Reflection

Reflections on Picture Book Activity

Activity 1
Partner A describes images on screen to partner B, who has their eyes closed.

Activity 2
With the knowledge that the images on screen are copied from a picture book partner B uses the images to tell a story to partner A, who has their eyes closed.

Question 1

What does the exercise tell us about narrative – it’s characteristics and form?

Narratives for young children have a simple structure and are often formulaic, set in a mythical land ‘far far away’ and ending ‘happily ever after’. The content is out of the ordinary, with talking animals and adventurous children overcoming challenges fraught with danger. In telling the story in the picture book many of these patterns of narrative were applied to the story. Some people in the group started with the opener “Once upon a time”. In my telling of the story my mouse was given heroic characteristics, although he was scared when the pages were falling on him he was inventive and brave and sailed out of the picture book into an idyllic scene in the country. Any concerns that may have been induced in the reader were resolved. Other members of the group named the mouse. The central figure is usually given a name in stories, this helps the reader to identify with the central figure and if the main character is an animal it acts to personify the animal.

Question 2

What does the exercise tell us about the relationship between pictures and words?

Books with pictures are usually thought of as less academic than those without, this is because when learning to read we rely on the pictures and as we become more accomplished readers we use them less, this marks a development in skill and therefore books with pictures are considered to be for less able readers.

An image can convey the message of a text at a glance, however a picture can only capture a moment. The novels of Dickens use both images and text, the illustrations are snapshots of important scenes in the narrative. Dickens’ novels are illustrated because they were serialised in newspapers, commonly newspapers pepper their text with pictures, and a newspaper without would be an intimidating prospect. Comics also use images alongside narrative, incorporating text with pictures using speech and thought bubbles. This acts to layer the images with detail that cannot be conveyed using pictures alone.
A problem with being presented with a character fully formed in an image is that there is no ambiguity, unlike text, where a description of curly hair means different things to different readers. Neil Mercer in ‘Words and Minds’ discusses this ambiguity of language.

Question 3

What were the differences between ‘telling’ and describing the images both as speaker and listener?

As mentioned I talked about the emotions of the mouse when telling the story, his fear as the pages fell on him and contentment at the end in a field of corn. The description of the images in the first activity was without emotion. The description was concerned with the details of the image, where the mouse was standing on the page, where his hand was placed on his face. There was more embellishment in the ‘telling’ of the images on the screen, I talked about the people that lived in the farmhouse, although there were no people in the picture. If I were to tell the story to a child I would encourage them to build more details into the story in the same way.

The tone of voice I employed for the ‘telling’ of the story was higher in pitch, much like the style of voice used in caretaker speech. I used my voice to build suspense, drawing out words and speeding them up to build excitement, mirroring the mood of the character. My face was animated when ‘telling’ the story, despite the listener having their eyes closed. I also lent in closer than my partner had when describing the images, this helped to build the mood of the story and increased the intensity of the ‘telling’ of it.

As a listener it was confusing hearing the description of the images when it was not known to be a picture book. The description was very hurried with importance placed on accuracy and speed when getting the information across. It was difficult to remember the information and piece it together without a context. It felt like a ‘serious’ activity, a test in communication, unlike the second activity, which was more fun.

Well done for getting this ball rolling.