, where only a splash of ambience is available, foregrounds interpersonal meaning by emphasizing character affect and/or inviting reader attitude. In sum, while an account of ambience choices by no means exhausts the visual meaning potential of any image, the system undoubtedly plays an important role, particularly in determining the reader’s ongoing affective response to the text. Taken in conjunction with other interpersonal systems and with textual and ideational choices (see Kress and van Leeuwen 2006; Painter 2007), an analysis in terms of ambience should contribute to a more systematic account of the visual strand of meaning in picture books. And while the system being proposed here is one specific to picture book data and makes no claims to describe forms such as film, video or still photography, it does address an area of meaning that is highly relevant across a range of visual forms, all of which can be expected to have their own partly overlapping range of ambience choices.

References Bang, M. (1991), Picture this: How Pictures Work. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. Briggs, R. (1978), The Snowman. London: Hamish Hamilton Briggs, R. (2000), The Bear. London: Jonathan Cape. First published London: Julia MacRae Books, 1994. Browne, A. (1996), Piggybook. London: Walker Books. First published London: Julia MacRae Books, 1986.

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Browne, A. (1997), The Tunnel. London: Walker Books. First published London: Julia MacRae Books, 1989. Browne, A. (1992), Gorilla. London: Walker Books. First published London: Julia MacRae Books, 1983. Browne, A. (2004), Into the Forest. London: Walker Books. Bunting, E. and Wiesener, D. (illus.) (1994), Night of the Gargoyles. New York: Clarion Books. Burningham, J. (1988), Granpa. London: Puffin Books. First published London: Jonathan Cape, 1984. Burningham, J. (1999), Whadayamean? London: Jonathan Cape Ltd. Cooper, H. (1996), The Baby who wouldn’t go to Bed. London: Doubleday. Crew, G. and Rogers, G. (Illus.) (1992), Lucy’s Bay. Nundah, Qld.: Jam Roll Press. Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004), Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd revised edn). London: Arnold. Hathorn, L. and Rogers, G. (Illus.) (1994), Way Home. Sydney: Random House Australia. Hutchins, P. (1970), Rosie’s Walk. Harmondsworth, Middx: Puffin Books. First published Bodley Head Ltd., 1968. Jorgensen, N. and Harrison-Lever, B. (Illus.) (2002), In Flanders Fields. Fremantle, W.A.: Sandcastle Books, Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2002), ‘Colour as a semiotic mode: notes for a grammar of colour’. Visual Communication, 1(4), 343–68. Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2006), Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. (2nd edn). London: Routledge. McKee, D. (2004), Not Now Bernard. London: Andersen Press. First published 1980. Martin, J. R. and White, P. (2005), The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Moebius, W. (1986/1990), ‘Introduction to picture book codes’. Word and Image, 2(2), 141–51. Reprinted in Hunt, P. (ed.), Children’s Literature: The Development of Criticism. London, Routledge. Nodelman, P. (1988), Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Norman, L. and Young, N. (Illus.) (1998), Grandpa. Lindfield, NSW: Scholastic Australia.

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O’Toole, M. (1994), The Language of Displayed Art. London: University of Leicester Press. Painter, C. (2007), ‘Children’s picture books: Reading sequences of images’, in A. McCabe, M. O’Donnell and R. Whittaker (eds), Advances in Language and Education. London: Continuum, pp. 38– 57. Stenglin, M. (2004), ‘Packaging Curiosities: Towards a Grammar of Three-Dimensional Space’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation; University of Sydney). Available at: http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/ adt/public html/adt-NU/public/adt-NU20050909.161343/ Stenglin, M. (forthcoming), ‘Binding: a resource for exploring interpersonal meaning in 3D space.’ To appear in Social Semiotics. Van Allsburg, C. (1981), Jumanji. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Van Allsburg, C. (1990), Just a Dream. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Williams G. (2000), ‘Children’s literature, children and uses of language description’, in L. Unsworth (ed.), Researching Language in Schools and communities. London: Continuum, pp. 111–29. Wolfer, D. and Harrison-Lever, B. (Illus.) (2005), Photographs in the Mud. Fremantle, W.A: Fremantle Arts Centre Press.

Notes 1. Names of meaning systems are conventionally written in small capitals. However, for ease of reading, the term ‘ambience’ will be capitalised only in headings in this chapter. 2. The research on which this paper is based is part of a larger study carried out by the author in collaboration with J.R. Martin and Len Unsworth and supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery grant. 3. Black and white are the extreme ends of the continuum of ‘value’, maximally dark and maximally light, rather than being hues, but will be referred to here as ‘colours’ as in everyday parlance. 4. Names of choices or ‘features’ in a network are conventionally placed in square brackets when specific reference is made to them.

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Chapter 6

Intermodal Reconciliation: Mates in Arms

J. R. Martin University of Sydney

Positive Discourse Analysis Martin (2004a, 2007a) suggests that critical discourse analysis has been more successful at deconstructing what is wrong with the world than suggesting how to put things right. He proposes a refocusing of energy in the direction of positive discourse analysis involving, among other things, analysis of discourse which attempts to make the world a better place. Various illustrations of this perspective are presented in Martin 2002, 2003, 2004b, 2006; Martin & Rose 2003/2007; Martin & Stenglin 2007. In this chapter this orientation will be further explored in relation to a children’s picture book which aims to foster reconciliation as part of an ongoing healing process rehabilitating Japanese–Australian relations following WWII.

Making War/Waging Peace War is a nasty business, as we so easily forget. And part of the nastiness has to do with what Lazar & Lazar (2004) refer to as the ‘e/vilification’ of the enemy. Ham (2004), in his history of the Kokoda campaign in New Guinea in the second half of 1942, highlights this process in a quotation from the Australian conservative politician Sir Robert Menzies criticizing the then Labor government for advertising which cultivated hatred of the Japanese as part of the war effort:

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The last advertisement I saw ended by announcing, apropos of the Japanese, that ‘We always did despise them anyhow.’ Now, if I may take that last observation first, it does seem to me to be fantastically foolish and dangerous. It is, in my opinion, poor policy to try and persuade people to despise the Japanese . . . We all . . . have our moments of burning hatred. But the real question if whether we should glorify such a natural human reaction into something which ought to be cultivated and made a sort of chronic state of mind.’ [Robert Menzies in opposition, 1942; Ham 296–97]

Reports of Japanese soldiers bayoneting live prisoners for training purposes and acts of cannibalism fuelled these flames with the result that very few Japanese or Australian prisoners survived being captured during the bitter hand to hand fighting along the Kokoda Track. In spite of this, Ham reports that a few of the survivors of the courageous 39th Battalion joined their Japanese counterparts for a reunion in 1972, ‘the only instance of this happening among the Australian armies’: ‘The Japanese, led by two generals, finished their battle hymn,’ reported Alan Downers, a journalist for The Sun. ‘Then it was the Diggers’ turn – with ‘Waltzing Matilda’. The Japanese joined in. An old Japanese general, Shigeru Sugiyama, ‘son-in-law of the once mighty general Tojo’, bowed neatly from the waist, and told the Australian reporter: ‘Never could we find a time and place to outwit and outmanoeuvre the 39th. And now we have waited 30 years to meet them here and tell them so. To tell them that when our men of the great Nankai Division landed in New Guinea in 1942, they thought they were facing an Australian army some 10,000 strong on the Kokoda Trail. Not, for the first two months of the battle, just one battalion of young and untested men – this 39th Battalion – only some 600 strong!’ [Ham 2004, p. 531]

Somehow, in ways I am far too naive to appreciate, the bitter fighting had led to mutual respect and the desire of the soldiers involved for some measure of reconciliation.

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This raises the question of how Australians and Japanese who were not so directly involved, but who were caught up in the racially driven hate campaigns come to live with their past. Writing and illustrating as Australia fights alongside the ‘coalition of the willing’ in the Iraq war, Diane Wolfer and Brain Harrison-Lever (2005) tackle these issues head-on, in a children’s picture book designed for a late primary school readership (alongside of course the teachers and parents sharing the book with these children). Martin (2006) discusses this text in relation to the secondary sources which inspired the narrative; this paper concentrates on the way in which words and pictures interact to align readers around Photographs in the Mud’s reconciliation theme.

Intermodality Photographs in the Mud is a canonical children’s picture book and thus deploys a genuine complementarity and words and pictures to tell the story of a fictional Australian and Japanese soldier who fight to the death on the Kokoda Track. The verbal text of this story is provided as Appendix 1; due to the publisher’s restrictions only a few of its images can be reproduced here, in black and white rather than the original colour. Because of this unfortunate bias, we’ll begin with selected verbal analyses and then consider briefly how these are complemented by relevant aspects of the images. One important point which will emerge from the discussion is that intermodal relations cannot be fully interpreted without reference to their function in the genre of a given text. For Photographs in the Mud this means interpreting the complementarity of verbiage and image with respect to the underlying message (or ‘theme’ in Hasan’s 1985 sense; Martin 1996) of the narrative. We’ll thus explore verbiage/image relations here in relation to the picture book’s reconciliation theme. Textual meaning (information flow) As far as thematic progression is concerned (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004; Martin & Rose 2003/2007), Wolfer’s verbal text begins by

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alternating systematically between Australian and Japanese orientations to the field. This is exemplified below from the first eight pages of the picture book (with facing pages number in odd then even pairs –1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8), where unmarked Themes1 orient first to the Australians (boxed) and then to the Japanese (underlined). This pattern continues throughout the story until Jack and Hoshi come to blows. 1 In 1942 an Australian soldier went to war on a muddy track in New Guinea. As Jack farewelled his wife, she held his hand to her pregnant belly. ‘Promise me you’ll return,’ Peggy whispered. Jack nodded and kissed her. /2 Jack joined soldiers from across Australia. Together they travelled north to try and stop the advance of the Japanese army. 3 Another solider went to the same war on the same muddy track. The man’s name was Hoshi. He’d left his wife and baby girl in Japan and gone to fight for his Emperor. /4 Hoshi travelled south from his home in Shikoku, fighting battles alongside his comrades. They were brave men, but months of war had hardened them. Some of the soldiers had become cruel. This made Hoshi sad, as he knew they were good men at heart. 5 Jack’s battalion landed in the south of Papua New Guinea. They practised jungle-fighting and learned to use their rifles. /6 ‘The Japanese have landed on the northern beaches,’ said Jack’s captain. ‘To stop them reaching Port Moresby, we have to march over steep mountains along the Kokoda Track. It’s ninety-six kilometres, but we must hold the line.’ Jack hated war, but to protect Peggy and his child, he knew he had to fight for his country. 7 Hoshi and his comrades landed on a black sandy beach in the north of Papua New Guinea. They cut their way through dense jungle and waded through foul-smelling swamps, sloshing through

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Figure 1 Balanced Australian and Japanese orientations to the field (pp. 11/12) mud that sucked the boots from their feet. Hoshi pulled bloodsucking leeches from his legs. Wild sago thorns ripped at his flesh and oozing tropical ulcers infected his skin. /8 Mosquitos and other biting insects made day and night a misery, but Hoshi and his comrades were determined. They must fight for their Empire. When the officers yelled, ‘Attack’, they charged into machine-gun fire. And those that lived, marched south towards Port Moresby.

Harrison-Lever’s images support this balanced perspective, switching between illustrations of the Australians, then the Japanese. This is exemplified in Figure 1, with pictures of Jack’s, then Hoshi’s wife and child at home. As far as the picture book’s reconciliation theme is concerned, the motive here appears to be to give a balanced perspective, although the Australians are in a sense privileged by coming first. This pattern contrasts with other accounts of the Kokoda campaign (e.g., FitzSimons 2004; Ham 2004; Lindsay 2002), which include Japanese perspectives but are overwhelmingly Australian in orientation. Photographs in the Mud deploys information flow to give equal time to the Australians and Japanese.

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Agency (affecting people and things) Photographs in the Mud is a war story, so there is a lot of activity going on. But only a small minority of processes involve the soldiers themselves affecting other people or things. For both sides, the fighting itself is generally construed in middle voice (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004); and where agentive clauses are used, it tends to be things rather than people that do harm. The verbal text from facing pages 13/14 and 15/16 is representative. 13 Gunshot shredded the jungle. ‘Come on, lads.’ The Australian captain yelled. Jack leapt out of his weapon pit to join his mates. As bullets whizzed through the air, Hoshi whispered a prayer and turned to face the enemy. ‘Banzai!’ his comrades screamed. /14 Jack fired his gun. He saw shock and terror in the Japanese soldier’s eyes as they fell. Jack wanted to drop his rifle and cover his ears, but it was impossible to block the cries of the injured and dying men. There was a lull in the fighting and both sides withdrew. Hoshi and Jack had each seen great acts of courage. Many men had fallen, but somehow Hoshi and Jack survived. 15 The men bandaged their wounds and regrouped. Then Hoshi’s commanding officer raised his arm. ‘Attack!’ Hoshi saw his brave comrades fall, dying all around him. Then a sniper’s bullet struck the officer. ‘Lead the men!’ the wounded man cried. /16 Hoshi looked around. The other soldiers trusted him. Asking them to run to their death was the hardest thing he could imagine. But it was now his duty. ‘Attack!’ Hoshi screamed. His men ran into a storm of bullets. Hoshi felt shrapnel rip into his flesh. He stumbled and felt himself falling.

This passage includes mainly processes in middle voice, and just ten agentive ones. The soldiers fall and die, but they don’t directly kill one

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Table 1 Verbal agency on facing pages 13–16 Middle voice

Agentive processes

‘Come on, lads.’ The Australian captain yelled. Jack leapt out of his weapon pit [Jack] to join his mates. As bullets whizzed through the air, Hoshi whispered a prayer ‘Banzai!’ his comrades screamed. He saw shock and terror in the Japanese soldier’s eyes as they fell. but it was impossible to block the cries of the injured and dying men. There was a lull in the fighting and both sides withdrew. Hoshi and Jack had each seen great acts of courage. Many men had fallen, but somehow Hoshi and Jack survived. and [the men] regrouped. ‘Attack!’ Hoshi saw his brave comrades fall, [Hoshi’s comrades] dying all around him. the wounded man cried. Hoshi looked around. The other soldiers trusted him. [Hoshi] Asking them [Japanese comrades] to run to their death was the hardest thing he could imagine. But it was now his duty. ‘Attack!’ Hoshi screamed. His men ran into a storm of bullets. Hoshi felt shrapnel rip into his flesh. He stumbled and [Hoshi] felt himself falling.

Gunshot shredded the jungle. [Hoshi] to face the enemy Jack fired his gun. Jack wanted to drop his rifle and [Jack] cover his ears The men bandaged their wounds Then Hoshi’s commanding officer raised his arm. Then a sniper’s bullet struck the officer. [Hoshi] ‘Lead the men!’ shrapnel rip into his flesh.

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Table 2 Contrasting agency for Jack and Hoshi Agent

Process

[Jack] Jack [Jack & soldiers]

kissed joined try and stop

[Jack’s battalion] [Jack’s battalion] [Jack] Jack he (Jack) Jack Jack [Jack[ [Jack] Jack Jack [Jack] [Jack] the voice [Jack’s] he Hoshi [Hoshi] [Hoshi] Hoshi Hoshi Hoshi the Japanese soldier [Hoshi]

Medium

her (Peggy) soldiers from across Australia the advance of the Japanese army learned to use their rifles stop . . . reaching them (the Japanese) protect Peggy and his child received a letter from home longed to hold his new-born son fired his gun wanted to drop his rifle cover his ears block the cries of the injured and . . . dropped his rifle took the photograph wiping the picture offering it (the picture) comforted him (Hoshi)

‘d left pulled to face lead raised stabbed raised clutching

His wife and baby girl blood-sucking leeches the enemy the men his bayonet the young Australian his bayonet a photograph

another. Instead, while they may fire their guns, it’s gunshot, bullets and shrapnel that do the damage to people and things around them. In the story as a whole, Jack himself is more than twice as agentive as Hoshi. This can perhaps be interpreted as mitigating somewhat the reading of Japan as aggressors in WWII (as opposed to say liberators of the colonized nations of the region). Hoshi’s agency on the other hand does involve harming Jack (stabbing him), whereas Jack only manages to fire his rifle.

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Figure 2 Contrasting agency of harmful impact for Jack and Hoshi (pp. 17/18) Harrison-Level’s images support these patterns. There is one largescale battle scene depicted (Figure 3), but it is a long distance shot so it is hard to see who is harming who; and the scene is framed on separate facing pages, with Australians mainly to the left and Japanese to the right, firing across the centre divider of the book. More typical is the left-hand page of Figure 2, with soldiers moving through the jungle and non-transactional vectors of gazing, pointing or aiming directed at participants outside the frame. Markedly untypical is the right facing page in Figure 2, which reinforces the verbal agency by portraying Hoshi attacking Jack. Overall verbiage and image construe war as something people do, rather than as violence they directly inflict on one another. This diminishes to some degree the horror of what went on and can be read as muting the degree of anger and bitterness which makes it hard for enemies to reconcile. Interpersonal meaning (attitude, focalization and ambience) As is typical of narrative genres, a range of feelings is explicitly inscribed in the verbal text – including affect construing people’s emotions, judgements of their character and behaviour, and

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Table 3 Inscribed attitude felt by Australians

Affect

Appraiser Inscription

Appraised

Attitude

Jack Jack Jack

kissed hated longed

affect affect affect

Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack

wanted loved sighed moaned sorry

Peggy war to hold his . . . son to drop rifle . . . the woman in . . . son..never seen done for Hoshi not too good

soldiers

grumbling

Jack Jack Jack

lucky luck not . . . vicious mug

Jack Jack Hoshi

judgement judgement judgement

Jack & Hoshi

judgement

foul-smelling strange sweetie (not) good

swamps shadows Hana Hoshi’s condition

appreciation

affect affect affect affect affect

×8 affect

×1 Judgement

Jack ×4 Appreciation Jack Jack Jack Jack

appreciation appreciation

×4

appreciations of their fighting conditions and wounds (Martin & White 2005). Attitudes sourced to Australians are presented in Table 3, including a mix of positive and negative feelings. As far as reconciliation is concerned, the most significant of these is Jack’s rejection, in Hoshi’s case, of his countrymen’s judgement of the Japanese: ‘. . . you don’t sound like one of the vicious Japs they’ve been telling us about’. Attitudes sourced to the Japanese are presented in Table 4. Hoshi’s judgements reinforce Jack’s assessment of the Japanese, with positive

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Table 4 Inscribed attitude felt by Japanese Appraiser Inscription Affect

Hoshi Hoshi Hoshi Hoshi

sad hated wanted longed

Hoshi Hoshi Hoshi

tears groaned sumimasen ‘sorry’ loved comforted afraid

Hoshi Hoshi Hoshi

Appraised

having to kill to sleep for the war to end photograph Hana Hana his own family Jack’s voice of dying alone

Attitude affect affect affect affect affect affect affect affect affect

×10 Japanese soldiers Japanese soldiers Japanese soldiers

shock

affect

terror

affect

Hana Hana Hana Hana

laughing happy laughing smiled

Hoshi Hoshi Hoshi Hoshi Hoshi

brave hardened cruel good at heart determined

Hoshi Hoshi Hoshi

brave luck good

trusted

Hoshi

affect

×3 affect affect affect affect

×4 Judgement

×8

comrades comrades comrades comrades Hoshi & comrades men Hoshi Jack

judgement judgement judgement judgement judgement judgement judgement judgement

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Table 4 (Cont.) Appraiser Inscription Appreciation Hoshi Hoshi Hoshi

Appraised

Attitude

foul-smelling swamps appreciation misery day and night appreciation hardest asking them to appreciation run

×3

values outnumbering negative ones, and negative judgements (hardened, cruel) excused: ‘This made Hoshi sad, as he knew they were good men at heart’. Significantly, as far as affect and judgement are concerned, feelings are attributed to the Japanese twice as often as to the Australians. The verbal text thus works to humanize the Japanese and so redress the ‘e/vilification’ process that is part and parcel of getting people to send their children off to war, to kill and be killed. As Wolfer comments on her website: ‘For me, the point of the story is that, beneath the uniforms and propaganda, soldiers from all armies share a common humanity. Men from both sides have family and loved ones waiting at home, praying and hoping that they will return’. The verbal text further reinforces this message by construing Jack and Hoshi as feeling the same kind of things (affect italicized, judgement underlined and appreciation in bold below): Jack hated war, but to protect Peggy and his child, he knew he had to fight . . . Hoshi hated having to kill, but it was his duty to fight. How he (Jack) longed to hold his new-born son. How he (Hoshi) longed for the war to end. ‘Hana,’ Hoshi groaned. ‘Sumimasen (I’m sorry), Hana.’ ‘I think I’m done for,’ Jack moaned, ‘. . . tell your little girl I’m sorry.’ Hoshi didn’t understand the words but just as he loved his own family,

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he knew that this Australian soldier loved the woman in the photograph. If his [= Jack’s] luck held out, he would make it home as he’d promised. (Be happy, with luck we will meet again), Hana,’ Hoshi whispered to his little girl . . . Hoshi and Jack had each seen great acts of courage. Jack muttered, ‘but you don’t sound like one of the vicious Japs they’ve been telling us about.’ This man was his enemy, but Hoshi sensed he was a good man. Both men were badly wounded.

As far as attitude is concerned, the story’s images contribute very little to this pattern. Almost no facial affect is shown; and images cannot in any case explicitly inscribe judgement or appreciation. Since Australians and Japanese are pictured as doing the same things in the same conditions, neither is here any appreciable difference for invoked feelings. The images do however make use of both focalization and ambience to position readers. As outlined by Painter (this volume), focalization deals with viewing position – are readers in eye contact with characters, or observing them, and if observing, are they observing directly or vicariously (through the eyes of one of the characters as it were)? Images in Photographs in the Mud never place readers in eye contact with Jack, Hoshi or their comrades in New Guinea; most facing pages on the other hand do include embedded photographs of family members which do engage with readers. This device aligns readers with the soldiers’ families as far as empathy for what is going on is concerned, a positioning which is particularly moving as sons, brothers and fathers slaughter one another in battle (Figures 2 and 3). This is an important imagic recontextualization of what ‘fighting for their families’ in fact means and how their families might feel about it. The picture book’s sole vicarious focalization image (Figure 5)

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Figure 3 Observing the battle, engaging with family (pp. 13/14) aligns readers with Hoshi and Jack as they pine for their loved ones. Although restricted as far as the inscription of attitude is concerned, images do afford the system of ambience to set a mood for what is going on (Painter, 2007, this volume). Most of the images are muted and dim as far as vibrancy is concerned, with a relatively warm mix of yellow and light green; the palette of hues is fairly monochrome, distancing readers. The overall effect is to construe another place in another time, toning down the impact of the inhospitable jungle conditions and the brutality of the fighting itself. Photographs of family members appear in sepia tinged greyscale as memories of the families involved, further distancing readers. This pattern shifts significantly in support of the transformation in Jack and Hoshi’s relationship from facing pages 21/22 to 25/26. As night falls, the ambience dims and cools (realized through muted modulated purples and blues); and warm splashes of yellow (for the moon and pattern of chrysanthemum flowers) are introduced. A transparent veil bearing these flowers (the symbol of the Japanese royal family) appears from the right, also bearing the Japanese word kioku (‘memory’), written in katakana script. The flower pattern is the

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same as that on Hoshi’s wife’s kimono (Figure 1 above); and there is also a blue and purple colour cohesion connecting this transformative image with the dresses of both wives. The overall ambient effect is to blend home, especially Japan, with New Guinea, reflecting the immanence of family in the minds of Jack and Hoshi. Jack and Hoshi themselves are absent as readers are left to engage directly with a photo of Hoshi’s daughter Hana. For the first time the pictures on the left and right facing pages join one another in a single image, symbolizing through the weaker framing2 Jack and Hoshi’s communion. The accompanying verbal text, which initiates the reconciliation process, is as follows: 21 Shadows lengthened. A full moon rose. The jungle was quietly eerie. In the soft light, Jack saw the Japanese soldier clutching a photograph. Tears were rolling down his face. /22 ‘Shiawaseni narundayo (Be happy, with luck we will meet again), Hana,’ Hoshi whispered to his little girl, trying to stay awake. ‘I don’t know what you’re saying, mate,’ Jack muttered, ‘but you don’t sound like one of the vicious Japs they’ve been telling us about.’

The verbal text continues with Jack and Hoshi exchanging photographs, and further empathizing with each other’s situation. They reappear in the image, in reversed position as readers look over their shoulders at their photos (now appearing as material objects in New Guinea for the first time). The ambience of the previous image has dimmed a little, and the veil now covers the entire image. The framing is weaker still with the pictures on pages 23 and 24 further integrated into a single image. 23 Hoshi and Jack stared into each other’s eyes. Then Hoshi rolled closer, groaning with the effort. Scalding pain burned across his chest as he held out the picture. Jack took the photograph. A chubby girl with shining hair and laughing eyes smiled up at him. ‘She’s a real sweetie, mate,’ he whispered softly. ‘Hana,’ Hoshi groaned. ‘Sumimasen (I’m sorry), Hana.’

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Figure 4 The beginning of transformative ambience (pp. 21/22)

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Figure 5 Vicarious focalisation – via Hoshi and Jack (pp. 23/24) /24 Jack reached inside his uniform for his photograph. It was spattered with blood. ‘My wife,’ he said, gently wiping the picture and offering it to Hoshi. ‘With my son, who I’ve never seen.’ Jack sighed. ‘War’s a mug’s game, hey?’ Hoshi didn’t understand the words but just as he loved his own family, he knew that this Australian soldier loved the woman in the photograph.

On the next two-page spread, the veil disappears, along with the blue hues; a dim modulated purple cools the scene as life ebbs away and the framing between the two facing pages strengthens again (more like the separation in Figure 4). Readers face Jack and Hoshi once again, who are leaning back in agony, exhausted from their wounds. Their family photographs resume their position as embedded pictures above the men. The accompanying verbal text as is follows: 25 Insects crawled over the two men, feasting on their wounds, as the night became cold.

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‘I think I’m done for,’ Jack moaned, ‘and you don’t look too good either. But if you do make it home, tell your little girl I’m sorry.’ /26 Hoshi couldn’t reply but the voice comforted him. He’d been afraid of dying alone. This man was his enemy, but Hoshi sensed he was a good man.

Ironically then, it is the memory of what Jack and Hoshi are fighting for that brings them together. Images enact this reconciliation process by materializing Hoshi’s homeland (Hana’s photo and the chrysanthemum veil intruding form the east) on top of the New Guinea circumstantiation and labelling this overlay in Japanese as kioku ‘memory’ (Figure 4). Home then shrouds the jungle as Jack and Hoshi exchange pictures (Figure 5). Both these pictures (and that on the following two-page spread as well) do away with the framing that has separated words from pictures to this point in the book. This has the effect of fostering empathy by removing the border between readers and the wounded soldiers and also of encouraging readers to thoroughly integrate the reconciliation meanings of the verbal and visual text. For the final two facing pages of the book ambience returns to the dim, warm and distant norm for the story as a whole. Jack and Hoshi have reconciled. But Wolfer and Harrison-Lever are not finished with their readers yet as far as reconciliation is concerned. Framing and iconization Unfortunately limitations of space preclude a full discussion of textual meaning (compositional relations) in Photographs in the Mud. The importance of framing, however, has already been noted in relation to focalization (reader engagement with family members in embedded photographs) and reconciliation (the integration of facing pages into a single image). One further dimension of framing which is crucial to the reconciliation theme of this picture book is its role in iconization and the relation of iconization to bonding. Writing in the context of analysis of a Te Papa museum exhibition Martin & Stenglin (2007, p. 216) characterize bonding as follows (building on Stenglin 2004):

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Bonding is concerned with constructing the attitudinal disposition of visitors in relation to exhibits; its basic function is to align people into groups with shared dispositions. Bonding is realised in part through symbolic icons (flags, logos, colours, memorabilia etc.) which rally visitors around communal ideals.

In the course of this discussion they introduce the notion of bonding icons (i.e., bondicons) for objects which invoke values encapsulating the ideologies of the people they belong to. For readers familiar with Japanese culture, the chrysanthemums used on the intruding veil discussed above function in this way, rallying loyal subjects around their emperor (cf. Hoshi’s reason for going to war: ‘He’d left his wife and baby girl in Japan and gone to fight for his Emperor’). One way to understand the function of bondicons is to consider them in relation to a comparable ideational resource, namely technicality. This is the strategy used in science and social science to distil ideational meaning, through the familiar process of definition. Bernstein, in his work on the sociology of knowledge for example, establishes the technical term ‘horizontal discourse’ as follows: A Horizontal discourse entails a set of strategies which are local, segmentally organised, context specific and dependent, for maximising encounters with persons and habitats. . . . This form has a group of well-known features: it is likely to be oral, local, context dependent and specific, tacit, multi-layered and contradictory across but not within contexts. [Bernstein 2000, p. 157]

In doing so he condenses a paragraph of meaning into a single term, which will be instrumental in his theorizing of common and uncommmon sense discourse (Christie & Martin 2007; Martin 2007b). Without the condensation, he would be forced to repeat the paragraph of meaning over and over again every time he needed to use it; but once the technical term has been established, he can use it whenever he likes to refer to what he means. As noted, technicalization is a process associated with ideational meaning. It distils our naturalizations of reality into ever more naturalizing, specialized and privileging terminology. The comparable

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condensation process as far as interpersonal meaning is concerned is iconization – a process whereby bondicons accrue value which they in turn radiate outwards for people to align around. Among well-known bondicons are peace symbols (the dove and the peace sign) which anchor communities of protest against war. Symbols of this kind illustrate the way in which values can be materialized as images; further examples of iconization would include ceremonies, proverbs, slogans, memorable quotations, flags, team colours, coats of arms, mascots, and so on.3 Iconization can also involve people, including well-known embodiments of peaceful protest and of liberation such as Gandhi and Mandela respectively. In Photographs in the Mud iconization processes involve both people and symbols. Beginning on page 1, framing interacts with ambience to decontextualize Jack and Peggy as a generic couple separated by war. As Figure 6 illustrates, they are reframed within the frame of the image as a whole, with the ambience of the rest of the picture bleached out into a sepia-tinged greyscale; they appear in other words as an image of an image of a couple (as do Hoshi and his wife when they first appear). The photographs which appear embedded in images throughout the book echo this reframing device. Given the lack of facial detail individuating characters, this can be taken as an invitation to view the people in photographs as representative of families involved in war as well as specific family members. The title of the picture book flags the iconization of the wives’ images which appear on the penultimate page of the story, inseparably stuck together in the verbiage: 29 Two photographs lay in the mud. The soldier tried to separate them, but he couldn’t. They were stuck together.

Their photos are overlapping in the accompanying image (Figure 7) and appear for the second time in the story as material objects in New Guinea (also in Figure 5 above). This time round they are upside down, arguably frustrating eye to eye engagement as far as focalization is concerned, thereby distancing readers from them as specific people. Taken together the verbal and visual meanings can

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Figure 6 Jack and Peggy reframed as an image of an image of a couple

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Figure 7 The wive’s photos, stuck together, symbolizing reconciliation be read as iconizing the wives as a symbol of reconciliation – as reconciliation bondicons in other words. This process of iconization is taken a step further on the final page of the story, where Australians and Japanese are symbolized through their national flowers (wattle flowers to the left and cherry blossoms to the right); the framed flower garland frames the framed wording

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from a memorial plaque at the scene of one of Kokoda’s most bloody episodes, the battle for Brigade Hill: 31They are not dead; not even broken; Only their dust has gone back to the earth For they; the essential they, shall have rebirth Whenever a word of them is spoken. Inscription on a plaque, Brigade Hill, Kokoda Track Papua New Guinea

This involves recontextualizing one bondicon (the Briagade Hill plaque) as another (Figure 8 below), reinforcing the sense in which the picture book narrative has been designed to re/align readers. The narrative thus culminates with its own plaque – a bondicon which symbolizes the reconciliation message enacted by the story as a whole. In this respect Photographs in the Mud can be read as pedagogic discourse (Bernstein 1990, 2000), highlighting for novice interpreters the importance of extracting themes from moralizing narratives and writing appropriate Leavisite criticism showing how this works, through words (and possibly pictures) to realize an underlying message which integrates the text as a whole (Hasan 1985; Martin 1996; Rothery 1994; Rothery & Stenglin 1997, 2000).

Intermodal Synergy, Genre and ‘Theme’ Over the past two decades discourse analysis has been transformed by a group of scholars demonstrating that modalities of communication other than language can be comparably described as social semiotics systems (e.g., Iedema 2001, 2003; Kress & van Leeuwen 1996/2006, 2002; Martinec 1998, 2000a, b, c, 2001, 2004; O’Halloran 2005; O’Toole 1994; van Leeuwen 1991, 1999, 2005a; van Leeuwen & Caldas-Coulthard 2004). This has engendered the developing field of multimodal discourse analysis (e.g., Baldry 1999; Baldry & Thibault 2006; Kress & van Leeuwen 2001; Lemke 1998; Martin 2001; Martinec 2005; Matthiessen 2007; O’Halloran 2004; Royce & Bowcher

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Figure 8 Symbolization of reconciliation around the inscription from Brigade Hill 2007; van Leeuwen 2005 b; Ventola et al. 2004) with its focus on the interaction of modalities in multimodal texts. For some scholars (e.g., Royce 1998, 2007; Martinec & Salway 2005) aspects of this interaction have been modelled on co-textual relations developed for the study of verbal texts (i.e., cohesion or the logico-semantics of expansion and projection; Halliday & Matthissen 1999, 2004). For others complementary processes such as re-semiotization (Iedema 2003) or semiotic metaphor (O’Halloran 2004) have been canvassed. And Lemke

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Table 5 Complementarity of verbal and visual resources Verbiage

Image

theme and new (information flow) agency attitude projection; engagement

salient participants; framing transactional vectors embodied affect; ambience focalization

(1998) introduces the widely held view that the meaning of an intermodal text is more than the sum of its parts (modalities ‘multiply’ meaning in his terms). This literature has been ably reviewed in Martinec (2005) and synthesis is well beyond the scope of this paper. The challenge of intermodality lies of course in the different affordances4 (Kress & van Leeuwen 2001) of one modality in relation to another. Reviewing resources considered in this paper for example, we find comparable systems interacting to make meaning (Table 5 above); but we cannot equate5 one kind of meaning with another. The relationship is one of complementarity, and the synergy between modalities means that we cannot invoke hierarchy (e.g., axis, rank, stratum) to explain what is going on. Verbal and visual meanings are not realizations of an underlying meaning; rather they cooperate, bi-modally, in the instantiation of a genre. Complementarity6 is a relatively under-theorised notion in social semiotics, and in the systemic functional linguistic theory inspiring this research. The contribution of this paper to work in this arena lies in its focus on the importance of genre as far as explaining intermodal complementarity is concerned; and since the genre in focus here is thematic narrative (Martin 1996), the importance of an underlying ‘theme’ (in Hasan’s 1985 sense) as far as interaction is concerned. Wolfer and Harrison-Lever’s reconciliation message is what ultimately coordinates the verbal and visual meanings in their picture book. It is this specific message that interprets the synergy of this instance of the narrative genre. The challenge for social semiotics lies in moving beyond such instances, to generalize recurrent patterns of intermodal interaction in the interest of this or any genre. Having reached this

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edge of knowledge, we have a great deal to be thankful for; beyond this precipice, it is hard to see.

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Appendix 1: Photographs in the Mud – Verbal Text (by facing page) 1 In 1942 an Australian soldier went to war on a muddy track in New Guinea. As Jack farewelled his wife, she held his hand to her pregnant belly. ‘Promise me you’ll return,’ Peggy whispered. Jack nodded and kissed her. /2 Jack joined soldiers from across Australia. Together they travelled north to try and stop the advance of the Japanese army.

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3 Another solider went to the same war on the same muddy track. The man’s name was Hoshi. He’d left his wife and baby girl in Japan and gone to fight for his Emperor. /4 Hoshi travelled south from his home in Shikoku, fighting battles alongside his comrades. They were brave men, but months of war had hardened them. Some of the soldiers had become cruel. This made Hoshi sad, as he knew they were good men at heart. 5 Jack’s battalion landed in the south of Papua New Guinea. They practised jungle-fighting and learned to use their rifles. /6 ‘The Japanese have landed on the northern beaches,’ said Jack’s captain. ‘To stop them reaching Port Moresby, we have to march over steep mountains along the Kokoda Track. It’s ninety-six kilometres, but we must hold the line.’ Jack hated war, but to protect Peggy and his child, he knew he had to fight for his country. 7 Hoshi and his comrades landed on a black sandy beach in the north of Papua New Guinea. They cut their way through dense jungle and waded through foul-smelling swamps, sloshing through mud that sucked the boots from their feet. Hoshi pulled bloodsucking leeches from his legs. Wild sago thorns ripped at his flesh and oozing tropical ulcers infected his skin. /8 Mosquitos and other biting insects made day and night a misery, but Hoshi and his comrades were determined. They must fight for their Empire. When the officers yelled, ‘Attack’, they charged into machine-gun fire. And those that lived, marched south towards Port Moresby. 9 Jack was exhausted from weeks of fighting along the Kokoda Track. He woke to the grumbling sounds of soldiers and prayed that he would survive this war. The air was hot, humid and sticky, yet his body shivered with fever. Many of his mates had died, but so far Jack had been lucky. Reinforcements were on their way. If his luck held out, he would make it home as he’d promised.

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/10 Hoshi hated having to kill, but it was his duty to fight. So many of his comrades had died from bullets and disease. He was tired and hungry and wanted only to sleep. As Hoshi prepared for yet another battle, he thought of his daughter Hana. Would he ever see her laughing eyes again? 11 Jack received a letter from home and every night his dreams were filled with images of Peggy and their baby. How he longed to hold his new-born son. /12 At night Hoshi dreamed of flying home, of lying in the garden, telling Hana stories, as cherry blossoms fell gently into her hair. How he longed for the war to end. 13 Gunshot shredded the jungle. ‘Come on, lads.’ The Australian captain yelled. Jack leapt out of his weapon pit to join his mates. As bullets whizzed through the air, Hoshi whispered a prayer and turned to face the enemy. ‘Banzai!’ his comrades screamed. /14 Jack fired his gun. He saw shock and terror in the Japanese soldier’s eyes as they fell. Jack wanted to drop his rifle and cover his ears, but it was impossible to block the cries of the injured and dying men. There was a lull in the fighting and both sides withdrew. Hoshi and Jack had each seen great acts of courage. Many men had fallen, but somehow Hoshi and Jack survived. 15 The men bandaged their wounds and regrouped. Then Hoshi’s commanding officer raised his arm. ‘Attack!’ Hoshi saw his brave comrades fall, dying all around him. Then a sniper’s bullet struck the officer. ‘Lead the men!’ the wounded man cried. /16 Hoshi looked around. The other soldiers trusted him. Asking them to run to their death was the hardest thing he could imagine. But it was now his duty. ‘Attack!’ Hoshi screamed.

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His men ran into a storm of bullets. Hoshi felt shrapnel rip into his flesh. He stumbled and felt himself falling. 17 A twig snapped. Jack crept deeper into the jungle. The thick vines blocked the dusky light, creating strange shadows. Another snap. Hoshi raised his bayonet. Jack saw the flash of steel – too late. /18 Hoshi stabbed the young Australian. Jack groaned as he hurtled into Hoshi. Grappling and shoving, the two soldiers rolled down the slippery hill. 19 The men fell apart, gasping, in a ditch. Jack dropped his rifle in the scuffle. He tried to reach for it, but it slid out of his grasp. /20 Hoshi raised his bayonet. He tied to stand, but winced in pain. The bayonet slipped from his hand. Both men were badly wounded. They watched each other and waited. 21 Shadows lengthened. A full moon rose. The jungle was quietly eerie. In the soft light, Jack saw the Japanese soldier clutching a photograph. Tears were rolling down his face. /22 ‘Shiawaseni narundayo (Be happy, with luck we will meet again), Hana,’ Hoshi whispered to his little girl, trying to stay awake. ‘I don’t know what you’re saying, mate,’ Jack muttered, ‘but you don’t sound like one of the vicious Japs they’ve been telling us about.’ 23 Hoshi and Jack stared into each other’s eyes. Then Hoshi rolled closer, groaning with the effort. Scalding pain burned across his chest as he held out the picture. Jack took the photograph. A chubby girl with shining hair and laughing eyes smiled up at him. ‘She’s a real sweetie, mate,’ he whispered softly. ‘Hana,’ Hoshi groaned. ‘Sumimasen (I’m sorry), Hana.’ /24 Jack reached inside his uniform for his photograph. It was spattered with blood.

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‘My wife,’ he said, gently wiping the picture and offering it to Hoshi. ‘With my son, who I’ve never seen.’ Jack sighed. ‘War’s a mug’s game, hey?’ Hoshi didn’t understand the words but just as he loved his own family, he knew that this Australian soldier loved the woman in the photograph. 25 Insects crawled over the two men, feasting on their wounds, as the night became cold. ‘I think I’m done for,’ Jack moaned, ‘and you don’t look too good either. But if you do make it home, tell your little girl I’m sorry.’ /26 Hoshi couldn’t reply but the voice comforted him. He’d been afraid of dying alone. This man was his enemy, but Hoshi sensed he was a good man. 27 In the ghostly light of dawn, villagers helped the soldiers search for their injured. They found the bodies of Jack and Hoshi, lying side by side. /28 One of the soldiers bent down. ‘What’s this?’ he asked. 29 Two photographs lay in the mud. The soldier tried to separate them, but he couldn’t. They were stuck together. /30 A villager beckoned, ‘This man’s still breathing!’ They carried the injured soldier to the medical post. Then the soldiers hurried back to join their comrades. Their battle as not yet over. 31They are not dead; not even broken; Only their dust has gone back to the earth For they; the essential they, shall have rebirth Whenever a word of them is spoken. Inscription on a plaque, Brigade Hill, Kokoda Track Papua New Guinea

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Notes 1. Following Martin & Rose 2003, 2008, in declarative clauses the Subject is taken as unmarked Theme whether a marked Theme is present or not, since the two types of Theme have distinct discourse functions (namely, that of sustaining continuity for unmarked Themes and flagging discontinuity for marked ones). 2. Note the contrast with Fig. 2 where a single battle scene is split in two and categorically framed as separate images on facing pages. 3. For discussion of the social function of symbolization from an anthropological perspective see Turner 1967. 4. For a useful discussion of intermodality informed by concurrent work on translation see Matthiessen 2001, 2007. 5. Reinforcing this complementarity is the fact that setting aside semiosis for a moment, each modality is sensationally different – images for example have a different neuro-biological impact on viewers than verbal text (for discussion in relation to affect in the general framework of Edelman’s theory of neural group selection see Ellis & Toronchuk 2005). 6. For relevant discussion of complementarity in relation to phase analysis in communication linguistics, see Malcolm 2005.

