Re-thinking Picturebooks for Intermediate and Advanced Learners: Perspectives for Secondary English Language Education
1127
2023
978-3-8233-9474-7
978-3-8233-8474-8
Gunter Narr Verlag
Grit Alter
Thorsten Merse
10.24053/9783823394747
Der didaktische Wert von picturebooks für den Englischunterricht in der Grundschule gilt als unumstritten. Jedoch gibt es in Forschung und Unterrichtspraxis derzeit kaum Ansätze, wie der Transfer dieses vermeintlich kindlichen Literaturmediums in die Sekundarstufe gelingen kann. Dieser Band legitimiert picturebooks als komplex angelegte Textform, die sich auch mit fortgeschrittenen Lernenden zu kompetenz- und inhaltsorientierter Arbeit im Englischunterricht anbietet. Die im Band versammelten konzeptuellen und empirischen Perspektiven zeigen angehenden und praktizierenden Lehrkräften konkret auf, wie vielfältig picturebooks den Unterricht bereichern können. Eine große Bandbreite praktischer Beispiele verdeutlicht ihr Potenzial für den Englischunterricht der Sekundarstufen - von der Förderung verschiedener literacies und literarischen Lernens bis hin zur Fokussierung von Themen wie Umwelt, sozialer Gerechtigkeit oder kultureller Diversität. The pedagogic value of picturebooks for teaching English in primary schools is undisputed. However, they also hold immense potential for secondary English language education. Their intricate design, thematic complexity, and rich options for competence development, e.g., in areas such as critical thinking or fostering visual literacy, transcend primary classrooms. This volume engages in a research-based discourse of how the transfer of this supposedly childlike literary medium to the secondary level can succeed. It legitimizes picturebooks as a complex text form that lends itself to competence- and content-oriented learning in English lessons with intermediate and advanced learners. The conceptual and empirical perspectives collected in this volume offer prospective and practicing teachers concrete insights on how picturebooks can enrich the classroom in many ways. A wide range of practical examples illustrates their potential for teaching English in secondary schools - from promoting different literacies and literary learning to focusing on topics such as the environment, social justice, or cultural diversity.
With a foreword by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer
<?page no="0"?> Re-thinking Picturebooks for Intermediate and Advanced Learners: Perspec�ves for Secondary English Language Educa�on Grit Alter / Thorsten Merse (Eds.) <?page no="1"?> Grit Alter is Professor of Teaching English as a Foreign Language at the University College of Teacher Education Tyrol in Innsbruck, Austria. Thorsten Merse is Professor of EFL Education at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. <?page no="2"?> narr STUDIENBÜCHER Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft Zugänge - Reflexionen - Transfer <?page no="4"?> Grit Alter / Thorsten Merse (Eds.) Re-thinking Picturebooks for Intermediate and Advanced Learners: Perspectives for Secondary English Language Education <?page no="5"?> DOI: https: / / doi.org/ 10.24053/ 9783823394747 © 2023 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. 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Internet: www.narr.de eMail: info@narr.de CPI books GmbH, Leck ISSN 2627-0323 ISBN 978-3-8233-8474-8 (Print) ISBN 978-3-8233-9474-7 (ePDF) ISBN 978-3-8233-0382-4 (ePub) Autorinnenabbildung Grit Alter: © Mag. Claudia Haas Autorenabbildung Thorsten Merse: © Frank Preuss, UDE Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http: / / dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. www.fsc.org MIX Papier aus verantwortungsvollen Quellen FSC ® C083411 ® <?page no="6"?> 11 15 19 23 26 27 33 1 35 36 1.1 37 1.2 39 1.3 44 1.4 48 1.5 50 53 2 59 59 2.1 60 2.2 62 2.3 64 2.4 69 2.5 69 2.6 72 77 Contents Foreword: Why picturebooks matter in secondary education | Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction: Positioning picturebooks in secondary English language teaching | Grit Alter and Thorsten Merse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Picturebooks for intermediate and advanced learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B Who are picturebooks for? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C Further conceptualizations: The scope of this volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D Exploring the complexity of picturebooks for ELT in secondary education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part I: -Conceptual Perspectives: Re-negotiating the -Status of Picturebooks in Secondary ELT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions | Theresa Summer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The potential of eco-picturebooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Categorising implicit and explicit eco-picturebooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Features of eco-picturebooks and selection criteria for older learners Eco-picturebooks: Suggestions for older learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eco-picturebook tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The centrality of conceptual metaphors to a reading of characters’ thoughts and feelings in Shaun Tan’s picturebooks | Markus Oppolzer . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crossover picturebooks: Transgressing the boundaries of children’s literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptual metaphors in The Rabbits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tan’s dystopian imagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Human alienation in Cicada and The Red Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reading Cicada with advanced students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <?page no="7"?> 3 81 82 3.1 84 3.2 87 3.3 92 102 4 107 107 4.1 108 4.2 112 4.3 115 4.4 118 125 131 5 133 134 5.1 135 5.2 136 5.3 137 5.4 140 5.5 140 5.6 143 150 6 155 155 6.1 157 6.2 159 6.3 160 6.4 167 “It was all very mysterious indeed” - Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper in the upper secondary classroom | Anne Herlyn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The verbal and the visual in foreign language teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . The Great Paper Caper as a complex literary text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The classroom project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom | Annika Kolb and Heiko Kist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Picturebooks in the secondary EFL classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Individualized, extensive and task-based reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The reading project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part II: -Themes, Competences, Literacies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced audiences: A critical literacy perspective from Canada | Eleni Louloudi . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Picturebooks for advanced learner(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Critical literacy as SJE in the classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Picturebooks and critical literacy: Connections and implications . . . . Methodological design of the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Considerations on The Composition by Antonio Skármeta and Alfonso Ruano (2003) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Using The Composition (2003) with advanced learners in a critical literacy milieu - Making space for thought and reflection . . . . . . . . . Concluding thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I Dissent - Discussing Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s egalitarian version of the American Dream at higher secondary level | Katja Heim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I Dissent in a nutshell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Education for democracy via RBG’s version of the American Dream Exploring crucial elements of education for democracy with I Dissent I Dissent: Multimodal analysis of sample openings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Contents <?page no="8"?> 6.5 170 174 7 177 177 7.1 178 7.2 180 7.3 183 7.4 187 7.5 189 7.6 196 197 8 203 204 8.1 205 8.2 206 8.3 208 8.4 214 219 9 225 9.1 225 9.2 227 9.3 233 9.4 233 9.5 235 9.6 237 9.7 247 9.8 248 253 255 I Dissent in ELT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Picturebooks matter: Developing citizenship education in the EFL classroom with teenage learners | Helena Lopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Citizenship education in the Portuguese school curriculum . . . . . . . . Citizenship education in the EFL classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reading picturebooks for citizenship education in EFL . . . . . . . . . . . . Picturebook matters: An example from classroom research with teenage EFL learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Hueys in The New Jumper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Who’s that man? ” - Stirring teenagers’ curiosity through Peter Sís’s The Wall | Sissil Lea Heggernes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fostering curiosity and developing visual literacy in teenage learners: Theoretical considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stimulating learners’ curiosity through picturebooks: Previous literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A visual analysis of The Wall: Negotiating symbols of freedom and repression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Teenage EL learners’ visual explorations of The Wall . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concluding remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse and retrospective reflections from the classroom | Sandie Mour-o . . . . . . . . Picturebooks, older learners and social challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Picturebooks about substance abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The House that Crack Built in the classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Planning for The House that Crack Built . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The activities and retrospective descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Possible ways forward for Filomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reflections around a retrospective approach to sharing practice . . . . Appendix: Handout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . As so often, this started with a cup of coffee… A personal reflection on this publishing process | Grit Alter and Thorsten Merse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contents 7 <?page no="9"?> 259 261 About the editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . About the authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Contents <?page no="10"?> Acknowledgements We would like to thank Kathrin Heyng and Luisa Santo from Narr Francke Attempto for accompanying us during the publish‐ ing process and for their careful reading and editing of the manuscript. Without their continuous support for the idea of this edited volume, this book would not have come into being. We would also like to thank Kim Steinhauer, a soon-to-be teacher from the University of Duisburg-Essen, for her pre‐ cise and rigorous attention to all editing and formatting details while supporting the preparation of this manuscript. <?page no="12"?> Foreword: Why picturebooks matter in secondary education Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer We live in a visually dominated world where pictures, icons, and pictorial symbols surround us everywhere, whether in our homes, on the street, while checking the news on the internet, watching a movie, paging through a graphic novel, taking pictures with our smartphones, or perusing charts and maps to get accurate information about traffic, geopolitical regions, or just to find the shortest route between two places. It cannot be taken for granted that such visual information is intuitively and easily understandable. Quite the contrary, pictures include visual codes, whether basic, complex or culture-specific, which need to be acquired over a long period, thus contributing to the acquisition of visual literacy - as the capacity to competently handle and understand any visual information whatsoever. Such a process never stops and is by no means limited to childhood but stretches to adolescence and adulthood. This insight comes to light when people are confronted with hitherto unknown visual or multimodal forms, for instance the page format and onomatopoetic expressions of a Japanese manga or the multiple levels of a sophisticated computer game which might overwhelm users with its exuberant graphic design, rapid cutting sequences, and permanent changes of perspectives. Against this backdrop, it is even more surprising that the acquisition of visual competence is accorded only a second-class treatment in the classroom. Although school curricula generally emphasize the significance of this competence, it is often neglected in teacher education to the extent of maintaining that visuals can be intuitively understood in contrast to the comprehension of textual information. Despite these assumptions, picturebooks have gradually entered the classroom, at least in preschools and primary schools. In this school context, picturebooks take on the task of fostering young children’s language acquisition, textual understanding, and comprehension of the interaction of text and images in order to fully grasp the meaning of the underlying story. Moreover, picturebooks are employed to promote foreign language education but also to encourage students’ active engagement with subjects such as identity, gender issues, climate change, and social justice to the extent of fostering transcultural learning and critical thinking. These very competencies have the highest priority in modern school education, and it seems to be a commonly held assumption that one never could start early enough to develop these skills. Despite these insights, the prevailing opinion still appears to be that these capacities should be trained by focusing on texts only, thus disregarding the multimodal quality of almost all contemporary media. But even if educationalists concede the overarching impact of visuals on young people’s access to information, they would certainly never take picturebooks into consideration as potential triggers. <?page no="13"?> The real reason for this blind spot is that many people still believe that picturebooks are suitable for smaller children but not a serious art form for teens, let alone young adults. In spite of the surge of crossover picturebooks that address a dual audience of children and adults, not to mention the picturebooks for adults which have entered the book market since the turn of the new millennium, it seems that the idea of using picturebooks in secondary education has not yet appeared on the agenda of higher education. In this respect, it is rather the film or, if it comes up, the graphic novel that are the favored multimodal media. The special suitability of these two media formats notwithstanding, the thematic, formal, and aesthetic complexities of modern picturebooks reveal a huge potential whose spectrum has not yet been fully captured. Since the rise of postmodern picturebooks in the early 1990s, more and more picturebooks show a high level of sophistication, to the extent of addressing taboo topics such as death, war, sexual abuse, and social inequality, and employing complicated narrative devices such as metafiction, intertextuality, multiperspectivity, and irony which challenge the reader in many ways. Apart from potentially attracting reluctant readers, picturebooks offer a cornucopia of possible applications within higher education and may serve as a springboard for transcultural learning and critical thinking, to name just two competencies which are key in secondary education today. Apart from that, the picturebook often draws on related art forms such as illustrated books, comics/ graphic novels, and artists’ books, which results in the emergence of hybrid picturebook formats where the boundaries between the picturebook and these other art forms are blurred to a greater or lesser extent. Another attractive feature of many picturebooks is the proximity to film, since these picturebooks use aesthetic strategies prevalent in movies such as zoom, split screen, and other forms of mise-en-scène and camera work. Given the huge interest of young people in streaming and watching films, these very picturebooks can serve as a hook to immerse them in classroom communication, while relying on their contextual knowledge. As this short overview has shown, albeit in a rudimentary fashion, picturebooks, particularly those which have been called crossover picturebooks or challenging picturebooks - a term which prevailed in academia about eight years ago - can by all means open new vistas in higher education. That picturebooks be included in secondary education was occasionally proposed by scholars working in the fields of education, pedagogy, and literacy studies, but it has gained momentum in the last few years. At the present time, publications on this topic are scarce. Therefore, a book dedicated to the usage of picturebooks in higher education is needed more than ever and could serve as a trailblazer for future educational undertakings and research projects. One prime task in this respect is the application of picturebooks in foreign language teaching, since the synthesis of text and visuals in picturebooks obviously fosters an understanding of a text written in a foreign language, which is very often English as the standard second language taught at secondary schools in many parts of Europe and elsewhere. The present collection aims to achieve precisely this goal by bringing together contributions by scholars who are experts in English language teaching. They explore 12 Foreword: Why picturebooks matter in secondary education <?page no="14"?> how picturebooks can be successfully used in the classroom to promote the acquisition of a foreign language, together with a better understanding of how text and pictures work in tandem to create a verifiable narrative. Besides theoretical reflections on current trends in secondary English language education and picturebook studies, this volume stands out due to its focus on topical issues such as mental health, sex education, human-rights education, political awareness, and environmental protection and how these can be successfully conveyed by using picturebooks in secondary English language teaching. Moreover, the individual chapters also address the signif‐ icance of conceptual metaphors, emotions, and genres that can lay the basis for the comprehension of the represented complex relationships in the picturebooks in focus. Such an undertaking is highly relevant in our current era and demonstrates that picturebooks offer an astonishing variety of potential applications within a secondary school context. Foreword: Why picturebooks matter in secondary education 13 <?page no="16"?> Introduction: Positioning picturebooks in secondary English language teaching Grit Alter and Thorsten Merse “Who are these picturebooks for? ” is the title of Ommundsen’s (2015) critical reflection on the audience of picturebooks. For the volume and introduction at hand, we would even delete the ‘these’ and in principle ask who picturebooks are for in general. That this is indeed a question that cannot be answered with a straightforward “Well, for children! ” is evident when picking up some picturebook publications. The design and layout, the humor and intertextual references, as well as the content and thematic focus of texts such as The Girl in Red (Frisch/ Innocenti 2012), Cry, Heart, but Never Break (Ringtved/ Pardi 2001), or the enchanting illustrations by Gabriella Barouch in picturebooks such as Maybe (Yamada/ Barouch 2019) address child, teenage and adult readers alike. Within the notion of assuming a dual audience of picturebooks (see below), with this book we would like to emphasize the audience beyond child readers. In the field of English language teaching (ELT), which is the educational endeavor we seek to investigate vis-á-vis picturebooks, the use of this specific literary format has so far - and this may not come as much of a surprise - mainly and predominantly been discussed in the context of primary education. Therefore, the answer to the question raised above - “Who are picturebooks for? ” - will quite certainly be “For children! ”. Indeed, in introductory books to ELT, it appears that picturebooks are almost exclusively reserved for younger learners at primary level (e.g., Surkamp/ Vie‐ brock 2018; Schmid-Schönbein 2008). There is now a productive stream of research publications exploring the nexus between primary ELT and picturebook usage, often coming along with rich suggestions of very promising recommendations for concrete picturebooks, or for engaging classroom methodologies and storytelling techniques (e.g., Ellis/ Brewster 2014, Mour-o 2015, and many publications in the e-journal Children’s Literature in English Language Education). Of course, this is clearly not to be understood as a critique against the use of picturebooks in primary settings where their value must count as undisputed. In particular, this is due to their thematic and visual accessibility for children, or their use of formulaic chunks and repetitive language that are considered conducive for early language learning. At the same time, however, this almost exclusive focus on primary ELT, we argue, might have caused somewhat of a gap, or an uninterrogated field of engagement and research, in which picturebooks are hardly ever considered in view of their potential for ELT in secondary education. Against the backdrop of these initial reflections, this introduction is the prelude to deconstructing such discursive boundaries that position picturebooks as an exclusive medium for primary ELT, and thus to re-thinking picturebooks as potential teaching material for intermediate and advanced learners in secondary ELT. With these learners, we have students in mind who are 13 to 18 years of age or older. In most of the <?page no="17"?> 1 Each chapter defines the learner group they have in mind. When we refer to very young readers and learners in this introduction, we mean pre-primary school children up to six years of age, with young readers and learners we mean primary school children between the ages of 7 and 12, with intermediate learners we mean readers and learners between 13 and 16, and with advanced readers and learners we mean readers and learners between the ages of 17 and 19. Certainly, English language education can also take place with learners beyond the latter age span and beyond secondary school contexts, in which case such learners would qualify as adult learners and readers. cultural contexts from which the contributors to this volume write, this means that these learners outgrew primary school and entered secondary education. 1 Together with the authors of the single chapters, we construct the complexity of picturebooks for teenagers and adults in secondary educational contexts along the following lines, which will also be further developed throughout this introduction and indeed the whole edited volume: • the thematic complexity by exploring in what ways picturebooks address chal‐ lenging and controversial themes that move picturebooks toward more advanced audiences while retaining the format of the picturebook (Ommundsen et al. 2022), • the notion of dual address (Ommundsen 2018) that makes picturebooks for children also interesting for teenage and adult readers (e.g., through intertextual references or irony), and • the complex interplay of visual and verbal text, drawing on the concept of intera‐ nimation to tease out the diverse possibilities of such interplay (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2000), e.g, symmetrical, complementary, or counterpoint interplay (see below), and how the development of visual literacy is beneficial to unpack these mechanisms of meaning-making. In this introduction, we would like to unfold the idea of re-thinking picturebooks for intermediate and advanced learners. First, we address which kinds of picturebooks can be considered for this audience. Here, we refer to different categorizations of picturebooks while keeping our target group in mind. We then continue with introducing methods of picturebook analysis in which reader-response criticism takes center stage, and discuss the dual audience of cross-over literature and fusion texts. Further notes on the conceptualization of picturebooks will then be infused with an outlook on the individual chapters included in this volume. But to begin with, an explanation of what we mean by picturebooks is necessary. Picturebook research has seen a huge expansion over the last few decades. While one may be quick to say that a picturebook is simply a book with pictures, the intricate combination of different semiotic styles makes this text type much more complex; it is more than the sum of its parts (cf. Nodelman 1988). Accordingly, a picturebook “emphasize[s] the inextricable connection of words and pictures and the unique qualities of the form: a picturebook is not simply a book that happens to have pictures” (Sipe 2008a). Arizpe and Styles agree to this understanding and elaborate that a picturebook is a “book in which the story depends on the interaction between written text and image and where both have been created with a conscious aesthetic 16 Introduction: Positioning picturebooks in secondary English language teaching <?page no="18"?> intention” (Arizpe/ Styles 2003). This introduction and particularly the chapters in this volume underline the visual and verbal complexity of picturebooks indicated in these references. Next to a general understanding of what picturebooks are, the academic discourse critically reflects on the spelling of the very formate itself (Kümmerling-Meibauer 2015). While dictionaries such as Merrian-Webster, the Oxford English Dictionary, or the Cambridge Dictionary write it with two words as “picture book,” the research community more or less agrees that the term shall be written as one word, as is also the case in this volume. This underlines how closely the verbal and visual modes are connected, mostly even dependent on one another to create meaning (Kümmerling-Meibauer 2015). Hence, the compound noun “picturebook” is indicative of the compound character of this literary and textual format (cf. Bland 2013; Lewis 2001; Mour-o 2015). When written as ‘picture book,’ the term refers to books that in general include pictures to any extent, i.e., books that have illustrations and images that accompany the verbal text, but do not necessarily carry explicit meaning as in picturebooks. The category ‘picture book’ would thus also include graphic novels, sequential comics in book length, or fusion texts (Evans 2015). However, with the volume at hand, we explicitly address the use of picturebooks in intermediate and advanced ELT classrooms because this idea seems to have novelty in view of existing picturebook research. The application of graphic novels or comics with the respective age group seems uncontested whereas scholars, teachers, and students may find that the implementation of a form of literature that is generally considered to have a child-audience does indeed initially surprise. The relationship between the verbal and visual texts that has been mentioned here deserves more attention as both can interact in various ways. While a few picturebook scholars have reflected on this (e.g., Kümmerling-Meibauer 1999; Martinez/ Harmon 2012; Nikolajeva/ Scott 2000; Nodelman 1988; Schwarcz 1982; Thiele 2003), we consider Nikolajeva and Scott’s (2000) approach most suitable for investigating picturebooks with intermediate and advanced learners in ELT classrooms. They distinguish between a symmetrical relationship of verbal and visual text, an enhancing relationship, a complementary, counterpointing and contradictory interaction. In symmetrical inter‐ actions, the verbal and visual text tell the same story and provide essentially similar information. An enhancing interaction is characterized by the verbal and visual text mutually amplifying their content. Complementary interaction describes verbal and visual text relationships that are enhancing in essence but the interaction of both modes is more significant. Both “words and pictures support […] one another by providing additional information that the other lacks, the additional material may be minor, or quite dramatically different” (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2000: 229). Counterpointing interaction refers to instances in which verbal and visual text “collaborate to communicate meanings beyond the scope of either one alone” (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2000: 226). Finally, in contradictory interaction verbal and visual text offer different kinds of informa‐ Introduction: Positioning picturebooks in secondary English language teaching 17 <?page no="19"?> tion and seem to oppose one another. As Ommundsen, Kümmerling-Meibauer and Haaland state, “[m]ost contemporary picturebooks combine several of these different relationships” (Ommundsen et al. 2022: 3). Nevertheless, the following overview offers example texts for each category and the reader is invited to open these picturebooks to experience the interpretative richness the different types of interplay create. Symmetrical interaction: concept picturebooks such as ABC-picturebooks, and in particular picturebooks by Eric Carle, such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969) or Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (1967) Enhancing and complementary interaction: Susan Laughs (Willis 1999), No! (Altés 2012), The Cloud (Cumming 2010), or Oi Frog! (Gray/ Field 2014) Counterpoint interaction: Rosie’s Walk (Hutchins 1968), Handa’s Surprise (Browne 1995), Princess Smartypants (Cole 1986) Contradictory interaction: The Girl in Red (Frisch/ Innocenti 2012), Bamboozled (Legge 1994) As to fully explore picturebooks in detail and to provide a further model for analyzing picturebooks, Staiger (2014) suggests a model of picturebook analysis consisting of the following five dimensions: • Narrative dimension: a) What is the book about? (e.g., the topic, theme, motifs, development of the narrative, characters and their constellation, space, structure, function of the setting, time and time span); b) How is the story being told? (e.g., point of view and focalization, representation of thoughts and emotions, the pace with which a story is told or a story moves forward, reliability of the narrator, metafictional elements); • Verbal dimension: What kind of language is used? (e.g., key terms and words, type of words, sentence structure, coherence, style of writing in terms of figures of speech, rhyme, rhythm, tense to express time); • Visual dimension: How is the book visually designed? (e.g., lines, colors, space, style and technique of illustrations, texture, composition, layout, typography); • Intermodal dimension: What is the relationship of verbal and visual text? (cf. Nikolajeva/ Scott 2000); • Paratextual and material dimension: What does the peritext of the picturebook reveal? (e.g., format and size of the book, size of the pages, cover, endpaper, title page, type of paper, binding). As he explains, these dimensions are inseparably linked with one another and can indeed offer detailed and revealing insights into the design of the picturebook, as well as offer a structured path to interpret possible meanings of a given text. When looking at picturebooks from an analytical perspective, the focus of the analysis is certainly on the information the reader is interested in. Hence, a step-by-step analysis that follows 18 Introduction: Positioning picturebooks in secondary English language teaching <?page no="20"?> such a model may only occur in selected contexts. Indeed, the chapters in this volume do not explicitly aim at such a model-based engagement with picturebooks. Rather, the readers’ individual responses to the books will take center stage (Iser 1970, 1972, 1976). In this approach, readers respond to the texts using their initial impressions as starting points to then ask more detailed questions about the means which caused these impressions. They gradually approach the text by analysing specific devices and, thus, develop an individual understanding of the text. This can, in turn, be amplified by adding further critical reflections on the content, linguistic, stylistic and cultural significance of the picturebook. A Picturebooks for intermediate and advanced learners In the context of this book’s goal, that is to open up the engagement with picturebooks for intermediate and advanced learners in English as a foreign language (EFL) education and ELT, let us now intensify the deconstruction of the notions of age, audience, or readership by looking at Bader’s definition of picturebooks that is circulating widely in research: A picture book is text, illustrations, total design; an item of manufacture and a commercial product; a social, cultural, historical document; and foremost, an experience for a child. As an art form, it hinges on the interdependence of pictures and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and on the drama of turning the page. On its own terms its possibilities are limitless. (Bader 1976: 1) This often-quoted position on picturebooks not only indicates the complexity of this genre and the different perspectives from which to engage with them, but also offers points of entry for our conceptual re-thinking of picturebooks. Surely, in 1976 the notion of an “experience for a child” was accountable as “picturebooks for adults were scarcely known at that time” (Ommundsen 2014: 31). Recent changes and developments on the picturebook market which now does offer picturebooks explicitly written and published for adults (Ommundsen 2018) allow for an even stronger emphasis on the endless possibilities picturebooks offer. Hence, for us, the endless possibilities that picturebooks have and offer for reading and engaging with the text also mean that the text is not only an experience for the child. It is, foremost, an experience for any reader who finds pleasure in aesthetic and literary encounters. Finding this pleasure cannot be limited to any age group, particularly since individual readers will encounter a plethora of various picturebooks. Broadly speaking, picturebooks can be fictional or informational. On their website PEPELT, Ellis, Gruenbaum, Mour-o and Sadowska (n.y.) suggest that fictional picture‐ books include fairy tales, fables, and their modern re-tellings, as well as picturebooks about monsters and dragons and with a focus on fantasy. In their style, they can be created through songs, poems and/ or rhymes, or could also be works without verbal text at all. These books can cover a wide range of topics and themes, starting from A Picturebooks for intermediate and advanced learners 19 <?page no="21"?> stories about friendship, family, adventures, or stories about different places in the world, their people, and cultures. Informational picturebooks are texts that offer an aesthetic experience while simultaneously imparting knowledge (Ellis et al. n.y.; cf. also Goga/ Iversen/ Teigland 2021; von Merveldt 2018). These include concept, number and ABC-books as well as activity books, pop-up and wimmelbooks, but also books about nature, history, or biographies. Due to the often-limited ability of particularly younger children to read verbal text, these picturebooks rely on a multimodal design in that they not only display illustrations but various visuals such as maps, diagrams, photography, and/ or cut-away pages and flaps. Similar to fictional picturebooks, also informational picturebooks can be presented in verses, narratives, or in a more descriptive and explanatory style of writing. Sipe’s (2008b) categorization of picturebooks mixes elements of design and content as he suggests a) (nearly) wordless picturebooks, b) playful postmodern picturebooks, and c) picturebooks on serious social issues. Bland (2013) uses a similar set, but divides Sipe’s third category into picturebooks with an implicit sociocultural agenda, and picturebooks with an environmental perspective (see Summer’s contribution to this volume for further branches). When it comes to thematic criteria, all kinds of further sub-categories are possible: picturebooks about friendship, about love, about diversity, about festivities, and so forth. Ommundsen (2006) distinguishes between naïve, complex, and existential picture‐ books, but underlines that picturebooks can often belong to more than one category. Naïve picturebooks are texts in which “the author or illustrator writes or draws in a childlike fashion, as a child would do. The naive can be understood as a way to create art according to children’s premises, or a way to implant child perspectives into art” (Goga 2011 in Ommundsen 2017: 73). The second category includes picturebooks that have become more complex “with polyphonic multilayered narrative structures and advanced literary devices traditionally thought of as adult.” To continue Ommun‐ den’s distinctions, complex picturebooks create higher reading demands and develop cognitive skills, which in turn indicates that they “can be read on different levels, depending on the reader’s frame of reference” (Ommundsen 2015: 73). In her third category, Ommundsen opens up a thematic and content-driven trajectory. For her, [e]xistential picturebooks may be challenging for both children and adults alike, as they tackle crucial questions in human life: life and death, love, friendship and loneliness, identity and belonging. They might also treat subjects traditionally thought of as tabooed in children’s literature: war, domestic violence, child abuse, broken relationships and divorce. (Ommundsen 2017: 73) What follows from this distinction is that readers of all ages may engage with such picturebooks to enjoy or develop individual readings and interpretations of themes and questions they consider relevant and central in their lives. Interestingly, Ommundsen points out that her systematic distinctions are not necessarily and always clear-cut. Therefore, she introduces the powerful concept of “crossover picturebooks [that] 20 Introduction: Positioning picturebooks in secondary English language teaching <?page no="22"?> simultaneously include traits from all three” (Ommundsen 2017: 74), which might result in even more complex and multilayered readings the more these categories interact and overlap. The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks (Kümmerling-Meibauer 2021) distin‐ guishes between early-concept books and concept books, wimmelbooks, ABC-books, pop-up and movable books, wordless, postmodern, and crossover picturebooks, pic‐ turebooks for adults, informational picturebooks, poetry in picturebooks, multilingual picturebooks and digital picturebooks, which resembles the categories suggested by others above. And, similar to the categories above, there are plenty of picturebooks that fit into more than one category. All of these categorizations can certainly be justified as it is possible to match almost every picturebook into one of the boxes suggested here. Even so, when it comes to thinking about the potential of picturebooks for intermediate and advanced learners, we believe it is necessary to take further criteria than the style and themes these refer to into account. The main aspect would be that such picturebooks would have to include an element that makes the text interesting for an audience that authors and illustrators originally may not have had in mind when creating the book. Simultaneously, whether a picturebook has potential for intermediate and advanced learners or not depends on how the book is implemented in teaching scenarios and what the learners do with the text. When re-thinking picturebooks for intermediate and advanced learners, we consider the following categories to be relevant points of orientation. There are picturebooks for children with which intermediate and advanced learners can critically consider the norms and values a society holds dear so that these are worthy of being implemented in the youngest generation through picturebooks, e.g., the value of friendship, and respect for animals and the natural world. Using picturebooks, intermediate and advanced learners can deconstruct ideological assump‐ tions authors inscribe into their texts, even if co-consciously. Ideologies here refers to a “cognitive framework that shapes […] knowledge, opinions and attitudes, and social representations” (van Dijk 2008: 34 in Stephens 2018: 137). These are shared by members of a community or society and influence their social practice. An analytical perspective on ideology is concerned with uncovering “assumptions which determine a society’s sense of meaning and value” (Stephens 2018: 137). In this sense, a moral contained in a text is never without ideology. Authors and texts always transport assumptions about how the world is and should be, how human existence in and with the world ought to be. Current critical investigations have revealed that a lot of picturebooks follow an ideology that constructs white, bodily standardized, and heterosexual people as the norm. For example, girls immigrating to the United States are only acknowledged if they write their name in English or are asked to change it to match their new classmates’ pronunciation abilities (Alter 2016), illustrators hide children’s legs that are said to be ‘dysfunctional’ behind clouds, blankets and dogs (Alter/ Aho 2018; disability in general cf. Blaska 2003; Ali 2022), and LGBTIQ+ people A Picturebooks for intermediate and advanced learners 21 <?page no="23"?> and issues have largely been silenced in picturebooks or not represented, which is only gradually beginning to change (Merse 2017, 2018; Hedberg/ Venzo/ Young 2022). In educational settings, these picturebooks can mainly be used to foster students’ critical thinking skills. They read the picturebooks and challenge who the protagonists are regarding the construction of their identity, i.e., whether they can be read as someone with a diversity background who has formerly been underrepresented in literary texts. Students can challenge the way in which these minoritized protagonists are represented, i.e., do they merely happen to be part of the cast, or do they have voice and agency? Are they represented in a holistic and balanced manner, or are they solely victimized and pitied? A critical investigation of these aspects also enhances students’ sensitivity to the way in which identities are constructed and depicted in further socio-cultural contexts and pop-cultural media, and thus allows them to be(come) critical members of society, to productively take part and engage in shaping and contributing to the society they live in. There are picturebooks that have rather explicit verbal and visual content and are thus not particularly well-suited to be read by and with a child audience. These, for example, relate to dystopian fiction in that these present society as a no-good place. As argued elsewhere (Alter 2019), these picturebooks can be re-tellings of traditional tales that are accompanied by bleak illustrations, for example, Brown’s illustration of The Grimm Brother’s Hansel and Gretel (1981) or Frisch and Innocenti’s re-telling of “Red Riding Hood” in The Girl in Red (2012), or these can be picturebooks in which the verbal text sounds playful but is very serious, with similarly serious, almost disturbing images (see Mour-o’s reading of The House that Crack Built in this volume). A further category addresses the way in which picturebooks are used to develop competences and literacies that are part of the teaching objectives set by curricula guidelines, for example, as they are issued through Ministries of Education or in edu‐ cational policy frameworks. Certainly, communicative competences are also fostered with the two foci introduced above, in particular because such books have the potential to engender in-depth readings, critical reflections, or communicative tasks. Addition‐ ally, picturebooks can be used to develop students’ multimodal literacy (see Herlyn’s intriguing teaching scenario in this volume), their creative writing competences, for instance, when working with (nearly) wordless picturebooks, or their understanding of the cultural basis of metaphors which requires intercultural competences as well (see Oppolzer’s contribution to this volume). This focus on teaching objectives also includes content-driven choices that guide teachers toward selecting a picturebook as a foundation for further explorations, for example, reflecting on the residential school system based on texts such as Campbell and LaFave’s Shin-chi’s Canoe (2008) (Alter 2017). 22 Introduction: Positioning picturebooks in secondary English language teaching <?page no="24"?> B Who are picturebooks for? With considering picturebooks as teaching material for intermediate and advanced learners, we inscribe our perspective on these texts into the discourse of scholars who argue that picturebooks have a “dual audience” (Nikolajeva 2010; Ommundsen 2014, 2015, 2018), or a “double address” (Wall 1991). We see picturebooks as cross-over fiction in the sense that they are challenging and complex readings for children, teenagers, or adults alike, among other reasons because of the diverse interactions between the verbal and visual text, intertextual references, allegedly difficult or controversial themes, and stunningly sophisticated designs these offer (e.g., Beckett 1999, 2009, 2011, 2012; Falconer 2009). Already in 1974, Iser considered that the “implied reader” is “the reader that can be extracted and constructed from the text as such” (Iser 1974 in Nikolajeva 2010: 28). Hence, who the implied reader is can never be fixed or fully determined, opening up the notion of the implied reader as a moving entity, with picturebooks having the capacity to address “both the implied child reader and an implied adult reader at the same time, and not the one at the expense of the other” (Ommundsen 2006 in Ommundsen 2017: 72). Ultimately, this indeterminacy - or rather, openness - of who the implied readers are has been condensed by Wall (1991) into the term “dual address”. Wall’s (1991) notion of the dual address indicates that while authors have the child reader in mind when creating their picturebooks, they also consider the adult reader, either to please them, too, as primary readers of their texts, or because they are usually the ones who buy the books for children, classrooms or libraries. As Ommundsen observes, “more than what is being said, it is how it is said, and to whom, that distinguishes children’s literature from literature for adults” (Ommundsen 2017: 90, italics in original). This could then be a point of departure for reading picturebooks with intermediate and/ or advanced learners when tasks focus on deconstructing norms, values, and ideologies as a teaching objective. The picturebook Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown (2013) is a suitable example to illustrate this notion of the dual address. In this book, the readers get to know the main protagonist Mr. Tiger, who is painted in bright orange color as vivid and full of zest for life. Mr. Tiger lives in what comes across as a rather gloomy and monotonous city, and a rather boring and uptight society of other animals. Tellingly, all animals are properly dressed in suits and gowns; objects, houses, or speech bubbles are illustrated in tones of gray and black, whereas everything that relates to Mr. Tiger keeps a bright orange. While the society Mr. Tiger is immersed in seems to follow strict rules of proper behavior (as becomes apparent, e.g., in a highly conventionalized tea ceremony), Mr. Tiger himself wants to have fun, loosen up, break free from the normative chains of society - and go wild! Ultimately, Mr. Tiger - being the outcast in his social context - leaves the city for the vibrant jungle where he goes completely wild. After a while, however, Mr. B Who are picturebooks for? 23 <?page no="25"?> Tiger begins to miss his former home and decides to go back - only to encounter a changed environment that is now much more welcoming towards his difference. This change is iconically illustrated through Mr. Tiger now wearing a colorful shirt - rather than a proper grey suit. In terms of conceiving this literary work with a view to ‘dual address,’ children and adults might experience this book differently. Children might find this an enjoyable and funny read because the animals they encounter lead human lives and engage in human activities, with Mr. Tiger being particularly outstanding, doing extremely funny things. Adults might perceive the story of this picture‐ book more on a sociocultural meta level, with Mr. Tiger being the epitome of Otherness, struggling to develop his identity against the odds of a normative society in which he is not welcome. His breaking free, and his as well as society’s embracing of his difference, can be read as a positive development towards diversity, inclusion, and feeling a sense of belonging. Nikolajeva approaches the question of the audience of picturebooks from a perspec‐ tive that differentiates “competent/ incompetent and sophisticated/ unsophisticated readers, without putting any evaluative or pejorative significance to these terms” (Nikolajeva 2010: 28). In her reflection on how child and adult readers may understand picturebooks, verbal and visual texts as well as their interplay and notions of fiction and narrative texts, she turns to Barthes’ interpretative codes and explains that both audiences may read and understand such texts differently, depending on their experience of engaging with such texts. Hence, it would be important to rather differentiate between “competent versus incompetent readers irrespective of age” (Nikolajeva 2010: 39). Ommundsen agrees by arguing that the “dividing line between competent and non-competent readers does not necessarily relate to age, but rather to literacy, experiences with different texts and means of communication, knowledge and education” (Ommundsen 2017: 19). The link between the picturebooks’ audience and style shall shortly be illustrated with reference to Nikolajeva’s exploration of symbolic codes which are entailed in the illustrations (2010). In many cultures, for example, dark forests are associated with danger and sailboats with freedom, images of storms with a turbulent state of mind, and an image of a rainbow as hope. Even so, such metaphors mainly carry meaning for competent and sophisticated readers who are aware of these codes; children may not always associate these contents to respective images. Hence, knowing and unknowing readers (in/ competent, un/ sophisticated) then appreciate the texts on different levels, but both still find elements in the text they can enjoy. Unsophisticated readers may read texts on the literal level, for example, a picturebook featuring a journey as an adventure story while sophisticated readers may read the same story on a metaphorical level as dealing with fear, anxiety, and conflict which may not be indicated through the verbal text but the visuals accompanying the verbal text (Nikolajeva 2010: 36-37). 24 Introduction: Positioning picturebooks in secondary English language teaching <?page no="26"?> Thus, more background knowledge and experience will be necessary to decode this metaphorical dimension beyond the visual text. A similar dimension of enjoyment is implemented in picturebooks through intertex‐ tual and particularly intervisual/ interpictoral references (Beckett 2001). These elements of direct quotations from or references to further verbal and visual texts can make texts appealing to informed/ experienced/ sophisticated readers (cf. Nikolajeva 2010: 38). As Alter (2019) analyses in Brown’s illustration of Hansel and Gretel (2003), being aware that the images in the picturebook can actually be read as intervisual references to van Eyck and Velazquez, increases readers’ understanding of the text as these ignite a deeper reading of the text. Similarly, being familiar with the icons and advertisements displayed in the mall through which Sophia flees in The Girl in Red (Frisch/ Innocenti 2012), or the cubic appearance of the protagonists in The House That Crack Built (Taylor/ Thompson Dicks 1992, see also Mour-o’s contribution to this volume) increase readers’ engagement with the text. In the former, they may pay more attention to the illustrations and try to find even more intervisual references and reflect their intercultural and capitalist-critical meaning; in the latter, knowledge of Cubism underlines the devastating effect drug abuse has on humans, illustrated with bodies that are broken up into pieces and reassembled in a distorted manner, like empty shells on flat canvas (Alter 2019). These are a few examples of how texts “construct their implied readers according to the degree of complexity encoded in the text” (Nikolajeva 2010: 39). As Nikolajeva continues with reference to Barthes: If the implied reader is expected to read on the proairetic level (“simple” text) it is hardly fruitful to elicit more advanced interpretations. In contrast, a text whose implied reader is supposed to manage symbolic and referential codes can still be read and appreciated by someone who does not have the necessary competence. A text that does not allow proairetic reading will probably be rejected by unsophisticated readers. (Nikolajeva 2010: 39) Barthes (1974 in Nikolajeva 2010) further distinguishes between readerly and writerly texts. Readerly texts “are consciously based on codes common to authors and recipients. Writerly texts deliberately break conventions and thus defy recipients’ interpretation. Certainly, most of children’s picturebooks fall under the first category, demanding little effort in the process of decoding” (Nikolajeva 2010: 38). The implication derived from this dualism allows to distinguish between picturebooks for children and unsophisti‐ cated readers from picturebooks for other audiences. This short tour d’horizon shows that it is hardly possible to generally decide who picturebooks are for. What is essential is how and with whom picturebooks can unfold their potential to entertain or stimulate interesting discussions and reflections - also in EFL classrooms. Hence, the individual picturebooks need to be considered, and there specifically the question of how much effort meaning-making does take. The Rabbits (Marsden/ Tan 2010, Oppolzer in this volume), for example, is visually more complex and demands more cultural and historical awareness than The Great Paper B Who are picturebooks for? 25 <?page no="27"?> Caper ( Jeffers 2009, Herlyn in this volume). The counterpoint relationship of verbal and visual texts in Rosie’s Walk (Hutchins 1968) make the book rather complex as well, but as this creates a lot of humor, the picturebook is enjoyed by younger and older readers alike. C Further conceptualizations: The scope of this volume This volume is divided into two parts. In Part I: Conceptual Perspectives: Renegotiating the Status of Picturebooks in Secondary ELT, theoretical aspects are at the fore. The authors unfold the potential of picturebooks for intermediate and advanced learners through categorical and conceptual explorations. In “Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions”, Theresa Summer uses eco-picturebooks to extend Sipe’s and Bland’s categorization of picturebooks. Her conceptual exploration of this sub-category con‐ nects the reflection of picturebooks for intermediate and advanced learners with the current issue of education for sustainable development and developing critical environmental literacies. She not only offers picturebook examples but also ideas for classroom application. Markus Oppolzer engages in a conceptual investigation of the visual texts in Shaun Tan’s picturebooks. Based on a detailed understanding of conceptual metaphors, learners are invited to critically reflect on the characters’ thoughts and feelings. This explicit focus on visual details is promising to support students in thinking about mental health, corporate and capitalist exploitation, and being less ignorant of or oblivious to cultural aspects. In “‘It was all very mysterious indeed’ - Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper in the upper secondary classroom,” Anne Herlyn takes us to a forest in which a group of friends tries to solve the mystery of who is cutting down their trees. Separating the visual and verbal text of The Great Paper Caper ( Jeffers 2009) and asking her advanced students to complete the missing part, she enabled them to consciously consider the interplay of these two modes. This led to a detailed analysis of the picturebook and served as a motivating introduction to crime fiction as a literary genre, to dual readership, and environmental issues. Annika Kolb and Heiko Kist invest in the potential of picturebooks for individualized reading experiences in the secondary EFL classroom. Next to learners’ individual interpretations of picturebooks, the results of their preand post-questionnaire surveys and group discussions reveal the high potential picturebooks hold for this age group. The chapters in Part II: Themes, Competences, Literacies connect a topical focus on various picturebooks with competences and literacies that are to be fostered in intermediate and advanced students. The authors’ thematic and methodological considerations re-think picturebooks to position and legitimize this literary medium for secondary education. The first three chapters can be subsumed under the umbrella of human rights education. In “(Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced 26 Introduction: Positioning picturebooks in secondary English language teaching <?page no="28"?> audiences: A critical literacy perspective from Canada,” Eleni Louloudi explores picturebooks for social justice education with advanced learners. She reports on reading texts such as Skármeta’s The Composition (2003) in a university class in Canada, focusing on social justice in terms of classism and racism. The reflection also explores the multidimensional gestalt of picturebooks, the development of critical literacy as well as an argumentation for the potential of picturebooks for fostering social justice in classrooms. Katja Heim continues this thematic focus by exploring I Dissent (Levy/ Baddeley 2016), a picturebook that documents the life of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a trailblazer of equality, human rights, and citizenship. Heim’s analysis and suggestions for using it with intermediate learners offer revealing insights to how “one disagreement at a time” can have a magnificent impact on generations to come. Helena Lopes rounds off this set by discussing picturebooks as valuable resources to explore citizenship issues in the EFL classroom. Her students engaged with The Hueys in The New Jumper ( Jeffers 2012) to explore its potential to develop critical thinking. She further details the important, but often marginalized, dimensions of reluctant readers and creativity. Sissil Lea Heggernes explores how the visual features of picturebooks can stir teenage English language learners’ curiosity. From her study on how students in lower secondary school in Norway engage with The Wall: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain (Sís 2007) and its visual weight, she concludes that visual literacy should play a more prominent role in secondary school. In “Crack in the classroom,” Sandie Mour-o describes how an English teacher in Portugal substituted textbook-based activities with The House that Crack Built (Taylor/ Thompson Dicks 1992) to develop the topic of health and sex education in her class of teenage EFL learners. From teacher interviews, classroom observations, and learners’ products, she concludes that the richness of the opportunities provided for developing both critical thinking and language skills through the visual-verbal affordances that a challenging picturebook offers are worth any effort to implement picturebooks in intermediate and advanced ELT classrooms. D Exploring the complexity of picturebooks for ELT in secondary education This volume takes stock of existing research positions that focus on picturebooks as a challenging and complex medium for intermediate and advanced learners (e.g., Beckett 2012; Kümmerling-Meibauer 2015; Ommundsen 2018) and deconstructs picturebooks as a literary medium solely intended for children. The single chapters use the notion of ‘its possibilities are limitless’ as a springboard to initiate a line of argumentation and reflection that legitimizes picturebooks as an ‘experience for teenagers’ or ‘experience for (young) adults.’ The chapters argue that from a conceptual point of view, when approaches to picturebooks are linked to specific notions of literary theory, these texts are very well suitable for critically engaging intermediate and advanced learners. As the authors suggest, picturebooks can be suitable literary resources to address and foster established learning objectives of ELT for this level. Although it is not mentioned D Exploring the complexity of picturebooks for ELT in secondary education 27 <?page no="29"?> explicitly, this first and foremost also regards communicative competences, particularly so as learners are likely motivated to voice their reading impressions to texts they may not be used to (anymore) and that cause responses due to their intricate design. More specifically, this also includes: • using picturebooks for working on objectives associated with interand transcul‐ tural learning (e.g., to change perspectives into diverse cultural identities and affiliations, or to critically retrace cultural representations), • using picturebooks to work on content areas provided in ELT curricula (e.g., human rights, sustainability, gender issues), • using picturebooks to foster literary competences alongside visual and multimodal literacies (e.g., through interpreting the complex interplay between verbal and visual text), and • using picturebooks to develop critical literacy (e.g., regarding picturebooks as means to transport norms and values that impart a certain ideology, or a certain narrative of family and gender, which advanced learners can critically reflect). From a methodological point of view, the authors harness the broad scope of established teaching techniques and approaches for implementing literature in ELT to achieve their transfer into the engagement with picturebooks. What turns out to be promising here is connecting Reader Response Theory (Iser 1976) to more analytical and formal approaches that invite learners to voice their impressions and opinions of a picturebook text. This, then, can lead to exploring what influenced and caused their interpretations and views in terms of the picturebooks’ aesthetics, its visual and verbal impact, and its content. In their research set-up, the authors tease out a diverse range of approaches that lend themselves to exploring picturebooks in secondary ELT, in particular con‐ ceptual groundwork, action research, classroom observation, or action-oriented and production-oriented approaches. In exploring child-oriented picturebooks through critical re-readings and in suggest‐ ing content-driven text ensembles with an older audience in mind, this volume aims at re-thinking and deconstructing any discursive limitations that position and legitimize picturebooks as a literary medium for children, and by extension for primary education. While we take the shared assumption that the value and status of picturebooks in primary ELT is undisputed (e.g., Mour-o 2015) as our point of departure, we wish to open up a new horizon on using picturebooks in secondary EFL education. Together with our authors and their committed work, we will be offering productive engagement priorities and concrete explorations of diverse picturebooks that can be transferred to making beneficial uses of picturebooks with intermediate and advanced learners. We whole-heartedly invite you as readers of this volume - as student teachers at university, as in-service teachers, as teacher educators, or as scholars and aspiring researchers - to contribute to opening up this new horizon that re-thinks and re-positions the potential of picturebooks, and the scope of their endless possibilities, in the specific context of EFL education at secondary levels. 28 Introduction: Positioning picturebooks in secondary English language teaching <?page no="30"?> List of references Primary literature Altés, Marta (2012) No! Child’s Play Ltd. Brown, Anthony (1981). Hansel and Gretel. Walker Books. Brown, Peter (2013). Mr. Tiger Goes Wild. Two Hoots. Browne, Eileen (1995). Handa’s Surprise. Scholastic. Campbell, Nicola I./ LaFave, Kim (2008). Shin-chi’s Canoe. Groundwood Books. Carle, Eric (1969). The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Puffin. Carle, Eric (1967). Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Puffin. Cole, Babette (1986). Princess Smartypants. Puffin. Cumming, Hannah (2010). The Cloud. Child’s Play Ltd. Frisch, Aaron/ Innocenti, Robert (2012). The Girl in Red. Creative Editions & Paperback. Gray, Kes/ Field, Jim (2014). Oi Frog! Hodder Children’s Books. Hutchins, Pat (2001). Rosie’s Walk. Red Fox. Jeffers, Oliver (2012). The Hueys in The New Jumper. HarperCollins Children’s Books. Jeffers, Oliver (2008). The Great Paper Caper. Harper Collins. Legge, David (1994). Bamboozled. Scholastic. Levy, Debbie/ Baddeley, Elizabeth (2016). I Dissent. Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark. Simon & Schuster Books. Marsden, John/ Tan, Shaun (2010). The Rabbits. Sydney: Lothian Children’s Books/ Hachette. Ringtved, Glenn/ Pardi, Charlotte (2001). Cry, Heart, but Never Break. Enchanted Lion Books. Sís, Peter (2007). The Wall: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Skármeta, Antonio/ Ruano, Alfonso (2003). The Composition. Groundwood Books. Taylor, Clark/ Thompson Dicks, Jan (1992). The House that Crack Built. Chronicle Books. Willis, Jeanne/ Ross, Tony (1999). Susan Laughs. Andersen Press. Yamada, Kobi/ Barouch, Gabriella (2019). Maybe. Compendium Publish-ing & Communications. Secondary literature Ali, Ameera (2022). Discursive representations of disability in children’s picture books on disabled parents. In: Jeffress, Michael. S. (ed.). Disability Representation in Film, TV, and Print Media. Routledge, 180-198. Alter, Grit (2016). What’s in a name? - Assimilation ideology in picturebooks. CLELE Journal 4 (1), http: / / clelejournal.org/ assimilation-ideology-in-picturebooks/ . Alter, Grit (2017). ‘I want you to remember the ways of our people’---First nations trauma fiction in the EFL classroom. In: Lütge, Christiane/ Stein, Mark (eds.). Crossovers: Postcolonial Studies and Transcultural Learning. LIT, 53-92. Alter, Grit (2019). Society’s cataclysmic decline as presented in picturebooks and new visuali‐ zations of fairy tales. In: Ludwig, Christian/ Maruo-Schröder, Nicole (eds.). ‘Tell Freedom I said hello’: Issues in Contemporary Young Adult Dystopian Fiction. Winter, 231-258. List of references 29 <?page no="31"?> Alter, Grit/ Aho, Tanja N. (2018). ‘Just Like Me, Just Like You’: Narrative erasure as disability normalization in children’s picture books. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies ( JLCDS) 12 (3), 303-319. Bader, Barbara (1976). American picturebooks from Noah’s Ark to The Beast Within. Macmillan Publishing Company. Beckett, Sandra (1999). Transcending Boundaries: Writing for a Dual Audience of Children and Adults. Garland. Beckett, Sandra (2001). Parodic play with painting in picture books. Children’s Literature 29, 175-195. Beckett, Sandra (2009). Crossover Fiction: Global and Historical Perspectives. Routledge. Beckett, Sandra (2012). Crossover Picturebooks. A Genre for All Ages. Routledge. Bland, Janice (2013). Children's Literature and Learner Empowerment: Children and Teenagers in English Language Education. Bloomsbury. Blaska, Joan K. (2003). Using Children’s Literature to Learn about Disabilities and Illness. Educator’s International Press, Inc. Ellis, Gail/ Brewster, Jean (2014). Tell it Again! The Storytelling Handbook for Primary English Language Teachers. British Council. Ellis, Gail/ Gruenbaum, Tatia/ Mour-o, Sandie/ Sadowska, Anneta (n.y.). PEPELT: Types of Pic‐ turebooks. https: / / pepelt21.com/ types-of-picturebooks/ Evans, Janet (2015). Fusion text---The new kid on the block. In: Evans, Janet (ed.). Challenging and Controversial Picturebooks: Creative and Critical Responses to Visual Texts. Routledge, 97-120. Falconer, Rachel (2009). The Crossover Novel: Contemporary Children’s Fiction and Its Adult Readership. Routledge. Goga, Nina/ Iversen, Sarah Hoem/ Teigland, Anne-Stefi (2021). Verbal and Visual Strategies in Nonfiction Picturebooks. Theoretical and Analytical Approaches. Scandinavian University Press. Hedberg, L., Venzo, P. & Young, H. (2022). Mums, dads and the kids: Representations of rainbow families in children’s picturebooks. Journal of LGBT Youth 19(2), 198-216. Iser, Wolfgang (1970). Die Appellstruktur der Texte. Unbestimmtheit als Wirkungsbedingung literarischer Prosa. Verlag der Druckerei und Verlagsanstalt Konstanz Universitätsverlag GmbH. Iser, Wolfgang (1972). Der implizite Leser. Kommunikationsformen des Romans von Bunyan bis Beckett. Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Iser, Wolfgang (1974). The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. John Hopkins University Press. Iser, Wolfgang (1976). Der Akt des Lesens. Theorie ästhetischer Wirkung. Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Kümmerling-Meibauer, B. (1999). Metalinguistic Awareness and the Child’s Developing Sense of Irony: The Relationship between Pictures and Text in Ironic Picture Books. The Lion and the Unicorn 23, 157-183. Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (2015). From baby books to picturebooks for adults: European picturebooks in the new millennium. Word & Image 31 (3), 249-264. 30 Introduction: Positioning picturebooks in secondary English language teaching <?page no="32"?> Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (2021). The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. Routledge. Lewis, David (2001). Reading Contemporary Picturebooks: Picturing Text. Routledge Falmer. Martinez, Miriam/ Harmon, Janis M. (2012). Picture/ text relationships: An investigation of literary elements in picturebooks. Literacy Research and Instruction 51 (4), 323-343. Merse, Thorsten (2017). Other Others, Different Differences: Queer Perspectives on Teaching English as a Foreign Language. LMU München: Dissertationen. Merse, Thorsten (2018). And Tango Makes Three: Mit einem Bilderbuch die Geschichte zu einer wahren Begebenheit kennenlernen. Grundschule Englisch 63, 30-33. Mour-o, Sandie (2015). The Potential of Picturebooks with Young Learners. In Bland, Janice (ed.). Teaching English to Young Learners: Critical Issues in Language Teaching with 3-12 Year Olds. Bloomsbury, 199-217. Nikolajeva, Maria (2010). Interpretative Codes and Implied Readers of Children's Picturebooks. In: Colomer, Teresa/ Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina/ Silva-Díaz, Cecilia (eds.). New Directions in Picturebook Research. Routledge, 27-40. Nikolajeva, Maria & Scott, Carole (2000). The dynamics of picturebook communication. Child‐ ren’s Literature in Education 31 (4), 225-239. Nodelman, Perry (1988). Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books. Georgia University Press. Ommundsen, Åse Marie (2006). All-alder-litteratur. Litteratur for all eller ingen? (Crossover Fiction. Fiction foor all or for no one? In: Ewo, Jon/ Sverdrup, Kari Woxholt (ed.). Kartet og terrenget: linjer og dykk i banreog ungdomslitteraturen. Omnipax, 50-70. Ommundsen, Åse Marie (2014). Picturebooks for adults. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.). Picturebooks: Representation and Narration. Routledge, 17-35. Ommundsen, Åse Marie (2015). Who are these picturebooks for? Controversial picturebooks and the questions of audience. In: Evans, Janet (ed.). Challenging and controversial picturebooks: Creative and critical responses to visual texts. Routledge, 71-93. Ommundsen, Åse Marie (2018). Picturebooks for adults. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.). The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. Routledge, 220-230. Ommundsen, Åse Marie/ Haaland, Gunnar/ Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (eds.). (2022). Explor‐ ing Challenging Picturebooks in Education. International Perspectives on Language and Literature Learning. Routledge. Schwarcz, Joseph H. (1982). Ways of the Illustrator. American Library Association. Sipe, Lawrence (2008a). Learning from illustrations in picturebooks. In: Frey, Nancy/ Fisher, Douglas (eds.). Teaching Visual Literacy. Using Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Anime, Cartoons, and more to Develop Comprehension and Thinking Skills. Corwin Press, 131-148. Sipe, Lawrence (2008b). Storytime. Young Children's Literary Understanding in the Classroom. Teachers College Press. Schmid-Schönbein, Gisela (2008). Didaktik und Methodik für den Englischunterricht. Cornelsen. Staiger, Michael (2014). Erzählen mit Bild-Schrifttext-Kombinationen. Ein fünfdimensionales Modell der Bilderbuchanalyse. In Knopf, Julia/ Abraham, Ulf (eds.). Bilderbücher. Band-1: Theorie. Schneider Hohengehren, 12-23. List of references 31 <?page no="33"?> Surkamp, Carola/ Viebrock, Britta (2018). Teaching English as a Foreign Language. An Introduc‐ tion. Metzler. Thiele, Jens (2003). Das Bilderbuch. In Thiele, Jens/ Steitz-Kallenbach, Jörg (eds.). Handbuch Kinderliteratur. Grundwissen für Ausbildung und Praxis. Herder, 70-98. von Merveldt, Nikola (2018). Informational picturebooks. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.). The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. Routledge, 231-245. 32 Introduction: Positioning picturebooks in secondary English language teaching <?page no="34"?> Part I: Conceptual Perspectives: Re-negotiating the Status of Picturebooks in Secondary ELT <?page no="36"?> 1 Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions Theresa Summer Abstract Today, English language teaching (ELT) is not only concerned with developing lan‐ guage-based competences. In recent years, the need to address currently relevant topics and issues of global concern across all school subjects and thus develop general educational goals has received significant attention. The list of seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) put forward by the United Nations in 2015 encourages educators worldwide to make learners more locally and globally aware of environmental issues, foster critical thinking skills, and help them become active citizens. This contribution explores ways of achieving this larger goal at the example of picturebooks and how they can foster critical environmental literacies as a facet of some SDGs. Focusing on the theme-based format of eco-picturebooks, this contribution addresses three questions: • What is the potential of eco-picturebooks for developing critical environmental literacies among intermediate and advanced learners (in grades 7 to 13, aged 12 to 19)? • What are key features of eco-picturebooks and how can we determine their suitability for older learners? • How can educators integrate eco-picturebooks into secondary school teaching practice? These questions serve as a basis for discussing why this text format should receive a more prominent place in intermediate and advanced classrooms. After a discussion of the potential of eco-picturebooks and how to describe them using a seesaw-model illustrating their degree of explicitness, I present three features of this format from which I devise selection criteria. The contribution ends with an annotated list of eco-picturebooks and task suggestions for older learners. Warm-up: Engagement questions ▸ Why is environmental learning relevant in ELT? ▸ What does the goal of developing ‘critical environmental literacies’ entail? ▸ Do you know any picturebooks that address environmental issues, and how could the format called ‘eco-picturebooks’ be described? ▸ Why should eco-picturebooks be integrated into ELT for older learners? ▸ How can picturebooks be implemented to foster critical environmental literacies? <?page no="37"?> Introduction Given the predominance of environmental issues such as the climate crisis in the media and the interest this has raised among many adolescents today, the integration of environmental themes into ELT is likely to raise learners’ motivation. Teachers can choose from a great variety of text formats and types of media available for exploring environmental issues in ELT (see contributions in Lütge 2015) and various texts have been suggested for classroom use (e.g., Alter 2015). Text formats include social media texts, such as climate change debates on Twitter, and various fictional and non-fictional texts such as eco-documentaries (forthcoming), visual images (Merse 2015), speculative fiction (Webb 2018), and eco-songs (Summer 2021a). In promoting the use and critical investigation of this variety of texts, I suggest using the term ‘eco-artefacts’ (Summer 2021b), which subsumes various auditive, written, and visual sources or text formats dealing with environmental issues from different perspectives. Eco-picturebooks, therefore, represent a sub-category of eco-artefacts, and they can be used as one text format when exploring a specific topic. As this contribution will show, eco-picturebooks can provide intermediate and advanced learners with visually appealing, inspiring, and eye-opening insights into the natural world. They can provide (basic) knowledge about current environmental challenges and foster critical engagement with the (partly simplified) representation of complex environmental themes. This complies with Hall’s understanding of chal‐ lenging a text through deep and critical reading (Hall 2018: 264). Next to this con‐ tent-related dimension, picturebooks allow to develop learners’ multimodal literacies (Kalantzis/ Cope 2012). They can decode visual and verbal modes (see introduction to this edited volume) to critically examine from a meta-perspective how complex matters are simplified for an intended audience of younger readers. An analysis of the interdependence of words and pictures, which can range from being rather simple to rather complex, if contradicting information is told or shown in a picturebook (Mour-o 2016), can provide further important impulses for dealing with the complexity of sustainability issues from economic, political, social, and cultural perspectives (Bechtel 2021). As such, while also focusing on the development of literary competence (Alter/ Ratheiser 2019), eco-picturebooks offer further possibilities for achieving the central general educational goal of fostering critical environmental literacies. Developing critical environmental literacies implies dealing with environmental and sustainability issues. In reference to Garrard’s concept of ecocriticism (Garrard 2012), several pedagogic concepts have emerged that focus on the development of critical environmental literacies as a key objective in ELT (cf. Deetjen/ Ludwig 2021a). Critical environmental literacies are described as “the ability to recognise and critically evaluate local as well as global environmental practices and problems from various perspectives and across multiple scales of space and time and to react accordingly both as an individual and collectively” (Deetjen/ Ludwig 2021b: 13). As such, not only knowledge, skills, attitudes, and awareness play a crucial role, but also active participation, which ties in with the United Nation’s efforts for sustainable development worldwide (United 36 1 Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions <?page no="38"?> Nations n.d.). Focusing on three selected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relevant in the context of environmental learning - namely, Climate Action (SDG 13), Life below Water (SDG 14), and Life on Land (SDG 15) -, this contribution examines the affordances of eco-picturebooks for learning about these goals and contributing to their fulfilment. 1.1 The potential of eco-picturebooks In contrast to published teaching materials and coursebooks, which are frequently criticized for presenting rather unengaging narratives and flat characters (Bland 2013: 8), picturebooks can thematically as well as visually engage readers. As concerns the teaching of English to young learners, teacher educators seem to agree that pic‐ turebooks offer unique potential for classroom practice. As Loder-Buechel highlights, “[t]here’s nothing better than a good picture book to get started on a new topic, to get children involved in other worlds - and to teach language in a low-pressure, relaxed setting” (Loder-Buechel 2020: 34). Yet, as this section will show, not only young learners, but also older learners can benefit from picturebooks, and particularly eco-picturebooks in numerous ways (see Fig. 1). First, eco-picturebooks that introduce (often rather complex) environmental themes to learners can help older learners in a first step to build knowledge, visualised in the tree trunk (Fig. 1). Deciphering both verbal and visual codes can thereby allow learners to explore historical, political, and cultural references (Kümmerling-Meibauer 2018) which, from an environmental perspective, can invite them to decode different layers of meaning. Importantly, eco-picturebooks can invite older learners to counter problematic discourses, simplifications, and Eurocentric views. To give an example, when dealing with Greta and the Giants (Tucker/ Persico 2019), which retells the story of climate activist Greta Thunberg, older learners can critically reflect upon the representation of Greta as the environmental hero by considering the long history of climate activism among indigenous people not addressed in this text. 1.1 The potential of eco-picturebooks 37 <?page no="39"?> Fig. 1: The potential of eco-picturebooks for older learners (own source) Second, with eco-picturebooks being multimodal texts, the visual mode can help learners build connections with their environment. By analysing the feelings of animals and other people or relating to the importance of biodiversity for the health of ecosystems, for instance, as expressed through the combination of verbal and visual modes, learners may develop a sense of appreciation for the environment. What is more, eco-picturebooks can encourage older learners to identify and relate to others’ interests - people, animals, planet Earth - thus understanding that “human interest is not understood to be the only legitimate interest” (Buell 2022: 7). Eco-picturebooks can vividly express feelings such as fear, anger, and hope, which makes them especially suitable for developing critical environmental literacies (see examples presented in Tab. 1). Given that the use of picturebooks can promote a stress-free environment (Bland 2013), using eco-picturebooks in class might also enable learners to relax by creating a pleasant atmosphere - for instance, if approached through literature circles. This can facilitate foreign language development and possibly encourage reluctant readers to engage with literary texts. While being exposed to compelling comprehensible input (Krashen 2011; Krashen/ Bland 2014), learners are given an opportunity to develop communicative competence including not only reception (e.g., through listening and reading), but also production (e.g., through productive activities primarily in the pre-, post-, and participation phase). Finally, engaging with eco-picturebooks can encourage learners to become active citizens and thus foster active citizenship (Byram et al. 2017). Eco-picturebooks telling true stories of active citizenship can serve as examples (see Tab. 1). Olivia’s Birds: Saving the Gulf (Bouler 2011), for instance, illustrates an eleven-year-old’s drawings 38 1 Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions <?page no="40"?> of birds accompanied with her informative texts in which she presents facts about birds and describes options for active participation in animal preservation. For older learners of a foreign language, such eco-picturebooks might be inspiring models for active participation. In addition, older learners can critically examine such texts and initiate (online) petitions, (re)design (digital) texts, and take part in cross-curricular projects. Overall, even though the potential of eco-picturebooks is by no means exclusively relevant for older learners (cf. Summer 2022 for a discussion of digital formats for younger learners), the complexity of themes they address makes them suitable for developing problem-solving skills and knowledge, and initiates participation projects for and with this age group. The potential discussed above thus offers a first starting point for integrating eco-picturebooks into practice. Although not much empirical evidence is available to date on the effect an engage‐ ment with eco-picturebooks can have on the development of critical environmental literacies, previous studies offer some interesting insights. A study among children in Taiwan, for instance, reports on a positive effect of using picturebooks on children’s pro-environmental behaviour (Hsiao/ Shih 2016). Another study conducted in Hong Kong provides evidence of the benefits of an animal-assisted education programme using true stories of canines resulting in increased cognitive competence, empathy, reduced hyperactivity, more self-control, a humane attitude, and improved reading skills (Ngai et al. 2021). Although these outcomes cannot be directly related to teaching older learners, they indicate possible benefits of eco-picturebooks. As a way of conceptualising the integration of different types of eco-picturebooks into ELT for older learners, the following section briefly presents the research methodology and discusses the explicitness of environmental themes in eco-picturebooks, which I consider crucial for secondary school education. 1.2 Categorising implicit and explicit eco-picturebooks Researchers have categorised picturebooks in numerous ways by focusing on their content and specific design features (for an interdisciplinary perspective, see Küm‐ merling-Meibauer 2018). Referring to Sipe’s threefold categorisation of 1) (nearly) wordless picturebooks, 2) playful postmodern picturebooks, and 3) picturebooks on serious social issues (Sipe 2008: 230), Bland further subdivides the third category. She lists picturebooks “with an implicit sociocultural agenda” and picturebooks “with an environmental perspective” as the third and fourth categories (Bland 2013: 40). As eco-picturebooks could also be wordless or postmodern, however, and the choice of topics and aims is crucial in ELT, I propose a categorisation that focuses on the content of picturebooks. I suggest using the term eco-picturebooks to describe picturebooks that include an environmental narrative and thus potentially promote an ecocritical discourse while offering insights into various environmental topics, problems, and opportunities for pro-environmental action. 1.2 Categorising implicit and explicit eco-picturebooks 39 <?page no="41"?> In order to examine the potential of eco-picturebooks particularly for intermedi‐ ate and advanced learners, this section provides a brief overview of the research methodology used for this exploration. Focusing on the question of which picture‐ books with an environmental theme are particularly suitable for older learners, I analysed several eco-picturebooks. For this, I examined secondary literature and searched for eco-picturebooks online. The former involved an analysis of various sources such as Bland’s annotated bibliography in which she lists some picturebooks with environmental themes (Bland 2018: 279-285), Sandie Mour-o’s picturebook blog (https: / / picturebooksinelt.blogspot.com/ ), and the Children’s Literature in English Lan‐ guage Education Journal (https: / / clelejournal.org/ ) website including recommendations for environmental literature (Valente 2021). In the online search, I used different search engines to find book recommendations or lists with book suggestions by entering related keywords (e.g., ‘environment’, ‘climate change’ etc.). Furthermore, I inspected various online marketplaces for books from different English-speaking countries (e.g., Goodreads, Amazon) to find further thematically related books. After the search, I analysed various eco-picturebooks in print format or through read-aloud videos online to determine their potential and suitability for older learners. My analysis of the environmental content of several eco-picturebooks (e.g., see primary literature) revealed that the extent to which eco-picturebooks invite readers to reflect upon their own relationship with nature and get actively involved in pro-environmental behaviour can vary. This was also identified by Bland, who notes that “[t]here are also explicitly pedagogical picturebooks on an environmental theme” (Bland 2013: 69). Concerning the representation of other content areas such as gender and disability, scholars have frequently used the implicit/ indirect versus explicit/ direct dichotomy to describe a text’s representation of diversity. This, for instance, applies to the distinction between implicitly and explicitly queer texts (Gray 2021) and the indirect or direct representation of disability in literary texts (Nasatir/ Horn 2003: 4). In applying this typology to eco-picturebooks, I suggest that implicit eco-picturebooks include an (implicit) environmental narrative, but do not necessarily evoke an ecocritical discourse. Explicit eco-picturebooks directly invite the reader to identify and reflect upon environmental issues by specifying an issue of environmental concern and displaying this more plainly both visually and verbally. Alternatively, as Bland notes, “[i]n some children’s literature, nature is not a mere backdrop to more important human-centred concerns, nature herself becomes a character in the story” (Bland 2013: 73). Explicit eco-picturebooks thus have an overt environmental focus and they encourage readers to expand their knowledge and become active citizens. In acknowledging that a clear-cut distinction between the two categories cannot be made, I present this categorization on a seesaw. The seesaw-model (see Fig. 2) illustrates that eco-picturebooks can be described in terms of their range of explicitness. Crucially, however, the ways in which eco-picturebooks are integrated in teaching practice and how readers respond to a text also play a role in determining the degree of explicitness. 40 1 Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions <?page no="42"?> Using the image of the seesaw, the illustration indicates that teachers can have an impact on how the board balances in the center or moves towards the explicit side through setting tasks directed at an explicit environmental focus. For teaching practice, therefore, not only the degree of an eco-picturebook’s explicitness plays a key role but also how learners engage with a text. Fig. 2: A seesaw model of categorising implicit and explicit eco-picturebooks An analysis of eco-picturebooks with the seesaw model illustrating varying degrees of implicitness and explicitness can offer researchers and teachers a starting point for exploring their suitability for beginners, intermediate, or advanced learners. Due to the linguistic complexity involved in discussing challenging environmental issues in English, I consider eco-picturebooks that are more explicit and invite readers to deal with ecological information in greater depth as more appropriate for older learners. Looking at some examples, implicit eco-picturebooks are suitable largely for beginners and younger learners due to their focus on other (and not primarily environmental) thematic areas. Picturebooks such as The Snail and the Whale (Donaldson/ Scheffler 2003) and The Storm Whale (Davies 2013) include “an environmental theme” (Bland 2018: 281) but no direct reference to environmental protection. Rather, they are stories of friendship and care, and the books’ colorful, clear, childlike, and vivid illustrations make them suitable especially for younger learners. As mentioned above, a crucial aspect is the methodology surrounding how a picturebook is used in practice. Older learners may also enjoy working with implicit eco-picturebooks such as the two previous examples by reflecting upon their content from a meta-perspective, analyzing the morals aimed to be transferred to young children, and examining how environmental themes are implicitly embedded in eco-picturebooks. I suggest that a more serious engagement with environmental topics, however, can potentially be facilitated better with implicit eco-picturebooks that are less childish and (or in combination) with explicit ones. 1.2 Categorising implicit and explicit eco-picturebooks 41 <?page no="43"?> An example of a rather implicit eco-picturebook, yet with a less childish design - clear black and white sketches -, is The Giving Tree (Silverstein 1964), which illustrates the changing (and imbalanced) relationship of a boy with a tree during different stages of his life. It holds potential for a philosophical, ethical, and ecocritical reading in which more advanced learners could discuss the relationship between humans and nature or SDG 15 (Life on Land). More explicit eco-picturebooks can differ in terms of their narrative and factual informational content. Some of these texts primarily provide information on an environmental issue without depicting specific characters or a storyline that accom‐ panies the reader throughout a book. Thus, they resemble multimodal manuals for an eco-friendlier lifestyle such as 10 Things I Can Do to Help my World (Walsh 2010) and Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth (Siddals/ Wolff 2010). These books could be used for lexical work, for instance, when dealing with the word field ‘sustainable lifestyle’ (e.g., “I use … both sides of the paper” [Walsh 2010]) - among beginners and at lower intermediate levels. Equally, older learners could learn about pro-environmental behavior with such texts. Yet, for dealing with more complex environmental issues, I suggest that explicit eco-picturebooks offer greater affordances. An example of an explicit eco-picturebook that is stronger in terms of its narrative and offers further opportunities for an engagement with more complex socio-political issues related to environmental protection among intermediate or advanced learners is We are Water Protectors (Lindstrom/ Goade 2020). Inspired by indigenous-led move‐ ments in North America, it deals with water protection through a young girl, who fights the black snake - oil pipelines crisscrossing the lands and destroying indigenous territories. Created by Carole Lindstrom, enrolled with the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, and illustrator Michaela Goade, of Tlingit descent, this story starts with an introduction into the topic of water and its immense importance for people’s lives: “Water is the first medicine […] We come from water […] Water is sacred” (Lindstrom/ Goade 2020). The story introduces the black snake, which is described and illustrated as a great threat to indigenous lands and people. Yet, with the repeated verse throughout the book “We stand / With our songs / And our drums. / We are still here” (Lindstrom/ Goade 2020), the story addresses the importance of active participation (see Fig. 3) emphasising that a united protest is important to protect the water, nature, and people. This eco-picturebook contains various features of well-crafted verbal texts in terms of language and content (based on Bland 2013: 8): • Language: lexical repetition (e.g., “I must keep the black snake away / From my village’s water. I must rally my people together.”), phonological patterns (e.g. rhythm, alliteration) (e.g., “To stand for the water. / To stand for the land. / To stand as One.”) (Lindstrom/ Goade 2020) • Content: a widening of horizons (e.g., authentic cultural story of indigenous peoples, symbol of the black snake) 42 1 Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions <?page no="44"?> By encouraging intermediate and more advanced learners of English to analyse such features of this literary text including the metaphor of the ‘black snake’ and alliterations, for instance, learners can develop their literary competence and an appreciation for eco-picturebooks as works of art. Although written for younger children, this eco-picturebook is so rich in language and content that it provides opportunities for a more thorough engagement - both at the level of language and content. Concerning the latter, the final double-page spread of the book provides additional information on the book’s background and the author’s motivation to write this book. This is a common feature of such more explicit eco-picturebooks and offers authentic cultural learning material for ELT. In this case, teachers could use the double-page spread as background information and for developing content-based tasks, or learners could read these pages and research content-related questions. At the same time, learners can be encouraged to reflect critically on the verbal and visual portrayal of the black snake (i.e., the oil pipeline) from a meta-perspective. The aggressive image (see Fig. 3) suggests a dichotomy of good versus evil, and older learners could be encouraged to examine the political and social complexity involved in fostering economic prosperity and ensuring sustainable development. Fig. 3: Excerpt: We are Water Protectors (Lindstrom & Goade 2020) Overall, the description of eco-picturebooks with the help of the seesaw-model illustrating varying degrees of explicitness enables a systematic consideration for their use among different learner groups suggesting that a higher degree of explicitness (especially when it comes to more complex issues) makes eco-picturebooks potentially 1.2 Categorising implicit and explicit eco-picturebooks 43 <?page no="45"?> more suitable for the development of critical environmental literacies among inter‐ mediate and advanced learners. Yet, as this section has also shown, the estimation of suitability is closely tied to the way picturebooks are used in teaching practice. Given older learners’ more advanced level of proficiency, the traits of eco-picturebooks, with regard to their explicitness, allow me to make suggestions for practical teaching. I consider two types of eco-picturebooks most appropriate for older learners: 1) implicit eco-picturebooks with a less childish design (which exist, but are hard to find), and 2) explicit eco-picturebooks that contain factual ecological information and promote a more elaborate engagement with more complex environmental topics and active participation. The following discussion of three features of eco-picturebooks helps to describe this theme-based format and devise important selection criteria. 1.3 Features of eco-picturebooks and selection criteria for older learners My analysis of several eco-picturebooks reveals three central features that are impor‐ tant to consider for selecting eco-picturebooks for intermediate and advanced learners. These features are described below using the example of the explicit eco-picturebook If Sharks Disappeared (Williams 2017), which is part of a series of picturebooks about wildlife conservation. Fig. 4: Excerpt: If Sharks Disappeared (Williams 2017) 44 1 Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions <?page no="46"?> If Sharks Disappeared presents sharks as a species that are crucial to keeping oceans healthy. In trying to paint a more differentiated picture of sharks, which are often portrayed very negatively by creating fear among people, it explains what would happen if sharks disappeared: As the population of seals would explode eating up more and more fish, which would thus die out, plankton would grow out of control making the ocean “a thick sludge” (Williams 2017). As illustrated in Figure 4, this would have further effects on other species relying on the ocean for food, which portray feelings of sadness and disappointment. The story thus addresses the importance of protecting sharks not only for their own sake, but also for oceans to stay healthy. Looking specifically at this text’s potential for older learners, I discuss three central features of eco-picturebooks from which I develop selection criteria (see Fig. 5). Fig. 5: Features of eco-picturebooks and emerging selection criteria for older learners First, eco-picturebooks address environmental themes. How these are integrated into a story can vary in terms of their explicitness, as the previous section showed. For older learners, eco-picturebooks that address more complex themes (e.g., marine conservation) rather than basic themes (e.g., how to recycle waste at home), can potentially fulfil more complex language-based and content-related learning goals, which of course also depends on the tasks set by the teacher. More complex themes offer opportunities for challenging texts (Hall 2018) by investigating the SDGs with older learners, who can also be encouraged to explore these goals from a factual informational perspective (e.g., by finding out more about the goal’s specific targets); Life below Water (SDG 14) would be a suitable focus for the example text discussed here. Crucially, not only the verbal, but also the visual codes used in the picturebook play a key role in constructing how oceans would change if sharks disappeared. By encouraging older learners to reflect upon the verbal and visual construction of environmental content in eco-picturebooks, they can relativize their own worldviews and become aware of the complexity involved in sustainable development. This relates 1.3 Features of eco-picturebooks and selection criteria for older learners 45 <?page no="47"?> to Plikat’s outline of discourse competence and its underlying principles subsuming, to give some examples, multimodality and plurality (cf. Plikat 2016: 292-294). The eco-picturebook discussed here illustrates certain power structures between people and animals that can be critically examined in the classroom. The book If Sharks Disappeared first visually introduces the stereotypical image of sharks as scary monsters and in the end of the book refutes this: “what once seemed so scary … isn’t scary after all” (Williams 2017) - illustrating why sharks are in fact essential for the ecosystem. Older learners can thus debate critical questions by considering knowledge gaps from the perspective of SDG 14, Life below Water (e.g., related to overfishing and pollution), which is important for developing a thorough understanding of how to achieve this target. Second, eco-picturebooks either directly provide important environmental informa‐ tion or they may act as an impulse for readers to do further research on a specific topic. In If Sharks Disappeared (Williams 2017), the last double-page spread contains additional information on why sharks are in trouble, how readers can help save them, it includes a glossary with explanations of tricky words, and a bibliography with various links for further reading (e.g., https: / / www.sharks4kids.com/ ). This explicit reference to the book’s environmental theme is a common feature of explicit eco-picturebooks, and these have two main advantages for ELT: 1) Teachers can use this input during their preparation phase while doing further research on a particular environmental issue, and 2) learners can use this information, content and language support when completing various tasks. As such, the content and language support originally intended for young readers who are proficient in English can, in the context of foreign language learning, be used as scaffolding with older learners of the English language. Again, this illustrates how inherent features of eco-picturebooks offer certain affordances for teaching practice. The third aspect, scales, relates to Bartosch’s concept of transcultural ecology. Grounded in the conviction that “literary reading is constituted by a sequentialised ne‐ gotiation of (textual as well as cultural) complexity” (Bartosch 2019: 9), a transcultural ecology considers it crucial to learn through the engagement with texts rather than simply extracting information from them (ibid.). The understanding of transcultural ecology is based on the concept of scaling (Clark 2015) based on what Bartosch describes as transcultural (re)reading on three scales: 1) the individual scale, 2) the communal, national, anthropocentric scale, and 3) the global and ecological scale (Bartosch 2019: 26). The first considers the narrator’s immediate circle of friends and family; a reading at the individual scale focuses on the plot and the experiences of the main characters within a story. The second addresses national cultures and a few decades in terms of time. The global and ecological scale relates to a larger and hypothetical scale “of the whole Earth and its inhabitants […] [a] 600-year time frame, from 300 years before 1988 to 2288, 300 after” (Clark 2015: 100). This concept of scales therefore pays tribute to the fact that “environmental crisis […] is a question of scale” 46 1 Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions <?page no="48"?> (Bartosch 2019: 27). To give an example, Clark describes the scale effects by referring to the notion of the carbon footprint: If it were just a matter of my own emissions there would be no controversy and no need for the idea of a personal ‘footprint’. The size of my carbon footprint is of no interest or significance in itself except in relation to the incalculable effect of there being so many millions of other footprints having an impact over an uncertain timescale. (Clark 2015: 72) For ELT, the concept of scales means that tasks accompanying the reading process should combine personal, national, and global elements seeking to overcome the mere notion of cultural differences inherent to intercultural learning (Bartosch 2019: 39). If an eco-picturebook offers methodological potential for the development of tasks that consider the concept of scales, the extent to which it provides opportunities for engaging with personal, national, and global scales becomes an important selection criterion. Combining the notion of scaling with transcultural learning opens avenues for innovative educational practices that do not just focus on crossing physical borders by examining how environmental problems manifest themselves in different countries, but take into consideration the timeframe and move from the personal to the global scale - particularly relevant for older learners. They have more advanced cognitive abilities for understanding the concept of scales, possibly also in reference to other subjects (e.g., geography, philosophy/ ethics), and they potentially have the linguistic capacity to engage in more complex discussions. If Sharks Disappeared (Williams 2017) can be read on the three scales discussed above by considering questions such as: 1) How does it affect my life if sharks disappear? , 2) How does it affect humanity? , and 3) What are its global and ecological impacts? . By depicting what would happen if there were no more sharks in the oceans (see Fig. 4), this eco-picturebook directly relates to the third scale. It invites readers to change their perspectives and focus on the global and ecological scale. Within the concept of a transcultural ecology, older learners could critically reflect upon the simplification of complex matters in such books originally directed at younger readers. To sum up, a consideration of three central features outlined above will facilitate the professional decision which eco-picturebooks are suitable for older learners and how, from a pedagogical and methodological perspective, they can be challenged: their more complex environmental themes (and their relatedness with numerous SDGs), their additional information provided, and their references to different ecological scales. Whereas criteria for selecting literary texts in general are manifold (e.g., Bland 2018: 12), the specificity of the theme-based format of eco-picturebooks requires more fine-grained selection criteria - especially when considering their use among older learners. To illustrate how both the features and selection criteria of eco-picturebooks are closely intertwined with pedagogical and methodological decisions in practice, I will suggest several eco-picturebooks that I consider suitable for older learners in terms of their themes, information, and scales. 1.3 Features of eco-picturebooks and selection criteria for older learners 47 <?page no="49"?> 1.4 Eco-picturebooks: Suggestions for older learners The annotated list of eco-picturebooks presented in Table 1 shows some suggestions for intermediate and advanced learners, and it is thematically divided according to their environmental theme and related SDGs. It includes both older classics and some newer texts, and I endeavoured to include writers and illustrators from different English-speaking countries such as India, and writers that also represent the views of minoritized groups such as indigenous peoples in the United States. Given that “[p]icturebooks reflect the times as well as their author’s and illustrator’s cultures” (Mour-o 2016: 29), it is important to provide profound ecological knowledge and insights into the perspectives of others. The eco-picturebooks are listed based on their thematic potential for dealing with more complex ‘environmental themes,’ one central feature outlined in Figure 5, which relate to three SDGs (13, 14, and 15) (see Tab. 1) and I indicate whether they can be described as more implicit or explicit eco-picturebooks. Although I suggest these books for older learners, this does not mean that younger learners cannot engage with them. Importantly, it is not only the picturebook itself that determines the suitability for a specific age group, but rather how teachers and learners approach it and how it is integrated into practice. The short summaries in the table, partly based on the blurbs, provide a short overview of the books’ contents. The first eco-picturebooks address Climate Action (SDG 13) and the urgency of combatting climate change. This comes to life in different ways in the suggested eco-picturebooks - a more implicit eco-picturebook introducing a lost polar bear (Leaf by Dieckmann 2017), and a more explicit text that tells a story about active citizenship, i.e., Greta’s climate strikes (Tucker/ Persico 2019). By looking into the ways in which the climate crisis is visually and verbally portrayed in the first example and examining the representation of a story based on a true event, older learners can critically inspect the messages these books send and the importance of active participation. The second category of eco-picturebooks deals with Life below Water (SDG 14) as a major theme. The two suggested books offer different perspectives on this topic - the importance of biodiversity in our oceans, and water as an important resource for life. By exploring SDG 14 from such different perspectives, learners can recognise the close connection between different environmental themes and discuss questions related to social justice. The final suggestions include eco-picturebooks that thematically relate to Life on Land (SDG 15). By looking into the sustainable management of forests, for instance, older learners could compare the messages of these eco-picturebooks and develop ideas for the promotion of sustainable ecosystems. 48 1 Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions <?page no="50"?> SDG Eco-picturebooks Short summary Discussion questions SDG 13: Climate action Dieckmann, Sandra (2017). Leaf. [implicit] A lost polar bear (Leaf) arrives unexpectedly in the woods and is avoided by the other animals, who dearly fear him. Leaf is an outsider with his leaf collecting habit and his white fur. One day he attempts to fly with wings made of leaves. Why was the polar bear sep‐ arated from his family? How is this described in the story? How are the polar bear’s feelings portrayed? Tucker, Zoë/ Persico, Zoe (2019). Greta and the Giants. [explicit] This book presents the story of climate activist Greta Thun‐ berg. While giants are ruining the planet, Greta takes action and other children join in the climate strikes. How does the verbal and vis‐ ual code present Greta, the giants, and their actions? In what way is the long collec‐ tive history of climate acti‐ vism by indigenous people represented in the story? SDG 14: Life below water Williams, Lily (2017). If Sharks Disappeared. [explicit] This book addresses the ques‐ tion of what would happen to our oceans if sharks disap‐ peared. It addresses the impor‐ tance of protecting sharks for healthy oceans. How are sharks described and portrayed in the book? What role do we as humans play in this according to the book? Lindstrom, Carole & Goade, Michaela (2020). We are Water Protectors. [explicit] This story deals with water protection through a young girl who fights the black snake - oil pipelines destroy‐ ing indigenous lands and wa‐ terways. How is water and its impor‐ tance portrayed in the book? What role do we all play in this according to the book? SDG 15: Life on land Silverstein, Shell (1964). The Giving Tree. [implicit] This book presents a young boy who comes to a tree eat‐ ing its apples and swinging from its branches. As he grows older, he wants more from the tree, which gives and gives. It is a story about giving and love while also inviting an ecocrit‐ ical reading. How is the relationship be‐ tween the boy and the tree portrayed from an environ‐ mental perspective? Why should humans treat nature with respect? Jeffers, Oliver (2008). The Great Paper Caper. [implicit] When trees mysteriously start to disappear, forest dwellers start an investigation. They find their culprit, a bear who uses the trees for his paper making machine to make pa‐ per airplanes. After his confes‐ sion in court, the bear makes up for his wrongdoings and plants trees - conveying that everyone is responsible for the environment. How does this book teach readers to treat the environ‐ ment with respect? How does it teach readers to live sustainable lives? How does it suggest that human inter‐ est is not the only legitimate interest? 1.4 Eco-picturebooks: Suggestions for older learners 49 <?page no="51"?> SDG Eco-picturebooks Short summary Discussion questions Gholz, Sophie (2019). The Boy who Grew a Forest: The True Story of Jadav Payeng. [ex‐ plicit] Based on a true story, this book introduces Jadav Payeng, a young boy who is distressed by erosion on his island home in India. He decides to grow thickets of bamboo and even‐ tually grows a forest filled with wild plants and animals. How is the (true) story of Jadav Payeng represented in the picturebook? Why is the protection of ecosystems important for humanity? Tab. 1: Focusing on specific environmental themes: eco-picturebooks for older learners Table 1 lists some first ideas for discussion questions to illustrate examples of how an ecocritical reading can be fostered among older learners. These relate to the second and third feature, information and scales (see previous section), and thus suggest how to engage with these texts thematically based on the additional information they provided (frequently on the last double-page spread) and the opportunities they offer for engaging with the eco-picturebook on a personal, national, and global level. Discussions can involve ethical, philosophical, and social justice perspectives - all of which can encourage readers to relate these to the verbal and visual representation of environmental themes. Moreover, the discussion questions could be integrated in a sequence of tasks discussed below. 1.5 Eco-picturebook tasks Having looked at several eco-picturebooks and at their degree of explicitness and central features, this section introduces some general approaches and examples of pre-, while-, post-reading as well as participation tasks. Previous suggestions for working with picturebooks are illustrated in journals (Alter 2019; Loder-Buechel 2020), and resources are available specifically for environmental learning among intermediate (Ludwig/ Summer 2021) and advanced learners (Küchler/ Preiß 2020). Whereas these offer a great variety of practical impulses for environmental learning in general, this section aims to combine these and suggests specific tasks for working with eco-picturebooks among intermediate (partly also advanced) learners. When working with eco-picturebooks in the classroom, educators can choose from and combine various options: Through storytelling, teachers can read out a book to the class and interact with learners, for instance, in a reading circle. A further option would be to use digital devices or edu-apps in different phases of the reading process, for example, to encourage learners to record and share their first thoughts and impressions of the book, or to relate previously acquired knowledge from the pre-task to the book’s content by creating digital content (e.g., a video or a poster). Depending on learners’ reading motivation and their abilities, individual and extensive reading are a further option through which learners read a book alone in class or at home. Learners could, 50 1 Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions <?page no="52"?> for instance, work with an ensemble of different eco-artefacts dealing with one SDG and present this ensemble in class. If teachers or (school) libraries nearby do not have suitable picturebooks, read-aloud videos are a further option (cf. Mour-o/ Ellis, 2022). In this section, I will present some specific task suggestions that focus on the devel‐ opment of critical environmental literacies and literary literacy, as discussed above, and focus on one example, If Sharks Disappeared (Williams 2017). The pre-reading phase, usually aimed at introducing the topic of the lesson sequence, activating learners’ knowledge, and raising their interest, could include the following activities developed by teachers (Tab. 2): Pre-reading Activity Environmental gallery Present topic-related pictures and chunk lists in different spots in the room (e.g., related to the climate crisis). Ask learners to discuss key questions such as: ‘What do you see? Which environmental issue might be the topic of the book? ’ Fact cards Collect reliable facts related to the topic addressed in the book (e.g., biodiversity) and create fact cards (15 for a group of 30 students). In a swap-it card scenario, learners walk around the classroom, read out the facts, summarise, and discuss them. One ‘false information’ could be included for learners to spot. Reliable sources, e.g., https: / / www.un.org, https: / / www.worldwildlife.org Tab. 2: The pre-reading phase When working with If Sharks Disappeared (Williams 2017) and dealing with Life below Water (SDG 14) as the main theme, teachers could integrate both tasks: First, they could activate learners’ knowledge about the protection of life below water by hanging up thematically related pictures in the room with communication prompts that encourage them to discuss key questions. Second, further information about SDG 14 could be introduced through fact cards that explain the ten targets of this SDG, such as reducing marine pollution and protecting ecosystems (see https: / / www.globalgoals.org/ goals/ 14-life-below-water/ #things -to-do). Both a focus on language-related as well as content-related goals can thus provide a starting point for engaging with the picturebook and its main theme. In the while-reading phase, the focus is on text comprehension, analysis, aesthetic appreciation, and reflection - from an ecocritical perspective. The following two suggestions invite learners to engage in ecocritical reading (Tab. 3): Whilereading Activity Eliciting questions Ask learners questions to encourage ecocritical reading: • What is your impression of the depiction of (nature, animals, Earth)? • How does this make you feel? / How would you feel in this situation? • How do the verbal text and visuals imply a need for active participa‐ tion? 1.5 Eco-picturebook tasks 51 <?page no="53"?> Whilereading Activity Scales analysis Ask learners questions to raise their awareness of scaling: • To what extent is this environmental issue relevant to your own life? • How does it affect your local community, country, the world? • Is this a problem now, in the near future, or in over a hundred years? Tab. 3: The while-reading phase During the while-reading phase of If Sharks Disappeared (Williams 2017), both eliciting questions (e.g., How are changes in the ecosystem visually illustrated and simplified? What might be the effect on child readers? ) and a scales analysis (see section 4) would be suitable questions for older learners. Special and critical attention should be paid to the final part of the book by examining the suggestions for active participation and relating these aspects to the targets of SDG 14. The post-reading phase focuses on the environmental content and a critical, possibly creative, response to the text. Depending on the topic and learner group, I suggest the following three activities (Tab. 4): Post-reading Activity The Earth’s words In this creative writing and role-play activity, ask learners to choose one interesting scene of the book. Ask them to write down what the Earth or a character/ animal in the story might think and say to someone else. Learners then perform/ film their role-plays. Environmental book review Provide a guideline for learners to create a book review in which they discuss the environmental content of the book. Optionally, this could include a scales analysis (e.g., by reflecting upon how an environmental issue affects the world now and possibly in 50/ 100 years). Moral check Ask learners to identify the values and moral(s) behind the picturebook. • What is the moral behind the story? • How are the environmental themes presented (and simplified)? • Who is presented as a potential hero? (How: verbally and visually? ) Tab. 4: The post-reading phase As concerns the participation phase (Tab. 5), this aims to inspire learners “to actively participate in environmental and ecological projects” (Deetjen/ Ludwig 2021b: 16-17) - thus becoming active citizens. 52 1 Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions <?page no="54"?> Participation Activity My life Ask learners to relate the book and its main theme/ SDG to their lives in the form of a poster presentation or role-play (i.e., during a school event/ exhibition). (Social media) campaign Start a (social media) campaign to raise awareness and initiate change, e.g., through a project presented on the school’s website and/ or by sharing learner outcomes (e.g., book reviews, posters). Tab. 5: The participation phase For dealing with Life below Water and If Sharks Disappeared (Williams 2017), in the participation phase, learners could develop an awareness-raising campaign looking into the fulfilment of some targets related to SDG 14 by sharing their products with the school. Conclusion During discussions in teacher training courses I conducted, practicing teachers at secondary schools have frequently stated that they do not use picturebooks with their learners. One teacher, for instance, considered her learners to be “too old for the content of these books” (anon., personal conversation 23 March 2022). It is likely, therefore, that teachers will opt for other resources such as the textbook instead. Looking at textbooks for intermediate and advanced learners, Kuhn-Deutschländer (2021) identified that the development of critical environmental literacies plays a key role but she notes that textbooks should also encourage students to recognise their potential as valuable contributors to their “local and global community and make a difference” (Kuhn-Deutschländer 2021: 34). Eco-picturebooks could fill this gap. Due to their potential discussed in this chapter, they can contribute substantially to the development of critical environmental literacies, which should ideally happen progressively from primary education onwards. By showing older learners’ examples of active participation described in eco-picturebooks, and inviting them to critically reflect on the sometimes simplified depiction of environmental destruction and the loss of biodiversity, they can learn about selected SDGs and actively engage in sustainability projects. Importantly, the development of challenging and rewarding tasks that accompany eco-picturebooks plays a crucial role here. Older learners require additional materials and tasks assigned by the teacher to fill knowledge gaps and enable evidence-based discussions. The three main features of eco-picturebooks discussed above, i.e. 1) environmental themes (and their relevance for the SDGs), 2) information, and 3) scales, provide a starting point for selecting eco-picturebooks for older learners and creating accompanying tasks. Regarding environmental themes, an examination of eco-picturebooks with the seesaw-model opens classroom doors for the inclusion of more eco-picturebooks across a wider age range of learners. In line with an Conclusion 53 <?page no="55"?> ecocritical perspective, teachers in secondary school can highlight anthropocentric perspectives described as “the cause of the environmental crisis” (Bland/ Strotmann 2014: 41) while encouraging learners to develop empathy for the (non)human nature. As such, eco-picturebooks cannot only teach meaningful values, which is probably their intention if we consider their younger target audience. They can also invite older readers to critically analyse how environmental themes are depicted, possibly simplified, what effects this may have on readers, and initiate learning processes that foster critical environmental literacies. List of references Primary literature Bouler, Olivia (2011). Olivia’s Birds: Saving the Gulf. New York: Sterling Children’s Books. Dieckmann, Sandra (2017). Leaf. Flying Eye Books. Gholz, Sophie/ Harren, Kayla (2019). The Boy who Grew a Forest: The True Story of Jadav Payeng. Ann Arbor: Sleeping Bear Press. Lindstrom, Carole/ Goade, Michaela (2020). We are Water Protectors. New York: Roaring Siddals, Mary McKenna/ Wolff, Ashley (2010). Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth. New York: Dragonfly Books. Silverstein, Shell (1964). The Giving Tree. New York: Harper & Row. Tucker, Zoë/ Persico, Zoe (2019). Greta and the Giants. London: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books. Walsh, Melanie (2010). 10 Things I can do to Help my World. Candlewick. Williams, Lily (2017). If Sharks Disappeared. New York: Roaring Brook Press. Secondary literature Alter, Grit (2015). Greening the EFL Classroom - Environmental Agency as an Education for Sustainable Living. In: Lütge, Christiane (ed.). Global Education: Perspectives for English Language Teaching. Wien: LIT, 57-91. Alter, Grit (2019). Show me a story: Picturebooks in der Sek I: ein bekanntes Medium im neuen Kontext. Englisch 5-10 45(1), 28-31. Alter, Grit/ Ratheiser, Ulla (2019). A new model of literary competences and the revised CEFR descriptors. ELT Journal 73(4), 377-386. Bartosch, Roman (2019). Literature, Pedagogy, and Climate Change: Text Models for Transcul‐ tural Ecology. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Bechtel, Mark (2021). Nachhaltigkeit im Fremdsprachenunterricht. In Burwitz-Melzer, Eva. et al. (eds.). Entwicklung von Nachhaltigkeit beim Lehren und Lernen von Fremd- und Zweitsprachen. Arbeitspapiere der 41. Frühjahrskonferenz zur Erforschung des Fremdspra‐ chenunterrichts. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 9-20. 54 1 Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions <?page no="56"?> Bland, Janice (2013). Children’s Literature and Learner Empowerment: Children and Teenagers in English Language Education. London: Bloomsbury. Bland, Janice (2014). Ecocritical sensitivity with multimodal texts in the EFL/ ESL literature classroom. In: Bartosch, Roman/ Grimm, Sieglinde (eds.). Teaching Environments: Ecocritical Encounters. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 75-96. 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Introduction: Developing Students’ Critical Envi‐ ronmental Literacies in the EFL Classroom. In: Ludwig, Christian/ Deetjen, Claudia (eds.). The World Beyond: Developing Critical Environmental Literacies in EFL. Heidelberg: Winter, 9-24. Garrard, Greg (ed.) (2012). Teaching Ecocriticism and Green Cultural Studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Gray, John (2021). Addressing LGBTQ erasure through literature in the ELT classroom. ELT Journal 75(2), 142-151. Hall, Geoff (2018). Afterword: Thoughts on the way ahead. In: Bland, Janice (ed.). Using Literature in English Language Education: Challenging Reading for 8-18 Year Olds. London: Bloomsbury, 261-276. Hsiao, Ching-Yuan/ Shih, Pei-Yu (2016). Exploring the effectiveness of picture books for teach‐ ing young children the concepts of environmental protection. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education 25(1), 36-49. Kalantzis, Mary/ Cope, Bill (2012). Literacies. Cambridge: CUP. Krashen, Stephen (2011). The Compelling (not just interesting) Input Hypothesis. The English Connection. A Publication of KOTESOL 15(3). [Online: https: / / koreatesol.org/ sites/ default/ f iles/ pdf_publications/ TECv15n3-11Autumn.pdf, 29 April 2021] Krashen, Stephen/ Bland, Janice (2014). Compelling Comprehensible Input, Academic Language and School Libraries. CLELE Journal 2(2), 1-12. Küchler, Uwe/ Preiß, Judith (2020). Schwerpunktthema Abitur Englisch - Green Matters: Planet Earth, Language, Culture. Berlin: Cornelsen. List of references 55 <?page no="57"?> Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (2018). Introduction: Picturebook Research as an International and Interdisciplinary Field. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.). The Routledge Compan‐ ion to Picturebooks. London: Routledge, 1-8. Kuhn-Deutschländer, Janina (2021). Teaching for Environmental Justice: Environmental Educa‐ tion and the EFL Classroom. In: Ludwig, Christian/ Deetjen, Claudia (eds.). The World Beyond: Developing Critical Environmental Literacies in EFL. Heidelberg: Winter, 25-40. Loder-Buechel, Laura (2020). The Power of the Picture Book. In: English Teaching Forum, 34-37. [Online: https: / / americanenglish.state.gov/ files/ ae/ resource_files/ etf_58_4_pg34-37.p df, 29 April 2021] Ludwig, Christian/ Summer, Theresa (2021). Critical environmental literacy entwickeln: Wie sich eco-artefacts und eco-tasks im Unterricht einsetzen lassen. Englisch 5-10 55(3), 26-31. Lütge, Christiane (ed.) (2015). Global Education: Perspectives for English Language Teaching. Wien: LIT Verlag. Merse, Thorsten (2015). Visualizing the Global and Globalizing the Visual: The Potential of Global Images for the EFL Classroom. In: Lütge, Christiane (ed.). Global Education: Perspectives for English Language Teaching. Wien: LIT, 197-224. Merse, Thorsten (2018). Creating Queer Text Ensembles for the EFL Literature Classroom: Con‐ ceptual Considerations and Practice-Oriented Perspectives. In: Eisenmann, Maria/ Ludwig, Christian (eds.). Queer Beats - Gender and Literature in the EFL Classroom. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 307-338. Mour-o, Sandie (2016). Picturebooks in the Primary EFL Classroom. Authentic Literature for an Authentic Response. Children’s Literature in English Language Education Journal 4(1), 25-43. Mour-o, Sandie/ Ellis, Gail (2022). Asynchronous Picturebook Read-Alouds: The Affordances of ‘Read-Aloud Talk’. In: Paran, Amos/ Stadler-Heer, Sandra (eds.). Taking Literature and Language Learning Online: New Perspectives on Teaching, Research and Technology. London: Bloomsbury, 47-70. Nasatir, Diane/ Horn, Eva (2003). Addressing Disability as a Part of Diversity: Through Classroom Children’s Literature. Young Exceptional Children 7(4), 2-10. Ngai, Joe T. K./ Yu, Rose W. M./ Chau, Kathy K. Y./ Wong, Paul W. C. (2021). Effectiveness of a school-based programme of animal-assisted humane education in Hong Kong for the promotion of social and emotional learning: A quasi-experimental pilot study. PLoS ONE 16(3), 1-21. Plikat, Jochen (2016). Fremdsprachliche Diskursbewusstheit als Zielkonstrukt des Fremdspra‐ chenunterrichts: Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der Interkulturellen Kompetenz. Berlin: Peter Lang. Römhild, Ricardo (forthcoming): Global Citizenship, Ecomedia and English Language Education. London: Palgrave Macmillan Cham. Sipe, Lawrence (2008). Storytime. Young Children’s Literary Understanding in the Classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. 56 1 Eco-picturebooks for older learners: Features, selection criteria, and practical suggestions <?page no="58"?> Summer, Theresa (2021a). Eco-songs in foreign language education. In: Werner, Valentin/ Tegge, Friederike (eds.). Pop Culture in Language Education: Theory, Research, Practice. London: Routledge, 136-150. Summer, Theresa (2021b). Making the case for eco-artefacts in English language education. In: Ludwig, Christian/ Deetjen, Claudia (eds.): Developing Critical Environmental Literacies in the EFL Classroom. Heidelberg: Winter, 165-182. Summer, Theresa (2022). Digital Picturebooks in Times of Crisis: From Picturebooks about Covid-19 to Developing Critical Environmental Literacies. In: Paran, Amos/ Stadler-Heer, Sandra (eds.). Taking Literature and Language Learning Online: New Perspectives on Teaching, Research and Technology. London: Bloomsbury, 71-91. United Nations (n.d.). Sustainable Development Goals. [Online: https: / / sdgs.un.org/ goals, 03 May 2021] Valente, David (2021). Environmental Children’s literature: A Catalyst for Taking Action. Children’s Literature in English Language Education Journal 9(1). [Online: https: / / clelejour nal.org/ wp-content/ uploads/ 2021/ 05/ CLELE-9.1-Recommended-Reads.pdf, 10 June 2021] Webb, Jean (2018). Environmental havoc in teen fiction. Speculating futures. In: Bland, Janice (ed.). Using Literature in English Language Education: Challenging Reading for 8-18 Year Olds. London: Bloomsbury, 209-224. List of illustrations Fig. 1: The potential of eco-picturebooks for older learners (own source) Fig. 2: A seesaw model of categorising implicit and explicit eco-picturebooks Fig. 3: Lindstrom, Carole/ Goade, Michaela (2020). We are Water Protectors. New York: Roaring Brook Press. Fig. 4: Williams, Lily (2017). If Sharks Disappeared. New York: Roaring Brook Press. Fig. 5: Features of eco-picturebooks and emerging selection criteria for older learners List of illustrations 57 <?page no="60"?> 2 The centrality of conceptual metaphors to a reading of characters’ thoughts and feelings in Shaun Tan’s picturebooks Markus Oppolzer Abstract This chapter introduces basic principles of conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) to showcase how crossover picturebooks manage to cater to a much broader readership by visualising mature themes in such a way that they become equally accessible to young adult readers. While visual metaphors can help to externalize the feelings, moods, and mental states of characters by translating them into readable signs such as body codes, they also grant artists a creative design space to explore human afflictions via complex multimodal compositions. Shaun Tan’s highly successful picturebooks serve as illustrations of CMT’s compatibility with established categories of visual analysis, of the artist’s personal preferences that find expression in recurring patterns and themes, but also of how CMT can help to foster the visual literacy of older learners. Warm-up: Engagement questions ▸ Are you familiar with Shaun Tan’s picturebooks? If you are, have you noticed any recurring themes and patterns? If not, visit his website (https: / / www.shauntan.net) and find out more about him. ▸ Have you come across conceptual metaphor theory? How can it help you to read images in visual narrative media? ▸ How can drama techniques be used to bring a picturebook to life? ▸ Why are picturebooks suitable texts to foster empathy? Introduction One of the fascinating qualities of Tan’s work and probably the reason for his widespread success is his ability to attract a readership that spans several generations. His picturebooks capture the imagination of young readers, teenagers, and adults alike, by encoding the themes of his picturebooks on different levels of complexity: while younger readers build an intuitive understanding of his key concerns across several double spreads, following the artist’s creative lead, older readers may be intrigued by interpictorial references or the imaginative exploration of migration, racism, colonization, or mental illness via a range of complex metaphors. <?page no="61"?> It is the aim of this paper to use basic insights from conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) to showcase how Tan’s illustrations can be studied in a more systematic way. By looking at how CMT synergizes with established theories of reading images, such as salience or body codes, it is possible to elucidate the great potential of his work for intermediate and advanced learners. After establishing Tan’s appeal to different groups of readers and the basic tenets of conceptual metaphor theory in the first part of this chapter, Marsden and Tan’s The Rabbits (1998) shall serve as a case study to illustrate these points. It is then necessary to address Tan’s predilection for dystopian fiction to understand how he expresses his protagonists’ feelings of alienation by taking recourse to well-established generic tropes. Readers reverse this process of externalization by working “from the outside in” (Hatfield 2005: 115): they are encouraged to read these signs as indications of the protagonists’ internal states, which helps to foster their empathy and invites them to identify with seemingly alien perspectives. This exploration of Tan’s art forms the basis for activities that allow students to develop visual literacy beyond basic considerations such as salience (Ledin/ Machin 2020: 170-178; Kress/ van Leeuwen 2021: 182-185, 210-216). 2.1 Crossover picturebooks: Transgressing the boundaries of children’s literature A first encounter with any of Tan’s picturebooks is likely to leave a lasting impression, usually in the form of a haunting visual metaphor: the black serpents in The Arrival (2006), the eponymous hero of Cicada (2018) or the “tar-crying fish” (Sikorska/ Wielki 2018: 206) in The Red Tree (2001). Some adult readers may wonder whether these books are suitable for a younger readership at all, as the thematic concerns are quite serious and include migration, mental health issues, colonization, a neoliberal, capitalist system, the stifling of creativity, and strictly regulated, almost totalitarian political regimes. Despite a silver lining in all of his books, it would not be amiss to label Tan’s artistic output as genuinely dystopian (Dudek 2005; Tan 2010: 18-19; Oppolzer 2019), which is, one has to say, an unusual choice for an art form that is supposedly targeted at children. In picturebook studies, this phenomenon of appealing to a broader and more experienced readership has been acknowledged, but it is still treated as a form of “genre crossing” (Kümmerling-Meibauer 2014: 7), which implies a transgression of traditional generic boundaries. Several widely used labels have been introduced to address this supposedly new phenomenon, such as “postmodern picturebooks” (e.g., Anstey 2002), “crossover picturebooks” (Beckett 2018), “picturebooks for adults” (Ommundsen 2018), or even “fusion texts” (Evans 2013, cf. introduction to this volume). However, picturebooks have always had a dual audience (Beckett 2018: 209; Nikolajeva/ Scott 2006: 21), as their creators have to appeal to adult sensibilities, mostly to their own, 60 2 Conceptual Metaphors in Shaun Tan’s picturebooks <?page no="62"?