Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemPictures, words and voices : provoking thinking and inquiry through art rich picturebooks(University of Melbourne, 2009)This thesis examines an emerging phenomenon in children's literature � the vast, varied and growing sub-genre of picturebooks, linked together fundamentally by their intertextual references to art, artists and artmaking within their narratives (text and visual). These works have been collectively termed art rich picturebooks for this study. The aim of this project was twofold: to investigate the collected works of art rich picturebooks and to use this investigation as a foundation to a narrative inquiry and self-study into their pedagogical possibilities. The research design encompassed an intrinsic case study model containing within it two loosely bounded systems under investigation: the range of books categorised through predetermined criteria as art rich picturebooks, and a small selection of primary school teachers using these books in their teaching. Extending on Sipe's (2001b) research on 'picturebooks to teach art history' (197), the study here used a sample of 190 art rich picturebooks to analyse, categorise and generate into a bibliography and profile of these books � their qualities, challenges, limitations and possibilities. The second strand of this study used the researcher's own practice as a framework for analysing the narrative data collected from three participating teachers. The findings informed the development of an exemplar for teaching with these resources. It became increasingly evident that while these picturebooks present with multiple entry points for thinking and inquiry through art, integral to activating their potential, is the flexibility and artistry a teacher brings to translating the curriculum into lived practice. The artistry allows the teacher to seek creative and art rich ways into the books, and the flexibility lets them invite in the children's thinking, wonderings and imaginings. Aoki (in Pinar and Irwin, 2005) talks of the teacher seeking the spaces 'between' and 'among' in their teaching, and that these interspaces are 'the voice of play in the midst of things' (282). This study has worked towards finding these interspaces of possibility through teaching with art rich picturebooks.