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Chapter 7

Savvy Sambo: Appraising an Icon

Corinne Buckland and Andrew Simpson University of New England

Introduction Helen Bannerman’s The Story of Little Black Sambo (1899/1976) has been described as ‘a century-old lightning rod that is still hot to the touch’ (Kennedy 2003, p. 5). During the century following its publication, this simple tale has been well loved as a charming, iconic children’s story, and well vilified as a racist polemic. The reasons for its vilification have been the allegedly derogatory nature of the language, the story’s sociocultural assumptions, and the crudity of Bannerman’s illustrations. This controversy has resulted in a series of new versions of the story, many of which preserve the original text but reinterpret it through new attempts at politically correct illustrations. The most recent of these by Christopher Bing (Bannerman and Bing 2003) is perhaps the most striking. Bing creates a series of stunning, lavish illustrations to accompany a faithful rendition of Bannerman’s text. According to Bing’s publisher, Christopher Franceschelli (Bannerman and Bing 2003, Publisher’s Notes), who writes an apologia for this version at the end of the book, such new editions ‘ask readers to reassess the story’. This paper does just that. It compares the values expressed in the story itself and in Bannerman’s and Bing’s visual interpretations of it. Two such diverse visual interpretations of the same text provide a rich source of visual analysis when considering image–text relations and how images affect the viewer. The following

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discussion first examines the racist charge through an analysis of the written text alone, followed by a comparison of the two illustrated versions. It concludes by briefly exploring how these texts might be used in both primary and secondary classrooms. Little Black Sambo is indeed a lively story of a small black child who is kitted out by his parents in a set of beautiful brand new clothes – European style. He is given ‘a beautiful little Red Coat’, ‘beautiful little Blue Trousers’, ‘beautiful little Purple Shoes with Crimson Soles and Crimson Linings’ and ‘a beautiful Green Umbrella’. The narrator asks us rhetorically: ‘wasn’t Little Black Sambo grand?’ Sambo strolls out into the jungle where he is confronted by a series of threatening tigers. Four times a tiger accosts Sambo with the refrain ‘Little Black Sambo, I’m going to eat you up!’ and four times Sambo strikes a bargain offering an item of clothing in return for not being eaten up. Inevitably, Sambo runs out of bargaining power, but the tigers are by this time preoccupied in chasing each other around a tree for the title of ‘the grandest in the jungle’ and quickly melt into a puddle of ‘ghi’, the Indian form of butter. Sambo’s father scoops it up and takes it home, where Sambo’s mother turns it into pancakes. Sambo eats one hundred and sixty nine of them because he is so hungry.

Cultural Context Elizabeth Hay (1981, p. 1), Bannerman’s biographer, argues that the story was bound to succeed for a variety of reasons. The small size of the original edition meant that even a young child could easily hold it, the simple and bright illustrations have a ‘certain timeless quality’, and the text has a gripping story which is structured in a securely repetitive manner. Hay also credits it with having ‘a moral purpose or improving tone’. It is a curious book, however, concerning its setting. While Bannerman wrote it as a tale for her children while they were living in India, and the tigers are Indian and they melt into ghi, Sambo and his parents, both in name and appearance, are clearly African. The story can certainly be read as a charming tale of an enterprising and courageous little boy who is resourceful enough to outwit tigers. For those readers who grew up with the tale, the boy’s name Sambo

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tends to be accepted without question. In fact, ‘Sam’ is an extremely common prefix for a name in India (Bannerman and Bing 2003, Publisher’s Notes). For the story’s Western readership, Sambo is a term which historically has developed a derogatory meaning as a nickname for Negroes or persons of Negro and mulatto blood, becoming ‘an offensive word for a Negro’ (Makins et al. 1995); hence one of the reasons for the text being condemned as racist. Any possible defence of this name seems to be nullified by the names of Sambo’s parents: Black Mumbo and Black Jumbo. ‘Mumbo jumbo’ also bears negative connotations, implying ‘foolish religious reverence’ or ‘meaninglessness’ (Makins et al. 1995). So this is another reason why the book came under hostile scrutiny and in the 1970s was banned from many schools and public libraries. The book was also criticized for Sambo’s greed in eating so many pancakes, and the loud colours of his new clothes, both of which, it was felt, reflected badly on the author’s view of black people. Hay (1983, pp. 155–56) cautions that many of these criticisms were actually based on other illustrated versions of the original text that proliferated in the century following the original, which were often unquestionably offensive. Nevertheless, examining some of Bannerman’s own illustrations at face value (a golliwog style Black Sambo as he parades with his green umbrella, and a crude leering grin from Black Mumbo as she cooks the pancakes) appears to give enough evidence for such charges to stick. Despite Bannerman’s self-consciously na¨ıve style of illustration and her self-acknowledged artistic ineptness, she nevertheless produced drawings of a thick-lipped, fuzzy haired boy with bulging eye-balls, a portrait which only too tragically incorporated every visual stereotype and exaggerated caricature of a ‘native child’ seen through the eyes of the white, colonial ruling class. (Bannerman and Bing 2003, Publisher’s Notes)

Other charges refer to Little Black Sambo as a plantation story depicting black people in positions of subservience (Rollins, as cited in Hay, p. 161). This situation is well summed up in a letter to the story’s publishers from members of Teachers Against Racism. They criticized Bannerman’s work for the portrayal of blacks as ‘greedy . . .

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stereotyped happy, clownish, irresponsible plantation “niggers”’ and of black adults as ‘having the minds of children’ (as cited in Hay 1981, p.165). As a counter to this, it is worthwhile to consider critic Selma Lanes’ commentary on the book, which suggests that much of its hostile reception can be attributed to its function as a scapegoat for white guilt over mistreatment of blacks (as cited in Hay 1981, p. 160). Recent interpretations that strive to avoid such controversy are careful to set the book very obviously in India. Bing’s version is one of these, though Marcellino’s The Story of Little Babaji (Bannerman & Marcellino 1996) goes so far as to Indianize the names of the characters and drops all reference to skin colour.

The Appraisal System of Analysis For the past fifty years teachers have been encouraging students to reflect on the actions of characters in texts as a way of developing knowledge of the themes or values constructed in those texts. Basic student responses to such texts typically simply explain how the texts made them feel and what character or behaviour they liked or disliked, with no further attempts at analysis. More critical and pedagogically esteemed responses, however, might explain how the author has used the language to construct the meanings that cause readers to make judgements and infer certain values. Yet the explicit teaching of this type of knowledge through a systematized approach has been lacking (Rothery & Stenglin 2000). Furthermore, teaching has generally focused on the words in texts at the expense of images and their contribution to meaning (Unsworth 2001, pp. 1–2). One tool for systematically and explicitly teaching students how language and images function to make evaluations of people and phenomena is the Appraisal system (Martin 2000). In short, it provides a framework that sees language as a resource to promote particular ideological positions (White 2005), and is concerned with the emotional, moral and aesthetic domains of texts. More fully it ‘concerns the kinds of attitudes that are negotiated in a text, the strength of the feelings involved and the ways in which values are sourced and readers aligned’ (Martin & Rose 2003, p. 22). Appraisal theory has

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so far concentrated on examining written text, but it has significant potential to shed light on the value of visual text, and the interrelation between them. Like The Grammar of Visual Design (Kress and Van Leuuwen 1996), which is now being used as a tool of analysis in some Australian schools, Appraisal theory is based on the principles of functional grammar and discourse (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004; Martin 1992). While the Grammar of Visual Design is concerned with a wide sweep of rhetorical principles of visual representation, Appraisal theory focuses on the linguistic construction of evaluative stance. The analysis in this paper will draw on features from both systems. It assumes some knowledge of the Grammar of Visual Design, but will explain the major features of Appraisal that can be translated into a visual context. For the purposes of this brief discussion, only the fundamental features of Appraisal theory will be used. There are three subsystems of Appraisal: Attitude, Graduation and Engagement. Attitude refers to the evaluative language used to express feelings and judgements of people and phenomena; Graduation refers to the intensity of expression of these feelings and judgements; and Engagement refers to the author’s level of commitment to what is being expressed and the anticipation and manipulation of readers’/viewers’ responses. This paper will focus only on the resources of Attitude, though the other two will be used indirectly as there are many areas in which they overlap. Attitude can be further divided into three subsets: affect, judgement and appreciation. Affect refers to the positive or negative personal feelings expressed by characters, either directly (inscribed) or implicitly (evoked). Judgement refers to the positive or negative evaluations of characters and actions in terms of personal qualities and social behaviour. Judgements can be based on either social esteem (which measures against social norms) or social sanction (which measures against moral principles). Appreciation refers to positive or negative evaluations of phenomena in terms of their significance, functionality and aesthetic qualities. Examining the wide range of resources of Attitude in texts enables readers to become more conscious of the values they promote and of the techniques they employ to do so. For easy reference, the main features of Attitude in Appraisal theory and the means for their visual expression are outlined in Figure 1

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New Literacies and the English Curriculum Textual manifestation

Visual means of expression

ATTITUDE

∞ Speech and AFFECT

Happiness

mental

Resources used to

(emotions)

e.g.,

processes (facial

make either positive or

resources for

joy/grief

expression

negative evaluation of

expressing feelings

phenomena.

and/or cartoon Security calm/worry

located in the

bubbles) ∞ Colour (hue and tone)

Affect,judgement and

person making the

Satisfaction

∞ Object size

appreciation can be

response

peace/anger

∞ Modality (verisimilitude)

either:

∞ Symbol connotation

positive or negative;

∞ Vectors and can be

(suggesting

inscribed (direct and

emotional

explicit authorial

states)

intention) or evoked (inferred as a

JUDGEMENT

likelihood in readers’

(ethics)

(psychological

∞ Colour

interpretation)

resources for

qualities)

∞ Person/object

judging character

e.g.,

and behaviour

capacity/incapacity

Lexical items and

normal/odd

images can often be double or triple coded

Social esteem

powerful/weak presented as

with these three types

qualities ofthe

ofvaluations.

phenomenon

brave/cowardly

size in relation to others ∞ Symbol connotation ∞ Shape (roundness,

Social sanction

angularity etc)

Figure 1 Main features of Attitude in Appraisal Theory and their visual means of expression

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Savvy Sambo: Appraising an Icon (moral or legal

∞ Speech and

qualities)

mental

e.g.,

processes (facial

good/bad

expression

kind/cruel

and/or cartoon bubbles)

just/corrupt

∞ Actions (who is doing what to whom) ∞ Gradation of similarity to social norms

APPRECIATION Reaction

This can be applied to

(aesthetics)

(Do I like it?)

aspects ofsingle

resources for

e.g.,

images or the whole

valuing the worth

captivating/boring

text.

ofthings Composition presented as

(well constructed?)

It is often difficult to

qualities ofthe

complex/simple

decide ifa valuation is

Valuation

appreciation

phenomenon

judgement or

(worthwhile?) significant/trivial

Figure 1 (Cont.)

which has been composed using information from Droga and Humphrey (2003) and Martin and Rose (2003). It must be emphasized that the visual component of Appraisal theory is still being developed, and the reader may well identify aspects that have not been documented here.

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Appraisal of the Written Text Before moving to a comparison of the illustrations, a brief Appraisal analysis of the written text will provide a reference point for comparing the two visual interpretations. The major token of affect in the text of Little Black Sambo, in terms of number of instances, is insecurity. As one might expect from this typical narrative structure, the story begins with the brief, happy and satisfying event of Sambo’s new clothes, then quickly moves to an extended extremely insecure complication when these are stolen by the tigers, and ends in the secure state of restoration of clothes, downfall of the villains, and a very satisfying celebratory feast. Insecurity is important to maintaining narrative tension in such a repetitive tale. Bannerman reinforces this aspect of affect through the name ‘ Little Black Sambo’. The terms ‘Little’ and ‘Black’ at the beginning of the story carry the implicit affect of insecurity, but in this context they evoke vulnerability, a different shade of insecurity, which has a positive rather than negative connotation. It is important to consider that he is never just Sambo, and he is always referred to with these extra adjectives, so, in the written text at least, he is always a vulnerable child. The words ‘Little’ and ‘Black’ are also double-coded and thus create complex fields of value. ‘Little’ additionally evokes a judgement of incapacity: helpless. So too may ‘Black’. This word evokes insecurity in the sense of poor socio-economic status and thus not owning many clothes, but also invites a judgement of incapacity, particularly in association with the word Sambo. Importantly, however, this judgement rests at least partly on the sociocultural and ideological position of the reader rather than being firmly inscribed in the text. The judgement potential of these words is lessened when ‘poor’ is added to ‘Little Black Sambo’ each time he encounters a tiger. This reinforces his insecurity. It may well be a judgement of his incapacity, but this is a quality that all unarmed humans would share when confronted by a tiger. In fact overall, the text repetitively evokes judgements of Sambo’s capacity (quick wit) and courage. Each time he meets a tiger he bargains to save his life, showing resourcefulness and bravery, and he demonstrates his cleverness by convincing the tigers of the usefulness of his shoes and umbrella. Thus a number of positive judgements about Sambo are evoked throughout the story,

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further aligning the reader to identify positively with this character. It is the ‘cruel’ tigers with their ‘horrible’ roar (‘horrible’ being triple coded, carrying negative affect judgement and appreciation) who carry the main burden of judgement in this story: power is inscribed in their nature, their threats, and in their desire to be the grandest (top of social esteem). On the other hand, when the narrator describes Sambo as ‘grand’ she is using it as a token of appreciation: admiration of his physical appearance. In fact the narrator is preoccupied with inscribed appreciation of things and events (‘beautiful’ coat, trousers, shoes etc; ‘lovely’ pancakes). The repetitive structure of the sparse narrative and the emphasis on capitalizing important nouns create a highly stylized story, reminiscent of traditional folk literature. In this sense the name ‘Little Black Sambo’ is not a term of racial condescension and functions more as a symbolic representation of a vulnerable child, small and in poor circumstances. He is like the young peasant heroes of fairy tales, who do, after all, go on to great things as their capacity for cunning or heroism unfolds. Bannerman’s story follows this mould. Ultimately, this preoccupation with appreciation reduces the affect and judgement aspects of the tale, allowing it be enjoyed for its simplicity, artistry and charm.

Appraisal of Bannerman’s Visual Interpretation Bannerman’s illustrations, as in most children’s books of the period, are more often than not accompaniments to the story rather than significant conveyors of narrative. The significant thing about them is that they too lessen affect and judgement. This is seen in their relatively small size, in their na¨ıve cartoon style, and in their gentle colours. The use of primary colours provides an overall affect of happiness, despite the narrative complication, and their pale tones further reduce their realism (modality), turning the volume of affect and judgement down. The first image of Sambo, complete in his outfit and grinning from ear to ear beneath his umbrella, reinforces the initial inscribed affects of happiness and satisfaction (although why his eyes are rolling upward – in delight at the umbrella or as crude racial stereotype – is

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not clear). Upon meeting the first tiger his facial expression is one of only minor alarm, and on meeting the second tiger Sambo peeps, wide-eyed (alas, somewhat google-eyed, it must be admitted) from behind a tree. His astonished look has a certain charm that mitigates the fear that the text: ‘Oh please don’t eat me up’, inscribes. In the next confrontation, Sambo is on a rock above the tiger, his point of view conveying a certain superiority, despite his plight. A later image, not referred to in the text, shows the tiger pulling demurely at Sambo’s loincloth. This arouses amusement and a sense of satisfaction as the viewer judges (lightly) the impropriety of the situation in terms of social esteem, which again reduces the emotional and moral import of Sambo’s plight. This strongly lessens the insecurity inscribed in the written text. Any sense that the reader too might be too influenced by the affect of fear is lessened by the absurdity of the illustrations, which also functions as a distancing device. The tigers tend to look faintly ridiculous in Sambo’s clothing, especially the tiger who holds the umbrella in his tail (so effete), and the tiger who is forced to wear Sambo’s two shoes on his two ears and not his four feet. Sambo’s ability to negotiate this tricky situation adroitly increases the reader’s judgement of his capacity and courage. Significantly, when his clothes are finally all taken from him, his unhappiness is strongly inscribed in the text: ‘poor Little Black Sambo went away crying,’ but this event is not illustrated. Instead we soon see Sambo fully clothed, striding confidently away from the melee. There is now strongly evoked positive attitude in all three areas: affect (satisfaction), judgement (capacity, power, courage and justice), and appreciation (significance). The tide has turned.

Appraisal of Bing’s Visual Interpretation Bing’s determination to create a Sambo who will counteract the problems of Bannerman’s portrayal is encapsulated in his cover image. Here is a very savvy Sambo heavily framed by a stylized title and tiger motif. A well-heeled, dapper, realistic boy looks saucily upwards and to the left in a classic pose of power and confidence. This is a ‘cool’, streetwise child. In his ‘Illustrator’s Preface’, Bing says that his

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version is an attempt to redress the paucity of Bannerman’s illustrations which do not reflect the story’s ‘grandeur’ (Bannerman and Bing 2003). Thus it is perhaps understandable that the most obvious difference between the texts overall is that while illustration in Bannerman is a distinctive yet subordinate accompaniment to the story, Bing’s images totally dominate it. Bing’s version is composed of a series of double-page spreads and the text is confined to the bottom fifth of each page, and these lavish productions are enclosed on either side by extravagant endpapers. In Bannerman’s text the reader’s point of view is distanced from affect and judgement by the small size of the illustrations, and their na¨ıve style of representation. Almost every image involves framed offers in mid-distance shots where the frontal plane of the viewer is oblique to the characters’ frontal planes. It is often hard to read the expressions on the characters’ faces. In Bing’s outsize drawings, the reader’s point of view is drawn away from the story into the interpretation of the images which are made highly personal by every means possible and focus on affect and judgement. He strongly foregrounds all the characters in one way or another depending on the interpretive emphasis of the text at a particular stage of the story, and modulates their relative sizes accordingly. In the first image of the story, Sambo’s happiness with his life is heavily inscribed (with much political correctness) in his larger- than-life bounding figure that almost leaps from the page. His insecurity and unhappiness is later evoked through the inscribed ferocity of the very much larger than Sambo tigers. His regained security is inscribed through the salience of his parents in the final pages. In the last image we see his father’s back, substantial and dominating, which evokes paternal strength and protectiveness at the same time as it reduces the sense of Sambo’s independence and being in control. Bing’s setting of the tale is highly realistic and self-consciously Indian in every respect. Each illustration and endpaper is replete with Indian landscapes and cultural markers. The story is played out against a background of contrasting motifs: a jungle throbbing with natural life is studded with ruined temples which are being overtaken by rampant vegetation. This allusion to the architectural glories of a lost level of civilization certainly adds ‘grandeur’ to the tale, and

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functions as a very high token of appreciation. However, the allusion also creates a discordant under-story. In conjunction with the menace of the tigers and their wanting Sambo’s fine clothes, it creates a disquieting clash between civilization and the threatening primeval forces of nature. Another discordance is created by Bing’s decision to depict Sambo as ‘a glorious and unabashedly African child’ to avoid wrenching the story ‘from the cultural context in which it had been understood by an American readership for over a century’ (Bannerman and Bing 2003, Publisher’s Notes). Such attention to Indian detail, and to such identifiably Indian parents in turban and sari, gives the impression that Sambo is adopted. Hence Bing’s determination to redeem and elevate his portrayal of Sambo begins to backfire. This Sambo greets his new clothes with an expression of such a high degree of satisfaction and appreciation, it approaches reverential awe, which evokes his incapacity and lack of normalcy. Bannerman’s Sambo simply looks pleased. A very telling and representative comparison can be made of the images that illustrate the loss of the green umbrella. Bannerman’s is a conceptual, two-dimensional image of the tiger elegantly holding the umbrella in its tail. For all that it is simple and faintly comic, the lines and form are highly stylized and evoke sophistication and aesthetic restraint. This drawing portrays the tiger’s hubris perfectly. In Bing’s image, the tiger is part of a three-dimensional double-page spread that is rich in realistic details. Here the tiger walks away from the viewer, holding the umbrella aloft in its tail, but revealing its genitals. This is of course another image which casts judgement on hubris, but here the realistic animal in a fantasy situation seems clumsy in comparison to Bannerman’s wit. On the right-hand side of Bing’s image the focus is on Sambo’s emotional distress as he loses his last beautiful possession. His facial expression of extreme insecurity invites a judgement of incapacity and weakness. Little Black Sambo, rubbing his eyes and standing in a dishevelled Western singlet, is very much a victim. This reinforces Bing’s earlier portrayal of Sambo in an equivalent emotional predicament. When first accosted by a tiger, Bing’s Sambo is menaced by a huge animal on a mound above him, ready to pounce, strongly inscribing insecurity and incapacity. In Bannerman’s equivalent image, it is Sambo who stands on top of a rock to

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Purpose

161

Bannerman

Bing

to entertain children

to improve the illustrations ofthe original tale

Genre

illustrated book

picturebook

Illustrative style

naïve cartoon style

Romantic, symbolic sublime

Type of image

conceptual

narrative

Narrative pace

static

energetic

Perspective

2D perspective

3D perspective

Affect overall

security dominates

insecurity dominates

Judgement of Sambo

Sambo is plucky and

Sambo is a victim

created by text and images

resourceful

Appreciation of text

a humble witty tale

a tale that strives to be profound

comic

dramatic

Figure 2 Comparative overview of the two versions of The Story of Little Black Sambo. face the tiger beneath, and Sambo’s facial affect seems more defiant than concerned. Another distinguishing and dominating feature of Bing’s version is his use of subtle shades that are imbued with a translucent, numinous light which increases as the narrative progresses. These beautiful

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shades are certainly evocative of the popular notion of mystic India. Yet they also seem to have further symbolic import. When Bing’s Black Jumbo scoops up the ghi, he seems to be surrounded by a river of dazzling gold, and his crouching position with flat ladle in hand suggests that of traditional gold panning. This allusion is brought to fruition in the following final image of the pancake meal. Sambo sits reverentially in a yoga position, in front of a table laden with stacks and stacks of gleaming pancakes that inescapably resemble huge gold coins: the traditional pose of a miser before his hoard. This is far more suggestive of greed than Bannerman’s Sambo, who sits down to a visually modest meal where only a few pancakes are actually shown. Bing has perhaps overreached himself and subverted his good intentions. The visual grandeur of his interpretation is both literally and metaphorically top-heavy. Figure 2 contains a comparison of some of the most salient features of the two versions of the tale. This gives a useful overview of the most significant differences, and it could be used or modified by teachers as a stimulus to provoke discussion, or used as a blank grid for students to fill in their own responses.

Conclusion This paper demonstrates how teachers might adopt aspects of Appraisal analysis to explicitly explore values in children’s literature with students. Helping students to examine how language and images combine to express evaluations of characters’ behaviour contributes to their understanding of the social values reflected in human appearance and behaviour, and enhances their critical literacy skills. It seems quite possible to use either version of The Story of Little Black Sambo in the primary classroom without being politically incorrect. Taught well, the text can function as a repository of positive values, and it provides opportunities for teaching specific elements of textual and visual design. Both versions are rich in opportunities for exploring the delights of art. The original illustrations are quirky and whimsical. Bing’s are visually stunning and emotionally engaging. Bing’s edition contains subsidiary information about the original text, its author, and the era of the Indian Raj. A comparison of these texts would be

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very pertinent in secondary subject English, where the stylistic and sociocultural issues, as well as intentional and unintentional subtexts, could be more fully explored. Appraisal theory has not definitively solved the problem of whether or not Bannerman’s text is racist, or whether Bing has produced a version which avoids the charge. Whatever the individual reader may feel, it is wise to keep in mind the comment of David Pilgrim, the curator of the Racist Memorabilia Museum in Michigan, who argues that the book can never be separated from its controversial history, and for many people both the book and the name ‘Sambo’ continue to represent a racial slur (as cited in Kennedy 2003). This is a charge that Bing’s version, in its faithful retention of the original text, is unable to overcome. Nevertheless, a systematic appraisal of the images and image–text relationships reveals levels of value that might otherwise not have been consciously understood, and teachers have an exceptionally fertile opportunity with these texts to demonstrate that images have intentional and unintentional influences, not only upon an individual reader, but also upon wide segments of societies and cultures. The fact that The Story of Little Black Sambo is a classic in its own right, as well as being an iconic text in the history of the political correctness of children’s literature, makes this a particularly valuable exercise. Far more that it yields firm judgements, an appraisal of the texts sharpens the reader’s sense of interpretive discrimination and stops hasty judgements in favour of a finer level of response. Thus we might reframe these texts in the following way. While Bing promises a smart and self-respecting Sambo who will redeem the reputation of the story, he actually creates a highly realistic, vulnerable child who is at the mercy of the overpowering and mysterious forces of nature. Bannerman merely sketches a little black boy, but her modest visual interpretation that is in keeping with the traditional narrative style of the story delivers a more genuinely strong and savvy child.

References Bannerman, H. (1976), ‘The story of Little Black Sambo’, in Helen Bannerman (ed.), The Little Black Sambo Story Book. New York: Buccaneer Books, pp. 9–15. (Original work published 1899.)

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Bannerman, H. and Bing, C. (2003), The Story of Little Black Sambo. New York: Handprint Books. Bannerman, H. and Marcellino, F. (1996), The Story of Little Babaji. New York: Harper Collins. Droga, L. and Humphrey, S. (2003), Grammar and Meaning: An Introduction for Primary Teachers. Berry, NSW: Target Texts. Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. (2004), An introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd edn). London: Arnold. Hay, E. (1981), Sambo Sahib: The Story of Little Black Sambo and Helen Bannerman. Edinburgh: Paul Harris. Kennedy, L. (2003, 14 December). ‘New storybook reopens old wounds’. The Boston Globe. Retrieved 24 October 2006, from http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2003/12/14/new story book reopens old wounds/ Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996), Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. Makins M. et al. (1995), Collins Concise Dictionary (3rd edn). Sydney: Harper Collins. Martin, J. R. (1992), English Text: System and Structure. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Martin, J. (2000), ‘Beyond exchange: Appraisal systems in English’, in S. Hunston and G. Thompson (eds), Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 142–75. Martin, J. and Rose, D. (2003), Working with Discourse: Meaning Beyond the Clause. London: Continuum. Rothery, J. and Stenglin, M. (2000), ‘Interpreting literature: the role of APPRAISAL’, in L. Unsworth (ed.), Researching Language in Schools and Communities: Functional Linguistic Perspectives Cassell: London, pp. 222–44. Unsworth, L. (2001), Teaching Multiliteracies Across the Curriculum: Changing Contexts of Text and Image in Classroom Practice. Buckingham: Open University Press White, P. R. R. (2005), ‘Appraisal: The language of attitudinal evaluation and intersubjective stance’, The Appraisal Website. Retrieved 23 August 2006, from http://www.grammatics. com/appraisal/

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Chapter 8

Machinima: Composing 3D Multimedia Narratives

Angela Thomas University of Sydney

Introduction This chapter will explore the current explosion of machinima: 3D animated films using gaming technologies. Machinima, a term derived from the words “machine cinema” (Wikipedia 2006), is defined as ‘the convergence of filmmaking, animation and game development . . . [it] is real-world filmmaking techniques applied within an interactive virtual space where characters and events can be either controlled by humans, scripts or artificial intelligence’ (Marino 2002–2003, online). Over the last decade, machinima has become very popular within gaming communities, and with the advent of youtube (a video sharing site) machinima has become the ‘hot new thing’ for technical savvy young people to experiment with and share with others. This rising phenomenon within global contexts has influenced children in Australia who have been involved in producing 3D animated narratives with Kahootz (The Australian Children’s Television Foundation, 2002), a multimedia 3D authoring tool that has been adopted for use in many Australian schools. In this chapter I will present an analysis of one Australian primary school child’s Kahootz machinima in order to illuminate the transforming potential of machinima for innovation in literacy education with frontier technologies. The semiotic analysis will employ tools of

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functional grammar (Halliday 1994; Martin and Rose 2003; White 2001), visual grammar (Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996) and multimodal discourse analysis (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001; O’Halloran 2005; Royce 1998; Ravelli 2000; Norris 2004). I will specifically examine the machinima as an instance of sophisticated multimodal construction in terms of its narrative, originality and innovation. Through the analysis, I will demonstrate that this particular child (and potentially a generation of children who have access to these resources) is learning the high-end skills and creativity of approach that will equip him for more sophisticated platforms in the future and for innovation with the frontier technology of tomorrow.

Background: Children as Multimedia Text Producers Over the past decade, there seems to have been a widespread shift from children as mere consumers and receivers of digital texts, into a new type of child, one who has become an innovative producer of multimedia digital texts. In addition to children consuming and participating within the cultural communities associated with digital texts, the most recent research has demonstrated how children are playing, experimenting, and manipulating the affordances of digital texts for their own pleasures and purposes. Children are creating and managing their own online communities (Thomas 2004; Unsworth, Thomas, Simpson and Asha 2005), participating in online fan fiction communities (Lankshear and Knobel 2004; Black 2004; Thomas 2005), creating role-playing web forums (Thomas 2005, 2007), creating, writing for and editing their own zines (web magazines) (Guzzetti and Gamboa 2004; Lankshear and Knobel 2005) and are publishing their own multimedia weblogs, including photoblogs and podcasts (Lankshear and Knobel 2006). Furthermore, many children spend hours helping each other to learn the discursive and social practices around texts, willingly volunteering their time and efforts to help their friends become insiders of the communities. Children are not just becoming active creators of multimedia texts, they are developing values, citizenship and ethics through their participation in the communities in which such texts are produced (Lankshear and Knobel 2006; Thomas 2007).

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Notwithstanding this emergent phenomenon, it is quite clear that children are simply not receiving the schooled apprenticeships into the ‘digisphere’ (Lankshear and Knobel 2005) that are necessary for their social futures. They are forced to either become proficient in the social practices of digital literacies outside of school contexts, or they are isolated from such opportunities. Studies of young people’s use of digital media at home and at school (Chandler-Olcott and Mahar 2003; Hinchman et al. 2004) have emphasized that the digital divide exists ‘not in terms of access but in the gap between ICT practices at home and school’ and that this disjunction has significant implications for school success (Sunderland-Smith et al. 2003, p. 5). In addition, recent studies of multiliteracies involving teenagers in a range of countries including the United States (Thorne 2003), Japan (Ito 2003), and Canada (Parks et al. 2003) have pointed to tensions between the pedagogy associated with school learning and the cultural practices and values integral to young people’s identities. As pointed out by Unsworth and Thomas (2006), in the last decade, governments have invested heavily in physical infrastructure so that schools are able to enhance information communication technologies (ICTs) learning. Yet schools and educators are facing the pedagogical challenge of knowing how to engage students meaningfully with technology. Research into how teachers might best involve students in the knowledge, use and production of ICTs within the English and Literacy curriculum have been variously termed the new literacies (Lankshear and Knobel 2003), digital literacy (Tyner 1998), multiliteracies (Unsworth 2001; Kress 2003; Luke 2000, 2003; The New London Group, 1996; Cope and Kalantzis 2000), and the literacies of technology (Selfe and Hawisher 2004), with each of these terms attending to technology-mediated literacies. The latter encompassing term permits connections to be made across everyday social practices, digital technologies, young people’s literate activities and learning, and the critical, evaluative stances that they adopt. This emphasis on connectedness across dimensions complements the multimodal communication and meaning-making in which written-linguistic modes intertwine and interact with visual, audio and spatial semiotic systems in socially situated practices (Cope and Kalantzis 2000; Unsworth et al. forthcoming). Some initial research into student’s technology-mediated literacies has been undertaken with Victorian schools using the

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multimedia authoring software Kahootz. Children in schools are using Kahootz to make complex multimodal texts, and what follows in an analysis of one example of this.

Taken: Machinima by Grade 6 Student, Nathan Nathan is in a grade six class in Victoria, Australia, and his class has been using the 3D animation/gaming software Kahootz (The Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF) 2002), to construct multimedia narratives. Kahootz is a program that has been mandated by the Victorian government for use in all public schools in the state, and has been used by many teachers now since 2004. One of the features of the Kahootz software is that the 3D animations can be converted into machinima, and this feature has proven most popular. Nathan created his machinima, Taken, in class, and it was selected by staff of the ACTF as one of a number of examples of exemplary work. By analyzing this one example, I will explore some of the characteristics of multimodal storytelling which are being used not only by Nathan, but many of his peers. In analyzing Nathan’s machinima, Taken, I have particularly focussed on the interplay of meanings which create semiotic salience, looking at how the narrative weaves in and out of the modes (animation, visuals, text, spoken words, sound effects). I have also highlighted the moments in the text which have maximum impact through the layering and texturing of the modal resources – what Norris (2004) terms the modal complexity and modal density of the text. My key question in analyzing the text was to determine whether Nathan was able to create meaning through utilization of all modes. The text of Taken is as follows: Taken By Nathan Burns Normal day, just like always Then the white man comes He takes me He forces me into his car

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He hits me He hits me He hits me three times All around me people scream, People cry, People pray Pray for me I can see his eyes Cold No expression No feeling No sympathy My legs give way My body surrenders My eyes cry, And so does my heart He takes me away Takes me away Away from life Away from family Away from home. A new home is here. A home with food. A home with shelter. A home with cleanliness. But not my home. I am stunned and angry and distressed and trapped I’m confined in this malicious cage But no more I run to the waterfall And the white man follows He took me away once But not twice. He hit me three times,

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But not four. I don’t care anymore I just want it to stop. So I jump. It all ends.

Taken is the story of the Stolen Generation, a moment in time in Australian History between approximately 1915 and 1969 where all children of mixed indigenous and white parents were taken from their indigenous families and placed with white families for ‘a better life’. Nathan’s grade 6 class was studying this and Nathan’s original poem is based on his understandings of how a young child might feel in this context. Looking solely at the text one can quickly feel its empathy and power. Nathan’s use of lexical cohesive devices such as repetition, the use of synonyms and antonyms and the use of collocation reveal that as a writer, Nathan can structure his text in a way that meanings are built, developed and linked together. He is able to use lexical items of affect to develop the emotional characterization of both the ‘white man’ (no feeling) and the child (angry, distressed). This effectively portrays the sense of powerlessness of the stolen generation. Whilst the poem could stand alone, and a complete grammatical analysis would reveal the strengths of the writing, it is the machinima form that I will focus on. The machinima consists of a number of animated scenes with the text of the poem scrolling over it, as Nathan reads the poem in a slow and sombre tone. I have chosen five significant moments in the text to illustrate the ways in which Nathan has textured the modal resources for maximum impact. Figure 1 shows the white man driving up to the indigenous family. Until this moment, the child is seen happily and peacefully with his family, and there is no sound. As the car arrives, the sound effect of screeching tyres is heard and foregrounded at the very same moment Nathan utters the word ‘forces’ from the line ‘He forces me away’. This serves to have a double impact – both the spoken word and the sound effects intensify the shock, the disjunction from the peaceful setting, and the negative impact of the white man in the child’s life.

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Figure 1 He forces me Sound is used to frighten, and to break the silence of an up-until-then peaceful life. Table 1 summarizes the meanings of this moment: The use of the verb ‘forces’ is a way of representing intensified action on the part of the white man, but also acts as a form of social sanction, denoting the white man’s behaviour as cruel. The tonal emphasis with which Nathan speaks the word stresses this action as significant and serious. The sound of screeching brakes of the car is disharmonious with the silence that precedes it and follows it. The absence of the child in the family scene as the car drives away after this moment turns the once peaceful silence into an emptiness, the positive space into negative. The combination of modes here at this one moment within the sequence is what Norris (2004) describes as ‘modal complexity’: an intricate intertwining of multiple modes. Norris uses this concept primarily to interpret the multimodal interactions of significance between people, however it is also a very useful concept to apply to other multimodal texts, and in this instance, a poetic narrative. The modal complexity at this moment in Nathan’s machinima marks the introduction of the narrative complication – that is, the white man stealing the child from his family. It also works to increase and intensify the negative construction of the white man, aligning the reader/viewer to the ideological positioning of the text.

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Animation

Sound effects

Use

Forces

Forces

Car drives right up to family, as car leaves the child is missing from the scene remaining

Tyres screeching

Meanings

Judgement: social sanction

Sombre slow tone, Broken silence the word “forces” Jarring emphasised with Frightening an inflection Associated with Serious accidents, death Character of white Emphasises the Represents the Foreshadows impact man implicitly action of the white change in family of white man on judged as cruel man and marks it from harmony to child as negative emptiness Modal complexity occurs when the same narrative meaning is replicated across all modes simultaneously

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Figure 2 Stunned and Angry Figure 2 represents a second major climactic moment in the text, where the complication reaches its highest point. The child protagonist is at the depths of despair over the new situation in which he finds himself, his new home with the white man. In this scene, the words ‘I’m stunned and angry, and distressed and trapped. I’m confined in this malicious cage . . .’ scroll at the top of the shot. The boy is depicted in the corner of a darkened room, on a bed. The floor is designed with a tiled animated image of burning fire, tiled in such a way that multiple fires appear to be flashing repeatedly under the boy. The most disturbing part of the image however is the repeated animation of the boy’s body turning back and forth; in such a way that it appears that the child is writhing back and forth in agony and distress on the bed. While the animation of rolling back and forth is alone not imbued with any negative meanings, the combination of the flashing fire-tiled floor, the body rocking back and forth, the darkened room, the small size of the body compared to the room, and the words in the scrolling text all work together to mark the emotional crisis the child finds himself in at this moment in the narrative. Table 2 summarizes the meanings of this moment: Although the words and the darkened wall part of the image are significant, the movement of the animation is what catches and

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Words are spoken in somewhat of a monotone here

Flashing fires on floor Body rocking back and forth on bed The repetition and looping of the animation is used as a way of emphasising the trapped feelings of the boy – helpless like a mouse running on a wheel in a cage

Darkened room Small body on bed in corner of the room Darkness metaphorical for the mental shut down of the boy Scale of child in room emphasises the sense of helplessness and insignificance

‘angry’: unhappiness

Narrative

Intersemiotic meanings

‘malicious cage’: Judgement: social sanction – reiterates the cruelty of the person who placed the boy in the cage: the white man Character of the white man deemed cruel

Character of the child deemed helpless Modal complexity occurs when the same narrative meaning is replicated across all modes simultaneously. Textual cohesion in the verbal grammar (repetition, collocation) from previous scene echoed here with textual cohesion in the animation (repetition and looping)

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Figure 3 I run captivates the viewers’ attention here. The tossing of the tiny body and the flashing of the entire floor below become the most salient part of the text in this moment, emphasizing the discomfort and sense of being overwhelmed and engulfed in the ‘fires’ of misery. The boy seems to be tortured, his body writhing and tormented. In the following scene, the beginning of the resolution is marked as we see the child stand up from the bed, and the red fiery flashing animation turn to a black and white flashing. The words ‘but no more’ are foregrounded at first in large font, taking up almost half of the screen, but then the camera angle pans in to an extreme close up of the boy’s eyes. The boy is positioned at a frontal angle, and his eyes stare out at the viewer in a demand (Kress and van Leeweun 2006), representing maximum contact. The eyes become the most salient aspect of the scene as the camera angle pans in, with the eyes taking up almost a third of the screen and the bottom and top of the face cut off. The only semiotic resource at this moment is the image of the eyes – the boy defiant, resistant, and taking control of his life. This scene foreshadows the final story event and resolution of the narrative. Figure 3 is a sequence of several seconds from the pivotal scene of the narrative, where the resolution begins to be realized. The words that are spoken and that also scroll up on the screen are ‘I run to the waterfall and the white man follows’. The background scene depicted is one of a river and embankment with trees, reeds and rushes. The camera angle is a close-up of the boy’s legs as he runs along the riverbank and towards the waterfall. This scene is accompanied by the sound effects of birds chirping, and as this scene morphs into the next one, the sound of water is layered over the sounds of the chirping. The sounds are natural and beautiful, and one might normally expect to hear them in a setting which is tranquil, serene

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and relaxed. This is only the second time in the narrative which has deployed sound effects to add to the narrative. The first instance was the tyres screeching, and was used to intensify the perception of the boy’s emotions at that stage – frightened, shocked, and jarring. Later this kind of portrayal of emotional intensity was repeated with the visual extreme close-up of the boy’s eyes. Yet in this second example of the use of sound effects in the waterfall scene, the juxtaposition between the peaceful, beautiful sounds of nature is contradicted with the sheer terror of the boy running to the waterfall, running away from the white man, who is hot on his heels. To me, this disjunction between the inner terror of the boy expressed through his running, and the external circumstances of beauty, nature, and repeated sound effects is actually very disturbing. While the double layering of tyres screeching and the word ‘force’ depicted in the first scene textures the narrative meaning with a richness and intensity, the contrast of meaning in the individual modes here creates an intersemiotic meaning of disharmony and discordance, which resonates with the inner emotional world of the boy. The close-up of the legs running across the screen serves to focus on the action of running – not just running, but running away. The focus on an isolated body part also works interpersonally as a distancing mechanism from the audience – the viewer is only given the lower part of the legs to contemplate, and only for a few moments in time. Nathan also made the resolution of the narrative much faster than the build-up – with the three scenes which related to the resolution happening in a very short space of time relative to the other stages. Table 3 summarizes these meanings. As the waterfall sound effects increase in volume, the penultimate scene depicts the waterfall and pans in from a long shot with mountains and water, then to a medium shot of the boy jumping off the side of the mountain, with a back view of the boy’s entire body taking up approximately half of the screen, and then to a close up shot of water. As the camera pans in between the medium shot and the close-up shot, Nathan has inserted a loud splash sound effect. We don’t actually see the moment of the boy’s impact in the water, but instead are asked to infer it from the splash. The use of the sound effect to tell the story here marks the mode of sound as the actual

Non-animated visual

Sound effects

‘I run to the River and river Birds chirping, Words are spoken Close up of legs waterfall and the embankment followed by in somewhat of a running across white man addition of water monotone here the screen follows’ sounds Timing of animation is brief – the legs run past the camera view very quickly Meanings Action verbs: ‘run’ Animation Nature, beauty, Nature, beauty, and ‘follow’ transforms the circumstances of circumstances of focus attention verbal meaning serenity serenity on the action of ‘run’ into which is ‘running away’ occurring Narrative Depicts beginning Foreshadows the Contrasts with the Contrasts with the of the narrative final resolution emotional state emotional state resolution of boy of boy Intersemiotic Intersemiotic discordance is created when the individual meanings of some modes contrast with the meanings meanings of others, resonating with the state of turmoil of the protagonist in the narrative

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Table 4 Analysis of final scene Mode

Written

Spoken

Animation

Nonanimated visual

Sound effects

None The absence of colour – a black screen Meanings None None None A sense of None ‘nothingness’ is created Narrative The audience must interpret the absence of semiotic meaning to be a metaphor for the death of the child as he commits suicide by plummeting to his death off the side of a waterfall. Intersemiotic The foregounding of the absence of all semiotic meanings resources acts as a powerful interpersonal device and causes the audience to interact with the narrative by filling in the gaps to understand the final, shocking ending. Use

None

Figure 4 Nothingness

None

None

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semiotic resource at this instant, as the text has almost all scrolled off the screen, and the spoken word stops. The foregrounding of one semiotic resource to mark a critical moment of the narrative causes it to have, as Norris (2004) argues, modal density. That is, one mode takes over the narrative from the others and becomes the storytelling device at that particular point. The deliberate texturing of the narrative to have an interplay of semiotic resources to do this is a sophisticated multimodal storytelling technique. This technique is echoed in the final scene but in a different way. The final scene is simply the absence of all modes – the screen goes black, and the voice is silent. The sound effects cease, and the black screen stays in front of the audience for several seconds before the words “the end” are flashed up in a large ornate font. Table 4 summarizes the meanings from the final scene of ‘nothingness’.