> but also to those of gatekeepers, such as publishers, librarians, teachers, and parents, who decide what is worth distributing, endorsing, buying, and reading out aloud. From a methodological perspective, next to identifying interpictorial references, visual metaphors, or analyzing complex page layouts, one strategy to engage older readers is to exploit discrepancies between words and images, a phenomenon known as “counterpointing” (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2006: 17, 24ff.). These artistic choices are not dissimilar from the tensions that Hatfield (2005: 32-67) claims for comics as markers of sophistication and prompts for reader activation. In a very similar vein, Kümmerling-Meibauer asserts that picturebooks have always been “highly elliptic in their representation of causal, local, and temporal relations,” so that their “narrative incompleteness” becomes “a powerful generator of curiosity and necessitates a far more elaborated gap-filling activity on behalf of the reader/ viewer” (2014: 5) than one would suspect. This plea for the acceptance of picturebooks as a sophisticated narrative medium counteracts the widespread notion that art forms are tied to specific readerships, such as small children in this case (Oppolzer 2020b: 132-135). In “The accidental graphic novelist” (2011), Tan bemusedly reflects upon the publication history of The Arrival, which seems to be a puzzling work of art, provided that readers expect a neat category into which it can be placed. He recollects the impact of gatekeepers on the reception of his book in the following way: In Australia, I had originally pitched my project to a publisher as a picture book, as this was a form very familiar to me as an illustrator. Five years later, it had expanded to 128 pages, lost its text and changed format. French rights were sold to a publisher specializing in bande dessinée (drawn strips) - meaning comics or graphic novels - and so my work was welcomed into a different fold, and by a largely adult audience. Somewhere in between, The Arrival was marketed in the US as a young adult graphic novel, with praise from such genre luminaries as Jeff Smith (Bone), Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), and Art Spiegelman (Maus) - which left me quite amazed. I had, rather unwittingly, become a graphic novelist, if only because an authority far higher than myself had said so! (2011: 2) Following Beckett’s definition of crossover picturebooks as “multilevel works suitable for all ages because they invite different forms of reading depending on the age and experience of the reader” (2018: 210), it is safe to say that Tan’s picturebooks belong in this category. For the purposes of this paper, Tan’s continuing effort to “explore the human condition and deal with the important issues that touch young and old alike” (Beckett 2018: 215) takes precedence over a narratological or multimodal analysis that would highlight the sophistication of his work based on structural complexity. It can even be argued that some of his books (e.g., Cicada, The Red Tree, Rules of Summer) do not even attempt to narrate a consistent story, but explore complex emotional states via a series of loosely connected double spreads to invite readers to feel empathy for the protagonists. Such an approach requires a visualization of characters’ feelings, thoughts, and experiences through facial expressions, body language, or the use of colours (Hatfield 2005: 115). 2.1 Crossover picturebooks: Transgressing the boundaries of children’s literature 61 <?page no="63"?> Crossover picturebooks make use of this strategy in two distinct ways: on the one hand, elusive and immaterial ideas and concepts can be made more accessible by presenting them in concrete terms, based on basic human experiences. Sadness, for example, can be expressed via the weather (rain, clouds), body posture (hunched down, a lowered head), facial expressions, colours (grey, black), shadows, or physical isolation, often in a redundant fashion to communicate the feeling in as much clarity as possible. On the other hand, unusual and creative multimodal compositions may attempt to startle the reader and invite a more active exploration of a book’s themes. Thus, visual metaphors exist on a spectrum from instant recognition (e.g., S I G NI F ICANT I S BI G ) to more unusual creations that require some effort to decode (e.g., C O L ONIZ E R S A R E R AB BIT S ). This also explains how crossover picturebooks manage to appeal to different readerships: the core ideas are encoded in a redundant fashion on different levels of metaphorical complexity. To be able to understand how artists manage to communicate via these means and visualize their broader thematic concerns, it is necessary to look at conceptual metaphors as the basis of human cognition. 2.2 Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) In their seminal study Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson establish the basic principles of CMT, such as the idea that all our thinking is grounded in “our physical and cultural experience” (2003: 14). For example, operating a human body requires basic orientation in space (e.g., up-down, left-right, near-far, inside-outside, the body as a container) and processing sense impressions (bright-dark, hard-soft etc.). These basic experiences are called “image schemas” (Hampe 2005) in cognitive linguistics and provide the building blocks for primary metaphors, since they help humans to grasp more complex concepts by using the physical world of daily experiences as a point of reference (El Refaie 2019: 21f.). We learn, for example, that INTIMAC Y I S C L O S E N E S S (El Refaie 2019: 102), as we tend to have physical contact with people who we like or love: touching, cuddling, kissing, or holding hands are all physical signs of affection. This seems so natural to us that we forget that measuring feelings in terms of physical distance is a metaphor. Accordingly, it informs our basic understanding of all relationships - including those of fictional characters. Many “body codes” (Benyahia/ Gaffney/ White 2008: 26) in visual narrative media can be read intuitively, as they are based on such human experiences. Apart from physical contact and proximity ( INTIMAC Y I S C L O S E N E S S ), Benyahia, Gaffney and White also list eye contact, body posture, orientation towards or away from each other, head movements, facial expressions, gestures, physical appearance, and speech (e.g., pitch, stress, tone, volume, accent) as potential external signs of internal states. Their recognition may serve as the first step towards empathy, a change of perspective and self-implication (Kuiken/ Miall/ Sikora 2004; Oppolzer 2020a: 149-153). The latter denotes a process through which readers make sense of literary texts by likening their own experiences to those of characters. In his reader-response approach to literature, Miall suggests that 62 2 Conceptual Metaphors in Shaun Tan’s picturebooks <?page no="64"?> “the subjective experience of emotions and feelings” (1989: 61) is central to guiding readers through the process of meaning-making: “affect is self-referential: It allows experiential and evaluative aspects of the reader’s self concept to be applied to the task of comprehension” (1989: 56). According to CMT, image schemas are universal and apply to all contexts of human cognition. We also learn that HA P P Y I S U P (e.g., jump for joy; feel elated; high spirits; Kövecses 2010: 97) and S AD I S DOWN (e.g., feeling depressed, to droop, hunched down; Lakoff/ Johnson 2003: 15), two more metaphors that express emotional states through physical orientation. But it does not end there: Life, health, consciousness, success, force, more - these are all U P , while death (e.g., drop dead), sickness (e.g., fall ill), unconsciousness (e.g., fall asleep), weakness, loss of control (e.g., under their command), or less (e.g., his income fell; she is underage) are all DOWN (cf. Lakoff/ Johnson 2003: 15). Importantly, the fundamental building blocks of our conceptual system are already in place during a pre-verbal and often subconscious stage of our development (Coats 2019: 366), which means that linguistic metaphors are considered verbal expressions (entailments) of underlying conceptual metaphors (Lakoff/ Johnson 2003: 6). We might say ‘I feel close to him’ or ‘They have drifted apart,’ which are just two realizations of the same basic idea that INTIMAC Y I S C L O S E N E S S . If we accept this mechanism as true, then “most of our ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in nature” (Lakoff/ Johnson 2003: 4), as we base primary metaphors on image schemas and complex metaphors on simpler ones. However, there is also a feedback loop, as social interactions and cultural artefacts have a significant impact on (young) people’s attempts to make sense of the world (Purcell 2018; Coats 2019: 367; El Refaie 2019: 5). While it may be true that children interpret their social reality based on shared human experiences, all social encounters also signal back to them how and to what extent certain experiences can be shared, what the fundamental beliefs of the community are and how they come to be expressed in the form of conceptual metaphors and objects that encapsulate these core ideas. Coats argues that certain metaphors have to be actively questioned, such as G O ODN E S S I S LI GHT and BADN E S S I S DA R KN E S S (2019: 376), precisely because they are rooted in human experience and have helped to naturalize racism. In a capitalist society, to give another example, everything is measured in terms of monetary value, so we use the conceptual metaphor TIME I S MO N E Y (cf. Lakoff/ Johnson 2003: 7-9) to remind everyone that their own lives are a valuable resource that can and should be exploited for a profit. A watch is the physical manifestation of this ideology. Traditionally, young people received one, e.g., for their confirmation, to signal that their childhood was over, and the ‘seriousness of life’ was about to begin. For any hard-working adult in the western world there is hardly any life left outside of schedules and deadlines. It is only logical, then, that the most successful capitalists show off their wealth in the form of expensive chronometers. Accordingly, one of the more inconceivable things one can do in such a system is to waste time, spending it on trivial things, or losing a whole year by repeating a grade in school. Success is 2.2 Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) 63 <?page no="65"?> conceptualized both as AH EAD and U P : we have to make progress, advance in our jobs, and climb the career ladder. This is closely related to MO R E I S U P and G O OD I S U P , which leads to MO R E I S B E TT E R and BI G G E R I S B E TT E R (Lakoff/ Johnson 2003: 22). Thus, we rely on an elaborate and ubiquitous metaphorical system that feeds the core ideologies of our society back to us all the time. 2.3 Conceptual metaphors in The Rabbits It is now possible to demonstrate how Marsden and Tan’s picturebook The Rabbits (1998) can be read in a more systematic fashion with advanced learners by applying the basic principles introduced above to a reading of its elaborate double spreads. The book begins with the sentence “The rabbits came many grandparents ago,” which immediately signals a different concept of time. As readers encounter throughout the book, the rabbits’ whole way of thinking is influenced by a culture that cherishes efficiency, entrepreneurship, and consumerism. Most of their objects and buildings have watches or clocks on top to synchronize their activities, to increase efficiency, and to allow for large-scale operations, such as the colonization of Australia. However, they do not only measure time, but also the land and its resources. Fig. 1: “But our old people warned us: Be careful.” John Marsden und Shaun Tan (2010): The Rabbits. Sydney: Lothian. 64 2 Conceptual Metaphors in Shaun Tan’s picturebooks <?page no="66"?> As the third opening demonstrates (Fig. 1), their optical instruments and media representations warp reality and make them blind to the way the natives see their own country. Their relentless process of classification and labelling recontextualizes everything in accordance with their own logic. This undermines our belief that KN OWIN G / UND E R S TANDIN G I S S E E IN G : we tend to trust eyewitness reports, photographic evidence, and especially our own eyes. Perception is not neutral, however; it is one of the key principles of cultural studies: in this context the “colonial gaze” (Falen 2020) of the rabbits reshapes reality in accordance with their own beliefs. The central conceptual metaphor of the book is that C O L ONIZ E R S A R E R AB BIT S . In literary terms, this may be called an allegory (Dreyer 2014: 22), a parable or a fable, but the important thing is the analogy it encourages. The Rabbits retells the history of colonization in Australia in chronological order by dedicating one double spread each to an important milestone. Opening 4, for example, is directly based on Emanuel Phillips Fox’s painting Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, 1770 (1902), which can be found in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and is widely known in Australia. Others reference the Australian frontier wars (opening 8), the Stolen Generation (Aboriginal children who were forcefully removed from their families; opening 11), or the introduction of mechanized farming (openings 6 and 10). It becomes apparent that the book does not only address a dual readership, but that Tan’s fellow Australians are more likely to notice intertextual references that Europeans unfamiliar with Australian history and culture probably miss. This spectrum of potential responses can best be illustrated in relation to the central metaphor, which is the representation of the British colonizers as rabbits. From a central European perspective, this metaphor could be downright misleading. Children encounter rabbits as cute little animals, usually as pets or characters in (picture)books and cartoons: The Easter Bunny, Peter Rabbit, Bugs Bunny, Rabbit in Winnie-the-Pooh, the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland - none of them is a ruthless conqueror and imperialist. The same puzzlement may arise when Europeans try to identify the furry brown creatures (marsupials/ numbats; Dreyer 2014: 26), who need to be recognized as representatives of Indigenous or Aboriginal cultures. This illustrates that metaphors are neither universal nor neutral, but culture-specific and connoted with layers of meaning. The Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population, and Communi‐ ties of the Australian government describes the “Feral European Rabbit” (2011) in the following way: The feral European rabbit is one of the most widely distributed and abundant mammals in Australia. It causes severe damage to the natural environment and to agriculture. […] Feral rabbits compete with native wildlife, damage vegetation and degrade the land. They ringbark trees and shrubs, and prevent regeneration by eating seeds and seedlings. […] Feral rabbits may have caused the extinction of several small (up to 5.5 kilograms) ground-dwelling mammals of Australia’s arid lands, and have contributed to the decline in numbers of many native plants and animals. 2.3 Conceptual metaphors in The Rabbits 65 <?page no="67"?> Here, the parallels to the invaders from afar are much more prominent. The colonizers are an ‘alien’ pest that kills local wildlife to the point of extinction and degrades the land. They multiply like rabbits and there are no natural means to keep their numbers under control. For the classroom it is indispensable to establish this context or have students research these creatures on their own (Dreyer 2014: 23). Alternatively, they could be asked to compare the two species as depicted in the book: The numbats are brown, native, unclothed, passive, peaceful, associated with a sustainable/ organic lifestyle, small numbers, and curvy lines; the rabbits are white, alien, clothed, active, restless, associated with technology, large numbers, and straight lines. This is a good example of how artists can convey complex issues such as colonization to an audience of mostly teenage readers by making the elusive manifest in physical terms (Kövecses 2010: 64; El Refaie 2019: 8). The rabbits’ belief in progress is visualized by having them literally march across the country (opening 4: “They came by water.”), while the natives’ marginalization is depicted as exactly that: a peripheral existence on the margins of the European colonists’ new world order (openings 4 and 5). The rabbits’ strange nature and habits are illustrated as a literal alien invasion (opening 7: “The rabbits spread across the country. No mountain could stop them; no desert, no river.”). Thus, the comparison of colonizers with aliens strengthens the central metaphor of Europeans as rabbits, as it emphasizes their foreign culture, their unwillingness to communicate at eye level, and the overall dystopian orientation of the book, which is a hallmark of Tan’s work in general. The rabbits’ eventual dominance over all indigenous life is visualized through salience: Salience is where certain features in compositions are made to stand out, to draw our atten‐ tion. […] Salience can be achieved through size, colour, foregrounding, overlap, repetition etc. This tells us which are the most important elements in the composition and can be used to create a hierarchy of salience by weighting elements to different degrees. All these factors interact to create salience. (Machin 2011: 130) Ledin and Machin propose seven basic principles how salience can be encoded (2020: 170-178) to which I would like to add three more that exist within the same theoretical framework, but belong to other categories: principles salient / noticeable not salient / inconspicuous size / scale large / big / huge / dominant small / insignificant position [added] central / in the centre / the centre of attention marginal / at the margins / peripheral / marginalized colour warm/ hot colours (e.g., red) bright / rich / vibrant / satura‐ ted / striking / bold / intense cool/ cold colours (e.g., blue) greyish / dark / desaturated / dull / brooding / washed out 66 2 Conceptual Metaphors in Shaun Tan’s picturebooks <?page no="68"?> principles salient / noticeable not salient / inconspicuous tone shiny / bright / glowing / sun‐ lit / highlighted / with a halo muted / dark / dim / dull / obscure / shady / pale focus in focus / clear / crisp / sharp out of focus / blurred / indistinct / obscure / hazy foregrounding / distance in the foreground / close (to the camera/ viewer) in the background / distant / far away / removed overlap in front of other elements behind other elements framing [added] ‘lines’ around an object or person (e.g., a doorframe or window) unframed intersection of lines [added] An object or person is placed where several lines in the compo‐ sition meet potent cultural symbols culturally loaded objects with connotative meanings Tab. 1: An adapted list of Ledin and Machin’s basic principles of salience, including descriptive terms to verbalize their presence or absence. Table 1 is not complete (e.g., angle of interaction, gazes, left-right, up-down orientation, repetition, modality, typography), but it serves as a starting point. It should be clear that most of these principles are based on or related to basic/ spatial metaphors: e.g., S I G NI F ICANT I S BI G (Lakoff/ Johnson 2003: 50), VAL U E I S S IZ E , INTIMAC Y I S C L O S E N E S S (El Refaie 2019: 102), BAD I S O B S C U R E / DA R K (Coats 2019: 376), HA P P Y I S B R IGHT . These basic design principles can be equally identified in movie posters, where the ‘stars’ are often featured prominently: large, central, radiating charisma and confidence, dwarfing and overlapping minor character and villains, for example. Due to the universality of these metaphors and the dominance of western (popular) culture, the same visual strategies reappear across media and art forms, including picturebooks. In opening 3 of The Rabbits (“But our old people warned us”), the large rabbit in the foreground, looking at the surroundings through the lenses and prisms of several optical instruments, is the most salient element. The object that can be interpreted as a crystal ball, arguably the centre of the double spread, does not only mirror another rabbit looking through a telescope, but it also distorts the image and represents it in an eerie green light that readers encounter again on the same page (the test tube), as the colour of the sky behind the ship in opening 4, or as the dominant colour in opening 7 (alien invasion). While it is impossible to associate hues with specific meanings in general terms, artists are very conscious of these choices. In this case, green is representative of the unnatural transformation of the landscape that is about to happen as well as the foreign mindset and views of the invaders. 2.3 Conceptual metaphors in The Rabbits 67 <?page no="69"?> While the numbats are the subjects, narrators, and focalizers of the verbal text, they are depicted as the objects of colonial rule in the images. In opening 3, the natives have already been relegated to a secondary role in the background, in contrast to openings 1 and 2. While there is a rabbit that meets them at eye level, he teaches them the basics of mechanization and industrialization. No one pays attention to the branch that one of the numbats is holding up, behind his back. Due to the theme-rheme structure of picturebooks, based on a left-to-right reading orientation (El Refaie 2019: 4), we see the ‘harmless’ beginnings of this invasion on the left and the dire consequences on the right. These are visualized with the help of a torn piece of paper that represents a rift in the landscape and, by implication, in the natives’ traditional way of life. It is accompanied by the sentence “More rabbits came …” and a noticeable decrease in saturation and brightness. The rabbit at the top of the hill is also looking towards the right, which is the direction in which the rabbits are going to march in the next double spread (opening 4), while readers encounter the golden ship again to the left in opening 5, signalling the rapid expansion of the colonizers’ territory. From a cultural studies point of view, most metaphors are taken for granted and require little active processing, because they are ubiquitous and rarely questioned. The colours gold and (imperial) red, for example, are highly metaphorical and already dominate the cover of The Rabbits. While readers intuitively understand how they help to characterize the colonizers, they are less likely to consider the history of and strategy behind the self-representation of the British Empire in this context. European monarchies may seem like a special case, but the same phenomenon applies to the most basic categories. Coats discusses the various negative connotations of darkness, such as loneliness, fear, and disorientation, which are rooted in human experience, but pave the way for a naturalization of racism (2019: 368, 372-376). Here, teachers have a unique opportunity and responsibility to break with conventional forms of seeing and foster critical literacy. While earlier research in picturebook studies does recognize that artists have to “metaphorically display what cannot be pictured directly - ideas, moods, abstract notions and qualities” (Doonan 1993: 8; cf. also Schwarcz 1982: 34-54), I tend to agree with Coats’ bolder claim that the “visual representation of conceptual metaphors is perhaps the key semiotic resource that illustrators draw upon to convey both simple and complex meanings in children’s picturebooks” (2019: 364). In Tan’s case, his dys‐ topian imagination shapes much of his artistic output (Oppolzer 2019), especially when he faces the challenge of making the downside of capitalism accessible to his readers. Conceptual metaphors play an important role again, both on the macrostructural level of world building and the personal stories of his characters. 68 2 Conceptual Metaphors in Shaun Tan’s picturebooks <?page no="70"?> 2.4 Tan’s dystopian imagination Tan’s “attraction to dark and disturbing themes” (https: / / www.shauntan.net/ viewer -book) is evident throughout his work, especially in his predilection for dystopian fiction. Brutalist, concrete architecture dominates most of his narratives (The Rabbits, The Red Tree, Cicada, The Lost Thing), which is reminiscent of real-life totalitarian regimes, but also typical of the aesthetics and mindset of a society whose citizens become subordinated to the megalomaniac aspirations of a ruling elite. We find science-fiction tropes such as references to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, itself based on Marxist notions of estranged labour in both The Arrival (factory) and The Red Tree (“the world is a deaf machine”) (Sikorska/ Wielki 2018: 210). The Lost Thing contains the most elaborate depiction of and engagement with dystopian themes (Dudek 2005; Oppolzer 2019: 43-48). In an ingenious move of making the abstract concrete, the panels are superimposed over boring, technical drawings and explanations of random machine parts, which illustrates the mindset of this society by literally making it the background against which the story takes place. Tan uses rusty tubes and smoking chimneys as ubiquitous reminders that the impact of the industrial revolution can still be felt, both in terms of pollution (e.g., opening 13 in The Rabbits), but also in the way the landscape has been transformed to accommodate the needs of a mass culture and the infrastructure of big business. Humans may work in corporate headquarters now, but many remain as disenfranchised as the workers of the 19th century. The vulnerability and alienation of individuals in the face of a cold, uncaring world is ever present. 2.5 Human alienation in Cicada and The Red Tree While the aforementioned picturebooks tend to visualize and dramatize political and social conditions, there are also books that serve the artistic exploration of specific human conditions: The Red Tree addresses teenage angst and depression and Cicada the toil of modern slavery in a racist and capitalist system. On closer inspection, they reveal a number of similarities as both foreground extreme cases of isolation, social ostracism, and the cruelty of a system that does not rely on solidarity, but social Darwinism. While most of the other titles in Tan’s catalogue feature some form of narrative progression, Cicada and The Red Tree largely consist of visual metaphors that externalize how the protagonists feel about the situations they find themselves in. They represent variations of a theme. Accordingly, the images do not depict the story world as it is, but how the protagonists experience it. The visual point of view (ocularization) remains external and seemingly neutral, but the illustrations mirror the mindscapes of the characters (Nikolajeva 2012: 280). This requires a reading of characters “from the outside in” (Hatfield 2005: 115), by decoding external clues as signs of inner states. While some of these body codes and emotion scripts (Stephens 2015) may be easy to interpret, 2.4 Tan’s dystopian imagination 69 <?page no="71"?> artists have to rely on their readers’ empathy and self-implication to make the stories personally relevant and relatable. Like most of Tan’s heroes, the protagonists of The Red Tree and Cicada do not have a name. The artist may invite readers to understand them as representatives of a group, condition, or state, such as the protagonist of The Arrival, who is intended to stand in for countless immigrants, or the red-haired girl, who could personify teenage angst. More importantly, the nameless protagonists may be treated as a class of people by their social environments, such as Cicada. The eponymous hero of this story is a literal insect in a suit who seems to be a migrant worker and a legal alien in the world of humans. The book is narrated from the alien’s perspective and the speech patterns reveal what may be judged as an inferior command of the English language. As a “[d]ata entry clerk,” all that is needed of them are four hands, which feature prominently in the first opening. Like a sexualized body in advertising, with the head cut off, Cicada is reduced to the parts that count. Instead of their face, we get their corporate name tag (Sheahan-Bright n.d. 6) and uniform, a grey suit. This is based on the conceptual metonymy (Kövecses 2010: 171-194) TH E HAND S F O R TH E WO R K E R S , which is most evident in the term “farmhands” (2010: 243-245). Yet there are more elements “symbolic of the dehumanization of people in such anonymous workplaces” (Sheahan-Bright n.d. 6). Cicada’s “Tok Tok Tok! ” may refer to a ticking clock ( TIM E I S MO N E Y ; see the clock in opening 2; Sheahan-Bright n.d. 9), to their hands entering data into the keyboard, or to the impatient tapping of fingers, such as those of a manager demanding more efficiency. However, at the very end of the book, this phrase becomes associated with Cicada’s laughter. The liberated Cicada, who has moved on to a better place, laughs at the subjugated humans who endure their own enslavement by directing their pent-up aggression against those who are even weaker than themselves. The corporate bullies remain faceless (Sheahan-Bright n.d. 12): as cogs in the corporate machinery, they have lost their identities; but they also hide their racism and cruelty behind regulations and guidelines, which supposedly exonerate them as mere agents of a heartless system. Moral courage may endanger their career opportunities. This is presented in a darkly ironic fashion: “Human resources say cicada not human. Need no resources” (opening 3). In Cicada, the colour green takes on a double meaning. Cicada is clearly the outsider - a migrant from a very different place, and legally an alien, but it also symbolizes nature - a touch of green (and later red) against too many shades of grey. Here, the cultural context becomes relevant again: for a central European, insects may carry negative connotations in the sense of vermin or pest, which need to be extinguished. In one illustration (“Human co-worker no like cicada.”) this reading is directly evoked: insects are often crushed under the feet or hands of humans. 70 2 Conceptual Metaphors in Shaun Tan’s picturebooks <?page no="72"?> Fig. 2: “Human co-worker no like cicada.” Shaun Tan (2018): Cicada. London: Hodder & Stoughton. This scene (Fig. 2) also alludes to Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis as an important intertext (https: / / www.shauntan.net/ cicada-book). Thus, Tan deliberately works with and undermines the problematic associations that WO R K E R S A R E C O G S IN A MACHIN E and IMMI G R ANT S A R E IN S E C T S . In Asian cultures (e.g., Chinese or Japanese), cicadas trigger very different associ‐ ations. On the copyright page, Tan reproduces a Japanese haiku by Matsuo Bashō (1644-94): “calm and serene / the sound of a cicada / penetrates the rock”. Jan Stuart (National Museum of Asian Art / Smithsonian) describes cicadas in Chinese art in the following way: The cicada’s role in Chinese culture is a longstanding and fascinating one. Meanings associated with the insect range from simply indicating the onset of summer to more complex themes, such as rebirth and immortality. The cicada can even represent the pathos of nature, in which we are all prey in the end. 2.5 Human alienation in Cicada and The Red Tree 71 <?page no="73"?> In general Chinese lore, cicadas are creatures of high status. They are considered pure because they subsist on dew and lofty because of their perch in high treetops. An ancient analogy in China suggests that a high-ranking official should resemble a cicada: residing high, eating a pure diet, and with sharp eyes. […] Since ancient times, the cicada has been seen as a symbol of resurrection, an association that owes to its fascinating life cycle. Newly hatched insects drop from branches to burrow into the ground, where they nourish themselves on tree roots for as long as seventeen years before emerging into the sunlight. Then, they climb high into the trees, and-their outer skin splits open to allow-the full-grown insects to appear. (https: / / asia.si.edu/ cicadas/ ) The second half of the book relies on this type of cultural and/ or biological background knowledge (e.g., “Seventeen year. Cicada retire.”), as it anticipates and plays with different reader expectations, based on their interpretative frameworks. What looks like a suicide attempt at first turns into a triumphant affirmation of nature and a rebirth of the protagonist as a higher being soaring up into the sky. While the beginning is dominated by the metaphors S I G NI F ICANT I S BI G ( IN S I G NI F ICANT I S S MALL ) and LIMIT E D AG E N C Y I S LIMIT E D S P AC E , illustrated via a maze of grey cubicles (opening 5; Sheahan-Bright n.d. 6) and the confinement of the office wall space, where Cicada lives (opening 7), the sky represents freedom and the jungle a habitat yet untouched by humans. 2.6 Reading Cicada with advanced students In this section, Cicada shall serve as an example to illustrate how a complex picturebook can be read with learners in the B1-B2 range, especially on the basis of conceptual metaphors. This book particularly lends itself because Tan sacrifices a traditional plot in favour of a predominantly metaphorical exploration of interlinked themes, which is a good example of a crossover picturebook that intentionally appeals to older readers as well. Also, in comparison to such classics as The Rabbits (1998) and The Arrival (2006), the more recent publication date (2018) of this title means that it has not attracted as much attention yet. To strike the right balance between a more general applicability of the suggested activities to all of Tan’s books, which share a number of characteristics and thematic concerns, and the specific requirements of Cicada, I present eight inroads that are meant to be combined for an intratextual study of this picturebook, especially in the context of visual metaphors, but also for an intertextual exploration of the artist’s overall concerns. In other words, these are eight starting points for a guided inquiry that are partly drawn from traditional literary studies (themes, biographical criticism, genre, intertextuality), teaching literature (empathy, drama techniques, creative responses) and cultural studies (intersectionality/ transculturality). Inroad 1 - Thematic: While the images depict Cicada as an outsider, the text emphasizes their migratory background: “Cicada work in tall building. Data entry clerk. 72 2 Conceptual Metaphors in Shaun Tan’s picturebooks <?page no="74"?> Seventeen year. No sick day. No mistake. Tok Tok Tok! ” (opening 2). In contrast to the model immigrant of The Arrival, whose dream it is to blend in and embrace the new culture, this anthropomorphized insect remains ostentatiously foreign - both verbally and visually. Cicada’s status as an alien and social misfit is literalized via the colour green and an ill-fitting suit. This attempt to blend in and adopt the uniform greyness of the host country becomes a potent and ubiquitous reminder of their hybrid nature: the suit is restricting, uncomfortable, and may even be read as a futile attempt to hide the obvious. Thus, the thematic concerns of Tan’s books can be accessed via visual (and verbal) metaphors that invite empathy and self-implication: What does it mean to fit in, to feel trapped, to be an alien/ outsider, or to be looked down upon? All of these experiences have a literal (physical) basis that is visualized in the book, that students can relate to, and that can be further explored via roleplaying and re-enactment (see below). Next to a discussion of the usual push and pull factors (Vogt/ Holfter/ Rasche 2011: 2-3), the book also raises the question to what extent integration is a duty of the host country (e.g., providing financial support, language classes) or the new citizens (e.g., looking for a job, learning the language). While it is tempting to demand that the new arrivals have to blend in as best as they can, the book reminds readers that white/ human privilege, structural racism, and exploitation exacerbate this process. Advanced learners can be asked to move beyond the usual task of enumerating strategies how they would make new classmates feel more comfortable and look at companies’ (failed attempts to live up to their) diversity strategies or NGOs’ and different governments’ responses to the most recent refugee crisis. One specific detail that needs to be addressed is how the protagonist’s (Asian) work ethics, modesty, and willingness to slave away under adverse circumstances contribute to a complete underappreciation of their work (cf. openings 2 and 3). Apart from the first opening, there are eight single pages that all reveal aspects of this type of discrimination. After a first round of predictions based on the cover, students receive one of these images in pairs, which they analyse. As soon as they agree on one potential reading (e.g., in terms of working conditions, racism, migrant workers, capitalism, exploitation / modern slavery, discrimination, living conditions), they flip over the verbal text that accompanies the image and attempt to relate the two texts to each other. Then the pairs form groups of four and start the process again. Such a student-centred negotiation of the text encourages them to create meaning through a bottom-up process. Since Tan offers a whole range of visual metaphors to express the protagonist’s alterity, students can, firstly, trace their deployment and systematicity across several illustrations and, secondly, elaborate on this with their own multimodal expressions of the characters’ feelings, by relying on their personal experiences of isolation and discrimination. Inroad 2 - Empathetic: This form of self-implication (Kuiken/ Miall/ Sikora 2004) is closely tied to and partly based on empathetic responses to the narrative. While readerly feelings, such as sympathy for the protagonist, are essential to enter a dialogue 2.6 Reading Cicada with advanced students 73 <?page no="75"?> with the text, narrative empathy also requires a more cognitive, mind-reading approach to textual clues (Oppolzer 2020a: 157-174). Learners’ intuitive understanding of image schemas and basic metaphors can facilitate a first impression of a scene without much conscious reflection. The power relations in openings 3, 4, 6, and 8 can be instantly recognized, based on IM P O R TANC E I S S IZ E (Yu/ Yu/ Lee 2017: 233-236), while complex metaphors, e.g. in opening 1, startle readers and invite a more deliberate negotiation of meaning. Both contribute to a nuanced understanding of the protagonist’s predica‐ ment. Therefore, students need to discover their access points first, which are aspects of Cicada’s life to which they can directly relate. Personal experiences (e.g., work placements during the summer holidays), anecdotes, news, but also other dystopian narratives can provide the necessary basis for such an approximation. This first step of such a reader-response approach must be followed by a more deliberate study of how these isolated observations and insights interconnect, which is necessary to prepare students for learner texts that mirror the narrative’s conceptual complexity. Typical activities in this category are creative tasks, such as an e-mail to Cicada’s boss to argue in favour of a pay raise, which asks students to vicariously experience the world from Cicada’s perspective (Freitag-Hild 2010: 83-101; 110-118). The text fragments contained in the book may serve as a springboard for such an exploration, but interviews, journalistic pieces, or the tentative foundation of a labour union may be equally valid starting points. Cicada’s work ethics, which are prominent in the verbal text as a source of pride and accomplishment (“No sick day. No mistake.”), contrast sharply with the company’s questionable ethics of maximising profits and firing employees to save money. A written termination letter or a termination meeting in the form of a roleplay can be interesting genres in this context, as they reveal a lot about the attitudes of the parties involved, especially through para-verbal behaviour and other body codes in the latter case. Inroad 3 - Performative: Based on Cohen’s metaphor of personal identification (1999), drama techniques can serve as a major approach to the narrative. Tan’s paintings compress a lot of experiential richness into single images. In opening 4, the verbal text is about a general prohibition for cicadas to use the office bathroom (“No cicada allowed …”), which is racially motivated and reminds one of Jim Crow laws and the film Hidden Figures (dir. Theodore Melfi, 2016). The image shows Cicada trying to comply with this absurd regulation (“Cicada go downtown. Twelve blocks.”), but the button for the elevator is placed out of their reach. Thus, structural racism is visualized in more concrete terms. Such metaphors can be decompressed and extended into performances. Again, pairs or groups can work on a single illustration and use that as a starting point for a recreation of that scene or the development of a very different situation that highlights the same experience. If conceptual metaphors rely on image schemas and embodiment to create meaning, then there is a natural link between their exploration in visual narrative media and the students’ embodiment of characters. Rymarczyk (2011) 74 2 Conceptual Metaphors in Shaun Tan’s picturebooks <?page no="76"?> proposes a similar approach via drama techniques for a first exploration of Tan’s The Arrival. Contrary to the widespread notion of creative tasks as post-reading activities (cf. Nünning/ Surkamp 2010: 78-80) they are utilized here during a pre-verbal stage that fosters self-implication as a first step towards perspective-taking. One word of caution: The verbal text can sound racist when read out aloud, as it imitates the challenges migrant workers face who have not gained a similar command of the language that the host country speaks. Instead of mocking foreign accents and mistakes, students should treat this as a challenge to express sincere concerns via short sentences and a reduced vocabulary range, e.g., at level A2 rather than B2 (in terms of the Common European Framework of References for Languages). Inroad 4 - Artistic: Apart from studying Shaun Tan’s art in detail, especially concerning his use of visual metaphors, salience, and body codes, students can create their own specific expressions or entailments for the depicted emotions and situations, based on an interpretation of the book via the aforementioned activities. There is no need to compete with the artist’s multimodal compositions or create their own picturebooks. It may be even advantageous to separate text and images at first and have students focus on a single mode. Sentence starters, such as “Love/ Friendship/ Anxiety is (when)…”, are likely to encourage verbal expressions that are based on students’ own experiences and make complex emotional states more accessible, while a simple online image search reveals a whole plethora of possibilities of how to illustrate abstract concepts via iconography or concrete situations. In turn, students could use that as the basis for a formstorming activity and add their own unique visualizations. Formstorming is a widely employed design challenge that requires artists to illustrate the same idea via dozens of iterations. Students could produce collages of images found on the internet (or self-created) that represent one central idea: love, home, isolation, happiness etc. If this is still too much of a challenge, students can design their own tattoos or their (family’s) coat of arms, which require a pictorial representation and condensation of personal interests and concerns. Having explored feelings and situations that appear in the book, such as isolation, racism, ostracism, exploitation, a lack of appreciation, as well as social and occupational hierarchies beyond the scope of the picturebook, students can build on their own texts to visualize personal experiences of this type (summer job, internship), but also to find out whether the same metaphors can be applied to other situations of human vulnerability, such as being disabled, bullying, begging for money in the streets or moving to a new neighbourhood. Tan’s dystopias could also be turned into the exact opposite: What would be gestures of acceptance and appreciation? Inroad 5 - Biographical: A biographical approach involves an exploration of artists’ personal lives and their deliberations on art in view of the issues and themes addressed in their works. While this could be deemed old-fashioned, it may be worth making an exception in this case. Despite Tan’s repeated claims that he wants his books to speak for themselves (e.g., 2011: 7), he has produced a substantial amount of commentary, 2.6 Reading Cicada with advanced students 75 <?page no="77"?> including a whole book on the creative process behind The Arrival (2010). These texts range from comments on his art and style in general terms via his inspiration for various books to explanations of specific details, e.g., “Cicada is the story of an insect working in an office, and all the people who don’t love him. It’s a very simple 32-page picture book about the unspoken horrors of corporate white-collar enslavement… or is it? ” (https: / / www.shauntan.net/ cicada-book). These short quotations are well suited to confront students with the artist’s intentions and to have them compare these to the finished product. The idea is not to establish Tan’s perspective as the correct reading of the text, but to add his voice to the ongoing dialogue and negotiation of the book’s meaning. There may even be a way to contact the artist directly and send students’ individual or collective responses via e-mail. Inroad 6 - Generic: As stated above, an awareness of Tan’s dystopian imagination and its typical characteristics can help to identify thematic concerns across several of his books. Based on their own experiences with this popular genre, students can collect utopian and dystopian characteristics or genre markers (e.g., in the form of film stills) and use them as starting points to look at how Tan employs these tropes to illustrate his own concerns. The most obvious examples are Metropolis, Blade Runner, The Matrix, and Equilibrium. For a primary school context, Stafford reduces the complexity of such an activity to three categories: “the characters (including what they say and how they look), the setting (including set design, lighting and locations) and the props” (2011: 114). These are also the first things that concept artists design during a film’s production process to determine the overall look and feel of the depicted story world. Therefore, art and sketch books based on major film productions can help students to understand how the dominant moods of genre films can be expressed via visual means. In Cicada, signs of Tan’s dystopian imagination are ubiquitous: the colour palette, the brutalist architecture, the uniformity of clothes and workspaces, social Darwinism, neoliberal capitalism, surveillance and control, or an active suppression of non-con‐ formity. Since it would be too easy to find examples of these generic markers in the text, a more challenging task is to compare Cicada to The Lost Thing and identify common themes and conceptual metaphors - even though they appear to be two very different stories. Inroad 7 - Intertextual: Next to personal experiences, memories, and the previous knowledge of students, various intertexts can help to approach and explore Cicada. Tan himself names Kafka’s The Metamorphosis as an inspiration, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil or the mockumentary series The Office (https: / / www.shauntan.net/ cicada-book). However, his own books may serve a similar purpose: there is a strong connection to The Arrival in terms of migration, but also to The Lost Thing in view of a dystopian setting. This is also an opportunity to trace Tan’s central concerns across his various publications and look out for similar visual metaphors. This logic also extends to what Genette termed paratexts, such as Tan’s commentaries on his work, concept art, and storyboards (e.g., Tan 2010; https: / / www.shauntan.net/ new-page-2), interviews with the artist or reviews 76 2 Conceptual Metaphors in Shaun Tan’s picturebooks <?page no="78"?> of his picturebooks. These provide even more perspectives that students can consider and align with their own readings of the text. Inroad 8 - Intersectional/ Transcultural: This is clearly a broad category and has been touched upon in various contexts, but it warrants its own entry at the end of this overview. Cicada is a little green alien, which evokes science fiction’s most clichéd representation of alterity. While the autodiegetic narration and the conceptual metaphors invite readers to empathize with them, the huge black eyes, the green body, and the ill-fitting suit are ostentatious reminders that this is not a human being. Like Frankenstein’s monster, they do not have a name. What is more, they are impossible to pinpoint in terms of their gender, which necessitates the use of they/ them pronouns. At the same time, cicadas have a high standing in traditional Chinese culture and go through a life cycle, which means that their outer appearance is just temporary. Like butterflies, metaphorically speaking, their identity is hidden within. The lack of a proper narrative and the insect’s expressionless face make it harder to relate to them. With older learners, there is still a possibility to discuss to what extent the protagonist can be read in terms of a migrant, especially of Chinese origin, considering that Cicada’s story is partly based on the work experiences of Tan’s father, filtered through the artist’s imagination (https: / / www.shauntan.net/ cicada-book). Apart from that, the book visualizes how various factors intersect and influence each other. Social isolation and ostracism do not really help with Cicada’s language skills and his lack of funds makes it impossible to rent an apartment, which prevent them from escaping the confinement of the office building and having some spare time. Conclusion In this chapter, I introduced conceptual metaphor theory as an important theoretical basis for a reading of visual narratives in general and Shaun Tan’s picturebooks in particular. Their appeal as so-called crossover publications can be explained via the redundant encoding of their thematic concerns on different levels of metaphorical complexity. While basic (spatial) metaphors and body codes such as HAP P Y I S U P and S AD I S DOWN , can be understood by all readers, an interpretation of the eponymous protag‐ onists of The Rabbits ( C O L O NIZ E R S A R E R AB BIT S ) or Cicada ( O F F IC E WO R K E R S A R E IN S E C T S ), requires specific cultural background knowledge, which needs to be considered when working with such texts in EFL settings. Readers use their own embodied experiences and memories to make sense of fictional characters through self-implication. Since there cannot be a perfect match between readers’ lives and the depicted scenes, this discrepancy creates a productive tension that allows for an empathetic reading of such ambiguous metaphors. Tan’s picturebooks can be explored via different inroads that rely on conceptual metaphor theory and can be combined in various productive ways. Conclusion 77 <?page no="79"?> List of references Primary literature Marsden, John/ Tan, Shaun (2010). The Rabbits. Sydney: Lothian Children’s Books/ Hachette. Tan, Shaun (2007). The Arrival. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books/ Scholastic. Tan, Shaun (2009a). The Lost Thing. Sydney: Lothian Children’s Books/ Hachette. Tan, Shaun (2009b). The Red Tree. Sydney: Lothian Children’s Books/ Hachette. Tan, Shaun (2013). Rules of Summer. Sydney: Hachette. Tan, Shaun (2018). Cicada. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Secondary literature Anstey, Michèle (2002). "It’s Not All Black and White": Postmodern Picture Books and New Literacies. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 45 (6), 444-457. Australian Government: Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (2011). Feral European Rabbit. 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(1989). Beyond the Schema Given: Affective Comprehension of Literary Narra‐ tives. Cognition and Emotion 3 (1), 55-78. Nikolajeva, Maria (2012). Reading Other People’s Minds Through Word and Image. Children’s Literature in Education 43, 273-291. Nikolajeva, Maria/ Scott, Carole (2006). How Picturebooks Work. New York/ London: Routledge. Nünning, Ansgar/ Surkamp, Carola (2010). Englische Literatur unterrichten 1: Grundlagen und Methoden. Seelze: Klett/ Kallmeyer. Ommundsen, Åse Marie (2018). Picturebooks for Adults. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.). The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. Abingdon/ New York: Routledge, 220-230. Oppolzer, Markus (2019). Shaun Tans Utopien. In: Heydenreich, Clemens (ed.). Comics & Naturwissenschaften. Berlin: Bachmann, 35-54. Oppolzer, Markus (2020a). Reading Autobiographical Comics: A Framework for Educational Settings. Anglo-American Studies 64. Frankfurt et al.: Lang. Oppolzer, Markus (2020b). Die Ausbildung visueller Lesekompetenzen: Vom Bilderbuch zum Comic. In: Engelns, Markus/ Preußer, Ulrike/ Giesa, Felix (ed.). Comics in der Schule: Theorie und Unterrichtspraxis. Berlin: Bachmann, 131-151. Purcell, Joanne Marie (2018). ‘Seeing the Light’: A Cognitive Approach to the Metaphorical in Picture Books. Children’s Literature in Education 49, 356-375. Rymarczyk, Jutta (2011).-Eine ‘stumme’ Graphic Novel regt zum Sprechen an: -Shaun Tans The Arrival szenisch umsetzen. Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 110, 16-22. Schwarcz, Joseph (1982). Ways of the Illustrator: Visual Communication in Children’s Literature. Chicago: American Library Association. Sheahan-Bright, Robyn (n.d.). CICADA BY SHAUN TAN: Teachers Resources. Sydney: Hachette. https: / / www.hachette.com.au/ content/ resources/ 9780734418630-teachers-resources.pdf List of references 79 <?page no="81"?> Sikorska, Magdalena/ Wielki, Kazimierz (2018). Re-reading The Red Tree: The Art of Shaun Tan. Nordic Journal of English Studies 17 (1), 197-216. Stafford, Tim (2011). Teaching Visual Literacy in the Primary Classroom: Comic Books, Film, Television and Picture Narratives. Abingdon: Routledge. Stephens, John (2015). Affective Strategies, Emotion Schemas, and Empathic Endings: Selkie Girls and a Critical Odyssey. Papers 23 (1), 17-33. Tan, Shaun (2010). Sketches from a Nameless Land: The Art of The Arrival. Melbourne: Lothian. Tan, Shaun (2011). The Accidental Graphic Novelist. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature 49 (4), 1-9. Vogt, Karin/ Holfter, Gisela/ Rasche, Hermann (2011). Alighting in the Long Journey of Life: An oral histories Migrationsprozesse untersuchen. Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 110: 2-7. Yu, Ning/ Yu, Lu/ Lee, Yue Christine (2017). Primary Metaphors: Importance as Size and Weight in a Comparative Perspective. Metaphor and Symbol 32 (4), 231-249. List of illustrations Fig. 1: “But our old people warned us: Be careful.” © Marsden, John/ Tan, Shaun (2010). The Rabbits. Sydney: Lothian Children’s Books/ Hachette. Fig. 2: “Human co-worker no like cicada.” © Shaun Tan (2018): Cicada. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 80 2 Conceptual Metaphors in Shaun Tan’s picturebooks <?page no="82"?> 1 In line with Sipe (2011: 238), the word picturebook is spelled here as one word instead of two, in order to stress the importance of the combination of the verbal and the visual code that form an inseparable whole in this genre. 3 “It was all very mysterious indeed” - Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper in the upper secondary classroom Anne Herlyn Abstract In the picturebook 1 The Great Paper Caper by Oliver Jeffers, the verbal text tells us of a mystery that is only gradually unravelled, while the visual text gives us the bigger picture all along. Text and illustrations thus represent different types of crime stories - the ‘whodunit,’ in which the reader shares the experience of the detective, and the ‘howcatchem’ or ‘inverted detective story,’ a rarer structural pattern, in which the reader knows who committed the crime from the beginning of the story. This article explores how text and illustrations represent different narrative perspectives, and how the images are composed to create this counterpoint effect. The article describes a project in which these findings are applied in a practical classroom activity. Students from a 12th grade at a vocational Gymnasium in Germany are initially exposed to only the text or only the images and asked to recreate the missing part. The comparison between the results of the visualization of the text on the one hand, and the verbalization of the images on the other, leads to a deeper understanding of the differences in narrative perspective (and of different forms of narrative perspective in general), as well as techniques of describing and ‘reading’ the images, in order to understand the counterpoint effect. In addition, the students learn about the typical structural patterns of crime fiction and the effects they have on the reader. They explore in how far this picturebook addresses not only small children, but older readers likewise, and what environmental message is conveyed to both groups of readers. By helping students develop both literary and visual literacies, as well as addressing environmental issues, the teaching unit complies with the curricular standards of the vocational Gymnasium in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. <?page no="83"?> Warm-up: Engagement questions ▸ What is your experience with using picturebooks in upper secondary education when you were a learner of English at school? If there is no such experience, what could have hindered the use of picturebooks? ▸ Which channel of communication and meaning-making in picturebooks is more powerful, the written text (verbal) or the images (visual)? Provide reasons for your position. ▸ Can you think of any teaching ideas that centre on the interaction of the written text and the images in a picturebook? Describe your ideas. ▸ What are typical characteristics of crime fiction? Do you know any picturebooks that could be allocated to this literary genre? Introduction As a practitioner more than a theoretician of teaching English, I will in the following present a classroom project that involves reading and working with a picturebook with older students at a vocational secondary school in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In more than twenty years of English Language Teaching (ELT) in a wide range of settings, I had not used picture books up until recently so that this experience was as new to the students as it was to me. Before becoming a teacher at a vocational school, I had taught classes in English literature and in Middle English at the university. Later, I became a teacher and a teacher trainer, and taught not only ELT to the trainee teachers, but also to students at university. In recent years, I have been increasingly involved in continued education for teachers. Visuals as an important part of language education have become an issue in my teaching at all levels in so far as I have put an emphasis on film, cartoons, and also the production of sketchnotes as a means of visual facilitation. However, the idea of using a picturebook had not occurred to me until I took part in a workshop on picturebooks in the secondary classroom offered by Grit Alter and Thorsten Merse. I was fascinated by the vast range of serious topics addressed in the picturebooks presented in the workshop, as well as the intricacies of the interplay between words and images. It became clear to me that my students could profit from this medium at several levels and areas of ELT that are also required by the state curricula. The picturebook that most caught my interest, and which I chose to use in my class, is The Great Paper Caper by Oliver Jeffers (2008). It is a detective story with an environmental message; the story ends with an act symbolizing sustainable forestry, and thus the book can be integrated into a unit dealing with environmental issues and a sustainable approach to using natural resources. This corresponds to the curricular requirements for the final two years at the vocational Gymnasium in 82 3 Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper <?page no="84"?> Baden-Württemberg (Ministerium für Kultus und Sport Baden-Württemberg 2021). In the recent innovations of Baden-Württemberg’s curricula, text and media competencies have increasingly gained importance. Students are to learn not only to understand, interpret and critically appreciate a large array of different texts, including visual texts, but also to be able to produce those types of text (Ministerium für Kultus und Sport Baden-Württemberg 2021, n.p.). My personal experience of neglecting the potential that picturebooks hold for English language teaching, and for teaching in a school setting in general, is confirmed in the observations made by others. Thus, in his book The Age of the Image, Stephen Apkon talks about how his young daughter is experiencing picturebooks: When she got a little bit older and could hold her head up and then sit, we spent countless hours reading her picture books (…). She would study each of the pictures as we read, often asking us to pause so she could really soak in the images on [sic! ] the page. She could construct her own story through the images, which were much more open to interpretation than the words. This kind of ‘visual reading,’ the ground upon which reading is built, is sadly dismissed in favor of just words when our children get to school. Picture books give way to books with fewer and fewer illustrations. Ultimately, the image becomes an afterthought, with much sacrificed along the way. We spend countless hours on letters and words, but hardly anything on the images. (Apkon 2013: 7) Monika Seidl observes the same phenomenon when she describes the logocentric character of traditional western thinking (cf. Seidl 2007: 2). She observes that schools and universities tend to focus on competencies that relate to writing, although this has lost its monopoly in our everyday lives (cf. Seidl 2007: 2). However, she also points out that the visual has gained increasing attention in foreign language teaching and that visual literacy is being established as a valid ‘fifth skill’ besides the traditional skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In the past decade or two, indeed, the number of publications that focus on developing visual literacy in foreign language teaching have grown exponentially. They cover a great variety of visual media, ranging from photos and paintings (cf. Seidl 2007; Grigoriadou/ Sommerschuh 2018; Hallet/ Henseler 2019) to cartoons, comics, graphic novels (cf. Schüwer 2005; Hallet/ Henseler 2012; Ludwig 2021), all the way to videos and films (cf. Donaghy 2015, Apkon 2013). In addition, visual literacy is dealt with under the perspective of producing visual media (cf. Möller/ Suhrkamp 2019). Picturebooks, however, have received little attention when it comes to their role in teaching foreign languages in the secondary classroom, with some notable exceptions, which, however, focus on the younger classes in secondary school (cf. Grigoriadou 2013, 2015, 2018). Before turning to the questions that I sought to answer through the project which is presented here, the term picturebook should be clarified. Picturebooks are understood here to be books that narrate a story through pictures and words, each Introduction 83 <?page no="85"?> being indispensable. Hence, the pictures do not merely illustrate what the words are saying, and the words do not merely tell the story that the images are showing (cf. Sipe 2011: 238). Although usually connected with children’s literature, picturebooks are widely acknowledged and enjoyed by older readers as well, as Sipe points out: […] any picturebook, no matter what the subject or topic, can be examined and enjoyed as an aesthetic object by older readers. Older readers can evaluate and critique any picturebook’s integration of text and pictures and the ways in which all its constituent elements complement and inform each other in order to achieve artistic wholeness. (Sipe 2011: 247) This concept is referred to as the ‘dual readership’ of picturebooks (cf. introduction to this volume). It basically means that picturebooks are, on the one hand, written and produced for children, but the authors, illustrators and publishers often have adults in mind as well. After all, they are the ones who purchase the books and read them to the children. This chapter attempts to answer the following questions: • Can picturebooks be used with older students in the secondary classroom in a meaningful way? • In how far can students gain a deepened appreciation of the potential of picture‐ books? • In how far can looking at the interplay of words and images in the classroom contribute to the development of narrative competencies as well as critical visual literacy and thus help fulfil curricular standards? 3.1 The verbal and the visual in foreign language teaching 3.1.1 Visual literacy The changes in the media that surround us have caused a shift from a culture that has for centuries prioritized the written word (cf. Donaghy 2015: 9; Apkon 2013: 7; Seidl 2007: 2) to one in which images are playing an increasingly dominant role (cf. Donaghy 2015: 9; Apkon 2013: 7). Sipe succinctly sums this up when he points out that the ‘pictorial turn’ […] of the last four or five decades: the ascendancy of television, the Internet, gaming […], and the increasing immersion of society in visual images from advertising/ mar‐ keting have all contributed to a decrease in the ‘verbocentric’ quality of Western society […]. (Sipe 2011: 246) Thus, the word, which had been the predominant mode of communication in Western society, is now challenged by the image. It must be noted, however, that the very concept of a dichotomy between images and words should be challenged (cf. Seidl 2007: 2). So many of the cultural products that surround us today consist of a combination of the two, with each being equally 84 3 Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper <?page no="86"?> important to transport meaning. Advertisements, memes, and posts on social media such as Facebook and Instagram are examples of media in which images and words work closely together to create meaning. The omnipresence of images in the media has the effect that much of our thinking is influenced and shaped by images - those accompanied by words, and those that are not. It must therefore be of utmost importance that young people learn to understand this influence by reading images and by understanding the ways in which they shape our perception. The concept of visual literacy describes not only this ability, but also the ability to contribute to the world of visual communication by producing visual products. Visual literacy, like other literacies, is a competence that enables participation in societal discourses: Visual Literacy means the capacity to reflect, understand and create visual messages. These competences gain more and more importance in our world through, for instance, mass media, heterogeneous backgrounds of people, global identities, intercultural dialogue, the “iconic turn” in the sciences. Visual Literacy is a premise for the critical and self-determined cultural participation of the individual, and can thus be understood as a decisive requirement for participation. At school, the subject art education delivers the competences that are needed in all subjects. (European Network for Visual Literacy 2022) Visual literacy also includes the concept of a self-determined approach to dealing with images, as Apkon succinctly points out: Just as knowing a grammar and appreciating the construction of a sentence, paragraph, or story make you a stronger, more sophisticated reader, acquiring a facility with visual storytelling skills will make you a stronger, more sophisticated viewer. You will be able to see what the “writer” of images is doing, understand her rhetorical devices, and even know when and how you are being manipulated. You will then be in control - at each moment deciding whether to study the construction of the narrative, be attentive to the manipulation of the piece, or simply sit back and allow the images to flow over you like a dream. In any case, you will be making the choice rather than having the choice made for you. (Apkon 2013: 160) Due to these two dimensions, the omnipresence of images and the value of being able to understand and produce them critically, all school subjects are asked to develop visual literacy. For ELT, picturebooks can be a beneficial medium to put this complex endeavor into practice, as the following section illustrates. 