Conclusion Taken is a richly layered text which deploys careful multimodal texturing to convey the meanings of the narrative. It uses filmic devices such as sweep-arounds, bird’s-eye views, panning in and out, panning up and down, and so on to construct meaning. It combines still visual backgrounds, animated backgrounds, and animated actions of characters for varying purposes throughout. Sound effects are used effectively to mark significant points in the narrative. The intersemiotic cohesion is created through use of resources such as repetition, and echoing of themes from one mode to the other. The narrative is passed between modes at the crucial moment of denouement. Multimodal complexity is achieved when two or more individual modes represent the same narrative meanings simultaneously. Intersemiotic discordance is created when the individual meanings of some modes contrast with the meanings of others, yet this is a cohesive device too in that it resonates with the state of turmoil of the protagonist in the narrative which is referenced in previous scenes. Multimodal density is created when one semiotic mode (or the deliberate absence of semiotic modes) is foregrounded above the others and takes over the

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storyline, that is – the storyline in one instance passes from one mode to the other, and in another instance moves from being represented in all modes to being only represented in one. Nathan’s text is just one example of a richly textured multimodal text, a text in which modal complexity and modal density is used effectively at appropriate stages for the context of the text. He demonstrates an excellent understanding of film and media literacy in terms of visuals and an excellent understanding of how and when to use particular resources with the unfolding events of a text. I would argue that his text is a highly sophisticated construction in terms of narrative, originality and innovation, and is well matched in semiotic resource deployment with those constructed by adults. Although only one text is analyzed in this paper, a comparative analysis of a number of expert- (professional film-makers) and children-created machinima and any one of the children’s machinima could have been used in this chapter to demonstrate the sophistication of children’s multimodal storytelling production. Furthermore, through this emerging phenomenon of machinima, Nathan, and many other children like him, have the opportunity to develop sophisticated technologymediated literacies. To ensure an equity of access to these literacies, more recognition should be afforded to the types of texts created by Nathan, to enable an advancement of this kind of multimodal authoring.

References Black, R. W. (2005), ‘Access and affiliation: The literacy and composition practices of English language learners in an online fanfiction community’. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(2), 118–28. Chandler-Olcott, H. and Mahar, D. (2003), ‘“Tech-savviness” meets multiliteracies: Exploring adolescent girls’ technology-mediated literacy practices’. Reading Research Quarterly, 38(3), 356. Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (eds) (2000), Multiliteracies – Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London and New York: Routledge. Guzzetti, B. J. and Gamboa, M. (2005), ‘Online journaling: The informal writings of two adolescent girls’. Research in the Teaching

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of English, 40, 168–206. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994), An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold. Hinchman, K., Alvermann, D., Boyd, F., Brozo, W., and Vacca, R. (2004), ‘Supporting older student’s in-and out-of-school literacies’. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 47(4), 304. Ito, M. (2003, 13 March). ‘A new set of social rules for a newly wireless society’. Retrieved February 2004, 2003, from www.ojr.org/japan/wireless/1043770650.php. Kress, G. (2003), Literacy in the New Media Age. London and New York: Routledge. Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (1996), Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2001), Multimodal Discourse. London: Arnold Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2006), New Literacies: Changing Knowledge and Classroom Learning . London: McGraw Hill. Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2004), ‘Text-related roles of the digitally ‘at home’’, paper presented at AERA, 2004. Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2005), ‘Digital literacies: Policy, pedagogy and research considerations for education’, Opening Plenary Address presented at the ITU Conference, Oslo, 20 October 2005. Luke, C. (2000), ‘Cyber-schooling and technological change: Multiliteracies for new times’, in B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds), Multiliteracies – Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London and New York: Routledge. Luke, C. (2003), ‘Pedagogy, connectivity, multimodality, and interdisciplinarity’. Reading Research Quarterly, 38(3), 397–403. Marino, P. (2002–2003), Machinima FAQ . Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. Retrieved April 2006, from http://www.machinima. org/machinima-faq.html. Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2003), Working Withdiscourse: Meaning Beyond the Clause (vol. 1). London/New York: Continuum. New London Group. (1996), ‘A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures’. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92. Norris, S. (2004), Analyzing Multimodal Interaction: A Methodological Framework. London: Routledge.

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O’Halloran, K. (2005), Mathematical Discourse: Language, Symbolism and Visual Images. London/New York: Routledge. Parks, S., Huot, D., Hamers, J. and H.-Lemonnierr, F. (2003), ‘Crossing boundaries: multimedia technology and pedagogical innovation in a high school class’. Language Learning and Technology, 7(1), 28–45. Ravelli, L. (2000), ‘Beyond Shopping: Constructing the Sydney Olympics in Three-Dimensional Text’. Text. 20(4): 489– 515. Royce, T. (1998), ‘Synergy on the page: Exploring intersemiotic complementarity in page-based multimodal text’, in: N. Yamaguchi and W. Bowche (eds), JASFL Occasional Papers, 1(1): 25–49. Selfe, C. L. and Hawisher, G. E. (2004), Literate Lives in the Information Age. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbuam. Sunderland-Smith, W., Snyder, I. and Angus, L. (2003), ‘The digital divide: differences in computer use between home and school on low socio-economic households’. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 3, 5–19. Australian Children’s Television Foundation (2002), Kahootz [CDRom] Information available at http://www.kahootz. com/ Thomas, A. (2004), ‘Digital literacies of the cybergirl’. E-Learning , 1(3), 358–82. Thomas, A. (2005), ‘Children online: Learning in a virtual community of practice’. E-Learning , 2(1), 27–38. Thomas, A. (2007), Youth Online: Identity and Literacy in the Digital Age. New York: Peter Lang,. Thorne, S. (2003), ‘The Internet as artifact: Immediacy, evolution, and educational contingencies or “The wrong tool for the right job?”’ Paper presented at AERA, 21 April 2003, Chicago, Il. Tyner, K. R. (1998), Literacy in a Digital World: Teaching and Learning in the Age of Information. London: Routledge. Unsworth, L., Thomas, A., Simpson, A. and Asha, J. (2005), Children’s Literature and Computer-based Teaching . London: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press. Unsworth, L. (2001), Teaching multiliteracies across the curriculum: Changing contexts of text and image in classroom practice. Buckingham: Open University Press.

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Unsworth, L., Martin, J. R., Painter, C. and Gill, T. (forthcoming). ‘Image/text relations in book and computer-based versions of literary narratives for children: Towards a functional intermodal semiotic description.’ Unsworth, L. and Thomas, A. (2006), Submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Effects of Television and Multimedia on Education in Victoria. Unpublished report. White, P. (2001), ‘An introductory tour through appraisal theory’. Retrieved from: www.grammatics,com/appraisal http://www.wac. co.uk/sharedspaces/final report.pdf. Wikipedia. (2006), ‘Machinima’. Retrieved April 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima.

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Chapter 9

Comparing and Composing Digital Re-presentations of Literature: Multimedia Authoring and Meta-communicative Knowledge

Len Unsworth University of New England

Introduction Literature remains a vital interest for a very significant number of children and adolescents, as recently demonstrated by the massive sales of J. R. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, and the demonstrative devotion of many young readers to these stories. But the interactions of young enthusiasts with the story-world of Harry Potter often extend well beyond the covers of the books and their movie adaptations, into the world of cyberspace where today’s young people are so much at home. The plethora of Harry Potter websites, many of which are developed and managed by juvenile ‘webmasters’ demonstrates both profound and playful engagement with the book-based narratives through online chat room discussions, reviews and commentaries, as well as avid exploration of new forms of related game narratives, and the generation of adjunct ‘fan fiction’ and image-focussed creations elaborating interpretations of many aspects of the stories. The confluence of children’s enthusiasm for fictional narrative and the possibilities afforded by computer-based multimedia are certainly not confined to the Harry Potter phenomenon. The online extension of

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young readers’ involvement with a host of contemporary authors, as well as with classic stories such as The Little Prince (de Saint-Exupery 2000) is abundantly evidenced on the World Wide Web (WWW), as is the opportunity for creating online narratives and experiencing new forms of e-literature (Unsworth 2006; Unsworth et al., 2005). It is also the case that increasing numbers of teenagers and younger children routinely engage in a variety of digital multimedia publishing practices on the WWW. A recent study reported that over half of all American teens, and 57 per cent of those who use the internet, could be considered media creators in that they have published some form of multimedia such as blogs, web pages or videos (Lenhardt & Madden 2005). Several studies report the sophisticated multimedia authoring of some middle school students outside of school (e.g., Chandler-Olcott & Mahar 2003; Davies 2006; Hull & Schultz 2001; Lankshear & Knobel 2003, 2006; Thomas 2007). For many of these young people there is no necessary dichotomy between avid readership of novels and extensive and intensive online activities. However, there is a vast chasm between most children’s experience of literature and the associated written response genres in school contexts and the rich digital story-worlds of established and innovative literary works and associated dynamic, multimodal response options available on the www. This chapter considers one approach to bridging this gap by linking three issues related to young people’s involvement with literature and multimedia authoring. The first is the fact that, as far as fictional narrative is concerned, today we live in a world of versions. As Margaret Mackey pointed out, it is commonplace to see many transmutations of a single story (Mackey 1994, 1999). The coexistence of the same story in book and digital formats is presented here as a key pedagogic resource. The second issue is the enthusiasm of many young people for adapting or modifying the multimodal authoring facilities provided within propriety software (Sotamaa 2003). The third issue is that, although it may now be commonplace to observe the ease with which children are able to acquire facility with ever emerging new communication software and hardware, and that many children appear to have greater experience and confidence than many of their teachers, for most children this experience and confidence is with procedural, operational aspects of

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software, and fewer children have experience and understanding of the strategic use of the meaning-making resources of language, image and sound that the software gives them access to. What is proposed here is that joint exploration by students and teachers comparing digital and traditional book forms of literary texts, with a view to the students producing digital re-presentations of other literary works and/or alternative digital responses to literary texts, can provide a rich and highly motivating context for the role of the teacher in explicitly developing the students’ critical and strategic knowledge of the deployment of the multimodal meaningmaking resources of language, image and sound. The first part of the chapter will discuss the significance of this meta-communicative knowledge and an associated metalanguage as a resource for critical multimedia literacy. The second part will provide brief, introductory analyses of two digitally re-presented literary texts to illustrate their potential as a source of learning experiences for developing children’s meta-communicative knowledge. The third part will outline examples of children’s experience with multimedia authoring and editing software and the capacity of this experience to enhance their development of meta-communicative knowledge. Finally, it will be suggested that this kind of articulation of literature and digital media, developing meta-communicative knowledge of new forms of multimedia grammatical design, and exploring new digital genres of literary interpretation and response, reflect the kind of reconceptualization of literacy and literacy pedagogy that is necessary to sustain and optimize digital age children’s engagement in the English classroom.

Meta-Communicative Knowledge and Critical Multimedia Literacy The internet and information and communication technologies (ICTs) have produced a hothouse effect, accelerating and proliferating the use of multimodal texts and the variety of workplace, social, cultural and educational contexts in which people interact with and produce such texts. The extent of people’s satisfaction and success

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in many dimensions of their lives will be influenced by the expertise they acquire in negotiating these texts, including their understanding of how the resources of language, images and other modalities are deployed to make meanings. Such understanding goes beyond using the various semiotic resources of language, image, sound, etc. separately and in combination to make meanings. It involves knowledge, and strategic use of the systems of meaning-making potential – meta-communicative knowledge. This includes, but extends beyond, knowledge of the grammatical and discourse systems of language to similar systems dealing with visual, audio, gestural, spatial and multimodal semiotics. To develop this kind of meta-communicative knowledge as part of a multiliteracies pedagogy what is required is . . . a metalanguage that describes meaning in various realms. These include the textual, the visual, as well as the multimodal relations between different meaning-making processes that are now so critical in media texts and the texts of electronic multimedia. (New London Group 2000, p. 24)

Teachers and students need this kind of metalanguage for talking about language, images, sound, etc. and their meaning-making interactions. It is a significant (but not sufficient) resource for developing students’ understanding of how the ‘interestedness’ of all texts is frequently ‘naturalized’ or deemed invisible by the semiotic choices that are made in constructing the text. This kind of metalanguage gives students and teachers a means of comparing texts, of determining what semiotic choices were made in constructing particular meanings, what alternatives might have been chosen, and the effects therefore, of particular choices rather than others. The quest for an appropriate metalanguage facilitating the kind of meta-communicative work required in new literacy pedagogy has been on the agenda for some time. In the 1980s Nodelman pointed out that the narrative art of children’s picture books might be better explicated if there were a system underlying visual communication that was something like a grammar similar to that which defines the relationships and contexts that makes verbal communication possible (Nodelman 1988). More recently Gee’s work on What Video Games

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Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (Gee 2003) notes that the combination of images and text communicates things that neither of the modes does separately. But he also notes that for learning to be critical as well as active the learner not only needs to be able to understand and produce multimodal meanings but also how to think about meaning-making in particular contexts at a ‘meta’ level as a complex system of interrelated options (Gee 2003, p. 23). Gee goes on to indicate the need for a metalanguage to facilitate this kind of meta activity, which he outlines in terms of internal and external design grammars. Internal design grammars allow individuals to recognize what is acceptable or typical content in a semiotic domain, while external design grammars enable one to recognize what is acceptable or typical social practice and identity in regard to the affinity group associated with the semiotic domain. In exemplifying the principles of these grammars what Gee strongly emphasizes is their pedagogic role. He notes that for active learning, understanding and use of the internal and external design grammar, at least unconsciously, is essential. ‘But for critical learning, the learner must be able consciously to attend to, reflect on, critique, and manipulate those design grammars at a metalevel’ (Gee 2003, p. 40). The role of metalanguage – the type of grammar, its purpose in the curriculum and approaches to its teaching – has long been contentious in English teaching in Australia, the United Kingdom and North America. Today, in the national curriculum for England and in English syllabi in Australian States, grammar is required to be taught. For the most part this is traditional grammar, although some Australian States also incorporate functional grammatical concepts from systemic functional linguistics (SFL), sometimes known as Hallidayan linguistics (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004; Martin, 1992). SFL has been used as a resource in interpreting children’s literature (Knowles & Malmkjaer 1996; Stephens 1994; Unsworth 2002) and there is a good deal of evidence of the efficacy of the metalanguage of SFL in literacy development and learning in primary/elementary and secondary/high school contexts (Quinn 2004; Schleppegrell 2004; Schleppegrell et al., 2004; Torr & Harman 1997; Williams 1999, 2000). However, work on grammars for exploring the co-articulation of image and verbiage is in its infancy (Kress 2001; Macken-Horarik

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2003). These early efforts (Kress & van Leeuwen 1996; New London Group 2000) have drawn on the social semiotic theories of SFL (Halliday 1994; Martin 1992; Matthiessen 1995). Little classroom research has been done on the pedagogic use of such emerging grammars, although there is some evidence that young children can learn and productively use aspects of Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) visual grammar in work with picture books and with multimedia CD-ROMs in curriculum area learning (Callow & Zammit 2002; Howley 1996). What is suggested here is that the fundamental theoretical principles shared by SFL and functional grammars of visual design provide a sound and accessible basis for English teachers to examine the pedagogic potential of metalanguage in developing metacommunicative knowledge of image/language interaction in multimedia texts. The core of these shared principles is that images, like language, always simultaneously construct three types of meanings. These are ideational meanings or representations of material reality; interpersonal meanings or the interpersonal interactions of social reality and personal reactions to it; and textual or compositional meanings, which are concerned with the ways in which images and language cohere into textual compositions and so realize semiotic reality. This core principle, that three kinds of meanings are always being made simultaneously in language and in images, is frequently reflected in the rationale of the English syllabi of different school systems. For example, the current English 1–10 English Curriculum for Queensland Schools in Australia indicates in its rationale: We use language purposefully to represent experiences of real and imagined worlds, to interact with others, and to create coherent and cohesive texts. (Queensland Studies Authority 2005, p. 1)

This kind of curricular recognition and the clear pedagogic advantage that analyses of language and images can be readily articulated in terms of their contribution to the construction of the different kinds of meanings inform the approach in this chapter to comparing excerpts of literary texts in book and digital media. This modest theoretical platform is able to facilitate the acquisition of the beginnings

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of a metalanguage through which to talk about texts and hence puts learners in a position ‘to say – and think – even more’ (Bearne 2000, p. 148).

Recontextualized Versions of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka The Metamorphosis (Kafka 1915/2004) was written in German by Franz Kafka in 1915 and has since been regularly reprinted in English (and German). The story is about a young travelling salesman, Gregor Samsa, who lives with his parents and his sister. He is essentially the provider for the family. But one morning Gregor wakes to find that he has been transformed into an insect. He almost immediately loses his employment and gradually also the respect and affection of his family, becoming an object of disgrace and an outsider in his own home. Eventually he succumbs and passes away. In the meantime his parents and his sister have acquired a new independence and optimism for their future. The story has been republished many times, but in 2003 Peter Kuper published an adaptation as a graphic novel (Kuper 2003). About the same time Random House published on its website an animated version of the first few pages of the graphic novel (http://www. randomhouse.com/crown/metamorphosis) with no acknowledgement of the creator of the animated version. The animation represents the pages of the graphic novel, but while the language and the drawing of the characters are the same, the animation provides an alternative display, which subtly influences the interpretative possibilities of the text. A selection of these variations will be discussed to show how their apprehension by students through text comparison can assist in developing their meta-communicative awareness. The cover of the graphic novel (which can be seen on the Random House website) shows Gregor as an insect looking apprehensively directly at a (human) shadow cast by the light of the doorway in front of him. The title page shows this scene again, but this time with Gregor, more distressed, side on to the shadow. When the website

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animation begins, we do not see these images. Rather the words ‘FRANZ KAFKA’S THE METAMORPHOSIS, adapted by Peter Kuper’ gradually appear, and, as this happens, a trail of tiny footprints progresses along the side from the bottom to the top of the screen. This would appear to be a very subtle foreshadowing technique, which is very different to the orientation provided by the cover and the title page of the book. There are a number of differences of various kinds between the graphic novel and the online animated excerpt, but perhaps the most consistent variation relates to the affective experience of the main character, and it is this aspect that the following discussion will illustrate. The first page of the graphic novel shows the following words on a completely black, full-page background: When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from disturbing dreams, he found himself transformed . . .

And then one turns the page to reveal the next page as depicted in Figure 1. The animation displays the initial words of the story line by line, then all the other words except ‘transformed’ disappear, and a graphic of two intersecting curved lines appears above it just prior to the appearance of the image of Gregor in the circle at the top of Figure 1, appearing by itself above the word ‘transformed’. The next scene shows just the circle image of Gregor with the thought cloud ‘W – What’s happened to me?’ The subsequent scene retains the circle image but the thought cloud disappears and the words ‘IT WAS NO DREAM’ appear and then the sentence physically falls apart as the entire image of Figure 1 is revealed. (The words are in lower case in the book but in upper case in the animation.) Ideationally the meanings in the book and the animation are the same, but textually the animation is able to reveal the sequence of events step by step to reflect more the disturbing nature of Gregor’s realization of what had occurred.

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Figure 1 Gregor wakes up

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In the next part of the story Gregor decides he will go back to sleep and forget this event, but can’t get comfortable in his new form and thinks about his exhausting, and dehumanizing job as a travelling salesman. Gregor reflects that a man needs his sleep (lower case in the book but upper case in the animation) and we see the next page in the book depicted as Figure 2. But in the animation we next see only the image of Gregor, as a travelling salesman, climbing the stairs, and the accompanying caption. This is followed immediately by the image (cropped from the image on the subsequent page) of the forefinger of Gregor’s boss pounding on the chest of Gregor, who is depicted as being the same size as his boss’s hand. The caption is the same as in Figure 2. The animation then shows the frame from the bottom of Figure 2, where Gregor indicates that if it were not for his parents, he would have quit his job long ago. Next the animation shows just the image from the top of the next page of the book depicted as Figure 3. The frame from the bottom of Figure 3 is then shown separately on the animation. Again, ideationally the meanings in the book and the animated version are the same but textually the animation, by juxtaposing the image of Gregor climbing the stair with that of the boss prodding him on the chest with his forefinger, is able to convey more of the subjugation Gregor feels in his work role. His frustration is reinforced by the sequence then showing his reflection that his parents’ situation prevents him from quitting, followed by the dominating image of his boss showing how he ‘talks down to his employees’. Portraying the bottom frame from Figure 3 as a separate screen in the animation gives more emphasis and power to Gregor’s protest, whereas in the book this is linked to the image above, since the smaller Gregor is standing on the brim of the larger Gregor’s hat, and this has the effect of diminishing the power of Gregor’s protest. After these ruminations Gregor thinks that ‘[i]n the meantime, I’d better get up if I’m to catch my 5 A.M. train’ and then exclaims ‘GOOD LORD!!’ as he looks at the time on his alarm clock. Again the stress of the situation Gregor feels is emphasized more in the animation as it shows the caption indicating he thinks it’s time to get up and then shows, as the next screen, the alarm clock and the exclamation ‘GOOD LORD!!’ Hence, what we see in the animation is that

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Figure 2 A man needs his sleep

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Figure 3 A piece of my mind

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the textual resources of layout and sequence emphasize the interpersonal aspects of Gregor’s feelings of initial alarm, the frustration and belittling subordination he feels in his work role, the passion with which he wishes to be rid of this role, and his renewed alarm when he realizes what the time is. The ideational meanings are similar in both stories and indeed the interpersonal aspects are also common but are foregrounded through the sequencing and layout affordances of the animation.

A Recontextualized Distillation of David Wiesner’s Flotsam In 2007 David Wiesner, the American children’s picture book author, won the prestigious Caldecott medal for his wordless picture book, Flotsam (Wiesner 2006). This is the third time Wiesner has won the Caldecott. In Flotsam a young boy, who appears to be about nine years of age, is examining sea life on the beach with his magnifying glass, when he makes a fabulous discovery. Washed up on the shore he finds a barnacle-encrusted camera containing a reel of film with images of fantastic scenes of underwater life that no one would ever have imagined. But as well as capturing the astonishing surreal underwater scenes, the camera has also travelled over time, and on the film are hidden images of children from around the world who have found the camera – recorded in a human timeline. In late 2006 the publishers of Flotsam participated in the first picture-book video award in which students and graduates from film and animation schools competed to produce a sixty-second ‘trailer’ for the book. The winning video can be viewed on the HoughtonMifflin website (http://houghtonmifflinbooks. com). As will become evident in the subsequent section of the chapter, such a video trailer or similar digital multimedia distillation of the book is certainly within the reach of many thirteen-year-old students. Moreover such activities have been suggested as a means for students to develop their capacities for ‘transmedia navigation’ (Jenkins 2006). Jenkins describes this as learning to read and write across all available modes of expression. He goes on to indicate that in literature classes students learn

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transmedia navigation when they take time to focus on how stories change as they move across different contexts of production and reception, as they give consideration to the affordances and conventions of different media, and as they learn to create using a range of different media tools. Activities such as the examination of the multiple versions of the excerpts from The Metamorphosis provide very useful models for such learning experiences. The video ‘trailer’ of Flotsam provides an opportunity to examine a model of a different kind of genre of literary recontextualization. Here we will briefly outline some aspects of the ‘distillation’ of the book achieved in the video. In the book the surreal images of a fantastic underwater world are revealed when the young boy has the film from the camera developed, but what takes longer for him to discover is that the camera has been found and returned to the sea by a succession of young people over a very long period of time. He works this out by looking very closely, using his magnifying glass and eventually his microscope, to discover that among the images is one of a young girl holding a photograph of a young boy who is holding a photograph of another young person and so on. It is this, as much and probably more so than the surreal images of the underworld, that is the fascination of the story. And part of the fascination of the telling of the story is how the author has used images alone to create the intrigue and revelation of this secret of the photographs. His technique includes the transition from one image frame to the next portraying at crucial points either a ‘zoom in’, to show a close up of the previous image (sometimes used iteratively) or a ‘zoom out’, to reveal more of the visual context of what was portrayed in the previous image. The significance of this aspect of the visual storytelling is foreshadowed by the first image of the story proper that shows a very close-up view of a tiny crab against a background almost entirely composed of an extreme close-up of a human eye. The image on the next double-page spread zooms out a long way to show the young boy looking at the crab with his magnifying glass, lying on the ground, beside his microscope, beach gear and his parents in deckchairs under their beach umbrellas. Not all of the images involve zooming of course. There is zoom in and out when the boy is examining another crab, and when he

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Figure 4 Zoom in picks up the camera from the beach and takes out the roll of film. Then a very significant zoom in occurs over three images on one page (Figure 4) and on to the subsequent double-page spread when he discovers the developed images showing the scenes of fantastic underwater life. The zoom out occurs with the next image. Then the next even more significant zoom in occurs over five images when the boy discovers the photograph of the girl holding the photograph of another boy. Then there is a one-frame zoom out when he decides to switch to his microscope and the zoom in occurs again to reveal the succession of photographs within photographs and hence the human timeline of young people who had discovered the camera. The boy then takes a photograph of himself holding this photograph and returns the camera to the sea. At the end of the book we see the camera floating towards another beach with one lone figure in the distance sitting on the beach and the final image is a zoom in to show this little girl

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picking up the camera. In the first part of the story it is as if the author is using the zoom transitions to teach young readers how to read this book and how the real intrigue of the story will be revealed. It is the visual literary technique of the zoom transition that the video trailer picks up on and uses creatively to hint at the ongoing succession of juvenile photographic recorders of underwater life. None of the fantasy aspects of the book images are included in the video. There are some inclusions, such as the sea horse swimming with the red fish, which does not appear in the book. And there are some creative transpositions, such as the photograph being held by the boy in his left hand in the book, portrays the red fish, but in the video this photograph portrays the giant turtle, a full-page image of which appears on a subsequent page in the book. But the distinctive skill of the video creation is in the innovative way in which it has used a variation of the book’s own technique to distill the essence of the book’s visual literary technique and subtly intimate the intrigue of the ongoing role of the camera in recording the underwater life. The video is sixty seconds of progressive zooming out. It begins with an image that is in effect a zoom in from the image depicted on the cover of the book. This first image shows the lens of the camera, zooms out to show the camera itself, then we see that this is, in fact, a reflection of the camera in the eye of a red fish, which we see swimming in the ocean followed by images of the giant turtle. Further zooming out shows that these underwater scenes are actually photographs (notwithstanding that they previously appeared as animated scenes) in the hands of the young boy. Then another zoom out and the young boy becomes the image in the pupil of a person’s eye. And then with a fade-out to a black screen and the appearance of the front cover of the book, we hear the camera click. Unlike the book, the images are not the only meaning-making system deployed in the video. It opens with the sound of the ocean gently breaking on the shore and there follows a musical soundtrack throughout, until the final image of the boy in the pupil of the eye and then the gentle breaking noise of the ocean recurs. At the moment the camera becomes visible there begins a voice-over which slowly enunciates the following two sentences to end with the final image of the boy:

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What would happen if you found a camera that had been lost for years floating across vast oceans capturing pictures of life underwater? Welcome to the world of Flotsam.

It seems significant that the main sentence of the voice-over is a question? It also seems that the question is at least partially answered by the images, and this partial answering contributes to an appropriate invitation to the viewer to find out what does happen in the world of Flotsam. In producing the video trailer it was necessary for the creators to attend to the social purpose of the genre, which is to encourage viewers to read the story. But they also needed to have a deep understanding of the central interpretative possibilities provided by the visual narrative and the visual narrative techniques by which the interpretative possibilities were communicated to the reader. It was then necessary to consider how the different affordances of the video could simultaneously reflect what occurred in the book and distinctively portray its key elements in ways that drew their effectiveness from the digital video medium. This is why the task of digitally recontextualizing literary narratives in book media, or producing a new digital response genre such as the video trailer will provide students with the kinds of learning experiences that will develop their transmedia navigation (Jenkins 2006). In this way students are encouraged to think about what new digital affordances contribute to their overall experience of the story as well as what needs to remain the same for viewers to recognize the same characters and situations and central interpretative issues across these various media.

Children’s Multimedia Authoring and Meta-Communicative Knowledge This section will refer to two reports of multimedia authoring by children of about thirteen years of age. The first of these appears in Chapter 8 of this volume. Here, Angela Thomas discusses the machinima, Taken, created by Nathan, a year six student in Australia, using the 3D authoring program, Kahootz (Australian Children’s Television Foundation 2007). Taken is a story about the ‘Stolen Generation’.

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This refers to children of mixed indigenous and white parents, who between 1915 and 1969, were taken from their indigenous families by government agencies and placed with white families for ‘a better life’. Nathan’s story is a subtle account of a child’s emotional wrenching from his family, relocation and alienation, resistance and escape and implied suicide. The machinima consists of a number of animated scenes with the text scrolling over it, as Nathan reads in a slow and sombre tone. Here Thomas’s discussion of just two of the scenes will be summarized to show the facility with which the young author integrates the resources of language, image and sound in the context of 3D animation. In one scene the boy is shown on a bed in the white institution to which he has been relocated. The boy’s bed is in the corner of a darkened room. The floor is a tiled animated image of burning fire, so that multiple fires appear to be flashing repeatedly under the boy. His body rocks back and forth, as if he were writhing in distress. In this scene, the words ‘I’m stunned and angry, and distressed and trapped. I’m confined in this malicious cage . . .’ scroll down from the top. These words are in an angular, ‘dishevelled’ font, the yellow colour on a black background mirroring the yellow of the flames from the floor tiles. Thomas draws attention to the author’s ability to achieve the impactful co-articulation of the resources of language and image to create the emotional mood of the scene. In the following scene, the child gets up from the bed, and the red fiery flashing animation of the floor turns to a black and white flashing. The words ‘but no more’ appear at first in large font, taking up almost half of the screen, but then the camera angle pans in to an extreme close-up of the boy’s eyes. His eyes stare out directly at the viewer in an image of ‘demand’ (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006), constructing pseudo-interpersonal contact. As the camera angle pans in, the eyes take up almost a third of the screen and the bottom and top of the face are cut off. The image of the boy’s eyes are now the sole semiotic resource – showing him as defiant, resistant, and taking control of his life. This scene foreshadows the final story event and resolution of the narrative. This young author clearly draws on significant meta-communicative knowledge. This includes facility with language and the integration of written language with moving image, as well as considerable ‘filmic’

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knowledge of the effects of different camera angles and techniques such as scene composition and transitions. The extent to which this is explicit or implicit we do not know, but we do know that the Kahootz software entails the development of such knowledge as children learn to create their 3D animations. The value of explicit teaching of multimodal grammatical design has been emphasized in studies of primary and junior secondary students’ use of animation and digital video (Burn & Durran 2006; Burn & Leach 2004; Burn & Parker 2003). This work has shown that students could make very sophisticated critical responses to movie texts using quite advanced concepts of multimodal grammatical design (Burn & Durran 2006). Burn and Durran (2006) describe year eight students (12–13 yrs) working on Baz Luhrman’s film of Romeo and Juliet. Following some preparatory learning experiences the children undertake a creative editing task using Adobe Premiere editing software. They are provided with individual shots of a short sequence in the film where Romeo is being pursued across Verona as he tries to reach the dead Juliet. They also have additional shots from other parts of the film and all of these are ready to insert on a timeline. As well as these shots the students have the original and some additional soundtrack. Their task then is to make new versions of this sequence creating different moods and referring to other parts of the story. The comments the students made about their editing are very revealing. Danielle, for example, said that [t]he camera tilts up on Tybalt, this is because the last shot was Romeo and he is on the floor and the camera was going upwards from the floor focussing on Tybalt’s reaction of what Romeo had just said. This tells the audience that Tybalt is the one in control and gives you the sense of power. (Burn & Durran 2006, p. 282)

And Joe noted that in his version, The final shot is of a new character to the sequence: Samson. The camera is placed at an oblique angle to him. He is not an important character, he is at the side of the action. His emotion, his expression

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of fear and anxiety, needs to be acknowledged – not felt – by the audience. (Burn & Durran 2006, p. 283)

The researchers noted that this level of response indicates the potential of this kind of work with moving images to accelerate students analytic thinking, prompting sophisticated, precise and imaginative articulations of the relationships among form, meaning and effect in their multimedia composition. The researchers also emphasized the importance of students’ creative transformation of the uses of software in facilitating this kind of ‘analytical production’. They noted such creative software use to analyze media texts was not only a resource for developing students’ grammatical design knowledge but also a highly enjoyable activity (Burn & Durran 2006).

Conclusion – Towards a Reconceptualization of Literacy in the English Classoom The ways in which many children and young people interact with literary texts in book format are being profoundly influenced by the internet and the WWW and by information and communication technology (ICT) more generally. These are the young people for whom the internet, the WWW and ICTs have provided access to a participatory culture (Jenkins 2006). They are like the one-half of all teenagers in the United States (US) who have created media content, and the roughly one-third of US teenagers who have used the Internet to share content they produced (Lenhardt & Madden 2005). The participatory culture Jenkins (2006) describes, is a culture that facilitates participation in artistic expression and civic issues and provides some kind of informal mentorship that entails the knowledge of more experienced members being passed on to novices. A participatory culture is also one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another. These features of participatory culture are reflected in the fan sites for authors of children’s literature, which are often initiated and managed by teenage webmasters. One such site is a J. K. Rowling fan site for the Harry

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Potter novels. The site is called Mugglenet (http://www.mugglenet. com/) and was being managed by webmaster Emerson when he was seventeen years old. The site includes very wide ranging responses to, and information and speculation about, the current and forthcoming books, videos, games and other artefacts related to the stories. Visitors to the site can participate in forums, polls and competitions, and contribute to editorials and submit artwork as well as engage in a very wide range of other fan activities. However, young fans of many other authors construct similar sites to celebrate the work of their favourite writers. For example, the Australian author Isobelle Carmody, who is best known for her strikingly innovative fantasy fiction books, is the subject of several such sites. One of these elaborate sites is conducted by the members of the obernewtyn.net club (http://www.obernewtyn.net/). This site has online message board discussions about the books, a frequently asked questions section, as well as interviews with the author and a host of fan activities. These include the collaborative construction of an online story in the vein of Carmody’s work, fan fiction competitions, contributions of fan art, as well as opportunities to meet at conferences in the real world offline. Membership is free and participants can choose to join a number of ‘guilds’ named in accordance with aspects of the Carmody fictional worlds (Ashlings, Dreamweavers, Mystics or Wanderers). Participatory cultures such as the fan sites described above are facilitating some young people’s development of what the New Media Consortium has defined as the competences required for twenty-firstcentury literacy: the set of abilities and skills where aural, visual, and digital literacy overlap. These include the ability to understand the power of images and sounds, to recognize and use that power, to manipulate and transform digital media, to distribute them pervasively, and to easily adapt them to new forms. (New Media Consortium 2005, p. 8)

But Jenkins (2006) has noted that involvement in this participatory culture functions as a new form of the hidden curriculum, shaping which young people will succeed and which will be left behind as

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they negotiate school and the workplace. Girls in the US aged 15–17 (27 per cent) are more likely than boys their age (17 per cent) to be involved with blogging or other social activities online (Lenhardt & Madden 2005). Working class children are likely to have access to some of the activities provided by current technologies, ‘but they may still lack the ability to produce and distribute their own media’ (Wartella et al., 2000). Jenkins (2006) also pointed out that since young people are creating new modes of expression that are poorly understood by adults they are frequently not developing a critical appreciation of how the new media shapes constructions of reality. In commenting on student use of computer games in the context of learning history Jenkins noted that they . . . lacked a vocabulary to critique how the game itself constructed history, and they had difficulty imagining how other games might represent the same historical processes in different terms. In both cases, students were learning how to read information from and through games, but they were not yet learning how to read games as texts, constructed with their own aesthetic norms, genre conventions, ideological biases, and codes of representation. (Jenkins 2006, p. 15)

There is a vital role for schools in developing the critical multimedia literacy capacities of all students (Burn & Durran 2006; Jenkins 2006; Kellner & Share 2007). This role does not need to imitate, but does need to take account of, the online participatory cultures to which many young people accord a very significant place in their lives. In the English classroom the partnership between literature and digital media coupled with children’s ready access to, and enthusiasm for, multimedia authoring, can be very effective in developing the meta-communicative knowledge that will enable children to enjoy new kinds of sophisticated engagement with established and emerging literary forms, and contribute to the development of their broader critical multimedia literacy. What has been suggested here is a practical basis for teachers and students to begin to bridge traditional and new literacies, and established literature and new digital

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forms, through critical comparison and creative production of digitally recontextualized literary texts.

References Australian Children’s Television Foundation. (2007), Kahootz 3. Melbourne: Australian Children’s Television Foundation. Bearne, E. (2000), ‘Past perfect and future conditional: The challenge of new texts’, in G. Hodges, M. Drummond and M. Styles (eds), Tales, Tellers and Texts. London: Continuum, pp. 145–56 Burn, A. and Durran, J. (2006), ‘Digital anatomies: Analysis as production in media education’, in D. Buckingham and R. Willett (eds), Digital Generations: Children, Young People and New Media. Malwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Burn, A. and Leach, J. (2004), ‘ICT and moving image literacy in English’, in R. Andrews (ed.), The Impact of ICT on Literacy Education. London and New York: Routledge Falmer, pp. 151–79. Burn, A. and Parker, D. (2003), ‘Tiger’s Big Plan: Multimodality and the moving image’, in C. Jewitt and G. Kress (eds), Multimodal Literacy. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 56–72. Callow, J. and Zammit, K. (2002), ‘Visual literacy: from picture books to electronic texts’, in M. Monteith (ed.), Teaching Primary Literacy with ICT . Buckingham: Open University Press, pp. 188–201. Chandler-Olcott, K. and Mahar, D. (2003), ‘“Tech-saviness” meets multiliteracies: Exploring adolescent girls technology-related literacy practices’. Reading Research Quarterly, 38(10), 356–85. Davies, J. (2006), ‘Escaping to the borderlands: An exploration of the Internet as a cultural space for teenaged Wiccan girls’, in K. Pahl and J. Rowsell (eds), Travel Notes from the New Literacy Studies. Clevedon/Buffalo/Toronto: Multilingual Matters, pp. 55– 71. de Saint-Exupery, A. (2000), The Little Prince. London: Penguin. Gee, J. (2003), What Computer Games have to Teach us about Learning and Literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994), An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd edn). London: Edward Arnold.

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Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. (2004), An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd edn). London: Arnold. Howley, P. (1996), ‘Visual literacy: Semiotic theory, primary school syllabus documents and classroom practice’ (unpublished Bachelor of Education Honours dissertation; University of Sydney, Sydney). Hull, G. and Schultz, K. (2001), ‘Literacy and learning out of school: A review of theory and research’. Review of Educational Research, 71, 575–611. Jenkins, H. (2006), Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century [Electronic Version]. Occasional Paper, The MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved 29 June 2007 from http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org/site/c. enJLKQNlFiG/b.2029291/k.97E5/Occasional Papers.htm. Kafka, F. (1915/2004), The Metamorphosis. New York: Bantam/ Random House. Kellner, D. and Share, J. (2007), ‘Critical media literacy is not an option’. Learning Inquiry, 1, 56–69. Knowles, M. and Malmkjaer, K. (1996), Language and Control in Children’s Literature. London: Routledge. Kress, G. (2001), ‘Sociolinguistics and social semiotics’, in P. Cobley (ed.), Semiotics and Linguistics. London: Routledge, pp. 66–82. Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996), Reading Images: A Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2006), Reading Images: A Grammar of Visual Design (2nd edn). London: Routledge. Kuper, P. (2003), The Metamorphosis. New York: Three Rivers Press. Lankshear, C. and Knobel M. (2003, 2006), New Literacies: Changing Knowledge and Classroom Learning . Buckingham/Philadelphia: Open University Press. Lenhardt, A. and Madden, M. (2005), Teen Content Creators and Consumers. Retrieved 31 July 2007, from http://www.pewInternet. org/PPF/r/166/report display.asp Macken-Horarik, M. (2003), ‘A telling symbiosis in the discourse of hatred: Multimodal news texts about the ‘children overboard’ affair’. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 26(2), 1–16. Mackey, M. (1994), ‘The new basics: Learning to read in a multimedia world’. English in Education, 28(1), 9–19.

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Mackey, M. (1999), ‘Playing the phase space’. Signal 88, 16–33. Martin, J. R. (1992), English Text: System and Structure. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Matthiessen, C. (1995), Lexicogrammatical Cartography: English Systems. Tokyo: International Language Sciences. New London Group (2000), ‘A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures’, in B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the Design of Social Futures. Melbourne: Macmillan, pp. 9–37. New Media Consortium (2005), A Global Imperative: The Report of the 21st Century Literacy Summit. Nodelman, P. (1988), Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Queensland Studies Authority (2005), Years 1–10 English Syllabus. Retrieved 7 September 2005, from http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/ yrs1to10/kla/english/syllabus.html Quinn, M. (2004), ‘Talking with Jess: Looking at how metalanguage assisted explanation writing in the Middle Years’. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 27(3), 245–61. Schleppegrell, M. (2004), The Language of Schooling: A Functional Linguistic Perspective. Mawah, New Jersey and London: Erlbaum. Schleppegrell, M., Achugar M.and Ote´ıza, T. (2004), ‘The grammar of history: Enhancing content-based instruction through a functional focus on language’. TESOL Quarterly, 38(1), 67–93. Sotamaa, O. (2003), ‘Computer game modding, intermediality and participatory culture’. Paper presented at The Nordic network “Innovating Media and Communication Research: New Media? New Theories? New Methods?” Sonderborg, Denmark. Stephens, J. (1994), ‘Signifying strategies and closed texts in Australian children’s literature’. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 17(2), 131–46. Thomas, A. (2007), Youth Online: Identity and Literacy in the Digital Age. New York: Peter Lang. Torr, J. and Harman, J. (1997), ‘Literacy and the language of science in year one classrooms: Implications for children’s learning’. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 20(3), 222– 37.

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Unsworth, L. (2002), ‘Reading Grammatically: Exploring the constructedness of literary texts’. L1 Educational Studies of Language and Literature, 2(2), 212–40. Unsworth, L. (2006), e-Literature for Children: Enhancing Digital Literacy Learning . London and New York: Routledge/Falmer. Unsworth, L., A. Thomas, Simpson, A. and Asha, J. (2005), Children’s Literature and Computer-based Teaching . London: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press. Wartella, E., O‘Keefe, B. and Scantlin, R. (2000), Children and Interactive Media: A Compendium of Current Research and Directions for the Future. New York: Markle Foundation. Wiesner, D. (2006), Flotsam. New York: Houghton Mifflin/Clarion. Williams, G. (1999), Children Becoming Readers: Reading and Literacy. In P. Hunt (ed.), Understanding Children’s Literature . London: Routledge, pp. 151–62. Williams, G. (2000), ‘Children’s literature, children and uses of language description’, in L. Unsworth (ed.), Researching Language in Schools and Communities: A Functional Linguistic Perspective. London: Cassell, pp. 111–29.

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Chapter 10

Senior Secondary English and Its Goals: Making Sense of ‘The Journey’1

Frances Christie University of Sydney

Sally Humphrey University of New England

Introduction Senior secondary English has changed significantly over the years, though in most English-speaking countries it remains a mandatory subject. In most Australian states, students sit a final matriculating examination, and even in jurisdictions like the Australian Capital Territory, where a policy of school-based assessment and moderation applies, English remains a compulsory subject. Proficiency in English is judged as significant for all students, and when young people leave school for further study or for entry to the workforce, there is a reasonable community expectation that they will have good skills in oral language and in literacy. There are good reasons for this: capacity to handle oral language and literacy in the contemporary world is an important skill, necessary for successful participation in many areas of modern life, including in the workplace. The school system has important obligations in preparing students for their last years of schooling, and for this reason alone the senior English syllabus merits serious analysis and consideration by those of us interested in the quality of English education in our schools.

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The goals for English at the senior level are often difficult to identify, and the criteria for assessment poorly articulated. The pedagogic subject position (Bernstein 1990) to be adopted by students is often not clear, and it is left to students to intuit what it is they must do in order to succeed. There is considerable diversity in the range of syllabus statements provided for the senior English program in the various Australian states. This chapter will focus on aspects of the senior English syllabus for the state of New South Wales (NSW), and the object will be to investigate what it is that students must do to succeed in one of the units of work devoted to study of The Journey. Anecdotal evidence available to us from some teachers suggests students are often troubled by the need to meet the requirements of such units of work in senior English in NSW. Furthermore, sample texts collected in the course of a study investigating aspects of students’ growth and development in writing in the secondary school years have revealed a degree of confusion, both among students about their tasks, and among teachers about ways to guide and assist them (Christie and Dreyfus 2007). Drawing on functional linguistics, we shall argue that it is possible to undertake some analysis of the tasks students face and to offer advice about the target genres students are to write. We shall begin by outlining the details of the unit of work identified – of interest because it is compulsory for all students sitting the Higher School Certificate (HSC). Then we shall consider one highly favoured text written by a student in response to a task set on this unit of study. Using the functional grammar (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004), and associated work on discourse semantics (Martin and White 2005) we shall argue that the text represents one instance of a response genre, a type identified some years ago by Rothery (NSW Department of School Education 1994), though it differs from those originally described. We shall suggest that the pedagogic subject position involved requires that the student enter with empathy into a selection of texts, all examined through the lens of the notion of The Journey, and that the skill lies in viewing the texts as vehicles for reflecting upon life, conceived as itself a journey. Much depends on the capacity of the students to abstract away from the immediate details of events and themes found in the texts considered (which

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may be verbal or visual, or have elements of both), and to offer some interpretation of The Journey, as well, ideally, as some synthesis of ideas gleaned from the texts. There is a genre, whose schematic structure is capable of being taught, while the value positions assumed are realized in several resources in the grammar.

The Official Advice About ‘The Journey’ The current English Stage 6 Syllabus in NSW for Years 11 and 12 was instituted in 2000–2001 (NSW Board of Studies, ND). Over the period 2005–2007, later revised and extended to cover 2006–2008 (Board of Studies 2006) a major Area of Study was established as part of this syllabus, devoted to The Journey, to be taken up by all students – Standard, Advanced and ESL (Macken-Horarik, this volume, makes reference to The Journey). An Area of Study involves some exploration of ‘the concept of the journey’ as that is ‘considered and expressed in and through texts’. Three possible ‘focuses’ are offered: Physical Journeys, concerning ‘physical journeys and their impact’, said to provide opportunities ‘for travelers to extend themselves physically, intellectually and emotionally’ (NSW English Stage 6 Syllabus, 9); Imaginative Journeys, involving texts that ‘depict imaginative journeys’, which ‘take us into worlds of imagination, speculation and inspiration’ (10); and Inner Journeys, where texts ‘depict journeys of the mind and spirit’, said to ‘involve the exploration of the self, as individuals review their growth and development in the light of experiences which challenge and inspire them’ (11). Several claims are made for the study of The Journey, including that it provides opportunity for students to ‘explore and examine relationships between language and texts, and interrelationships among texts’ and that students learn to examine ‘the individual qualities of texts while considering the texts’ relationship to the wider context of the Area of Study’; they also learn to ‘synthesise ideas to clarify meanings and develop new meanings’ and they learn to consider ‘whether aspects such as context, purpose and register, text structures, stylistic features, grammatical features and vocabulary are appropriate to the particular text’ (9).

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For each of the three focuses a range of texts is provided. These include, for all three focuses, the prescribed stimulus booklet Journeys; in addition, students must study one of the texts prescribed for study in their chosen focus, as well as ‘additional texts of their own choosing’. In the case of The Imaginative Journey in 2005, for example, students at either the Standard or Advanced Course must study one of the following: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, (classified as ‘Prose Fiction’); The Tempest (classified as ‘Drama ‘for the Standard course and as ‘a Shakespearean drama text’ for the Advanced course); a selection of poems from Samuel Taylor Coleridge (classified as ‘Poetry’); Melvyn Bragg’s On Giants’ Shoulders (classified as ‘Non Fiction’) and Contact, directed by Robert Zemeckis, (classified as ‘Film’). Three matters can be noted: first, the range of texts includes literary and non-literary ones, marking a departure from past practices associated with the notion of the canon, that regarded literary texts as the particular province of subject English; second, not all the texts are verbal, for they include not only the film referred to, but also some images in the stimulus booklet. In addition, the examination papers devoted to The Journey includes images to be interpreted and discussed (e.g., 2005 HSC English (Standard and Advanced) Paper 1 Area of Study. Help for HSC students), again marking a departure from past practices in teaching and assessing subject English; and thirdly, the requirement that students consider texts ‘of their own choosing’ is also a departure from past practices, since hitherto texts were normally prescribed. Of these three, the move to engage with images, as in films, videos and CD-ROMs, has been a development some years in the making, and these concerns are provided for in the junior secondary school English syllabus as well as the senior one. In the multimodal world of the twenty-first century it is appropriate that films and other visual resources be considered as part of the English program, though since film and images require some skill in their interpretation, it is important that English teachers are equipped to deal with such matters. The moves to embrace non-literary as well as literary texts, and to invite students to select texts of their own, are rather more recent, and they are potentially more problematic. The effect of these moves,

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embracing a range of non-literary and literary texts, along with the expectation that students select texts themselves, is relativizing: that is, it accords a comparable status to all texts that are taken up, and, by implication, acknowledges no criteria by which some might be judged more significant than others for the purposes of the ‘close study’ of texts which the English syllabus subscribes to as an important goal. In this sense the English syllabus seems to reflect the influence of Cultural Studies, which in recent years have had an impact in many university departments of English, though their claims to build useful knowledge have been challenged, at least by sociologists interested in knowledge for pedagogical purposes, including the case of university English (e.g. Maton 2006; Moore 2007). Cultural Studies emerged in the UK, so Maton (2006) has written, from a concern to challenge the status and authority of the literary canon, at least in so far as the latter often appeared to devalue an interest in popular arts and culture. The concern was to establish a more comprehensive interest in the new media and popular arts, though this was to be achieved while also involving students in an engagement with the canon, or at least with texts judged to be part of ‘high culture’. The tendency, so Moore and Maton have argued, was to relativize much that was taken up in the name of subject English, leaving unclear the issue of what should be valued as the actual knowledge taught. For Moore and Maton, like Bernstein (1999) whose work they draw upon, these concerns are part of a complex set of arguments to do with the nature of knowledge and how it is structured, about which space will not permit a detailed discussion. (Christie and Macken-Horarik (2007) take up these matters in some detail with respect to school English.) Suffice to note that subject English has suffered from its tendency to generate new concerns and preoccupations with a range of texts, often eclectically selected without a strong sense of the criteria involved in their selection, and chosen in the name of an ostensible claim to stimulate self-expression and personal opinion from students. Such claims should be treated with considerable caution for at least two reasons. The first reason is that, like the criteria for selection of the texts, the criteria for performing adequately in responding to the texts remain uncertain: students must deduce what might constitute such criteria, and these too often remain part of the invisible

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curriculum of English. The second reason is that the claims to promote self-expression and independent opinion are often delusory, such is the nature of the tasks students are given in the name of an Area of Study like The Journey. We shall now turn to some more specific considerations of The Journey, and to the nature of the questions set on this Area of Study.

Evaluation as the Key to Pedagogic Practice It was Bernstein (1990: 165–218) who argued that the key to understanding pedagogic practices lay in evaluation: what gets evaluated is what really counts. Hence we now turn to one of the questions set in the name of The Journey. Several tasks are set in the HSC examination, only one of which will be examined in the interests of space. It is common to all studies in this Area of Study, whether the Inner , the Imaginative or the Physical Journey is involved. Teachers set this type of question in the trial examinations in the schools preparatory to the students sitting the public examination. In the year 20052 the question for Imaginative Journeys, was as follows, though it was exactly the same for the other two, save that the words ‘inner’ or ‘physical’ were used instead of ‘imaginative’: To what extent has studying the concept of imaginative journeys expanded your understanding of yourself, of individuals and of the world? In your answer, refer to your prescribed text, ONE text from the prescribed stimulus booklet, Journeys, and at least One other related text of your own choosing. (2005 HSC English (Standard and Advanced) Paper 1 Area of Study. Help for HSC students, 11)

In theory it would be open to a student brave enough to do so to write an answer challenging the claims both that ‘the concept of imaginative journeys’ is a useful one, and that the selection of texts illuminates such a concept: our own reading of the texts suggests to us that they can be read or viewed enjoyably without recourse to any such concept to interpret or enjoy them. But there is no evidence available to us that any students have done this, nor would their teachers

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be wise to encourage them in such an endeavour. The effect of invoking the notion of The Journey is in practice very constraining – even coercive – in its impact on students. The ostensible invitation to students to engage freely with their texts, including some they choose, is exposed as a rather misleading ploy: students must write responses which endorse the general concept of The Journey as a valid notion through which to view the selection of texts. Little independent capacity to review or appraise texts is in practice available to them; in this sense the claims for self expression are delusory. It might be argued in response that it is a function of all curriculum topics and examination questions in English, as in other subjects, that they should direct students towards particular tasks. That is true, though there is surely a distinction, especially in a subject claiming to develop independence and self-expression, between obliging students to take up what amounts to a ‘party line’ (in this case with respect to The Journey), and useful scaffolding of students towards a task they can address in relatively independent ways. There are many reasons to study texts in the name of subject English, and the notion of texts – literary ones especially – as often dealing with life’s vicissitudes, or ‘transformative experiences’ (an expression also used in some of the literature re The Journey) is not new. However, to acknowledge this is not to suggest that it is desirable that students be constrained to view all the texts they study in the name of some journey, imagined, inner, physical or any other. These matters noted, it remains our view that if in their wisdom the relevant authorities in NSW require students to study The Journey, then it is important to identify the skills necessary for students to master the writing of essays required by the question. We now turn to Text 1 (see Appendix to this chapter) – a ‘high range sample answer’ provided by the NSW Board of Studies (2006) from the examination in 2005. This text is reproduced here with the kind permission of the writer, whose cooperation we are pleased to acknowledge.

A Discussion of the High Range Sample Answer The response genres Rothery and her colleagues (NSW Department of School Education, 1994) identified included the review, the

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interpretation, the critical response genre and the personal response genre. In writing these, it was said, students learned to ‘take up a reflective role’ in considering texts, literary and from the media. Rothery (personal communication) has noted that response genres like those for The Journey were not identified in the early 1990’s for they had not emerged; they are a feature of the new senior English that appeared in the early years of this century. Like the earlier genres, the response genre in this case requires some evaluation of texts, though unlike the earlier ones, several texts are involved – three seems to be the norm – and they are selected, among other matters, because they have both verbal and visual elements. Some comparison of the texts is thus involved, hence we have termed this a thematic interpretation. Its elements of schematic structure are: Theme Identification/Text Nomination ∧ Text Evaluation ∧ (Comparison and Contrast) ∧ Reiteration of Theme

Text 1 displays these elements of structure. The opening element has two parts: the Theme Identification states the main theme, and the Text Nomination identifies the texts – normally three as we have noted – to be used in examining the theme. Some students identify the texts first, then introduce the theme, though the more highly regarded students seem to state the theme first. The Text Evaluation develops evaluative responses to the selected texts, drawing out ways in which the three illuminate the concept of The Journey. An optional element, displayed in brackets, which we refer to as ‘Comparison and Contrast’, involves a subsequent discussion of the three texts, referring to points of similarity and difference. Since the three texts are by their nature reasonably dissimilar – involving verbal and visual elements – this can be a difficult element of structure, and this may be why some skilled students – including the writer of Text 1– avoid it. The final element, the Reiteration of Theme, restates the theme involved. According to the examiners Text 1 provides a ‘very sophisticated and purposeful response’ to the question (2005 HSC English (Standard and Advanced) Paper 1 Area of Study. Help for HSC students, 114). Wherein lies the sophistication? The text is successful on many

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levels, among them that unlike weaker students, the writer focuses on evaluating the concerns of the texts, at least in so far as they relate to the overall theme, rather than on expressing her feelings about the texts, despite the apparent invitation in the question to express the personal. According to Macken-Horarik (2006) this is one important measure of a mature writer, one who achieves the ‘symbolic reading’ that much English assessment really requires. Such a reading succeeds because it makes connections between the ‘concrete’ as that is found in a text and ‘the abstract thematic preoccupations of its author’. In Text 1 – unlike the texts examined by Macken-Horarik – the abstract preoccupation to be addressed is a given: it is The Journey. The opening element of structure in Text 1 (also the first paragraph) is very cleverly constructed, and here notions of Theme in the systemic functional linguistic (SFL) sense must be employed (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004, pp. 64–167). The paragraph establishes the main preoccupations of the whole text, constituting what Martin and Rose (2003, pp. 184–85) have termed a ‘macro-Theme’, in that it predicts what will unfold through the rest of the text. The first two sentences use unmarked Theme choices (themes that conflate with the subject) (Halliday and Matthiessen, pp. 64–167): Studying the concept of imaginative journeys has expanded my understanding of myself, of individuals and of the world in several ways. The journey, especially in the imaginative sense, is a process by which the traveller encounters a series of challenges, tangents and serendipitous discoveries to arrive finally, at a destination and/or transformation.

A new, if related, direction is then introduced by use of a marked Theme (realized in an element other than the subject), alluding to the overarching preoccupation with The Journey, while also opening the way to identify the first text: In the context of individual journeys, Melwyn Bragg’s depiction of science. . . .

The last sentence, again using an unmarked Theme (realized in a dense nominal group structure), serves to continue the concern

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with the macro-Theme, and to create opportunity to bring in New Information (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004 pp. 579–80) regarding the other texts of interest: The importance of self growth [[as a result of overcoming obstacles// as highlighted in the Japanese anime, ‘Spirited Away’]], has increased my understanding of myself, with this transformation portrayed on a global or universal scale in Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’. ([[ ]] denotes an embedded clause)

Dense nominal group structures, often achieved through use of embedded clauses, are a general feature of successful texts of this kind, serving to compress a great deal of the information, and contributing to the text’s overall sense of authority. The opening element is interesting in other ways: for example in its use of a relational identifying process (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004 pp. 168–305) whose effect is to define ‘the journey’, creating a strong value position: The journey, especially in the imaginative sense, is a process [[by which the traveller encounters a series of challenges, tangents and serendipitous discoveries// to arrive finally at a destination and/or transformation.]]

Assertions of this kind can be seen as reflecting a writer’s commitment to some ‘truth’, though from a Bahktinian perspective (1935/1981, p. 427) such ‘monoglossic’ or ‘undialogized’ statements typically assume that the evaluations involved are unproblematic and shared by the reader (White 2003 p. 263). Early in the discussion, then, the reader is informed of the general direction adopted: the potential to hold other value positions is already reduced, and the writer has commenced the process of shaping the reader’s views. The Text Evaluation is the longest element and it has three phases within it, each devoted to one of the texts. The writer’s skill is again apparent in the way she abstracts away from the events referred to, to build interpretation of the texts in the light of the overall theme. Space will not permit detailed discussion of these matters, though we

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shall identify several linguistic elements that account for the writer’s success in each case. The first phase, devoted to On Giants’ Shoulders (1988) is the longest within this element, and this probably reflects the fact that this is the longest of the three selected texts. This phase: (i) asserts its value position often and strongly, as in the frequent use of verbal processes, whose effect is to endorse what is introduced: On Giant’s Shoulders shows how individuals can influence. . . . Nevertheless, biographical details and anecdotes effectively illustrate how Archimedes’ innovative methods. . . . Bragg shows the imaginative journey to be a cumulative learning process.

One other, less overtly directive, instance of verbal processes builds observations about the writer’s views: ‘Bragg (builds up to certain questions) suggesting that there will be no end . . .’ while a mental process of cognition builds some reflection: In the end Bragg can only surmise that . . . , and the culminating statement about the text builds a strong position, using an identifying process: The study of this text then, successfully demonstrates the power of the journey [[to unleash the individual’s potential in the process of imaginative speculation and inspiration //and to allow individuals to gain greater understanding of the world [[they live in//by building on previous journeys of predecessors- //thereby ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’.]] ]]

Here the dense nominal group structure realizing the second participant compresses the information, helping to build authority and conviction. (ii) employs several abstract material processes to great effect: On Shoulders’ Giants depicts the individual lives and achievements of 12 scientists . . .

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In portraying their separate profiles as one story in a chronological line up. . . . Bragg delineates the concept of a cumulative and ongoing journey, while other metaphorical material processes are also used: (the concept) is reflected in his thesis. . . . This (the idea that the imaginative journey is not limited) is mirrored in his theory. . . . Each of these involves building abstractions about various phenomena – be that individual lives and achievements, a thesis, a theory or a concept.

From a discourse semantic perspective, the strong value positions established in this phase build what in Appraisal terms Martin and White (2005, p. 98) call strong ‘endorsement’. They argue that process choices realized in verbs like ‘demonstrate’, ‘depict’ or ‘show’ align the authorial voice with the source introduced into the text (e. g. On Giants’ Shoulders). (iii) makes good use of strategically placed marked Theme choices, signalling shifts to take up New Information (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004) in thematic position, and helping to build a tightly organized discussion: In portraying their separate profiles in a chronological line up, Bragg delineates the concept. . . . In order to allow the responder to understand these concepts, Bragg adopts a colloquial tone. . . . Beginning with a chapter on Archimedes, Bragg raises the question . . . Towards the end of the text, Bragg inevitably leads up. . . . In the end, Bragg can only surmise . . .

Overall, though there is little explicit evaluation of Bragg’s writing, the identification of ‘what he has done’ in the various Theme choices helps build positive judgement about the nature of his writing and its value positions. This focus on evaluating the organization of the text through judgement (Martin and White 2005) contrasts markedly with other texts within our corpus where the focus is on the student writer’s growth through the journey. This student is more skilled at recognizing the

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challenge of addressing the nature of the text, rather than ‘personal response’ to the text. The second phase, devoted to the movie Spirited Away is shorter than the first, and we can note: (i) the first sentence provides a hyper-Theme (Martin and Rose 2003, p. 181) for this phase of the Evaluation element, so called because it links back to the macro-Theme, while also presaging what is to come. It establishes the central evaluative claim made about the film. To do so, it uses a material process – really a metaphor for ‘teaches’, and the notion of what is taught is sustained throughout the rest of the phase: Spirited Away offers a more personal lesson in regards to the concept of journeys, through the transformation of a persona who overcomes obstacles in the course of her journey.

(ii) the second sentence in the paragraph then offers a strong judgment about the film, again using a relational process, this time of attribution, which while less categorical than an identifying process, is made forceful with the intensity expressed in particularly: The medium of Japanese anime is particularly pertinent for imaginative journeys because of its fantastical possibilities and ability [[to remove the responder from everyday inhibitions]].

While these two evaluations are also monoglossic, the inclusion of the circumstance of cause in the second sentence is dialogic, for it intimates an awareness of a potentially resistant reader – a reader who may need persuasion in the form of reasoning. (iii) use of several marked Themes, signaling steps in unfolding the details of the film: At the beginning of the film, Chihiro is a young girl. . . . After inadvertently walking into a magical world of monsters, spirits and dragons, Chihiro is faced. . . . Surrounded by strangers, Chihiro is isolated and lost . . .

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In facing the challenges before her, Chihiro sheds her childish cocoon In successfully battling the stink spirit, Chihiro learns. . . . Symbolically, her reward is a fruit bat . . .

Unlike the marked Themes in the first phase, these identify aspects of the story of the film; in each case the aspect is used to introduce subsequent New Information about what the character Chihiro has ‘learned’. (iv) the manner in which the ‘lesson’ taught by the film is suggested, and in each case, what is learned is an abstraction about life: this indicates the idea [[that sometimes there are no set guidelines on a journey’s route]]. (an identifying process) In successfully battling the spirit Chihiro learns patience and selflessness (a material process and a mental one),

while the symbolic significance of what is learned is once overtly alluded to, using another relational identifying process: Symbolically her reward is a fruit bat [[that helps her remember her name in the real world]].

(v) in Appraisal terms the juxtaposition of negative and positive values of judgement operating across this phase prepare the reader for the final evaluation of the writer’s learning experience. Thus, negative judgements of Chihiro’s capacity and tenacity advise that at the beginning of the film, she was: living a mollycoddled and sheltered life and, after inadvertently walking into a magical world she is: faced with the seemingly insurmountable task of freeing her parents, so she becomes: isolated and lost.

These negative judgments contrast dramatically with the positive values of tenacity: in facing the challenges before her, of capacity: in successfully battling the stink spirit,

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and propriety: Chihiro learns patience and selflessness.

(vi) the culminating statement for this phase is less categorical than in the earlier phase. It uses one material process, and one mental process to create abstractions about life’s challenges: This text widened my scope [[in understanding myself]], as it views challenges not as obstacles, but as opportunities for growth through testing and awareness of actions’.

Here, the second, hypotactic clause is heteroglossic in two ways. Firstly, it functions to justify the information in the first clause, thus showing awareness of alternative positions against which some defence of a position may be needed. Secondly, it opens up dialogue with the reader in that the evaluations offered are attributed to the text, rather than to the author: some acknowledgement of other interpretations is thus implied. The third phase is devoted to Frost’s The Road not Taken, selected from the set reader on The Journey. Here we can note: (i) the manner in which another hyper-Theme marks the new phase in the unfolding of the text, using both a marked Theme and a relational attributive process to build a strong judgment about the text: On a more global or universal level, however, Robert Frost’s The Road not Taken was most valuable for study.

(ii) the use of a relational identifying process to build a claim about the metaphor central to the poem, in terms that admit no other interpretation, and here the ellipsis tends to strengthen the general position argued: For example, the wood represents life; the fork in the road a decision; and the nameless persona, the universal condition. (iii) the use of abstract material processes, helping to build abstractions about life, in a manner consistent with other elements of the text: This poem encompasses an imaginative journey in terms of retrospection and an inner one as well.

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The text pivots on the conceptual metaphor of life as a journey, . . . the repetition of ‘and’ portrays the persona’s hesitation and contemplation . . . and here again note the use of the material processes in the culminating statement: The reflective and reminiscent tone of the last stanza confirms the value of the journey [[that ‘made all the difference’]], and conveyed to me, personally, the importance of experience, and to a certain degree, risk taking in my journey of life in this world.

This culminating statement is more personal than those for the earlier two phases, and this is consistent with the claim in the opening sentence that the poem was most valuable for study. (iv) the use of some technical language to do with the construction of the poem – the repetition of ‘and’ portrays . . . ; the constant punctuation and even stanza flatten out to an internal rhythm of resolve; the reiteration of the line ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood’ . The values from the Appraisal system which are involved here are those of appreciation, focusing primarily on the effectiveness of features of the text. This is notable because no such technical language, or language of appraisal of how the work is crafted, appears in the earlier phases, though the discussion of the film makes some use of terms particular to Japanese anime. The discussion does not however, reflect directly on how the film is crafted. The last point is worthy of some comment because the essay overall, while remarkable for its facility in responding to the three selected texts in terms of the concern for The Journey, has little to say of the technical languages – either of language or of film – that the syllabus statements claim to be interested in. The data we have collected from other students’ work suggests most students have limited technical skills in discussing how texts are crafted. This suggests the preoccupation with the overall theme may compromise students’ capacity to say much of how the texts are crafted, though one must also acknowledge that it is a significant challenge to discuss three reasonably dissimilar texts in such a way.

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The Reiteration of Theme is the final element, and the examiners may well regard this as the element in which some ‘synthesis’ of ideas is achieved, though the synthesis is thematic, in that it concerns the study of the concept of the imaginative journey. It is not a synthesis that depends on any discussion of the techniques – verbal or visual – involved in creating the three texts. The start of the new element is signalled with a use of a textual Theme – thus. Apart from this, we can note: (i) like an earlier element, this one makes clever use of ellipsis, building an expanding sense of how the study has expanded my understanding significantly of myself [[as defined through challenges]]; of individuals as part of a great quest in the search for collective knowledge; and of the world as an experience [[not to be missed]]. The effect is to build intensity in the claims made for the power of the study. (ii) the use of a relational attributive process in the second sentence, helping to build another categorical statement about the journey: It is equally significant, also, [[that the journey’s power to explore endless possibilities //and offer obstacles paves the way to the aforesaid rewards-//whether they be tangible or intangible, real or imagined.]]

Conclusion There is considerable skill involved in writing a comparison response genre of the kind we have identified. The ideal subject position is that of one who: understands and values the metaphor involved in the theme of The Journey; appreciates selected texts for the light they can throw on this theme; is capable of discussing the texts in ways that move beyond the immediate concerns of each, elevating the discussion to a realm in which abstractions about life and the human experience are foregrounded. Our analysis has sought to establish some of the language resources in which both the schematic structure of the desired text and its value positions are realized. These matters,

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once identified, can be used for teaching purposes, helping to strip the task involved of its mystery.

References Bakhtin, M. M. (1935, 1981), The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, M. Holquist (ed.), translated by C. Emerson and M. Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press. Bernstein, B. (1990), The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. Class, Codes and Control. (Vol. IV). London and New York: Routledge. Board of Studies, NSW (2006), English stage 6. Higher School Certificate 2006–2006. Prescriptions: Area of study electives and texts. Sydney: Board of Studies. Retrieved 20 October 2006, from www.boardofstudies. nsw.edu.au Board of Studies, NSW (ND). ‘An introduction to English stage 6 in the new HSC.’ Retrieved 25 October 2006, from www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus hsc/syllabus2000 list.html Bragg, M. (1998), On Giants’ Shoulders. Great Scientists and their Discoveries from Archimedes to DNA. London: Hodder and Stoughton Christie, F. and Dreyfus, S. (2007), ‘Letting the secret out: Mentoring successful writing in secondary English studies’. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 30(3), 235–47. Christie, F. and Macken-Horarik, M. (2007), ‘Building verticality in subject English’, in F. Christie and J. R. Martin (eds), Language, Knowledge and Pedagogy: Functional Linguistic and Sociological Perspectives . London and New York: Continuum, pp. 156–83. Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M (2004), An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd ed.). London and New York: Arnold. Macken-Horarik, M. (2006), ‘Knowledge through ‘know how’: Systemic functional grammatics and the symbolic reading’. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 5(1), 102–21. http://education. waikato.ac.nz/research/files/etpc/2006v5n1art6.pdf Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2003), Working with Discourse. Meaning Beyond the Clause. London and New York: Continuum. Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005), The Language of Evaluation. Appraisal in English. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Maton, K. (2006), ‘Invisible tribunals. Canons, knower structures and democratic access in the arts and humanities’. A paper presented at the Fourth Basil Bernstein Symposium, Rutgers University, Newark, 6–9 July 2006. Moore, R. (2007), ‘Hierarchical knowledge structures and the canon: a preference for judgments’, in F. Christie and J. R. Martin (eds), Language, Knowledge and Pedagogy: Functional Linguistic and Sociological Perspectives. London and New York: Continuum, pp. 109–28. NSW Department of School Education, Metropolitan East Region (1994). Exploring Literacy in School English. Resources for Literacy and Learning. The Write It Right project. Sydney: NSW Department of School Education. White, P. R. R. (2003), ‘Beyond modality and hedging: A dialogic view of the language of intersubjective stance’. Text, 23(2), 259–84.

Appendix Text 1 Theme Identification/Text Nomination Studying the concept of imaginative journeys has expanded my understanding of myself, of individuals and of the world in several ways. The journey, especially in the imaginative sense, is a process by which the traveller encounters a series of challenges, tangents and serendipitous discoveries to arrive finally, at a destination and/or transformation. In the context of individual journeys, Melvyn Bragg’s depiction of science as a collective journey in On Giants’ Shoulders shows how individuals can influence others and mankind through their journeys. The importance of self growth as a result of overcoming obstacles as highlighted in the Japanese anime, Spirited Away, has increased my understanding of myself, with this transformation portrayed on a global or universal scale in Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. Text Evaluation On Giants’ Shoulders depicts the individual lives and achievements of 12 scientists as a collective imaginative journey over the last 2500

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years. In portraying their separate profiles as one story in a chronological line up, Bragg delineates the concept of a cumulative and ongoing journey, reflected in his thesis that science is “an extended kind of continuous investigation”. It is through this that I personally have learned the importance of individuals interlinking with others to achieve a greater end, and influencing or inspiring others, as inherent in the concept of scientists standing on “giants’ shoulders”. Beginning with a chapter on Archimedes, Bragg raises the idea that the beginnings of journeys can be indeterminate through the use of a question for the title, “The First Scientist?” Nevertheless, biographical details and anecdotes effectively illustrate how Archimedes’ innovative methods and ideas “set the world on a course”. It is therefore, in concentrating on the journeys of individuals, rather than just their achievements, or in other words, destinations, that Bragg shows the imaginative journey to be a cumulative learning process, which is in turn, not necessarily limited by individual deaths. This is mirrored in his theory that progress in science is a series of “successive approximations to the truth” indicating a collective effort. In Newton’s chapter, Bragg draws on interviews with contemporary academics to add an “expert” dimension to the information on each scientist. The questions used, such as “How could one define a genius in science?” and the inquisitive tone that results is reflective of the constant challenging of physical, mental and ideological borders inherent in the limitless nature of journeys. Thus, the potential of the individual can be heightened through the power of the journey in considering possibilities both unseen and intangible. This is similar to Escher’s drawing, Other World, where vectors lead the responder to look beyond a square and into the unending universe. Details regarding Einstein’s “gedankens” or “thought experiments” are also pertinent, as he was able to make revolutionary discoveries regarding dimensions unknown to man using the limitless power of the imagination. In order to allow the responder to understand these concepts, Bragg adopts a colloquial tone through the use of first person and colloquial phrases, such as “It’s like- Wow!”, in discussing a theory, to convey a sense of joint enquiry and authenticity.

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Towards the end of the text, Bragg inevitably leads up to the rhetorical questions regarding the end of science that neither he nor the academics can answer, suggesting that there will be no end to mankind’s attempt “. . . . to seek out its maker” and thus make progress. These questions carve out room for debate and contemplation, which highlights the importance of speculation in regarding even more possibilities. The retelling of serendipitous discoveries, such as Archimedes’ “Eureka myth” or Newton’s falling apple also add to the idea that speculation in imaginative journeys give way to new ideas. In the end, Bragg can only surmise that “there are no final answers because there are no final questions” and hence man will continue to inspire each other to progress and discover new areas of knowledge. The study of this text then, successfully demonstrates the power of the journey to unleash the individual’s potential in the process of imaginative speculation and inspiration and to allow individuals to gain greater understanding of the world they live in by building on previous journeys of predecessors- thereby ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’. Spirited Away offers a more personal lesson in regards to the concept of journeys, through the transformation of a persona who overcomes obstacles in the course of her journey. The medium of Japanese anime is particularly pertinent for imaginative journeys because of its fantastical possibilities and ability to remove the responder from everyday inhibitions. The lilting wind-chime like music and colourful array of supernatural characters aids this transition to the fantastical world. At the beginning of the film, Chihiro is a young girl living a mollycoddled and sheltered life. After inadvertently walking into a magical world of monsters, spirits and dragons, Chihiro is faced with the seemingly insurmountable task of freeing her parents from the evil witch, Jubaba’s spell. Surrounded by strangers, Chihiro is isolated and lost, the road that she travelled on being flooded over in a storm. This indicates the idea that sometimes there are no set guidelines on a journey’s route. In facing the challenges before her, Chihiro sheds her childish cocoon. The Japanese folklore of stink spirit becomes an allegory of Chihiro’s transformation. In successfully battling the stink spirit,

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Chihiro learns patience and selflessness. Symbolically, her reward is a fruit bat that helps her remember her name in the real world. Her name is of particular importance, as it means “a thousand fathoms” – that is, in travelling far from home, Chihiro has gained depth of character. This text widened my scope in understanding myself, as it views challenges not as obstacles, but as opportunities for growth through testing and awareness of actions. On a more global or universal scale, however, Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken was most valuable for study. This poem encompasses an imaginative journey in terms of retrospection and an inner one as well. The text pivots on the conceptual metaphor of life as a journey, and therefore, symbols and metaphors play a central role in conveying Frost’s meaning. For example, the wood represents life; the fork in the road a decision; and the nameless persona, the universal condition. In the first stanza, the repetition of “and” portrays the persona’s hesitation and contemplation, but the consistent punctuation and even stanzas flatten out to an internal rhythm of resolve. The reiteration of the line, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” at the end of the poem brings the experience full circle and gives closure, attesting to the depth of understanding that the persona has gained about life and the world in general. The reflective and reminiscent tone of the last stanza confirms the value of the journey that ‘made all the difference’, and conveyed to me, personally, the importance of experience, and to a certain degree, risk taking in my journey of life in this world. Reiteration of Theme Thus, the study of the concept of the imaginative journey has expanded my understanding significantly of myself as defined through challenges: of individuals as part of a great quest in the search for collective knowledge; and of the world as an experience not to be missed. It is equally significant, also, that the journey’s power to explore endless possibilities and offer obstacles paves the way to the aforesaid rewards- whether they be tangible or intangible, real or imagined.

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Notes 1. This paper draws on a research studying investigating Key development of indicators in adolescent writing . We acknowledge the assistance of other members of the research team: Beverly Derewianka, Shooshi Dreyfus and Helen Lewis. 2. The wording of the question for 2006, which appeared as this chapter was being written, read: More than anything else, imaginative journeys are about the process of speculation. Do you agree? Argue your point of view.

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Chapter 11

Appreciation and Interpretation of Prose Fiction Online

Kristina Love University of Melbourne

Response to classical or popular prose fiction has traditionally been central to subject English in secondary schools in Australia (see Christie & Humphrey, this volume), with face-to-face discussion of set texts being regularly conducted as a means of deepening students’ engagement with the affective, ethical, aesthetic and critical dimensions of such literature (Love 2001, 2000a, 2000b). Secondary English teachers have been increasingly supplementing face-to-face discussions around literary text with online modes of communication (Nettlebeck 2005), which offer rich potential for young adults, within Australia and around the globe, to share or challenge opinions about the fiction they are reading. These online modes, however, also pose challenges for all participants, whether moderators or students.

Three Contexts for Online Discussion of Prose Fiction Online forums for discussion of prose fiction can take a wide variety of forms, as comprehensively described by Unsworth (2006). The asynchronous mode (where contributions are composed prior to being sequentially posted, as opposed to ‘chat’ modes where participants engage spontaneously with whoever else is online in real time) is a particularly popular one in educational contexts. In broad terms,

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three types of such asynchronous electronic discussion forums can be identified, based on the location of the host. First, State education authorities host student web forums (in Australia and New Zealand, variously called Book Raps, Student Freeways, or Book Chats) that allow for inter- and intra-school discussion of prose fiction. In these generally non-password-protected discussion forums, topics can be initiated by students or by teacher/moderators, and students, either independently or in collaboration with their class, post responses. In these contexts a wide range of texts are selected for discussion, there is an elasticity in the boundaries of the educational communities invited into the discussion, and considerable variation in the clarity of purpose in the design of the forum and the moderating skills of the teachers involved. The popularity of such forums is increasing, yet the skill and insight with which they are being designed and managed is varied. A second small, but growing context in which online discussion of prose fiction is being developed is within English faculties of individual schools who design and host their own web forums. Here, exchanges of opinion about various aspects of the set texts are encouraged, within the individual school community or between school communities, interstate and internationally. In these often password-protected discussion forums, students are generally allocated to smaller online groups in order to build more intimate cyber communities and ensure regularity of contribution. It is typically the English teacher who posts the discussion prompts and who monitors and regulates discussion, sometimes in an ‘evaluation’ context (Bernstein 1990) where student postings contribute to a grade for the subject. English teachers are still learning how best to structure and moderate these types of online discussions and how to more sharply define their purpose in relation to the broader English curriculum and the face-to-face classroom context. A third context for online discussion of prose fiction is that of commercially hosted discussion forums, often in the form of author ‘fan-clubs’. These are generally sophisticated in their design, highly interactive in structure and, while being non-password protected, are often tightly moderated. Topics can be initiated and responded to by ‘fans’ in any country in the world, at any time. Such

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non-password-protected forums attract wide subscription, one of the most popular being the Official Harry Potter Fan site (http://www. hpana.com/forums/meet.cfm). Though not strictly speaking pedagogical sites, moderators and fans must adhere to a strict code of conduct similar to that underpinning classroom behaviour. For example, there are 23 Rules of Conduct posted on the Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator site (http://www.hpana.com/forums/topic view. cfm?tid=8974), the first of which is: THOU SHALT NOT . . . 1. Post inappropriate content (messages or pictures) including: sexually explicit (or pornographic), obscene, vulgar, hateful, threatening or illegal messages or use any such depictions in your avatar (user image). These are public forums visited by thousands of people many of whom are kids – As such, discussions of this type will NOT be tolerated, period.

Adherence to this and the other 22 rules of participation is evident in the tenor of the postings. Given the highly specialized nature of the fiction selected for discussion in these commercial contexts, the homogeneity of the interests and passions of the fan community (global though it might be), the sophistication in the design of such forums (supported no doubt through substantial capital) and explicit codes of conduct enforced by vigilant moderators, these forums provide a useful comparison with those hosted on educational sites. Despite postings not being evaluated towards school assessment purposes, educators may have much to learn from how such sites achieve a focus of purpose and sustained engagement. In earlier work with colleagues in different Australian states, I examined some of the challenges English teachers continue to face in designing effective online discussion for the exchange of student opinion about prose fiction (Love 2002, 2005a, 2005b; Love & Simpson 2005; Love & Iles 2006). Teachers I interviewed for these studies identified a number of challenges, which, drawing on Halliday’s metafunctions (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004), could be considered broadly in terms of the experiential, the interpersonal and the textual

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metafunctions. The experiential metafunction relates to the human experience that is being represented. In the context of the asynchronous electronic discussions around prose fiction, the discussion would be variously about aspects of the novel, the author and the reader. However, the teachers I interviewed were not always clear about how and when to design prompts around these different experiences of the novel, or whether their focus required an affective, ethical, aesthetic or critical response. The interpersonal metafunction relates to the nature of the transaction between the writer of the online postings and the online community of readers. This relationship is mediated by moderators who have varying degrees of authority in determining what will count as the appropriate tenor. Thus, the relationship between student contributors, and between the students and the moderator will be circumscribed by sets of more or less visible regulations (Christie 2002). The textual metafunction relates to how the text coheres in its particular spoken or written mode. In the context of the asynchronous electronic discussions around prose fiction, the teachers were clear that postings, while sharing some of the exploratory features of talk or ‘online chat’, were required to be more written-like. In essence, teachers subscribed to rule eight on the Official Harry Potter Fan website discussed earlier (http://www.hpana.com/ forums/topic view.cfm?tid=8974), that contributors should not . . . use ‘chatspeak’ anywhere on the site. We know it’s difficult, but you must actually type out the full, real English versions of 4 (for), u (you), cuz (because), 2 (to), ne way (anyway), ppl (people), etc. JK Rowling almost stopped doing online chats because she couldn’t stand the chatspeak. Also do not try to get around the filter that has been built to PREVENT chatspeak. If your post is rejected and you see the message ‘No chatspeak allowed’, instead of trying to get around it, change your post and spell out the words!

When used to describe the organization of the whole discussion, rather than the organization of individual postings, the textual metafunction is evident in how the postings are sequentially related to

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each other, in particular whether they are ‘chained’ (i.e., sequentially ordered, but not responding to each other) or ‘threaded’ (i.e., sequential and responsive). In the remainder of this chapter, I use the experiential, interpersonal and textual metafunctions as three ‘complementary lenses’ (Martin & White 2005, p. 7) for examining the language that is used, and the meanings that are realized in representative postings from each of the three response contexts described above. In exploring what is occurring experientially in these system, school and commercial sites, I will examine how participants establish and maintain a discussion focus, in terms of what is valued in literary response, whether this be an affective, ethical, aesthetic or critical field. In exploring what is occurring in these sites interpersonally, I will examine how participants establish and maintain particular online relationships, and on the forms of regulation which support these relationships. In exploring what is occurring in these sites textually, I will examine how participants organize their individual postings as appropriate to the required online mode, and the organization of the whole discussion as either chained or threaded. In using these resources of SFL to map the meaning-making choices of online participants, I aim to make more explicit some of the hitherto less visible design features of online text response discussions. In this way, educators may be able to more deliberately design appropriate forms of online discussion that meet their educational purposes.

Framing the Online Data Unsworth (2006, pp. 45–51) offers a useful means of further framing the ostensive purposes in each of the three online environments discussed above. He describes such web-based contexts as being primarily concerned with appreciation, where the works of certain authors are celebrated; or interpretation, where a more varied range of stances around these works is negotiated. I slightly reframe these two concepts of appreciation and interpretation as ‘purposes’, reserving the notion of context to refer more broadly to the range of online contexts described earlier.

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Thus, in this chapter, the purpose of appreciation refers to the expression of shared enthusiasm for certain novels and their authors. Sites whose main (but not exclusive) purpose is appreciation can range from the commercially hosted Official Harry Potter Fan site mentioned earlier, to genre-related sites such as The Science Fiction Discussion Board (http://www.allscifi.com/board.asp?BoardID=22 90), to State education run sites for celebrating the work of popular authors such as Morris Gleitzman and John Marsden (e.g., the Tasmanian Student Freeway), to school-hosted fan sites for novels such as Heart of Darkness (http://www.stfrancis.edu/en/student/kurtzweb/ explain.htm). The purpose of interpretation in this chapter refers to the productive negotiation of more divergent responses to texts. This negotiation can be supported in many ways and take many forms, depending on the context. The purposes of appreciation and interpretation can, separately or together, potentially occur across the range of author websites, national and state education departmentmanaged forums and school-run online discussion groups, since they are not delimited by the three online contexts described earlier. In summary, the corpus of online data explored in this chapter can be framed at the broadest level in terms of three contexts, related to the location of the discussion host, and two response purposes, either appreciation or interpretation. Samples of representative postings can thus be examined for what they reveal about experiential, interpersonal and textual achievements as distinctive response purposes are realized in each of these contexts.

Analyzing the Online Data Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004) offers a powerful set of systems for the analysis of how experiential, interpersonal and textual meanings are realized. In particular, the system of TRANSITIVITY, related to the registerial variable of field, allows us to see how contributors’ choices of process types and participant roles realize their encoding of their experiences of the text. In terms of interaction, contributors’ interpersonal meanings can be tracked at the lexico-grammatical level by examining their choices from the

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systems of MOOD and MODALITY. At the discourse semantic level, the system of APPRAISAL, with its subsystems of ATTITUDE and ENGAGEMENT (Martin & White 2005), can be used to identify how online interactants variously negotiate their judgements, feelings and appreciations of various aspects of a literary text, and of each other’s contributions. These systems of MOOD, MODALITY and APPRAISAL allow us to track how tenor variables are realised online as participants interact with each other and with the moderator, and how they negotiate their attitudes towards the text and each other. At the same time, the system of THEME allows us to track how mode variables are realized, as participants structure their individual online postings as a hybrid form of communication, combining features of both speech and writing. We can also track Thematic patterns across postings to identify how these are organized collectively within the larger discourse, noting in particular which sequences are chained and which are threaded.