3.1.2 Picturebooks, visual literacy and foreign language teaching Apart from the overarching goal of helping students develop a critical appreciation of visual texts, the use of images in general can be beneficial to foreign language teaching. In a narrow sense, images offer themselves as a springboard of discussion. Talking or writing about images can be helpful in developing language skills since reflections on and analyses of images are very often conducted in words (cf. Seidl 2007: 7). 3.1 The verbal and the visual in foreign language teaching 85 <?page no="87"?> In a broader sense, images can be present in ELT as part of literary texts and here, they can offer incentives for more complex reflections. Two forms of literature in which images and words interact are well established in foreign language teaching - the comic and the graphic novel (cf. Schüwer 2005; Hallet 2012). Both are multimodal forms of literature, combining the two semiotic systems. For Sipe, types of literature that combine pictures and words are examples of “sequential literature” (2011: 249); as picturebooks make use of these modes as well, they can also be seen as sequential literature. The notion that the distinction between comics, graphic novels and picture‐ books is not so clear-cut any more is exemplified in the picturebook The Great Paper Caper, as it contains speech bubbles, which are a typical feature of comics and graphic novels. When reading sequential literature, readers not only need to understand the verbal text. They also need to be able to decipher the meaning of the images, for example the shapes, the colours, the layout of the images on the page, or the comic-style symbols for sound effects (cf. Hallet 2012: 4-5). This deciphering process is often seen as challenging while at the same time offering an enriching and holistic experience for learners of foreign languages (cf. also Schüwer 2005: 5). Given that all the above-mentioned forms of sequential literature combine images with literary (verbal) texts, they can help develop various literacies, including literary, visual and media literacy. Such texts are literary works with the features of traditional novels, such as character development, plot, or setting. In this sense, they also contribute to developing literary literacy (Hallet 2012: 5f.). At the level of content, both comics and graphic novels are known to address serious cultural and historical issues. Sipe claims that “[p]aradoxically, picturebooks stand both in the traditional historical evolution of children’s literature, and are poised to be on the cutting edge, promoting all types of new literacies” (Sipe 2011: 250) in the twenty-first century. He does so by referring to children, but this chapter and the whole edited volume at hand underline that the prospect of picturebooks for “promoting all types of new literacies” (Sipe 2011: 250) does apply to older learners as well. Although picturebooks meet all of these criteria as well, especially because demand‐ ing topics can be presented in an intricate interplay of verbal and visual text, picture‐ books are - at the level of upper secondary education - conspicuously absent from the canon of works read in foreign language classrooms, at least to date. However, it can be argued that they equally fulfil the above-mentioned criteria that make comics and graphic novels so suitable for foreign language teaching. For teaching at the primary level and also at the lower secondary level, the value of picturebooks is undisputed, as is exemplified by numerous publications (e.g., Purcell 2018; Reyes-Torres/ Portalés Raga 2020, Grigoriadou 2013 and 2015). Purcell acknowledges the possibility of the dual address, the fact that “the meaning an adult discovers in a picturebook will inevitably be different from that discovered by a child” (2018: 359), but goes on to concentrate on child readers in her paper. Bloem and Padak discuss the suitability of picturebooks for adult learners, but they do so in a context of courses for adult literacy, not for advanced 86 3 Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper <?page no="88"?> foreign language learners. Notwithstanding, they claim that picturebooks can indeed be suitable for adult learners if the material and tasks are chosen appropriately (Bloem and Padak 1996: 49f.), which supports the idea that picturebooks should seriously be considered as valid material in the upper secondary classroom, where comics and graphic novels are already widely used. In the following, I will argue that picturebooks can indeed serve as suitable material in the advanced foreign language classroom. I will present and analyse the picturebook The Great Paper Caper by Oliver Jeffers with a specific focus on the interaction of images and words, including an analysis of narrative perspective and generic conventions. I will then describe a classroom project in which the participating students look at the words and images of this picturebook separately, before they continue to analyse their interaction. 3.2 The Great Paper Caper as a complex literary text Oliver Jeffers’ picturebook The Great Paper Caper (2008) tells the story of a group of forest dwellers - a beaver, a goose, a pig, a deer and a human boy - who notice that branches are missing from the trees. They blame each other of theft, but all of them have an alibi. Thus, they start investigating, at first without success, but then a paper plane is found, which leads them to the culprit: the bear. The bear needs paper to practice for the paper plane competition which he, the descendant of former champions, is desperate to win. When arrested and put on trial, he confesses and apologizes. The forest dwellers forgive him, but he has to make up for his deeds by planting trees. To support him on his mission, the forest dwellers help the bear assemble a new huge paper airplane from the planes they collected in the forest and thus help him to participate in the contest successfully. 3.2.1 Counterpoint The pleasure of reading The Great Paper Caper derives from its counterpoint interaction of the verbal and visual text. The story as summarized above only captures what is told by the verbal text. Paying attention to the visual text, readers know from very early on that it is the bear who is stealing the branches. Already on the second double spread, readers see the bear dragging an axe and carrying a stack of chopped-off branches. When the forest dwellers are puzzling about the mysteriously vanished branches, readers see the bear walking off in the distance, carrying a stack of paper, chopping off a branch, folding paper planes, or they see paper planes lying on the ground. This is an example of the intricate relationship between verbal and visual text that is a characteristic of many picturebooks in which images not only serve to illustrate the story but are equally important parts of the story as a whole. Nikolajeva and Scott, thus, distinguish between “illustrated books (where the words carry the primary narrative while pictures are supportive or decorative) and books in which both the visual and 3.2 The Great Paper Caper as a complex literary text 87 <?page no="89"?> the verbal aspects are both essential for full communication” (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2000: 226). The Great Paper Caper exemplifies the importance that the text-picture interaction has for the full experience of reading picturebooks. Although - as shown in the project described below - each of the two components alone suffices to bring the plot across, it is the interaction between the two that adds extra tension, humour, and enjoyment. As Sipe opines, “for some time, writers have considered that the complex ways in which visual images and verbal texts relate to each other constitute the sine qua non of the picturebook.” (Sipe 2012). A theoretical concept that is useful to describe this very tension is that of the counterpoint, which is part of the theoretical framework Nikolajeva and Scott (2000) suggest. They identify a continuum of types of word-image interactions which range from symmetrical interaction to enhancing interaction to complementary interaction. In all three, the images support the narrative by adding to it to varying degrees (cf. Nikolajeva/ Scott 2000: 225f., cf. introduction to this edited volume). Thus, in symmetrical interaction, text and images contain the same information in different modes of communication, while in enhancing interaction the images add aspects to the words which results in “a more complex dynamic” (Nikolajeva/ Scott: 225). However, when images and words “collaborate to communicate meaning beyond the scope of either one alone,” they speak of a counterpointing relationship. In its most extreme form, this can amount to a contradictory relationship where words and pictures present opposing messages, and the readers are called upon to “mediate between words and pictures to establish a true understanding of what is being depicted” (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2000: 226). Within the category of counterpoint, Nikolajeva and Scott distinguish between ironic counterpoint and perspectival counterpoint. The contrast between words and images can create a humorous ironic effect, or it can consist of words and images showing the story from different points of view (cf. Nikolajeva/ Scott 2000: 232-235). The picture-word relationship in The Great Paper Caper can best be captured by what Nikolajeva and Scott call ‘perspectival counterpoint.’ In the images and the verbal text respectively, we experience the story from different perspectives. The story as a whole is created through a relationship in which the visuals offer information to the readers which the other protagonists do not have. This form of “disclosure” in which “the text-picture relationship ‘allows readers to know something the protagonist does not know’” (Sipe 2012: 17), exemplified in Figure 1, creates the humour that also older learners can enjoy. The group on the left are clearly turned away from the revealing piece of information that we as readers see, namely the bear and his paper. Thus, a “picturebook’s ‘story’ is never to be found in the words alone, nor in the pictures, but emerges out of their mutual interanimation” (Lewis in Sipe 2012: 12). 88 3 Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper <?page no="90"?> Fig. 1: The interplay of verbal and visual text in this double spread from Jeffers (2008) creates perspectival counterpoint (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2000: 232-235). 3.2.2 Literary features Engaging with children’s literature, readers can benefit from insights into the narra‐ tological elements of these text. Here, dimensions such as narration, focalization, spatial as well as temporal aspects and the very beginning and ending of a narrative are essential (cf. Stephens 2010: 55). As to offer more insights, the following section discusses these concepts in more detail and applies them to The Great Paper Caper. 3.2.2.1 Narrative perspective and focalization Specific literary elements contribute to any narrative situation. These include a narrator, “someone who is telling the story” (Stephens 2010: 55), and the fact that the story is “told from a particular point of view” (Stephens 2010: 55). In children’s literature, the point of view is particularly important because it helps the readers position themselves towards the text and forming a response to it (cf. Stephens 2010: 55f.). Narrative voice and point of view can be the same, as in first-person narrative, but can also be different. This would be the case when the narrator in a third-person narrative - who is not one of the characters - tells the story from the point of view of a character. That character is referred to as a ‘focalizer’ (Stephens 2010: 56). Indicators of character focalization are perceptual and conceptual words such as “saw” or “knew”, respectively (Stephens 2010: 57). Speech and thought representation in character focalization often take the form of free indirect discourse, in addition to the more common forms of direct and indirect discourse (Stephens 2010: 56). In terms of Stanzel’s narratological framework, this is called the figural narrator, as opposed to the 3.2 The Great Paper Caper as a complex literary text 89 <?page no="91"?> omniscient narrator, who knows and sees everything, including characters’ thoughts and feelings (cf. 1995: 242). The form of counterpoint that is found in The Great Paper Caper can be neatly conceptualized in terms of Stanzel’s narrative situations, the figural and the omniscient, authorial narrator (cf. Stanzel 1995: 242). While the verbal text tells the story from the limited perspective of the forest dwellers, who here serve as focalizers, the visual text presents the story from the point of view of an omniscient narrator. The reader sees the forest dwellers and their actions, but also the bigger picture, which includes the simultaneous events surrounding the bear. There is an instance where readers solely zoom in on the bear in his home to find out about his paper-making activities: he feeds branches into a large machine and looks at portraits of his champion ancestors on the wall. This scene gives the reader an insight into what motivates the bear even before his confession in the courtroom takes place. Significantly, there is no verbal text accompanying these images, since they are solely in the domain of the omniscient narrator. The discrepancy between visual and verbal text creates a particularly humorous ironic counterpoint effect in one double spread (see Fig. 2), where the bear is sitting on a branch which he is sawing off to his right, thus risking his own fall. On the left, the owl is approaching the same tree with the branch missing, only indicated by dotted lines, but on which the owl wants to perch. In a third picture we see the owl lying on the ground, and the verbal text reads “It was all very mysterious indeed.” The ironic effect is heightened by the fact that we do not see the bear falling, but his inevitable fall is mirrored by the owl’s accident. Fig. 2: In this example (Jeffers 2008), it becomes obvious how humour is created through the immediacy of the images as opposed to the more detached perspective of the verbal text. 90 3 Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper <?page no="92"?> 2 “The first double spread” here refers to the one immediately following the title page. The verbal text is an instance of free indirect speech. It represents the thoughts of the forest dwellers who are the collective focalizers here, and who are oblivious to what the pictures have just revealed. These observations are supported by Nikolajeva and Scott’s position (2001), who link the concepts of point of view (“who sees”) and narrative voice (“who speaks”) in picturebooks to the functions of images and words, suggesting that the words primarily convey the narrative voice, the pictures the point of view (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2001: 117). Even so, this is not always the case, since the verbal text can also represent different points of view in the form of character focalization, and the pictures can also narrate a story (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2001: 117f.). As we have seen, The Great Paper Caper is a case in point. 3.2.2.2 Narrative conventions: The opening of the narrative The way in which information is conveyed at the beginning of The Great Paper Caper shows interesting discrepancies between the visual and the verbal text as well. The images show a rather conventional onset. Readers are introduced to a situation which is then impacted by a disturbing event - branches are disappearing from the trees, and in the background a bear is walking with paper airplanes, giving a hint to the cause of the disappearing branches. In traditional forms of narrative, the beginning of the story usually provides answers to questions such as “What is the story going to be about? Who is telling the story? Where is it set? When does it take place? […] what is happening? […] how or why is it happening? ” (Stephens 2010: 59). The opening thus has the important function of providing the reader with a “frame of reference” (Stephens 2010: 59). In terms of Fludernik’s model of the structure of oral storytelling, which usually involves a story of personal experience, this is called the initial orientation. A traditional formula for a story opening is “Once upon a time …” or “There once was …”. The onset of the actual story is called the incipit and is often marked by expressions such as “One day …” (cf. Fludernik 1996: 65f.). More modern narratives, however, frequently dispense with extensive background information. In the opening of The Great Paper Caper, the pictures reflect the initial orientation in that, in the first double spread 2 , the forest dwellers are shown living in their caves underneath the trees, going about their usual pastimes. The next double spread shows the bear dragging an axe and carrying away wood. This can be seen as serving an incipit function: it is the onset of the events that leads to the unfolding of the story. The verbal text, however, does not give us an initial orientation. It starts with the onset of the story, which covers these first two double spreads: “There was a time in the forest … when everything was not as it should have been.” There is no need for a formula such as “Once upon a time there lived …” for the initial orientation or “One day …” for the story incipit, because the images are fulfilling those functions non-verbally. 3.2 The Great Paper Caper as a complex literary text 91 <?page no="93"?> 3.2.2.3 Whodunit vs. howcatchem Another intriguing literary feature that is evoked by the counterpoint structure in this picturebook is that of the genre of the narrative(s). The book quotes elements of a traditional detective story - there is a crime, a culprit, a group of investigators, a witness and the decisive clue, the police catching the culprit, a courtroom with typical figures, a confession, and a verdict. However, while the text follows the common structure of the ‘whodunit,’ - the story begins by the discovery of a crime that has been committed, a detective starts investigating, and the readers follow the detective as she or he is looking for clues and finally unravels the story - the images tell a different story. Following the much less common structure of the ‘howcatchem,’ the images unveil the culprit to the reader already at the beginning so that they can observe how the detectives are tapping in the dark until they finally catch him. 3.3 The classroom project The new generation of curricula for teaching English at the higher secondary level contain the category ‘text and media competence,’ which explicitly includes all written, oral, and visual products in their specific cultural contexts (cf. Ministerium für Kultus und Sport Baden-Württemberg 2016 and 2021). The demands include that students be able to • analyse different genres and their effects with the help of literary structural and stylistic features, and they are expected to • recognize and produce different genres of text, • verbalize discontinuous texts such as cartoons and graphs, and • interpret texts by reorganizing them. Different genres of literary texts are also expected to be read in class, including short stories, satire, poetry, song lyrics, novels and drama (cf. Ministerium für Kultus und Sport 2021). Although picturebooks are not mentioned in these curricula, they can well be included, given the notion that they represent literary texts that combine verbal and visual modes. In the following section, a project will be described that was conducted with students of a grade 12 at a vocational Gymnasium in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. This project aims at showing that picturebooks can well be used to teach advanced foreign language students, and that they can be employed not only to afford aesthetic enjoyment and creative fun, but also to further the curricular objectives of an advanced course like this. In the realm of literary literacy, students developed an awareness of how the known literary categories such as narrative perspective and point of view can be realized not only in verbal, but also in visual texts, and in the realm of visual literacy, they learned to appreciate picturebooks for the intricate interplay between the verbal and the visual text, and for the potential for fostering a critical awareness of how images work. 92 3 Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper <?page no="94"?> 3.3.1 Objectives The following objectives were pursued in this project. At the end of the teaching unit, students can • appreciate both the verbal and the visual component of picturebooks each in its own right, • identify concepts of narrative perspective in both verbal and visual renditions of narrative, • link concepts of narrative perspectives with generic conventions in crime fiction, and • create each of the modes, and appreciate the creative process that underlies this transformation. As a consequence, they should have developed • an increased awareness of the possible complexities of text-image interaction in picturebooks and other genres that combine words and images, and • an advanced critical visual and literary literacy. The combination of receptive and productive competences reflects the very essence of the concept of visual literacy, which in all its current definitions includes both aspects (see above). 3.3.2 The concept of the project In order to help the students to experience the intricacies and complexities of the interplay of verbal and visual text, the basic idea of the project at hand was to separate the words from the pictures of the book. Then, one part of the class creates pictures that go with the verbal text, and the other creates the verbal text that goes with the images. Lesson plan At the onset of the project, the students were asked to collect different forms of text/ picture combinations. Advertisements, comics, company logos, subtitles, recipes, memes, and others were mentioned. Books in general were named, not, however, picturebooks per se. In a further step, the students were asked to voice associations with picturebooks. Here, the overwhelming majority of these associations involved terms like ‘childhood’ and ‘memories,’ but also ‘hours of reading and fun.’ Some associated photo picturebooks. Most students could not imagine reading picturebooks in class and considered this to be strange. 3.3 The classroom project 93 <?page no="95"?> 3 It has to be noted here that the project was conducted in May and June, 2021, at the time of the Corona pandemic. During the first weeks the class was split in two parts, one of which was taught in person, the other in a remote setting, taking turns each week. Group work was difficult during this time; the groups communicated via video conference and messenger services. The students in the classroom had to observe social distancing. Only the final presentation and discussion of results could be done in person with the entire class. Initially, the students were split into two groups. 3 Group A, the ‘illustrators,’ were given the verbal text of the picturebook and asked to illustrate it. Group B, the ‘writers,’ were given the visual text in which the words had been covered. In order to make collaboration easier, both groups were further split into smaller ones. As to scaffold the working process, both groups were given guiding questions. The ‘illustrators’ were asked to plan their work by analysing the text. As the verbal text only reveals that there is a bear and the other characters are subsumed as ‘everyone who lived there,’ i.e., in the forest, they first had to decide which characters were to be part of the story. In the following and based on a content analysis, they had to split the text into segments that were to be represented by a picture. They were also asked to decide on a joint design for the forest dwellers, so that the images would tell a consistent story. Further, they were given the impulse to discuss how they would use colours, make use of the space in the pictures, decide on the size of the characters, and how they could indicate changes in the story through the images. The ‘writers’ were asked to analyse the images and spend some time considering what function their text should have - should it accompany the images, or should it add information? The groups worked independently; it was important that the groups did not exchange information on their work while it was in progress. In the concluding session, the results were presented. At first, the illustrators showed and explained their pictures. Then the original pictures were shown. First impressions of similarities and differences were discussed. Then the writers presented their texts, which was then juxtaposed to the original text. The results were discussed in detail (see below). In a final session, a summary of the outcomes of the project (see below) was presented to the class, which was followed by a final, critical discussion of the project as a whole. An evaluation was conducted in which the students were asked to give feedback on what they had learned from the project, what surprised them, and what they enjoyed or did not enjoy about it. In addition, students were encouraged to voluntarily submit additional written work on a choice of topics which contributed to a meta-discussion of the project and its outcomes. Topics included “My personal takeaway,”, Describing your group’s work process,” “For whom are picturebooks made? ” and “Other examples of interesting picture-text relationships.” Ten texts were submitted. 94 3 Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper <?page no="96"?> 3.3.3 Outcomes Both groups, the illustrators and writers produced very impressive work. The present context allows only for a selective discussion of some relevant results. These reflect the students’ observations and ideas that came up in the discussion as well as a comparative analysis of the original book and the students’ work. The reflection below is based on notes taken during and after classes which contain students’ contributions in discussions, the analysis of students’ work and the meta-analytic texts that some students submitted. 3.3.3.1 Narrative conventions: The opening of the narrative The rendition of the opening of the story reflects the differences in presenting information through text and images that are described above. While the illustrators create a picture in which the forest dwellers are seen with question marks above their heads as the onset, reflecting the initial words of the story that read “There once was a time in the forest when everything was not as it should have been.”, the writers employ a very conventional approach: “Once upon a time there was a group of friends in a forest, playing cards and drinking coffee. They were all living under the trees, enjoying their lives.” The use of the present participle and continuous forms in this introduction makes it a typical example of an initial orientation. The panel showing the bear is given this verbal text: “One day, a lonely bear made his way into the woods and started cutting down the wonderful trees.” The onset of the proper story- the incipit in Fludernik’s terms - is marked by the typical expression “one day”, and by the shift to the simple past. The students thus responded to the conventional opening pattern shown by the pictures and exhibited a very good knowledge of the conventions of traditional narrative. The illustrators, on the other hand, are responding to the much more abrupt onset of the narrative that is given by the verbal text. 3.3.3.2 Simultaneity in pictures and words It was noted above that in the original book, the pictures are revealing more information earlier on than the words do. The picture shown above (Figure 1) is a case in point. The verbal text does not reveal the presence of the bear in the background. Likewise, the illustrators do not include a bear. The writers, however, who are aware of the bear in the picture, also reveal him in the verbal text: The original text reads “Everyone who lived there had been noticing strange things. Branches, they agreed, should not disappear from trees like that.” The students wrote: “When the beaver saw the desolate tree stumps, he got a fright and told all his friends about it. Meanwhile, just a few steps away, the bear was walking through the vast landscape with a stack of paper.” Both the temporal (‘meanwhile’) and the spatial proximity (‘just a few steps away’) are here expressed lexically, information which the original book reserves for the picture. 3.3 The classroom project 95 <?page no="97"?> Another interesting example of how the counterpoint effect in the book affects the students’ work is the scene surrounding the forest dwellers’ investigation of the crime. The original has them searching in vain at first: Fig. 3: The forest dwellers investigate the crime scene (Jeffers 2008) The double spread in Figure 3 shows the characters investigating, and in the far background we see a few paper planes on the ground. A wordless double spread follows which shows the bear practicing and failing at throwing his planes, and the bear hiding behind a tree while the beaver examines a leaf, oblivious to his presence. Only in the next double spread do the forest dwellers get closer to the solution of the mystery: “Then an eyewitness report led them to some evidence that had blown in not far away … and it had the bear’s paw prints all over it.” Interestingly, the group of the illustrators decided to combine these two parts of the text into one picture. 96 3 Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper <?page no="98"?> Fig. 4: A student’s illustration (Daniel, 18) of the verbal texts “They took photographs, made notes and turned every leaf” and “Then an eyewitness report led them to some evidence that had blown in not far away, and it had the bear’s paw prints all over it.” (Jeffers 2008) Figure 4 shows, in great detail, the animals taking pictures, looking around, and finding the bear’s paw print. The student does not leave it there but adds two further details. On the one hand, he adds punctuation marks over two of the animals’ heads: while the badger has a question mark and an exclamation mark, which still show bewilderment, the hedgehog, who has found the corpus delicti, only has exclamation marks. Thus, the fruitless search and the discovery of the decisive clue are represented in one picture. On the other hand, the illustrator adds some extra clues for the reader: the bear’s paw prints by the river, and scratch marks on the tree. The student here includes clues that are not mentioned in the text and thus realizes aspects of the counterpoint structure that the original book exhibits so prominently. This reveals the simultaneous futile and successful search as well as the search and - possibly undiscovered - clues at the same time. Interestingly, the illustrator employs a convention taken from the realm of the comic: The fox’s camera activity is indicated by the sound words “klick” [sic! ] and “flash.” The student thus exhibits a knowledge of conventions of other forms of graphic literature besides that of the picturebook, and, in his own visual rendition of the given text, contributes to the blurring of types of sequential art that is mentioned by Sipe (2011: 249). 3.3 The classroom project 97 <?page no="99"?> 3.3.3.3 Atmosphere On a less literal level, one group of illustrators put into their pictures an atmospheric value that is only sparsely hinted at in the text. This group made the atmosphere a priority in their drawings. One student used the sentence “It was all very mysterious indeed” to create a sombre forest landscape with ghostly, anthropomorphized trees to illustrate the mysteriousness of the vanishing branches (Fig. 5). Thus, she depicted how the atmosphere of the uncanny might prevail. Fig. 5: A student’s interpretation (Jule, 18) of “It was all very mysterious indeed.” (Jeffers 2008). 98 3 Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper <?page no="100"?> Fig. 6: A student indicates the culprit through a shadowy figure next to the tree (Pia, 18). When the idea of the culprit comes into play, a student in this group designed a foggy scene with a dark silhouette or shadow in it (Fig. 6). This very different interpretation of the text shows another aspect of generic knowledge - the group is acquainted with a more sinister form of crime story, possibly informed by the conventions of film noire. When asked about their interpretation, they opined that a crime story has to be “creepy”. In these students’ rendition of the story, images and text are in a relationship that is marked by a tension that is quite different from that in the original work, focussing on the atmosphere more strongly than the actual storyline. The students’ imagination which is fed by a specific kind of generic knowledge adds a whole new dimension to the story. Interestingly, another group (Fig. 4) had similar thoughts, as expressed in a written text on the group’s work process: “Since the story is a crime thriller, we first thought that a fir forest would be the most suitable since it radiates a mysterious atmosphere through its dark colours and density.” (Rebecca, 18) In the end, the groups changed their plans and drew a mixed forest, because it is easier to present missing branches in deciduous trees. 3.3.3.4 Students’ comments on the counterpoint effect When asked to discuss the differences between their own work and the original picturebook, one of the writers summed up the counterpoint effect quite succinctly: “In our text, we told it all, while in the book the pictures speak for themselves.” This student showed an understanding of the additional information presented by the visual as opposed to the verbal text - and the particular dynamic that was created in the book by the discrepancy in perspective between both modes. Another student acutely observed a possible effect of the counterpoint. Assuming that The Great Paper Caper is a book for children, he remarked that the discrepancy 3.3 The classroom project 99 <?page no="101"?> between pictures and words could help children learn to think for themselves. The student envisaged an adult reading the words to the child who, at the same time, is shown another level of truth in the pictures. This would give the child knowledge beyond that related by the adult and would force her or him to question the adult’s words. This student intuitively grasped the potential of the picturebook to foster critical thinking by helping children develop critical visual literacy. Yet another student compared the situation of the group of “writers,” who were shown the pictures, but not the text, with that of the smaller child looking at the book by themselves, without having the words read out to them: “Their text reflected the images. For example, the writers talked about the fact that the owl fell into the snow because a branch was missing, because they saw this in the picture, but in the original text this is not mentioned.” The writers saw what that (yet illiterate) child sees. 3.3.4 Evaluation The evaluation revealed that the vast majority of the students rated the picturebook project very positively. Many said that they had doubts at the beginning, because up to that point, they had associated picturebooks exclusively with children. After working with the picturebook and discovering the complexity of how verbal and visual text interact, they saw this very differently. As a final reflection, the students mentioned that they not only enjoyed the book itself, but saw value in what they learned from the project. Many said that they learned to think more deeply about what images can tell us, and in how far words and images can work together or tell different stories. The comparison and discussion of the results were seen as positive as well. One student expressly commented that they enjoyed “the conclusion where we brought everything together,” another said that “it was great to see how everyone interpreted pictures and texts differently and yet they were often similar.” One writer expressed surprise at the style of the original text, which they described as “more like general [sic! ] written, not like we did it, always exactly about the pictures.” By endeavouring to write the text themselves, this student learned to appreciate the positive tension between verbal text and images and that these do not necessarily need to exactly mirror one another in a picturebook. One student appreciated that they had learned “analysis of text and images.” Quite independent from the analysis of the results, it appears that everybody appreciated the possibility to be working in groups, to be allowed to work very independently, to be encouraged to look very closely at the images or text, and, most of all, to be allowed to be creative in class. What the students evaluated positively here can be seen in the larger framework of holistic, overarching goals of education in general - the goals of student autonomy, of cooperation and of creativity. These echo the much-quoted 4 Cs, the “learning and innovation skills” as formulated by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning, which are “Creativity and Innovation, Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Communication, Collaboration.” (P21 - Partnership 100 3 Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper <?page no="102"?> for 21st Century Learning 2019). It is encouraging to experience students themselves pointing to the value of these goals. 3.3.5 Additional written work The additional written work which was voluntarily submitted by ten students afforded interesting insights. Several students described their groups’ work processes. This showed how systematically they went about analysing, segmenting, and then illustrat‐ ing the text, taking into consideration aspects such as the kinds of animals that live in a forest, what animals are easy enough to draw, and how they can ensure a sufficient degree of similarity between the pictures which are, after all, drawn by a different student each. One student reflected on the decision on how to draw “how they notice that branches are missing. To do this, we decided to do something that is used mainly in comics, and that is to paint question marks and exclamation points around the heads of the inhabitants to express and emphasize their surprise at the disappearance” (Rebecca, 18). This group was well aware of the different modes of visual narrative and made use of conventions of another, related genre - maybe one that is closer to their own experience than the picturebook as such. This report on the group’s work process offers an insight into the fact that the use of these symbols was based on a conscious decision, and an awareness of the presence of these different forms of visual narrative. Thinking about who the picturebooks are written for, the students were convinced that picturebooks are for all ages, because of the intricacy of the relationship between pictures and words: “(…) the book “The Great Paper Caper” has shown me that picturebooks are not only something for small children. If you think about it for a while, pictures are often used instead of or in addition to language.” This student continues: “This happens, for example, in advertisements or even in school textbooks. Pictures are another form of communication and can be used in many different ways. I learned that we should not underestimate the power that images have” (Nina, 18). 3.3.6 Additional perspective: The Girl in Red One question that students were invited to write about was about other examples of interesting text-picture relationships. The book The Girl in Red (Frisch 2012), was provided for analysis to those students who were interested in looking at another book. The students were merely given access to the book, without any further instruction or guiding questions. The Girl in Red tells the story of Little Red Riding Hood. While Red Riding Hood walks through a forest with wild animals to visit her grandmother, in this story, she walks through a big city with rundown neighbourhoods, large crowds, shopping malls and entertainment, as well as criminals and gangs. One student wrote an insightful text on the book in which she shows a deep understanding of the metaphoric counterpoint effect used here: “I interpret the story 3.3 The classroom project 101 <?page no="103"?> to use the term forest to mean that the town is like a forest with people as the wild animals.” Without using the term ‘metaphor,’ this student describes in her own words the metaphoric principle by which this book is organized. Having participated in the project which had separated the pictures from the words in a picturebook, this student transfers this experience and imagines what it would be like to be presented with only one or the other in this case: In the next two scenes, the environment that Sophia lives in is referred to as a forest, although it is described that this forest is not directly made of wood, the reader’s imagination could wander from this without the images, and the idea of a real forest where she lives could still arise. On the other hand, the reader would probably not describe the environment as a forest without the text. (…) I think that if only the pictures were present, the reader could get the impression that it is not the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood at all, but a very normal story that describes the path of the girl, since we only learn through the text that she is on the way to her grandmother. (Rebecca, 18) This brief excerpt shows that the student is acutely aware of the different pieces of information conveyed through the verbal and visual text. A learning process has taken place here that promises the development not only of visual literacy, but of a combination of visual and literary literacy. Conclusion As much as the students were surprised by experiencing picturebooks as something quite interesting that is not at all “only for small children,” I was surprised at the wealth of reactions and insights presented by the students. The project itself yielded very creative and fruitful results, as the analysis presented above has shown. Working with a picturebook with 18-20-year-olds has proven a very worthwhile endeavour. Not only the actual creative process and its results, but also the reflection on this process, and, in some cases, the transfer of what was learned onto another picturebook, has confirmed the initial assumption that working with The Great Paper Caper can contribute to developing visual and literary literacies. The first of the questions asked at the beginning of this article was “Can picture story books be used with older students in the secondary classroom in a meaningful way? ” Based on this project, the assumed potential of using picturebooks with advanced learners can be confirmed. Particularly in terms of developing a critical awareness of the interaction of images and verbal text and in fostering the learners’ creative potential, both at the visual and at the verbal level, picturebooks have been found to be a beneficial and motivating medium. In the final discussion, it became clear that the students had recognized the aspect of dual readership - that picturebooks are not, as they initially believed, a medium solely addressed to small children, but indeed to readers of all ages. Thus, the second question - “In how far can students gain a deepened appreciation of the potential of picturebooks? ” - was also answered. The students stated that they had not expected 102 3 Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper <?page no="104"?> this to be a meaningful experience, but that they now see picturebooks in a different light and are much more open to read these from a more ‘adult’ point of view. The final question, “In how far can looking at the interplay of words and images in the classroom contribute to the development of narrative competencies as well as critical visual literacy and thus help fulfil curricular standards? ” can also be answered positively. Although this was not at the forefront of the students’ reactions, one comment referred to having learned to analyse texts and images. The discussion also showed that the categories of figural and authorial narrative situation could easily be found in the text and images of The Great Paper Caper. Other stylistic devices, such as the features of comics, were employed in the creative process, which may not strictly be rhetorical devices in the classic sense, but which are part of a repertoire of stylistic devices in a more open and comprehensive understanding of literature, and thus are elements that should be part of a concept of media and literary literacy in the wider sense. Above and beyond what was expected, the students showed interesting insights into the effect of the counterpoint in The Great Paper Caper. Separating images and words may have been an interesting experiment. However, as Sipe, among many others, has stated repeatedly, “the essence of the picture book is the way the text and the illustrations relate to each other” (Sipe 1998: 97), where “the synergy between words and pictures adds up to something greater than the sum of its parts” (Sipe 2011: 238). It is to be seen as an expression of the success of the project presented here that one student summarized her own personal ‘takeaway’ from the project agreeing to this in her own words: In picture books, drawings and words are combined to tell a story. They have a special relationship with each other. Through imagination and our own thinking ability, it is possible for us to understand, connect and imagine the story with both text only or pictures only independently. But even if we would [sic! ] understand the story with only one component, it seems much more vivid and coherent to us if we can read and see both in combination. Because it is the special combination that gives a picture book the desired effect. (Rebecca, 18) List of references Primary literature Frisch, Aaron (2012) The Girl in Red. Mankato, MN: Creative Editions. Jeffers, Oliver (2008) The Great Paper Caper. London: Harper Collins. List of references 103 <?page no="105"?> Secondary literature Apkon, Stephen (2013). The Age of the Image. Redefining Literacy in a World of Screens. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Bloem, Patricia L./ Padak, Nancy D. (1996). Picture books, young adult books, and adult literacy learners. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 40 (1), 48-53. Donaghy, Kieran (2015). Film in Action. Teaching language using moving images. Peaslake: Delta Publishing. European Network for Visual Literacy (2022). Visual Literacy. https: / / envil.eu/ visual-literacy/ (last accessed 04.05.2022) Fludernik, Monika (1996). Towards a Natural Narratology. London: Routledge. Grigoriadou, Zoe (2013). The Arrival by Shaun Tan. Making a wordless book speak. Praxis Englisch 3-2013: 34-38. Grigoriadou, Zoe (2015). How to read a wordless book: Rainstorm by Barabara Lehman. Praxis Englisch 5-2015: 9-13. Grigoriadou, Zoe/ Sommerschuh, Günther (eds.) (2018). The state of the arts. From classic to modern art. Praxis Englisch 1-2018 (Themenheft). Hallet, Wolfgang (2012). Graphic Novels. Literarisches und multiliterales Lernen mit Comic-Ro‐ manen. Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 117, 2-8. Hallet, Wolfgang/ Henseler, Roswitha (eds.) (2012). Graphic Novels. Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 117 (Themenheft). Hallet, Wolfgang/ Henseler, Roswitha (ed.) (2019). Bilder lesen: Photography. Der fremdsprachli‐ che Unterricht Englisch 158 (Themenheft). Ludwig, Christian (ed.) (2021). Leseverstehen und visuelle Literalität fördern. Comics and Graphic Novels. Englisch 5 bis 10 54 (Themenheft). Ministerium für Kultus und Sport Baden-Württemberg (2016). Bildungsplan Gymnasium - Englisch als erste Fremdsprache. Ministerium für Kultus und Sport Baden-Württemberg (2021). Bildungsplan Berufliches Gym‐ nasium Englisch. Möller, Stephan/ Suhrkamp, Carola (2019). Lerntechnik: Visualisierung. Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 157 (Themenheft). Nikolajeva, Maria/ Scott, Carole (2000). The Dynamics of Picturebook Communication. Child‐ ren’s Literature in Education 31, 225-239. Nikolajeva, Maria/ Scott, Carole (2001). How Picturebooks Work. New York/ London: Routledge. P21---Partnership for 21st Century Learning (2019). Framework for 21st Century Learning. https: / / static.battelleforkids.org/ documents/ p21/ P21_Framework_Brief.pdf (last accessed 25.08.2022) Purcell, Joanne Marie (2018). “Seeing the Light”: A Cognitive Approach to the Metaphorical in Picture Books. Children’s Literature in Education 49, 356-375. Reyes-Torres, Augustín/ Portalés Rage, Matilde (2020). Multimodal Approach to Foster the Multiliteracies Pedagogy in the Teaching of EFL through Picturebooks: The Snow Lion. Atlantis - Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies 42 (1), 94-119. 104 3 Addressing the counterpoint effect in Oliver Jeffers’ The Great Paper Caper <?page no="106"?> Schüwer, Martin (ed.) (2005). Teaching Comics. Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 73 (Themenheft). Schüwer, Martin (2005). Teaching Comics. Die unentdeckten Potenziale der grafischen Literatur. Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 73, 2-8. Seidl, Monika (ed.) (2007). Visual literacy: Bilder verstehen. Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 87 (Themenheft). Seidl, Monika (2007). Visual Culture. Bilder lesen lernen, Medienkompetenz erwerben. Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch 87, 2-7. Sipe, Lawrence (1998). How Picture Books Work: A Semiotically Framed Theory of Text-Picture Relationships. Children’s Literature in Education 29 (2), 97-108. Sipe, Lawrence (2011). The Art of the Picturebook. In: Wolf, Shelby et al. (eds.). Handbook of Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature. NewYork/ London: Routledge, 238-252. Sipe, Lawrence R. (2012). Revisiting the Relationship Between Text and Pictures. Children’s Literature in Education 43, 4-21. Stanzel, Franz K. (1995). Theorie des Erzählens. Göttingen: Vandenhoek/ Ruprecht. Stephens, John (2010). Narratology. In: Rudd, David (ed.). The Routledge Companion to Child‐ ren’s Literature. New York/ London: Routledge, 51-62. List of illustrations Fig. 1: The interplay of verbal and visual text in this double spread from Jeffers (2008) creates perspectival counterpoint (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2000: 232-235). © Jeffers, Oliver (2008). The Great Paper Caper. London: Harper Collins Children’s Books. Fig. 2: In this example ( Jeffers 2008), it becomes obvious how humour is created through the immediacy of the images as opposed to the more detached perspective of the verbal text. © Jeffers, Oliver (2008). The Great Paper Caper. London: Harper Collins Children’s Books. Fig. 3: The forest dwellers investigate the crime scene ( Jeffers 2008) © Jeffers, Oliver (2008). The Great Paper Caper. London: Harper Collins Children’s Books. Fig. 4: A student’s illustration (Daniel, 18) of the verbal texts “They took pho-tographs, made notes and turned every leaf ” and “Then an eyewitness report led them to some evidence that had blown in not far away, and it had the bear’s paw prints all over it.” ( Jeffers 2008) Fig. 5: A student’s interpretation ( Jule, 18) of “It was all very mysterious in-deed.” ( Jeffers 2008). Fig. 6: A student indicates the culprit through a shadowy figure next to the tree (Pia, 18). List of illustrations 105 <?page no="108"?> 1 A Realschule is a type of secondary school in Germany. The Realschule curriculum is less academically oriented than the Gymnasium´s and includes also practical subjects. It leads to a secondary school diploma that gives access to vocational education. 4 “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom Annika Kolb and Heiko Kist Abstract The chapter explores the potential of picturebooks for individualized reading expe‐ riences in the secondary EFL classroom. It draws on a case study with Year 9 students in a German Realschule 1 . Over a period of four weeks, the students had the opportunity to read a selection of picturebooks and engage in associated reading tasks that supported their understanding and encouraged students to express their own ideas and interpretations of the texts. These learner texts, together with preand post-questionnaire surveys and a group discussion with the learners to evaluate the project, give insight into students’ reading of and engagement with picturebooks as well as the potential of this text format for literary learning in the secondary foreign language classroom. Furthermore, the results of the project shed light on features of tasks that support students’ reading in an individualized reading setting. Warm-up: Engagement questions ▸ In your opinion, what do teenagers in a German secondary school think of picturebooks in English? ▸ Can you think of a picturebook that might be interesting for 15to 16-year-old learners in the EFL classroom? ▸ What kind of tasks could support teenagers’ engagement with picturebooks in the EFL classroom? Introduction For quite some time, multimodal texts such as graphic novels have entered the foreign language classroom. Teachers have come to explore their potential to motivate reluctant readers, offer creative approaches to literature, develop multiliteracies and prompt cultural learning. Picturebooks seem to offer similar affordances (cf. Alter 2019 and further contributions in this volume). Their limited amount of verbal text makes them especially interesting for individualized reading experiences that take account <?page no="109"?> of the learners’ personal interests and heterogeneous competence levels, as we will further explore in this chapter. This chapter is based on a picturebook project with students of a Year 9 Realschule class in the South-West of Germany, which we had planned together and which Heiko Kist realized in one of his English classes in a (mainly) remote setting due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a first step, we will outline the learning opportunities picturebooks can offer for older readers and illustrate our ideas with texts used in the project. We will then discuss our project in the light of relevant teaching approaches, namely extensive reading and task-based language learning. This is followed by a presentation of the classroom project in which the students engaged with a selection of picturebooks. To support their reading, the learners could choose from a range of written and oral tasks that they compiled in a personal reading journal. The results from two questionnaire surveys (before and after the project) and a group interview as well as selected oral and written learner texts show how picturebooks can be used to create motivating and enriching learning experiences in foreign language classes at the secondary school level. We will also point out how the students’ attitudes towards picturebooks in the secondary EFL classroom have changed in the course of the project. 4.1 Picturebooks in the secondary EFL classroom Although picturebooks are predominantly discussed as to their potential for the primary school classroom (e.g., Ellis/ Brewster 2014; Enever/ Schmid-Schönbein 2006; Ghosn 2013; Mour-o 2015), their affordances for older learners are increasingly being discovered (Alter 2019; Mour-o 2017; Lazar 2015). The potential benefits relate to different aspects of literary learning: attitudinal-motivational, aesthetic-cognitive as well as language and discourse competences (Diehr/ Surkamp 2015, see also the introduction to this volume). In the following, we will focus on three aspects that seem particularly relevant to us: picturebooks feature relevant topics for teenagers (related to attitudinal-motivational & language and discourse competences), they provide a low-threshold access to literary texts (related to the attitudinal-motivational and aesthetic-cognitive level), and they can foster students’ multiliteracies (related to the aesthetic-cognitive level). We will illustrate our ideas by sample texts that the students read in the project (see the bibliography for a full list of all picturebooks used in the project). 4.1.1 Relevant topics for teenagers Picturebooks for older learners can be situated on a continuum between cross-over picturebooks (Beckett 2012) - picturebooks aimed at different age groups - and those explicitly written for adults (Ommundsen 2018: 221). These books expand the range of content and topics which were traditionally considered appropriate for children. They touch on political, societal, environmental, and personal challenges and do not 108 4 “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom <?page no="110"?> leave out sad experiences; Beckett talks about “picturebooks as an introduction to life” (2015: 66). In particular these topics facilitate meaningful reading experiences for young adults, “that allow them to explore dark, disturbing, and painful subjects because such subjects can touch them personally and constitute part of their life experience” (Beckett 2018: 215). These kinds of picturebooks can help learners cope with personal challenges of the teenage years and promote personal engagement (Mour-o 2017: 253). In our project, The Island (Greder 2007) addresses xenophobia, group membership, and bullying; The Red Tree (Tan 2001) deals with emotional highs and lows, and feelings of isolation as well as the search for one’s place in the world; The Herd Boy (Daly 2012) and Window (Baker 2002) tell coming-of-age stories - themes that are highly relevant to most learners going through puberty. Furthermore, picturebooks that are interesting for teenagers raise philosophical questions and tell of basic human experiences: “Crossover picturebooks explore the human condition and deal with the important issues that touch young and old alike” (Beckett 2018: 215). Topics such as the passage of time and our position within a family (Grandpa Green (Smith 2011); Window), the individual´s interpretation of freedom and courage (The Man who Walked between the Towers (Gerstein 2003)) or our role in society (The Promise (Davies 2013)) are existential questions (Ommundsen 2015: 73) that are relevant at any age. These books ask more questions than they provide answers, and do not convey a clear moral. In Window, for example, Australian author Jeannie Baker shows the view from a window over the course of about 25 years. Each reader will discover different details in this book and interpret the text based on their individual experiences of change over the life span. The Wolves in the Walls (Gaiman/ McKean 2003) encourages discussions about what we perceive as real, how we know what we think we know, and the role of universal truths. Finally, many picturebooks can be related to current debates in society, and thus to issues that many young adults are concerned with. Examples from our project books are racism (The Island), environmental protection and sustainability (Window; The Promise) or meat consumption (Mr Maxwell`s Mouse (Asch/ Asch 2004)). Since relevance for learners’ own lives is the central criterion for engagement in a task (Kolb/ Schocker 2021: 47ff.), picturebooks that touch on these relevant topics for teenagers might be well received by learners and allow for interesting follow-up tasks that relate the content to the students’ lived experiences (see section 3.3). In extensive reading settings, the needs and interests of heterogeneous learning groups can be addressed particularly well because learners can choose from a selection of books according to their preferences (Da Rocha 2017: 169). Unconventional and multilayered picturebooks call for exchanging individual interpretations and thus create a variety of communicative speaking opportunities for the classroom (Alter 2019: 29; Mour-o 2017: 254). This might be especially the case if the relationship between text and pictures is counterpointing or contradictory, that is verbal and visual text provide different or inconsistent pieces of information (see Nikolajeva/ Scott 2006 as well as the introduction to this volume). 4.1 Picturebooks in the secondary EFL classroom 109 <?page no="111"?> 4.1.2 Low-threshold access to literary texts Picturebooks can provide a motivating access to literary texts, even for students with limited language skills. The visual level can help weaker readers to understand the text in the foreign language, thus giving them a sense of achievement. These experiences can then initiate the reading of more complex literary texts and prepare learners for literature classes in the upper grades (Delanoy 2017: 19; Lazar 2015: 98). An example of such ‘literary groundwork’ would be to address basic features of literary texts in picturebooks - such as plot structures, narrative perspectives, or character constellations. Promoting reading motivation seems to be particularly important for adolescents since a significant decrease in reading activities can often be observed at the age of 12 or 13 years (Bland 2013: 74). Picturebooks seem to be particularly appropriate in this respect because - due to this text format’s affinity to comics - they tie in with teenagers’ out-of-school media use (Siebenhüner et a. 2019). The Wolves in the Walls and The Man who Walked between the Towers, for example, feature comic-like panels, speech bubbles and close-ups of the protagonists reminiscent of cinematic devices. Thompson and McIllnay (2019: 67) support this stand: “To help students develop a fondness for reading, we argue that educators need to take an approach that liberally draws upon the works, formats and genres that students enjoy reading”. In contrast to the traditional canon of literature in the EFL classroom, integrating picturebooks into literature classes takes account of the multimodality of contemporary communication: “such a wider-reaching concept of literature […] brings literature pedagogy up-to-date with current meaning-making practices” (Delanoy 2017: 17). 4.1.3 Fostering multiliteracies The complex interplay of text and image in picturebooks creates opportunities for the development of multiliteracies (Bull/ Anstey 2019; Hallet 2012). The visual design often adds new layers of meaning and contributes to a diversity of possible interpretations, as Shaun Tan describes here: Ironically, good narrative illustration is not about “illustration” at all, in the sense of visual clarity, definition or empirical observation. It's all about uncertainty, open-mindedness, slipperiness, and even vagueness. There’s a tacit recognition in much graphic fiction that some things cannot be adequately expressed through words: an idea might be just so unfamiliar, an emotion so ambivalent, a concept so nameless that it is best represented either wordlessly, through a visual subversion of words, or as an expansion of their meaning using careful juxtaposition. (Tan 2011; cited in Evans 2015: 117f.) In picturebooks, the illustrations fill voids the verbal text leaves and often create ambiguity (Campagnaro 2015: 122). In The Wolves in the Walls, collages of photographs, drawings, and computer-generated images are used, making the picturebook seem fragmentary and emphasizing the dubious reality of the depicted events. The realistic 110 4 “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom <?page no="112"?> representation of the wolf ’s eyes, for example, adds to this impression: “The eyes look real and therefore are real in our minds, even though we know that they are not real and in fact, never existed” (Evans 2015: 99). This questioning of reality is further promoted by postmodern narrative techniques in many picturebooks (Allan 2018: 201). The Girl in Red (Frisch/ Innocenti 2012), for example, begins with the line “Our story takes place in a forest” - the corresponding illustration shows an urban apartment building. Apart from this counterpointing text-picture relationship (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2006), this picturebook also exemplifies other postmodern narrative strategies (Beckett 2018; Pantaleo/ Sipe 2008) such as: • non-linear storytelling (the events are narrated in a non-chronological order or stories feature multiple plot lines); • multi-perspectivity (the story is told from different perspectives), and • metafictionality (the fictionality of the story is explicitly addressed in the text). An example of meta-fictionality in The Girl in Red is the introduction of an alternative ending as well as a sign reading Happy End integrated into the illustration: After the story ends with the disappearance of the protagonist, the narrator - a storytelling grandmother - intervenes with the words “Remember the thing about stories? Stories are magic. Who says they can have only one ending? Picture this instead if you like” (Frisch/ Innocenti 2012, n.p.). The intertextuality of many picturebooks which often cite literary or other artistic works creates further learning opportunities (e.g., Beckett 2010; Hallet 2002; Panta‐ leo/ Sipe 2008). The intertextual elements encourage a comparison of different texts and therefore highlight characteristics of a particular literary format or genre. The Girl in Red, for example, transfers the traditional fairytale Little Red Riding Hood into a modern, metropolitan context. References to the fairytale are made on both the verbal and the visual level. Comparing this text to a traditional version of the story could make learners aware of the features of fairytales, such as typical plot structures, character constellations and stock characters, and happy endings. Another example of intertextual references in our selection of picturebooks are the illustrations in The Island, which are reminiscent of Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream. Complex text-picture-relationships in picturebooks can also promote cultural learn‐ ing (Bland 2016; Hallet 2002; Mour-o 2017: 252f.) and a critical perspective on these texts: It is often through the pictures in picturebooks that students access other interpretations of what they take for granted and by using more challenging picturebooks we can provide our English language students with opportunities to question social constructs and to be critical readers. (Mour-o 2013: 82; see also Alter 2019; Lazar 2015) In our project, The Herd Boy, The Girl in Red and The Man who Walked between the Towers in particular lend themselves to cultural learning as they present different cultural lifeworlds for learners to explore. In the Herd Boy, students were invited to 4.1 Picturebooks in the secondary EFL classroom 111 <?page no="113"?> draw parallels between their own hometown and the village where the main character Malusi was brought up. They were also asked to investigate the various tasks and chores that were assigned to the boy by the family and the village community. In The Girl in Red the learners who were living in a rural part of Germany were exposed to inner city life, the living conditions, dangers and attractions in a big town. Furthermore, the double coding through text and image supports the learning of linguistic structures: “Images support the text in a mutual relationship and as learning is facilitated by visual cues, reading helps the brain to remember these language structures, as the learner will connect an image to the word it represents” (Eisenmann/ Summer 2020: 55). 4.2 Individualized, extensive and task-based reading Since the 1990s and 2000s, reading literary texts is again gaining ground in foreign language education (Surkamp/ Nünning 2020: 12). This is justified by literature’s po‐ tential to engage students as well as to foster a new and emergent interest in developing literary competences, cultural learning, change of perspective and communicative competences (ibid.: 13). In contrast to a more traditional approach according to which teachers focus on a rather small canon of literary texts and make all students read the same text in a teaching unit, a wide range of text genres, and more learner-oriented approaches are currently being promoted (see below). With the focus on picturebooks, we intended to try something new to add variety to the class, we wanted to take account of the multimodal nature of communication in students’ lives and include texts on relevant topics for young adults (see the section below on the reading project). Furthermore, our project is based on the following ideas of individual learning and diversity, extensive reading, and task-based language learning. 4.2.1 Individual learning and diversity In a group of around 25 learners, it is difficult to find a picturebook that would appeal to all students alike. The heterogeneity of every group of learners brings about a diversity of topics, genres and aesthetic styles they are interested in. We therefore decided on a wide range of picturebooks that invited learners to find a text they could relate to and - by asking them to present the chosen picturebook to each other - get insights into the diversity of this literary format. Since a central aim of using literature in the foreign language classroom is the development of interest in literature and sustainable reading motivation (Surkamp/ Nünning 2020: 28), we tried to provide texts on different levels - both in terms of the verbal language and the picture-text-relation - to make sure that even reluctant readers would find access to one of the selected texts. Consequently, the students read the texts individually and at their own pace. Likewise, the tasks provided various choices to take into account different interests, individual preferences (e.g., drawing vs. writing) and competence levels of the students. 112 4 “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom <?page no="114"?> 4.2.2 Extensive reading The extensive reading concept is an approach that focuses on this type of individual reading outlined above. In such a setting the students are given access to a variety of reading material and they “read for overall meaning, for information, and for pleasure and enjoyment” (Day 2011: 10). The texts that are provided usually cover a wide range of topics and pose not too many difficulties language-wise. Learners make their own choices, read individually and at their own pace and focus on a global understanding of the text (Day/ Bamford 1998). Research on the effects of extensive reading (e.g., Biebricher 2008; Day/ Bamford 1998; Kolb 2013; Krashen 2007, 2013) has revealed promising results regarding students’ reading motivation, reading fluency and reading competence. Our project follows the principles of the extensive reading approach in that we provided a selection of picturebooks on different topics and let the students choose a book they wanted to read. We also aimed at promoting reading motivation and an interest in literary texts. However, by letting the learners choose and focus on one picturebook, we did not completely follow the concept of extensive reading in which students usually read a large number of texts. 4.2.3 Task-based language learning With providing a selection of tasks on the picturebooks that the learners collected in a reading journal, we furthermore deviated from extensive reading in a strict sense, where students do not have to complete any tasks on their reading (Day/ Bamford 1998: 140). In addition, the learners created a book talk video on their chosen title in which they presented the picturebook to their fellow students. The tasks that aimed at supporting the students’ reading included both general tasks that did not refer to specific titles as well as tasks that accompanied the reading of the individually selected picturebook. Both types of tasks followed actionand product-oriented approaches (Surkamp/ Nünning 2020: 70ff.) and encouraged a creative engagement with the texts. Following criteria for good tasks (Kolb/ Schocker 2021; Müller-Hartmann/ Schocker 2011; Müller-Hartmann et al. 2013), these should • motivate learners to get actively involved: Learners engage with a text if they perceive the issues that are dealt with as relevant for their own lives. They activate their prior experiences, predict events, hypothesize outcomes, compare and re-adjust assumptions and expectations. They respond to gaps in the text by filling them with their imagination. Tasks can support these processes by encouraging learners to voice and exchange their feelings, experiences, and views (Kolb/ Schocker 2021: 140). Examples of tasks in the project are drawing and discussing the learners’ favourite scene or writing about own experiences related to the topic of the book. • provide choices: To allow learners to show their individual reactions to the reading of the text, they could choose tasks that best fit their preferences and interests as 4.2 Individualized, extensive and task-based reading 113 <?page no="115"?> well as the chosen picturebooks. The students could decide whether they preferred to draw or write and which genre they would like to use to express their ideas (e.g., writing an Instagram post, a letter, or a poem). • integrate a focus on form: The language in picturebooks provides multiple oppor‐ tunities to enrich the learners’ own language. They can for example draw on expressions of politeness in Mr Maxwell´s Mouse (e.g., “Would you like us to ….? ” “May I ask…? ” “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind….” (Asch/ Asch 2004, n.p.) to develop their own dialogues or design another scene for Grandpa Green following the sentence structures provided in the book. For the book talk, learners collected technical terms to describe picturebooks as well as chunks of language to present and evaluate a book in a remote lesson with the teacher. With picturebooks, a focus on form involves not only the verbal language, but also the visual level. Tasks encouraged learners to describe the effect of the illustrations on their interpretation of the text and to use multimodal forms of expression themselves - for example putting a picture of themselves in a scene of their choice or designing an Instagram post (see Fig. 1). • involve learner-learner interaction: Although the learners read the picturebooks in an individual reading setting, some of the tasks tried to encourage peer interaction. In particular in the video conference sessions, learners were asked to talk about their reading experiences and present their interpretation of the text. Students who had chosen the same book could exchange their ideas and discuss scenes and twists in the picturebooks that were unclear after their first reading. In the final lessons, the students presented their book talks to each other and gave feedback. • balance demand and support: Despite their general accessibility, picturebooks can pose various linguistic and cognitive demands on language learners. Students have to cope with unknown vocabulary or register, complex and unusual sentence structures, and challenging text structures (e.g., different time levels, dialogue and narrative) as well as complex images. The tasks aimed at supporting students’ reading by focusing their attention on key vocabulary and information, asking them to create a mind map on the topic of the book or by providing language chunks for the book talk. 114 4 “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom <?page no="116"?> Fig. 1: Instagram posts on The Promise and A House that Once Was 4.3 The reading project 4.3.1 Context The project took place in the spring of 2021 in a Realschule. Originally, we had planned a shared reading experience in class, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic the project was conducted remotely in distance learning mode. 26 learners in Year 9 were involved; twelve girls and fourteen boys. We started off with a face-to-face meeting in which the teacher introduced the picturebooks. He briefly presented the covers, selected illustrations and the theme of each book. Based on this information, the learners were invited to choose one of the picturebooks each. They worked with this picturebook over a period of three weeks with four English lessons each. To support their reading, the learners completed a reading journal consisting of both compulsory and optional tasks. Regular video conferences were held to discuss their progress and provide support (e.g., collecting language chunks for the book talk). Since groups of two or three learners had selected the same picturebook, they could also discuss their texts, exchange ideas or ask questions within this group during remote lessons. 4.3 The reading project 115 <?page no="117"?> 4.3.2 Picturebook selection For the project, we provided a selection of twelve picturebooks. Our choice was based on three criteria: • Relevant topics: Since we wanted the learners to engage in the reading of the picturebooks and counteract possible reservations regarding this literary format, we put particular emphasis on a wide range of topics that could appeal to young adults. These included typical teenage issues (e.g., coming-of-age in The Watertower (Crew/ Woolman 1994) and The Herd Boy) on the one hand, and current social discourses such as environmentalism (The Promise), racism and xenophobia (The Island) on the other hand (see section 2.1). The relevance of these issues for the learners allowed us to design engaging follow-up tasks. • Complexity: Both regarding the language and the text-picture relationship we selected picturebooks on different levels. They varied in their amount of written text and the complexity of language structures. Whereas A House That Once Was (Fogliano / Smith 2019), for example, features little written text and uses similar sentence structures throughout the book, Mr Maxwell’s Mouse features a considerable amount of written text as well as idioms and expressions secondary school learners are less familiar with. Furthermore, we included books with less complex picture-text relationships (e.g., Grandpa Green) as well as those with multi-layered and ambiguous verbal and visual texts (e.g., The Red Tree, The Girl in Red). • Aesthetic quality: The text-picture relationship was not only considered in terms of the challenges they might pose to learners, but also regarding their potential to show the learners the range of aesthetic possibilities of the literary format of picturebook. We therefore chose picturebooks with different visual styles (e.g., rather naïve drawing style in The Promise vs. collage technique in The Wolves in the Walls or the wordless picturebook Window) and those that made particular use of adding (additional) meaning through the pictures (e.g., how the changing use of colours in The Promise tells the story of hope and growth, or reflects the isolation in The Island). 4.3.3 Tasks Following the task criteria outlined in section 3.3, we provided a wide range of concrete and specific tasks for the reading journal: Getting into the topic and activating prior knowledge: • writing down first impressions after browsing through the book* • starting a mind map on the topic of the book that learners added on to in the course of the reading process* • writing about own experiences with the topic of the book 116 4 “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom <?page no="118"?> Adding on to the text: • adding speech or thought bubbles for characters in the text • drawing or writing an additional scene • cutting out a silhouette of the main character and integrating it into a new scene • drawing oneself in one of the scenes and describing the scene • inventing dialogues between the protagonists • creating an alternative ending* Creating new texts and interpretations: • characterizing the protagonists* • drawing and commenting on a favourite scene* • writing a letter to a friend / the author / to one of the characters • commenting on stylistic features of the picturebooks, e.g., the use of colours or metaphors, characteristics of the atmosphere* • writing about own experiences related to the topic of the picturebooks (e.g., the learners´ relationship to their own grandparents, lost places in their region, scary moments in their lives, favourite places in their hometown) • using the picturebooks as a model for own texts (e.g., writing a dialogue according to Mr Maxwell´s Mouse, drawing and describing the view from one´s own room based on Window) • creating an Instagram post of the protagonist* • writing a poem on the topic of the text Some of these tasks were obligatory for everybody (here marked with a *). These tasks support the reading process and the learners’ involvement in the text (e.g., creating a mind map or commenting on a favourite scene). They also aimed at highlighting special characteristics of the picturebooks (e.g., commenting on the use of colours) and should prepare the presentation of the chosen picturebooks to the rest of the class (e.g., creating a mind map). In addition, the students could choose from a selection of voluntary tasks according to their personal preferences and their chosen picturebook. 4.3.4 Data collection and analysis The empirical data we collected during the project aimed at answering these research questions: • How do teenagers perceive picturebooks and to what extent do their attitudes change in the course of the project? • What opportunities for literary learning do picturebooks provide in the secondary EFL classroom? • What kind of tasks can support the individual reading of picturebooks? 4.3 The reading project 117 <?page no="119"?> Therefore, we used three types of data: Questionnaires both at the beginning and at the end of the reading project provide information on whether and to what extent the learners’ attitudes towards reading picturebooks have changed over the course of the project and how they experienced the tasks. The learners were, for example, asked to characterize picturebooks with different adjectives. In the first questionnaire, they were questioned about their expectations as well as previous experiences. After completing the project, the questionnaire focused on the students’ perspective on reading the picturebook and on completing the tasks for the reading journal. The students filled in a digital version of the questionnaires and sent it to the teacher via the school’s learning platform (Q 1: n=26; Q 2: n=25). These insights into the learners’ perspectives on the project were supplemented by a remote group discussion to sum up and evaluate the project. The learners commented on both their experiences with the reading project and their evaluation of the potential of picturebooks for English language learning. The conversation was videotaped and subsequently transcribed. The learner texts in the reading journals in which the students documented their reading processes as well as the book talks that gave individual insight into the reading experiences served as a third source of data. In contrast to the questionnaire and group discussion data in German, these texts were written in English. All three types of data were analyzed using computer-assisted qualitative content analysis (Mayring 2000). While the students filled in the questionnaires (Q I and II) anonymously, we use pseudonyms in the transcript of the group discussion (GD) and the learner texts from the reading journals (RJ) and the book talks (BT). In the following, we will provide English translations of the answers in the questionnaires and the contributions in the group discussion, whereas the quotes from the learner texts are originally in English. 4.4 Results 4.4.1 How do teenagers perceive picturebooks and to what extent do their attitudes change in the course of the project? As a first result it was interesting to note that the students’ attitudes towards picturebooks changed considerably in the course of the project. At the beginning they had received the idea with mixed feelings. Many students considered picturebooks as boring, childish, or out-of-date. However, the learners’ statements both in the final discussion and in the questionnaires show a swing in opinion. 23 students stated that they liked the project very much or rather well, only 2 students rated it as ‘not that great’ (see Fig. 2). 118 4 “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom <?page no="120"?> Fig. 2: Students’ attitudes towards the project in the preand the post-questionnaire Whereas the answers in the pre-questionnaires show some skeptical reactions to picturebooks, there was only one mention each for the characterization of picturebooks as ‘childish’ or ‘boring’ after the project (see Fig. 3). In the final discussion, some of the students said that they had initially been very doubtful about the project but that their point of view had now changed. Fig. 3: Characterization of picturebooks by the learners before and after the project (number of mentions) These findings show that the project helped to deconstruct stereotypical notions of picturebooks as ‘unfit’ for secondary EFL among the students. 4.4 Results 119 <?page no="121"?> 4.4.2 What opportunities for literary learning do picturebooks provide in the secondary EFL classroom? The results of the student questionnaires as well as the learners’ contributions in the group discussion and the learner texts in the reading journals not only show that most students enjoyed the project, but also point at considerable opportunities to develop literary competences (Diehr/ Surkamp 2015): With regard to attitudinal-motivational competences, the data illustrate the potential of the literary format picturebook for building a positive attitude towards literary texts. The majority of the students wrote in the questionnaire that the selected book immediately appealed to them because of its topic or its visual design. Many students could relate the texts to their own lives. For example, Selina wrote in her reading journal, “I'm happy that I chose this book (Grandpa Green), because while I was reading it, I was thinking about my grandfather, who doesn’t live anymore”. The students also enjoyed discovering the aesthetic features (Diehr/ Surkamp 2015: 25) of the picturebooks, as these quotes illustrate: That you could always discover new things in the pictures (Questionnaire II, Question 5). I liked how the colors of the pictures changed in the course of the book (Q II, Q 5). The book is very colorful and all the colors fit together very well. That’s why it appealed to me personally. Sometimes you have to think twice what the author wants to say (RJ Tanja on A House that once was). I really liked the pictures, because I love details and there were so many and I want to say that to the author and illustrator. It was a really nice book (RJ Joshua on The Watertower). The learners not only linked the content of the book to their own lives, but also - not least through the illustrations - showed empathy with the characters of the literary texts (Diehr/ Surkamp 2015: 25): I identify with her because I am also very dreamy and thoughtful and I also know these moods that she describes (RJ Anna on The Red Tree). I really like this scene, because the tree is beautiful and the girl is happy and that makes me happy too (RJ Jennifer on The Red Tree). Through the pictures, I could understand the story much better and also put myself in the girl’s shoes (RJ Amelie on The Promise). Furthermore, I liked Lucy’s character development. In the beginning she was anxious and scared by these noises and later she’s so brave and without any fear (RJ Lena on The Wolves in the Walls). That the students could relate to the topics and the characters in the text was surely to a great extent due to the individualized reading setting in which they could choose a picturebook that appealed to them in terms of its topic and its style. Furthermore, engagement with the picturebooks provided opportunities for learners to develop aesthetic-cognitive competences. The learner texts show that the students 120 4 “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom <?page no="122"?> were able to identify and interpret aesthetic features of the text (Diehr/ Surkamp 2015: 25), for example when they related the visual and the verbal text: I like the scene, because he saw for the first time the slimy dark green water. I like the colors in this picture, because they look scary like they want to say: “Do not swim here, there is a monster in it” (RJ Joshua on The Watertower). The colors helped me to understand the storyline (Q II, Q 6). I think the pictures are very important because they give the story more life and fill in the gaps (Q II, Q 10). The pictures didn’t really mean anything at first, if you can put it that way. And then, when I understood it, I also understood the pictures. What they actually want to say (GD, Tanja, l 103-105). The images and colours are mainly dark. In my opinion these dark colours were the right choice, because these colours underline this whole story (RJ Lena on The Wolves in the Walls). This analysis of the text-picture-relationship contributed in particular to the develop‐ ment of multiliteracies which is evident in the learners’ comments on the different modes of representations and their effects in the picturebooks: Because I find that with picturebooks you have even more, a much better understanding of the story (Q II, Q 3). I really like this scene because everything is beautiful again. Not only outside, but also in people´s hearts, everything is happier again. Without the scene we would not see the difference between the grey city and the cheerful colourful city (RJ Amelie on The Promise). The scene does not make the book seem so serious and nasty. The scene gives the book some humour (RJ Laura on a scene in The Wolves in the Walls in which the wolves are playing the tuba). The learners also discussed values presented in the picturebooks and arrived at personal evaluations of the literary texts: There is a contrast of machinery, technique and nature (RJ Anna on The Red Tree). In the end I want to say that I really like this book because it showed me how a heart and a world can change (RJ Ilja on The Promise). I liked the book and the message it gives you. As long as grandparents are still around, you should spend time with them (RJ Alexander on Grandpa Green). Finally, reading picturebooks also offered opportunities to promote language and discourse competences. With regard to learning strategies, the students mentioned that the visual level helped them to remember linguistic structures and to derive meaning from the context: Because I think it’s a good way to learn English, because it’s easier to remember everything with the pictures (Q II, Q 1). I personally learn very well through reading. You see how words are written, and even if you don’t understand every word, you still understand the content (Q II, Q 3). 4.4 Results 121 <?page no="123"?> The students also considered the exchange about the different books a motivating communicative situation: I think that’s a bit more creative, because not everyone has the same one, and then I think it’s more fun (GD, Sandro, l 139-141). In particular when everyone has a different book and everyone can present the book they have chosen (Q II, Q 1). The book talk and the reading journals allowed the learners to communicate their ideas on the picturebooks while using topic-specific vocabulary and discursive patterns of literary texts (Diehr/ Surkamp 2015: 25). These examples illustrate how the students use technical terms and interpret the effect of stylistic features of the picturebooks: The ending of the book is a happy end but also an open end, too, because something is happening that could be a whole new story again (BT, Lena, l 23-25). The book is drawn very realistically, and I like that personally really much. In one scene Bubba gets scared by something. We don’t see what scares him, only his face, and this is the best scene, I think, because one can speculate what happened to him. After that Bubba changed and I think, Gary Crew wants to say that loneliness and fear can change persons and loneliness is a big problem of this lockdown (BT, Marlon, l 17-22). By writing their own visual texts, they take account of the multimodality of the literary format (see Fig. 1). In addition, the learners highlighted the opportunity to learn the foreign language in an authentic context that differed from regular English classes: This way I can learn to read normal texts and not only small sentences or just words (Q II, Q3). Because you learn to understand the texts and you get new ideas and you can then formulate sentences better, later on (Q II, Q 3). I think in English classes you learn a lot of grammar and spelling, and through the books you can also learn the colloquial language (Q II, Q 3). I think it’s a different feeling to read a text in the coursebook that’s just written down as opposed to really a book that’s made for it, and then with pictures. That was just a different feeling for me (GD, Selina, l 297-299). With the adults who come to Germany, I would also recommend them a picturebook, in German (GD, Anton, l 152-153). 4.4.3 What kind of tasks can support the individual reading of picturebooks? The task-based setting played a major role in the picturebook project since the tasks aimed at supporting the learners’ reading process and their engagement with the picturebooks (see section 3.3). The data provide interesting insights into the students’ perspective on features of tasks they perceived as beneficial: 122 4 “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom <?page no="124"?> First of all, the students appreciated the individualization that came with the reading setting. This involved two aspects: The learners first mentioned that they could work at their own pace, choose from different tasks, and decide on their order: The one where you could decide for yourself. I could be more creative there (Q II, Q 11). Because you could work at your own pace and the reading also relaxed me a bit (Q II, Q1). The tasks where you were allowed to choose something because you had so many options (Q II, Q 11). I also think that it is relatively difficult to find something for everyone, because […] there were also a few scary ones and I think some people just can't cope with that and some people think it’s really cool […]. I thought that the way it was done was best, that everyone could choose their own and then they could somehow exchange ideas about what was cool and what wasn’t (GD, Tamara, l 163-167). Second, the learners highlighted that the fact that not everybody had read the same book prevented them from comparing their results and allowed them to express their ideas without considering their peers’ opinion: Well, I thought it was good that we could choose, because if everyone had the same book, then we would have compared us to everyone. And like this, we could say ourselves whether it was good or not (GD, Tanja, l 468-470). Nearly unanimously, the students highlighted the creativity that the tasks allowed them to display. They appreciated the chance to work according to their interests: The task where you could be creative and come up with a task yourself was the most fun for me (Q II, Q 1). I liked the creative task best because I was given freedom and could do what I wanted (Q II, Q 11). The ones where you had to be creative, because you could think about what the characters were thinking. I thought that was cool (Q II, Q 11). I thought the pictures were very beautiful and the rather little text meant that you could imagine a lot for yourself (Q II, Q 5). Several tasks in the reading journal supported students in bringing in their personal experiences and relating the content of the book to their own lives. Many learners appreciated this feature of the tasks: I liked the creative tasks because they were very personal (Q II, Q11). The book really got me (RJ Ilja on The Promise). What I really enjoyed about the book was, how real it could be. Of course, it is impossible that there are wolves in the walls, but I mean the fear. I think, everybody was as a kid afraid of strange noises, therefore this part is very comprehensible to me. (RJ Lena on The Wolves in the Walls). 4.4 Results 123 <?page no="125"?> The learner texts that resulted from these tasks notably show the students´ engagement with the text as in the examples below: • The learners were asked to first write about bad days and what makes them feel better and then write a poem along the lines of The Red Tree: The world is a deaf machine Sometimes the day begins with nothing to look forward to The world is a clockwork that never stops The world is a monster that wants to swallow you. The world is like a stage, but you don´t know your role. The world is a house to which you lost your key Sometimes you can´t see the bright side. But then there it is right in front of you. Suddenly you see the beauty of the world. Just as you imagined it would be. (RJ Anna on The Red Tree) • They could also develop a new scene for the picturebook (see Fig. 4). Fig. 4: Learner text (creating a new scene for Grandpa Green) Both learner texts show the learners’ understanding of relevant verbal and visual characteristics of the picturebooks they use as a model. The students bring in their own experiences and relate them to the content of the stories. 124 4 “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom <?page no="126"?> The students also highlighted peer interaction as a very supportive feature of the tasks: The exchange with the others was often very helpful (Q II, Q 10). I thought that now the way it was done was best, that everyone could pick their own and then you could also kind of exchange what is cool and what not so much (GD, Tamara, l 167-169). If you didn’t understand something, then you could ask the others (GD, Selina, l 249-251). Yes, well, I thought it was good that three of us had the same book, so we weren’t all alone. That you can also exchange ideas. And also, for example, with the book talk, you can also see a little bit what the others have told about it (GD, Sandro, l 476-479). Summary and discussion The students’ perspectives in the questionnaires and the group discussion as well as the learner texts show that the potential of the literary format picturebooks that was discussed in section 2 has come into play in the project. Choosing picturebooks with relevant and diverse topics made the students engage with the content and relate it to their own lived experiences as the learners highlight in the questionnaires and which is illustrated in many texts in their reading journals. In terms of choosing an appropriate book, a personally meaningful topic proved to be the most important aspect for the students, which is again illustrated in this quote: For me, picture books were always something for younger children, however, they are also appealing to teenagers. You just need a topic that interests you (Q II, Q 7). It was also confirmed that picturebooks can provide a low-threshold access to literature for teenagers; this was particularly true for reluctant readers who emphasized the accessibility of the texts: “I liked that an interesting story was told with little text and a few pictures” (Q I, Q 5), one of the students wrote. The project also showed rich opportunities for literary learning, many students developed a positive attitude towards literature and empathy towards the characters. They were able to identify aesthetic elements of this literary format, describe their effect on the reader and use them for their own texts. The learners perceived presenting the books to each other and exchanging ideas as meaningful communicative situations and highlighted the possibility to learn language in an authentic context. The task-based reading setting proved to be a suitable tool for individualized reading in secondary EFL. It helped the learners to bring in their personal ideas, tailor the learning process to their interests and needs, and develop creativity as well as multiliteracies. The results of the project now allow us to further specify the criteria for tasks that support learners’ reading in such a setting. The tasks: Summary and discussion 125 <?page no="127"?> • motivate learners to get actively involved by inviting them to write and talk about their own experiences, relating the topics of the picturebooks to their lives and asking for personal evaluations. Relevance to students’ own lived experiences proved to be the crucial factor for students to engage with a text. • provide choices by presenting a wide range of picturebooks and allowing students to individually work according to their own pace, interest and competence levels. The learners in the project especially seemed to enjoy the lack of comparison and the individual character of their reading journals. • integrate a focus on form by providing language support for conversations about the book or the book talk video (see Tab. 1), by highlighting key aspects and by including activities that focus on the visual level and allowing students to use visuals in their own texts. As can be seen in the book talk videos, many students took up language support that was provided in the tasks. They also rather enthusiastically used creative opportunities to express their ideas and came up with sophisticated multimodal texts. • involve learner-learner interaction by activities that asked students to present the picturebooks to each other and foster communication about the literary texts. In the evaluation of the project, many students highlighted the value of talking about the texts in addition to the individual reading experiences. In the different picturebook groups, students who otherwise rarely worked together very efficiently collaborated and exchanged their ideas. • balance demand and support by providing a range of different tasks to allow for individual ways of approaching a text and helping students to discover both verbal and visual characteristics of picturebooks. These sentences may help you with your book talk: Talking about characters in the picture‐ book: • The author wants to say that… • What I really enjoyed about the book was… • The message of the book is… • The images and colours are… • I did not really understand… • The story changes when… • A perfect scene was when… • The ending is a happy ending/ an open end… • He/ She likes/ doesn´t like … • He/ She seems to be… • His/ Her character can be described as… • In difficult situations he/ she is… • One character trait (Charaktereigenschaft) is… • I would like to get to know him/ her be‐ cause… Tab. 1: Language support that was provided for the book talks The project thus, on the one hand, drew on the advantages of an extensive reading setting in which the students can choose what and when they read, which considerably increased their reading motivation. On the other hand, the tasks fulfilled important functions in this setting: they helped the learners to relate the content of the picture‐ books to their own lives and engage with the topic of the book, they provided support 126 4 “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom <?page no="128"?> for understanding both verbal and visual elements of the picturebooks as well as support for communication about literary texts, they took account of the multimodality of picturebooks by asking learners to develop their own multimodal texts, and they encouraged peer interaction - thereby fostering not only written, but also oral language competences. In both the students’ and our own perspective, the predominantly remote learning setting that was developed as a stopgap solution due to school closures did not interfere with the goals of the project and even presented some advantages. The students mentioned that they enjoyed the individual reading and working on the reading journal at their own pace, which was fostered by the remote setting. On the other hand, they said that they still had enough opportunities for exchanging ideas with their peers and presenting their results in the online sessions with the whole class and in the breakout rooms. The book talk as a digital format facilitated this online exchange. After a longer period of homeschooling, most students experienced the picturebook project as a welcome change from the usual routine. In the same way in which most students’ attitude towards picturebooks changed considerably during the project, it is to be hoped that many secondary teachers will discover their potential for the EFL classroom. List of references Primary literature Asch, Frank/ Asch, Devin (2004). Mr Maxwell´s Mouse. Toronto: Kids Can Press. Baker, Jeannie (2002). Window. London: Walker Books. Crew, Garry/ Woolman, Steven (1994). The Watertower. Flinders Park: Era Publications. Daly, Niki (2012). The Herd Boy. Grand Rapids: Erdmans Publishing. Davies, Nicola (2013). The Promise. London: Walker Books. Fogliano, Julie/ Smith, Lane (2019). A House that once was. London: Two Hoots. Frisch, Aaron/ Innocenti, Robert (2012). The Girl in Red. Mankato: Creative Editions. Gaiman, Neil/ McKean, Dave (2003). The Wolves in the Walls. New York: Harper Collins. Gerstein, Modricai (2003). The Man who Walked between the Towers. New York: Roaring Book Press. Greder, Armin (2007). The Island. Crows Nest: Allen/ Unwin. Smith, Lan (2011). Grandpa Green. New York: Roaring Book Press. Tan, Shaun (2001). The Red Tree. Sydney: Hachette Australia. List of references 127 <?page no="129"?> Secondary literature Allan, Chris (2018). Postmodern Picturebooks. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.), 201-208. Alter, Grit (2019). Show me a story. Picturebooks in der Sek I: ein bekanntes Medium im neuen Kontext. Englisch 5-10 (45), 28-31. 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Bull, Geoff/ Anstey, Michelle (2019). Elaborating multiliteracies through multimodal texts. New York: Routledge. Campagnaro, Marnie (2015). ‘These books made me really curious’: How visual explorations shape the young readers´ taste. In: Evans, Janet (ed.), 121-43. Da Rocha, Karin (2017). Exclusively Beneficial: Literature Included. Multimodal Books in the Heterogeneous EFL Classroom. In: Da Rocha, Karin/ Haidacher-Hron, Agnes/ Müller-Caron, Amy (eds.). Picture That! Picturebooks, Comics and Graphic Novels in the EFL Classroom. Research & Teaching Implications. Graz: Leykam, 167-184. Day, Richard (2011). Extensive Reading: the background. In: Day, Richard et al. (eds.). Bringing Extensive Reading into the Classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 10-21. Day, Richard/ Bamford, Julian (1998). Extensive reading in the second language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Delanoy, Werner (2017). Picturebooks, Comics and Graphic Novels. New Perspectives for Liter‐ ature and Language Teaching. In: Da Rocha, Karin/ Haidacher-Hron, Agnes/ Müller-Caron, Amy (eds.). Picture That! Picturebooks, Comics and Graphic Novels in the EFL classroom. Research & Teaching Implications. Graz: Leykam, 13-27. Diehr, Bärbel/ Surkamp, Carola (2015). Die Entwicklung literaturbezogener Kompetenzen in der Sekundarstufe I. Modellierung, Abschlussprofil und Evaluation. In: Hallet, Wolfgang/ Sur‐ kamp, Carola/ Krämer, Ulrich (eds.). Literaturkompetenzen Englisch. Modellierung - Curric‐ ulum - Unterrichtsbeispiele. Seelze: Klett/ Kallmeyer, 21-40. Eisenmann, Maria/ Summer, Theresa (2020). Multimodal Literature in ELT: Theory and Practice. CLELE 8 (1), 52-73. Ellis, Gail/ Brewster, Jean (2014). Tell it again! The storytelling handbook for primary English language teachers. Manchester: British Council. 128 4 “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom <?page no="130"?> Enever, Janet/ Schmid-Schönbein, Gisela (2006). Picture books and young learners of English. Berlin: Langenscheidt. Evans, Janet (ed.) (2015). Challenging and controversial picturebooks. London & New York: Routledge. Ghosn, Irma-Kaarina (2013). Storybridge to second language literacy. The theory, research and practice of teaching English with children's literature. Charlotte: Information age publishing. Hallet, Wolfgang (2002). Fremdsprachenunterricht als Spiel der Texte und Kulturen. Intertex‐ tualität als Paradigma einer kulturwissenschaftlichen Didaktik. Trier: WVT. Hallet, Wolfgang (2012). Graphic Novels. Literarisches und multiliterales Lesen mit Comic-Ro‐ manen. Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch (117), 2-9. Kolb, Annika (2013). Extensive Reading of Picturebooks in Primary EFL. In: Bland, Janice / Lütge, Christiane (ed.). Children’s Literature in Language Education. Conference Proceedings Hilde‐ sheim 2010. London: Bloomsbury, 33-43. Kolb, Annika/ Schocker, Marita (2021). Teaching English in the Primary Classroom. A task-based introduction for preand in-service teachers. Seelze: Klett/ Kallmeyer. Krashen, S. (2007). Extensive reading in English as a foreign language by adolescents and young adults: -A meta-analysis. International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching (3), 23-29. Krashen, Steven (2013). Free Reading: Still a Great Idea. In: Bland, Janice/ Lütge, Christiane (eds.). Children´s Literature in Language Education. London: Bloomsbury, 15-24. Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.) (2018). The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. Lon‐ don/ New York: Routledge. Lazar, Gillian (2015). Playing with Words and Pictures: Using Post-modernist Picture books as a Resource with Teenage and Adult Language Learners. In: Teranishi, Masayuki/ Saito, Yoshifumi/ Wales, Katie (eds.). Literature and Language Learning in the EFL Classroom. Houndsmills/ New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 94-111. Mayring, Philipp (2000). Qualitative Content Analysis. Forum Qualitative Social Research 1(2). http: / / nbn-resolving.de/ urn: nbn: de: 0114-fqs0002204. Mour-o, Sandie (2013). Response to the The Lost Thing: Notes from a Secondary Classroom. CLELE 1 (1), 81-105. Mour-o, Sandie (2015). The potential of picturebooks with young learners. In: Bland, Janice (ed.). Teaching English to Young Learners. Critical Issues in Language Teaching with 3-12 year olds. London: Bloomsbury, 199-218. Mour-o, Sandie (2017). The Picturebook in Instructed Foreign Language Learning Contexts. In: Nikolajeva, Maria (ed.). The Edinburgh Companion to Children´s Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 245-261. Müller-Hartman, Andreas/ Schocker-v. Ditfurth, Marita (2011). Teaching English: Task-suppor‐ ted language learning. Paderborn: Schönigh utb. Müller-Hartmann, Andreas/ Schocker, Marita/ Pant, Hans Anand (eds.) (2013). Lernaufgaben Englisch aus der Praxis. Braunschweig: Diesterweg. Nikolajeva, Maria/ Scott, Carole (2006). How Picturebooks Work. London: Routledge. Nünning, Ansgar/ Surkamp, Carola (2020). Englische Literatur unterrichten 1. Grundlagen und Methoden. Seelze: Klett/ Kallmeyer. List of references 129 <?page no="131"?> Ommundsen, Ǻse Marie (2015). Who are these picturebooks for? Controversial picturebooks and the question of audience. In: Evans, Janet (ed.), 71-93. Ommundsen, Ǻse Marie (2018). Picturebooks for Adults. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.), 220-230. Pantaleo, Silvia/ Sipe, Lawrence (2008). Introduction. Postmodernism and picturebooks. In: Sipe, Lawrence/ Pantaleo, Silvia (eds.). Postmodern Picture Books: Play, Parody and Self-Referen‐ tiality. London: Routledge, 1-8. Siebenhüner, Steffen/ Depner, Simone/ Fässler, Dominik/ Kernen, Nora/ Bertschi-Kaufmann, An‐ drea/ Böhme, Katrin/ Pieper, Irene (2019). Unterrichtsauswahl und schülerseitige Leseinteres‐ sen in der Sekundarstufe I: Ergebnisse aus der binationalen Studie TAMoLi. Didaktik Deutsch (47), 44-64. Thompson, Riki/ McIlnay, Matthew (2019). Nobody Wants to Read Anymore! Using a Multimodal Approach to Make Literature Engaging. CLELE 7 (1), 61-80. List of illustrations Fig. 1: Instagram posts on The Promise and A House that Once Was Fig. 2: Students’ attitudes towards the project in the preand the post-questionnaire Fig. 3: Characterization of picturebooks by the learners before and after the project (number of mentions) Fig. 4: Learner text (creating a new scene for Grandpa Green) 130 4 “The book really got me” - Individualized reading of picturebooks in a secondary EFL classroom <?page no="132"?> Part II: Themes, Competences, Literacies <?page no="134"?> 5 (Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced audiences: A critical literacy perspective from Canada Eleni Louloudi Abstract Over the past decades, children’s literature has been subject to significant development, both as a sociocultural and an educational medium. However, this development may not have fully reached its target audience yet. Children’s books are primarily being used for the enculturation of the younger readership, even though the definition of children’s literature has grown to address a wider audience - from very young children, to teenagers, to even adults (cf. Hunt 2001). This overlooking of more advanced audiences becomes more puzzling when one considers that children’s literature has a long tradition in negotiating political upheaval and societal change. As Botelho and Rudman opine, children’s literature often becomes “a door to engage children in social practices” that (deand re-)construct modern sociocultural ideas and sociopolitical awareness (2009: 1). Picturebooks, in particular when considered from a strong “analytical and meta-perspective” (Alter 2017: 84), can be a suitable medium for advanced learners because their multidimensional gestalt allows for space for thought, questioning and reflection. This article will explore the ways in which a university seminar in Canada uses picturebooks - in particular, The Composition by Antonio Skármeta (2003) - to negotiate social justice topics such as class and race with high school student teachers. Moreover, it will focus on the practical and critical literacy-centered steps and methods taken and used in the classroom, in order to underline the importance of using picturebooks with advanced learners to promote social justice. Warm-up: Engagement questions ▸ Why should we think of picturebooks as engaging media for advanced learners? ▸ How can picturebooks work as facilitators of critical discussions? ▸ How can (student) teachers think of picturebooks as appropriate materials for their advanced classrooms? <?page no="135"?> Introduction Over the past decades, the world has undergone significant changes, turning our time into an era of wide-ranging interchange. Due to the impact of globalization and fast-growing technologies, global interaction and social exchange have increased, making the need to understand different sociocultural contexts and perceptions crucial (Yoon 2015). This development is urging for a global, sociopolitical orientation to the ways we understand education - including ELT education - for both young and advanced learners. Translating this into pedagogical instruction, this development can directly relate to social justice education (hereafter: SJE), considering that its aim is “to enable individuals to develop the critical analytical tools necessary to understand the structural features of oppression and their own socialization within oppressive systems” (Bell 2007: 4). This is only possible within a holistic pedagogical environment that aligns its goals with critical literacy pedagogies and, therefore, has its foundations in dismantling oppressive structures. Critical literacy practices have oftentimes been connected to children’s literature instruction (e.g., Vasquez 2003, 2004; Quintero 2004; Souto-Manning 2009) and its role in helping teachers and students “recognize social justice issues, name them, and come to significant realizations, about themselves, other people, and the world around them” (Bainbridge 2017: x). Nevertheless, the primary focus is still being put on ways teachers can make use of children’s books to handle and dismantle ‘difficult’ social justice topics with younger audiences. There is still a considerable gap as to how teachers can use the same and other children’s books with advanced students to start conversations, open gateways to the deconstruction of bias, and plant seeds for social justice awareness in and out of the classroom. Picturebooks, in particular, have been noticeably sidelined with regard to their potential for advanced students, even though picturebook research suggests that they have been subject to significant development historically, socioculturally and educa‐ tionally (cf. Kümmerlich-Meibauer 2018). In view of this development, picturebooks can have considerable potential to be used with advanced learners in the classroom, for example when addressed within a critical literacy milieu (Stribling 2014). In this chapter, this potential will be explored, by addressing and analyzing data from participant observations conducted in a university seminar in Canada as part of a dissertation project (Louloudi, in preparation). More specifically, the focus will be put on examining how a university teacher uses the picturebook The Composition by Antonio Skármeta (2003) to discuss, analyze, and deconstruct sociopolitical topics of class and race with her students who strive to become high school English teachers for grades 9 to 12. In the respective lessons the picturebook is not only meant to be used with advanced university students, but also to prepare them to use picturebooks in their own lessons with advanced learners. The first sections of this chapter will look into basic theoretical understandings of picturebooks, their audience and their multidimensional gestalt, as well as critical 134 5 (Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced audiences <?page no="136"?> literacy theory, and how both strands connect with each other. The core of the chapter will focus on the analysis of the collected data, and particularly, the insights to the teacher’s methods, the interaction of the student teachers with the picturebook, and their responses to the visual and verbal text. This shall highlight the role of the picturebook in facilitating spaces for thought, questioning and reflection with advanced audiences. 5.1 Picturebooks for advanced learner(s) The question of audience - and specifically, who is to read and profit from children’s literature - has been a long-standing debate within the discipline (cf. Hunt 2021). Picturebooks, in particular, have been in the center of this audience-controversy. As Evans (2015) states, “it is often assumed that picturebooks are for very young readers because of their emphasis on the illustrations and their scarcity of text” (2015: i). This trivial understanding of picturebooks appears to be problematic for two reasons: one with regard to their content, and second with regard to their presentation. In terms of content, there is a significant variety of both themes and language styles within picturebooks: from what one might consider simplistic and ‘easy’ to very complicated - oftentimes sociopolitical and/ or controversial - with demanding (visual) language - for example, The Arrival by Shaun Tan (2007), or Separate Is Never Equal by Duncan Tonatiuh (2014). In terms of presentation, picturebooks allow for a combination of visual and verbal text, which makes them more - and not less - difficult to understand. This is particularly relevant when illustrations and text present a type of sylleptic image-text interaction (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2001), for example in Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins (2001), or the older Nothing Ever Happens on My Block by Ellen Raskin (1966), or when they are complementary in a very complex and multidimensional way - for example, The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan (2000). Hence, one could argue that such products “demand a high level of visual literacy, whereby readers must understand the tools, grammar, and principles of visual communication” ( Johnston/ Bainbridge 2013: 10), making them a suitable medium for more advanced readers. Even though this potential has been academically recognized (Ommundsen 2015) and there seems to be a direction towards challenging the boundaries of audiences, there is still need for more investigation as to how to do that, and why doing so might be beneficial. Picturebooks might indeed offer many possibilities for advanced audiences, because of their multimodality, intertextuality, and topic variety. However, it is rather the combination of these characteristics with a critical (meta-)perspective, and particularly the establishment of a critical literacy milieu (Stribling 2014), that allow for an effective use of picturebooks with an advanced readership. The definition of a critical literacy milieu will now be explored in the next section in order to establish some basic understandings necessary for the subsequent analysis. 5.1 Picturebooks for advanced learner(s) 135 <?page no="137"?> 1 Even though in the original framework of McLauglin and DeVoodg this step is only described as “reflection”, I found the addition of “praxis-” necessary in order to highlight the practical action planned within this step, as proposed by Lewison, Flint & Van Sluys (2002) for “taking action and promoting social justice” (2002: 383-384). 5.2 Critical literacy as SJE in the classroom Critical literacy is not a new concept, but rather an established one in the Eng‐ lish-speaking world. It has its roots in critical pedagogy and Paulo Freire’s impactful Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), which has similarly determined its modern definition. Luke describes critical literacy as “the use of the technologies of print and other media of communication to analyze, critique, and transform the norms, rule systems, and practices governing the social fields of institutions and everyday life” (2014: 21). This definition clearly associates critical literacy with social justice, highlighting the need to engage with multimodal materials in an analytical and deconstructive way. However, the focus is not only on analyzing and critiquing problematic social norms, but also on taking action to change them. In classroom practice, critical literacy similarly aligns its goals with those of SJE. Specifically, critical literacy for social justice focuses on deconstructing bias, power relations and social hierarchies. Students and teachers work together to question problematic narratives in text and other media, and then move on to redesign an alternative, more inclusive narrative. For critical literacy practices to be successful, this development needs to lead to the formation of a holistic environment of practice, which allows for a long-term deconstruction and reconstruction of narratives. To establish such a social justice-oriented educational environment, while also ensuring that it remains practical in educational settings, a framework of practice is pertinent. Scholars have proposed a variety of frameworks both with a focus on the content (What is being done? ) and on the methods (How it is being done? ). One of these is a lesson framework proposed by McLaughlin and Devoogd (2004), which is built on? four practical steps that can be taken by teachers and students together to work towards building a critical literacy - and social justice - milieu. Methodologically, these steps of a) engaging students’ thinking, b) guiding students’ thinking, c) extending students’ thinking, and d) (praxis- 1 ) reflecting are grounded in questioning and problem-posing. In short, these steps can be summarized as follows (cf. McLaughlin/ Devoogd 2004: 41; 66-143): 1. Engaging students’ thinking entails introducing the sociocultural or sociopolit‐ ical theme and materials of the sequence, activating background knowledge, and determining the purpose of engaging with these materials. Students should be able to identify with both in regard to the content and the style of the materials, which is why including students in the selection process is vital. a. Guiding them through the materials consists of asking critical questions such as “Who is in the text/ picture/ situation? , “Who is missing? ”, “Whose voices are represented? ”, ”Whose voices are marginalized or discounted? ” 136 5 (Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced audiences <?page no="138"?> (McLaughlin/ Devoogd 2004: 41). Students and teachers work together to‐ wards looking past the literal meaning of the text and identifying and analyzing potential biases in the materials. b. Extending students’ thinking can include helping them identify personal connections and experiences they have had with regard to what is being discussed and also supporting them in re-constructing the problematic issue, for example, by writing an alternative ending. c. (Praxis-)reflecting with them can relate to thinking of how actions can be taken to support justice in and out of the classroom based on what has been learned. These steps can support the establishment of an environment of critical practice which is essential to support the critical analysis of picturebooks with advanced audiences. The following section will now explore further theoretical and methodological impli‐ cations relevant to this development. 5.3 Picturebooks and critical literacy: Connections and implications The use of picturebooks to introduce and discuss social justice topics with advanced audiences encompasses two broad topics: helping students create both mirrors for self-identification, as well as windows to see, make sense of and deconstruct the world (cf. Bishop 1999). These ideas are also reflected in the work of other scholars who similarly investigate critical literacy practices and picturebooks. Roche, for instance, opines: Reading a picturebook together critically will demand a lot of time for thinking. There are different approaches you could take, and you will need to suit the approach to the age and number of the children and to what you want to happen. First of all, the picturebook you choose has to have some relevance for the child’s life because critical literacy begins with exploring issues that prompt children to think and talk about social issues that have meaning for them (2015: 16). Roche highlights that regardless of the age of the audience, when using picturebooks in the classroom for working towards critical literacy goals, one should first reflect on how the selected picturebooks connect to their students’ lives. In order to make the engagement with the social issue more meaningful, students need to find mirrors that negotiate their own lives. However, this by itself is not sufficient. Students should be able to make further connections between the personal and the global (cf. Yoon 2015), in that they are provided with windows to the world and work towards deconstructing these global issues as well. Botelho and Rudman argue that this is particularly important when engaging with picturebooks in a critical way. As they mention: 5.3 Picturebooks and critical literacy: Connections and implications 137 <?page no="139"?> We connect our understanding to what we read, and are able, in varying degrees, to draw inferences, clarify, and make sense not only of the texts, but also, the world. While it is vital that this intertextuality takes place in any reading in order for the reader to exercise critical analysis, it is imperative in picture books. Picture books, by their nature, provide dual sources of information and emotional response, so that the visual image is as important as (and sometimes more important than) the text (2009: 200). The goal here is, as they argue, to further connect our understanding to making sense of the world. From an SJE perspective, this means connecting mirrors to windows, personal to global issues, and allowing students to understand, analyze and deconstruct bias related to both. This can be facilitated through using picturebooks because of their intertextual and multimodal nature as well as their meaningful, social, or “controversial” topics (Koehnecke 2001; Alter 2017; Evans 2015). As Botelho and Rudman continue, “it is also important to acknowledge that the relationship between the pictures and the text can make a difference on the impact of the book” (2009: 200). That is to say, understanding the connection of the visual with the verbal text, whether this is, for example, sylleptic, complementary or even contradictory (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2001), plays an important role in the way the story - and, to a further extent also the world - can be perceived, interpreted, deconstructed, and reconstructed by the students. The intertextual and multimodal nature of the picturebook, combined with a social justice theme and a critical literacy milieu, can facilitate the use of picturebooks with advanced learners, in the way in that it helps them create mirrors, windows, and connections between these two. In doing so, readers develop what Lapp et al. (1999) have called “intermediality”, which can embrace “active reading based on visual communication” in order to “capture attention, reinforce knowledge, and stimulate reader responses” ( Johnston & Bainbridge 2013: 10). This connection between intermediality and picturebooks is markedly discussed by Roche who notices that modern picturebooks feature a variety of elements that make them appropriate for complex discussions. For instance, they have multimodal visual traits, combining “literacy and literary elements” with political (e.g., anti-racist, feminist etc.) stances and allowing for an intertextual and multifarious exploration of these, specifically with advanced audiences (Roche 2015: 81). These exploratory conversations have a potential to “invite speculative and imaginative responses because of the indeterminacies, or gaps” (Roche 2015: 81), which can allow for mirrors and windows to be built. For instance, an introductory discussion on how students think of the cover, what they notice and why can already reveal multiple perspectives and various understandings of both own experiences and interpretations of the world. What Roche and other scholars (Gamble 2013; Alter 2017) highlight is this combi‐ nation of a high skill level needed to engage with the interplay of text and picture occurring in picturebooks, with the story and the variety of their themes that makes them appealing to a larger readership. This unique amalgamation can indeed speak for an inclusion of more advanced audiences, specifically when it consists of both 138 5 (Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced audiences <?page no="140"?> “controversial” topics and themes and “a stronger analytical and meta-perspective” (Alter 2017: 84) when engaging with them. These controversial topics - as defined by what adults consider to be ‘controversial’ - can include a variety of thought-provoking, social and sentimental issues such as “intolerance; murder; suicide; drugs; bullying; racism; the holocaust; domestic abuse; abortion and even child burial” (Evans 2015: 12), but it is the integration of the critical perspective that allows for a multifaceted, rich and fruitful exploration of picturebooks with advanced audiences. A methodological example of how this can be developed in the classroom is provided by Vasquez (2003), who explores ways of building mirrors and windows using picturebooks. These practical steps are illustrated in the following sequence (Tab. 1): Step one Beginning with a read-aloud of the picturebook, while also giving students enough time to process, “make connections, comment, and ask questions” (2003: 37). Step two Doing a “picture walk”, in which students work in small groups to answer questions such as what was surprising in the story, whose voices are repre‐ sented, and which possible matters from their own lives might relate to what they read and why. Step three Mixing and matching the student groups and engaging in further “small-group conversations” so that multiple perspectives are exchanged. Step four Meeting as a whole group again, discussing previous findings together with the teacher. Part of this conversation is to go back to and rethink the illustrations of the picturebook, and identify which of the pictures better described their conversations, and post these to their classroom learning wall so that they can go back to them again. Step five Going back to students’ matters, questions, and topics which were identified during their readings and group discussions and engaging in a writer’s workshop where students reflect on their personal topics and life experiences related to the book by writing a page or two in their notebooks (Vasquez 2003: 37-47). Tab. 1: Working with a picturebook through a critical literacy perspective (based on Vasquez 2003) These steps can be combined with other methodological ideas that support the establishment of a critical literacy environment, for instance, the use of a framework of practice as proposed by McLaughlin and DeVoogd (2004). This combination will be explored below on the basis of research data collected in a university seminar for student teachers in Canada. Here, the emphasis is not only on using picturebooks with university students as an advanced audience, but also with teaching student teachers how to use these picturebooks in their future English high school classroom. Hence, there is a sense of continuum built - from advanced audiences (the university teacher) to advanced audiences (student teachers) for advanced audiences (high school students). Before doing so, the following section will look into some necessary clarifications on the methodological design of the data collection process. 5.3 Picturebooks and critical literacy: Connections and implications 139 <?page no="141"?> 2 Even though in the dissertation the focus was on these teachers’ expert interviews (Bogner et al. 2009), the overall course of the research visits in the three countries followed a methodological design that negotiated the elements of a focused ethnographic study (Knoblauch 2005). These elements encompass collecting “a large amount of data in a relatively short time period” (Knoblauch 2005: online), combining interviews with observations and other methodological tools, as well as having a thematical focus before entering the field (cf. Knoblauch 2005). 5.4 Methodological design of the study The collection of data occurred as part of my dissertation project (Louloudi, in prepara‐ tion) which investigates teachers’ perspectives on the definition and implementation of critical literacies and their specific children’s literature choices for building a (critical) lesson. All teachers that participated in the study were involved in (national) literacy projects in three countries, Canada, Scotland, and Finland respectively. 2 More specifically, the conducted data consisted of 20 interviews with teachers, nine focused participant observations at schools, four focused participant observations in university seminars during which I took extensive field notes, three teacher meetings, as well as other project meetings, workshops and trainings, discussions with other teachers, professors and other experts, and a research journal to collect thoughts, feelings, and ideas. To investigate the question of this chapter, an analysis of the field notes from one focused participant observation conducted in a university seminar in Canada will be singled out. The university seminar focused on critical theory and was visited by approximately 35 students from diverse backgrounds. As the teacher, Gaby, mentioned after the observation, this was one of her most diverse classes, with students from India, Pakistan, and Indigenous backgrounds. The class was part of the Curriculum Studies degree and the students aimed to become high school English teachers. The observed lesson was centered on Marxist theory and was structured in two subsections: the first was an introduction to Marxism and its socio-educational dimensions, particularly focused on class and race and their relevance in a modern English classroom in Canada; the second one was centered around the picturebook The Composition by Antonio Skármeta and Alfonso Ruano (2003). The lesson emphasized two dimensions: how student teachers themselves perceived the book through a critical lens as well as ways and methods of using it in their future classrooms. The following section will now explore The Composition by Antonio Skármeta and Alfonso Ruano (2003) to help follow the subsequent analysis of critical literacy steps by the Canadian university teacher, using the picturebook. 5.5 Considerations on The Composition by Antonio Skármeta and Alfonso Ruano (2003) The Composition by the Chilean author Antonio Skármeta (2003) is a story taking place in a town in Chile, where Pedro, the protagonist, and Daniel, his friend, live, 140 5 (Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced audiences <?page no="142"?> go to school, play together and, most importantly, think of soccer. However, things change when soldiers come into town and take Daniel’s dad away, creating a dangerous situation for all people involved, and particularly, the children. Pedro observes how his parents listen to the radio secretly. A military captain comes to school (Fig. 1) and asks all children to write a composition about what their parents do in the evening. Pedro realizes that this might be a method of manipulation and keeps what his parents really do - following the news about the resistance on the radio - to himself. Fig. 1: The Composition: Antonio Skármeta and Alfonso Ruano (2003) The picturebook is not only about dictatorship and its inherent abuses, but also a manifesto of children’s own agency and ability to change the world. More specifically, the storyline follows Pedro’s journey from innocent confusion to the development of sociopolitical consciousness and critical thinking through a series of events that delineate the effects of dictatorship in people’s everyday lives. Events such as the arrest of a classmate’s father and his teacher force Pedro to quickly understand, deconstruct and critique the state of dictatorship as well as identify political manipulation, and to work against it in his own way. This makes the story particularly unique because it highlights the perspective of children. This is achieved by a variety of means: a multifaceted portrayal of daily life, a descriptive language, and matching illustrations. The description of everyday life balances between ordinary daily routine and disruptive, harsh experiences. While Pedro’s life is shaken by the fear and overall desolation of his environment, he still lives 5.5 Considerations on The Composition by Antonio Skármeta and Alfonso Ruano (2003) 141 <?page no="143"?> a ‘normal’ life, he goes to school, meets his friends, and plays football. This perspective is underlined in many instances in the text: A week went by. A tree in the square fell down because it was so old. The garbage truck didn’t come for five days and flies buzzed around people’s eyes. Gustavo Martínez, who lived across the street got married and the neighbors shared his wedding cake. The jeep came back and took Manuel Pedraza, the teacher, to jail. The priest didn’t want to say Sunday mass. On the school wall the word Resistance appeared. Daniel played soccer again and scored two goals. The price of an ice cream cone went up, and Matilde Schepp, who turned nine years old, asked Pedro to kiss her on the mouth. (Skármeta/ Ruano 2003) While the effects of dictatorship are prominent and obtrusive - for instance, the teacher goes to jail and a graffiti of the word Resistance shows up on the school wall - the daily life is still pronounced from the eyes of the children - for example Daniel keeps playing football, and birthdays and weddings are still being celebrated. The descriptive language plays an important role in the depiction of this perspective without it necessarily being oversimplistic. The use of adjectives (e.g., “noisy”, “shiny” etc.) and adverbs (e.g., “deeply”, “sadly”, “slowly”, “stiffly”) as well as different figures of speech like metaphors and similes help bring in a playful, child-like viewpoint while also maintaining the seriousness of the situation. The following two examples help understand this balance: A man wearing a military uniform stroke beside her. He had a medal pinned to his chest, a gray mustache, and dark glasses, darker than the dirt on Pedro’s knee after a soccer game. Pedro felt as if all the pieces that had been floating around loose in his head were coming together like a jigsaw puzzle. (Skármeta/ Ruano 2003) Both the metaphor (“darker than the dirt on Pedro’s knee after a soccer game”) and the simile (“like a jigsaw puzzle”) introduce a humorous, child-centered perspective of an otherwise agonizing situation. This correspondence of the child perspective and the traumatic events of the military dictatorship is reflected on the cover. Specifically, Pedro is put both in the middle of the political upheaval with the military being behind him, but also on the spot, with his composition, which is also portrayed on the cover (Fig. 2). One could argue that the cover already negotiates these two positions: Pedro being in the middle of events he did not really choose, but also him taking action through his composition and having agency of his own. 142 5 (Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced audiences <?page no="144"?