Online Discussion for Appreciation In this section, I look at how the purposes of appreciation are realized in the language choices of contributors in a representative sample of discussions across a range of online contexts, using the analyses indicated above. The Tasmanian Student Web Forum The Tasmanian Student Freeway is a state education authority website that supports an online forum dedicated to the discussion of popular, but nonetheless educationally approved prose fiction (see Love & Iles 2006 for more information). Two postings from this site will be examined here, both of which, experientially are concerned chiefly with appreciation of Young Adult Fiction, but whose interpersonal forms of negotiation are significantly different. The thread dedicated to the ‘Tomorrow’ series of novels by John Marsden was maintained over a three-year period. A representative section of this thread occurred between August 2003 and September 2004 and is presented as Posting

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set 1 below. The contributions are presented as they were posted (including infelicities of the language), though features identifying individual contributors and the surrounding emoticons have been stripped out. Posting Set 1 Thorn: August 2003 Hi, I really enjoyed these books as the characters were so realistic and the events, while you wouldn’t find them happening to most Australians at the moment, are beleiveable, and could easily happen in (just hoping we won’t really be invaded though). Angelsrule: September 2003 This series is truly a historical Australian piece. Of course, it is for the older readers. It explores many issues that people face daily, and if you get the chance to read it . . . do! Of course, we all have different opinions, so everyone is welcome to say “no thanks”. Cool: July 2004 I havn’t read the The War after tomorrow is it a good book? Whats it about? How does the story go? John Marsden is a good authour he can really get the message across. In my English class we read So Much to Tell U and that is a really great book, we had to read it out loud in English class See ya Blinky: Jul 2004 i think it’d be good to read some more of his books – i’ve only read so much to tell you the play so far but i really enjoyed it. Gir of Doom: September 2004 i think the tomorrow series is amazing. john marsden really knows how to keep the readers attention, which isn’t an easy thing to do.

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i’ve read the series a couple of times, and have never got sick of it. the new sequal to the series is just as good.

In experiential terms, the intellectual content or field of this online discussion is the mutual endorsement, by a group of like-minded fans, of the author John Marsden and his novels. This homogeneous field is most evident in the similar range of participants and processes selected by all contributors. In particular, relational attributives realize overwhelmingly positive descriptions of the author (‘John Marsden is a good author’) or aspects of his writing (‘the characters were so realistic’), construing a simplistic aesthetic focus on the novel as an authorial construct. This aesthetic focus is rarely elaborated, and then in a limited way through the use of relational identifying processes by more confident contributors such as Angelsrule to more authoritatively classify Marsden’s series (‘This series is truly a historical Australian piece’). Likewise the affective focus, realized in mental (affective) processes (‘really enjoyed’) and relational attributive processes (‘never got sick of it’) remains unelaborated. In interpersonal terms, at the lexico-grammatical level MOOD choices are largely declarative, as individuals offer their opinions. Despite being variously modalized, many explicitly through modal adjunct forms which realize a subjective orientation (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004, p. 620) to a wider readership (e.g., ‘I think’), none of these statements of opinion are responded to in any chain of further negotiation. Likewise, Angelrule’s emphatic imperative (‘if you get the chance, read it . . . do!) and Cool’s three interrogatives remain unnegotiated. From a discourse semantic perspective, lexical choices across postings realize convergent positive AFFECT, particularly in terms of satisfaction with the novels (‘really enjoyed’); a congruent positive JUDGEMENT, particularly of the author’s capacity (really knows how to keep the reader’s attention’); and a congruent positive APPRECIATION of the novels as literary constructs, particularly in terms of readers’ strong reactions (‘amazing’) and positive valuation of their worthiness (‘a really great book’), and of their engaging composition (‘characters were so realistic’). In terms of ENGAGEMENT, some postings ‘limit the scope of dialogistic alternatives’ (Martin & White 2005, p. 121) by proclaiming the contributors’ stances as

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undeniable (see Angelsrule’s ‘Of course’). However, most postings attempt to open up dialogistic possibilities, either through questions (see ‘Cool’), or through modalized forms such as ‘I think’ (see ‘Gir of Doom’) which ‘make allowances for dialogically alternative positions and voices’ (Martin & White 2005, p. 102). This invitation for further interaction is only sporadically taken up over a twelve-month period and this discussion thread peters out. In the sense that these students’ postings remain unmediated by a moderator, they can be seen as one type of ‘horizontal’ (Simpson 2004) communication structure, where all participants have equal status. A horizontal interactive style is often valued in fan sites and by educators who argue that student ownership of the direction of a discussion can lead to important forms of exploratory thinking (Barnes 1971). The Tasmanian Student Web Forums are organized on such a principle, this particular discussion having been initiated by a student, Narla, albeit two years earlier. Narla Hi I’m Narla. I’m the starter of this topic. I think everyone should read Tomorrow when the War Began. My favourite character is Lee. This is John Marsden’s best series yet. All the characters are courageous. I started this book at the beginning of grade 6. Please post your comments.

Such an initiation invites horizontal communication, yet students did not interact substantively with each other after the first few months of the topic going live. The lack of connection between the postings in the above chain and the unelaborated nature of the postings are typical of many discussions where there is no evidence whatsoever of moderator regulation. Examining the same discussion thread through a textual lens, we can identify how participants’ language choices realize this lack of connectivity. In four out of the five postings, the first person pronoun (‘I’) is most significantly Thematized, followed by references to the book (‘the characters’, ‘this series’) or its author (‘John Marsden’). In this way, the topical themes are at best linearly related to each other (in a pattern described by Droga & Humphrey 2002, as ‘constant’), none picking up thematically or rhematically on previous postings,

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and thus construing a series of monologic postings rather than a dialogic interaction. The organizational structure for the collection of postings becomes one of ‘chaining’ rather than ‘threading’. The experiential, interpersonal and textual characteristics of Posting set 1 are typical of one group that I have surveyed on loosely moderated state education fan sites such as this. The spontaneous postings shape a temporary cyber-community of like-minded enthusiasts, prepared to share their aesthetic and affective stances towards the novels in a potentially horizontal communication structure. Yet their postings remain unelaborated, disconnected from each other and repetitive, the absence of effective moderation leaving the student-student interaction undernourished. Some moderation, it appears, is necessary in order to sustain negotiation between participants and avoid the chaining of congruent but unnegotiated forms of appreciation. On other discussion areas of the same Tasmanian Student Freeway website, moderators do in fact assume different roles, resulting in varying degrees of negotiation around stances towards the novels. A typical example of a contrasting moderator role was evident in one online discussion I analyzed which took place over a shorter, more circumscribed period around the novel Artemis Fowl: the Eternity Code (Colfer 2004). From a textual perspective, this discussion was more ‘threaded’ than ‘chained’, with contributors picking up Thematically or Rhematically on previous postings, and thus construing a Zig Zag (Droga & Humphrey 2002), rather than Constant Theme pattern throughout the thread. From an interpersonal perspective, the moderator both designed the prompt and more explicitly regulated the focus and pacing of the subsequent contributions, indicating a more ‘hierarchical’ structure (Simpson 2004) within which students also engaged more fully with each other in horizontal interaction. From an experiential perspective, the moderator’s prompt invited a divergence of opinion, resulting in two fields, one concerned with an explicit appreciation of the novels and one concerned with the processes of what gets valued in making literary comparisons. Discussion in this second field at times degenerated somewhat as debaters challenged each other in terms of personal attributes (realized lexicogrammatically in negative JUDGEMENT of other discussants), and moderators often had to intervene in order to regulate the social behaviour of online participants. Interestingly, in the context of state

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education ‘fan’ sites, the moderator’s role appeared to be exclusively to regulate protocol, rather than direct the substantive content. The regulatory role of online discussion moderators is clearly central to their effective operation in educational contexts and I will revisit these issues at further points in this chapter. I will draw on the work of Christie (2002, p. 25), who argues that all pedagogic discourse is comprised of ‘a first order or regulative register, to do with the overall pedagogic directions taken, their goals, pacing and sequencing, and a second order or instructional register to do with the content and its specialized skills at issue . . . the regulative register projects the instructional register’. The regulative register is made visible when the moderator assumes the authoritative role of designing the prompt and regulates ensuing interaction, whether this be the ‘horizontal’ student-to-student interaction of posting set 1 or the more ‘hierarchical’ (Simpson 2004) interaction structures we will see later in this chapter. Of particular interest in examining a range of online discussions is what moderators choose to regulate, whether this be aspects of student online behaviour or particular forms of reasoning from and about text. The Official Harry Potter Fan Forum Commercial websites provide another forum for the appreciation of prose fiction, one of the most popular of such websites being the Official Harry Potter Fan site (http://www.hpana.com/forums/). Postings to this site share features of those examined above, the field being the mutual endorsement, by a group of like-minded fans, of the author J. K. Rowling and her novels. Posting set 2 below is a short extract of a threaded discussion occurring on the ‘Chapter 4’ section of the discussion board on Half-Blood Prince (Rowling 2005), representative of many such threads on this site. Posting Set 2 Professor Weeble I like Slughorn. He reminds me greatly of Lockhart without the self centered attitude. He seemed lively when talking of past students and didn’t seem at all predjudice against muggle-borns. I thought it

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was very amusing when Slughorn changed himself into a chair and I think he fears a to stand up to Dumbledore even in the slightest. Dizzy Daisy i AGREE . . . he reminds me a lot of lockhart too . . . i dunno . . . he’s weird. I’m glad he’s a slytherin who for once isnt prejiduced. I loved that we got to see how apparating feels like. i also feel that harry is a lot more mature . . . getting on wih life although Sirius died. I hate the idea of inferi . . . its sick and disgusting and i kept on worrying whether or not Voldemort would raise up Harrys parents from the dead as Inferi and make them do his bidding. horrible thought . . .

Like those examined in Posting set 1, the field here is consistent across contributors and TRANSITIVITY choices operate within a relatively limited range. This homogeneous field is most evident in the similar range of participants and processes selected by all contributors. Participant choices revolve around the characters appearing in Chapter 4 of Half-Blood Prince, first person singular references to individual readers and, to a lesser extent, abstract nouns belonging to those readers (e.g., ‘idea’, ‘thought’). In a site where contributors are posting as soon as they have finished reading a particular chapter, mental (affect) processes are frequently selected to realize readers’ emotional engagement with specific characters and events (e.g., ‘I like Slughorn’, ‘I hate the idea of the inferi’) and to describe those characters’ own emotions (‘he fears to stand up’). Relational attributive processes realize judgements of those characters (e.g., ‘lively’ ‘not prejudiced’) and appreciation of aspects of authorial construction (e.g., ‘The idea of the inferi is sick and disgusting’). In interpersonal terms, at the lexico-grammatical level, MOOD choices, as in Posting set 1, are largely declarative, as individuals offer their opinions. The use of modal adjunct forms (e.g., ‘I think’ at the end of Professor Weeble’s posting) within each of these declaratives typically realize an explicitly subjective orientation (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004, p. 620) to a wider readership. This typically results in explicit subsequent statements of agreement or disagreement, as in that occurring at the beginning of Dizzy Daisy’s posting. At the discourse semantic level, APPRAISAL choices highlight generally

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congruent affective and judgemental stances towards the characters in the novel. Professor Weeble’s ATTITUDINAL lexis realizes a largely emotional stance towards the characters (e.g., ‘I like’), such reports of emotional reactions ‘inviting the addressee to respond on a personal level, to empathise, sympathise, or at least see the emotion as warranted or understandable’ (Martin & White 2005, p. 6). The interpersonal success of this stance is immediately evident in Dizzy Daisy’s subsequent posting, where her APPRAISAL lexis foregrounds her own strongly emotive stance (‘I’m glad’, ‘I loved’, ‘I hate’), and where she explicitly endorses, then elaborates on, Professor Weeble’s various judgemental stances towards previously mentioned characters (e.g., ‘sick and disgusting’), before introducing a new object of appreciation (the ‘inferi’). In terms of ENGAGEMENT, each posting operates to expand the range of dialogical positions that can be further negotiated. Selections of modal adjuncts (e.g., ‘he seemed lively) and modal operators (e.g., ‘would raise up’) suggest the strong, but nonetheless provisional nature of the assertions, in a context where contributors interact horizontally and productively with each other, generating new offerings for further negotiation, while building on previous ones. Textually, participants’ language choices realize this connectivity between the postings and the ‘threaded’ nature of the discussion as a whole. As in Posting set 1, the first person pronoun (‘I’) is regularly topically Thematized, as it foregrounds the affect of the speaker to whom it refers. It is also used extensively as an interpersonal theme (‘I think’), realizing the dialogically expanding function mentioned above and contributing to an organizational structure which is threaded, rather than chained. This Constant (Droga & Humphrey 2002) Theme pattern centred around ‘I’ as either topical or interpersonal Theme is embroidered with some Zig-Zag features, where participants Thematize the textual characters indicated in a prior Rheme, as they elaborate on their reactions to particular characters (e.g., I like Slughorn. He reminds me. . . . He seemed lively . . .). In summary, the short interaction of Posting set 2 from the Official Harry Potter Fan site (http://www.hpana. com/forums/meet.cfm) is typical, experientially, interpersonally, and textually of many chains in well-maintained commercially hosted sites concerned with

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appreciation of prose fiction. Horizontal, but genuinely threaded interaction takes place between fans passionately engaged with each other and with the novels, without apparent moderator mediation. Yet the content of, and behaviours in these sites is profoundly and invisibly regulated by vigilant moderators, whose roles are much more sharply defined than those of moderators in the school education websites discussed above. These moderators, who range in age from late teens to very mature adults, all have their profiles published on the ‘meet the moderators’ section of the fan site and ‘are dedicated to ensuring the smooth operation of HPANA’s community, a fun, safe place for Harry Potter fans to chat about almost anything’ (http://www.hpana.com/forums/meet.cfm). Despite not occurring in a school context, the discourse of such commercial websites can be clearly seen as pedagogic, with the regulative register (Christie 2002) underpinning and determining what can occur in the instructional content of the fan postings. While invisibly projecting the instructional register throughout the discussion forums, the regulative register is most strikingly visible in dedicated ‘regulation-focused’ compartments of the website (see the Rules of Conduct tab on the Official Harry Potter Fan site (http://www.hpana.com/forums/topic view.cfm?tid=8974) for example, which make highly explicit the forms of online behaviour required of fans and the corresponding moderator actions. Because moderators have the authority to determine the code of conduct and the power to provide access and voice, there is no need for their visible presence in the online postings themselves. This compartmentalization of the regulative register in commercial online contexts contrasts with its more visible integration with the instructional register in educationally hosted web forums. Online discussion for appreciation: some conclusions

By mapping the experiential, interpersonal and textual features of this sample, some of the less conscious decisions at play may be brought to consciousness as educators attempt to design well maintained online communities that support students in their online appreciation of prose fiction. The key experiential, interpersonal and textual features identified above are summarized in Table 1.

• Student-initiated topic • Single field related to text • Aesthetic and affective concerns

• Predominantly Constant theme pattern • ‘Chained’ over a lengthy period

Tasmanian student freeway (Artemis Fowl)

• Moderator-initiated topic • Two fields, one related to text, one to personal attributes of participants • Aesthetic and affective concerns

Official Harry Potter site

• Fan initiated topic • Single field related to text • Affective and ethical concerns

• Minimum negotiation • Exclusively ‘horizontal’ student–student interaction • No visible moderator regulation • Appraisal of text in terms of affect and appreciation • Considerable negotiation • ‘Horizontal’ and ‘Hierarchical’ interaction • Visible moderator regulation • Appraisal of text and other participants in terms of affect, judgement and appreciation • Considerable negotiation • ‘Horizontal’ interaction • Invisible, compartmentalised but powerful moderator regulation • Appraisal of text largely in terms of affect and judgement

• Predominantly Zig Zag Theme pattern • Threaded over a relatively short period

• A mixture of Constant and Zig Zag Theme patterns • Extensively threaded over a relatively short period

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Table 1 Key experiential, interpersonal and textual features of selected online discussions in the context of appreciation

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Clearly a mapping such as that presented in Table 1 is limited and preliminary, but is a step towards a more comprehensive mapping of features for consideration in the designing of online discussions, where the purpose is to appreciate or celebrate selected Young Adult fiction.

Online Discussion for Interpretation Online fan sites of the sort discussed above, as well as being used for celebrating the work of particular authors within a shared community, can also be used for deepening engagement with various aspects of literature. In this section, I will briefly examine two online discussions primarily concerned with interpretation, rather than appreciation of prose fiction. One occurs in a section of the Official Harry Potter Fan site introduced earlier, the other in a school-hosted web forum. The Harry Potter Debating Forum In a separate discussion board on the same Harry Potter site examined above, ‘Debating’ spaces are made available for contributors to argue for particular interpretations of characters or events in the books. Posting set 3 below is an extract from a ‘Debating’ site embedded in that section of the Official Harry Potter Fan site dedicated to Chapter 4 of Half-Blood Prince (Rowling 2005). The prompt ‘Is Harry a Horcrux?’ was posted by a fan on the discussion board, and, in responding to it, AurorLupin lists three arguments supporting his interpretation, the third of which is counter-argued by Junerian. Posting Set 3 AurorLupin Harry is not a horcrux because 1. People say that Voldemort made him a horcrux accidentally, but he would have to say the spell, so that rules that theory out. 2. If Voldemort made a Harry a horcrux, he would be basically be killing himself because he has tried to kill Harry.

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3. If Harry was a horcrux, he would have 2 souls, and imagine two souls of the opposite morals in the same body. Harry would be quite insane. Junerian 3. If Harry was a horcrux, he would have 2 souls, and imagine two souls of the opposite morals in the same body. Harry would be quite insane. Extremly good! I can already guess where there gonna come though:The horcrux is his scar. But how can a peice of a soul exist in tissue WITHOUT Joining the rest of the body there is no magic in place holding it in the scar as far as we know. (Just trying to discredit this diea before it coems).

The experiential focus on interpretation, rather than simple appreciation, of the novel and its characters is most evident in the TRANSITIVITY choices of both postings, which realize two fields – the characters and events in the world of the novel and the processes of conjecturing about these characters or events from both an affective and aesthetic perspective. From an interpersonal perspective, MOOD and MODALITY choices realize a formal but substantially engaged relationship between interactants, who negotiate their argumentative positions logically and respectfully. APPRAISAL choices further realize the respectful argumentative stances adopted by the two debators, with ATTITUDE choices focusing on judgement of characters in the text, largely modalized as these are through finite modal operators (e.g., ‘would be quite insane’) to realize the hypothetical nature of the inference. Other participants’ arguments are also evaluated using APPRECIATION, as in Junerian’s positive evaluation of AurorLupin’s argument (e.g., ‘Extremely good!’). In terms of ENGAGEMENT, both debators adopt stances which dialogically expand what is arguable. Textually, there is a high degree of connectivity within and across postings. Within postings, AurorLupin’s well-organized three-point argument supporting his contention is typical of the organization of many postings to this discussion board. Clearly, some apprenticeship into the forms of reasoning that are valued in this debating

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community is taking place, as is most evident in Junerian’s reply, which effectively Thematizes a selection of AurorLupin’s Rheme (the third argument) before elaborating on the reasoning behind it. Such Theme patterns are referred to as ‘Split Rheme’ patterns (Droga & Humphrey 2002) and, used as they are to connect postings in a carefully threaded discussion such as this, indicate a high level of connectivity between, as well as within postings. Clearly, participants bring some already well-developed interpersonal and organizational skills to this online discussion, as well as considerable passion for the field. However, educators have much to learn from the ways in which participants are apprenticed into the valued forms of reasoning through repeated online communications such as that above. As argued earlier, much of this apprenticeship occurs ‘invisibly’ through the operation of a regulative register that may not be easily located. In the context of online discussions, the regulative register no doubt projects the instructional register (as identified through examination of key language patterns in the tables above). The scaffolding of the development of increasingly more elaborated postings owes much to the invisible regulation possible in such popular commercially hosted web forums. The school-hosted web forum: A good scent from a strange mountain

In a very different way, students in one school context are apprenticed into developing similar experiential, interpersonal and organizational skills for the purposes of interpretation. Year 11 English teachers in this Australian school implemented online discussions as a supplement to face-to-face classroom discussions around the set novel, using an in-house designed web-based program. One of the seven English teachers involved was Sandi, the ESL teacher, who moderated five online discussion groups of six ESL students over a seven-week period. These ESL students were responding to Sandi’s posting of a topic each week on the collection of short stories, ‘A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain’ (Butler 1993) whose theme was adjustment to life in a new country after the Vietnam War. In groups of six, students made an average of three contributions to the discussion of each of the seven topics and Sandi kept an electronic record of student postings, in order to evaluate the frequency and quality of individual student contributions and track the progress

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of each of the groups’ discussion threads. Students were explicitly advised that they would be assessed on their contributions, particularly on ‘how you present evidence to support your point of view, how you respect and respond to the views of others and how actively you contribute’. The discussion thread below, presented with unadjusted spelling, syntactic and formatting inconsistencies, was representative in terms of key registerial variables (posts are numbered for ease of reference). Posting Set 4 1. Teacher Topic – In the story SNOW, is there a sense of sadness in the lives of the characters? How else would you describe the mood of the story? When you answer the questions, use parts of the story to support your answer. I would like you to make about 3 comments during the next 10 days. First give your initial answer, then respond to other student’s comments, agreeing, or disagreeing with them. Don’t forget to support your comments each time with information from the story. 2. Widya yes, there is. both of them have a sad background of life. both of them were run away from their country because of war. Mr Cohen have lost his father and his wife. They both lonely. I think not all of the story tells about sadness, there also a romantic scene in the story. Don’t you think so?? 3. Gobie yes, i think it is a sadness story . . . it’s because snow can make people happy . . . it’s also can make some people sad . . . this story is the sadness one that is about two characters, they both’re not really like snow, cos one was lost his father, and the other one was felt that the snow gave her the mood that everything were death in the world. . . . . . and i think the mood in this story was serious but quite intersting at the last. . . . 4. Phira There’re some of sadness in the story such as their childhood about the snow, but the situation in that resturant wasn’t so sad. they were

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telling their stories but they were happy to have talk. so the mood of the story is a bit disappointment, and a bit happiness. 5. Gobie yes..i think so . . . also i think the story is not finish yet..cos i think there have one more paragraph after the last paragraph showed in the story . . . and it is about Mr cohen and Miss Giau that how they keep their relationship. . . . hahaa . . do u think so??? 6. Widya yeah, I agree. this story is not a sad story, the story not only tells about sad . . . sad . . . and sad, but it also tells about Ms Giau and Mr Cohen love story/relationship. 7. Teacher Just a note to remind you of a couple of matters – Widya, you need to refer to parts from the story to show what you mean. Gobie, when you say ‘interesting’ it is not clear what you mean. Could you explain further. San, You refer to ‘their’ childhood, but we only really know about Mr. Cohen’s childhood. WHEN YOU ANSWER OTHER STUDENTS, USE THEIR NAMES – E.G. Gobie, I agree with you that . . . . . . 8. Gobie “interesting” i mean at the last part of this story, Mr Cohen and Miss Giau both of them were disliked the snow cos snow can reminded they bad things in their life . . . but i feel quite interesting that two people came from different countries dislike snow and they can be meet in the same place . . . have the similar background. . . . i think it’s the most interesting in this story . . . 9. Judith I think everybody agrees that despite sad part, the story also has happy situations in it. However, there are also situations where the characters feel excited, uncomfortable, interested, etc. 10. Judith I wonder why Ms. Giau feel sad on Christmas eve. Maybe Its because she doesn’t have anyone to celebrate it with, except her mother. But when Mr. Cohen asked to celebrate it with him, the atmosphere

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surrounding them changed and turned into joy and love. Hahahahahaaa . . .

Experientially, there are two closely related fields in this thread, signalled in the two-part question of the teacher’s highly scaffolded prompt. One field concerns a description of the emotional state of a specified range of characters and the other, concerning an interpretation of the mood of the story as a result of that. A TRANSITIVITY analysis suggests that the highly structured nature of the teacher’s prompt provides an important framework in focusing the discussion task for these ESL students, whose predictably non-standard syntactic structures appear not to interfere with the substantive communication of their meanings. Displaying the ability to support a position with evidence from the text, as instructed by the teacher, students post convergent responses to the first part of the prompt and, by further elaboration, arrive at a convergent response to the second part of the prompt, summarized nicely by Judith in turn 9. From an interpersonal perspective, the MOOD choices of the teacher’s prompt, with its clearly structured interrogatives and imperatives, contribute to the clarity of the students’ focus. Students cooperate at first in a ‘hierarchical’ (Simpson 2004) interaction, each posting sequentially addressing only the teacher’s first question in a direct way, typically introduced by the positive polarity term ‘yes’. Then, following the teacher’s imperative in turn 7 to ‘respond to each other’s comments, agreeing or disagreeing with them’, some horizontal studentstudent interaction ensues, all the while being explicitly regulated by the teacher as she reminds students to elaborate on the experiential content of their postings and models the signalling of interpersonal relationships. At the discourse semantic level, students’ lexical choices directly address the demands of the teacher’s prompt, with descriptions of the characters’ feelings realized through AFFECT (e.g., ‘they both lonely’) and interpretations of the narrative significance of such description realized through APPRECIATION (e.g., ‘This story is not finish yet’). In terms of ENGAGEMENT, the congruent nature of these stances is further evident in the explicit indicators of agreement (e.g., ‘Yeah, I agree’). Interestingly, after the teacher’s invitation for students to engage in more horizontal interaction (turn 7), a more dialogically engaging stance becomes evident, as in Judith’s

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selection of ‘I wonder’ in turn 10. This functions to open up deeper and more nuanced speculation on more detailed aspects of the text. Textually, there are variable patterns of connectivity within and (eventually) across postings. Each posting initially references back to the teacher’s prompt, Thematizing first ‘the story’ (or references to it), then, in the subsequent elaboration of student answers, the characters. Theme patterns within these elaborations are of a generally Constant Theme pattern (Droga & Humphrey 2002), indicating the capacity of these ESL students to construct a coherent line of reasoning from the text, as the teacher explicitly encourages them to do in her prompt. This Constant Theme pattern is generally maintained across, as well as within, postings, realizing a threaded discussion in which all contributors concur about the same proposition, as summarized by Judith in turn 9. It is only with Judith’s use of the textual Theme, ‘However’ in the second part of this turn that we begin to see the more complex aspects of the teacher’s question being explored, an exploration that continues in the remainder of the discussion thread. In summary, the combined experiential and interpersonal features of the discussion thread above reflect the more visible teacher regulation, the more specialized field of the discussion and the more explicit evaluation criteria, when compared with other online discussions examined so far. The analysis highlights the ways in which Sandi’s linguistic and regulatory choices offer explicit support, in the online environment, to a group of students with particular linguistic and cultural needs. However, Sandi’s intervention is not typical of that offered in other school-hosted discussions concerned with interpretation of prose fiction. Even those online discussions I have examined which are explicitly evaluated as part of school assessment routines, are not always as visibly regulated by teacher/moderators, sometimes resulting in a situation where the very students who would benefit from such support are further disadvantaged (see Love 2005a). Online discussion for interpretation: some conclusions

The key experiential, interpersonal and textual features identified in postings 3 and 4 above are summarized in Table 2, making more

• Split Rheme patterns • ‘Threaded’ over a focused period

School-hosted discussion site (ESL students)

• Moderator-initiated topic • Two fields, one related to text, one to personal attributes of participants • Aesthetic and affective concerns

• Strong online negotiation • Exclusively ‘horizontal’ interaction • No visible moderator regulation • Appraisal of text largely in terms of appreciation • Appraisal of contributions in terms of appreciation • Teacher stimulated online negotiation • ‘Horizontal’ and ‘Hierarchical’ interaction • Visible moderator regulation • Appraisal of text and other participants in terms of affect, judgement and appreciation

• Constant theme patterns • Threaded over a focused period

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• Fan-initiated topic on a specialised site • Two fields, one related to text, one to participants’ arguments • Aesthetic and ethical concerns

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Table 2 Key experiential, interpersonal and textual features of selected online discussions in the context of interpretation

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visible some of the design principles that are at play in online communities concerned with interpretation of prose fiction. Again, such a mapping is clearly preliminary and limited by the particular selection of online discussion sites. However, in selecting two radically contrastive sites, with differing texts, differing language skills of contributors, differing evaluations of postings and differing degrees and forms of moderator regulation, we are able to identify more vividly how key design choices may have contributed to certain outcomes, whether intended or not.

Conclusion How can teachers productively meet the challenges of establishing and maintaining the desired focus in online discussion of prose fiction, while maintaining appropriate interpersonal relationships, in modes that are comprehensible to all? I have argued that a useful start is to consider the purposes of the online discussion, whether this be to provide a forum for a shared appreciation of a text, in which posting of congruent expressions of shared stance is sufficient (as in Posting set 1 above); or one where divergent expressions of appreciation are encouraged; or a forum for the negotiation of divergent interpretations of aspects of a narrative (as in Posting sets 3 and 4); or indeed one in which there is a deliberate shift from appreciation to interpretation, or vice versa? The descriptive framework exemplified in Tables 1 and 2 offers one means of addressing these questions systematically, helping moderators bring to consciousness design choices that may otherwise be left unnoticed. In online forums concerned with interpretation, clarity about the purpose is particularly important if student contributions are to be evaluated as part of a school assessment regime. My analysis of a sample of Australian and New Zealand educationally based online forums indicates an overwhelming lack of clarity about the purposes of the discussion, many such discussions being dominated by an affective focus on readers’ unelaborated feelings about events and characters, or an ethical focus on reader judgements of text characters, without substantive reference to the details of the narrative itself

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(see e.g., Love 2005a and 2002). Only in relatively few cases is there evidence of sustained engagement with more elaborated ethical or affective stances (or indeed with aesthetic or critical stances which draw on reasoning from linguistic and/or literary structures). Many educators I have interviewed remain concerned about their role in designing and regulating online interactions in which important new forms of literacy are under construction. Teachers cite, as their biggest challenge, clarifying their regulatory role in shaping students’ online learning, especially in discussions concerned with interpretation of text. Sandi (above) appears to have adopted an explicitly regulatory role as she foregrounds for her ESL students what the acceptable mode is (spoken-like or written-like), what forms of interpersonal engagement are appropriate (horizontal or hierachical) and the ATTITUDINAL stance she requires (whether this be affective, ethical, aesthetic or critical or a mixture of all). The extent to which teacher regulation of such factors should be visible in the unfolding discussion (as in Posting set 4), or invisible and compartmentalized (as in Posting set 3) will be determined by the nature and range of the participants in the online community, the purposes of the discussion and the extent to which contributions will be evaluated. Christie (2002, p. 3) argues that everyday, routinized language behaviour is generally not recognised as structured, and structuring , experience, and that a close and principled analysis of classroom discourse can illuminate what kind of pedagogic subjects are being constructed through such discourses. At a time when online modes are more pervasively being used for appreciating and interpreting prose fiction, it is becoming increasingly important to scrutinize linguistic structures for their structuring potential in that mode. What forms of reasoning are under construction, and how intended and consciously valued are these? What forms of moderator regulation are effective in achieving valued forms of reasoning and under what circumstances? Might educators have something to learn from efficiently structured commercial websites such as the Official Harry Potter Fan site examined here, where the invisible but powerful regulative register projects what is sayable in the online community? Through the complementary lenses of the experiential, interpersonal and textual metafunctions, these and related questions may be addressed

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systematically as educators explore the potential of online modes for a range of pedagogical purposes.

References Barnes, G. (1969), ‘Language in the secondary classroom’, in D. Barnes, J. Britton and H. Rosen (eds), Language, the Learner and the School. Baltimore: Penguin, pp. 9–79. Bernstein, B. (1990), The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. Class, Codes and Control (vol. IV). London and New York: Routledge. Butler, R. (1993), A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. New York: Penguin. Christie, F. (2002), Classroom Discourse Analysis. New York: Continuum. Colfer, E. (2004), Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code. London: Puffin. Droga, L. and Humphrey, S. (2002), Getting Started with Functional Grammar . Berry, NSW: Target Texts. Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. M. M. (2004), An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd edn). London: Edward Arnold. Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator site (http://www.hpana. com/forums/topic view.cfm?tid=8974) Last checked November, 2006. Love, K. and Iles, M. (2006), ‘Welcome to the online discussion’. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 29(3), 21025. Love, K. and Simpson, A. (2005), ‘Online discussion in schools: towards a pedagogical framework’, in Learning about, and Learning through, Electronic Media: The Role of Language and Literacy, guestedited issue, The International Journal of Educational Research, 43, 446–63 Love, K. (2005a), ‘Framing in online school discussions: a new mode of educational inequity?’, in K. Love (ed.), Language and Social Life: Functional Perspectives, special edition, The Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, Series S19, 64–86. Love, K. (2005b), ‘On line discussion in secondary English: Shaping interactive practice for ESL students’, in C. Davison (ed.), Information Technology and Innovation in Language Education. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, pp. 149–72.

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Love, K. (2002), ‘Mapping on-line discussions in secondary English’. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 45(5), 382–409. Love, K. (2001), ‘The construction of moral subjectivities in talk around text in secondary English’. Linguistics and Education, 11(3), 213–49. Love, K. (2000a), ‘The regulation of argumentative reasoning in pedagogic discourse’. Discourse Studies, 2(4), 420–51. Love, K. (2000b), ‘Personal response or critical response in secondary English discussions: A linguistic analysis’. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 23(1), 31–52. Martin, J. R. and White, P. (2005), The Language of Evaluation. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Nettlebeck, D. (2005), Computers, Thinking and Learning . Victoria: ACER. Rowling, J. K. (2005), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. New York: Arthur Levine Books. Simpson, A. (2004), ‘Book Raps as Online Interactive Literacy Practice: A comparison of two designs for engagement’. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Conference, San Diego, CA, 12–16 April 2004. Unsworth, L. (2006), E-Literature for Children: Enhancing Digital Literacy Learning. London: Routledge.

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Chapter 12

The Influence of Images in Reading Comprehension Assessment in Group Tests

Ann Daly University of New England

Kate O’Donnell New South Wales Department of Education and Training

Introduction Comprehending multimodal texts is different from comprehending texts consisting of language only because meanings expressed through more than one mode can become ‘multiplicative’, with word and image meanings modifying each other, ‘making a whole far greater than the simple sum of its parts’ (Lemke, 1998, p. 283– 84). Texts where images and verbiage complement or contradict each other are obviously likely to result in interpretations that could not be inferred from the words or images alone, and literacy assessors must take this into account. However, texts with words and images constructing meanings that closely correspond also provide challenges for literacy assessors because it is difficult to determine whether students are accessing verbal or visual information in indicating their responses to the text. In fact, Kress (2000) believes we need new theories of representation that account for the processes of synaesthesia (the transduction of meaning from one semiotic mode to another). Henderson (1999) cites Mayer and Anderson’s (1992, p. 444) ‘dual coding theory’ which assumes that humans have two distinct

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information processing systems: one each for verbal and visual information. The dual coding theory suggests that using diagrams as well as text is more effective than using either alone and that the benefit from using both only comes when learners build a ‘ referential link’ between them (Henderson, 1999, p. 24). Henderson also suggests that the building of these links can be assisted by the addition of ‘instructive’ captions (statements with material processes/action verbs) reinforcing the process which a part of the diagram is intended to show. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze multimodal texts from reading comprehension tests to identify where the verbal text and images correspond, complement or contradict each other, and then to identify the different reading strategies that students might have used to interpret questions about these multimodal texts. Such aspects of image–text relations can be related to the terms Halliday (1994) used to describe three types of expansion within verbal text: elaboration, extension and enhancement (Martinec & Salway, 2005). Texts with words and images that correspond provide elaboration where one mode describes or illustrates the other, and texts with verbal and visual aspects that provide different information in each mode are examples of expansion, adding extra information that may be adjunct (complementary) or disjunctive (contradictory). Verbal and visual text may also provide enhancement for each other by showing or telling circumstances such as time, place or cause.

Statewide Reading Tests in New South Wales (NSW) Schools Before examining examples from literacy assessments prepared by the New South Wales Department of Education and Training (NSW DET) it seems pertinent to outline their history. The first Basic Skills Tests (BST), for Year 3 and Year 6 students in NSW, were developed by the NSW DET in conjunction with the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) from 1989 to 1992. Since 1993 the texts and questions have been produced by teachers from NSW DET. The first BST for Year 5 was in 1994 which coincided with the last BST for Year 6.

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The 1994 BST began the current practice of having link questions based on three texts that were common to the Year 3 and Year 5 tests. Link questions have made it possible to equate the difficulty of the tests and report results on a common scale for Year 3 and Year 5. In 1997 the NSW DET began publishing data showing growth in individual student performance from Year 3 to Year 5 in the BST. The English Language and Literacy Assessment (ELLA) for all Year 7 students began in 1997. This test is optional for Year 8 students, however, over 90 per cent of government sector schools elect to have their Year 8 students sit the test. For schools that elect to have their Year 8 students sit the test, growth data is available from Year 7 to Year 8.

Images and Reading Comprehension in the 1995 Year 3 BST One text in the 1995 Year 3 BST, Life Cycle, had labels (egg , caterpillar and pupa in cocoon) that directly corresponded with the visuals, with the picture of the moth being labelled adult, so when students were asked ‘Which part of the life cycle does this picture come from?’, they were able to see that the word, ‘adult’, clearly matched the picture of the moth. Another multimodal text in this test is an excerpt from The Book of Animal Records by David Drew (1992). The main verbal text states that ‘[t]he largest bird is the Ostrich’ A question, asking which bird is the largest, is obviously intended to test a student’s ability to locate directly stated information. However, a child who consulted the images to answer whether the Ostrich, Mallee Fowl or Wandering Albatross is the largest bird might have come to a different conclusion if they referred to the images rather than the text. ‘Largest’ is a non-specific term – does it mean tallest, widest or heaviest? The measurements on the diagrams shows a ‘4 m’ wing span of the Wandering Albatross and a ‘2.5 m’ height for the Ostrich. These mathematical facts suggest that the Wandering Albatross would be larger than the Ostrich. Did students read the main verbal text or interpret the images? In a factual text such as this, one would expect the visual information to correspond with the verbal information

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so this apparent incongruence could have confused students who compared the verbal and visual information. Cartoons, on the other hand, often present visual and verbal information that complement each other. Information may need to be related from one frame to another to make inferences. The 1995 Year 3 BST asked students to identify the location where one cartoon character, Manfred, was talking to another illustrated character, Mrs Wagner. Corresponding visual and verbal text showed and stated that ‘a man appeared on the Wagner’s doorstep’ and in the next frame ‘Manfred’ introduces himself and speaks but the latter frame has no background so students must identify Manfred as the same ‘man’ shown in the previous frame (even though he is shown from a different angle) and they must infer that the conversation is taking place on the ‘doorstep’ previously shown. To do this, students need to relate images to each other and verbal text to images to identify the connections. Rosie the Night Fright Monster was a link text in the 1995 BST that appeared in both the Year 3 and Year 5 tests. A question which asked, ‘What is Rosie thinking about in this picture?’ was correctly answered by 69 per cent of Year 3 students and 81 per cent of Year 5 students. The picture showed a thought bubble above Rosie containing a picture of herself and a grandpa in pyjamas, so, even though the answer is stated in the text, many students would have been able to answer the question without needing to refer back to the language of the stimulus because the verbal and visual aspects of the texts corresponded with each other. Another question about this text also relates to visual and verbal aspects that correspond with and support each other. In the text Rosie says, ‘What I need is some brave and scary clothes’ and ‘she rummaged through the dressing up box’. To answer the question, ‘What does Rosie look for?’ from the verbal text would have involved interpreting an unfamiliar word, ‘rummaged’, as meaning ‘look for’ and connecting ‘clothes’ with ‘dressing up’ to obtain the answer, ‘some dress-up clothes’. However, the image supports the text and shows Rosie looking through a box full of dress-up clothes, so students may have just interpreted the picture to obtain the correct answer or alternatively have used the image to help them understand an

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Figure 1 Extract from Rosie the Night-Fright Monster as it appeared in the 1995 BST (text copyright Susan King 1994, illustrations copyright Ulrike Kundrus 1994, Angus & Robertson)

unfamiliar word in the text. It is not possible to determine what strategies were used by the 61 per cent of Year 3 and 70 per cent of Year 5 students who correctly answered this question. There is also a question that related to visual and verbal aspects of the text that complement each other. This question asks students to ‘colour in the thing that has a tiger’s paw’. The text states that one of the scary things that Rosie found was ‘a tiger’s paw’ but it does not state what thing has a tiger’s paw. Students must look at the image next to the words to see a gym boot with a paw print on the sole. Students who correctly answered this question (68 per cent of Year 3 and 80 per cent of Year 5 students) had to make the connection between verbal text and image in the reading stimulus because the drawing shown in the question only shows the top of gym boot and not the paw print. The image alone did not let them know that the paw print is supposed to belong to a tiger (see Figure 1).

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Images and Reading Comprehension in the 2005 Year 3 BST In the 2005 Year 3 BST there were 10 (out of 36) questions about visual aspects of texts in which images provide elaboration, extension or enhancement of the verbal meaning or vice versa. r r r r

Water Animal Records – 5 out of 6 questions The Water Cycle – all of 2 questions Water Safety at the Beach – 1 out of 4 questions Telling the Time Using Water – 2 out of 4 questions

In the first three texts the images mainly provide elaboration of the verbal text with corresponding images. The repetition of information in the main text, caption and images in Water Animal Records made it difficult for test developers to ascertain whether students were using the expected strategies for reading verbal or visual text. For example, students were directed to the last diagram in the text to locate the length of a shark but when interviewed many said that they located the information in the main text. In Telling the Time Using Water , a label on the diagram of the Greek water clock identified processes that could only have been inferred from the diagram alone by students who already understood the concepts. This verbal information complemented the diagram and provided extension of its meaning for most students who were unable to interpret the image without reading the label. In a question asking them to ‘[o]rder these steps to show how a Greek water clock works’, most students stated that they worked out the answer from both the picture and the label with processes, which stated, ‘Water trickles in and raises a float which is attached to a clock hand’.

Images and Reading Comprehension in the 2005 Year 5 BST In the 2005 Year 5 BST there were 14 (out of 46) questions about visual aspects of texts in which images provide elaboration, extension or enhancement of the verbal meaning.

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Mapping Islands – all 5 questions Two Summers – 3 out of 4 questions Water Movement in Plants – 2 out of 5 questions Tobwabba Art Gallery – 2 out of 4 questions Telling the Time Using Water – 2 of 4 questions

The images and text in Mapping Islands and Water Movement in Plants provided elaboration for each other through correspondence, so some questions could be (and were) answered by reference to the image despite the answer being directly stated in the text. For example, in a question asking where the photograph was taken from in Mapping Islands, some students did not use the language of the text (‘taken from the air’, ‘aerial photos’ or ‘bird’s eye view of a place’) but said that it couldn’t be taken from a cliff, or a boat or a jetty because they would be from the side and the picture was taken from above, looking down, so the answer must be a plane. Another example was in a question asking students to order the steps in the experiment part of Water Movement in Plants in which the photos illustrated the written steps (Figure 2). Different interpretations of words also arose in one question about images from Mapping Islands, ‘The shortest way from the jetty to the buildings is . . .’ for which only 56 per cent of Year 5 students had the correct answer. It turned out that some students interpreted ‘shortest’ in terms of ‘time’ rather than ‘distance’ and said that you might get lost if you went through the trees (the shortest distance on the map) and so they chose ‘along the track’ or ‘across coastal flats’, which is perfectly logical, especially when one considers the number of fairy tales about getting lost in the woods and directions in national parks to stay on the track! This could well have been considered a safety issue and one student, who was wheelchair-bound, definitely knew that he would have to take the track. Two Summers and Tobwabba Art Gallery provided verbal and visual information that was complementary: the images in Two Summers extended the meaning of the verbal text and the text in Tobwabba Art Gallery provided extension for understanding the artworks. Most of the questions about these texts successfully targeted the extension of meaning resulting from image–text relations. However, in Tobwabba

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Figure 2 Water Movement in Plants from the 2005 Year 5 BST

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Art Gallery, this meant that only 44 per cent of students were able to correctly answer the question, ‘Which shape shows a fish trap or net?’ because the other students tried to interpret the picture by itself. They did not refer back to the verbal text (or did not understand it) and so they did not know that the text stated that ‘the fish traps and nets’ were ‘shown by the dark areas’ in the painting.

2006 ELLA for Year 7 Students In the 2006 ELLA reading test there were 10 (out of 50) questions about visual aspects of texts in which images provide elaboration, extension or enhancement of the verbal meaning. r r r r r r r

Book Cover – 1 out of 4 questions Dorothy’s Growth Chart – 2 out of 4 questions Josephs Banks Native Plants Reserve – 2 out of 4 questions Siege Warfare – 1 out of 3 questions The Voyage of the First Fleet – 2 out of 4 questions Art from Billabong Surf and Sea – 1 out of 3 questions The Eden Project – 1 out of 3 questions

The images used in Book Cover , Siege Warfare and Art from Billabong, Surf and Sea provided elaboration, with the image illustrating the written text. The one question for the Book Cover text asks students to identify a character from the image, and to answer correctly students needed to refer to both the picture and the written part of the text. This question was answered correctly by 90 per cent of students. Similarly, a high percentage (81 per cent) of students in Year 7 were able to correctly answer the question in Art from Billabong, Surf and Sea which required them to match an image of an artwork in the question with the same image in the stimulus and locate simple factual information about its construction. In Siege Warfare students are asked to identify which pictured fighting method had particular attributes. The question has an implicit direction to refer to the pictures and it could be answered using the images alone. In this instance, however, although the answer is not directly stated in the written text it could be inferred from it without reference to the image, so it is not possible

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to determine what strategy was used by the 63 per cent of students who answered correctly. A more difficult question where an image enhanced the written text is from The Voyage of the First Fleet. In this instance the answer to the question could be found using only the main body of the written text if students had considerable prior geographical knowledge of England; however it is unlikely that this is the case for the 54 per cent of students who answered correctly. It is more probable that the students used (as directed) the visual information in the map and linked information from labelled lines showing stages of a journey with a picture of a directional compass. Dorothy’s Growth Chart and Joseph Banks Native Plants Reserve both contained images which demonstrated expansion – these texts had complementary information in graphs and diagrams that could not be found in the text. In Joseph Banks Native Plants Reserve, 85 per cent of students were able to locate the street entrance to a car park by connecting a caption and a street name on a simple map. The main body of the written text contained some information but it would not be possible to answer the question without reference to the map as it does not make reference to the car park, only to the general location of the Reserve. Many students (83 per cent) were able to answer a similar question from Dorothy’s Growth Chart in which they needed to locate information in a caption directly related to a graph. However, a question requiring students to interpret information from the graph alone, with no supporting written text, was considerably more difficult with only 39 per cent of students being successful in identifying the point at which the graph stopped rising (eight weeks of age) as the time when Dorothy stopped growing. Interestingly, a further 37 per cent of students chose an answer which showed they were able to identify the broadly correct section of the graph (the end of the graph indicating the same mass at ten weeks) but did not have the skills to recognize the point of change and thus correctly interpret the information presented. Two questions in the test which may test visual strategies but could also be answered from the written text are contained in The Eden Project and The Voyage of the First Fleet. These questions require further investigation in order to ascertain which strategies students used to arrive at an answer. The question in The Eden Project, which read, ‘In

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Figure 3 The Voyage of the First Fleet, from the 2006 ELLA which country is Cornwall located?’ referred to an untitled map of the United Kingdom which has London marked and labelled and Cornwall coloured and labelled. However, the first sentence of the written text begins with ‘One of England’s most fascinating tourist attractions . . .’ and the second paragraph reads ‘. . . it is located in the region of Cornwall’. The question could be answered using a combination of prior knowledge (i.e., that London is in England or the United Kingdom) combined with the information on the image, or from a reading of the written text alone. Similarly in The Voyage of the First Fleet, a question asked ‘During which stage did the First Fleet travel for the longest time?’ By using the map, which has the four stages of the journey from England to Australia marked by labelled lines, the line length could be used to infer which stage of the journey was the longest distance. However, a more accurate calculation

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could be made by using dates contained within the body of the text. Preliminary investigation would seem to indicate that some students recognised that scale information is not the same as a time frame, and so they automatically refered to the written text to answer the question. However, an assumption that the fleet travelled at a constant speed would make this question far quicker and easier to answer by using the map alone (see Figure 3).

Discussion The problem of students only looking at pictures and not reading the words has been noted in the USA where, in a study with 60 elementary students (12 in each grade from one to five), it was found that, when looking at images in multimodal texts, only two students out of 60 chose to read any part of the accompanying written text (Watkins et al., 2004, p. 23). However, it is obvious from the BST question about Tobwabba Art Gallery mentioned above that at least 44 per cent of Year 5 students read the verbal text and related it to the image in an assessment context in Australia. From this example, it is obviously important that students be encouraged to read all parts of texts and relate them to each other. The identification and assessment of image–text relations will bring these features of texts to the notice of teachers. It is equally important that test developers be aware of the variety of strategies that students can use to answer questions so that they can create accurate diagnostic assessments. In view of the fact that some students had different ways that they legitimately interpreted some words, it may be just as important for test developers to talk to students and ask them why they chose a different answer as it is for the developers to carry out the current forms of statistical analysis when they trial test items.

Conclusion It is apparent that there is a range of multimodal texts in NSW statewide reading assessments where the images and words relate

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to each other in different ways. Where the texts have images and words that complement each other, as in Tobwabba Art Gallery, it is possible to ask questions that require students to make connections between the verbal and visual modes. However, in texts where image or verbiage correspond with each other and thus provide elaboration, as in Water Movement in Plants, it is difficult to design discrete diagnostic multiple choice questions, because it is not possible to know whether students used the image or the words to identify a correct answer. Similar uncertainty was apparent in a text where images and words appeared to contradict each other as in the Animal Records text or where an image, such as the map in The Voyage of the First Fleet, provided enhancement of place in relation to the words. The solution to such test design problems may be to ask students to justify their answers or to identify the part of a text where they located an answer. A framework outlining the different types of image–text relations would make it easier to identify, teach and assess the skills needed by students to negotiate multimodal texts. A current Australian Research Council ‘Linkage’ project between the NSW DET and the University of New England aims to develop a model of image–text relations which will fulfill this need. The project is also conducting case studies to assess students’ reading strategies in relation to multimodal literacy assessment. The case studies identifying how students interpreted texts will be compared with analysis of the texts in relation to the model of image–text relations. The project could also identify any hierarchy in multimodal reading skills and highlight areas for assessment.

References Drew, David (1992), The Book of Animal Records. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson Australia. Halliday, M A K. (1994), An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd edn). London: Edward Arnold. Henderson, G. (1999), ‘Learning with diagrams’. Australian Science Teachers’ Journal, 45(2), 17–25.

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Kress, G. (2000), ‘Design and transformation: New theories of meaning’, in B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds), Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. Melbourne: Macmillan, pp. 153– 61. Lemke, J. (1998), ‘Metamedia literacy: Transforming meanings and media’, in D. Reinking et al., Handbook of Literacy and Technology: Transformation in a Post-Typographic World. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Martinec, R. and Salway, A. (2005), ‘A system for image-text relations in new (and old) media’. Visual Communication, 4(3), 337–71. Mayer, R. and Anderson, R. (1992), ‘The instructive animation: Helping students build connections between words and pictures in multimedia learning’. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84(4), 444–52. Unsworth, L., Thomas, A. and Bush, R. (2004), ‘The role of images and image-text relations in group ‘basic skills tests’ of literacy for children in the primary school years’. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 27(1), 46–65. Watkins, J., Miller, E. and Brubaker, D. (2004), ‘The role of the visual image: What are students really learning from pictorial representations?’ Journal of Visual Literacy, 24(1), 23–40.

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Chapter 13

Multiliteracies and ‘Basic Skills’ Accountability

Mary Macken-Horarik University of New England

Introduction The term ‘multiliteracies’ has become part of the lexicon of change in school English in Australia. It is an acknowledgement of the diverse modes of communication now swirling in the broader social world and the need to teach for and with these modes in classrooms. Working as they do at the interface with the broader communicative environment, many English teachers have incorporated new modes of communication into their classrooms. Many whose classrooms I visit will begin a Shakespeare unit with Baz Luhrman’s film Romeo and Juliet rather than the print version of the play script, will analyze the appeal of a website as well as the art of characterization in a novel and most will be more familiar with the Homer of The Simpsons than with the Homer of the Odyssey. This semiotic plenitude is also evident in the official curriculum for English in Australia. It is over ten years ago now that ‘Viewing’ became the fifth macroskill, alongside reading, writing, speaking and listening in the national Statement on English for Australian Schools (Curriculum Corporation 1994). And the macroskills themselves are expanding. In the revised English curriculum for New South Wales, for example, ‘writing’ has morphed into ‘composing’ putting graphic representation, film-making, web page creation and dramatic enactments on a par with more

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traditional practices like essay writing (Board of Studies 2002). The same inclusiveness has affected notions of text, with texts now defined as ‘communications of meaning produced in any medium that incorporates language, including sound, print, films, electronic texts and multimedia’ (Board of Studies 2002, p. 16). While meaning is still central to English, legitimate modes for making meaning have proliferated and almost anything can be a text. However, the apparent spaciousness of this curriculum ‘savannah’ is not free. It is striated by hidden regimes of evaluation – the watchful eyes of the state and its stratifying practices. In Australia at the time of writing, teachers have been asked to reduce students’ achievements to a five-point scale from A to E, to produce plain English statements about learning outcomes and to ‘add value’ to their basic literacy competencies. At the same time as they welcome the expanded opportunities of the new curriculum (multiliteracies), teachers have to work within relatively narrow assessment requirements (basic skills). The centrifugal energies of multiliteracies are constrained by the centripetal pull of assessment regimes. In this latter domain, some ways of doing English are more valuable (because more highly valued) than others. In short, there is a tension between the semiotic promise of multiliteracies (‘so many texts, so little time!’) and the sorting and selecting practices of formal assessment (‘how to get an A in English?’). Interestingly, in many Australian states, this polarity is reprised in the examinations themselves. Many of the questions are open ended, accompanied by an array of stimuli (visual, verbal, multimodal) but the answers (students’ written responses) are hierarchically ordered from A to E and assessed on principles often invisible to students themselves. My earlier research into examination questions and responses in school English reveals that an open-ended question such as ‘What do you think of the text?’ or ‘Write in any form you like’ is really code for ‘Produce a literary interpretation’ or ‘Produce a wellformed traditional narrative’ (Macken-Horarik 1996, 2001, 2006). In short, students’ written responses and the grades they attract symbolize the distinctions that operate when multiliteracies are tested. To adapt a biblical adage, ‘many are called but few are chosen’. This interface – between the multimodal question and the monomodal response – is what I want to explore in this chapter. I first

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highlight the distinction between the openness of the test question and accompanying stimuli and the relatively constrained nature of successful responses to this. Then I focus my attention on the linguistic character of one genre that students produce in response to mostly visual stimuli – literate description. Drawing on tools from systemic functional linguistics, I consider three semantic features of successful descriptions produced in Year 3, Year 7 and Year 12 tests. In particular, I draw attention to successful students’ ability to reframe experience through linguistic strategies such as elaboration (restatement), tonic salience (careful use of emphasis) and lexical metaphor (an organizing image or figure which gives coherence to the description). The research on which this paper is based has revealed a significant level of co-occurrence of these linguistic choices such that the appearance of the one often implies the appearance of the other. These clusters of semantic features appear to be what Hasan calls ‘formative motifs’ (Hasan 2004). They are ‘related to each other by a logic that underlies their configurative rapport’ (Hasan 2004, p. 173). In this chapter, I propose that composing a literate description requires access to and control of motifs such as elaboration, tonic salience and lexical metaphor. These choices typify the successful descriptions of children in Year 3 and become fully fledged in the high range responses of students in senior years in English. The chapter proposes that it is control of literate multimodality that qualifies student authors for an A in formal assessments – the quality of their writing not the quality of their visual perceptiveness. The chapter concludes with some reflections on the implications of my analysis for multiliteracies education in an era of basic skills accountability – the need to equip students not only with tools for ‘reading’ multimodal texts but with a rhetoric that enables them to compose successful responses to these.

Two Kinds of ‘Gaze’ in English In one of his last works, Basil Bernstein (1999) outlined a framework for thinking about the production of knowledge in ‘vertical discourses’ – the discourses students go to school and to university to master. He distinguished between hierarchical knowledge structures

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like physics and horizontal knowledge structures like Cultural Studies which he argued consist of ‘an array of languages’ which are acquired implicitly, through the adoption over time of a particular kind of perspective or ‘gaze’. The experience of school English enables learners to tacitly acquire a ‘gaze’ by which they can ‘recognize, regard, realise and evaluate legitimately the phenomena of concern’ (Bernstein 1999, p. 170). This notion can be productively applied to English, especially in its current moment of proliferating texts and multiple literacies. In contemporary examinations, senior students of English are presented with stimulus material such as that in Figure 1, presented in the 2004 trial Higher School Certificate (HSC) and produced by the Catholic Education Office. The photograph was paired with the question ‘What kind of journey is represented and how?’ The picture shows people trekking up a steep ice surface. The stimulus picture and the question occur early in the paper and are only worth 3 marks. But it presents an immediate problem for many students, especially those who have a sense of what may be required but are unable to produce it. The response cannot be as simple as: ‘This is a picture of a journey up a steep ice mountain’. In this context, the most terrifying cavern is not the one in the picture but the one between the open question and its accompanying stimulus and the right kind of response. Many students would recognize that the photograph needs a symbolic interpretation in this context, as a representation of the human struggle with physical and emotional adversity on a challenging journey. But as Bernstein showed, ‘recognizing’ what is required is only the first step in accessing school learning. The second step is the rhetorical one he called ‘realization’ – knowing how to produce the right behaviour, including the right kinds of texts once you have recognized what is required (Bernstein 1990). Being able to generate a valued response to any kind of text requires access to particular rhetorical competences; these are crucial if students are to ‘realize’ their reading of any text in a way that examiners value (see Macken-Horarik 2006, for extended discussion of this point in relation to narratives). The open question paired with a visual stimulus represents one kind of examination challenge. But there is also now the challenge of interrelating seemingly unlike texts through a controlling abstraction.

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Figure 1 Stimulus image from Trial Higher School Certificate examination

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In the 2001 Higher School Certificate examination, students were presented with a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, a maiden speech by Australia’s youngest elected politician, Natasha Stott Despoja, and an excerpt from Anna’s Story by Bronwyn Donaghy (1996). They were asked to show how the three texts demonstrated ‘connections between youth and change’ (Board of Studies 2001). Connecting the texts on the basis of themes like ‘youth’ and ‘age’ gives students an abstract principle, a kind of intertextual ‘through line’, for their interpretation of multiliteracies. Of course, the particular semiotic distinctiveness of the individual texts gets lost in generalities in this kind of task. The implications for the study of multimodality in English need careful consideration. In the second task of the 2001 examination, students were asked to produce a piece of creative writing for the school magazine. The third task was even more complex. It presented an image of a water surface corrugated with ripples and the following aphorism, ‘As stones thrown into ponds make ripples . . . all changes have CONSEQUENCES’. The question underneath this read: ‘How has your understanding of the consequences of change been shaped by the techniques used by various composers? In your answer, you should refer to your prescribed text, one text from the stimulus booklet, Changing, and other related texts of your own choosing’. This task represents an apt example of the dispersed gaze, requiring the students to range across at least four texts, using the abstraction, ‘the consequences of change’, to create connections between these texts. At least two of the ‘texts’ presented in the stimulus booklet are complex visual images, clearly in dialogue with one another. Figure 2 is text 2a from this student booklet – a reproduction of an oil painting called ‘The Conciliation’ by Benjamin Duterrau. The painting is a nineteenth-century representation of an interaction between a powerful British official, George Robinson and local Tasmanian Aboriginals. However, there is no indication in the booklet of historical details about this time other than the date, 1840. The painting is an open text, amenable to a range of interpretations by students. Figure 3 is a reproduction of a photograph called The National Picture by Geoff Parr.

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Figure 2 First image from the 2001 Stimulus Booklet for HSC examination Geoff Parr’s artwork builds and comments on the internal architecture of the nineteenth-century painting. However, the reasoning behind the innovations is not available. As Parr himself acknowledges, ‘visual imagery is more open-ended than the written or spoken word. Mostly it leaves the viewer (reader) with considerable scope to develop their own interpretation’ (Parr 2000, p. 1). Students too are left to supply their own interpretation of these images and the ways in which the second innovates on the first. The same dilemma facing examinees as they gaze at the photograph of people climbing a cliff face reappears here, albeit with greater demands on their interpretative powers due to the fact that the images are multiple and have to be related to other texts about ‘the journey’. School English at this level is dominated by a horizontal knowledge structure – an array of texts and interpretative practices, any of which may be preferred by examiners. Students are faced with the questions: What does this context ask of me and how do I respond?

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Figure 3 Second image from the 2001 Stimulus Booklet for HSC examination Once multiliteracies are examined, certain ways of reading and viewing become more salient (because more valued) than others. While some students were clearly stymied by the task in 2001, ‘ignoring the images altogether’, others used them ‘as an organizing motif in their essay’ (Board of Studies 2002, p. 8). However, examiners clearly know what they like when they find it. Their comments to the Board of Studies make clear what is salient in successful responses: an ability to produce ‘a synthesised response’, a ‘strong line of argument about change and its consequences’ and an ability to ‘sustain a thesis throughout the answer with judicious reference to various texts and to ‘integrate material on various texts’ (Board of Studies 2002, p. 8). These remarks reveal a different set of literate priorities from the possibilities of the open-ended question and the stimulus texts. The task required development of a thesis in writing, textual integration, a synthesizing gaze. Here in the examiners’ comments is the shadow side of examination multimodality. Getting lost in the sensuous particulars of an

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image or in the contrast between a nineteenth-century painting of an exchange between white colonial invaders and Tasmanian Aborigines and a photographic commentary on this over a hundred years later is likely to be a waste of precious time as far as students are concerned. ‘What is required in this examination is not careful attention to the details of visual communication within and between each image (they surely need to be considered together) but ‘judicious reference’ to this and three other texts in the course of a sustained thesis about change’ (Board of Studies 2002, p. 8). In short, the specifics have to serve the abstraction as students produce an argument about commonalities between the texts (how they embody meanings of change). Even the dispersed gaze needs to be selective, in the words of the examiners, to create ‘philosophical’ rather than ‘physical’ connections between texts. No wonder so many of the students have little time to read prescribed texts all the way through and tend to rely on the commentaries. They have to seek breadth rather than depth in their interpretations of multiple texts. Australia’s foremost interpreter of Shakespeare’s plays, John Bell, may be right when he says that high school students are encouraged to analyze Shakespeare from a Marxist or feminist perspective without having read or seen any of his plays (The Australian 8/5/06). So many texts, so little time! Of course, the rhetorical competences valued in formal assessment are often invisible, even to those best able to produce them. Some students seem to be ‘good at English’ without knowing what it is that produces their success. Using Bernstein’s terminology, they appear to ‘recognize’ the nature of the context they are in and to ‘realize’ its requirements so effortlessly. But what kind of context are examinees in when they are asked a seemingly open question about a set of texts? How do they respond? What will ‘work’ with examiners? These tasks cannot be reduced to a matter of basic skills; the challenges need to be theorized in both social and semiotic terms. Drawing on Bernstein’s notion of the ‘gaze’, we can now outline the challenge of multiliteracies along two dimensions. First there is the challenge of the dispersed gaze across the diverse texts on offer now in school English (and the task of interrelating these). This gaze moves across the curriculum landscape, along a horizontal dimension, moving from the semiotic possibilities of multiliteracies to the

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The intensive gaze: focussed, constrained

written responses

The dispersed gaze: proliferating options for making meaning...............

Figure 4 Horizontal and vertical dimensions of multiliteracies in senior English

semiotic codes which give value to these via notions like ‘curriculum standards’ or ‘benchmarks’. Then there is the challenge of the intensive gaze which becomes pressing in contexts of formal assessment. Here, while students may face an open question and a variety of stimulus text(s), the semiotic task is to integrate their impressions in a single response text, to synthesize through writing. The intensive gaze becomes increasingly important in the senior years of English and reveals the rhetorical competences of students and the value these are given by teacher/examiners. The rich intertextualities of the horizontal dimension of multiliteracies intersects – some might argue, conflicts – with the intratextual challenge of the response text which students must produce. Figure 4 represents the intersection of semiotic possibilities now associated with multiliteracies curriculum and examination questions with the relatively constrained and focussed nature of written responses required in examination answers. The pinnacle of

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achievement demands an intensive gaze – the ability to integrate diverse impressions of many texts in one act of textual synthesis. The conditions for entry to success – an A range response – are textual in English and this is as true for multiliteracies as it is for the traditional study of the novel. Bernstein worked with a capacious definition of text as ‘anything that attracts evaluation’. In the examination rooms that spring up across NSW and other states and territories in late spring each year, students’ texts bloom like flowers for inquisitorial teacher examiners. All texts attract evaluation whether they like it or not and here the environment alters too. Whatever the stimulus texts on offer, however open the question or general the umbrella term – ‘journey’, ‘change’ or some variant – it is the response that matters here. We move here from the diffuse gaze across the open savannah with its multiple intertexts to the concentrated gaze required for integration – the ‘cave’ of high status literacy practices. But just what are the semantic features of texts produced by the intensive gaze? In the next section, I focus on creative responses to multimodal texts in Year 3, Year 7 and Year 12 examinations (see Christie and Humphrey, this volume for analysis and discussion of interpretative responses to ‘the journey’).

Literate Description In 1998, Year 3 students were asked to write a description for the Basic Skills Test in NSW (NSW Department of Education and Training 1998). The task was simple enough. They had to read a model text and then to look at a drawing of William Wild Thing and describe ‘what he looks like’. Figure 5 displays the picture of the creature and the accompanying instructions for students. As the figure shows, children were instructed to write in sentences, to pay attention to spelling and punctuation and to make sure that their writing was only about describing William Wild Thing. This captures the move from reading of the visual to producing of a written response that is at the heart of our dilemma in multiliteracies education. Text 1 was given a high grade on all criteria on which it was marked:

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Figure 5 William Wild Thing Text 1 William is a large monster with sharp claws. He can scare anything that is in his way because he has those huge horns on the back of his head and those scaley powerful legs can do quite a lot of damage.

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William has an extra hairy chest. He has a wavy dark tail. No one can look him in the eye without there knees wobbling. He weighs at least 10 metric tonnes. His muscles are so big and strong and solid as a rock. The best thing, the only thing to do if he is in your town is run!

This student has stayed within the bounds of the task – identifying particular details of the monster’s appearance – sharp claws, huge horns, scaley powerful legs, an extra hairy chest. But, there’s more to this description than a list of his physical attributes; the student has also rendered its impact on human observers. William Wild Thing’s scaley powerful legs can do ‘quite a lot of damage’. In fact, ‘no one can look him in the eye without their knees wobbling’. In the final sentence, the writer catches up all the preceding details in a dramatic exclamative: ‘The best thing, the only thing to do if he is in your town is run!’ There are several clever things about this summative sentence. Probably most striking for a child this young is the use of elaboration. Elaboration is a way of expanding a message through restatement and this can occur in different ways. Unlike other forms of expansion which introduce new elements into the picture, elaboration as Halliday defines it, ‘provides a further characterization of one that is already there, restating it, clarifying it, refining it, or adding a descriptive attribute or comment’ (Halliday 1994, p. 225). Here the writer reformulates the nature of the challenge from ‘the best’ to ‘the only thing to do’. However, there is another clever thing at work here, in the child’s exploitation of information structure to create emphasis. Information, as Halliday describes it, is ‘the tension between what is already known or predictable and what is new or unpredictable – the interplay between new and not-new’ (Halliday 1994, p. 296). In typical cases, the New comes after the Given and is marked by prominence – a fall or rise or change in pitch in the intonation contour of a message. The element having this prominence is the tonic. In the final sentence, the tonic falls first on the contrastive ‘only’ and then on the dramatic ‘run’ at the end. It is clear that we are in the presence of an already literate intelligence here – one that is alive to the need for rhetorical emphasis through elaboration and control of emphasis within information structure.

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Figure 6 Two people

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Let us look now at a literate description produced by an older student. In 1997, Year 7 students in NSW were also asked to write a description, this time for the English Language and Literacy Assessment (ELLA) test. Students were presented with a model description of a character, Mr Marsden, and then with drawings of two people. Although the images for Year 7 do not have the colour or ‘cuteness’ of the Year 3 visual, they nevertheless present students with the challenge of translating from multimodal stimulus to monomodal (linguistic) response. In fact, the task is one of internalizing visual details, imagining you have ‘just met one of these two people’ and then producing a verbal texts that ‘gives the reader a picture of ONE of them even if they could not see the drawing’. Text 2 was highly rated by examiners: Text 2 Mrs Peacock might have been beautiful had she not those thin pinched lips that frowned at everybody and everything. Her ears hung slitly after years of wearing heavy dangling earings. Her nose was thin and long and looked as though it was made of playdough and her high eyebrows were so thin they were almost one thin line. There was one truly beautiful thing about her though. Her eyes. They were a stunning shade of blue and almost made up for her other features which frowned at the world.

Like the earlier description, this text provides a lucid picture of the character the student calls Mrs Peacock. The student also creates a unified impression of the character – not ‘power’ this time but ‘marred beauty’. While details of this woman’s appearance are noted – her ‘thin pinched lips’, ‘ears that hung slitly after years of heavy dangling earings’, ‘a long thin nose like playdough and high thin

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eyebrows’ – it is the drive towards characterization which is impressive. Characterization requires that we bring the physical into relationship with the psychological. We see early signs of this here with the integration of two contrary impressions in the one description – a negative disposition lightened only by beautiful blue eyes. This response text shares with the previous one features such as the use of elaboration to read character in the body, in this case the face. We can see this at work in relative clauses such as ‘those thin pinched lips that frowned at everybody and everything’ and in ‘her other features which frowned at the world’ . Most rhetorically powerful, however, is the elaboration in the following clauses: ‘There was one truly beautiful thing about her though. Her eyes. They were a stunning shade of blue’. The move in these later sentences is a distilling one, pinpointing the precise significance of the general observation through further specification and through the salience of the New. Good writers aren’t tyrannized by details even when they are invited to describe particulars. Using elaboration and information structure, they can move between the specific and the general – reframing experience for the reader, giving physical details significance. These linguistic strategies are vital to the intensive gaze of literate multimodality. Literate description is important in the senior years too. In the 2004 Higher School Certificate, Year 12 students were asked to produce a piece of imaginative writing for a CD-ROM entitled The Journey. The following excerpt is the first paragraph of a much longer recount of a Journey across Landscapes. It was published by the NSW Board of Studies (2004, pp. 42–7) as an example of a high-range response. This extract describes the nursing home where the writer’s grandmother lived out the last of her days: Text 3 In her last years my grandmother spent much of her time in an armchair by the window of her room. The nursing home in which I visited her lay amidst a basin of green lawn and tidy herbaceous borders, but it was at the towering blue gums that my grandmother stared, quiet and still. The constant dull murmur of reassurance, tantrums, tears and

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bedpans eddied around her frail form, but she found resistance in those trees, swaying leaves and dappled trunks in blue and purple and gold. They took her back, I think, to her real place, in the fields and dirt tracks of Tarren, country NSW.

Once again, there is a familiar unity of impression in this opening description – a sense of the goal-directedness of this orientation. It could be seen as a semiotic progression from the earlier description of Mrs Peacock, especially in its ability to integrate opposing impressions. Here unity is created through a sustained contrast between the domestic particulars of the nursing home surrounding the old woman and the ‘towering blue gums’ at which she stares. In fact, the student’s exploration of this contrast gives her access to a distinctive linguistic feature for creating emphasis – the ‘It + be + . . . .’ structure which Halliday refers to as Theme predication (Halliday 1994, p. 58). This occurs in this text in the clause, ‘but it was at the towering blue gums that my grandmother stared, quiet and still’. Halliday points out that this cleft structure enables us to map New onto Theme thus giving special emphasis to the highlighted element, in this case, ‘at the towering blue gums’. ‘The predicated Theme structure is frequently associated with an explicit formulation of contrast’ (Halliday 1994, p. 60). Here we are left in no doubt about the importance of the gum trees to the old woman and this provides a powerful semantic orientation to the remaining text – a recount about the young woman’s journey to take her grandmother’s ashes back to her country in Tarren, NSW. The author of this piece also uses elaboration to render experience vivid, as with the earlier descriptions, to move from the general to the specific. Note the specification of the sensuous particulars of the gum trees, ‘swaying leaves and dappled trunks in blue and purple and gold’. Distilling the symbolic power of these gum trees is important because it is these that give her grandmother ‘resistance’ to the humdrum alienation of nursing home life. Beyond use of information structure and elaboration to reframe experience, however, we need to consider the adroit way the student uses lexical metaphor – a resource that is just as important as

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grammatical metaphor if students are to create a multimodal image in the mind of the reader. Both of the writers we looked at earlier use figurative language but theirs is fairly obvious. The Year 3 child compares William Wild Thing’s muscles to the solidity of a rock and the Year 7 student uses a similar strategy to image Mrs Peacock’s nose – like playdough. In these two tests, students were asked to use figurative language and the simile predominates. However, the Year 7 description does contain a more sophisticated development in rendering experience. We can see it in the elaborating, ‘features, which frowned at the world’ which captures the collective influence of Mrs Peacock’s facial features. The Year 12 student goes beyond this into a more sustained use of lexical metaphor – metaphor carried particularly by the verbs in the clause. The writer lists the things and processes typical of the nursing home – murmurs, tears, tantrums, bedpans – and then chooses the word, ‘eddy’, to suggest their movement around the ‘frail form’ of the old woman. We can almost see her body encircled by the domestic trivia of the nursing home as she gazes out the window. In the next sentence, the psychological gaze of the old woman is now rendered by the combined verbal and nominal metaphor in, ‘She found resistance in those trees’. The trees then take on a firmer agency as they metaphorically ‘take her back to her real place, in the fields and dirt tracks of Tarren, country NSW’. What is going on here? Surely the student is exploiting linguistic resources of Theme predication, elaboration and extended lexical metaphor to create a picture of the old woman’s world and to orient us to her deeper preoccupations with the land and which impel her granddaughter to make the journey home with her ashes. These resources are all at work in a later paragraph of the recount at a point in the journey where the student/writer observes the change in the landscape from rolling fields into state forest. She highlights the import of the contrasts in a series of balanced sentence fragments in the next excerpt, referred to as text 4: Text 4 I had moved from the rolling fields into state forest, imposing and beginning to buzz with late afternoon cicadas. The lickering of golden light through

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the trees painted the forest floor with gold, pinpointed by charred remains of broken trees. Light and shadow. Sight and blackness. Louds and softs. The dynamics of this landscape so intimately connected with my own.

The examiners’ comments make much of the ‘well crafted variation in sentence structure in light and shadow. Sight and blackness. Louds and softs’ (Board of Studies 2004, p. 48). However it is not just the fact of variation but the effect of this that we need to focus on – the distillation of natural contrasts, the abstracting away from the particulars of experience. The linguistic resources of elaboration and lexical metaphor allow the writer to create an experiential world for the reader in which the forest ‘buzzes with late afternoon cicadas’ and light ‘paints’ the forest floor. While in the earlier paragraph, the student used elaboration to move from the general to the specific, here the spans go the other way – from the specifics of light through the trees to the more general ‘light and shadow’. We are lifted via the verbal text to a meta-view of forest contrasts and what it means for the journey. The effect is an inner picture of the psycho-physical experience of two characters – a multimodality of the mind, mediated via writing. It is important to consider the kinds of linguistic choices which are salient in successful responses to multimodal texts because it is these which give school English its ‘verticality’.

Choice and Salience In asking children to make sure that ‘your’ writing is only about describing William Wild Thing, the examiners were imposing a requirement of textual unity on students. Other requirements are more hidden, something we can only discern if we consider the semantic patterns common across successful texts. Ruquaiya Hasan has identified clusters of semantic features which she calls ‘formative motifs’ in the interactions of children and caregivers (Hasan 2004). These features appear to be class-regulated. A

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preference for linguistic choices like ‘prefacing’ and ‘message relation’ mark the hidden grammar of middle class family talk, making such children’s transition to school literacy much easier. Certain regions of the systemic potential of English are available to them through what Hasan calls ‘invisible semiotic mediation’. What is ‘emic’, or meaningful for some children is not for others, not because they cannot take up these choices or because they are not potentially available in the system of English, but because they are not made available in interactive talk with caregivers, and later, with teachers. Hasan argues that we need to consider not the local meaning of features like prefacing (the fact that questions such as ‘Did you know?’, ‘Do you think?’ and ‘Do you remember ” are all mental process clauses, for example) but rather what is implied by their use as a preface. Consistent use of prefacing in our talk implies an awareness that ‘I do not presume to know what is in your head’. This is where the notion of choice as ‘formative motifs’ can be applied to our study of children’s writing. We can look at what is presupposed by consistent patterns of meaning in successful descriptions, for example, and identify the semiotic codes rewarded in school English. The implications of thinking about choice in terms of semantic motifs are quite profound. It means that some forms of semiosis are not actually available to some children even if they are potentially available in the system considered in an abstract way. Some children can access and display highly valued semantic motifs right through the years of school English and teacher-examiners continue to reward them, even if they do not know what they are responding to in their texts. Understanding the nature of what they are rewarding is a crucial task for any educational linguistics, perhaps especially in an era where teachers may be tempted to think that the basics of high achievement really are self-evident (or basic). This brings me to the second notion of salience. I have already noted the way in which students exploit the potential of Theme and New to highlight some elements in a sentence as significant. What is stressed within the tone group becomes salient. The salient element is the peak of news – what the listener is invited to attend to. Salience is a key principle in the semiotic organization of other modes. In images, we make something stand out through heightened colour,

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light, shade, placement in the foreground or contrast of some kind (see Kress and van Leeuwen 1996, p. 183 for discussion of salience in visual communication). Understanding salience is crucial to effective communication because it guides the attention, directs the gaze to what is more and less important. What is salient in school English is not obvious and this is a matter of increasing stress (the psychological not the semiotic kind) for students when they face the open question (What kind of journey is represented and how?) and the array of seemingly different intertexts (How do four of these texts represent the concept of the journey or the concept of youth and change?). What to attend and disattend to in these texts? How do I construe significance? The only way to highlight the salient features of success in English is to attend closely to the semantic motifs appearing in successful semiosis. This is where SF theory is so helpful. It provides us with a metalanguage (what Halliday calls a ‘grammatics’) that both mimics and stands above semiosis. I have written elsewhere about the importance of a knowledge about language based on students’ ‘know how’ (see Macken-Horarik 2006). In tracking achievement, the metalanguage should remain ‘permeable’ at all points to the phenomenon it is theorizing. As Halliday explains this, SF grammatics ‘retains a mimetic character: it explains the grammar by mimicking its crucial properties” (Halliday 2002, p. 397). What kinds of choices become salient in our successful descriptions and what does this imply for a study of the formative motifs relevant to the code of school English? Let’s return briefly to the semantic features that appeared to dominate in the descriptions by our Year 3, Year 7 and Year 12 students.

Salient Choices in Successful Descriptions What is implied by this preference for elaboration, for lexical metaphor, the tendency to exploit information structure to get the emphasis right? What do these co-occurring semantic motifs tell us about students who use them? One implication we can draw is that

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they all share a commitment to making experience significant, to reframing experience. The semantic features of successful descriptions include the following: 1. Highly valued descriptions leave an impression of unity. They create a coherent sense of ‘the take’, the impact and the gestalt through the text. They stay on the path, stay within the bounds of the task, accept the explicit and the implicit injunctions in the task. 2. While the texts are clearly dynamic in their unfolding, there is a rhetorical goal-directedness about them, realized often in summative statements such as ‘The best thing, the only thing to do if he is in your town is run!’ or ‘They almost made up for her other features which frowned at the world’. One key linguistic resource here is tonic salience which emphasizes the point of the written excursion. 3. A-range descriptions render experience both concretely and abstractly. Concrete particulars such as a creature’s body, a character’s face, an old woman in a nursing home are reframed, sifted, through the mesh of symbolic abstraction. William Wild Thing’s physical attributes are related to his power to frighten; Mrs Peacock’s face is an emanation of her negative disposition; Grandmother’s staring at the blue gums is her way of going home to Tarren. Key linguistic resources here are elaboration and metaphor – particularly lexical metaphor. These formative motifs provide us with a long view of what is salient in the descriptive and indeed in interpretative writing through the years. Successful linguistic responses to these visual texts create a multimodal world for a reader through language. They create a field of experience for the reader which moves between concrete and abstract phenomena. They position the reader to evaluate character or to empathize with an old woman’s longing for home. And the mode of semiosis, beyond the banal generalization that it is all writing, is one of literate multimodality.

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Implications for a Robust Multiliteracies in English The excursion has taken us to the horizon of multiliteracies and back again to a close study of the linguistic choices of individual texts – descriptions produced by students at Year 3, Year 7 and Year 12 in school English. What does it mean for English? Presented with an open question or an array of texts to respond to, the first challenge is one of contextualization – for the student, the question, ‘What kind of context am I in?’ (a matter for Bernstein of ‘recognition rules’). However, in the stratifying practices of evaluation, codes winnow choices, make some salient (emic) and others unimportant (etic). For the student, the second challenge is one of ‘How do I respond?’ Here, we consider what Bernstein called ‘realization rules’ – tacit rules regulating students’ performance in a context – including the kinds of text they produce. This is a far cry from the politicians’ notion of basic skills (though it incorporates these). It is a semiotically informed awareness of the formative motifs at work in successful (and indeed in unsuccessful) responses – the achievements of the intensive gaze. These are the choices which are often most difficult to bring to consciousness and definitely become less visible in an era where ‘basic skills’ are once again on the agenda. Many of the texts students encounter in school English and which they have to respond to in examinations are multimodal. They work their communicative magic through verbal plus other modes. Attending closely to the semiotic strategies by which they work is core business in English. Once we move into examination English, however, the context changes. Students encounter not only multimodal texts to read and view and sometimes multimodal response tasks but in the case of the current HSC, multiple texts yoked together by some abstraction like ‘change’ or ‘the journey’ and an essay question like those we looked at earlier. It is at this point that students need to interpret the menu of possible texts and possible readings as a demand that they reframe significance monomodally. What does this mean for both the dispersed and the intensive gaze? The task facing students and their teachers in the current climate is an onerous one. They need to be able to:

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1. recognize disjunctions which operate currently between multimodal stimuli and monomodal response genres and, more generally, between the menu of textual options in the curriculum and the hierarchies of current assessment practices (how open choices give way to a relatively narrow code); 2. construe commonalities between seemingly unlike texts by using abstractions to synthesize interpretations in well-written interpretive essays; 3. reframe experience in creative writing through literate multimodality. In the semiotic economy that marks the current exchange situation in English, students are exposed to multimodal texts but they need to interpret them in writing. The texts that win approval have a distinctive quality, which our semiotics (or grammatics) can help us see more clearly. Whenever we look closely at texts with an eye to what they have in common, what semantic features the high or the low achievement texts display, we are moving closer to the centre. We are moving away from diversity into distinction – from the open savannah to the place where the kill is divided up. In terms of English this is not quite the realm of literacy standards (read basic skills) but it is the centripetal ground of Bernstein’s ‘recognition’ and ‘realization rules’. For students this is the ability to recognize a set of stimulus texts and an open question as an opportunity to realize or display control of literate textuality. Successful written descriptions are marked by a preference for elaboration and for spans between the general and the specific, Theme predication and clever use of New, summative look-back statements which catch up previous impressions in a telling abstraction and the extended use of lexical metaphor. The linguistic resources of this intensive gaze need to be taught as well as the dispersed gaze at the visual and multimodal texts that dot the horizon. The context is rich and varied but stratified socially as well as textually and we don’t want to cede the territory, and the terms of the debate, to politicians whose gaze does not extend much further than their own noses. The point is to enable the democratic cultivation of both kinds of gaze.

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References Bernstein, B. (1990), The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse: Class, Codes and Control (vol. 4). London and New York: Cassell. Bernstein, B. (1999), ‘Vertical and horizontal discourse: An essay’. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20(2), 157–73. Board of Studies (2001), English, Paper 1: Area of Study. Sydney: Board of Studies, NSW. Board of Studies, NSW (2002), English Years 7–10. NSW. Board of Studies NSW (2004), English, Paper 1: Area of Study. NSW. Board of Studies NSW (2004), English, Paper 1: Area of Study, Student Answers. pp. 42–7. Curriculum Corporation (1994), English: A Statement on English for Australian Schools. Carlton, Victoria: Curriculum Corporation. Donaghy, B. (1996), Anna’s Story. Sydney: Harper Collins. Halliday, M. A. K. (1978), Language as Social Semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994), An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd edn). Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. (2002), ‘On grammar and grammatics’, in J. Webster (ed.), On Grammar. Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday (vol. 1). London: Continuum. Hasan, R. (2004), ‘The world in words’, in G. Williams and A. Lukin (eds), The Development of Language: Functional Perspectives on Species and Individuals. London: Continuum, pp. 158–81. Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996), Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. Macken-Horarik, M. (1996), ‘Construing the invisible: Specialized literacy practices in junior secondary English’. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Sydney. Macken-Horarik, M. (2001), ‘The problem of English in the middle years: A focus on metalinguistic awareness and responses to narrative’, Australian Curriculum Studies Association Conference Proceedings from ACSA Conference in Canberra, ACT, 2001. Macken-Horarik, M. (2006), ‘Knowledge through ‘know-how’: Systemic Functional Grammatics and the symbolic reading’. English

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Teaching: Practice and Critique, 5(1), 102–21. http://education. waikato.ac.nz/research/files/etpc/2006v5n1art6.pdf NSW Department of Education and Training (1998), Year 3 Writing Assessment: Annotated Responses. Parr, G. (2000), The National Picture, 1985.A short website essay accompanying permission to reproduce the artwork.