> Fig. 2: The Composition: Antonio Skármeta and Alfonso Ruano (2003) In general, the illustrations by Alfonso Ruano work as complementary to the text (cf. Nikolajeva/ Scott 2001). As Ghosh opines, “the illustrations are realistic and depict mundane scenes of daily life to bring into focus the uncertainty, fear, and arbitrariness of life in authoritarian political situations.” (2020: 95). More specifically, the mundanity is achieved through the presentation of and focus on everyday objects (e.g., rubber, spoon, soccer ball, the radio) in a neutral color palette, while the feelings of people and facial reactions are brought forward, painting a picture of an overarching, constant worry. Finally, “long lines and indentations on the wall lend a harsh realism to the painting, adding a sense of the foreboding, gravitas, and depth” (Ghosh 2020: 96). 5.6 Using The Composition (2003) with advanced learners in a critical literacy milieu - Making space for thought and reflection The following section will now investigate how working with this picturebook within a critical literacy milieu invited the engagement of advanced learners. What steps did the university teacher follow? How was the two-level engagement achieved for advanced learners (student teachers) to advanced learners (high school students)? What were some of the student teachers’ reactions and thoughts? The environment that Gaby created is reflected in the Critical Literacy Lesson Framework by McLaughlin and Devoogd (2004) as discussed before. The section 5.6 The Composition (2003) as a critical example 143 <?page no="145"?> is similarly structured following the four framework steps of engaging, guiding, extending, (praxis-)reflecting to draw on the importance of the milieu. Getting started: Introducing the sociopolitical background The first step into the critical analysis of the picturebook is based on introducing the sociopolitical background of the story and helping students link this to their lives. This supports students in identifying with the context and makes the engagement more meaningful. In this case, Gaby encourages her students to create links between the sociopolitical concept of Marxism and their future practices: Gaby introduced her class to Marxist theory (…). She then asks her students whether there are issues of class and race within their classrooms, and they all seem to nod positively. She then underlines that in anti-racist educational practices, “we need to consider the political context of the texts we teach”. Students seem to react as if they have already heard of this before - they nod emphatically to one another. (participant observation, 1/ 10/ 18, Canada) To make these links clearer, Gaby asks direct introductory questions on the issues of class and race within students’ future classrooms and students seem to have previous experience with such questions. However, from the very beginning, the focus is on the texts we teach and not on the classroom practice in general. The connection between the political context and the materials is being brought forward. In theory, this is often seen as being at the very core of critical literacy practices. As Luke puts it, the analysis, critique, and ultimately transformation of societal norms happens through “the use of the technologies of print and other media of communication” (2014: 21). The teacher, however, goes on to specify what she means by “text”: Gaby now continues with presenting some guiding questions on the board, from what it seems, to make this statement clearer. “How does literature help us deal with important social questions? she asks and goes on to answer “it helps us critique our society through the text”. The second question reads “How are meanings of texts socially constructed? ” Students and teacher together give examples of texts such as To Kill a Mockingbird and how it was used by a Canadian teacher, who wrote an article about teaching this book with African American students. Gaby continues with a third question which reads “How are WE as readers socially constructed? ” Students react keenly, starting small yet vivid conversations with one another. From what I can hear, the group next to me has a vivid conversation about one’s own privilege and how this can be too well embedded. When they express that in class, Gaby also mentions that “sometimes we also don’t even notice discrimination because of how well established it may be in our society - some labels are too deep established.” (participant observation, 1/ 10/ 18, Canada) It appears that ‘text’ is now identified as ‘literature’ and the questions are particularized to how literature can help us deal with important social questions. Even when the discussion goes back to ‘texts’, the examples in the conversation are about literature and the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960). Here, the conversation is already about student’s personal connections, whether this means recognizing their 144 5 (Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced audiences <?page no="146"?> own (‘socially constructed’) position as readers or finding literature examples relevant to the Canadian context. This helps students build mirrors of self-identification from the beginning and create links between the general and the personal context. For student teachers, in particular, there is another level of personal engagement that refers to their future practices and that is prominent throughout the sequence. Here, the teacher clarifies that deconstructive work can be done before entering the classroom, with determining where their literature choices stand ideologically and considering different beliefs and behaviors not only of the literary text itself, but also of its producer, the author. This certainly goes a step beyond a literary analysis where the author is rather secondary, to a sociopolitical analysis and a deconstruction of different ideologies and perspectives that may coexist in the text. Engaging students’ thinking: Establishing windows and identifying presumptions These ideas become more concrete with the introduction and use of The Composition (2003) in class, through which students are provided with a window to a different country and political situation. More specifically, engaging starts with an introductory presentation of the cover (Fig.2) in class and with students’ initial responses: (…) There are many diverse answers: the students say that there is a child reading, there are some soldiers in the down part of the picture, one notices the “Americas” stickers, which “actually reveals that the book has been awarded”. One student says, it is probably a “good quality book” because of the sticker and another one notices that it’s probably popular. Other answers are that is reminds them of the government, that the boy seems to be Latino, his closed eyes, and the structure of the title. Once everybody has given their answers, the teacher reveals that the book is from a Chilean author and asks them what they know about Chile - indicating that this is exactly how she would ask her (high school) students as well - first finding out their presumptions and then setting the political context of the book. Students seem to take some time to think and there are some noticeable ructions. (participant observation, 1/ 10/ 18, Canada) Through the first reading, students react to the cover and reflect on its illustrations and further characteristics, identifying possible plots. This engagement helps students to work on a first level of deconstruction of previously gained knowledge and hence, open a new window into reality (Bishop 1999). This step can already reveal possible bias of students. In this case, students identified correctly that the boy in the picture is ‘Latino’, but in different audiences, this might have worked as an identification of racial and ethnic presumptions. This is also directly reflected in the physical and oral reactions of students: “What do you know about Chile? ” Gaby asks. Students seem to hesitate and stutter a little. There are answers about Chile’s geographical position, its “history of political and social unrest” and its “Spanish influences through colonialism”. Gaby comes up with follow-up questions: “So, what is the relationship between Chile and Canada? Do you know anybody from there? ” (participant observation, 1/ 10/ 18, Canada) 5.6 The Composition (2003) as a critical example 145 <?page no="147"?> It becomes noticeable from the unsettled classroom atmosphere? that students start to realize that they do not know enough about Chile, except some basic sociopolitical information and its geographical location. Here, the teacher directly links the discussed country to Canada with a general question about their relationship and a follow-up question that is more specific to the students’ own lives. Doing so already at this stage of the lesson helps students “make personal connections” (McLaughlin/ DeVoogd 2004: 36) and possibly relate to the story early on, creating a link between the window (the book’s context) and the mirror (students’ lives). The engagement continues with the students’ answers: The students don’t seem to know much about the relationship between Canada and Chile. “I wonder why that is”a student behind me whispers. Gaby proposes that in this case (and with their actual high school students) she would create a KWL-chart (What I know - What I wonder - What I learned) to help them “understand where they start, what they already know and where they want to go”, which she also does now herself (…) After that, she says that she would pick up some probably unknown words from the book and she would introduce the vocabulary to the students. After introducing the vocabulary, she would “go on with the story” - which she also does now. The environment feels very comfortable and relaxed, and students seem to enjoy the story; they are all listening carefully - some follow the story on the projector and read to themselves, while Gaby is reading out loud, and some close their eyes and lie their heads down on their desks. (participant observation, 1/ 10/ 18, Canada) Even though the students do not make these connections immediately, the questions still seem to provoke their thinking as to ‘why that is’. Hence, students already question their preexisting knowledge and why they do not know much about the relationship between Canada and Chile. Part of engaging students’ thinking is also introducing the lexis, and in the case of The Composition (2003), possibly also the figurative and descriptive language, and then reading the story. Again, the teacher does not only present the book as potential classroom material, but engages in book discussions the way her students could do in the future, supporting them in experiencing the same classroom situation they could then offer. As Louloudi et al. put it “living this framework in the course entails that the students are professionalized not only through what they are taught, but also through how they are taught. Ideally, a practice lived in the course can be transferred to future classrooms” (2021: 36). What is more, this engagement happens in what seems to be a comfortable and relaxed environment which appears to facilitate students’ enjoyment. Janks opines that “critical literacy work in classrooms can be simultaneously serious and playful” (2010: 234). This playfulness, especially enabled by the use of the picturebook, helps establish a comfortable milieu for the students that is necessary for the investigation of social justice topics. 146 5 (Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced audiences <?page no="148"?> Guiding students’ thinking: Deconstructing the narrative through the second reading The guiding step is centered around repeated readings of the picturebook, with a focus on the interplay of visual and verbal text. This offers students the possibility to be more attentive to details, to recognize and deconstruct potentially hidden messages, to reflect on these and to establish links among the text, the pictures and the sociopolitical context: After the short discussion, Gaby emphasizes the importance of the second draft reading. She goes back to where she started - at the cover of the book - and asks the students if the cover tells them more now. Students nod their heads yes and Gaby starts from the very beginning of the book again, telling them to now pay attention to what the pictures tell them that they haven’t noticed before. Students seem to be surprised of all the things they didn’t notice in the first reading; many say that “the pictures were there before too, but now they seem to tell more”. A girl next to me says that “the radio seems to play an important role in the story” and that the illustrations focus on it. Another student notices “the framing of the pictures” - “there is a short circle around many pictures which suggests a constrain” he clarifies. Others notice “the colors” that are “drab” or “black and white in many situations” which seem to “highlight the feelings of the characters” and particularly their “constant worry”. Another one mentions that the perspective of the illustrations (focus on the picture of the dictator or the captain) “highlight the difference of power”. After students notice all these new things, the teacher underlines that this is how they as teachers should also help their students see the things that are happening in the story. She stresses actually that “this is their responsibility as teachers.” (participant observation, 1/ 10/ 18, Canada) The teacher guides the students back to the beginning of the story and motivates them to pay attention to the pictures, emphasizing the development of visual literacy. The students react surprised by what they did not see in their first reading and their first glimpse of the pictures. Their answers seem to negotiate an interpretation that goes beyond the literal elements of the pictures (cf. Pantaleo 2018) to a “critical practice of reading between the lines” (Arizpe et al. 2018: 376) with a socio-cultural and socio-political focus. More specifically, identifying that the illustrations highlight the difference of power, suggest a constrain, or underline the constant worry of the characters, seems to reflect visual literacy skills that “examine [the] social impact of those images,” and “discuss purpose, audience, and ownership” (Bamford 2003: 1, qtd. in Johnston/ Bainbridge 2013: 10). Students appear to discern that “the pictures set a tone, an atmosphere, establish feelings, depict setting, and indicate much beyond what words can convey” ( Johnston/ Bainbridge 2013: 12). This further advances their intermediality (Lapp et al. 1999) skills in that they are engaging in an active and reflective reading, which invites them to be “speculative and imaginative” (Roche 2015: 81). What is noteworthy is the perspective of the teacher that doing such an analysis is not only of importance but ‘their responsibility as teachers’. Having said that, the focus is put on the role of the student teachers as actors of social justice. As Bell opines, “social justice involves actors who have a sense of their own agency as well as a sense of 5.6 The Composition (2003) as a critical example 147 <?page no="149"?> social responsibility toward and with others and the society as a whole” (1997: 3). This appears to be particularly relevant to the Canadian context. Brainbridge and Brenna (2013) found out that “positive academic encounters with diverse Canadian picture books can inform and strengthen preservice teachers’ sense of social responsibility in terms of respect for diversity and can reinforce the merit of picture books as valuable resources for use across the curriculum and across the grades” (40). This suggests that picturebooks are not only thought of as suitable for advanced learners, but also as potentially engaging teachers socially, and helping them become aware of diversity. The investigation of this social impact is carried on by further guiding questions: After the second draft reading of the story, the teacher goes back to where she first started - Marxist theory - and asks the students critical questions that relate to a critical analysis of the text. (…) “What are the classes represented and are these classes represented differently? She asks and a student notices that there is a dipole between the “wealthy-military class” and “the resistance” which is also highlighted by the pictures (…) Further questions regard the “ideological stance” of the book and students are called to think of “with whom the text wants them to stand” to which they collectively answer “with the boy” and “clearly against the dictatorship”, however, without further clarifications (…). (participant observation, 1/ 10/ 18, Canada) This further analysis is focused on deconstructing questions that take into consid‐ eration the interplay of verbal and visual text in the picturebook. Prompted by problem-posing questions (McLaughling/ DeVoogd 2004), the students notice that the bipolar construction of the represented classes, i.e. the wealthy/ military and the resistance, is not only demonstrated in the verbal text but also highlighted by the pictures. As other students noticed before, this happens through the perspective of the illustrations and, for example, through the overarching focus on the captain (Fig. 1) or the observing eye of the dictator’s picture in the classroom (Fig. 1). Consequently, the questions support students in recognizing the role of the illustrations and, in doing so, also in deconstructing motives (‘with whom the text wants them to stand’) and reading between the lines of the interplay between word and image. Extending students’ thinking: Creating mirrors Extending students’ thinking can occur by helping students make personal connections (cf. McLaughlin/ DeVoodg 2004) and create mirrors for self-identification. Since this was already part of the introductory steps of the sequence, the teacher now focuses on meta-level connections, drawing on issues for the future classrooms of the student teachers: At this point, Gaby also adds that with high school students, she would now ask if this connects to any other stories they have read or any feelings and experiences they have personally lived, leaving space for those students to “address their own issues and connect the story to their real-life experiences.” (participant observation, 1/ 10/ 18, Canada) 148 5 (Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced audiences <?page no="150"?> What is at the core of this step is to investigate potential feelings and experiences their future high school students might have that connect to the story. According to Yoon, “students’ life experiences are important resources for teachers, who could encourage students to utilize their backgrounds and memories in the classroom” (2015: 49). However, in this instance, the emphasis is rather put on the potential classroom practices of the students and how they should leave space for students’ own issues and real-life experiences. However, the student teachers’ connections are not directly addressed here as they had been before. Investigating these personal meanings with the student teachers could invite them to not only personally connect to the story, but to also better imagine how this can be done in their own classrooms. (Praxis-) Reflecting: Thinking about potential societal change For this final step, the teacher fosters discussions that aim at reflecting on the importance of both the picturebook and the topic it negotiates: Coming to an end, she goes back to the question “Why does this matter”, asking the students why this is important and why they would be doing something like that in Canada. The answers of the students vary: some say “to raise awareness of what dictatorships do”, “to promote democracy” and “stress that political change can happen”. As answer to that, a student notices that the picturebook “could help show that children have their own agency” and a lesson built around it “could work as empowerment for students’ voices.” (participant observation, 1/ 10/ 18, Canada) The discussion, which is guided by the question why does this matter? , helps the students reflect on potential societal change as part of their classroom practices (cf. Yoon 2015; cf. Luke 2014; cf. Vasquez et al. 2019). More specifically, students notice that they would use the picturebook in class to first raise awareness of what dictatorships do, and then also promote democracy. To do so, an important part of the lesson would be to show that children have their own agency. Exactly as portrayed in The Composition (2003), the topic is not generally about political change, but about the role of these children in societal transformation. Because the picturebook highlights the child perspective in taking action for social justice, it could work as an empowerment for students’ voices. This viewpoint underlines the potential of the content of the visual and verbal text of the particular picturebook in fostering students’ agency, but also highlights the methodological implications of using picturebooks with advanced learners. Picturebooks allow for engagement in a “game-like process” of unraveling materials “that are multi-layered and multi-voiced” (Pantaleo 2014 qtd. in Arizpe et al. 2018: 376). Addressing the picturebook’s multimodality allows to strengthen students’ voices, because it supports them in making their own interpretations related to both the pictures and the text and draw lines, make comparisons or identify deviations between these. Student agency is then built both because of the sociopolitical topic and the format of the picturebook. This is additionally emphasized by further reactions of students’ and is connected to their future role as teachers: 5.6 The Composition (2003) as a critical example 149 <?page no="151"?> (…) Some find that “it is important to be included in the class because it shows somebody else’s reality in this world” and that they themselves “could have students that come from a state governed by dictators”. Following up on their answers, the teacher asks them how this lesson affects their own life as teachers and what they are taking with them (…) two students in front of me say “that there is great importance in not reading only for the story, but taking all the messages that come with the text”. One of them also highlights that “this text could be used not only for literature and language classes, but also in history and social studies.” (participant observation, 1/ 10/ 18, Canada) Addressing multiple sociopolitical perspectives in class seems to be important to students because it shows somebody else’s reality in the world, specifically because it might reflect the reality of someone in their class. Students seem to see this representation of multiple realities - or windows - not only as an issue of literature and language classes, but also as relevant to other disciplines such as history and social studies. This idea accentuates the potential of using the picturebook in a series of critical literacy practices. In other words, for multiple perspectives to be enhanced and students’ agency to be fostered, the use of the picturebook within a critical literacy milieu should be thought of as part of a continuum pedagogy for many disciplines and all levels. In this critical literacy milieu, reading The Composition (2003) with advanced learners encompasses a) going beyond the literal meaning of the visual and verbal text towards deconstructing its symbolic elements, b) finding mirrors and making connections between a potentially unknown political situation in Chile and students’ own lives, and c) identifying the child perspective that could work as empowerment for students’ voices. Furthermore, focus is being put on investigating the difference of power that the illustrations highlight, finding windows to empathize with the protagonists through the vivid representation of their feelings of constant worry, and finally advocating for democracy. Concluding thoughts The potential of picturebooks for advanced learners has been noticeably overlooked, even though picturebook research underlines their historical, sociocultural, and edu‐ cational development and prospect “for exploratory dialogues between adult and adult readers” (Roche 2015: 81). Particularly when addressed within a critical literacy milieu, a picturebook can function as an engaging medium for advanced learners and can support them in having deconstructive and reflective discussions. More specifically, as this chapter has shown, The Composition by Antonio Skármeta and Alfonso Ruano (2003) negotiates the topic of military dictatorship from a child’s perspective, underlining children’s own agency in fostering political change. Next to this complex topic, the verbal text features a demanding language with many figures of speech such as metaphors and similes that call attention to the children’s viewpoints. 150 5 (Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced audiences <?page no="152"?> Working complementary to the verbal text, the visual text accentuates the uncertainty of everyday life. The dull colors build a mundane environment, whilst the focus is put on people’s feelings of “constant worry” (participant observation, 1/ 10/ 18, Canada). To analyze this, students need a rather high level of visual literacy, which helped them go beyond the literal meaning of the text. This process was rather centered around the social impact of the visual text and pointed to a definition of visual literacy that sees it as “social process because it comprises a set of practices that take place within, and are determined by, a particular cultural context” (Arizpe et al. 2018: 374). These characteristics already allude to the potential value of this book for an advanced audience. Addressed within a critical literacy lesson framework with student teachers, however, the potential of the picturebook for advanced learners appears to be maximized. This chapter has retraced how The Composition (2003) was used by the teacher as a facilitator of critical discussions around the topics of class and race. More specifically, questions aimed to go beyond the literal meaning of the visual and verbal text to investigating the intention and ideological stance. Part of this critical discussion was to help students make personal connections to the picturebook and activate background knowledge by bringing it closer to their reality as students, but also as teachers. During this process, students could also question their lack of sufficient information about the book’s context and were presented with practical solutions of how to address this potential unfamiliarity with a topic with their own students (e.g. the KWL chart). In this university seminar, this also meant helping students visualize this practice for the context of their own future classrooms. This supported a sense of continuum - from advanced audiences (the university teacher) to advanced audiences (student teachers) for advanced audiences (high school students). What is more, this idea of a continuum does not only apply to the level of the audience, but as students noticed, also goes further to the discipline involved. In this case, the use of the picturebook becomes relevant “not only for literature and language classes, but also in history and social studies” (participant observation, 1/ 10/ 18, Canada), which further speaks for an inclusion of this book with advanced audiences. Seeing the critical use of picturebooks with advanced learners as a continuum is emphasized by further practices of this university seminar, where the teacher introduces other critical theory lenses (e.g., the feminist lens) with different stories (e.g., The Southpaw by Judith Viost (1987) (see Louloudi et al. 2021) or The Enemy by Davide Cali and Serge Bloch (2007)). Consequently, other picturebooks could be used to facilitate critical discussions around social justice topics. For instance, an analysis of Shi-shi-etko (Campbell 2005) could help deconstruct “the ‘noble savage’ portrayal” (Bainbridge/ Brenna 2013: 29) of Aboriginal People, or How Smudge Came by Nan Gregory (1995) could help identify stereotypes towards people with disabilities and possibly take action to deconstruct these. Using these picturebooks in a critical literacy milieu, as presented above, can maximize their potential for advanced learners, because Concluding thoughts 151 <?page no="153"?> readers can engage in meta-level discussions and reflect on how to use these insights to promote social justice in and out of the classroom. List of references Primary literature Cali, Davide/ Bloch, Serge (2007). The Enemy. Melbourne: Wilkins Farago. Campbell, Νicola (2005). Shi-shi-etko. Toronto: Groundwood Books. Gregory, Nan (2005). How Smudge Came. Markham: Fitzhenry/ Whiteside. Hutchins, Pat (2001). Rosie’s Walk. London: Red Fox. Lee, Harper (1960). To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. Marsden, John/ Tan, Shaun (2000). The Rabbits. Sydney: Lothian Children’s Books. Raskin, Ellen (1966). Nothing Ever Happens on My Block. New York: Aladdin. Skármeta, Antonio/ Ruano, Alfonso (2003). The Composition. Toronto: Groundwood Books. Tan, Shaun. (2007) The Arrival. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books. Tonatiuh, Duncan (2014). Separate Is Never Equal. New York: Harry N. Abrams. Viost, Judith (1987). The Southpaw. In: Thomas, Marlo. Free to Be You and Me. New York: McGraw. Secondary literature Alter, Grit (2017). I Want You to Remember the Way of Our People: First Nations Trauma in the EFL Classroom. In: Lütge, Christiane/ Stein, Mark (eds.). Crossovers: Postcolonial Studies and Transcultural Learning. Vienna: Lit, 53-92. Arizpe, Evelyn/ Farrar, Jennifer/ McAdam, Julie (2018). Picturebooks and Literacy Studies. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. New York: Routledge, 371-380. Bainbridge, Joyce (2017). Foreword. In: Burke, Anne/ Johnston, Ingrid/ Ward, Angela (eds.). Challenging Stories: Canadian Literature for Social Justice in the Classroom. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, ix-x. Bainbridge, Joyce/ Brenna, Beverly (2013). Picture Books and Pedagogy: From Possibilities to Practice. In: Johnston, Ingrid/ Bainbridge, Joyce (eds.). Reading Diversity through Canadian Picture Books: Preservice Teachers Explore Issues of Identity, Ideology, and Pedagogy. Toronto: Toronto UP, 18-40. Bell, Lee A. (2007). Theoretical Foundations for Social Justice Education. In: Adams, Maur‐ ianne/ Bell, Lee A./ Griffin, Pat (eds.), Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice. New York, NY: Routledge, 1-14. Bishop, Rudine S. (1999). Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors. Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom. 6 (3), https: / / scenicregional.org/ wp-content/ uploads/ 20 17/ 08/ Mirrors-Windows-and-Sliding-Glass-Doors.pdf (last accessed: 03.06.2022) 152 5 (Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced audiences <?page no="154"?> Bogner, Alexander/ Littig, Beate/ Menz, Wolfgang (eds.) (2009). Interviewing Experts. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Botelho, Maria. J./ Rudman, Masha (2009). Critical Multicultural Analysis of Children's Litera‐ ture. London: Routledge. Evans, Janet (ed.) (2015). Challenging and Controversial Picturebooks: Creative and Critical Responses to Visual Texts. New York: Routledge. Gamble, Nikki. (2013). Exploring Children′s Literature: Reading with Pleasure and Purpose. London: SAGE. Ghosh, Ritwik (2020). Reflections on the Aesthetics of Antonio Skármeta's Picturebook, The Composition. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature. 58 (4), 95-97. Hunt, Peter (2001). Children's Literature. Massachusetts: Blackwell. Hunt, Peter (2021). Children’s Literature. In: Nel, P./ Paul, L./ Christensen, N. (eds.). Keywords for Children's Literature. New York: New York UP, 41-44. Janks, Hilary (2010). Literacy and Power. New York: Routledge. Johnston, Ingrid/ Bainbridge, Joyce (eds.) (2013). Reading Diversity through Canadian Picture Books: Preservice Teachers Explore Issues of Identity, Ideology, and Pedagogy. Toronto: Toronto UP. Knoblauch, Hubert (2005). Focused Ethnography. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/ Forum: Qualitative Social Research. 6(3), http: / / nbn-resolving.de/ urn: nbn: de: 0114-fqs0503440 (last accessed: 03.06.2022). Koehnecke, Dianne (2001). Smokey Night and Crack: Controversial Subjects in Current Child‐ ren’s Stories. Children’s Literature in Education 32(1), 17-30. Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (2018). Introduction: Picturebook Research as an International and Interdisciplinary Field. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.). The Routledge Compan‐ ion to Picturebooks. New York: Routledge, 1-8. Lewison, Mitzi/ Flint, Amy/ Van Sluys, Katie (2002). Taking on Critical Literacy: The Journey of Newcomers and Novices. Language Arts. 17 (5), 382-392. Louloudi, Eleni (in preparation). Teachers’ Perspectives of Critical Literacies: A Comparison of Case Studies in Canada and in Europe (working title). Louloudi, Eleni/ König, Lotta/ Schildhauer, Peter. (2021). Developing Critical Cultural and Digital Literacy. From Primary School to Teacher Education and Back. PFLB -PraxisForschun‐ gLehrer*innenBildung. 3 (3), 23-38 Luke, Allan (2014). Defining Critical Literacy. In: Pandya, Z. J./ Avila, J. (eds.) Moving Critical Literacies Forward: A New Look at Praxis Across Contexts. New York: Routledge, 20-31 McLaughlin, Maureen/ DeVoodg, Glenn (2004). Critical Literacy: Enhancing Students’ Compre‐ hension of Text. New York, NY: Scholastic. Nikolajeva, Maria/ Scott, Carole (2001). How Picturebooks Work. New York: Garland. Ommundsen, Ase M. (2015). Who Are These Picturebooks for? Controversial Picturebooks and the Question of Audience. In: Evans, Janet (ed.). Challenging and Controversial Picturebooks: Creative and Critical Responses to Visual Texts. New York: Routledge, 71-94. Quintero, Elizabeth (2004). Problem-Posing with Multicultural Children's Literature. New York: Peter Lang. List of references 153 <?page no="155"?> Pantaleo, Sylvia (2018). Paratexts in Picturebooks. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (ed.). The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. New York: Routledge, 38-48. Roche, Mary (2015). Developing Children's Critical Thinking through Picturebooks: A Guide for Primary and Early Years Students and Teachers. New York: Routledge. Souto-Manning, Mariana (2009). Negotiating Culturally Responsive Pedagogy through Multi‐ cultural Children's Literature: Towards Critical Democratic Literacy Practices in a First Grade Classroom. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 9 (1), 50-74. Stribling, Stacia M. (2014). Creating a Critical Literacy Milieu in a Kindergarten Classroom. Journal of Language and Literacy Education. 10 (1), 45-64. Vasquez, Vivian (2003). Getting Beyond "I Like the Book": Creating Space for Critical Literacy in K-6 Classrooms. Delaware: International Reading Association. Vasquez, Vivian (2004). Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children. New York: Rout‐ ledge. Vasquez, Vivian/ Janks, Hilary/ Comber, Barbara (2019). Critical Literacy as a Way of Being and Doing. Language Arts. 96 (5), 300-311. Yoon, Bogum (2015). Critical Literacies: Global and Multicultural Perspectives. New York: Springer. List of illustrations Fig. 1: The Composition: Antonio Skármeta and Alfonso Ruano (2003) © Skármeta, Antonio/ Ruano, Alfonso (2003). La composición. Caracas: Ediciones Ekaré. English translation by: Groundwood Books, Toronto. Fig. 2: The Composition: Antonio Skármeta and Alfonso Ruano (2003) © Skármeta, Antonio/ Ruano, Alfonso (2003). La composición. Caracas: Ediciones Ekaré. English translation by: Groundwood Books, Toronto. 154 5 (Re-)Envisioning picturebooks for social justice education in advanced audiences <?page no="156"?> 6 I Dissent - Discussing Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s egalitarian version of the American Dream at higher secondary level Katja Heim Abstract This contribution suggests using the picturebook I Dissent as a dense and rich summary of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life and professional achievements in the field of social justice. Based on the biographical notion of the book, as well as with regard to the themes included, reading I Dissent can be part of the work on the topic of The American Dream in English Language Teaching (ELT), with a focus on an egalitarian and democratic interpretation of this idea (Churchwell 2019). The approach to reading I Dissent that is presented in this chapter contributes to education for democracy, including an engagement with affective, participatory and cognitive elements. Warm-up: Engagement questions ▸ If you have heard of Ruth Bader Ginsburg before, what do you know about her? If you do not know who Ruth Bader Ginsburg is, carry out some quick research to find out first details about her. ▸ How can her life and doings be related to the American Dream? ▸ Which skills and competences do your future learners need to be equipped with in order to be able to take part in critical discourse, just like Ruth Bader Ginsburg did? ▸ How would you make use of a multimodal book in order to support your learners in their own capacity to engage in critical discourse in class? Introduction For a judge to reach cult status has in the past been an unlikely thing to happen. Yet, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) achieved just that, and at least initially without even striving to become a cult figure. The very fact that a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was not only considered a heroine by politically involved intellectuals, but also found her way into the general zeitgeist (Carmon and Knizhnik 2015: 8), makes her intriguing also for learners at secondary level in ELT. <?page no="157"?> 1 For the purpose of this chapter, discourse is understood as any form of communication that contributes to how we perceive the world and construct our experiences. There is a larger field of research into critical discourse analysis, which, e.g., engages with the way discourse can (re)produce unequal power relations (e.g. Forchner/ Schneickert, 2016). The picturebook I Dissent (Levy/ Baddeley 2016) is an ode to RBG’s persistent endeavour to increase social justice through peaceful but powerful discourse, 1 and through creating options in life for herself and others that had not been available before. The book touches upon many topics. For once, it is a biographical picturebook that celebrates the personal achievements RBG could reach against all odds through her undiscouraged, relentless, and devoted work. It also highlights the many changes that she has helped to bring about in the field of equal citizenship in her roles as a lawyer, a judge, and finally a justice. And, last but not least, it is a book about the power of critical - and democratic - discourse, about how “one disagreement at a time” (Levvy/ Baddeley 2016: book jacket) can lead to noteworthy social and legal changes. In the context of English Language Teaching (ELT), teachers can make use of these three aspects when working in the fields of education for democracy, gender equality, or social justice. The title of the book, I Dissent, is a reoccurring theme throughout, focusing on how disagreement can lead to more social equity. In the first double spread, this notion is summarized as follows: You could say that Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life has been… one disagreement after another. DISAGREEMENT WITH CREAKY OLD IDEAS. WITH UNFAIRNESS. WITH IN‐ EQUALITY. RUTH HAS DISAGREED, DISAPPROVED AND DIFFERED. SHE HAS OBJECTED. SHE HAS RESISTED. SHE HAS DISSENTED. DISAGREEABLE? NO. DETERMINED? YES. This is how Ruth Bader Ginsburg changed her life - and ours. (Levvy/ Baddeley, 2016: 2f.) While children with a sufficient level of English will be able to understand many of the clearly stated and depicted elements in the book, I Dissent certainly seems to be written for a dual audience (Wall 1991, see introductory chapter in this volume). In I Dissent, the many references to people and events, as well as contents that are expressed in the rich visuals, provide additional and complex detail also for more knowledgeable and skilled readers - including more advanced learners in secondary ELT, as is shown in this chapter. The phrase ‘I dissent’ specifically refers to an official act of disagreeing - of ‘dissenting’ - when Supreme Court justices do not go along with the majority opinion and wish to make their voice heard. In cases of huge importance to her and society, Justice Ginsburg made use of this particular act. Sometimes she even managed to bring about changes via these dissents (Bader Ginsburg 2016: 276), for example when her dissent caused the government to pass a law that overruled the court’s judgement in a case on equal pay (Bader Ginsburg 2016: 284f.). It is these successes in fighting for social justice that the recurring phrase in the book refers to. In this way, the book lends itself 156 6 I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the American Dream in higher secondary ELT <?page no="158"?> for engaging learners in a discourse on a particular version of the American Dream that goes beyond the mere materialistic vision of ‘from rags to riches’ (Churchwell 2019). Even though the picturebook does not explicitly mention the American Dream as such, it does communicate, in simple terms, that there is an America that allows for these kinds of changes to take place as well. It also communicates that this more egalitarian version of democracy needs people who relentlessly and peacefully strive towards such a goal. Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life and achievements represent such a version of the American Dream. In line with the tenor of the picturebook, the approach suggested in this chapter explicitly aims to be a contribution to education for democracy. Therefore, this chapter will elaborate in more detail on how different important dimensions of education for democracy are covered in the suggested classroom procedures. This is followed by sections that discuss the rationale of choosing critical discourse and multimodal meaning-making as further central thematic lenses in the analysis of the picturebook. Sample analyses of three double spreads in the section that follows will illustrate how learners can apply the suggested thematic foci and the presented analytical procedures in their engagement with the book. Ultimately, the remainder of this chapter offers a concrete suggestion for using I Dissent in ELT. First of all, however, let me continue with briefly introducing the picturebook as such, providing insights into its content, structures, and visual design (Cazden et al. 1996). 6.1 I Dissent in a nutshell I Dissent leads us through Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life chronologically. From a biograph‐ ical perspective, the book can be separated into three parts: her childhood and teenage years, her earlier years of adult life, and her legacy in the role of a Supreme Court justice. The book is mostly held in a generic style, with the drawings not being completely naturalistic, but containing more details than often fairly minimalistic cartoons (see Painter et al. 2013). It is ambient, with the colours being slightly muted. Baddeley, the illustrator, makes use of rather warm colours, with sepia brown, blue, teal, and red being the ones that occur most frequently. Particularly the sepia tones and the print style of the often repeated I Dissent stress the historic nature of the book. The story starts in the year 1940, when Ruth is seven years old, with a verbal text referring to her father’s migration to America and the multicultural environment she grew up in. While the background of the opening is held in sepia brownish colours, more vibrant colouring is used for a focus on Ruth and her mother: The child is wearing neat blue clothes and is waving at a boy; her mother is wearing an elegant black coat, has books in her hand and, holding Ruth by her other hand, is leading the way with determination. This image as well as the written text communicate how RBG’s mother paved the way for Ruth’s approach to life by disagreeing to the expectation that boys grow up to change the world, and girls grow up to find husbands. Not only as a girl, but 6.1 I Dissent in a nutshell 157 <?page no="159"?> also as a left-hander and as a Jew, Ruth experienced discrimination in her childhood that she felt strongly about (Levy/ Baddeley 2016: 3f.). The book continues to depict RBG as an adult. She becomes a lawyer and professor - a career which in the 1960s and 70s was still unusual for a woman. One of her main concerns revolves around gender equality, for which she fights in front of a Supreme Court occupied by men only. In 1993, at the age of 60, she is appointed as a Supreme Court justice by President Bill Clinton - in the book, we see the festive ceremony with a beaming Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her supportive family in the first row of the audience. The last four double spreads are dedicated to her work as a Supreme Court justice. The reader learns that she writes dissents when she disagrees with the ruling of the court to explain her reasoning. While RBG is pictured in different sizes throughout the book, towards the end of the book, her success and her growing gravity are visually reflected by an intricate use of iconicity. Here, images solely focus on her symbolically, for example, when depicting her choice of collar necklaces to go with her gown in correspondence with her either agreeing or disagreeing with the majority decision of the court. One look at her would make it clear how she herself had voted. The respect for others as one of her guiding principles becomes transparent when one double spread is dedicated to her unlikely friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia. The two of them rarely agreed in court but they still developed a close and long-lasting connection. The message here is: Dissenting does not have to result in becoming enemies. In the last opening, we see her standing stern and proud, scales in her hand, accompanied by the words honouring RBG’s legacy of having “made a difference …ONE DISAGREEMENT AFTER ANOTHER” (Levy/ Baddeley 2016: 18). In the sections that follow, I will now provide the theoretical background for the thematic lenses and analytical foci chosen for working with the picturebook in the classroom: the American Dream, education for democracy, critical discourse, and multimodal meaning-making. The topic of the American Dream as the overall context for reading the picturebook will emerge as a recurring theme throughout. Also, as Churchwell (2019) argues, the egalitarian version of the American Dream is inseparable from democratic ideas. In the context of this chapter, I Dissent is considered to be a) a contribution to education for democracy via its contents, and b) a starting point for a wider approach to education for democracy in class. Thus, in the same vein as the American Dream, education for democracy will be a common theme throughout this chapter. Another salient feature of the picturebook is its focus on critical discourse, which already becomes apparent in the title. Hence, a further sub-section will discuss the role of critical discourse within a democracy and its role in I Dissent. The last sub-section of this section then turns to a multimodal lens that focuses on how learners can be supported in the analysis of the verbal text, the visuals, and the interplay between both. After all, the rich potential of I Dissent can only be explored if learners are aware of how meaning is made in its multimodal design (Cazden et al., 1996). 158 6 I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the American Dream in higher secondary ELT <?page no="160"?> 6.2 Education for democracy via RBG’s version of the American Dream As a core topic in ELT at higher secondary level, educational guidelines already present the American Dream with a critical view: Visions of ‘freedom and equality’ are contrasted with social realities of equal opportunities (e.g. Ministerium für Schule und Bildung NRW). However, common connotations of the term are not necessarily critical, but still rather libertarian as regards visions of limitless individual freedom and opportunities. In a recent publication, Churchwell (2019) contrasts this understanding of the American Dream with earlier discourses from times when the term emerged. At the beginning of the 20 th century, she highlights, the expression occurred in warnings not to prioritize the opportunities of a few individuals over the original ideal of guaranteeing equal opportunities for everyone: […] the idea of the ‘American dream’ was summoned as a corrective, not as an incentive. Individual Americans’ dreams would need to improve to live up to national ideals of equality and justice, or toxic inequity would blight the American dream of democracy. (2019: 27) Numerous accounts such as newspaper editorials all over the USA apparently published this plea for “curbing unbridled capitalism” (Churchwell 2019: 29) in order to preserve equal chances for all. Thus, this struggle about what ‘equal chances’ are, and thus, what the American Dream actually means, has a fairly long history. I Dissent portrays Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s lifelong strive for a more egalitarian version of an American Dream within a rule-based, democratic society. What becomes apparent in I Dissent is that, while dissent enables RGB to bring about changes from her childhood onwards, the outreach and implications of her dissents change - she becomes increasingly influential. As a child, she dissents to improve her own life; as a teenager, she already takes part in more public discourse, for example, as the editor of a school magazine; and as an adult, she successively becomes part of the system that interprets and creates rules for everyone in the USA. This success story at a personal as well as a societal level can be interpreted to be in line with the popular idea of the American dream as well as with its more egalitarian version. Reflecting with learners on these versions and visions of the American Dream not only helps to assess current developments in the United States of America on the basis of the cultural and historical references presented in the book, it is also a pathway into exploring struggles and discussions that learners are confronted with in democratic societies today. Hence, reading I Dissent in the context of the American Dream also contributes to the overarching goal of education for democracy within schools (Kultusministerkonferenz 2012; Himmelmann 2005). A model presented in the following section will illustrate that there are different dimensions to education for democracy, which can and should all be considered in lessons that focus on I Dissent. I Dissent is largely about making use of one’s democratic rights to fight for equal citizenship. Educating learners to be able to partake in a democracy in a similar way is a long-term goal that is stressed, for example, by the Council of Europe (2020, 2018). 6.2 Education for democracy via RBG’s version of the American Dream 159 <?page no="161"?> Engaging with one picturebook can therefore only be a tiny part of an approach that needs to be woven into school life and lessons over the span of the whole school career. The model presented in Fig. 1 provides an overview of different dimensions of education for democracy: the affective, the participatory, and the cognitive dimension. The model draws on a categorization suggested by Himmelmann (2005), and includes essential elements from several major models for democratic education (Himmelmann 2005; COE 2018; CCE 1991). 6.3 Exploring crucial elements of education for democracy with I Dissent All subjects at school are to play their part in contributing to this long-term goal of education for democracy. For language teaching within Europe, the aim is to establish a democratic culture which includes enabling learners to engage in peaceful critical discourse within Europe and in a globalized world (COE, 2020). Overall, the idea of mediation, which involves the mediation between people, mediating group work, or mediating ideas, is foregrounded in the Common European Framework of Reference and aims exactly at this type of peaceful international negotiation of ideas across Europe. In the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture, the Council of Europe (COE 2018) links the existence of a vital and vivid democracy to critical, interculturally sensitive discourse within and across cultures, as well as to active partaking in the relevant structures and institutions within democracies. It argues that, if “[…] citizens do not adhere to these values, attitudes, and practices, then democratic institutions will not be able to function” (COE 2018: 6). Values are a crucial element in this line of argument. While there needs to be room for a pluralism of voices in (foreign language) discourse, there is also a need for points of references, norms, and values, such as the international acceptance of human rights. With the help of such reference points, also international discourses and practices can be evaluated (see Plikat 2017: 299). 160 6 I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the American Dream in higher secondary ELT <?page no="162"?> Fig. 1: Aspects of education for democracy (adapted from Himmelmann, 2005; COE, 2018; CCE, 1991) In the model of education for democracy (Fig. 1), these norms or values would fall into the dimension of affective aspects. These include general attitudes such as open-mind‐ edness, but also require citizens to embrace concrete values, such as democratic ideals, equal citizenship, or human rights. The second dimension with its participatory elements is equally important, as it takes active citizens to maintain democracy (COE, 2018; Himmelmann, 2005). Finally, there are various types of knowledge and analytical skills that learners ideally need to develop in order to be able to make sound judgements within a democracy. Table 1 summarizes how reading I Dissent can support the development of all three dimensions. Aspect Sample of aspects covered in relation with I Dissent Affective In the book: The story highlights the value of equal citizenship and equal rights. Learners: Development of empathy is possible via engaging with the per‐ sonal story of the picturebook; discussing values can support learners’ awareness of their own points of view. Participatory In the book: I Dissent serves as a model of active participation in a democracy, especially through RGB’s fight for social justice in her different professional roles. Learners: In class, learners also use social practices that enable them to be active members of an international discursive community, e.g. through 6.3 Exploring crucial elements of education for democracy with I Dissent 161 <?page no="163"?> Aspect Sample of aspects covered in relation with I Dissent • producing genres that are used in society for argumentative purposes, e.g., a campaign poster, a protest poster, a brief editorial comment, or maybe even a dissent, and • engaging in discourse on the respective interpretations of chosen visuals in the book, and on background knowledge gained via research. Cognitive In the book: RGB is a role model who studies and works towards a better understanding and implementation of the democratic system. Learners: Knowledge and awareness are developed in connection with • the importance of civic dissent in a democracy, • concrete historical events and instances in the US. Learners develop first analytical skills in the following areas: • detecting common strategies used in discourse to block critical discourse, • analysing visual and multimodal structures in the book. Tab. 1: Samples of affective, participatory, and cognitive aspects of education for democracy in working with I Dissent There are two layers of education for democracy with I Dissent (see Tab. 1). For once, the book itself communicates that RGB incorporated all three dimensions almost to perfection. This visually and verbally portrayed model of a peaceful and discursive fight for social equity can thus serve as an orientation for reflections on the relation between this representation of RGB’s life and different versions of the American Dream. The second layer of education for democracy is about how activities in class can contribute to learners’ development in all three dimensions. In the following section, I will highlight the relevance of critical discourse within a democracy as well as in the picturebook. I will then also focus on one salient feature of the book: The repetitive structure of RBG encountering verbal resistance and rejection over and over again. As a reference tool for analysing the nature of problematic discourses, this section presents a sociological model (Miller 2006). While the ability to analyze such distorted discourse will not automatically lead learners to develop the same type of perseverance that seemed to help RBG get past these hurdles in the book, such understanding can help them not to get discouraged in similar situations, also beyond their engagement with the book itself. 6.3.1 Detecting mechanisms for brushing off critical discourse As this chapter has pointed out so far, dissent plays a major role throughout the picturebook. The overt message conveyed through the picturebook is that dissent might seem undesirable at first, but then it can be necessary and positive if it helps to bring about change for the better (Levy/ Baddeley 2017: 2). This notion of dissent being regarded as unwanted has also been identified as an issue within foreign language education research (Plikat 2017). According to this research, the focus in the past 162 6 I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the American Dream in higher secondary ELT <?page no="164"?> decades has been on educating learners to become intercultural speakers who are able to take a step back and adopt a mediating role between one’s own and other cultures (COE 2020). Such a focus, however, might seem like a plea to avoid dissent, as Plikat (2017) argues. There are now voices in foreign language education which call for a more critical approach and stress the role of foreign language teaching for transforming society (Plikat 2017; Gerlach, 2020). This shift in perspective does not necessarily render consensus-oriented mediation unnecessary. It rather stresses the notion that too big a focus on harmony can serve to maintain the status quo and, in particular, inequality - rather than challenging such persistent social structures. I Dissent reflects this attitude that critical discourse is vital to transform society, and at the same time, it repeatedly draws attention to the discourses used by those who would like to keep up the status quo. In reference to the pursuit of an egalitarian version of the American Dream, this implies that those who would like to create equal opportunities for all will most likely meet counter-discourse. This counter-discourse can well take the form of distorted discourse that immediately blocks any reasoning on alternative viewpoints (Miller 2006: 229, see Tab. 2). I Dissent refers to some of the incidents in which Ruth Bader Ginsburg encounters these kinds of ‘deadpan’ arguments, but still continues to pursue her goals. The repetitive motive of initial rejections, and RGB being repeatedly successful in nevertheless achieving more social justice, not only fosters her outstanding position as an icon of social equity in the book, it also potentially encourages readers - and by extension, learners - to not give up if they encounter such rebuffs themselves. In a nutshell, Miller’s model in Table 2 is about either unconditionally following ideas and people, or categorically rejecting them. One could either follow specific people without questioning their views (dogmatic consensus), or follow certain ideas and groups in an uncompromising way (defensive consensus). The other two mechanisms focus on categorical disagreement. This disagreement could either be oriented towards a specific person, which means one would not listen to a person’s ideas at all (regressive disagreement), or it could mean that one categorically rejects ideas for ideological reasons (ideological disagreement). These four types of blocking access to learning are summarized in the following table: Authority of (corporate) actors Authority of ideas and institutions Dogmatic consensus Unconditionally following a person can lead to unfavourable results for those who do not agree to (parts of) the philosophy. The person is reference enough, whatever is said is not questioned. Examples: Trump’s “Make America Great Again” is, at the time of writing, a dogma that is shared by his fans, which, e.g., is shown by people wearing Defensive consensus Here it could be, for example, a religion, a constitution, or a shared ethos among a group that can hinder learning or development. Example: The ethos in a police department that one has to close ranks, i.e., stick together as a group, can lead to people not reporting crimes within the group (Forchtner & Schneickert 2016). 6.3 Exploring crucial elements of education for democracy with I Dissent 163 <?page no="165"?> Authority of (corporate) actors Authority of ideas and institutions the MAGA hats. This movement does not seem to invite criticism of individual aspects or ideas. A more extreme version of this type of relation‐ ship can be found in sects, with the guru being a point of reference throughout. Regressive disagreement Learning is hindered if people decline to listen to someone’s ideas because they object to the person. This type of blockage can well lead to polarization that seems impossible to undo. Example: Trump supporters might accuse others of ex‐ actly that, i.e., that they would reject any idea that comes from Trump, and could thus be called Never-Trumpers. This reflects the polar‐ ization in the USA, as there might be some truth in the claim. However, calling people Never-Trumpers can, again, be regarded as stra‐ tegically distorted discourse. Ideological disagreement If there are strong ideological beliefs, learning and development can be hindered on these grounds, even if people see evidence that contradicts their ideology. Examples: Supporters of conspiracy theories might ignore or regard as faulty or fake any evidence that goes against the respective theory. While evolution theories are regarded as the standard in science, they are rejected on reli‐ gious grounds in some societies, also by groups within the US. Tab. 2: Four idealized types of blocked access to learning and their discourse mechanisms, illustrated with examples (based on Miller 2006: 241; translation: Forchtner/ Schneickert 2016) In each of these cases, valid arguments could be blocked without even being considered (see Tab. 2). This model is valuable in class because learners can refer to it in order to categorize the type of distorted discourse represented in I Dissent (see the section below on sample analyses of double spreads), and to critically evaluate the arguments put forward on the basis of a set of values, such as human rights or the American constitution. The next section will now turn to another vital aspect of engaging with picturebooks in class: the analysis of the meaning-making mechanisms in a multimodal text like I Dissent. It will highlight the discursive power of visuals in the picturebook and emphasize the importance of developing multiliteracies as a learning objective (Cazden et al. 1996). 6.3.2 Multiliteracies as an essential part of education for democracy In connection with reading a picturebook, developing multiliteracies seems vital as more than one literacy is needed in order to make full sense of the book, and ‘only’ understanding the written text would not be sufficient. Accordingly, it is crucial that learners can ‘read’ the visual and verbal texts, and also understand their interplay, because all these components contribute to the holistic meaning-making of and in picturebooks. What is helpful here is to turn to The New London Group (Cazden et al. 1996) that published a comprehensive model of multiliteracies which includes the 164 6 I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the American Dream in higher secondary ELT <?page no="166"?> elements of visual design, linguistic design, audio design, spatial design, and gestural design as meaning-making modes, for example, in texts or media. In picturebooks, the focus would primarily be on the visual and the linguistic design as well as a multimodal one. In multiliteracies theory, the written text and the visuals of a picturebook would be regarded as different modes, and accordingly, a text that contains more than one mode is considered a multimodal text. While multimodal texts have become increasingly available over the last decades, for example through mass media or digital communication channels, the mechanisms for creating these are not necessarily new or modern. In a new edition of their highly influential book The Grammar of Visual Design (2021: xiii), Kress and van Leeuwen claim that it is not the ‘grammar’ of visuals that has changed over time, it is the technology and thus the outreach and impact of the texts that have increased tremendously. As to raise awareness of this impact, particularly regarding the power that multimodal designs such as picturebooks can have, both learners and teachers can focus on the meaning-making mechanisms inherent to multimodal designs. The following section will analyse the multimodal design of I Dissent. In I Dissent, the images are rich in information; the box provided below offers basic guiding questions for approaching these visuals based on Kress and van Leeuwen’s The Grammar of Visual Design (2021) and Painter et al.’s Reading Visual Narratives (2013). These questions can direct learners’ attention to a certain ‘grammar’ in the visual design, and how this might guide and potentially also manipulate their perception of images (see also the sample analyses of double spreads provided further below). Support in noticing such elements in the visuals contributes to the multiliteracies that learners need to develop for being active and informed members of modern and diverse societies - which are saturated with many (potentially conflicting) multimodal discourses. Guiding questions for analysing the visuals in I Dissent Colouring Which colours are used? How vibrant are the colours? How warm are they? How differentiated are they? How does this influence the mood that is created? Is colouring used to draw attention to specific aspects (foregrounding/ back‐ grounding)? Participants Who are the participants? How do they relate to the rest of the image / to each other, e.g., via size, shape, and contrast to their surrounding? 6.3 Exploring crucial elements of education for democracy with I Dissent 165 <?page no="167"?> In Arts, one talks, e.g. about 'volumes' of participants/ objects and about 'gra‐ vitational pull' - is there anything in the image that seems to have such a 'gravitational pull'? Vectors How are actions and relations between actors expressed via vectors, i.e., the direction in which lines in the visual point (a person leaning forward, arms pointed into the direction of another person etc.)? What function might existing lines in the visual fulfil, e.g., the lines around a person? Overall style How naturalistic or minimalistic is the style of the images? - A style between minimalist and naturalistic is termed generic, e.g., with a bit more detail in the depiction of eyes and faces What is the effect of the style? In how far does this indicate the intended audience? Arrangement and focus What is the apparent focus of the image (see 'gravitational pull')? How are other elements in the image arranged in relation to the focus point (e.g., circular, polarized, diagonal)? What could be the potential focus of this particular arrangement? Intertext In how far do aspects of the image, e.g., the characters, the whole arrangement, or the style of the image, remind you of an image you have seen elsewhere? In how far does the image create a connection to a different setting, text, or a metaphor? As a first step to analysing the multimodal design with learners in ELT, it is certainly worthwhile to look at the interplay of modes, at how pictures and words relate to each other in the meaning-making process (see the introduction of this volume). Words and pictures in I Dissent are often complementary (Nikolajeva/ Scott 2001: 12) so that they fill in each other’s gaps in meaning, and in some cases, they are symmetrical in that the images mostly illustrate what is said in the text. Some of the pictures also make use of devices that amplify the meaning of the text (McCloud, 1993), for example, by highlighting certain aspects through the use of colour, or exaggerated size or form, which is indicative of devices that are also used in cartoons. The theoretical aspects introduced in this sub-section as well as in the other sections above will now be put into practice in sample analyses of double spreads of I Dissent. The analyses below will identify the respective thematic foci of the double spreads and the way content is communicated via the visual-verbal design. 166 6 I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the American Dream in higher secondary ELT <?page no="168"?> 2 Please note that consent of the publisher to use sample pages from the picturebook could not be obtained. Thus, I need to refer to the images without being able to show them. The openings of the picturebooks have been numbered, starting with the opening containing the bibliographical information. 6.4 I Dissent: Multimodal analysis of sample openings As a comprehensive analysis of I Dissent, but also of picturebooks in general, can be a fairly complex task in the ELT classroom, three exemplary analyses of double spreads will be presented 2 to demonstrate how learners could engage with a) the multimodal design, b) the contents, c) the examples of potentially distorted discourse, and d) the relation to the American Dream. 6.4.1 Focus 1: The sting of racial discrimination The scene in opening 5 refers to an episode in RBG’s childhood, when the family was on a trip when being confronted with hostile “No Jews” signs. This example of antisemitism shows that such blatant forms of racism were also prevalent in the USA of the 1930s. Within Miller’s model of distorted discourse (2006: 241), this double spread illustrates a mixed version of blocking developments towards more social equality. This blockage is based on an extreme form of dissent-oriented regressive disagreement: A person is rejected simply based on being Jewish. These huge signs are meant to repel and block any further discourse. From the perspectives of those in power, there is certainly no willingness to change this viewpoint, and hence, in this situation, any kind of consensus is impossible. The density of the presented signs, and also the matter-of-factly way of putting them up, even making them decorative, suggests that this type of discrimination is normalized, and thus seems to be a systemic part of society, at least in this particular geographic area. The direct combination of the exclusion of dogs and Jews on one sign, with dogs even being mentioned first, makes the sign particularly degrading. It communicates where, in racist views, the place of Jews in society is. The word-picture relationship is complementary in that pictures and words fill in each other’s gaps. The verbal text does not repeat the wording of the signs, and the image, on the other hand, does not give readers a clue about when and where Ruth saw them. We learn that Ruth disagreed with the signs from the verbal text and in the visual. The verbal text does not reveal her parents’ disagreement but it is made visible: their car is revving quickly and leaving this hostile area. This reaction is visualized through the motion lines on the street, as well as through the thick smoke that comes from the exhaust pipe and clouds this blatant signpost. The cartoonized depiction of the car’s fumes and Ruth’s wide-open mouth and eyes amplify her disagreement. The signs and the car have been placed far apart in the double spread, communicating that the family has already passed the sign, and highlighting their opposition. They have passed this one sign but, on their way, they will see many further hostile signs to come, which in the visuals are assembled 6.4 I Dissent: Multimodal analysis of sample openings 167 <?page no="169"?> like a wall. The ‘No Dogs or Jews’ sign has the biggest gravitational pull in the image, created by its centre left position and the radiance created through colouring. The ‘No’ is most salient with its red and yellow colour and the yellow motion lines, which make the letters look like shining fluorescent tubes. The brownish grey of the Baders’ car, the street and the fumes are darker than the colours in most pages, which also creates a less friendly and less familiar atmosphere. There seems to be no way of arguing here and the Baders’ solution of leaving the scene quickly seems to be the best possible option. This scene does certainly not illustrate the American Dream that Ruth’s migrant father might have had - it could rather be considered a nightmare. 6.4.2 Focus 2: Gender equality In opening 12 we can see RBG fighting for gender equality in front of the Supreme Court, a time when she was still working as a lawyer and a professor of law. The image highlights several aspects of the verbal text. It unveils that Ruth feels extremely nervous before appearing in front of the Supreme Court for the first time. Accordingly, Ruth is rather small in comparison to the large heads and torsos of the male justices. Their size as well as their positioning in an auditorium from which they are looking down upon Ruth standing in what seems like an arena, amplifies their power. This arena scene also implies that these male justices are regarding Ruth, a female lawyer in front of the Supreme Court, as a spectacle or a rarity to look at, and not as a woman who deserves to be taken seriously. Although she is extremely nervous, as the verbal text reveals, Ruth manages to imagine that these justices are students whom she has to teach why women and men should have equal choices (Levy/ Baddeley 2016: 12). Gradually, she is able to convince them. This is depicted through her being positioned at the centre of the image, the lines around her head representing gleaming and radiation. Her forearms are directed towards the justices to signal a plea and simultaneous openness towards them. Even though she is just a small lonesome woman standing in an arena, she is standing steadfast, her body posture is confident, and her blue costume that stands out from the grey of the men’s suits symbolizes serenity, self-confidence, reliability, and inspiration at the same time. Also, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is already casting a long shadow, which can be seen as a forecast of her future legacy. In the facial expressions of the men’s faces, which range from being repulsed over skeptical to amused and almost impressed, we can see in how far they adhere to RBG’s ideas or maybe even to her being there at all. Still, even though some of the faces are rather benevolent, they all depict different ways of demonstrating superiority. On the right side of the double spread, we see various people cheering for Ruth from behind the curtain. Here, Baddeley makes use of foregrounding and backgrounding with the help of colour; she is indicating what is meant to be the centre of attention in the visual by making it brighter than the rest. While Ruth is in the limelight and depicted in colour, as are the rather greyish Supreme Court justices, the people behind 168 6 I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the American Dream in higher secondary ELT <?page no="170"?> the curtains are all tinted in the red and warm light of the curtains of the arena, which gives the impression of them being well-protected by Ruth and the warm and solid curtain. Ruth is fighting for their interests. The verbal text already mentions wives who run a business and fathers who stay at home and cook the meals. Yet, the images expand the verbal text by presenting further needs and indicating what Ruth’s fight could mean to people. Learners can detect a young woman in an army uniform, a boy carrying ballet shoes, and a girl with a baseball cap - all of which can be said to challenge existing stereotypes of the time. Many discourses alluded to in the double spread refer to disagreement on an ideological basis (see Tab. 2) that has to do with not wanting to change fixed gender roles. On top of this, the double spread refers to defensive consensus, which held up old norms and conventions more implicitly and made it difficult to live ‘outside the box,’ like the dad with an apron or the boy with ballet shoes. An egalitarian version of the American Dream would then allow all of these people to make individual choices for self-realization. Ruth is still depicted as small but the double spread, on the whole, communicates that she has already managed to create a success story for herself and others. 6.4.3 Focus 3: RBG’s fight for social justice via dissents Opening 16, in which RBG marches in front of a line of people, lends itself to exploring the role of RBG as a Supreme Court justice and also to discussing the practice of dissenting within the Supreme Court in ELT. Learners can detect that the people marching behind RBG are depicted in bright and lively colours. They all radiate via added yellow lines and exude self-confidence. RBG is not holding up a poster like some of the protestors but uses a gavel as a protest sign to address injustice. There is a speech bubble with three red entries of ‘I dissent’ printed in bold decorative style. This double spread portrays the strive for an egalitarian version of the American Dream to the point, with RBG leading a diverse group of people in this peaceful fight for equal citizenship. In ELT, learners can explore materials on legal cases as they can be found in Bader Ginsburg’s collection of speeches and dissents (2016), in a documentary on RBG (PBS, 2020), or in manifold articles on the internet (e.g., Lepore, 2020). Not only are the social issues and the individual cases worth exploring, but dissenting as a discourse practice in the Supreme Court is an interesting topic in itself. The chapter ‘The Role of Dissenting Opinion’ in Bader Ginsburg’s My Own Words (2016) explains that voicing dissenting opinions in the highest court is nothing near the norm in most democratic countries - in Europe only the majority’s verdict is read out, and in England each judge formulates his or her own opinion (ibid.). Thus, this practice of formulating one statement for the majority vote but to still be allowed to publish a dissent, can be seen as uniquely U.S. American. Bader Ginsburg lives up to her own claim that a dissent can be fairly powerful if used wisely (Bader Ginsburg 2016). Other than the swirling of the gavel in the image might imply, RBG advocates to use dissents sparsely - for once, because 6.4 I Dissent: Multimodal analysis of sample openings 169 <?page no="171"?> randomly published and too frequent, dissents lose their impact, and because such a practice would weaken the voice of the Supreme Court as an institution (2016: 280f.). This chapter highlights that dissents are first circulated internally, and then often lead to adaptions in the statement for the majority vote, and they can sometimes even sway the majority amongst the nine justices. This shows how much effort justices often put into well-drafted written critical discourses behind the scenes of the Supreme Court, and how eager the justices are to reach consensus. Bader Ginsburg (2016: 281) recounts a case in which she was responsible for writing the majority opinion. She recalls how she wrote about a dozen drafts in response to Justice Scalia’s repeatedly adapted and “attention grabbing” (2016: 281) dissents and argues that in this process she refined and clarified her own text repeatedly. The practice referred to here seems to differ immensely from the often hasty and unfiltered discourse practices especially on social media, and it is likely to instill valuable discussions amongst learners, for example on the value of such long negotiation processes. 6.5 I Dissent in ELT Based on the elaborations above, this section now focuses on using I Dissent in English lessons at upper secondary level. For this purpose, the ideas and concepts presented above will be integrated into a linear scenario of pre-, whileand post-reading activities. As the picturebook is meant to provide a frame for in-depth work on an egalitarian version of the American Dream, the concept is laid out for a span of several sessions. The outline below provides a rough orientation for a teaching scenario rather than a very detailed step-by-step plan. While the suggestions here focus on the perceived potential of I Dissent in the context of the topic of the American Dream, the suggested frame allows for flexible adaptions. Since this topic is widely integrated into centralized exams, teachers might, for example, choose to fit in more commonly used materials such as speeches of central proponents of the civil rights movement. Given the focus of the picturebook on critical discourse, such alterations could well be accommodated. 6.5.1 Pre-reading phase This phase aims at activating learners’ prior knowledge, at raising their interest and, on the whole, at preparing them for the reading phase. The introduction of the topic starts out with the popular idea of The American Dream that one person can strive and become a rich or illuminated figure on their own accord. Learners’ prior knowledge on the topic should be activated and used. Visuals from the web that portray the idea, for example individuals with their green card in front of the Statue of Liberty, or of illuminated figures in front of the American flag, can serve as a further starting point. How the connection to I Dissent and its version of the American Dream is created, depends on learners’ comments in this phase. 170 6 I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the American Dream in higher secondary ELT <?page no="172"?> A quick web research will, for example, show that there are images of RBG that illustrate her cult status and could hence be read as a sign that she was one of those who ‘have made it’. There are RBG costumes and other merchandise products online as well as photos of young people wearing these items. If learners have already critically commented on the American Dream, RBG’s potential agreement with such critical views can serve as a lead-in to the picturebook. 6.5.2 While-reading phase The while-reading phase presented here includes several readings of the book. As learners can do the first reading quickly in one sitting, they should get the chance to read the book in class, either in small groups or individually. In this way, learners can share first reactions to the book instantly. The only task for the first reading should be to look out for connections to the American Dream. The introductory chapter of Churchwell’s Behold America (2019) elaborates on the egalitarian view of the American Dream (see the respective section above) illustrated in the picturebook. Learners can read it at home to prepare in-class reflections on the egalitarian in comparison to the popular version of the American Dream. The title of I Dissent refers to another central theme in the picturebook: the importance of critical discourse within a democracy. The repeated representation of dismissive reactions that RBG faces is a starting point for using Miller’s model to jointly reflect on samples of distorted discourse depicted in the picturebook. A reference to the values that RBG fought for is paramount here in order to stress that in democracies, dissent is not an end in itself but it is vital if fundamental values are violated. Another essential step in the analysis of I Dissent is a close look at multimodal storytelling. At this stage, groups of learners will analyse a double spread each in more depth, for example the double spreads discussed and analysed above. Guiding questions (see below and the box above on ‘Guiding questions for analysing the visuals in I Dissent’) will help direct their attention to the most important elements of the visual-verbal meaning-making: • Portraying the setting: What is the context? Does it refer to hurdles in RBGs life, achievements, or both? Of what nature are the hurdles and how does RBG express her dissent? Are there references to the (egalitarian version of) the American Dream? • Word-picture-relations: What role do pictures and words play in meaning-making? Do they tell the same story? Do they fill in each other’s gaps? Does the image amplify certain aspects of the text? • How does the image guide the interpretation of the setting? • Are there any themes or stylistic devices in the text that particularly influence the perception of the double spread? 6.5 I Dissent in ELT 171 <?page no="173"?> Groups share their findings in front of the plenum. As a support for analysing the visuals and the distorted discourse in the respective double spreads in I Dissent, teachers could provide adapted versions of Table 2 and the box above on ‘Guiding questions for analysing the visuals in I Dissent as help sheets. 6.5.3 Post-reading phase The post-reading phase follows a product-oriented approach that involves the creation of argumentative texts (Hallet 2016). These texts should either express dissent on a critical aspect (from I Dissent), or promote an important issue of social justice more broadly (see sample production task in the box below). For accessing background knowledge on the chosen topics (see the box further below on ‘Sample topics for exploratory work during the post-reading phase’), learners can be referred to additional sources. The American Constitution and its Amendments (National Archives, 2022) are important resources for researching shared values within the USA. Short version of a production task It’s your turn: We Dissent / We Agree In groups of 2-3 students, contribute to the critical discourse on the American Dream by creating an argumentative text on any critical aspect from I Dissent. Topic: Critical issues referred to in I Dissent or a related aspect (reference to the American Dream, social equity, or other engaging and even controversial topics) Potential types of texts: An editorial comment, a speech, a dissent, a poster, or other genres with an argumentative nature. As an orientation for their creative products, the groups could be inspired by the different types of (multimodal) texts that are either mentioned or shown in the double spreads in the book. Accordingly, the final product could be a brief editorial comment in a newspaper, a short speech, a protest poster, or it could also be a written dissent. A multimodal website could integrate various types of learner texts and could be used for sharing learners’ results (cf. Heim 2022). As indicated above, the topic of The American Dream is part of the centralized school leaving exam in secondary education in Germany. In this context, political speeches are part of the mandatory text formats to be integrated in ELT. Hence, a reflection on I Dissent also lends itself to integrate Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s speeches into the post-reading phase (Bader Ginsberg 2016). Students can read a selection of her speeches and consider how these contributed to the critical discourse on their respective topics, and also use these as a foundation for their own engagement with these topics. 172 6 I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the American Dream in higher secondary ELT <?page no="174"?> To conclude their engagement with I Dissent, learners can reflect on Ruth Bader Ginsburg as an icon or a hero again and thus close the circle to the pre-reading phase. Here it is important to also welcome potential disapproving voices, for example of learners who view the idolization of RBG as a role model critically (see RBG’s cult status as a thematic focus in the box below). In addition to being used as a reference for teaching, the model for education for democracy (Fig. 1) can also be shared with learners to reflect on how each of the elements in the model were relevant during their engagement with the book. This involves affective aspects, such as becoming aware of one’s own values in the process of working with the book, cognitive aspects during the analysis and the background research, and participatory aspects during the final productive work with the book and in subsequent discussions. Also, a meta-reflection on whether discussions were mostly free from distorted discourse will do the focus on I Dissent justice. The following box provides two sample topics for learners to focus on in greater depth in the post-reading phase. Sample topics for exploratory work during the post-reading phase Topic 1: “Woman has always been dependent upon man.” Openings: 3, 4, 9, 11, 12 Reference: Tradition → e.g. Genesis (bible) Potential types of distorted discourse: ideological disagreement, e.g., male justices see counterproof in women like RBG but stick to the ideology; defensive consensus, e.g., when everyone believes that girls should find hus‐ bands, be prepared for this role also at school, and take on the domestic role. Sources & subtopics to look at: Many openings in I Dissent focus on this topic. A slightly longer account of these aspects can be found in the introduction to Bader Ginsburg (2016). The text in Genesis can be used as a reference (Eve as Adam’s helper). Additional research on individual aspects can follow, such as schooling for boys and girls in the US (1940 and now). Topic 2: RBG’s cult status Openings: 18 (& allusions in openings 15, 16 & 17) Reference: The way RBG was adored by many like a rock star or a goddess, as it is illustrated, e.g., by numerous merchandizing products. Potential types of distorted discourse: 6.5 I Dissent in ELT 173 <?page no="175"?> None - or maybe dogmatic consensus? Sources & subtopics to look at: It is worth asking how public a Supreme Court justice should be and whether there is a danger of idolizing individual persons too much. Footage on her legacy (e.g. Lepore 2020) could be researched for signs of dogmatic consensus or regressive dissent. Conclusion This contribution has argued that the picturebook I Dissent about the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg can be used with learners in ELT at higher secondary level to inspire reflections on social justice, democracy, and power relations within a democratic society in general, and specifically in the context of the American Dream. Reflections on the book aim at contributing to the goal of education for democracy by engaging learners on the affective, participatory, and cognitive level. The cognitive dimension is supported by the analyses of distorted discourse (Miller 2006) and the visual and multimodal design (Kress/ van Leeuwen 2021) in the picturebook. Affective elements play a role in this approach all the way through, for example, via the personal touch of the story, or learners discussing and reflecting on values, and establishing a personal relationship to RBG. Participatory elements are explored on a meta-level in relation to RBG being a role model for participation in society. They also come into play through discourse practices in class, which include discussions, reflections, and creative argumentative products. The picturebook I Dissent includes many elements that are specific to the history of the USA and to Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a representation of a specific version of the American Dream that is geared towards social justice (Churchwell 2018). At the same time, the work on the book opens up the possibility to discuss a multitude of aspects that can inspire reflections on the learners’ own contexts and histories, such as perceived injustices, or learners’ local (or global) involvement in democratic processes. Thus, the artistically crafted visuals in I Dissent, and the intricately interwoven text-image interplay do not only serve as a rich source for developing multiliteracies, but also for fostering discussions on vital topics, such as gender equality and social justice in general. In this respect, I Dissent has a clear message also for secondary English learners: they should make their voice heard, whenever they encounter injustice. 174 6 I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the American Dream in higher secondary ELT <?page no="176"?> List of References Primary Literature Levy, Debbie/ Baddeley, Elizabeth (2016). I Dissent. Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark. Simon & Schuster Books. Secondary Literature ABC (2020). Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her own words. ABC News. URL: https: / / www.youtube.co m/ watch? v=KJyfz71f_1c Bader Ginsburg, Ruth (2016). My own words. Simon & Schuster. Cameron, Lynne (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge University Press. Cazden, Courtney/ Cope, Bill/ Fairclough, Norman/ Gee, Jim et al. (1996). A Pedagogy of Multili‐ teracies: Designing Social Futures. Harvard Educational Review 66, 60-92. CCE/ Center of Civic Education (1991). CIVITAS. A Framework for Civic Education. CCE. Churchwell, Sarah (2019). Behold America. Basic Books. Cormon, Irene/ Knizhnik, Shana (2015). Notorious RBG. The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Harper Collins. Council of Europe (2020). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment; Companion Volume with New Descriptors Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Retrieved from: https: / / rm.coe.int/ cefr-companion-volume-with-new-descriptors-2 018/ 1680787989. Council of Europe (2018a). Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture -Volume 1: Context. URL: https: / / rm.coe.int/ background-to-the-framework-reference-fram ework-of-competences-for-dem/ 1680994101. Council of Europe (2018b). Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture - Volume 1: Model. URL: https: / / rm.coe.int/ a-model-of-the-competences-required-for-democr atic-culture-and-intercu/ 16809940c3. Forchtner, Bernhard/ Schneickert, Christian (2016). Collective learning in social fields: Bourdieu, Habermas and critical discourse studies. Discourse & Society 2016 27 (3), 293-307. Gerlach, David (2020). Einführung in die kritische Fremdsprachendidaktik. In Gerlach, David (ed.). Kritische Fremdsprachendidaktik: Grundlagen, Ziele, Beispiele. Narr Francke Attempto, 7-31. Hallet, Wolfgang (2016). Genres im fremdsprachlichen und bilingualen Unterricht. Formen und Muster der sprachlichen Interaktion. Stuttgart: Klett. Heim, Katja (2022). Designing Hybrid Learning Spaces Together: The Potential of Cooperative Projects for Language Teacher Education. Anglistik 33 (1), 185-201. Himmelmann, Gerhard (2005). Was ist Demokratiekompetenz? Ein Vergleich von Kompetenz‐ modellen unter Berücksichtigung internationaler Ansätze. Berlin: BLK. Kress, Gunther/ van Leeuwen, Theo (2021). Reading Images. The Grammar of Visual Design. Third Edition. Routledge. List of References 175 <?page no="177"?> Kultusministerkonferenz (2012). Bildungsstandards für die fortgeführte Fremdsprache (Eng‐ lisch/ Französisch) für die Allgemeine Hochschulreife. URL: https: / / www.kmk.org/ fileadm in/ Dateien/ veroeffentlichungen_beschluesse/ 2012/ 2012_10_18-Bildungsstandards-Fortgef-F S-Abi.pdf. Lepore, Jill (2020). Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Great Equalizer. The New Yorker. URL: https: / / www.newyorker.com/ news/ postscript/ ruth-bader-ginsburg-supreme-court-the-great-equali zer-obituary. McCloud, Scott (1993). Understanding Comics. The Invisible Art. Harper Collins. Ministerium für Schule und Bildung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen. abitur.nrw. Zentralabitur Englisch 2024. URL: https: / / www.standardsicherung.schulministerium.nrw.de/ cms/ zentrala bitur-gost/ faecher/ getfile.php? file=5536. Miller, Max (2006). Dissens. Zur Theorie diskursiven und systemischen Lernens. transcript. National Archives (2022). The Constitution of the United States. URL: https: / / www.archives.go v/ founding-docs/ constitution. Nikolajeva, Maria/ Scott, Carole (2001). How Picturebooks Work. Garland. PBS (2020, 25.09.). Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Her Legacy & The Court’s Future. [Video] Youtube: https: / / www.youtube.com/ watch? v=S3JfOCNIv9o. Painter, Clare/ Martin J.R./ Unsworth, Len (2013). Reading Visual Narratives. Image Analysis of Children’s Picture Books. Equinox. Plikat, Jochen (2017). Fremdsprachliche Diskursbewusstheit als Zielkonstrukt des Fremdspra‐ chenunterrichts. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der Interkulturellen Kompetenz. Peter Lang. Wall, Barbara (1991). The Narrator’s Voice: The Dilemma of Children’s Literature. Macmillan. List of illustrations Fig. 1: Aspects of education for democracy (adapted from Himmelmann, 2005; COE, 2018; CCE, 1991) 176 6 I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the American Dream in higher secondary ELT <?page no="178"?> 7 Picturebooks matter: Developing citizenship education in the EFL classroom with teenage learners Helena Lopes Abstract Using The Hueys in The New Jumper by Oliver Jeffers (2012) as an example, this chapter offers a practice-oriented perspective regarding the use of picturebooks with teenagers that promote citizenship education, thus going beyond the specificity of foreign language acquisition and development alone. It aims to present picturebooks as valuable resources to explore citizenship issues in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom, taking into consideration not only the context of teaching EFL to teenage learners in the Portuguese education system (lower secondary and upper secondary), but also the inclusion of citizenship education in schools. Picturebooks are unexpected reading materials in the teenage language classroom and reading them provides teenage learners with opportunities for talking about and sharing ideas critically. Picturebooks help them go beyond the story and the issues presented, reflecting upon their world and its representations, thus developing critical thinking skills and fostering social and emotional learning. They can understand their role as dynamic agents in the process of learning and become more aware of their responsibility to others. Warm-up: Engagement questions ▸ What do you know about the concept of citizenship education? ▸ How could citizenship education be integrated in the foreign language classroom? ▸ What is the potential of picturebooks to promote the discussion of citizenship issues? ▸ In what way could using picturebooks with teenage learners matter? Introduction This chapter aims to reflect on the use of picturebooks to explore citizenship issues, underlining their relevance as resources in the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language (EFL). The chapter addresses their use with teenage EFL learners at the lower secondary and upper secondary level, focusing on how such an approach may increase not only the students’ level of engagement but also their critical thinking skills whilst promoting the discussion of global issues within citizenship education. <?page no="179"?> Firstly, the chapter explores concepts such as ‘citizenship’ and ‘citizenship educa‐ tion,’ emphasising the role citizenship education plays in the school curriculum and in the foreign language classroom. This is particularly the case when developing attitudes and values in practices that focus on the education of language learners as responsible and critical citizens. Secondly, picturebooks are highlighted as a form of literature that might encourage teenage language learners to actively engage with tasks that prompt citizenship discussion, therefore making them an effective choice for reading in class. The discussion that takes place by means of using picturebooks may contribute to raising awareness and developing understandings and attitudes related to global citizenship, leading to fostering common values. Thirdly, an example from research in EFL teaching and learning within the context of the Portuguese education system affords some insight into the matter of picturebooks and their potential use with teenagers to address citizenship issues. The chapter concludes with a reflection based on the concrete research example provided. Even though it was taken from a very specific national context, the conclu‐ sion will show how its approach is indeed reproducible in different settings, making it relevant also for other contexts. 7.1 Citizenship education in the Portuguese school curriculum Before addressing the subject of citizenship education, it is important to clarify the concepts of ‘citizenship’ and ‘democratic citizenship’ on which it is based. According to the UNESCO, the concept of citizenship is not established by any international law: “It refers more to a sense of belonging to the global community and a common sense of humanity, with its presumed members experiencing solidarity and collective identity among themselves and collective responsibility at the global level” (2017: 2). ‘Democratic citizenship,’ in addition, entails the principles and common values of living in a democracy. Throughout this chapter, and within Portugal’s educational context, the concept of ‘citizenship education’ refers to ‘democratic citizenship education,’ including awareness raising, practices and activities to empower people (Council of Europe 2010: 7). This interpretation opens up the debate towards the curriculum and how teachers can contribute to developing this sense of belonging to a wider community, promoting solidarity and the involvement of students, thus addressing Goal 4 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Within that goal, target 4.7 highlights the knowledge and skills that all learners need to acquire “through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development” (United Nations 2015: 19). This understanding leads schools to changes regarding pedagogical approaches that also 178 7 Picturebooks matter: Developing citizenship education in the EFL classroom with teenage learners <?page no="180"?> 1 The 2030 agenda recognises the transformative power of education and offers a step forward towards education as “a global common good” (UNESCO 2015b). In the European context, the determination to work on citizenship education as well became known as the Paris Declaration (European Union 2015), having at the basis the Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education (CEDCHRE), also referred to as the “Charter.” Indeed, the Charter emphasises the need to develop teaching and learning practices that sustain the four pillars of learning, to know, to do, to live together and to be, with a special interest in the third one, learning to live together (Council of Europe 2010). include global citizenship education (GCE), an imperative to be attained by 2030 (UNESCO 2014b: 26). 1 UNESCO’s pedagogical guidance on GCE introduces three core conceptual dimen‐ sions: cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioural. The cognitive dimension deals with the acquisition of “knowledge, understanding and critical thinking about global, regional, national and local issues and the interconnectedness and interdependency of different countries and populations.” The socio-emotional dimension refers to the “sense of belonging to a common humanity, sharing values and responsibilities, empathy, solidarity and respect for differences and diversity,” while the third and last dimension prioritises action, that is, acting “effectively and responsibly at local, national and global levels for a more peaceful and sustainable world” (2015a: 15). Developing these in the school curriculum should be part of the effort to reach quality education, which, according to the UNESCO, aims at “enabl[ing] citizens to lead healthy and fulfilled lives, make informed decisions, and respond to local and global challenges through education for sustainable development (ESD) and global citizenship education (GCED)” (2016: 8). In order to make this happen, it is crucial for people to learn how to practice “respect,” a concept described as a key attitude towards others to start a successful intercultural dialogue (Council of Europe 2018b: 24). GCE encourages learners “to analyse real-life issues critically and to identify possible solutions creatively and innovatively,” as well as “to revisit assumptions, world views and power relations in mainstream discourses and consider people/ groups that are systematically underrepresented/ marginalised” (UNESCO 2014a: 16). For students to achieve this, Portuguese teachers are encouraged to take on a new role and critically reconsider the curriculum on what and how they teach regarding the objectives of citizenship education. They should provide learners with opportunities to develop attitudes and values that meet the principles that help build and maintain a democratic society. The classroom becomes the privileged space where learners exercise that democracy and learn about themselves and others by debating and discussing ideas, and sharing their thoughts and points of view. The teaching and learning practices of GCE, which are mostly learner-centred, can make schools and classrooms more respectful, inclusive and interactive, with student voices being heard (UNESCO 2014a: 25). They support autonomy and collaboration, which are also the focus of the picturebook-based teaching project described later in this chapter. 7.1 Citizenship education in the Portuguese school curriculum 179 <?page no="181"?> 2 The EFL Essential Learning is based on the CEFR, a central reference document in EFL, which also highlights the role of the foreign language teacher in developing classroom contexts for fostering citizenship. Hence, much of the responsibility of the inclusion of citizenship education in the classroom is handed over to teachers (Council of Europe 2001: 1). It is important to notice that the new Companion Volume reinforces it as essential in the promotion of democratic citizenship, social cohesion and intercultural dialogue (Council of Europe 2018a). These goals infused the Portuguese education system with new ambitions regarding the incorporation of GCE in the curriculum and in classroom practice. Many changes have taken place for at least ten years. In 2017, the Portuguese Ministry of Education devised a National Strategy for Citizenship Education (XXI Governo Constitucional 2017), giving guidance to schools, and drew up a profile of what a learner should ideally have achieved after completing twelve years of compulsory schooling (Martins et al. 2017: 7). In line with the concepts outlined above, values and attitudes are described as attainable goals within the curriculum and schools are called out to occupy the public space as key agents in the development of (global) citizenship education. They should contribute to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that empower learners to be creative and responsible global citizens, in a quest to promote dialogue and peace. 7.2 Citizenship education in the EFL classroom The context of teaching and learning EFL in lower secondary education in Portugal can be seen as an example of the attempts to introduce a humanistic approach in the language learning environment, including practices of citizenship education. The EFL syllabus for the third cycle of the basic education system (year 7 to year 9, typically 12-to-14-year-olds), dating back to the 90s, was surpassed by new reference documents, such as the Curricular Standards, first implemented in 2013, and the most recent Essential Learning, implemented in 2018. In the introduction of the EFL Essential Learning 2 , now the only reference document in EFL teaching, it is clearly stated that learning a foreign language should also translate into the building of an identity as a global citizen in relation to others, based on attitudes and values such as respect for other people and for other cultures in the world, responsibility and cooperation between individuals and peoples (Ministério da Educaç-o 2018: 2). This demands a high level of commitment from teachers in the choices to be made regarding classroom work, but at the same time gives them the opportunity to decide for the most advantageous approach to develop activities that promote citizenship education. The activity of language teaching, according to Byram, has a social and a political dimension (2008: 3), which means that language teachers often have to reflect upon whether those decisions promote the social and political intent of (global) citizenship education. Indeed, the teacher has to become the transformative agent needed to promote and operationalise citizenship principles, according to the cultural context in which the learning process takes place (table 1 180 7 Picturebooks matter: Developing citizenship education in the EFL classroom with teenage learners <?page no="182"?> 3 The concept of “hard to reach” has been difficult to define because of its multiple interpretations and the many different groups this “umbrella term” has been applied to (Kakos & Ploner 2016: 35). Ross also refers to the multiplicity of groups described as hard to reach, stating that that description is based on perception criteria, since they are not hard to reach per se, but perceived as being difficult to make contact with by some and in particular contexts (Ross 2016: 264). Schools are spaces where one tries to reach such learners and so reduce the gap between them and others by creating equal opportunities for their interaction. 4 This includes the existential competence that teachers should also address, and which incorporates the development of attitudes, as well. (Council of Europe 2001: 12) lists some practical examples on how it could be done). One possible approach to put GCE into practice can be designed around picturebooks. As this chapter exemplifies, well-selected picturebooks transmit content through an intricate interplay of verbal and visual text which makes questions of democratic citizenship approachable, yet nevertheless highly complex. Engaging learners in critically debating their knowledge of their own world and that of others is one way of bringing together citizenship and foreign language education. This is particularly relevant in contexts where we may find learners often described as hard to reach. 3 This status can be grounded in the socially or economically disadvantaged communities they live in, the spaces (of exclusion) where they are positioned, or their profile as learners who have been failing, making them more vulnerable and disconnected. As Ross (2016: 259) states, this ‘hard to reach’ profile of learners, among others, often includes their difficulty to communicate with others. For teachers, though, it also includes a poor academic achievement, which is quite often related to the learners’ disadvantaged backgrounds. This characterisation makes it all the more urgent to ensure that these learners develop competences 4 and skills required to fully exercise citizenship according to democratic principles. In order to meet such needs, also in line with the goals of GCE, the language classroom should be seen as a small community of learning in which learners become culturally aware and develop citizenship and language skills through interaction. According to Kakos and Ploner (2016: 37, 44), in citizenship education practice, interacting is an element that may bring about change and facilitate mobility, inclusion and connectedness. Connecting through classroom interaction is equally the focus of many EFL learning activities, including group interaction and discussions. Both these features of the “modern paradigm” of language teaching and learning (cf. Trim 2012: 16f.) are well-suited to address citizenship education, fostering in learners a feeling of belonging to a wider and global community where action towards the common good is promoted by individuals. To address citizenship education in EFL, teaching methodologies require dynamic strategies that engage all learners in their assigned tasks. There, beliefs, attitudes and values are the objects of reflection and analysis, which also favour group interaction and promote cooperation. Some of the teaching and learning aspects that may be considered in citizenship education in the EFL classroom - and that also framed the picturebook project described below - can be summarised as follows (cf. UNESCO, 2018): 7.2 Citizenship education in the EFL classroom 181 <?page no="183"?> Examples of strategies, approaches and activities for citizenship education in the EFL classroom (Lopes 2020, based on UNESCO 2018) Learning environment to promote citizenship education • Seating arrangements that promote participation and collaborative work • Use of space favourable to group interaction and pair work Teaching strategies for citizenship education • Draw on resources that promote critical thinking and values clarification and analysis (resources that offer multiple perspectives or interpretations) • Offer opportunities for reflection and sharing • Offer opportunities for conversation and debate • Facilitate peer solidarity and responsibility • Provide space for creativity and initiative Pedagogical approaches suitable for citizenship in the EFL classroom • Flipped classroom • Literary artwork/ storytelling/ learning through narratives • Questioning/ discussing/ debating • Project-based learning (within a multidisciplinary approach) Learning activities to achieve citizenship learning objectives (through critical discussions and interaction) • Reading an article • Watching a video or a film • Reading a story • Brainstorming (coming up with words and ideas around key issues) • Issue analysis (answering questions, analysis of images, identifying points of view) • Comparing situations (identifying both differences and similarities) • Individual and group reflection • Group discussion (agreeing and disagreeing; explaining points of view; taking a position) • Creating podcasts, blogs, eBooks or other digital products using ICT resour‐ ces • Answering/ writing an email • Answering questionnaires 182 7 Picturebooks matter: Developing citizenship education in the EFL classroom with teenage learners <?page no="184"?> • Writing comments or messages • Writing a story • Describing a situation/ experience • Creating posters • Drama activities or simulation games • Drawing or other artistic activities • Delivering TED-like talks/ presentations • Project research (multidisciplinary activities) In evaluating the diverse teaching and learning strategies, approaches and activities in the table above, using literary artwork stands out as a pedagogical approach suitable for citizenship education in the EFL classroom, and it can ideally include picturebooks, too. These are resources that provide meaningful content in their combination of narrative verbal text and images, which in turn can also have a narrative function. They have the potential to promote discourse, critical thinking and creativity, all of which are crucial in citizenship education. Not often used with teenagers, picturebooks also imply students’ active engagement in reading about and discussing ideas and topics relevant in the EFL classroom. Also, in the particular case of hard to reach learners, picturebooks become “valuable mediators” in promoting the integration of citizenship education into the practices of EFL teaching and learning (Matos and Lopes 2016: 100), a feature that will be highlighted later in the chapter. 7.3 Reading picturebooks for citizenship education in EFL Picturebooks, as literary artwork, can be the basis for citizenship education involving action-oriented tasks and enabling an interdisciplinary approach in English language teaching (ELT). Literature, according to Matos, provides self-awareness and awareness of our inner world and of the world around us (Matos 2012: 57). Picturebooks also have the potential to allow learners as readers to relate with and react to the worlds depicted, engaging them in critique and helping them become part of an “interpretative community” (Wallace 2003: 5) within their own language classroom and beyond. Reading picturebooks for citizenship helps to create a community of critical readers, regardless of their language proficiency levels. The purpose of reading is not only language acquisition (though it also occurs), but rather encouraging constructive criticism and debate in engaging with the complex text. Through the discussion of stories, meanings are expanded and co-constructed, and they may therefore contribute to personal and social growth, one of the aims of citizenship education. Picturebooks can facilitate the engagement of pre-intermediate and intermediate teenage learners and provide for opportunities to establish connections between fiction and their reference world, leading them to meaningful discussions. In choosing picturebooks for these learners, it is important to address content that favours those 7.3 Reading picturebooks for citizenship education in EFL 183 <?page no="185"?> discussions. Features such as gaps or indeterminacy, intertextuality and allusions to the world, which Bland assigns to “[w]ell-crafted children's literature” in general (2015: 8), can be stimulating for adolescents, in that these can promote their creativity and criticality. The gaps in the stories have to be filled creatively, and indeterminacy requires interpretation and discussion. The multimodal design of picturebooks - the interaction of verbal and visual text - favours both. The stories in picturebooks are anything but inferior to other literary texts and should not be belittled in ELT. Even though they are often looked at from the perspective of children’s literature, they are not restricted to that category. In fact, they have a lot in common with other types of fiction. According to Nikolajeva, this form of literature can equally engage readers emotionally and have a strong impact on them (Nikolajeva 2005: xvii). Readers, and learners-as-readers, may establish strong connections between what they read and what they live as their own realities. Indeed, such connections can then be explored through the use of picturebooks in educational settings - an option not generally considered for teenage learners, but that the research example provided in this chapter will shed light on. Picturebooks are a heterogeneous form of literature (Lewis 2005: 27) most often used with children for pleasure, literacy development and language acquisition. Nonetheless, as the author-illustrator Shaun Tan states: There is no reason why a 32-page illustrated story can’t have equal appeal for teenagers or adults as they do for children. After all, other visual media such as film, television, painting or sculpture do not suffer from narrow preconceptions of audience. Why should picture books? (Tan 2002) Indeed, adolescents are often not included in the implied audience of picturebooks. However, they may enjoy them, being in the position of children who read, yet able to understand, discuss and analyse as young adults. Reading picturebooks with teenage learners may contribute to challenge those preconceptions that Tan mentions and that may limit or force to hide reading pleasure. Nodelman and Reimer state that the pleasure of children’s literature, for both children and adults, “comes from dialogue: from thinking about it, talking about it, and even arguing about it with others” (2003: x). This statement further highlights that the literary experience depends much on what readers take from their own lives and bring into the book in order to build meaning. While reading, adolescents’ experiences may already help them develop some understandings similar to the adult co-reader, therefore being considered as part of the “dual audience” that Nikolajeva and Scott refer to (2006: 21). Consequently, with a view on the classroom, picturebooks in secondary ELT matter because they give teenage learners the opportunity to question the existing order and the cultural, social, and ideological values they see attached to them and that ultimately shape them. As Nodelman states, how “the intended audience of picture books is by definition inexperienced - in need of learning how to think about their world, how to see and understand themselves and others” (2005: 131) is also significant. Picturebooks 184 7 Picturebooks matter: Developing citizenship education in the EFL classroom with teenage learners <?page no="186"?> may favour the development of this awareness, that is, of an understanding of the values, attitudes, and assumptions in each society. This is also an issue raised by Nikolajeva, who shares the same views regarding picturebooks and their “potential for subversion of adult power and interrogation of the existing order” (2010: 169). Behind each picturebook lies a system of ideas-and-principles that can be identified. As Alter observes, “[children’s books] have become central media of transmitting certain social norms and political values that the surrounding society, especially the educational and publishing sector, deem positive and worth implementing” (2016: 19). Thus, reading and deconstructing these stories can be rather significant in the EFL classroom, too. As pedagogical resources, picturebooks have both literary and educational value. Hunt, for example, claims that all children’s books are educational and didactic ( 2009: 3). Nodelman also points out the “didactic agenda” of picturebooks ( 2008: 158) and that same didactic intent is acknowledged by Nikolajeva, who not only addresses it as part of the “literary-didactic split” in children’s literature ( 2010: 4) but also highlights it when referring to the conventional categorisation of children’s literature as “bildungsroman” (Nikolajeva 2003: xi-x). The recognition of this educational or didactic dimension, beyond the literary value of children’s literature, is of great interest in classroom practice, since it allows teachers to explore different discourses. As Sarland states, “[d]iscourse on children’s fiction sits at the crossroads of a number of other discourses” (2005: 30). In reading and discussing picturebooks, the didactic or educational discourse merges with the literary, the cultural, and the discourse of citizenship education, which is also the focus of this chapter. In secondary education, teachers can invite students to explore literary text on an analytical level they can master and comprehend. While abstract literary concepts may not always be beneficial here, language learners should be able to reflect on and discuss their reading experiences. This way, they become a community of readers that “disentangles the literary text during booktalk,” as Bland suggests (2015: 12). Dialogue and conversation in a classroom, through which learners give their opinion and feedback on the text, encourage “a consciousness of response” (Nodelman/ Reimer 2003: 43-44). Learners interact with the text, for example by questioning it, or declaring to have something in common with it. This interaction should lead them to be aware of their own beliefs, which is needed in order to raise social awareness. Learners have the opportunity to talk about what they read, exchanging or developing interpretations, focusing on both the self and the other, that is, on identity matters (Lütge 2014: 104), one of the concepts of citizenship education. To further support the value of picturebooks in secondary EFL contexts, it is also important to underline the relevance of visuals in engaging learners to take part in classroom interaction. Visual text or artwork may be enjoyable and appealing to all learners, and even if the written text is sometimes limited to a few sentences, it is often rich in meaning. The combination of the written with the visual text may actually function as a powerful challenge for teenage learners who might be less willing to 7.3 Reading picturebooks for citizenship education in EFL 185 <?page no="187"?> engage in reading activities, stimulating their imagination and prompting them to speak and share, using the foreign language while doing so. In this regard, Burwitz-Melzer underlines that texts such as picturebooks and graphic novels are a good choice for learners who are “easily daunted by literary challenges like longer written texts” (Burwitz-Melzer 2014: 57-58), as is often the case for hard to reach learners. Pictures support an understanding of the story, as well as help learners to talk and share experiences (Bromley 2016: 66). Some learners may support their interpretation by the visual aspect that they encounter, and other learners, with an equally valid reading, may question it. The interaction between words and pictures, which Nodelman calls “intersecting relationships” as well as “combating relationship” (1988: 20; 221) is fundamental in their building of interpretations. This relationship is visible even in the paratextual elements, such as the front cover, the back cover or the endpapers (Nikolajeva and Scott 2006: 17), which often add details to the narrative. It is important to consider all the details of the object “picturebook,” which Mour-o labels “picturebook anatomy” (2014: 82), including the type of illustrations that might be most appealing to teenagers and that might be able to catch their attention, since some illustrations might be considered childish by teenagers, therefore leading them to reject the book. When choosing picturebooks for citizenship education in the EFL classroom, both verbal text and visual artwork are significant, but the potential for classroom discussion is equally important. Teachers should consider not only the literary quality of the text (verbal as well as visual) but also its sociocultural content (related to citizenship issues) and possibilities of booktalk in the classroom. Some general quality criteria for picturebooks on citizenship education might be summarised as follows: General criteria for selecting picturebooks suitable to foster citizenship education in the teenage EFL classroom • book design • themes focused on citizenship (e.g., respect or identity) • personal stories • presence of ambiguity, gaps or indeterminacy • promotion of learners’ (creative) responses Many interesting picturebooks such as Eric (2010) by Shaun Tan or Bob the Artist (2016) by Marion Deuchars focus on individual protagonists and how they fit into their social groups. These protagonists often represent young people, quite often small or fragile but heroic. They show vulnerability, but also their creativity, resourcefulness and resilience (Bland 2015: 128). Characters who are able to overcome obstacles and difficulties are appealing to teenage learners, as Bland emphasises (2015: 213). 186 7 Picturebooks matter: Developing citizenship education in the EFL classroom with teenage learners <?page no="188"?> Picturebooks, thus, offer learners the possibility of temporarily inhabiting a different world with the prospect of constructive resolutions and the opportunity to work on change. Concerning citizenship themes, picturebooks can be explored through personal stories, by talking about the protagonists’ attitudes or moral dilemmas, for example, and by discussing the ambiguity or the gaps in the story. Through discussing protagonists and situations, readers may express themselves and use their imagination to represent emotions, events, characters, and experiences (Maley 2014: 162). According to Morgado, “[t]he choice of a story or of the way we tell it represents a worldview” (2019: 164). Reading about their worldview and that of others, discussing how people interconnect and deal with problems, as well as expressing their worldviews and sharing them with others, is the purpose of using picturebooks in the EFL classroom, as shown next. 7.4 Picturebook matters: An example from classroom research with teenage EFL learners There is no set framework for exploring citizenship education in the EFL classroom through the use of picturebooks yet. Such a framework would have to consider an overall approach using concepts and practices from different fields, including visual literacy, foreign language education or citizenship education among others as suggested by Arizpe and Styles (2016: 181). Additionally, it would have to incorporate the concept and domains of UNESCO’s GCE, as mentioned above. To illustrate this, in a research project carried out within the field of foreign language didactics, picturebooks were used as resources to lead students in lower secondary education to reflect on and discuss citizenship issues. The project was implemented in the academic year of 2016-2017 and it was part of a research study with an interdisciplinary approach involving foreign language education and citizenship education through reading and discussing picturebooks. The data that were collected consist of written classroom contributions and homework that resulted from the learner-participants’ interpretation of the stories, namely book readings and booktalk (adapted from Chambers 2011). To provide detailed insights into these data, a qualitative research methodology was selected because this allows to best present, interpret and discuss the data. This approach favoured the critical analysis of the learners’ responses, enabling an understanding of how citizenship can be explored in the EFL classroom with a positive effect on the learning process. The research project involved a class of twelve teenagers (14and 15-year-olds) attending year 9 in a Portuguese state school. It was a mixed-ability class with different proficiency levels in English, ranging from basic user (A1) to independent user (B1), according to the CEFR Global Scale, and some students could be described as hard to reach. Two research questions became the frame of the study: How can picturebooks be used successfully with young teenagers? How do they react to them? The outcome of book 7.4 Picturebook matters: An example from classroom research with teenage EFL learners 187 <?page no="189"?> readings and booktalk provided valuable insights into the potential of picturebooks as authentic resources to address citizenship in the EFL classroom. The study focused on the socio-emotional domain of learning of GCE, dealing with GCE’s topics 4, 5, and 6 (UNESCO 2015a: 29), as described in Table 1. Considering the average age of the participants, the subsequent learning objectives for the lower secondary (12-15 years) were followed (see Tab. 1): Topics Learning objectives Lower secondary (12-15 years) Topic 4: Different levels of identity Distinguish between personal and collective identity and various social groups, and cultivate a sense of belonging to a common humanity Topic 5: Different communities peo‐ ple belong to and how these are connected Demonstrate appreciation and respect for difference and diversity, cultivate empathy and solidarity towards other individuals and social groups Topic 6: Difference and respect for diversity Debate on the benefits and challenges of difference and diversity Tab. 1: GCE’s learning objectives regarding topics 4-6 for the lower secondary level (UNESCO 2015a: 31) Three picturebooks were read in class: Eric by Shaun Tan (2010), The Hueys in The New Jumper by Oliver Jeffers (2012), which will be presented in greater depth below, and Willy the Wimp by Anthony Browne (a 30th anniversary edition from 2014). These texts were selected based on more specific criteria, regarding the author, a writer-illustrator from an English-speaking country, the story, addressing citizenship issues such as identity, empathy, diversity, respect and bullying, the artwork, the language and other overall observations, as can be seen in the next table (Tab. 2): Criteria for picturebook selection (based on the context of EFL education in Portuguese schools) Author • both writer and illustrator • from an English-speaking country Story • originals in English • very short • encourage discussion of citizenship issues Illustrations/ artwork • appealing to all audiences as artwork • no implicit bias on race, ethnicity, gender or other Language • appropriate for an EFL mixed-ability class Overall observation • there is a distinct sense of humour or peculiarity • teacher’s favourite picturebooks Tab. 2: Criteria for picturebook selection (Lopes 2020) 188 7 Picturebooks matter: Developing citizenship education in the EFL classroom with teenage learners <?page no="190"?> For each picturebook, a range of activities were developed, including in-class reading, working in small groups, whole class discussions, follow-up writing activities and answering questionnaires. There were five phases in each 90-minute lesson. Table 3 shows a template that was later completed for each lesson in which a picturebook was read: Lesson outline Learning aims Citizenship issues Focus questions Lesson phases / time Warm-up (15 minutes) Reading (15-30 minutes) Talk/ discussion (30 minutes) A short feedback questionnaire (15-20 minutes) Follow-up activities (extra-classroom activity) Activities Activity 1: warm-up Activity 2: exploring the story Activity 3: interpreting the story and sharing Activity 4: giving feedback Activity 5: follow-up Class Learning environment Resources ICT tools Tab. 3: Overview of the structure of the lesson outline (Lopes 2020) 7.5 The Hueys in The New Jumper To illustrate how picturebooks matter in the EFL classroom, this chapter presents some data referring to the second picturebook read by the learners: The Hueys in The New Jumper (hereafter referred to as The New Jumper), written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers (2012). There were two learning aims associated with GCE: to think critically about individuality and living in a community, and to consider issues such as self-expression, self-image, respect for each other, discrimination, friendship, and creativity. The classroom activities were based on four focus questions: How do we express ourselves? How do we perceive our community members? How do we show respect? How do people discriminate against each other? The New Jumper is the story of the Hueys, their world and how it was changed by one of them, Rupert. At the beginning of the story, the Hueys function as a collective identity in a society which limits people’s individuality. They are all the same, thinking 7.5 The Hueys in The New Jumper 189 <?page no="191"?> 5 The students’ original writing with a few spelling and punctuation mistakes is kept. The students’ names are replaced with letters due to data protection. and doing the same things. They do not have names and individual personality traits are not made explicit. As readers, we like them as a group and we describe them as a group. Even so, our perception of the Hueys’ community life changes when one of them, Rupert, is introduced to the readers as being different. Before anything else, he has a name and an attitude. He decides to knit a new orange jumper for himself, proudly wearing it everywhere he goes, causing a chain of different reactions, changing the lives of the whole group (see Fig. 1). Fig. 1: From The Hueys in The New Jumper, written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. Before reading the story, the students were shown the first images of the Hueys in the book. They were asked to observe the characters and answer two questions: What do you think about the Hueys? and What do they represent? They were given a few minutes to talk about the images and answer the questions in small mixed-ability groups of three, co-working and taking notes. Table 4 shows their written notes, displayed as the notes of the four groups 5 : 190 7 Picturebooks matter: Developing citizenship education in the EFL classroom with teenage learners <?page no="192"?> Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 They represent the kids. They are small be‐ ings, very funny, they seem to be friendly. Students C, D, L They’re cute and sweet. They look like little potatoes with legs. They are very small. They look amazing ‘people’. They represent per‐ sonality. They represent peo‐ ple walking away. They represent friendships. They represent peo‐ ple from different country. They represent kids. Students A, J, K Probably they are very intellectual stu‐ dents. They have a planet from other dimen‐ sion. They can be: E.T., po‐ tatoes, mouse. They are very friendly and they represent little ‘com‐ puter mouse’, mouse; group of E.T., group of friends. Students B, H, M We think they are all brothers. They look like eggs, we think they are all running away. Students E, F, G Tab. 4: Students’ guesses on who the Hueys are (Lopes 2020) The answers were discussed in the whole class. When identifying the Hueys as kids or people, the students humanised the characters, immediately anticipating interpretation possibilities. They collected ideas that were to be explored later on, such as friendship or personality traits. At the same time, they anticipated conflict between two parties in the story. When they refer to “people walking away,” “people from a different country,” “a planet from other dimension” or “they are all running away,” they point to the existence of two sides of the story. Their answers raised other questions, though, such as What are they walking/ running away from? What is their country like? which, nevertheless, had yet to be answered. Students also tried to identify the inspiration for the shape of the characters (potatoes, mice or eggs), that is, the elements that might have inspired the author’s creativity. They essentially recognise the drawings as figurative art, which they found attractive, “cute,” and “sweet,” as they describe it. After exploring the cover and title pages, each group was given a copy of the picturebook to follow the story during the read aloud by the teacher. After that, they reread the story in small groups to discuss two topics in preparation of the whole-class booktalk. The topics referred to the characters’ attitudes: (1) The Hueys’ attitude towards Rupert and his new jumper and (2) the attitude of Gillespie, a friend, towards Rupert and his new jumper. The learners identified traces of discrimination in the 7.5 The Hueys in The New Jumper 191 <?page no="193"?