Acknowledgements and Permissions Figure 1 is reprinted with permission from the Catholic Secondary Schools Association of New South Wales. It was prepared by the Association for the 2004 Trial Higher School Certificate Examination in English (Standard) and English (Advanced), Paper 1: Area of Study. Reprinted with permission. Figure 2 is reprinted with permission from Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. It was included in the Stimulus Booklet for the 2001 Higher School Certificate in English. Figure 3 is reprinted with permission from the artist, Geoff Parr. It was included in the Stimulus Booklet for the 2001 Higher School Certificate in English. Figure 5 is from “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak, published by Bodley Head. It is reprinted with permission of the Random House Group Ltd. Figure 6 is from the 1997 English Language and Literacy Assessment [ELLA] Writing Assessment: Annotated Responses. The image is owned by the NSW Department of Education and Training and is reprinted with permission. Texts 1 and 2 are from samples of responses made available by the NSW Department of Education and Training (Learning and Development Division). Permission to reproduce these is gratefully acknowledged. Texts 3 and 4 are reproduced from samples of responses published by the Board of Studies NSW (2004). Permission to reproduce these is gratefully acknowledged.

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Chapter 14

Secondary School English, Literacy Examinations and Attitude: Utilizing Appraisal to Interpret Values in Image/Text Relations

David Baxter and Andrew Simpson University of New England

Introduction Research into secondary school literacy examinations over the past decade has shown that specific types of responses are more highly valued by examiners than others (e.g., Rothery 1993; Rothery & Stenglin 2000). In particular, responses that demonstrate an analysis of the interpersonal meanings constructed by authors in stimulus texts are likely to receive high grades (Macken-Horarik 2006). Such responses, however, don’t just analyze the relationships between participants in texts. As Macken-Horarik (2003, pp. 293–4) points out, successful responses also tune in to the value orientation or ‘evaluative stance’ established by the text through reader/writer relationships. Evaluative stance refers to the speaker’s/writer’s attitude or stance towards people and phenomena and is realized in texts through evaluative language (Thompson & Hunston 2000). According to White (2001) evaluative language is the meaning-making resource used to implicitly align readers with certain ideological positions and to adopt particular values. Successful examination responses address these interpersonal meanings through particular kinds of evaluative

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language. According to Rothery & Stenglin (2000) and MackenHorarik (2003), the Appraisal System (Martin 2000; Martin & Rose 2003) provides the tools to construct such responses as it highlights the ways in which language is used to implicitly align readers. Appraisal (Martin 2000; Martin & Rose 2003) is a system underpinned by Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) theory, which recognizes that language is a linguistic system from which choices are made to simultaneously realize ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings (Halliday 1985). The Appraisal model is a framework that categorizes language choices made in texts as resources for constructing interpersonal meanings, however it also captures the relationship between these and the ideational/textual meanings simultaneously realized in texts (Hood 2004). The three subsystems of Appraisal are Attitude, Engagement and Graduation. Attitude refers to language that speakers and writers use to express Affect or feelings, Judgements of people/behaviour and Appreciation of phenomena. Engagement refers to the language which speakers/writers use to adjust and negotiate the arguability of their propositions and proposals. Graduation refers to language used to graduate (raise or lower) the interpersonal impact, force or volume of expressions (White 2001). These expressions position readers to feel and think in certain ways. This chapter will focus on the resources of Attitude only. The Attitude framework (see Table 1 below) within the Appraisal system provides a systematic resource for analyzing expressions of evaluative language in texts. An Attitude analysis can help students to answer examination questions that require them to interpret underlying themes in texts and the particular social values being promoted by the author (Rothery & Stenglin 2000). In these contexts, values can be considered to be those principles of what is deemed good/worthwhile that guide standards of behaviour (Halstead & Taylor 2000). The Australian Commonwealth Government (DEST 2005) has identified a framework of nine values as a guide for values education in schools. These are: ‘care and compassion’; ‘a fair go’; ‘honesty and trustworthiness’; ‘integrity’; ‘respect’; ‘responsibility’; ‘understanding, tolerance and inclusion’; ‘doing your best’; ‘freedom’. This paper adopts this values framework to guide Attitude analyses of values in texts.

‘She bravely tackled the robber’ ‘He ran with his tail between his legs’

Cruel: Kind:

‘She slapped her for the sake of it’ ‘He shared his last food with them’

Boring: ‘An uneventful evening . . .’ Captivating: ‘A riveting exhibition . . .’ Composition Simple: ‘It is plain and easy to use’ Complex: ‘It was a difficult plot to follow’ Valuation Significant: ‘The research shed light on the issue’ Trivial: ‘That is an insignificant market stall’ Expressions of Affect, Judgement and Appreciation can be either: • positive or negative • inscribed (direct and explicit authorial intention) or • evoked (inferred as a likelihood in readers’ interpretation) Lexical items and images can often be double or triple coded with these three types of expressions.

Appreciation (Valuations of phenomena)

Reaction

Brave: Cowardly:

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‘She felt happy’ ‘He sobbed for hours’ ‘She looked relaxed’ ‘His heart pounded’ ‘She snuggled up to Mum’ ‘His rage was evident’

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Joy: Grief: Calm: Worry: Peace: Anger:

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Table 1 Attitude framework

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According to Hood (2004), research using aspects of Appraisal has been conducted over the past decade to examine the evaluative language of schools, workplaces and other social contexts. Studies have explored the discourses of administration, the media, spoken language, children’s language and casual conversations and Humphrey (2006) is currently examining the discourse of adolescent social/political activism. In education, the discourses of History, Science and English have been examined. In school English studies, Rothery & Stenglin’s (2000) and Macken-Horarik’s (2003) research have utilized Appraisal to analyse the values implicit in narrative and interpretive response texts in secondary school examination contexts. As Droga & Humphrey (2003) point out, Attitude is also used in persuasive texts to influence readers’/listeners’ opinions about people and issues. Hood’s (2004) recent work examined the discourse of persuasive texts in academic writing. This chapter aims to build on understandings developed in these studies by utilizing Attitude analysis to compare the values promoted in narrative and persuasive texts in Year 10 English Literacy and Year 12 English examinations in New South Wales (NSW). Further, while the above-mentioned studies have employed aspects of the Appraisal system to explore the language in various discourses, this chapter attempts to apply Appraisal to both language and images in texts. Examination papers in English that use visual texts often do so for a variety of reasons: they may use visual texts as stimuli for creative writing, or they may themselves be the subject of analysis, generally in terms of how meaning is shaped by the visual techniques used. Martin (2000, p. 275) maintains that SFL analysis applies both to verbal and ‘multimodal texts involving pictures and diagrams’. This would seem to imply that the resources and terminology of Appraisal could be usefully applied to visual texts as well as verbal ones. In the absence of established links between the grammar of visual design as outlined by Kress & van Leeuwen (1996) and Appraisal in dealing with visual texts, we have relied on the metalanguage of the latter in investigating how evaluations are constructed in such texts and how students respond to them. Indeed, examinations require students to ‘translate’ the visual into the linguistic in framing answers that require interpretative responses to visual texts. If the questions asked concerning

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visual texts focus on identifying the evaluative stance of the composer and students are most rewarded for fashioning a response which itself takes an evaluative stance, then the terminology of Appraisal, and Attitude in particular, even though language-based, would seem to provide appropriate tools for handling such questions.

2003 NSW School Certificate Examination Literacy: Reading and Viewing ‘Australian Achievement Awards’ The New South Wales (NSW) School Certificate is the award given to students successfully completing Year 10. Formal tests occur in a number of subjects: English-literacy; Mathematics; Science; Australian History, Geography, Civics and Citizenship; and Computing Skills. While some modifications to the tests are to occur from 2006, a perusal of the English-literacy specimen paper (BOS 2006 a) reveals substantial continuity with previous practice. According to the Board of Studies (BOS 2006b, para. 4), the tests ‘assess individual achievement in the foundation knowledge and skills needed to successfully undertake subjects in Years 11 and 12 and to participate effectively in the wider community’. In the case of English-literacy, the examination measures students’ ability to use language appropriate to purpose, context and audience, focuses on literary, factual, media and multimedia texts and challenges students to respond at levels ranging across the literal, inferential, analytical and interpretive. Thus it is much more than a test of functional literacy and foundational skills. In this chapter we have chosen to examine a specific section from the Board’s published test and answers for the 2003 test (BOS 2004) that demanded the ability to respond to a multimodal text at a variety of levels. In Part E of this exam, students were directed to read the accompanying stimulus text ‘Australian Achievement Awards’, and respond with short answers to a number of questions (BOS 2004, pp. 33–7). The stimulus text was a pamphlet that provided information about individuals and their achievements as a way of persuading readers to nominate others for these awards. As the pamphlet was

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a multimodal text, with both language and images contributing to meaning, some of the questions required students to analyze meanings in both modes. Students also needed to analyze different levels of meaning within the text. In Questions 46 and 47 (BOS 2004, p. 36) for example, the students needed to apply their reading skills to analyze ideational meanings. They might have used their knowledge of symbols, language conventions, Egyptian pyramids etc., to interpret the three ‘A’ shapes depicted in the Australian Achievement Awards (AAA) logo on page 1 of the pamphlet, as perhaps representing an acronym of the AAA, peaks of achievement/challenge or other associations. In other questions (e.g., Q48, Q49, Q50) however, students needed to demonstrate their knowledge about reading to interpret interpersonal meanings negotiated between the author and readers. In Question 48 (BOS 2004, p. 36), students were asked to state the purpose of the written text on page 1 of the pamphlet. They also had to identify one feature of the language that achieved this purpose, providing a specific example from the text. An Attitude analysis of the text reveals the author’s attempts to persuade readers into action by using language to align them with positive evaluations of people, their endeavours and their feelings. The author’s use of positive Judgement of people directly (‘neighbourhood achievers’), and indirectly (‘individuals deserve recognition’), aligns readers with the shared social values of achievement and success and positions them to admire these people. Positive Appreciation (‘Community success stories, Personal triumphs’) is employed to persuade readers to acknowledge the worth/value of their endeavours. These positive evaluations of people/activities are reinforced by both explicit and indirect expressions of positive Affect. Directly, the ‘sense of accomplishment’ felt by these achievers encourages an emotional response in readers who will empathize with these good feelings of satisfaction. Indirectly, metaphors such as ‘scaling the heights’ and ‘stand at the summit of their success’ contribute to these feelings of satisfaction which readers are encouraged to share. These examples demonstrate how the resources of Attitude are employed by the author in this text to persuade readers to value and admire people in the community who achieve success. Knowledge of these resources helps students understand how language is used

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to align readers with particular views and to adopt certain values. In terms of actual student answers to this question, ‘mid-mark’ range responses incorrectly stated the author’s purpose (‘to explain . . .’, ‘to inform . . .’, ‘to describe’) and typically identified examples of language (‘descriptive words’) used to achieve this purpose (BOS 2004, pp. 63, 65, 67, 69). In contrast, responses in the ‘high-mark’ range (BOS 2004, pp. 55, 57, 59, 61) correctly noted the persuasive purpose of the text. They also identified language features used to achieve this purpose, such as emotive language (‘the tone of language is uplifting and inspirational’) and metaphor (‘scaling the heights’). These ‘high-mark’ responses demonstrate interpretations of interpersonal meanings, referring specifically to the way readers are made to feel/think/act by the use of language. Having access to the resources of Attitude (and the wider Appraisal framework) would provide students with a framework that would assist them in constructing similar valued responses. Question 49 (BOS 2004, pp. 33–4) refers to pages 2 and 3 of the pamphlet, which also contains a mixture of language and images. Across the bottom of this double-page spread are twelve small images of individuals’ faces and above these are four larger framed images of individuals engaged in various endeavours, such as sport and work. Each of these framed images are linked to one or two highlighted single-word labels, while spaced around the images and labels are sections of text representing inspiring quotes from individuals. In this question, students are asked to explain how the language and the images are used by the author to convey the idea that a variety of people have the ability to achieve in a variety of ways. Less valued responses to this question again refer to the ideational meanings constructed explicitly in the text, demonstrating what Macken-Horarik (2006) calls a ‘tactical reading’ of concrete details (p. 60). These responses typically include reference to the variety of ages, gender, racial backgrounds etc. (‘. . . different age groups . . .’, ‘. . . perspectives or locations . . .’) depicted explicitly in the text and images, and how these equate with the theme of variety of achievement. In examination contexts however, ‘high-mark’ responses tend to demonstrate a ‘symbolic reading’ of the text and images, where analyses of implicit interpersonal meanings constructed by authors

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are highly valued (Macken-Horarik (2006, p. 60). The resources of Attitude are again useful in these contexts. In the quoted sections of pages 2/3 of the pamphlet, positive Affect is expressed by individuals (‘Just be passionate . . . Just do your own thing’), conveying their feelings of self-confidence and personal satisfaction with what they do. Feelings of happiness, evident on the faces of individuals in the images, strengthen the positive nature of the text. Inscribed positive Judgements of individuals in terms of Capacity (‘Having a disability didn’t stop me’) and Normality (‘We are all winners in our own way’, ‘I’m just doing what I do well . . .’) invite the reader to share these emotional responses. As well, the humble nature of these people (‘. . . it’s nothing special’) are qualities likely to be admired in Australian society, and therefore likely to evoke further positive judgements in the reader. While the highlighted single-word labels on this double-page spread (e.g., ‘determination’, ‘perseverance’, ‘vision’, ‘patience’) are not linked directly to judgements of individuals, they are examples of positive personal qualities that are likely to be admired and judged in individuals. These qualities are linked visually to the four framed images depicting individuals engaging in their successful endeavours. The implication here is that individual achievement requires personal qualities not necessarily linked to identity (such as age, gender, race), but to qualities related to ‘doing your best’. This message of success/achievement is explicitly reinforced through direct positive Appreciation (‘Success is . . . achieving a personal best’). In the framed images, Appreciation of the engaging/interesting/important challenges the mountain climber, surgeon and welder face in their endeavours seems to be evident. These positive evaluations also contribute to evoked Judgements of individuals. In both the text and images on these two pages there are many examples of positive evaluations of people, their feelings and their endeavours which have been constructed to position readers. Students could have used these examples in a valued response to show how the major theme/social value (‘diversity of achievement through doing one’s best’) being promoted is conveyed. Yet in the ‘high-mark’ range responses for this question, most answers referred to ideational meanings (variety of ages, locations, gender etc.) in the text/images,

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with only one answer receiving full marks for explaining how the language conveys the theme interpersonally. This response noted the positive and encouraging language in the pamphlet which established the main idea that enthusiasm and talent were qualities that helped achievers succeed (BOS 2004, p. 62). This response then demonstrates an analysis of the ‘evaluative positions naturalised by the text’ (Macken-Horarik 2006, p. 67) or how the author implicitly promotes the idea that diversity itself does not necessarily equate with diversity of achievement. Rather, the stance taken in the text and identified by the above response is that individuals have the ability to achieve, regardless of age or gender or other factors, if they adopt the social value of ‘doing one’s best’ through their ‘determination’, ‘perseverance’ and ‘patience’. Question 50 (BOS 2004, p. 37) referred to the back page of the pamphlet, which consisted of comments from an AAA recipient, a nomination form and instructions on how to fill out the form. Students were asked to explain the language differences between the personal response text and the procedural text. The less valued responses (BOS 2004, pp. 64, 66, 68, 70) tended to identify only textual details. Such responses noted, for example, that the language in the personal response text was a quotation, while the language in the procedural text was in point form. Here again, the resources of Attitude could have been used to provide explicit examples of language used to construe interpersonal meanings. The instructional text contains no Attitude or evaluative language, providing instead a sequence of commands for the reader. The personal response however, is loaded with subjective, personal and evaluative language in a final attempt by the author to convince readers to fill out the nomination form (BOS 2004, p. 33). This personal response text (BOS 2004, p. 33) has mainly used Judgements to inscribe and evoke positive evaluations in the text. The author begins by directly expressing negative Affect in terms of surprise/insecurity (‘I was really amazed . . .’) within a negative self Judgement of normality (‘. . . amazed that someone like me could receive this award’). However the effect of this evokes positive Judgements of the author in terms of being a humble, ordinary citizen, but also an achiever. Positive Appreciation of their work (‘Helping other adult

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migrants learn English is enough of a reward’) also evokes positive Judgements of the author in terms of propriety (caring/kind) toward others and reinforces evaluations of their humble and satisfied attitude. The author balances negative self Judgement (‘I’m just a mum from the suburbs . . .’) with positive self Judgement (‘. . .whose life is my kids and my work’), which again reinforces evoked positive Judgements of propriety and normality. The author concludes the text with positive Affect in terms of security/confidence (‘I’m sure . . .’) and positive Judgement (‘. . . there’s lots of other people . . . who deserve a pat on the back’), urging the reader to align with the positive evaluations in the text. In their responses to Question 50 (BOS 2004, pp. 56, 58, 60, 62), students who scored full marks were able to analyze interpersonal meanings in the stimulus texts. Typically, they identified Affect, noting that the language carried emotion and was subjective and personal while the procedural text was cold, harsh and objective. In Question 52 (BOS 2004, p. 43) students were required to construct their own persuasive text, arguing the case for someone they nominated for an AAA. An Attitude analysis of student responses to this question reveals minimal use of Affect to position readers. However most students were able to employ explicit examples both of Judgement in terms of social sanction qualities, (noting, for instance, that one character was a strong pacifist and human rights advocate, while another was kind, caring and understanding) and also of Appreciation to align readers with positive evaluations of the nominees and their endeavours. These types of responses typically privileged values that related to treatment of others, such as ‘care and compassion, respect, responsibility, understanding, tolerance and inclusion’. However, given that the Australian Achievement Awards are for personal achievements (that might include endeavours that adopt these social sanction values), responses in the ‘high-mark’ range demonstrate evaluations of their nominees/endeavours to promote the same particular personal value of ‘doing one’s best’ that is promoted by the AAA stimulus text (BOS 2004, pp. 83–90). Thus, direct Judgement in terms of social esteem or personal qualities included references to the ‘passion, dedication, perseverance, determination’; and resourcefulness of characters. Indirect evaluations evoked positive Judgements of

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the nominees, particularly in terms of their personal qualities (humble, insightful, determined) that contributed to their achievements. In terms of reading and analyzing the texts in Questions 48, 49 and 50 of the 2003 School Certificate Literacy examination, students were able to identify examples of language used to construct ideational meanings. However most students struggled to identify specific examples of language used to construct interpersonal meanings and received lower marks for their responses. Access to a system such as the Attitude framework would enable students more readily to identify examples of evaluative language that authors employ to construct these interpersonal meanings. While students at all levels were able to use evaluative language to some degree in their own writing (Question 52), knowledge of the Attitude framework could assist in strengthening these students’ responses.

2001 NSW English Higher School Certificate (HSC) Examination – Area of Study Senior English examinations in NSW differ from those in the compulsory years of schooling, like the School Certificate, in that the former are focused on specific texts and topics set for study, while the latter tend to assess the various levels of literacy of students using texts unseen by students. Literacy examinations in the compulsory years cannot therefore be prepared for in terms of direct study of specified texts, while HSC English examinations require students to provide evidence of detailed study and analysis of texts and topics drawn from a list determined centrally by the Board of Studies. The latter therefore draw on a wider conception of the subject and a broader range of skills and knowledge. HSC English examination questions since the implementation of the 1999 Stage 6 Syllabus characteristically require students to make evaluations of texts, topics and the effects created by composers’ use of various techniques in shaping meaning. It is particularly in this last area that the grammatical resources for shaping evaluations, or Appraisal (Droga & Humphrey 2003, p. 64) become important, both because students need to be aware of the way composers deploy

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various techniques in shaping meaning in order to arrive at their own interpretations of texts and also to be able to deploy such techniques themselves in shaping their answers to questions demanding interpretations and evaluations. While most HSC English questions are framed in purely verbal terms, it is quite common for visual texts to be used as foci in certain sections, notably in the first two questions of the common paper for students in Standard and Advanced courses (Area of Study, paper 1) and also in the Extension 1 paper. We have chosen to analyze one such text and the questions associated with it from the 2001 Area of Study paper. In 2001, students were given a cartoon strip, Calvin and Hobbes (see the examination paper at http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/ hsc exams/hsc2001exams/index2.html#e), to analyze in terms of the ways in which it depicted the issue of Change. It depicted a family scene in which the father was working at home while his son wanted him to come outside and play in the first snowfall of the year. The father initially refused under the pressure of work but eventually succumbed, his reward being the demonstrated affection of his son. The privileging of the personal over the public work role is evident in the cartoon, though the father returns to work after his son has gone to bed. The marginalized role of the mother, especially in relation to exclusion from outdoor physical activity and the provision of nurturing for the child, appeared to be a tangential issue in relation to the examination question. In answering the questions on this text, students were expected to ‘describe, explain and analyse the relationship between language, text and context’ (BOS 2002a, p. 2). The cartoon strip was one of three previously unseen texts students were to analyze in these terms through a series of specific questions, the final and most valuable of which (6 marks out of 15) asked for students to account for the ways each text demonstrated connections between youth and changes. The specific questions on Calvin and Hobbes were worth 1 and 2 marks out of 15 respectively and were quite low level: the first one asked students to identify one way in which the father changed and the second to explain how two visual features were used to represent this change.

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Affect (Droga & Humphrey 2003; Rothery & Stenglin 2000) refers to the resources for expression of a person’s feelings and mental states. There is no language used in the cartoon, but the feelings of both father and son are the focus of each panel. Such feelings are suggested by facial expression, gesture and action. The Emotional Categories of Happiness/Unhappiness and Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction are evident in the facial expressions of the father, as he moves from intense concentration in his work (suggested by the protruding tongue of panel 3) to helpless resignation in explaining to his son that he cannot go outside with him (suggested by the outstretched arms with palms up in panels 5 and 6) to distractedness as he ponders the validity of his decision (suggested by the furrowed brow and hand under chin in panel 7), to boredom with his work (suggested by closing eyelids in panel 7 and looking outside in panel 8) to determination to join his son as he makes a moral decision (suggested by his dissatisfied stare at the papers in panel 10), to joy in playing with his son (suggested by his open mouth and extended arms in panel 12) to satisfied contentment as his son kisses him on the head in the final panel. The processes/verb and adverb groups implied by the father’s facial expressions and gestures include: concentrated hard, worried, listened distressfully, explained helplessly and exasperatedly, frowned, stared vacantly, agonized, admitted defeat in his struggle to work, leapt to his feet with determination, smiled and laughed, had a great time playing with his son, and, in the final panel, was vindicated and satisfied as a father, as well as settled down enthusiastically for work – all of which indicate the father’s state of mind – Affect. This cartoon probes notions of fatherhood in its depiction of the interaction between father and son. Students are therefore inevitably drawn into ‘explicit evaluation of other people and their actions’ with particular reference to ‘socially determined expectations regarding behaviour’ (Rothery & Stenglin 2000, p. 236). This involves Judgement, the second system of Appraisal, and its subsystem of social sanction and propriety. At this level, students make evaluations of the relationship between the characters, especially father and son. Students look for indicators of how the interpersonal dynamics between the two change and develop over the course of the narrative. They

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speculate about the motives of each character and how they influence action and behaviour. There is also a higher level of interpretation required of students in interpreting this cartoon. It involves providing a totalizing interpretation of the text – what HSC examination reports call a ‘thesis’ about the meaning of the text as a whole. This is not always simply reducible to a moral or theme, but it involves a capacity to synthesize textual details, like the feelings of characters and the motives behind their interaction, into an overarching interpretation which unifies those details at a level of abstract thought. This brings us, in SFL terms, to the system of Appreciation, notably its subsystem of Valuation, requiring a ‘proclamation of the “message” of the work’ (Rothery & Stenglin 2000, pp. 238–9) and necessarily involving the student in identification of values. Thus, the father’s journey has involved a discovery of the primacy of personal relations over public ones, of family over work and of the need to protect and nourish childhood innocence even at the expense of public obligations, which after all can always be postponed and still performed after the child has gone to bed. In terms of the Commonwealth Values Framework, care and compassion and responsibility seem to be the main ones articulated here. Students encountering this text in examination conditions and answering the questions set are required to articulate the way the narrative endorses these values, echoing Rothery and Stenglin’s view (2000, p. 224) that English examination questions often require students to identify and articulate ‘value[s] widely held in Western societies’. It would be difficult for a student not to identify these values in answering the first question [Question 1 (a) (i)] concerning the way the father changes. Indeed, in the Board’s published answers (BOS 2002b) value identification is evident in scripts from the second lowest level of responses to the highest, with consistent focus on the father’s changed attitude from a conception of responsibility in terms of work (public) to that of parenting and nurture (private). In its preoccupation with how meanings are realized in texts, the HSC English Syllabus (BOS 1999, p. 7, 11 and 12) privileges metalanguage and its accurate application to texts. The second question on Calvin and Hobbes [Question 1 (a) (ii)] probed this area by asking for evidence for the answer to the first question. As for that question,

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the lowest level of response answered by retelling the story without reference to any visual features or techniques and it was not until the third (middle) level that students were observed referring to such things as facial expressions of the characters. At the highest level, students were able to identify other features such as background details in each panel and the body language of the son, but the absence of the metalanguage of visual design was notable. Again, however, students focused on visual markers of character attitude and linked them explicitly to the father’s discovery of perspective, balance between competing responsibilities and values. In answers to the question requiring comparison between the three specified texts [Question 1 (d)], students at the highest level were able to use the vocabulary of Appreciation in providing readings of the texts as wholes. Thus one student maintained that the cartoon emphasized youthful exuberance which was influenced by the actions of role models or ‘hero’ figures (BOS 2002b, p1 q01 b56 s2.pdf) This student has seen the action of the cartoon on a larger philosophical and abstract plane than students at the second lowest level who saw the text purely in terms of the relationship dynamics between father and son – the latter was disappointed in his father at first but then had his confidence restored when the father decided to play with him in the snow after all. The highest level response is what Macken-Horarik (2006, p. 65) labels a ‘symbolic reading’, where all language choices are seen ‘as if they were in a coherent and motivated relationship to one another and to the author’s interests and agendas’ – in other words, writing which shows the ability to see texts as wholes and use appropriate language markers (Valuation) accordingly. Significantly, students at the second highest level tended to answer this question quite exhaustively concentrating on visual and verbal techniques, whereas at the highest level some sort of generalization about textual integrity framed the focus on techniques. The highest marks were reserved for those students who could deploy the language resources of Appreciation as the overarching framework within which technical analysis of the texts occurred, thus achieving a synthesis of form and meaning. This framing of textual analysis by a thesis concerning the overall meaning of the text is characteristic of the top level of answers

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in all sections of the HSC English examinations. It implies a natural relationship between Affect, language used to express feelings, Judgements of people/behaviour and Appreciation (Valuation) of the wholeness of texts. The most rewarded responses are able to carry out a three-part move, seeing and explaining the relationship between textual details associated first with delineating or suggesting feelings and values of individuals within the text, secondly with resultant behaviour and motivation of these characters and thirdly with the resultant impact these lower levels have on the meaning of the text as a whole. Thus it is not only the resources of Attitude that students need to see, but the relationship between its components, the almost Russian doll-like relationship between Affect, Judgement and Valuation.

Conclusion This analysis of two examination questions tends to support the view that student responses that interpret interpersonal meanings are the most highly valued by examiners. However, as Rothery & Stenglin (2000, pp. 222–3) point out, students are not always explicitly taught how the resources of language (and image) interpersonally construct these themes. As demonstrated, the resources of Attitude employed by authors can provide students with a system to identify specific examples of such language/image use. These resources must also be deployed by students in their own answers. We can go a step further. Affect, Judgement and Valuation represent a rising scale of thinking and writing about texts. What MackenHorarik (2006) has shown to be true of open response Literacy examination answers, can also be seen in shorter answer questions based on visual texts in both junior and senior examinations. In the highest level or symbolic answers, students exhibit the capacity to frame their answers around the resources of Appreciation, especially Valuation, promoting their views of the text as a whole, which necessarily involves the identification of (often conservative and unexceptionable) values like those in the Commonwealth framework (DEST 2005). Focus on

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the ways texts convey the feelings and values of characters and of the composer(s) involves the deployment of the resources of Affect and Judgement, which means that high-achieving students are able to convince examiners that they have avoided the trap of simplistically retelling the events of the text or of merely listing its technical devices, both of which are features of lower-achieving responses. Writers of the highest graded responses are able to construct an argument, the evidence for which is not events, but textual markers of feelings and values (Affect) and the interplay between characters and setting (Judgement). In some respects, what we have identified here is no more than the features of the old argumentative essay, writ small in the cases of these shorter-response questions. As Macken-Horarik (2006, p. 70) notes, examinations represent a ‘conservative force’ on the discipline. It should therefore not be surprising that, despite a widened definition of the subject in NSW and Australia generally, especially in terms of the variety of textual forms now embraced as worthy of study, including the visual, examinations are a force for continuity. This does not mean that there is widespread knowledge among teachers either of the metalanguage of examination success or the rich potential of the resources of Appraisal to produce it. However, in an educational context increasingly politicised, the imperative of examination success both for students and for teachers’ professional survival suggests a compelling rationale for teacher professional development focussing on a metalanguage, such as the Appraisal system, for describing the linguistic and visual semiotic resources for constructing evaluative stance.

References Board of Studies, NSW (1999), Stage 6 Syllabus: English. Sydney: NSW Board of Studies. Board of Studies, NSW (2002a), 2001 NSW Higher School Certificate. English (Standard) and (Advanced) Paper 1 Area of Study. Sydney: NSW Board of Studies.

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Board of Studies, NSW (2002b), 2001 NSW Higher School Certificate. Standards Packages: English Standard Course. Sydney: NSW Board of Studies. Board of Studies, NSW (2004), 2003 School Certificate Test: English-literacy: Questions and Answers. Sydney: NSW Board of Studies. Board of Studies, NSW (2006a), 2006 School Certificate Specimen Test: English-Literacy. Sydney: NSW Board of Studies. Retrieved from http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/schoolcertificate/sc english.html. Board of Studies, NSW (2006b), English-Literacy Test Scope Statement and Test Specifications from 2006. Sydney: NSW Board of Studies. Retrieved from http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/schoolcertificate/english scope specs 06.html. Department of Education Science and Training (2005), National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia Droga, L. and Humphrey, S. (2003), Grammar and Meaning: An Introduction for Primary Teachers. Berry, NSW: Target Texts. Halliday, M. A. K. (1985), An Introduction to Functional Grammar . London: Edward Arnold. Halstead, J. M. and Taylor, M. J. (2000), The Development of Values, Attitudes and Personal Qualities: A Review of Recent Research. Slough: NFER. Hood, S. (2004), Appraising Research: Taking a Stance in Academic Writing . PhD dissertation. Sydney: Faculty of Education, University of Technology. Humphrey, S. (2006), ‘Getting the Reader On Side’: Exploring adolescent online political discourse’. E Learning , 3(2), 143–57. Retrieved from http://www.wwwords.co.uk/elea/content/pdfs/ 3/issue3 2.asp#3. Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996), Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London and New York: Routledge. Macken-Horarik, M. (2003), ‘Appraisal and the special instructiveness of narrative’. Text, 23(2), 285–312. Macken-Horarik, M. (2006), ‘Hierarchies in Diversities: What students’ examined responses tell us about literacy practices in

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contemporary school English’. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 29(1), 52–78. Martin, J. R. (2000), ‘Close reading: functional linguistics as a tool for critical discourse analysis’, in L. Unsworth (ed.), Researching Language in Schools and Communities: Functional Linguistic Perspectives. London and Washington, DC: Cassell, pp. 275–302. Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2003), Working with Discourse: Meaning Beyond the Clause. London: Continuum. Rothery, J. (1993), Literacy in School English. Erskineville, N. S. W: Metropolitan East Region Disadvantage Schools Program (Write it Right). Rothery, J. and Stenglin, M. (2000), ‘Interpreting literature: the role of APPRAISAL’, in L. Unsworth (ed.), Researching Language in Schools and Communities: Functional Linguistic Perspectives. London and Washington: Cassell, pp. 222–44. Thompson, G. and Hunston, S. (2000), ‘Evaluation: an introduction’, in S. Hunston and G. Thompson (eds), Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–27. Unsworth, L. (2000), ‘Investigating subject-specific literacies as school learning’, in L. Unsworth (ed.), Researching Language in Schools and Communities: Functional Linguistic Perspectives. London and Washington: Cassell, pp. 245–74. White, P. (2001), ‘Introductory guide to appraisal theory’. Retrieved from http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/AppraisalGuide/ AppraisalGuideWPFiles.html

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Chapter 15

Assessing Digital Literacies: Can Assessment Ever Be the Same?

Kay Kimber Brisbane Girls Grammar School

Claire Wyatt-Smith Griffith University

Introduction The communication revolution is now well evidenced in daily life. There is no doubt that Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have fundamentally altered work practices, routine activities such as bill paying, and how we interact and communicate in actual and virtual communities. Also stark is how the hallmark of our times is the rapidity of changes in ICTs, bringing with them a redundancy rate unprecedented in former times. The fact is that just as we call for new, faster and more efficient modes of communication (and therefore we shape the ICTs), so they in turn shape us (how we do business, and how we use and generate new knowledge). While infrastructure and purchasing of equipment are no doubt important considerations in how governments and schools make provision for student learning in this era, they remain necessary though not sufficient conditions for quality learning. Further, we suggest that while pedagogical uses of ICTs have been a focus of some concerted attention, assessment practices have been largely overlooked in the published research (Johnson & Kress 2003). This is our focus, the challenge being to

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review how assessment might change in nature and scope to take account of new capabilities that students need to develop and show they have learned in using digital literacies in the English classroom. Our starting point is the observation that many English teachers in primary and secondary schools weave student manipulation of digital texts into the fabric of their learning environments. Whether for the study of language or literature, film or new media, electronic texts are widely accepted, not just as the dominant and preferred communication medium for today’s digital generation, but also as a defined focus in curriculum documents and national statements of key learning areas (Curriculum Corporation 2005a, 2005b). Yet while teachers generally are exhorted to motivate, engage and personalize learning opportunities for their students using new technologies (Curriculum Corporation 2005a) and English teachers in particular, to develop in their students ‘the capacity to critically interpret and construct spoken, written, visual and multimodal texts in a broad range of mediums’ (Curriculum Corporation 2005b, p. 2), few voices have addressed how student-designed, multimodal texts might be considered or critiqued as legitimate assessment items in their own right. In a brave new world of digital texts, it seems rather anachronistic to confine assessment modes to the hegemonic print-based or oral modes, to minimize the complexity of their construction to a single component of other criteria, or to ignore altogether their significant contribution as a multimodal representation of student learning. This chapter, then, addresses the question: What criteria can be used to describe and assess quality in student-designed multimodal texts? Our textual canvas is woven from several threads of macro and micro substance: national education documents; a longitudinal research study, funded by the Australian Research Council and conducted by Griffith University (2003–2007); the mapping of students’ technoliterate classroom performance in multimodal text creation (Kimber & Wyatt-Smith 2006); the concept of transmodal operation as integral to developing criteria directly related to multimodal textual practices (Wyatt-Smith & Kimber 2005); and an illustrative application of those transmodally conceived criteria to a different and perhaps more pertinent reflection on samples of junior secondary school, student-designed multimodal texts.

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Easing the Tension between Technoliterate Performance and Assessment Practices Initially we position our work astride perceived tensions across technology advocacy statements embedded in subject English documents, classroom activities integrating technology and dominant assessment frameworks for informing learning and judging the quality of student achievement. Observable trends in the shaping of national statements of learning and syllabus documents espouse teachers’ design of learning opportunities that challenge and develop in their students the capacities ‘to critically interpret and construct spoken, written, visual and multimodal texts in a broad range of mediums’ and also ‘to interpret and critically analyze texts created and published through information and communication technologies’ (Curriculum Corporation 2005b, p. 2). Here categories of designated texts include traditional print-based, film and media, and electronic forms like CD-ROMs and websites. The Pedagogy Strategy adopts an inspirational tone, urging teachers to embrace and capture the potential of new technologies in classroom practice: ‘Pedagogies integrating ICT can do more than enhance learning – they have the potential to transform learning. ICT provide tools and environments that support interactive conceptual learning, focused on constructing and creating knowledge’ (Curriculum Corporation 2005a, p. 4). The ICT Learning Statement (Curriculum Corporation 2006) attempts to marry the operational, critical, creative and ethical dimensions in the classroom adoption and utility of new technologies. It exhorts teachers to ‘empower students to purposefully select activities, applications and modes of communication’ and to ‘engage students in simulations, modelling and creative activities’ (Curriculum Corporation 2006, p. 5). There appears to be an assumption that teachers already have the scoring rubrics (sometimes referred to as criteria and standards) and other requisite knowledge to assess such creations with new technologies. Admirable as the previously cited documents are for cementing the place and possibilities for new technologies in student work in all academic classrooms, and as widespread as daily pedagogy incorporating new technologies across curriculum areas, there has been little focus on how assessment of student-designed multimodal texts, especially

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in subject English, might be different from traditional assessment criteria attributed to writing and speaking. Should English teachers’ concern extend beyond these traditional criteria? If new technologies are to be embraced in exciting and innovative ways and students are to create multimodal texts that reflect their learning, then surely the mode of assessment should be able to differentiate between the layers of thinking and learning that are displayed in the technological artefact created by the student. It should be possible to design a set of assessment criteria that makes subtle distinctions between those elements of multimodal knowledge representation, whether for critical and/or creative purposes. With openly accessible criteria, students and teachers alike should be able to scrutinize and interrogate the digital artefact (as product) and design processes in a way that is more contemporaneous, with potential for adding value to the learning experience. From this position, a set of descriptive rubrics, tailored to match the identified capacities of multimodality, could be used not just for formal assessment purposes but also as a legitimate way of focusing student attention on specific areas that could be improved. This is where teachers need to understand something of the technoliterate capabilities that students already bring to their classroom, each with their own technological skill set and comfort zone in entering new software spaces, frequently in a faster, easier, far superior and intuitive way than their often ‘pre-digital teachers’ (Prensky 2006). If our educational goal is for our students to operate critically, creatively and ethically in their digital world, then we are expecting them to be exercising higher-order thinking skills as they manipulate new technologies. As we have argued elsewhere (Kimber & WyattSmith 2006; Wyatt-Smith & Elkins, in press) a preoccupation with technology as tool and with technicist proficiency falls well short of an enabling pedagogy with the aim of promoting students’ capabilities as ‘designers’ online with ‘know-how’ to both use and create knowledge. If our pre-digital influence means that we cannot assess evidence of students’ higher-order thinking in multimodal texts, then we are failing our digital-age students. If we cannot rethink how we might suitably evaluate student-designed multimodal texts, then we are ignoring a perfectly logical, and urgently needed, next step in

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developing appraisement principles for streamlining new pedagogies ‘made possible by new technologies’ (Curriculum Corporation 2005a, p. 6).

Mapping the Terrain of Student-Designers’ Performance in English Classrooms Beyond the classroom walls, students readily negotiate their social worlds with a range of miniaturized and convergent new technologies. They are frequently engaged by the visual, verbal, auditory and often kinaesthetic virtual world of cyberspace. Their ready acceptance of the deictic nature of new media is well served by their often intuitive use of new software or enhancing their communication with their peers, whether with mobile phones or online. The intellectual engagement in such tasks might not be high-order thinking but the technical prowess is frequently impressive. In the English classroom, students often prepare pseudoprofessional ‘publications’ of their research, analysis, or creative or critical interpretations. Word-processed assignments, once regarded with suspicion for the affordances of their spell-check facilities, have relegated hand-written submissions to the annals of time. Most oral presentations are accompanied by the ubiquitous PowerPoint (Microsoft 2003) backdrop of visuals or colourful texts. Yet all too often the creativity or competencies that composed these items are not ‘read’ as part of the learning that has occurred. This is not to infer accolades for technicist perfection alone. Rather it is to recognize that in writing and creating, in composing and shaping, students are constantly striving to express in eloquent, elegant texts the meaningful connections that they have generated. If the task that has been set requires critical engagement and creative transformation, then it should be possible to map something of a student-designer’s progress across and through that text. To illustrate our thinking here, we conceptualize a student’s operation in a digital classroom environment as a learning terrain wherein knowledge construction is valorized as both the goal and process of student learning, and where technology is conceived as a

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Figure 1 Performance Terrain: Determining the desirable performance capabilities and learning process options for ‘students-asdesigners’ as indicated by the darker shading in the top quadrant (Kimber & Wyatt-Smith 2006, p. 28). representational medium as well as a tool. Onto this terrain, we plot the boundaries and directional possibilities for mapping a student’s level of skill and thinking as indicated in Figure 1. The shaded top half of the terrain represents desirable goals for learning where higherorder thinking is evident in a student-created artefact that is in effect an original verbal or visual creation. Ideally in this sector, student engagement ensures that interest levels are high with an associated goal of completing the task to the best of one’s ability, with interest and commitment. The lower half of the terrain represents a less desirable level of intellectual thought, one where there might well be technological facility, but one that might only involve a low

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level of thinking. By consequence, the level of interest could well be low. Over this base layer of the classroom learning terrain are added two intersecting diagonal axes to represent possible ranges in students’ performance in the digital learning activity. These two axes represent (a) the learning process options that the teacher might select for student completion and (b) the students’ performance capabilities enabled by the affordances of new technologies. The TransformationReproduction extremes on the process axis represent the range of cognitive processes that students could be expected to undertake, privileging Transformation as the process most likely to lead to deep learning. The Designer-Technicist extremes on the performance capabilities axis represent the range of technoliterate practices that could be activated by the learner. The range is closely tied to the level of cognitive processing being exercised while using the technology. Within this framing, the top quadrant therefore represents the ideal digital learner, one who successfully operates, manipulates, creates and learns – multimodally – and achieves a more enhanced level of understanding by doing so. This student is not just able to design and transform material in ways that help construct new meaning, but is also able to derive considerable pleasure from the experience while creating an artefact that is valued by peers and teachers. At the opposite end of the spectrum, a student who applies his or her technological skills merely to reproduce documents or images, rather than to transform or create new knowledge or a new design, would be one who was operating at a lower-order dimension. Here opportunities for ‘playfulness’ with software options and with ‘risk taking’ in how technological resources are variously combined and deployed are not taken up. An English teacher could easily ascertain how engaged the student is with the task and the process of designing a digital artefact to represent her knowledge, but how is that knowledge usually evaluated? How successfully can a print-based task reflect the type and level of knowledge contained in a multimodal task? An oral explanation might suffice, but that type of evaluation would focus on content of the explanation and the manner of the control of paralingual features. What form might an evaluation of a student-designed multimodal

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text take? What distinctive features define a multimodal text? Does a student operate any differently in creating a multimodal text to producing a print-based essay or an oral presentation?

Developing Assessment Criteria that Recognize the Nature of Digital Texts We first identify four basic elements that constitute the creation of a multimodal text, whether the ubiquitous PowerPoint (Microsoft 2003), movie or web file. Each of these elements can be recognized for its distinctive features and the way in which it contributes to the overall impact of the artefact, whether for presentation purposes or for generating meaning. Three of these elements are integral to every text, print or electronic; one is synonymous with technological creation. When combined, these elements help to constitute the nature of a multimodal text as well as determine the text’s overall effectiveness in terms of its purpose of creation, whether for aesthetic or critical purposes. In describing these elements, e-proficiency, cohesion, content and design, their suitability as a foundation for formulating assessment criteria emerges. E-proficiency In this context, the term ‘e-proficiency’ refers to the capabilities and repertoires of practice that students exercise in online environments, often on a daily basis. Other terms such as ‘techno-savvy’ or ‘digital native’ (Prensky 2001) guard implicitly this basic skill or aptitude for proficient manoeuvring in online environments. E-proficiency encompasses successful operation of MP3 players, mobile phones and internet discourse. It includes knowledge about available software programs as well as the means of maximizing the potential of the medium, perhaps in ways that might not have been the intended purpose of the tool or software. The almost intuitive way by which young people come to use new software or technological tools is rarely tentative or bound by instruction manuals, as is often the case with pre-digital adults. For techno-savvy users, the individual differences

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in capabilities of various software programs are open for experimentation, as the trialling methods undertaken by the user frequently stem from prior experience with other new technologies where an understanding of the click and cursor navigations across different platforms rapidly emerges. Cohesion As the term implies, ‘cohesion’ refers to the ways by which the various sections or elements of the text are combined to constitute the totality of the electronic text. For example, cognitive structuring for cohesion might include the lexical choices in headings, subheadings or cohesive ties. Within PowerPoint (Microsoft 2003) slide presentations, colour schemes can help bring cohesion to successive slides – but so too can the sequence of dynamic builds of graphics or text. The system of navigation linking in web screens also gives some form of cohesion, especially in an overall non-linear structure. In all these instances, knowledge of the affordances or logics and grammars of the different mediums is reflected in the choices made to achieve that cohesion. An absence of or inefficient cohesion could be the result of restricted cognitive functioning and command of verbal skills, or even a limited set of technological repertoires. Content In traditional English classrooms, the content of print documents is generally privileged. The complexity of writing in the appropriate genre for the intended audience, with stylistic elegance and logical argument, with supporting evidence of atmosphere, in analytical or creative vein is not questioned. Rarely are images given a supporting place. In a digital environment, content is still essential but it becomes only one of a dynamic set of fully interrelated elements that are required to work together to convey meaning. Students still need to be able to work effectively with existing knowledge to transform it into new knowledge. They still need to select sources of knowledge judiciously, critically and imaginatively engage with it according to the nature of the task, but with multimodal texts,

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the variety of sources is now more diverse than print alone. A critical or evaluative stance is therefore central to how students work with knowledge, and more specifically, the sources of knowledge available online. Essentially, the matter of content therefore extends to how visual, written and auditory modes combine for effect, and how different sites and information sources may convey on occasion, conflicting information and representations. Given this, we link matters of content with what we refer to as ‘e-credibility’ to highlight the need to interrogate the utility of the information – its fitness for purpose – and its currency and credibility or its trustworthiness. Several writers (for example, Burbules 2001; Bruce 2000) have identified the challenges associated with assessing the credibility of information found on the World Wide Web. Here we draw on the work of Haas and Wearden (2003) and their use of the phrase ‘e-credibility difficulties’ (p. 169) to focus attention on what is entailed in deliberately and critically discerning ‘the qualities of trustworthiness, accuracy, completeness and timeliness that entail a sense of “believability”’ (p. 170). While there are strategies for verifying the accuracy and currency of information online (for example, crosschecking different sources; looking for sponsorships and the date of posting/update), we suggest that young people do not routinely adopt an evaluative stance to what and how they read online. What tends to prevail instead is the long-standing tradition of accepting that the written word, even in online highly visual and auditory environments, represents a kind of textual authority. As suggested above, the challenges of teaching, and therefore assessing, how students work with content and demonstrate e-credibility are not discrete or able to be separated from matters of design and text production. These are taken up next to include the design and display of reconstituted content. Design ‘Design’ implies an intentional combination of forms or materials in a variety of mediums. When applied to multimodal texts, consideration should be given to the way in which the different elements and modalities in its creation work together not just to convey meaning, but also

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to appeal aesthetically. Thus in the multimodal text, a student might combine visual images, colours, sounds, movement, written text and even interactivity. Also of interest is how the text draws on the grammars and logics of the text as verbal (traditional grammar), visual (positioning, symbolic representation) and electronic (specific logics related to particular software choice) communication. To this point we have introduced the notion of there being four constituent elements of multimodal texts, each of which is further extrapolated in a suggested assessment criteria grid as outlined in Table 1 (Appendix 1). However, we would also like to suggest that the essence of working effectively in multimodal text creation, at least in English classrooms, needs to recognize the ability of the student to operate transmodally, within and across modes, to create meaning.

Transmodal Operation Figure 2 attempts to capture the synergistic dynamic of text production online. It graphically presents a nesting of the four proposed criteria introduced above – e-proficiency, cohesion, content and e-credibility, and design – as distinct yet interrelated reference points that chart a different kind of ‘map’, one that captures a student’s movement within and across the performance terrain in composing a multimodal text. The selections and decisions made by the creator in the period of traversal, whether intuitive, selectively intentioned or even haphazard, involve decision-making on the paths to follow and the means of combination, but ultimately, how to combine aspects from each of the four reference points to achieve the intended purpose. The way in which each of these four criteria/reference points has been utilized and incorporated helps determine the overall quality of the multimodal text. In effect, it is this human agency moving within and across the performance terrain that activates, combines and imagines possibilities for representing knowledge. From this perspective, Figure 2 shows how transmodal operation frames and mobilizes the constituent elements, hence the choice of jagged shapes to signify the flashes of creativity and imagination that lie at the heart of

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Figure 2 Transmodal operation: Moving within and across the performance terrain. transmodal operation. English teachers have long valued and sought to nurture these qualities in their students. The criteria outlined in the preceding section are a construct on our part, informed by the empirical evidence of student texts generated as part of the Australian study into students’ digital curricular literacies referred to earlier (Castleton & Wyatt-Smith 2005). They are framed to offer a set of different, though complementary, lenses for exploring ‘quality’ and ‘effectiveness’ in students’ online multimodal texts. As such, the criteria can provide a metalanguage for teachers and students to discuss the desired elements of such texts, and in this way, address the features to be valued in student work. The criteria can work, for example, to alert students to issues relating to the organizational features of nodes (paragraphs, pages, screens), how successive nodes work separately and as interlinked, and the organizational features of the visual-space of the screen, including the ratio of image to writing. In the following section, attention focuses on the dynamic possibilities of this framework of criteria.

Testing Transmodal Assessment Criteria Currently research has little to say about how students in English classrooms engage with or create multimodal texts, whether for a learning activity or an assessment item. Literature and media studies are very much part of the fabric of subject English, and their powerful effect

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on shaping and inspiring students’ acquisition of language is undisputed. Yet the virtual spaces of today’s world engage and motivate students in previously unimagined ways. With an increasing trend for the incorporation of digital texts such as video games analysis, PowerPoint (Microsoft 2003) and iMovie (Apple 2004) creation as legitimate texts, the need for testing the utility of the suggested criteria (Table 1, Appendix 1) is now raised. For this purpose, samples of authentic, student-generated digital texts are presented for scrutiny of the perceived quality of learning evident in their composition. The two student-authored samples presented in this section were created by thirteen-year-old girls in Year 8, the first year of secondary school. The first case sample, prepared for a unit on animated film characters, was essential for the oral assessment task. The second case sample was developed from the written component of a class study of a set novel. Multimodal Learning in English The following samples illustrate something of current classroom practice in a Year 8 English classroom where student-generated digital texts required a range of digital literacies in their creation. The expectation was that the student-generated pieces were to be completely multimodal, incorporating dynamic movement as well as verbal and visual components. Inclusion of a musical soundtrack was optional. The reader may be interested to learn that both electronic texts illustrated here in Figures 3 to 10 were admired by their teacher and popularly endorsed by classroom peers. Both were undertaken for enjoyment and reflected a high level of student engagement in their creation. While both were presented and or used as part of the students’ formal English assessment, they were not individually or specifically evaluated – no doubt as there were no specific criteria by which to do so. This section therefore sets out to test the utility of those criteria cited earlier for evaluating multimodal texts. For each sample, the task will be outlined before a discussion of the merits or otherwise of each text. It must be stated, however, that the printed page on which these words are inscribed cannot adequately capture the dynamic

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visual and sound experience associated with the online presentation of the artefacts. Case One: Animated Film Character Creation This task asked students to research and develop their own character for a new animated film. It involved both creative and critical elements as students were first asked to create a story using any software programs that they desired, and then prepare a critical reflection on their creation. After their web-based and library book research, some students sketched their own character ideas before scanning to other software programs, others used clip art and some accessed websites devoted to the creation and wardrobe outfitting of their own characters. Invariably students selected PowerPoint (Microsoft 2003) as their selected medium. Students presented an oral speech wherein they described their creation and story idea before reflecting critically on the creation in terms of the key attributes that they had foregrounded in their protagonist and how they intended to engage the audience with the characters in the narration. Figures 3 and 4 are the third and fourth slides extracted from the animated fifteen-slide narrative, The Princess and the Gardener , developed by a female student in PowerPoint (Microsoft 2003) and introduced in her own words: Once upon a time there lived a stunning Princess by the name of Pililani. She lived in a beautiful palace surrounded by thick forests. Her parents, the King and Queen, were very popular and well known in the area. Her father had tried to force her to marry the awful Prince Peter many times but each time she disobeyed him and refused.

The third slide in the series of fifteen (Figure 3) introduces the heroine who has to decide whether to ‘save’ the ‘arrogant Prince Peter’, an unwelcome suitor, from the swamp. From the entry of this slide onscreen, Prince Peter is depicted as helpless, stuck in the swamp and overgrown forest. Gradually the text box fades onto the screen, closely followed by the slow gliding of Princess Pililani, resplendent in ballgown, from off-screen to stage right. Prince Peter’s plaintive

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Figure 3 Introducing the heroine and her suitor’s dilemma

Figure 4 Princess Pililani rescues Prince Peter from the swamp

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Figure 5 Reflection on creation on the animation character request appears in a blue thought bubble, comic book style, to invite the Princess’s reluctant response to his dilemma. The subsequent slide (Figure 4) demonstrates the Princess’s prowess as, Tarzan-like, she grabs a nearby vine from right of stage to ‘swing’ towards Prince Peter and scoop him up before both exit stage left on the vine. The story continues with the Palace Gardener, Garry, finding the courage to declare his love for the Princess who accepts his proposal, valuing true love over status. For the student’s reflection on her character, she prepared and word-processed a speech, as well as a second, ten-slide presentation in which she analyzed how her character was represented, the values operating in the text, her inspiration for her creation, and how she sought to engage her audience. Figures 5 to 7 show some of her ideas, with accompanying extracts from the student’s script prepared for her oral delivery and class assessment. The accompanying script for Figure 6 read: Princess Pililani has very strong values and beliefs. One of her strongest is in fairness and equality and the fact that women deserve

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Figure 6 Reflection on the character’s attitudes, values and beliefs the same rights as men, for example, when she refuses to marry Peter just because her father tells her to. Of course, at the time this was very rare and women did exactly what men told them to. She also strongly values caring for others and having compassion. She has a lot of bravery and courage, shown when she fearlessly rescues Prince Peter from the swamp. She has a positive attitude towards life and enjoys spending time with both herself and others. (Student, Year 8, 2006)

The accompanying script for Figure 7 read: At the beginning of the story, the audience is positioned to feel sympathy for the Princess’s annoyance with the prince as he is so frustrating and supercilious. They then admire her courage and bravery as she heroically rescues the prince from the swamp. The fact that Pililani has defied her father and the customs of her community many times makes the audience respect her for her strength

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Figure 7 How the creator sought to position the audience of character. Her rebellion has earned her the admiration of the audience for example when she marries the gardener instead of the prince as her father requested. Overall the princess is widely accepted and appreciated for her qualities and strong beliefs. (Student, Year 8, 2006)

Throughout this unit of work, the student had created a story, animated that story graphically and dynamically on PowerPoint (Microsoft 2003), prepared a script for the story and a critical reflection on its creation, a second slide presentation to summarize that critical reflection and finally presented her work orally. What was the form of assessment? At the time of classroom implementation it was taken to include: the animated story, evaluation of the story ideas including critical reflection, and the manner of oral delivery. Our question now is: Would that assessment be any different if there were an attempt to evaluate the quality of multimodal text creation within an oral presentation?

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This student’s e-proficiency is apparent. For example, she has: sourced graphics from the internet for the environment backgrounds and costume for the Princess; copied and pasted (duly acknowledged in her final reference slide); manipulated images in Photoshop (Adobe 2003); composed and typed her story script; and added animation builds that were timed to match her story narration, even grouping the vine, Princess and Prince in one smooth movement. When her second slide presentation is considered, she has also selected graphics to add meaning to her written text and animated their appearance on screen to complement the text. Yet despite these abilities, she has not totally capitalized on the affordances of the software. She could have interlinked the two separate presentations, allowed audience interactivity, and added a voice-over and music track, so obviating the need to present her oral ‘in person’. Cohesion is achieved through the similarity in colours between the two slide presentations. The meaning in each node is clearly defined and the visual repetition of the Princess and her smiling face, on story and reflection, enforces that cohesion of purpose and enactment. The red heart on Figure 7, for example, representing ‘caring and compassion’, is used dramatically and dynamically, in multiple variations – as screen border, as beating heart between the Princess and Garry, or as the transition to the red rose that Garry presents to the Princess. This may be a simplistic way of giving cohesion, but the colour contrast worked visually and thematically. In terms of content, the student has demonstrated her ability to invert traditional fairy tale stereotypes and challenged patriarchal values, although the fairy-tale wedding still takes pride of place. The story itself is humorous, verbally and visually, even though it might appear simplistic. The humorous vein indicates something of the student’s engagement with her task and digital creation. In email conversation with her teacher some ten months after the creation, the student said, ‘I still laugh when I think about it. It was so much fun’ (Student, 2007). The student’s performance in the design terrain demonstrates an ability to select relevant images and to consider their spatial arrangement on the screen, their colour compatibility, appropriate sizes,

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fonts and colours for headings and body text. All of these elements of her design have an immediate and aesthetic impact for the viewer/ reader. All elements considered, the student has operated transmodally, combining all domains of the performance domain effectively, and displaying a complex array of imagination, academic learning and technological proficiency. Case Two: Visual Diary The artefact represented in this section was a student’s digital creation, a movie ‘version’ of her collage-type, paper-based visual diary, prepared for written assessment on her reading of the novel Hannah’s Winter by Kierin Meehan (2002). The student’s visual diary had already been submitted for assessment prior to her asking if she could transform the text into a movie. Her original paper text, consisting of a collage construction with tactile additions including a packet of doughnut sprinkles, origami cranes and shoes, diary entries, a letter, authentic Japanese stamps and layers of wallpaper backgrounds, captured the essence of the character’s thinking and a strong flavour of Japanese culture. It invited the reader to touch the precious ‘memories’ that had been carefully selected and arranged, if a little amateurishly in presentation. To transform this text to an electronic version, the student harvested appropriate images from the internet, manipulated images and her own text, first in Photoshop (Adobe 2003) and then in Photo Story 3 for Windows (Microsoft 2004), adding transitions and filmic optical builds, as well as a soundtrack of a Japanese melody on authentic instruments. Three images only are presented in Figures 8 to 10 to illustrate the type of ‘pages’ the student created, but the reader will have to imagine the dynamic, musical experience of the completed ‘movie’. While the tactile experience of the original visual diary may have been lost, the more professional-looking electronic diary, with its musical soundtrack and optical wipes, prompted the student’s peers to respond with great enthusiasm to her imaginatively and technologically created variation to the set task, challenging the teacher to rethink how that task might be offered in future.

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Figure 8 Title screen, Page 1 of Visual Diary

Figure 9 Page 4 of Visual Diary

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Figure 10 Page 5 of Visual Diary When the artefact is evaluated according to the previously described criteria, the student’s success can be reconsidered. In terms of e-proficiency, the student had manipulated the software with effect, incorporating a wide range of appropriate transitions and movie-like editing. In terms of appropriate timing, however, it was less successful. In the case of heavily worded pages such as Figure 10, the movement was too fast for the reader to absorb all that had been created. This, however, could be easily rectified. Cohesion is achieved by the culturally themed wallpapers and origami items as well as the musical soundtrack that adds a strong sensory dimension to the reader’s experience. The content is varied, appropriate, thoughtful and creative. It reflects a thorough understanding of the original novel text and an imaginative interpretation of its characters and events. Internet sources, however, have not been acknowledged. The movie’s design is artistic and original, yet imbued with an eastern flavour. The student has operated transmodally to create the text – but she has also completed the task with a high level of engagement and great personal satisfaction. Her preferred version was the digital, although it is recognized that she

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might not have been able to create that without the inspiration from her original paper creation in the first instance. These samples illustrate something of the creative and critical possibilities of working with multimodal texts that are eagerly and easily embraced by students. In discussing these creations, we have also referred to the enthusiasm and engagement with which the students have responded to the design of such multimodal texts. As pre-digital English teachers come to understand more of the potential and realities of new technologies in their classrooms, an impetus is given to the rethinking of assessment criteria for a form suited to their particular grammars and logics.

Conclusion This paper has proposed a criterion-referenced framework that could be used for talking about quality in student-created digital texts. In drawing on samples of English students’ work in the junior secondary years, we have shown the utility of the criteria for evaluating the level of student performance in ways sympathetic to the digital environment. By engaging with the notion of transmodal operation, we have shown how those criteria can be conceptualized more holistically and dynamically, especially when the dynamics that characterize so many software programs generate kinaesthetic movement of visual and verbal text. The agency involved in the creation of multimodal texts involves nuanced ways of working with design elements, knowledges, software, understandings of audience and purposes. Taken collectively, they offer a rich field for self-expression. This notion of transmodalilty helps us to revisit more traditional ways of imagining, creating and assessing what really counts as knowledge in the English classroom.

References Adobe (2003), Adobe Photoshop version: 8. San Jose, CA: Adobe Systems Incorporated. Apple (2004), iMovie. Cupertino, CA: Apple Computer, Inc.

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Bruce, B. C. (2000), ‘Credibility of the web: Why we need dialectical reading’. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 34(1), 97–109. Burbules, N. (2001), ‘Paradoxes of the Web: The ethical dimensions of credibility’. Library Trends, 49, 441–53. Castleton, G. and Wyatt-Smith, C. (2005), ‘Investigating digital curricular literacies: Resolving dilemmas of researching multimodal technologically mediated literacy practices’. 54th Year Book of the National Reading Conference. Oak Creek, Wisconsin: National Reading Conference: pp. 144–56. Curriculum Corporation (2005a), ‘Pedagogy Strategy: Learning in an Online World. MCEETYA’. Carlton South, Victoria: Curriculum Corporation. Available online at http://www.mceetya.edu.au/ verve/ resources/pedagogy strategy file.pdf (19 May 2007) Curriculum Corporation (2005b), ‘Statements of Learning for English. MCEETYA’. Carlton South, Victoria: Curriculum Corporation. Available online at http://www.mceetya.edu.au/verve/ resources/ StmntLearning English file.pdf (20 August 2007) Curriculum Corporation (2006), ‘Statements of Learning for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). MCEETYA’. Carlton South, Victoria: Curriculum Corporation. Available online at http://www.mceetya.edu.au/verve/ resources/SOL ICT.pdf (19 May 2007) Haas, C. and Wearden, S. (2003), ‘E-Credibility: Building common ground in web environments’. L1 – Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 3, 169–84. Johnson, D. and Kress, G. (2003), ‘Globalisation, literacy, and society: Redesigning pedagogy and assessment’. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 10(1), 5–14. Kimber, K. and Wyatt-Smith, C. (2006), ‘Using and creating knowledge with new technologies: A case for students-as-designers’. Learning, Media and Technology, 31(1), 19–34. Meehan, K. (2002), ‘Hannah’s Winter ’. Camberwell, Victoria: Puffin, Penguin Group (Australia). Microsoft (2003), PowerPoint. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft (2004), Photo Story 3 for Windows. Available online at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/ photostory/default.mspx (1 October 2006)

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Prensky, M. (2001), ‘Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants’. Available online at http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20 Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf (5 October 2006) Prensky, M. (2006), ‘Listen to the Natives’. Educational Leadership, 63(4), 8–13. Available online at http://www.ascd.org/authors/ ed lead/el200512 prensky.html (1 October 2006). Wyatt-Smith, C. M. and Elkins, J. (in press) ‘Multimodal reading and comprehension in online environments’, in D.J. Leu, J. Coiro, M. Knobel and C. Lankshear (eds), Handbook of Research on New Literacies. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Wyatt-Smith, C. and Kimber, K. (2005), ‘Valuing and evaluating student-generated online multimodal texts: Rethinking what counts’. English in Education, 39(2), 22–43. Student Acknowledgments: Case One: Princess Pililani was created from http://www.stardoll. com/en/ (Paperdoll Heaven Inc) Swamp photograph: Terry O’Brien, Rowan University, USA Case Two: Photograph of two girls: Ainslie Kimber Japanese stamp: http://www.joewein.de/pics/stamp12.jpg Origami Crane: http://www.grayproductions.net/ruby/images/ ruby crane.jpg

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APPENDIX 1 Performance Terrain in Shaping Online Multimodal Texts

353

Structured or chunked information appropriately, both within and across a node (paragraph, slide, page)

Chosen visual and spatial features that achieve harmony (background color/font selection), balance of design and aesthetic appeal Combined written, visual and auditory language to convey meaning

Structured the text utilizing appropriate headings and sub-headings for linking ideas and guiding the reader Provided strategic organization that invites reader interactivity with internal explanatory links as well as links to other related sites/texts Provided appropriate structures, e.g., functioning links, menu, consistent linking style to facilitate interactivity Clear navigation/linking within and between nodes/screens/sites

Manipulated written, visual and auditory language to achieve defined purpose/s Transformed/reshaped existing information, combining different sources to formulate ‘new’ knowledge – that is, going beyond cutting-and-pasting

Selected relevant images that work in conjunction with written, auditory language to convey meaning

Observed the grammars and logics of verbal (traditional grammar), visual (positioning, symbolic representation) and electronic text (specific logics related to particular software choice)

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In designing the text, the student has:

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In using existing knowledge, the student has: Provided the intended audience with sufficient and relevant information

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In designing the text, the student has:

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Criterion 4: Design (Creating an aesthetic, artful design)

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Criterion 3: Content (Working with existing knowledge to create new knowledge)

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Criterion 2: Cohesion (Unifying the structure, re-presentation, organization of ideas, links)

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Criterion 1: E-Proficiency (in this view, proficiency goes beyond control of technical operations, extending to discriminating use)

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Index

1999 Stage 6 syllabus, 319 2001 Higher School Certificate examination, 288 2001 NSW English higher school certificate (HSC) examination, 319–24 2003 NSW school certificate examination literacy, 313–9 2006 ELLA for Year 7 Students, 277–80 Aesthetic responses, 62–63 Affect, 153, 157 in Little Black Sambo, 156 Affective responses, 60–62 Affinities with deep ecology nature-associated position of, 74 Ambience network used by SF linguistics, 91–92, 92f Ambience, 10, 91 choices of in Piggybook, 105–8 from coloured background, 104–5 of images without color, 92–94 in Photographs in the Mud, 124, 125, 127f

in Rosie’s Walk, 98 as significant semiotic system, 108–9 system of, 91 in picture books, 91 Angry, 175f Appraisal model, 310 Appraisal of the written text, 156–57 Appraisal of online discussion, 244 system of, 152–55, 310 Appreciation, 153, 157, 242, 262 online discussion for, 260–61 purpose of, in online contexts, 243 A-range descriptions, 304 Art from Billabong , 277 Asynchronous mode of online forums, 238–39 Attitude analysis, 310 of texts, 314 Attitude framework, 311t Attitude in Appraisal Theory, 153–55, 154t, 155t Attitude, 153, 310 of online discussion, 244, 263 Audience positioning, 345f Australia’s Wonderful Water Creatures, 74

355

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356

Australian Achievement Awards (AAA), 313 Australian Commonwealth Government, 310 Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), 270 Australian soldiers attitudes of, 121t, 123 Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed, The, 50, 51–53, 55 Bannerman. See H. Bannerman Basic Skills Tests (BST), 270–71 Beginning school reading materials, 32 Believability, 337 Benton. See M. Benton Benton young children interpreting visual images observations of, 50 Bernstein. See Basil Bernstein Bernstein knowledge in ‘vertical discourses’ views on, 285–86 Bing. See C. Bing ‘Black’, term, 156 Black as background colour, 96–97 Board of Studies (BOS), 313–19 Book Cover , 277 Book of Animal Records, The, 271–72 Books for Youth in a Digital Age, 7

Index

Books without colours, 94 Burn. See A. Burn Calvin and Hobbes, 320–24 commonwealth values framework, 322 notions of fatherhood, 321 visual markers of character attitude, 323 Cartoons, 272 Case studies animated film character creation, 341–47 cohesion and content, 346 design terrain, student’s performance in, 346–47 e-proficiency, 346 The Journey, 216–17, 224, 230, 231 claims, 217 notion of, 221 official advice, 217–20 study requirement in NSW, 221 texts and images in, 218–20 visual diary, 347–50 Characterization, 298 Children digital multimedia publishing, interest in, 187–88 environmental television texts, 81–86 as environmentally responsible citizens, 77–81

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Index

film editing by Burn and Durran, observations of, 204–5 literary texts interaction by, 205–8 multimedia authoring by, 202–5 as receivers of digital texts, 168–69 Chinese beginning reading materials, 32–36 Chinese post Mao-Deng discourse, 32–36 Chinese school reading texts, 31 Chinese teaching, 26 Chinese-reading event, 35 Christie. See F. Christie Christie routinized language behavior, arguments for, 263 Classroom learning terrain, base layer of, 334 Cohesion, 336 Colour choice determination of, 90 meanings conveyed by, 89 Colour, role of in picture books, 89 Commercially hosted discussion forums, 239–40 Communication of meanings in paper media images, role of, 6 Communicative environment, 283 Complementarity, 136, 136t Concrete particulars, 304 Construe commonalities, 306

357

Contemporary children’s picture books illustrations in, 58 Content, 336–37 Controlling abstraction, 286 Critical or evaluative stance, 337 Critical-analytic approaches to literacy education prime motivation of, 41 Defused ambience, 92f, 94 with dramatized option, 95f with texturing effects, 94 Design, 337–38 Designer-Technicist extremes, 334 ‘Digisphere’, 169 Discourse analysis, 134 Discourse, effect of, 77 Dispersed gaze, 288, 291–92 Distressed boy depiction of, 175–77, 175f, 176t Dorothy’s Growth Chart, 278 Drawings in Granpa, 94 lighting effects in impact on images, 94 Dual coding theory, 269–70 Durran. See J. Durran ‘e/vilification’ of the enemy, 112 Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation toolkit, 48 Ecological text, categories of, 73 Ecologically sound and unsound, 81

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358

Ecology texts for young readers, 70 E-credibility, 337 Eden Project, The, 278 Elaboration, 270, 295 Electronic and paper media environments, 7 Engagement, 153, 310 English curriculum, 8 core elements, xv English faculties online forums between, 239 English for Australian Schools, 283–85 salient features of, 303 English language and literacy assessment (ELLA), 271 English studies values implicit in narrative and interpretive response texts, 312 English teachers assessing student engagement in task and designing a digital artefact, 334–35 design of learning opportunities, 330 making students learn through digital texts, 329 English teaching, xv–xvi English goals at senior level in NSW, 216 implications of robust multiliteracies, 305–6 literacy specimen paper, 313 proficiency, judgment of, 215

Index

response genres in, 221–22 syllabus of in NSW, 216–17 Enhancement, 270 Entrance education, 29 Enveloping ambience interplay of, 103–4, 103f Environment/ecology for young readers, 70 Environmental issues awareness of, 73 Environmental self-consciousness, 73 Environmental texts modes of representation, 73 Epistemological accountabilities to teachers and students, 37 E-proficiency, 335–36 Essays, texts of comparison, 222–24 nominal group structures, use of, 224 Evaluative stance, 309 Examinations translating visual into linguistic in framing answers, student approach, 312–13 Expansion, 270 Experiential metafunction in online forums, 241, 242 Factual text, 271–72 Familiarity, 97, 100–2, 109 in Piggybook, 106 in The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed, 100–1

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Index

Fan sites, 206 Flotsam images, techniques used in describing, 199–202, 200f recontextualized distillation of, 198–202 Focalisation in Photographs in the Mud, 124, 128f Forces (verb use in Taken, 173, 173f, 174t Formative motifs, 301–2 Four-block positioning device, 28 Gaze, 286 Gee. See J. Gee Gee image-text combination, as communicative medium views on, 190 Given-Ideal, (position), 30, 34 Given-Real (position), 34 Gorilla, 53 Graduation, 153, 310 Grammar of visual design, 9 Granpa, 93–94 Gregor Samsa (Fictitious character) in The Metamorphis, 192–98, 194f Haas. See C. Hass Hass e-credibility difficulties views on, 337

359

Haecceitas, or thisness of the natural world, 69–70, 78–80 Halliday. See M.A.K. Halliday Halliday language and other types of learning, relationship between views on, 48 Ham. See P. Ham Ham Australian-Japanese war survivor union views on, 113–14 Handbook of Reading Research, 7 Hannah’s Winter , 347 Harry Potter (Fictitious character) books and websites on, 186 Harry Potter Debating Forum, 254–61 Hasan. See R. Hasan Hasan, 301 formative motifs by, 285 Hay. See Elizabeth Hay Hay criticism of arguments against, 151 The Story of Little Black Sambo arguments on, 150 HSC. See Higher School Certificate Higher School Certificate (HSC), 216, 220 Highly valued descriptions, 304 High-mark range response, 315 Hood. See S. Hood

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360

Hood aspects of appraisal, 312 Horizontal knowledge structure, 289 Human learning, 48 Human subjectivity and narrative, 78 Humphrey. See S. Humphrey Humphrey adolescent social/political activism, discourse of, 312 ‘I Can Read’ exercise, 35 ICT learning statement, 330 ICT. See Information and communication technology Ideal digital learner, 334 Ideational function of language, 49 Ideational meanings, 315 explaining the narrative through attending, 53–55 Image/language interaction, reconceptualizing literacy, 8 Images and reading comprehension 1995 Year 3 BST, 271–73 2005 Year 3 BST, 274 2005 Year 5 BST, 274–77 Images expansion, demonstration through, 278 meanings constructed by, 191–92 types of meanings, 49

Index

with colours, 94–97 without colours, 94 Image–text relations, 270 identification and assessment of, 280 Imaginative journeys concept of, 220 Individual texts, 70 Information and communication technology, 205 Information communication technologies (ICTs), 328 Informational ecology books, 74 Infused ambience, 96–97 denial of, 96, 96f Inscribed positive judgements of individuals, 316 Instructional text, 317 Intensive gaze, 292–93 linguistic resources of, 306 Interaction of modalities, 134 Intermodality, 136 Interpersonal function of language, 49 Interpersonal meanings, 243–44 Interpersonal metafunction analysis of, 90–91 in online forums, 241, 242 Interpretation, 242 online discussion for, 261–62 Interpreting and reading the classics (Jianjin Dujin), 25–26 Interpreting literary picture books, 9

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Index

Interpreting salient in illustrations, 55–59 Invisible semiotic mediation, 302 IT. See Information technology J. K. Rowling fan site, 205–6 Japanese soldiers attitudes, 122t-123t, 123 Jenkins participatory culture functions views on, 206 transmedia navigation, teaching of views on, 198–99 Joseph Banks Native Plants Reserve, 278 Judgement(s), 153, 156–57 Just a Dream, 99 Kafka, Franz, 192 Kahootz machinima, 167–68 Kahootz software, 170 Kress. See G. Kress Kress newspapers and school science textbooks, frequency and prominence of images in views on, 6 semiotic theory by, 4 words and structures of language, semantic patterns views on., 49 Kuper, Peter, 193 Language at the centre of learning, 48

361

Language-based theory of learning, 48 Last Hero, The, 6 Learners’ reading materials and practices, 36 Learning how to read images, 50 Learning process options, 334 Learning to read the visual, 47–48 Learning to read, 43 Legend of the Giant Beaver , The, 72–73 Lemke. See J. Lemke Lemke intermodal text meaning of, 136 Less valued responses, 315 Leu. See D. Leu Leu deictic nature of new literacies, 4 Lexical metaphor, 299–300 linguistic resources of elaboration, relation with, 301 Life Cycle, 271 Literacy examinations in the compulsory years, 319 Literacy learning events school texts of, 37 Literacy theory and practices images and language, relative roles of, 7 Literate description, 293–301 Literate multimodality control of, 285 Literature as a source of interest, 186

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362

‘Little’, term, 156 Little Prince, The, 187 Loch Ness Monster of literary studies, 50 Logocentric theories of literacy, 5 Love. See Glen A. Love Love shift from anthropocentric to ecocentric perception, 69 Machinima, 167 Macken-Horarik. See M. Macken-Horarik Macken-Horarik tactical reading of concrete details, 315 Mapping Islands, 275 Martin. See J.R. Martin Martin critical discourse analysis by, 112 McCallum. See Robyn McCallum McCallum children’s literature representations of subjectivity, 72–73 McGee. See L.M. McGee McGee spoken language views on, 48 Meaning of nature, anthropocentric perspective, 72 Meaning-making practices/processes, 30 analogous ‘grammatical’ descriptions of, 9

Index

in complex virtual environments, 8 in language, image, sound and movement, 11 Lemke, views of, 8 Menzies. See Robert Menzies Menzies labor government, criticism of advertising against Japanese, 112–13 Message Office (Chuanda Shi), 28 Meta-communicative knowledge success of individuals essence in, 189 Metalanguage, 10–11, 303 role in teaching, 190–91 Metamorphosis, The graphic novel of, 192–93 animation displays, 193–98, 194f, 196f, 197f recontextualized versions of, 192–98 storyline of, 192 Mid-mark range responses, 315 Modal density, 181 Modality, 90 of co-textual relations, 135 of narrative structure interpreting variations of, 51–53 of online discussion, 244 synergy between, 136 Mood of online discussion, 244 Multiliteracies, 283. See also New literacies

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Index

assimilation and accommodation of, 8 mediating new types of text, role of ICT, 3–4 sources of ongoing emergence, 4 Multimedia literacy capacities development of schools, role of, 207 Multimodal discourses into an immersive aesthetic experience, 83 Multimodal learning in English, 340–41 Multi-modal nature of texts, xv–xvi Multimodal texts, 74 basic elements of creation, 335–38 ‘Mumbo jumbo’, 151 Narrative representation of ‘entering’ school,’ 27–28 New literacies, xv. See also Multiliteracies centrifugal energies of, 284 pedagogy, contemporary and future schooling, 10 rich intertextualities of horizontal dimension, 292 semiotic promise of, 284 New Media Consortium, 206 New South Wales (NSW) Schools, Statewide Reading Tests, 270–1 New South Wales Department of Education and Training (NSW DET), 270–1

New-Ideal, position, 34 Non-ambient images, 92–93, 93f use in Granpa, 93–94 Norris ‘modal complexity’ description in Taken, 173 ‘Nothingness’, 180f, 181, 182t NSW. See New South Wales Official Harry Potter Fan Forum, 249–54 Oi ! Get Off Our Train, 70–72 On Giants’ Shoulders texts, 225–27 One World, 77–81 dual semiotic modes, 78 Online forums appreciation, discussion for, 244–54 code of conduct for, 240 data analysis of, 243–44 English teachers challenges for, 240–41, 262 Open-ended question and the stimulus texts possibilities of, 290 Oral language learning, 26 Parr visual imagery observations on, 289 Parr. See Geoff Parr Pedagogic practice, 8 evaluation of, 220–21 Pedagogy strategy, 330 Pedagogy, 86

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364

Penultimate illustration, 71 Personal response text and procedural text, language differences between, 317 Photographic naturalism, 71 Photographs in the Mud, 114 characters in, 101–2 framing in, 129–34 iconization in, 129–34 images attitudes of soldiers, depiction of, 124, 128–20 battlefield, depiction of, 120 reconciliation through, 129, 135f slaughter, depiction of, 120f, 124, 125f orientations in, 115–16, 116f reconciliation theme of, 116 relationships of soldiers observation of, 125–26 verbal text from, 117, 118t, 119t attitudes of soldiers, 128–29 inscribed attitudes in, 120 reconciliation through, 129 relationships of soldiers in, 126, 128 Piaget. See Jean Piaget Piaget developmental theory of learning of, 4–5 Picture books, 47, 70 dual semiotic modes of, 75 Picture storybooks, 6

Index

Pictures in terms of affective characteristics evaluation of van Leeuwen, views of, 61 Kress, views of, 61 Piggybook, 91 Pihlainen. See Kalle Pihlainen Pihlainen focalization views on, 80 Pinyin, 30 Positive affect of individuals, 316 Positive appreciation, 314 Positive evaluations of people/activities, 314 Positive judgment of people, 314 Positive self judgment, 318 Practical pedagogy, 23–24 Pre-digital teachers, 331–32 Prefacing in the talk, 302 ‘Pre-literate’ elements in text production, 39 Priestly. See Doug Priestly Priestly multimodality inclination to centring, 74–75 Prose fiction online discussion contexts, 238–42 response to, 238 Putonghua, 26, 32 Reading to preschooler child, 49–63 Realization rules, 305 Realization, 286

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Index

Recognize disjunctions, 306 Reframe experience, 306 Reframing experience, 304 Reinking. See D. Reinking Reinking accommodation views on, 5 Reiteration of Theme, 222, 231, 236 Representational pictures, 47 Represented landscape convergence underlying most ecological texts for young audiences, 75 Re-semiotization, 135 Response text, 298 Rhetorical goal-directedness, 304 Richgels. See D.J. Richgels Richgels spoken language views on, 48 Rigby. See Kate Rigby Rigby centrality of the human actant views on, 74 Risk consciousness, 70 Rite of passage narrative, 77 Rockpool, The, 77, 81 Romeo and Juliet, 283 Rosie the Night Fright Monster , 272 Running boy depiction of, 177–78, 179t, 180t Salience, 302–3 ‘Sam’ (prefix in names), 151 ‘Sambo’, 151 Savannah, 284

365

School learning assessment of, 286 School literate in China, 25–37 high ratio of images to words in reading materials, 36–37 School-related elements, 28 Self-evident ‘symbols’, 38–39 Semantic features clusters of, 301 Semantic motifs choice of, 302 Semiotic analysis of Kahootz machinima, 167–68 of texts, 23–24 Semiotic distinctiveness of individual texts, 288 Semiotic economy, 306 Semiotic metaphor, 135 Senior secondary English, 215 Sense of accomplishment, 314 Seventh Fire, The, 85 SF theory, 303 SFL analysis verbal and ‘multimodal texts involving pictures and diagrams’, 312 SFL. See Systemic functional linguistics Shared reading in group times, 64 Siege Warfare, 277 Sleepy Book, 50, 60 Social esteem or personal qualities direct judgment of, 318 Social sanction qualities, 318 Social semiotic, 69

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‘Social semiotic’ framework of SF theory, 89–90 Social semiotics systems, 134 recurrent patterns generalization of, 136 Spirited Away texts, 227–29 State tests, 13 Stories from the Seventh Fire, 83 Student’s digital creation, 347 Student-designers’ performance in English classrooms mapping the learning terrain, 332–35 Student-generated digital texts sample testing of, 340 Students (NSW) essay writing skills required for assessment of, 221–31 Students’ achievements five-point scale from A to E, 284 Students’ digital curricular literacies, 339 Students’ knowledge about reading, 314 Students’ performance capabilities, 334 Students-as-designers performance terrain, 333, 333f Stunned, 175f Successful descriptions salient choices, 303–4 semantic features of, 304 Successful examination responses, 309–13 Successful linguistic responses, 304

Index

Successful written descriptions, 306 Supplementary test of achievement in reading (STAR), 13 Surf and Sea, 277 Symbolic attributive processes, 34 Symbolic reading of the text and images, 315–16 Systemic functional linguistic (SFL) theory, 310 Systemic functional linguistics, 190–91, 243 Systemic-functional (SF) theory, 89–90 Taken, (Machinima), 170–82 lexical cohesive devices, use in, 172 storyline of, 172, 202–4 Tasmanian Student Web Forum, 244–49 Teachers’ Guides, 83–84 Teaching through appraisal analysis, 162–63 through story characters, 152 Technoliterate capabilities of students, 331 Telling the Time Using Water , 274 Text visual and verbal aspects of, 272–73 Text evaluation, 222, 233–36 phases in, 225–30 Text nomination, 222, 233

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Text production online synergistic dynamic of, 338, 339f Text, painting of In Flanders Field, 102 Textual function of language, 49 Textual metafunction interplay with, 102–5 in online forums, 241–42 The Given (in yuwen books), 29 The Ideal (generalized information), 29 The New (in yuwen books), 29 The Real (in yuwen books), 29 The Road not Taken texts, 229–30 The Story of Little Black Sambo, 149–50, 162–63 Bannerman and Bing’s version comparative overview of, 161f criticism of, 151 expression of values in comparison with Bannerman’s and Bing’s visual interpretation, 149–50 storyline of, 150–51 Teachers Against Racism criticism of, 151–52 Theme Identification, 222, 233 Theme of online discussion, 244 Thomas. See Angela Thomas Thomas schools’ challenge, for IT education views on, 169–70

367

Tiananmen Square, 34–36 Tide Pools and Coral Reefs, 75–76, 84 Tobwabba Art Gallery, 275–77, 280 Transformation-reproduction extremes, 334 Transitivity system of, 243 Transmodal assessment criteria, testing of, 339–50 Transmodal operation, 338–39 Turner. See Victor Turner Turner passage narrative structure description on, 72 Two Summers, 275 Typical text lessons (kewen), 29–30 U.K. National Assessment Authority, 13 Underwater world in Flotsam, 199 United States (US) National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 13 Unsworth. See L. Unsworth Unsworth focus on teaching observations of, 152 literature, digital multimedia recontextualizations of views on, 12, 187 online communities, role of children on, 168 online forums for prose fiction description on, 238–40 framing of purposes in, 242

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Unsworth (cont.) schools’ challenge, for IT education views on, 169–70 SFL, for children’s literature, 190 Values education in schools, 310 Van Leeuwen. See T. van Leeuwen Van Leeuwen newspapers and school science textbooks, frequency and prominence of images in views on, 6 words and structures of language, semantic patterns views on, 49 Verbal text, 80 types of expansion, 270 Vibrancy, 97–98, 101, 109 example from The Tunnel, 98 in Piggybook, 106 Viewing, 283 Visual and verbal contemporary integrative use of, 6 Visual design, 60–61 ‘Visual grammar,’ 90 analysis by Kress and van Leeuwen, 91 Visual images codes and conventions of, 64 meanings, types of, 49 Visual interpretation by Bannerman appraisal of, 157–58

Index

by Bing appraisal of, 157–62 Visual literacy and language development characteristics of picture book and adult, 63–64 Visual literacy ontogenesis of, 55 Visual modality analysis of SF theory, 90 Visual semiotics, 29 Visual weight/salience, 57 Voyage of the First Fleet, The, 278–80 Warmth, 97, 99–100, 109 in The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed, 100 in The Tunnel, 99 Water Animal Records, 274 Water Movement in Plants, 275 Way Home, 9 Wearden. See S. Wearden Wearden e-credibility difficulties views on, 337 Where the Waves Break : Life at the Edge of the Sea, 77 Where the Wild Things Are, 53 White. See P. White White evaluative language opinion on, 309–10 Wiesner, David, 198 Wildfiles.TV , 83–84 multiple semiotic modes of, 84 William Wild Thing, 293–301

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Index

Word recognition, 30–36 Word-processed assignments, 332 Written language, 6 Written text enhancement by image, 277–80

Youth and change connections between, 288 Yuwen (teaching of reading-literature in school), 25–26