> story and translated other issues portrayed in Jeffers’ drawings, such as creativity, respect for each other, friendship and self-expression. Their answers recognise how the Hueys transform their behaviour from rejecting Rupert’s creativity to admiring it. Their writing products also relate the story to the issue of self-expression. Rupert’s attitude of self-expression, unfolding his creative potential, initially causes a negative reaction from other Hueys because of him being different from them. However, the community soon realizes that expressing your true self against social expectations, that is, being different, can be something desirable and common, since they all start to wear new jumpers. The learners’ group notes included spontaneous illustrations that appear in the picturebook. Some learners found it either easier or more interesting to respond visually. They were motivated to react creatively themselves. One group even created their own Super Huey, saying ‘Be different.’ Even though they were not asked to draw, the members of this group felt empowered to become illustrators of the message they acknowledged and admired (see Fig. 2). Fig. 2: ‘SuperHuey’ illustrated by students (Lopes 2020) In the book, creativity is seen as a positive changing factor in Gillespie’s life. Rupert’s friend feels good about his new jumper, too, and his attitude has a positive peer effect since wearing a different jumper is no longer that new. This inspires the others’ reaction to changes in the community. What is new becomes common. Creativity becomes a central theme, also visible in Rupert’s hat at the end of the story, so that further facets of diversity emerge (see Fig. 3). As the students notice, “the Hueys can use what they want,” recognizing diversity as a value. 192 7 Picturebooks matter: Developing citizenship education in the EFL classroom with teenage learners <?page no="194"?> Fig. 3: Endpaper from The Hueys in The New Jumper, written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. The notions of being different and diversity emerge from the characters in the story and are acknowledged by the students. Students value individuality as significant and its acknowledgement as life-changing. During the following whole-class debate led by the teacher, students were invited to a booktalk. Questions they discussed included: Why does Rupert knit a new jumper for himself ? How can you describe him? Which adjectives would you use to describe him? Is Rupert excluded from the community? How can you tell? Is he discriminated against? How can you tell? Why do you think they do that? How does Gillespie help? Other questions led them to debate how the story could continue, and to reflect upon the themes of “being different” and “diversity” in their own context: How does the story continue? What will happen then? What makes people different from one another? What makes them the same? What makes you different from your friends, or the same? The discussion allowed students to talk freely about the issues they had mentioned in the small groups. Space was given to compare Rupert and Gillespie’s situation to the students’ own experiences, allowing them to project themselves into the story and relate it to their lives. The result of the booktalk was later visible in the texts they wrote, to which I will further refer. As an additional task, the students completed a questionnaire (Lopes 2020) in which they used their reading impressions and responses. Student E writes that “The meaning of this story is that we are not all the same and that we must respect the differences of each undue [sic] and that we should not judge people by their wardrobe.” This is a clear statement on respect for differences, on acceptance and the need to value those differences. It is interesting to note that one student (D) mentions that “the story reflects on being all different and the differences being a possible point,” indirectly advocating that diversity is a social and political possibility, a goal to achieve instead of a note of discord. The aspect of diversity also relates to learning and individuality, which comes 7.5 The Hueys in The New Jumper 193 <?page no="195"?> across as appealing. As student K puts it, “we can always express ourselfs [sic] through clothes or tastes, we don´t have to be afraid of being the ‘weirdest one’ or something like that, we have the right of express ourselfs [sic] the way we want to.” Self-expression becomes a right in its own, as well as a right to know. In their words, the story in this picturebook is “a good life lesson” (student L), “an easy story to understand and simple that helps teach people that we should accept each other’s differences” (student E). Student D says, “I have friends who do not want to be different and this story could change their thoughts.” This is a strong statement which not only recognises the transformative power of this particular picturebook but also acknowledges the discomfort, unease, awkwardness and lack of confidence some children or teenagers feel if they appear to be different from others, a likely side effect of the peer pressure they experience. Reading a book can, therefore, be influential in their lives, making them reflect upon values and attitudes, one of the purposes of citizenship education at large, and of this classroom project in particular. In a follow-up activity, the students were asked to write a text from the perspective of the main character of the story, Rupert. They should tell a friend: What happened to you in your group (the Hueys)? How has your life changed after that? and How has your group changed after that? The written assignments handed in by the learners show that their level of English and their own struggles with language accuracy did not stop them from expressing themselves and getting involved. The purpose of the assignment was directly related to the development of written production, namely, narrating events in a meaningful and contextualised manner. By putting themselves in the place of the other and expressing their feelings, they also reflected on and developed citizenship awareness. Their texts show that there is recognition of the fact that individuality also constructively influences group behaviour. According to the students, one’s exterior appearance becomes the natural way of expressing personality, and being oneself is a source of happiness and confidence. Students see diversity as desirable within the group, as well as a factor that protects their emotional well-being. Student K and student M also point to the feeling of awkwardness prompted by how others see oneself. Student M, for instance, writes that “they don’t know why i [sic] different”, underlining the lack of understanding that makes people be cruel to others in the way they judge them. Student K introduces the image of the “new zebra without the black lines” to illustrate the strangeness felt in the eyes of the observers. However, K also adds that feeling this awkward was part of growing up and a life-changing event. Indeed, student K’s text brings together all the ideas discussed: 194 7 Picturebooks matter: Developing citizenship education in the EFL classroom with teenage learners <?page no="196"?> My dear friend Eric, this is how everything started… We, Hueys, always did the same things, thought the same things etc. I was done with all of that so I knitted a pretty new jumper. At the begin, no one liked that much as I did, everyone were horrified but I don´t blame them, because in fact, we always looked like each others, so see me with a different appearance it was like see a new zebra without the black lines! However, a very close firend, Gillespie was his name, supported me with this new idea of being different, so he started to be different too. Over time the others Hueys saw us together and they realised I was not that strage anymore. They wanted a new jumper too. Later everyone had a nice jumper. After all of this I grew up, I changed because I started to don´t mind with what the others think about me. I know who I truly am and that is the most important thing. My life became more about me, about what I need and what I want, and not about the others Hueys tates, etc. Honestly, we all have changed after the new jumper episode. We started to being more ourselves and do what we like the most. We don´t need to act the same to fit in society, the truth is that everyone is diferente and we have to accept it. Now we, Hueys, create our personality basied in our tates no matter what the others think about it. Thank you for listenning so carefull, Eric. Student K (Student K’s written assignment on The New Jumper, cf. Lopes 2020) Student K’s text is a fictional email to Eric, the character from Shaun Tan’s picturebook, Eric, which was also used in this project. In this picturebook, Eric becomes a good listener, a good friend, one that understands what has happened, because he knows what it is like to be different or be observed in a strange way. Thus, this student dem‐ onstrates an ability to draw intertextual references. K’s text also shows an awareness of citizenship issues, such as the value of diversity and otherness, highlighting that it is important to respect and support each other, which in turn can support processes of integration similar to the narration of the events: Gillespie’s support is referred to as fundamental to the integration and acceptance of individuality. As student F writes: “Our lives have changed for the better, now we feel good about the new habits of life that we have acquired. I hope this works.” The new habits are those of respecting and accepting each other’s differences. The manifestation of hope is projected onto the future, implying that one must continuously work on the bridges of mutual respect. “Hueysland,” as another student (E) describes it, has changed. The students’ texts also display many references to discrimination. According to student H’s version of the story, the issue of discrimination is linked to how popular someone is: people are afraid of the unpopular differences. Furthermore, being different 7.5 The Hueys in The New Jumper 195 <?page no="197"?> shocks people, a feeling identified both by student K and student M. These students are aware of what causes it: unfamiliarity and lack of understanding of the other. Whereas student M demonstrates some perplexity at the way the characters reacted, showing ignorance, student K shows a deeper understanding of the others when stating “I don’t blame them.” They acknowledge that sometimes people react negatively towards others because it is something new to them, and therefore unfamiliar. Most students mention friendship as important to fight discriminatory attitudes. Friendship is an important step towards inclusion and it seems to involve actively taking the other’s side. 7.6 Discussion Students had the opportunity to change perspective, since they had to narrate events from a particular point of view and put feelings into words. The task required learners to write, expressing feelings alongside facts, which was challenging to most students in‐ volved. The reading promoted the development of criticality and higher-order thinking skills since the proposed activities did not merely ask them to recall information from the story but to actually think about it, make connections between verbal text and images, as well as between the story and real life. Imagining situations in which they become the characters in the picturebook, encouraged them to express themselves. The learners considered problems and worries on the one hand, and discussed solutions, which is part of their education to become more resilient, on the other hand. As seen above, reading The New Jumper encouraged these students to discuss issues such as self-expression, respect for each other, discrimination, friendship (as well as creativity), all related to GCE’s socio-emotional domain of learning. The students were easily engaged in the activities prompted by reading a picturebook and were also willing to talk, reflecting their point of view and commenting on their own school experiences, relating those to the story they had just read. The New Jumper also seemed accessible to weaker students. Its simplicity was not taken as a limitation, since it also allowed them to be aware of and discuss citizenship issues while analysing both verbal text and visual illustrations in the story. Engaging with the picturebook from the perspective of citizenship education proved, overall, to be very effective, since it raised students’ awareness of connected issues such as diversity, discrimination, and respect. It also gave them the opportunity to speak out, regardless of their proficiency level. In addition, this approach successfully engaged some so-called hard to reach learners. Learners who were initially described as indifferent and unresponsive got involved in the activities with some level of enthusiasm, which can be noticed in the way they all completed the tasks. Furthermore, reading and talking about the picturebook also fostered their creativity when later faced with the task to write their own picturebook about issues they found relevant. They used visual codes to express themselves. The collaboration with each other contributed to their “learning to live together,” one of the four pillars of learning that sustains-transformative education for global citizenship (cf. Council of Europe 2010). 196 7 Picturebooks matter: Developing citizenship education in the EFL classroom with teenage learners <?page no="198"?> This example clearly shows that picturebooks in the EFL classroom are effective as mediators in addressing citizenship, exploring the learners’ reactions to a different textual format compared to their typical readings in the classroom. The activities developed meet some of the descriptors of the updated CEFR, such as “analysis and criticism of creative texts (including literature)”, “expressing a personal response to creative texts (including literature)” or “processing text in speech / in writing” (Council of Europe 2018a: 104, 112, 116, 117, 118). Students helped each other in peer interaction so as to construct meanings, which can also be related to citizenship education and to GCE’s topics and learning objectives. The students’ debate on the benefits and challenges of difference and diversity address GCE’s key themes such as similarity and differentness in the community, the importance of respect and good relationships for our well-being, learning to listen, understanding, agreeing and disagreeing, and accepting different views and perspectives in their communities, all of which are listed, among others, by the UNESCO, and incorporated in the Portuguese school curriculum. Conclusion Throughout this chapter, citizenship education is acknowledged as pertinent in the foreign language classroom, and reading picturebooks is highlighted as contributing to engaging with citizenship issues. It stimulates the development of significant citi‐ zenship competences while engaging learners actively through reading, collaboration and discussion. Learners become active participants in the EFL classroom and develop student agency, that is, they become agents in their own learning, developing the capacity to reflect, take action, and express themselves. The use of picturebooks gives teachers and students the opportunity to address and discuss relevant issues, including those suggested in the Charter for All, such as diversity, inclusion, respecting human dignity, living in peace and co-operation while reflecting and rejecting stereotypes and prejudice, interpersonal violence and bullying (Council of Europe 2013). It also plays a part in achieving the goals described in the curricular documents as regards students’ personal and social development. Learners develop competences such as “valuing cultural diversity,” “respect,” “civic-mindedness,” “tolerance of ambiguity,” “analytical and critical thinking skills,” “co-operation skills” or even “knowledge and critical understanding of language and communication” (Council of Europe 2018c: 15-23). The project surrounding The New Jumper shows how picturebooks can motivate and encourage learners at a specific age level and with a particular profile to engage in classroom discussions, giving them opportunities to make their voices heard and to share personal experiences of citizenship. The example presented supports the use of picturebooks to successfully promote high-stake reflections in the classroom, particularly with hard-to-reach learners aged 13 to 15. Working on these young teenage learners’ awareness as citizens empowers them to exercise their citizenship. The responsibility to prepare language learners to respect a diverse world equally lies with Conclusion 197 <?page no="199"?> education in general, all the subjects taught at school, and thus also with foreign language education. At the same time, the example illustrates how far knowledge of citizenship is conveyed through picturebooks in the way values and attitudes are represented. This research has shown that it is possible to understand learners’ perception of citizenship, regarding attitudes, beliefs and values, thus establishing a relationship between classroom practice(s) and citizenship education goals within the context of EFL. Attitudes and behaviours may change and are transformed through living together and learning about each other, and through sharing opinions. Young teenagers, in particular, often question attitudes and behaviours and it is the responsibility of schools, as part of society, to give them the space needed to discuss their thoughts freely and build upon that. Foreign language lessons that involve citizenship education can certainly play an important role in bringing the benefits and responsibilities connected to it into the spotlight. As this research has shown, using picturebooks can encourage, engage and empower teenage learners to take action, to decide and to think for themselves, while being accountable for the opinions they express and trying to find answers for the issues that worry them in a creative and responsible way. Picturebooks matter. List of references Primary literature Jeffers, Oliver. (2012). The Hueys in The New Jumper. London: HarperCollins Children’s Books. Secondary literature Alter, G. (2016). What’s in a Name? Assimilation Ideology in Picturebooks. CLELE Journal, 4 (1), 1-24. Arizpe, E./ Styles, M. 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Rethinking Education: Towards a global common good ? Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO. (2016). Education 2030: Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action for the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4. Ensure Inclusive and Equitable Quality Education and Promote Lifelong Learning for All. UNESCO. UNESCO. (2017). The ABCs of Global Citizenship Education. UNESCO. (2018). Preparing Teachers for Global Citizenship Education: A Template. Paris: UNESCO. United Nations. (2015). Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. A/ RES/ 70/ 1. Wallace, C. (2003). Critical Reading in Language Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. XXI Governo Constitucional. (2017). National Strategy for Citizenship Education. List of illustrations Fig. 1: From The Hueys in The New Jumper, written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. © Jeffers, Oliver. (2012). The Hueys in The New Jumper. London: Harper Collins Children’s Books. Fig. 2: ‘SuperHuey’ illustrated by students (Lopes 2020) Fig. 3: Endpaper from The Hueys in The New Jumper, written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. © Jeffers, Oliver. (2012). The Hueys in The New Jumper. London: Harper Collins Children’s Books. List of illustrations 201 <?page no="204"?> 8 “Who’s that man? ” - Stirring teenagers’ curiosity through Peter Sís’s The Wall Sissil Lea Heggernes Abstract Curiosity is associated with both motivation and improved learning. This chapter thus asks the following research question: How can the visual features of picturebooks arouse teenage English language learners’ curiosity? In a visually saturated world, picturebooks are an inclusive teaching resource that provide support for emerging readers as well as challenges for both emerging and advanced readers. Previously considered simple texts for emergent readers, picturebooks today are published for all ages. Through artistic illustrations that arouse readers’ curiosity, picturebooks can provide a gateway into challenging themes. As this chapter shows, curiosity is associated with intercultural communicative competence, motivation and improved learning outcomes. This chapter draws on data from a case study in which 22 English language students between the ages of 13 and 14 read Peter Sís’s The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain. First, I present a visual analysis of Sís’s picturebook, focusing on the use of visual elements and the picture-text interaction. I discuss how Sís uses visual elements for dramatic effect, highlighting salient features to develop the theme of freedom versus repression. Second, I explore how the visual elements in The Wall aroused the curiosity of the same English language teenage students, leading to further explorations of the picturebook. The analysis reveals that the principle of visual weight, related to the use of colour, recurrent features and isolation, played a prominent role in arousing the students’ curiosity and instigating student activity and educative dialogues. Deep reflections on challenging picturebooks can foster visual literacy and intercultural learning; therefore, I argue for the inclusion of challenging picturebooks in secondary English language teaching. Warm-up: Engagement questions • Can picturebooks engage teenage readers? • How may the visual features of a picturebook arouse teenagers’ curiosity? • Are picturebooks suitable for English language teaching in secondary school? <?page no="205"?> 1 From here on abbreviated as The Wall. 2 The book is non-paginated, but for reader clarity, I have added page numbers. Introduction “Who’s that man? You know, the one who looks almost like a pig! He’s in nearly all the pictures! It’s as if he’s following Peter around! ” The English language (EL) students were reading Peter Sís’s memoir The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain 1 (2007) when one of them discovered the recurring figure of a man with a pig snout. The teenagers intensely browsed the book to find “the pig man” and discussed why he was always around and seemed to be spying on people. They concluded that he was probably a representative of the secret police. Through close observation of the book, the teenagers’ curiosity was raised, and they forgot their initial reservations about reading a picturebook. The visual challenges of the book’s hybrid format activated them and created an authentic setting for EL use and knowledge creation. The Wall reflects on growing up in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War of the 1950s and 1960s. It describes author Peter’s seemingly happy childhood, his learning about the triumphs of the Socialist Republic at school and participating in the compulsory Young Pioneer movement in his spare time. Gradually, he realizes that the Czechoslovakian people are being “brainwash[ed],” but then the political liberalization of the 1968 Prague Spring makes “[e]verything seem possible” (Sís 2007: 14-21) 2 . After the brutal suppression of the Prague Spring reforms, Peter continues to draw and dream of escape. In 1984, he defects to the USA and witnesses the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Due to its hybrid format, themes and linguistic challenges, The Wall can be consid‐ ered a challenging picturebook (Heggernes 2022). Challenging picturebooks provide thematic, cognitive, aesthetic and/ or emotional challenges. They offer opportunities for learning through, for example, a complex interplay between pictures and words, hybrid formats, playful narratives and visual elements. The form and content invite readers to see new perspectives and co-create meaning by filling narrative gaps (Ommundsen et al. 2022: 8-9). In fact, The Wall is a hybrid picturebook/ graphic novel. Through a combination of picturebook double spreads, graphic novel panels, childhood photos and excerpts from Peter’s journals, the multimodal book tells the story of a totalitarian regime and its impact on the daily lives of the citizens of Czechoslovakia, with a special focus on the education system. Peter’s story is relayed in captions at the bottom of the page through simple vocabulary, whereas the historical notes that frame the images are linguistically more complex. Readers will quickly detect the black and white colour scheme of the graphic novel frames, with red used for contrast. However, the picturebook double spreads invite them to stop and contemplate the symbolic meaning of the colours, a gap to be filled. To fully understand The Wall, readers must engage with the interplay between pictures and words to unlock the “visual metaphors” that arise from the hybrid format (Vidor 2012: 4). In this chapter, I argue that visual literacy is an essential element of being critical and reflective members of society. One means of developing visual literacy is reading 204 8 “Who’s that man? ” - Stirring teenagers’ curiosity through Peter Sís’s The Wall <?page no="206"?> picturebooks, also for intermediate and advanced learners. Even so, learners need to be willing to engage with such texts, which are usually connected to very young readers. I combine this line of thought with the assumption that picturebooks can garner teenagers’ curiosity and thus incite their learning. First, I explore the intersections of visual literacy, curiosity and learning, and reflect on their development using picturebooks. After a visual analysis of The Wall, I discuss picturebook reading for teenage readers. Lastly, based on data from a case study, I explore how curiosity adds to EL students’ learning. 8.1 Fostering curiosity and developing visual literacy in teenage learners: Theoretical considerations Curiosity is an essential building block for learning. According to Silvia (2017: 99f.), it is a personality trait that motivates people to seek out new experiences and learn. Curiosity in itself cannot be learnt (Silvia 2017: 98), but it can be stimulated. As I argue in this chapter, reading challenging picturebooks is a beneficial option to kindle teenage learners’ curiosity. Today’s society is visually saturated, so visual literacy, the ability to make sense of, interpret and express oneself through images, is increasingly important (Raney 1998; Braden/ Hortin 1982). However, verbal texts are prioritized in education, as they hold a stronger symbolic power than images (Kress/ Van Leeuwen 2021). Consequently, I argue that visual literacy should be included in English language teaching (ELT) as well. Challenging picturebooks can stimulate readers’ curiosity through complex picture-word interplay and are suitable teaching resources for fostering visual literacy in lower secondary school students. Curiosity can be studied through a variety of theoretical lenses. A “functional ap‐ proach” to psychology investigates how curiosity contributes to short-term “adaptation and long-term human development” (Silvia 2017: 98). Silvia (2017: 99, 102) posits that curiosity functions as a motor that drives learning and can be considered “a part of humanity’s evolved motivational architecture”. This study regards curiosity as synonymous with interest, creating excitement and motivation to explore the unknown and improve learning (Silvia 2017; Wade/ Kidd 2019; Gruber et al. 2014; Stahl/ Feigenson 2015). Curiosity can also lead to improved learning, as shown by Gruber et al. (2014), who found that participants performed better on memory tests if they had been curious about the topics. Furthermore, Wade and Kidd (2019: 7) “found a bi-directional relationship between curiosity and learning” - that is, curiosity stimulates learning, and learning leads to increased curiosity. There are many factors that drive learners’ curiosity, such as previous knowledge, visual salience and topicality (Wade/ Kidd 2019: 7). This research indicates a strong connection between curiosity, motivation and learning, and I later discuss how visual salience contributed to arousing teenage readers’ curiosity. Curiosity is also central to intercultural learning. Attitudes of “curiosity, general openness, and respect for other cultures” are fundamental components of intercultural 8.1 Fostering curiosity and developing visual literacy in teenage learners: Theoretical considerations 205 <?page no="207"?> 3 A taxonomy for personality traits in psychology (Goldberg 1990). competence, as they support intercultural learning (Deardorff 2006: 255). A curious and open attitude triggers exploration of the cultural perspectives of others, questioning one’s own, and tolerance of ambiguity (Deardorff 2006: 256; Byram 2021: 62-63). Similarly, the Big Five tradition of psychology 3 relates curiosity to openness to new experiences, which involves “an interest in new things, a willingness to explore new ideas, people, and places” (Silvia 2017: 104). Hence, curiosity may lead to improved intercultural and language learning. Central to this study is the intercultural learning that can occur through texts (Burwitz-Melzer 2001; Heggernes 2022; Hoff 2016; Matos and Melo-Pfeifer 2020). A curious and open attitude to texts in a second language leads to noticing new elements, asking questions about the content, willingness to experiment with language, or making connections to one’s own experiences or those of others (Byram 2021: 63). For intercultural learning to take place, teachers need to scaffold learning through dialogic and student-centred activities where students can draw on their own experiences (Heggernes 2021b). Picturebooks are enjoyable for readers young and old because they leave gaps for them to fill. This is particularly true for challenging picturebooks which contain “reading secrets” that can rouse the reader’s curiosity and engage them in deep thinking (Bland 2022: 138-139). Picturebook authors, illustrators and designers make conscious decisions regarding which features to highlight, and give visual weight (Arnheim 1974), or salience, to central elements. In The Wall, the principle of visual weight serves to develop the literary themes. Sís triggers readers’ curiosity through a conscious choice of colours, recurrent features and isolation, in addition to the positioning of objects on the page and their size. Specifically, occasional splashes of red draw readers’ attention to select aspects of the pages, which are otherwise kept mainly in black and white. The use of colour is related to the recurrent features, most prominently the red flags and stars. Certain recurrent features are isolated as well, which means that they are set off from their surroundings with blank space. This is repeatedly the case with the men with snouts positioned at the margins of the page, surveying the citizens. The discovery of the “pig man” and the students’ exploration of their meaning is one example of how the gaps in picturebooks indeed raise curiosity and lead to further questions. This example reveals how design decisions, and the intricate use of visual weight can arouse readers’ curiosity and lead to discussions of their meaning, as was the case with the students in my study. More examples are available in the fourth section of this chapter that offers the analysis of The Wall. 8.2 Stimulating learners’ curiosity through picturebooks: Previous literature Curiosity as a concept appears in several studies on picturebooks. References to the enthusiasm, curiosity and increased engagement of young learners who read 206 8 “Who’s that man? ” - Stirring teenagers’ curiosity through Peter Sís’s The Wall <?page no="208"?> picturebooks have been voiced by Arizpe and Styles (2016), Daugaard and Johansen (2014), and Pantaleo (2017), to name but a few. These studies do not delve into great detail concerning the connection between reading picturebooks and curiosity. However, they present how children articulate personal responses and sophisticated analyses of picturebooks (Arizpe/ Styles 2016; Daugaard/ Johansen 2014) and how their “genuine interest and appreciation of picturebooks” contributes to the development of critical thinking (Pantaleo 2017: 164). Empirical research on specifically teenagers’ responses to picturebooks is scarce, though (Arizpe/ Styles 2016: 140; Heggernes 2021a). Consequently, I briefly present select studies featuring both young and older learners from school library studies, language arts classes and ELT, focalizing on how picturebooks may stimulate engagement and interest. Both Mour-o (2013) and Tveit (2022) report that the complex picture-text interaction in picturebooks surprises teenage EL learners and piques their curiosity. In Tveit (2022), the material aspects of Torseter’s The Hole (2012) intrigued 14-year-old readers. This book has a hole through all the pages that changes in function and meaning throughout the story (Tveit 2022: 195-196). The students found this funny and surprising, and delighted in discovering the new ways in which the hole was incorporated at each turn of the page (Tveit 2022: 196). The written responses of Yeom’s (2019) secondary school students include several questions about the picturebook Tea with Milk (Say 2009: 9-10), relating to the protagonist’s background, her emotions and what will happen to her. Other studies show that working with the illustrations of challenging picturebooks in the EL classroom makes students think more deeply about their meaning, with their teachers noting that the students talk more than usual (Mour-o 2013; Heggernes 2022). Their questions and oral contributions indicate that challenging picturebooks make them curious and engaged. Research from both primary school ELT (Kaminski 2013; Daugaard and Johansen 2014) and language arts classes (Mour-o 2015) details that picturebooks pique young learners’ interests, which motivates sustained attention, “enthusiasm” (Daugaard/ Jo‐ hansen 2014: 130) and “high levels of engagement” (Kaminski 2013: 31). McGilp (2016: 10-11) demonstrates that translating picturebooks sparked the curiosity of young EL learners about both familiar and unfamiliar languages, as evident in discussions on the right-to-left directionality of Arabic, or how to translate nonsense words. Campagnaro’s (2015: 129) study on language arts classes with children between the ages of 6 and 10 reveals that challenging and controversial picturebooks could make young readers “really curious.” Initially, they preferred picturebooks with more tradi‐ tional picture-text interaction, but their preference for challenging and controversial picturebooks grew significantly over the course of the 9-week study (Campagnaro 2015: 130-131). This shows that children’s aesthetic preferences can be nurtured to increase their curiosity in picturebooks that then challenge and stretch them and, therefore, are more educative. In sum, these studies demonstrate the potential of challenging picturebooks to stimulate both young and older learners’ interests and 8.2 Stimulating learners’ curiosity through picturebooks: Previous literature 207 <?page no="209"?> curiosity, something that may lead to learning through deeper engagement with the literature. 8.3 A visual analysis of The Wall: Negotiating symbols of freedom and repression Analysing texts is part of the EL teacher’s professional competence. In the following section, I offer a visual analysis of The Wall that can help teachers consider its relevance to ELT and scaffold their students’ reading and development of visual literacy. Fig. 1: The cover of The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (Sís, 2007) 208 8 “Who’s that man? ” - Stirring teenagers’ curiosity through Peter Sís’s The Wall <?page no="210"?> A frequent pre-reading activity, also used in Heggernes (2021b), is to ask students to describe the cover of a book and make predictions about its contents, which can guide students in the direction of the themes. The cover of The Wall (Fig. 1) is designed to resemble a book made of cardboard and bound with string, akin to a self-made scrapbook. The most salient feature of the cover is the big star made of red bricks, resembling a wall. The toddler inside is both physically and visually isolated from his surroundings. Furthermore, the walls throw shadows that create an internal star made up of blank space, suggesting that he is lit up from all directions by floodlights. Reminiscent of the inner courtyard of a prison, the internal star delimits the toddler’s play area even further but also provides shelter in the shadows, away from the gaze of surveillants. Along with the toddler’s direct gaze at the reader, all these visual features indicate that he is the main character. He happily plays the drum and observes the world with open eyes. Once readers further engage with the book, however, his look could be interpreted as that of a brainwashed person, blinded by the floodlights. Similarly, the toy drum he plays with connotes the rhythm of people marching to the beat of a drum. Removing the dust cover in hardcover copies reveals a simple hard brown book cover featuring the outline of a red star. This communist symbol represents the ideological setting of the book, while the absence of the baby symbolizes the insignificance of the individual within a totalitarian system. Further descriptions of the endpapers in this picturebook can lead students into its settings. The ideological and geographical settings merge in the endpapers, which show a symbolic world map with communist countries highlighted in red. A ring delineates parts of Eastern Europe, and the reader’s eye is drawn to a circle around Czechoslovakia (1918-1992) and a smaller circle zooming in on Prague with HOME in block letters, as if seen through a pair of binoculars. Interestingly, the word “Prague” is written on a red background, relating to communism, whereas HOME is written against white. The contrasting colours are a first sign of the gap between the values the protagonist, Peter, learnt inside and outside his home. While Peter never reveals his parents’ political views, their concerned looks at their son’s drawing of a tank, discernible in Figure 2, indicate their scepticism of what he learnt through his compulsory membership in the communist youth movement (Sís 2007: 8). The book’s colour scheme is mainly black and white, with red used for contrast. Communist symbols such as red stars, kerchiefs, and the hammer and sickle reveal the ideological setting to experienced readers. For younger readers with less background knowledge, however, this may not be immediately evident. Hence, the colour scheme provides a learning opportunity, as it may arouse the students’ curiosity and engage them in a search for meaning. Curiosity increases as readers turn to the first recto spread, picturing a baby in full colours. Again, he looks directly at the reader, but this time with a knowing half-smile. The exposition further establishes the geographical and ideological setting, showing baby Peter with his parents. The same colour scheme continues, except in the depictions of young Peter’s drawings. 8.3 A visual analysis of The Wall: Negotiating symbols of freedom and repression 209 <?page no="211"?> Fig. 2: Illustration from The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (Sís, 2007) Peter’s drawings constitute a recurrent motif. They are a form of self-expression (Lushchevska 2015: 28) and differ depending on whether he is at home or at school. At school he draws the hammer and sickle, as he is told to do (Sís 2007: 8-9). At home, in the attic of a tall building, he paints the blue sky with stars (Sís 2007: 13). The British and American flags above him are surrounded by blank space to make them salient. They serve as a contrast to the hidden Nazi flag, tucked away behind a pair of skis, and the multiple red flags outside. While Peter is painting, he looks up at the colourful flags, representing his dreams of freedom. 210 8 “Who’s that man? ” - Stirring teenagers’ curiosity through Peter Sís’s The Wall <?page no="212"?> Despite the budding seeds of an independent mind, the communist ideology weighs Peter down. The next double spread shows a massive red thought bubble, depicting communist leaders with their arsenal of weapons and military regalia. Underneath, the tiny figure of Peter is walking, head hung under the weight of the communist doctrine (Heggernes 2022: 174-175). This spread can be considered a “metaphorical map,” illustrating how the smaller Eastern Bloc countries were dominated by the Soviet Union (Kümmerling-Meibauer 2017: 86). This point is further underlined by the words “This was the time of brainwashing” (Sís 2007: 14) and Peter’s body posture, which symbolizes the subjugated state of Czechoslovakia. The memoir’s hybrid format comes to the fore in the double spreads with excerpts from Peter’s journals. They underline the dissonance Peter experiences between an ideology that is imposed on him, while knowing that there are things he is not being told. The journal pages are framed by childhood drawings and propaganda posters in full colour, along with black and white photos of Peter growing up, as in a scrapbook. The naiveté of the child comes across in the renderings of fighter planes and his uncritical attitude towards what he is told in school. Yet, the hypothesis that colours represent freedom, as associated with Western culture, is further strengthened throughout the book in, for example, the picture of a whirlpool of colourful “[b]its and pieces of news from the West” (Sís 2007: 18). Peter’s longing for another world culminates in 1968, the time of the Prague Spring. Peter is 19 years old and with this revolutionary event, “everything seem[s] possible” (Sís 2007: 20). Visually, this is emphasized in the next double spread, which is arguably the most striking in the book. It presents everything that makes Peter’s life worth living: art, entertainment and travelling (Vidor 2012: 5). Western artists, musicians, athletes, a yellow submarine, and a globe in a travel case occupy the pages. Surreal objects like a pig with an umbrella and a flying star-studded horse attached to a rainbow that allude to a child’s creativity and drawings fill the air in a potpourri of colour. 8.3 A visual analysis of The Wall: Negotiating symbols of freedom and repression 211 <?page no="213"?> Fig. 3: Illustration from The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (Sís 2007: 22-23) The rendering of Peter in this spread indicates his aspiration for individualism and freedom. He is depicted in black and white with a painting in his hand. The contrast between Peter and his colourful surroundings, replete with symbols of the outside world, indicates that he lives in a colourless society that literally renders the citizens black and white in its censorship of art. However, the lack of colour also makes him stand out as an individual, which, along with his artistic style, highlights individualism, and freedom. The danger of military repression of any such aspirations is visualized by the military target stamped in the bottom right corner of the spread, powerfully contrasting with the next double page. This following spread can serve as a catalyst for both democracy and EL education. Here, Prague is invaded by Soviet tanks, and “it was all over” (Sís 2007: 26). The verso page displays a massive tank depicted from a frog perspective, as if seen by a child looking up at the tank, scary and overwhelming. The recto page depicts a labyrinth of houses, which encircle a heart-shaped Czechoslovakian flag: literally the core of the country being invaded. The bird’s eye perspective of the city of Prague with tanks everywhere and no way out offers readers an impressive illustration of the aggression and threat to the people. The buildings can be read as the Czechoslovakian people attempting to protect their country, while the red enemy spreads through Prague like a virus: the Soviets are everywhere. In the foreground, Peter is screaming, his expression reminiscent of Munch’s famous painting The Scream (1893). This reference heightens the sense of anxiety, as does the drawing of a screaming figure in Peter’s hand. The 212 8 “Who’s that man? ” - Stirring teenagers’ curiosity through Peter Sís’s The Wall <?page no="214"?> figure is outlined in red on a white background, a strong contrast to his colourful drawings. Visual metaphors of confinement and freedom underline Peter’s escape from Soviet oppression. Following the Soviet takeover in 1968, people continued their resistance by “paint[ing] a wall filled with their dreams” in all the colours of the rainbow, fighting the regime’s attempts at erasing them with even more paintings (Sís 2007: 36f.). Peter is also painting his dreams in soft pastel colours, with no outlining, creating a dreamlike effect in contrast to the bold outlines of the Soviet tank that represents his crushing reality. In the end, Peter flies away towards the blue Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty. Using his colourful paintings as wings, he crosses the border between the land of “suspicion, terror [and] lies” and the land of “justice, liberty [and] truth” (Sís 2007: 46f.), the latter painted in warm colours. In The Wall, visual weight, related to the use of colour, recurrent features and isolation, is used to highlight the contrast of freedom with repression in a totalitarian regime. The colour scheme draws attention to communist imagery in red and objects related to Western freedom in multiple colours. The use of colour is entangled with recurrent features, as is evident from the extensive use of red flags, banners, kerchiefs and stars to draw readers’ attention to the setting: a communist state. Communist symbols feature prominently throughout Peter’s childhood, disappear briefly when teenage Peter starts “to question” what he had learnt throughout his education (Sís 2007: 18), only to reappear with the Soviet invasion. Other recurring features are communist monuments, statues and busts. In Peter’s home, for example, a flower vase is exchanged with a communist statue when young Peter talks with what appears to be a communist leader. The table decorations serve to contrast the values and ideology that Peter learns in and outside the home. The communist leader is the first of many appearances of men with snouts - perhaps a reference to George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945), where the pigs symbolize communist leaders like Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. Isolation is also used to give visual weight to the snouted men, who stand out because they are framed and surrounded by blank space. Additionally, their posture and position grant them salience. Some look stern, arms crossed, with hairstyles that resemble President Leonid Brezhnev’s. Others are hiding in the shadows, faces protruding in the lower part of the frame, accompanied by the unambiguous words “Secret police are watching everyone”. Following the Soviet takeover, they leave their frames to move among the people, armed with clubs and cameras to survey the population. These visual elements, as well as interand intratextual features, afford learning opportunities by arousing readers’ curiosity. It takes a keen eye for detail to notice, for example, subtle changes in décor which can serve as starting points for discussing intertextual references. Noticing and critically reflecting on small details in pictures is an important part of visual literacy that older readers may have to relearn. This regards aspects such as the visual language’s contributions to the narrative, what it conveys about the lives of the characters, the historical period and themes. The 8.3 A visual analysis of The Wall: Negotiating symbols of freedom and repression 213 <?page no="215"?> full-scale invasion of a democratic country in Europe at the time of writing this chapter underlines the continued relevance of The Wall. 8.4 Teenage EL learners’ visual explorations of The Wall In this section, I present and discuss a teaching unit in which The Wall was read with Norwegian eighth grade EL learners. In the spring of 2018, I undertook a single case study (Yin 2014) with 22 students aged 13-14. They worked with The Wall over a period of five one-hour sessions, four led by their teacher and one by me due to the teacher’s absence. The primary data consist of audiotaped focus group interviews with 15 students conducted throughout and at the end of the study, and texts written by the students to sum up their learning. Secondary data sources include field notes from classroom observations, the students’ notes and logbooks, and audiotaped interviews with the teacher. They served as a form of crystallization, allowing the researcher to see the data through multiple facets (Richardson/ St. Pierre 2018). The data were analysed through content analysis in interaction with theoretically and empirically grounded knowledge (Alvesson/ Sköldberg 2017; Cohen et al. 2017). This chapter focuses on two theory-driven codes from this analysis: ‘visual’, which highlights how the visual aspects of the picturebook contributed to the students’ learning and draws on picturebook theory (e.g. Arizpe/ Styles 2016; Nikolajeva/ Scott 2006), and ‘curiosity’, deduced from intercultural theory (Byram 2021; Deardorff 2006). The questions the students asked about the story and characters in class, in the interviews and in the logbooks were coded as indications of curiosity, in addition to expressions of interest and engagement (Heggernes 2021b: 76-77). Frequency counts were undertaken to consider the saliency of the codes (Maxwell 2010). However, with this being a qualitative study, context was always considered in the analysis; while some activities explicitly required the students to ask questions, spontaneous questions, such as about Peter’s family, were more likely to indicate genuine curiosity. For further information about the analytical procedure, see Heggernes (2021b). The classroom procedures informing this study include pre-, whileand post-reading activities, and draw on reader-response theory, stipulating that meaning making occurs in the interaction between reader and text (Iser 1978; Rosenblatt 2005). Accordingly, the EL students were encouraged to draw on their own experiences to make meaning of the picturebook. The pre-reading activities aimed at arousing the students’ curiosity, motivating their reading and mapping their pre-knowledge. For the activities while reading, the study adopted a shared reading method, which allows a communal reading experience focusing on the students’ responses (Ommundsen et al. 2022: 8). The teacher read the book out loud to the students, who all had a copy and simultaneously read along. The post-reading activities invited students to reflect on the pictures, which was 214 8 “Who’s that man? ” - Stirring teenagers’ curiosity through Peter Sís’s The Wall <?page no="216"?> 4 For more information about the activities, see Heggernes (2019, 2021b, 2022). prompted by open questions. Drama activities thematically related to the book were also included. Table 1 shows the type of activities and teacher instructions 4 : Pre-reading Teacher prompts during shared reading Post-reading • Discussing communist flags posted on the class‐ room walls • Mindmaps about Czecho‐ slovakia, the USA and communism • Exploration of the cover and making predictions • Explanation of communist symbols • “Look at the pictures and tell me what you see.” • “Do the pictures make you think of anything/ remind you of anything? ” • The students selected pic‐ tures/ spreads for small group discussions, before presenting to the class • Whole-class discussions of the content • Questions from students to the teacher in role, pos‐ ing as Peter • Drama activities • Log writing Tab. 1: Classroom activities The data analysis revealed curiosity as one of the most salient codes. The students’ curiosity was incited by specific activities, the lives of the characters, the picturebook’s historical and political content, and specific visual features. Furthermore, the data revealed that the students consciously used the pictures and group dialogues as learning strategies. The respective codes, ‘visual’, ‘dialogic’ and ‘learning strategy,’ all showed a strong overlap. For instance, the majority of the students stated that the pictures helped them learn words and understand the story (Heggernes 2022). Due to space limitations, I limit my discussion to how Sís’s use of visual elements aroused the students’ curiosity and engagement. Prior to this, I comment on the material and physical aspects of the students’ reading of The Wall, then continue with a section on how multiple visual features jointly stimulated the students’ curiosity, and highlight the themes elaborated on in the visual analysis above. Finally, I conclude with the role of the teacher’s scaffolding. The material and physical aspects of the reading itself contributed to a sense of engagement and curiosity. During the shared reading, the students were instructed not to turn the page until the teacher said so. This aroused the curiosity of one of the boys, who stated that “it was very exciting, when you, sort of, turned the page, and then one was very excited about turning it again.” The sticky notes, added by me to conceal parts of the text, also made the students curious. They said that “it was a bit exciting with the text that was covered by the post-its.” The tactile sensation of holding a picturebook is essential for “the drama of the turning page” (Bader 1976: 1), and here the drama was magnified by the material and physical aspects of the reading and the teacher’s instructions. 8.4 Teenage EL learners’ visual explorations of The Wall 215 <?page no="217"?> The design features of The Wall also aroused the students’ curiosity. Indeed, picturebooks invite readers to move back and forth between endpapers, flaps and spreads to make meaning of the visual elements (Mour-o 2013: 94). After reading the book, the students could browse, discover and peruse the images that captured their interest. Hence, they were granted agency to satisfy their curiosity through rereading, which benefits not only language learning but also contributes to a deeper understanding of the picturebook itself (Arizpe/ Styles 2016: 14; Youngs/ Serafini 2013: 193). Individual reading time is thus essential to allow students to engage with the material and visual features, along with the topical content of the book. The extensive use of visual weight (Arnheim 1974) in the illustrations drew the students’ attention to a number of visual elements, and they quickly noticed the recurrent features. As in Mour-o’s (2013: 95) and Tveit’s (2022: 195-196) studies, recurrent features stimulated the students’ curiosity and instigated discussions, as was the case with ‘the pig man’ (see introduction of this chapter). While red flags and stars feature prominently in the illustrations, only one student recognized these as communist symbols. He used his pre-knowledge from watching numerous YouTube videos about the Cold War and was particularly active in the group discussions. He seemed to enjoy sharing his extensive knowledge with the other students, and he asked questions to learn more and solve ambiguities, such as about the communist leaders on pages 14 and 15. As such, this student exemplified how some pre-knowledge can stimulate further curiosity and lead to learning, mirroring Wade and Kidd (2019: 7). The other students were not familiar with neither communism, the Cold War nor the history of Eastern Europe, and consequently had no schema to draw on in their interpretation of the communist symbols. After the first pre-reading activities, the teacher read the historical introduction and explained communism, ideology and the Cold War. As the communist symbols occur regularly throughout the book, the students continued to ponder their significance. Although the teacher repeatedly explained the communist symbols, many students still found the topic challenging. In the final focus group interviews, the students suggested that the story should be retold in both English and Norwegian, as they had noticed that some of their peers did not understand it. The students most frequently mentioned the use of colour in class, in their logbooks and also during the interviews. Accordingly, based on the number of questions and comments, the data analysis conveyed that the use of colours sparked the students’ curiosity. For example, many students shared comments such as, “What I liked was how he used the different colours […] for the different pictures, and he always highlighted the colour red. That was quite interesting! ” The comments ranged from simple observations to more profound reflections. On the one end of this continuum, several students noticed that “[a]ll of Peter’s drawings are in colour! ”, leading to the question of where he got the colours from. The latter comment was a practical observation, possibly stemming from our discussions of the limited range of groceries in the Eastern Bloc, leading to long queues in front of shops. On the other end of the continuum, the same student later wrote a more profound reflection in her logbook, 216 8 “Who’s that man? ” - Stirring teenagers’ curiosity through Peter Sís’s The Wall <?page no="218"?> that “colours have very much power,” a possible reference to communism and/ or the influence of colour on the reader. Several students demonstrated visual literacy as well by commenting on how the use of colours was related to the protagonist’s emotions. In the third session, the students were asked to select a spread in The Wall for discussion, considering that illustrations which made them curious would be more educative than the ones assigned by the teacher (Silvia 2017; Wade/ Kidd 2019; Gruber et al. 2014; Stahl/ Feigenson 2015). The most popular spread was also the most colourful one depicted in Figure 3 showing artists and objects related to Western culture. Like the teenage students in Mour-o (2013), the majority chose a spread that visually diverged from the others. The students observed that as “all the other pages are in black and white, when you come to this spread, it surprises you.” Causing surprise is a means of arousing reader curiosity, as it may lead to “questions about something noticed” (Byram 2021: 63). The spread generated much discussion around why Peter is not coloured in, including comments such as why there were “things from many cultures [but] the boy is grey”. The students suggested that Peter was “imagining a world [beyond Czechoslovakia]”, as “he is the drawer, [he] doesn’t draw himself in colour. Peter seems happy! ” Another group suggested that the spread depicted “things from free countries, like the US and the UK. It depicts a lot of freedom, [such as] freedom of speech. Peter didn’t have freedom in Eastern Europe,” which was offered as a possible reason for why he was depicted in black and white. Not all the groups moved beyond perfunctory observations of what they could see in the page, however. Throughout the whole class discussion, knowledge about the rights of the Czechoslovakian people was created, partly based on information covered in earlier sessions. The same colourful spread was also singled out in the focus group interviews, because “it stands out.” The students suggested that Peter was depicted as if “he was stuck in Czechoslovakia; ” “[it] explains how little culture there was within Czechoslovakia, and how much there was outside.” This comment was a missed opportunity for the group to discuss how the visual features convey the narrator’s perspective by focusing on cultural events happening outside rather than inside of Czechoslovakia. Allowing space for such discussions could have resulted in a more nuanced image of Czechoslovakia on the part of the students. A combination of visual elements drew the students’ attention to the themes of The Wall. The most independent analysis during this exercise was the one presented by the group who chose the spiralling circle picture with the caption “It was the Prague Spring of 1968! ” The students’ detailed and high-quality written and oral hypotheses around what the objects in the picture may mean revealed their interest in and curiosity about the theme. Besides listing the depicted items, the students suggested that this was “a circle of prohibited things. Maybe it’s what happened in the spring, [or] what was allowed in the spring.” On the perimeter of the circle, there are several paintings in colour, suggesting that “he is free on the outside.” The group also noticed the lack of red, apart from the secret policeman in the bottom right-hand corner of the picture. This recurring figure is bright red and “looks angry; ” still with a snout, he is depicted 8.4 Teenage EL learners’ visual explorations of The Wall 217 <?page no="219"?> from the side, so it looks as if his nose is cut off. In the discussion of this picture, the students noticed both recurring features and the symbolic use of colour. Through their interpretations, they made connections to the thematic relevance of the visual elements and hence demonstrated their visual literacy. The curiosity and interest the students took in the picture generated many hypotheses relating to the meaning of the visual features. This is an example of how curiosity in pictures can lead to learning, as it made the students explore different explanations (Wade/ Kidd 2019). Picturebooks invite emerging readers of English to engage with the text in detail. Towards the end of the last interview, a student who struggled with reading English revealed that she had many more questions. Her engagement led the group to further discuss and peruse the pictures. First, she wanted to know what happened to Peter’s family, a concern shared by many of the students, indicating both their empathy and curiosity. Then, she asked about the historical context, as she had noticed a statue with its arm raised in what might look like a Nazi salute. Several students similarly connected The Wall to the Second World War. As their pre-knowledge of Eastern Europe was minimal, they drew on their schemata of war history (Heggernes 2022). Some students also noticed the Nazi flag tucked away in an image of an attic, and factory pipes, reminiscent of concentration camps (cf. section 8.3). Furthermore, the student inquired about a beetle, which is given visual weight by being encircled and surrounded by blank space (Sís 2007: 12). This is a reference to the potato beetle infestation that some countries in the Warsaw pact blamed on the USA (Bytwerk 2005; Sís 2007: 12). Overlapping with my explanation and pointing to Eastern Europe and Asia on the world map in the endpapers, the student added, “And then I have one final question, and now I’m feeling really daft, but why is like, all of this together, and then there’s one apart [pointing to Cuba, highlighted in red]? I’ve actually thought about it for a long time! ” “Me too,” another student concurred, showing that she was also curious about why Cuba was drawn in red. The map illustrates the political situation during Sís’s younger years (Kümmerling-Meibauer 2017: 86), and I explained that Cuba is red because it was a communist country and an ally to the Soviet Union. The explanation incited a new discussion among the students of the political situation of the Eastern Bloc and how this is depicted in Sís’s pictures. This illustrates how recognizing visual elements, along with some scaffolding from the teacher and peers, aroused the students’ curiosity and led to joint explorations and constructions of knowledge (Heggernes 2022). Accordingly, teacher guidance and scaffolding contribute to students’ receptiveness to details. Noticing and curiosity are closely linked, with noticing being one of the first steps to developing visual literacy. Recurring elements are salient, so noticing may be an automatic process. However, scaffolding from the teacher can help all students study the pictures carefully. Commenting on the role of the pictures in their learning, one student noted that “[i]f it wasn’t for the teacher I would not have studied the pictures. Like if I am reading this book out of interest, I would not studied [sic] the 218 8 “Who’s that man? ” - Stirring teenagers’ curiosity through Peter Sís’s The Wall <?page no="220"?> 5 Mistakes that do not detract from comprehension are kept in the student quotes. pictures and not learned [sic] that much.” 5 This quote pinpoints the necessity of teachers being able to support their students in exploring the pictures and the picture-text interaction. Students may also help their peers discover meaningful visual elements. Curious students repeatedly took on this role during the study, as illustrated by the discovery of ‘the pig man’ by one student that led the others to search for him as well and discover that there were indeed multiple ‘pig men.’ Similar episodes took place in small groups, where one student’s comments about visual elements, such as “Where are the windows? ”, instigated the others’ perusal of the pictures. Like many picturebook studies, this study is limited in scale, focusing on one group of students over a short time period (Farrar et al. 2022: 44). Consequently, generalizations cannot be drawn based on this data material. However, the research on the potential of picturebooks to engage young learners, along with the richness of engagement apparent in the studies with older learners, indicates that investigating teenagers’ reading of picturebooks in ELT is a fruitful field of research that warrants more attention. Based on the insights generated in this empirical study of The Wall, the following tendencies emerge to summarize the engagement with curiosity and picturebooks carried out in this chapter: • The material aspects of the picturebook arouse students’ curiosity. • Salient visual features arouse students’ curiosity. • The teacher’s scaffolding of picturebook reading arouses learners’ curiosity and develops their visual literacy and intercultural learning. Concluding remarks The most interesting part of The Wall was “how Peter felt as a child and through the period of growing up. It was exciting how he felt, as he showed his emotions through colour, as he nearly always drew in black and white, except for the drawings of the good emotions.” This student quote demonstrates how a visually challenging picturebook can ignite teenage EL learners’ curiosity. Coming-of-age stories are relatable to intermediate and advanced learners on the verge of adulthood and the visual elements of The Wall captivated many of the students in this EL class. Visually challenging picturebooks in ELT can be a gateway to a wide array of topics. In The Wall, visual weight gives salience to elements related to the theme of freedom versus repression in a totalitarian regime. This effect is achieved through the conscious use of colours, recurrent features and isolation, which all played a prominent role in arousing the students’ curiosity. While the picturebook is important, the teacher’s role was similarly essential. His scaffolding, through open questions and allowing time to explore the pictures, led to an inclusive shared reading experience. In this way, the Concluding remarks 219 <?page no="221"?> students’ visual literacy developed, as they noticed visual elements that led to educative dialogues and prompted joint construction of knowledge and intercultural learning. For this reason, I argue that visual literacy and challenging picturebooks should be included in ELT, also in secondary education, where they can foster deep engagement and include emerging and advanced learners alike. List of references Primary literature Sís, Peter (2007). The Wall: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Secondary literature Alvesson, Mats/ Sköldberg, Kaj (2017). Tolkning och reflektion: Vetenskapsfilosofi och kvalitativ metod [Interpretation and Reflection: Philosophy of Science and Qualitative Method]. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Arizpe, Evelyn/ Styles, Morag (2016). Children Reading Picturebooks: Interpreting Visual Texts. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Arnheim, Rudolf (1974). Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye. New version. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bader, Barbara (1976). American Picturebooks from Noah’s Ark to the Beast Within. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bland, Janice (2022). Picturebooks that challenge the young English language learner. In: Ommundsen, Åse Marie/ Haaland, Gunnar/ Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (eds.). Exploring Challenging Picturebooks. Oxon: Routledge, 122-142. Braden, Roberts A./ Hortin, John A. (1982). Identifying the theoretical foundations of visual literacy. Journal of Visual/ Verbal Languaging 2 (2), 37-42. Burwitz-Melzer, Eva (2001). Teaching intercultural competence through literature. In: Byram, Michael/ Nichols, Adam/ Stevens, David (eds.). Developing Intercultural Competence in Prac‐ tice: Languages for Intercultural Communication and Education. Bristol: Channel View Publications, 29-43. Byram, Michael (2021). Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence: Revisited. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bytwerk, Randall (2005). German propaganda archive. Amikäfer — Yankee Beetles (calvin.edu) (last accessed 29.3.2022) Campagnaro, Marnie (2015). “These books made me really curious”: How visual explorations shape the young readers’ taste. In: Evans, Janet (ed.). Challenging and Controversial Picture‐ books: Creative and Critical Responses to Visual Texts. London: Routledge, 121-143. 220 8 “Who’s that man? ” - Stirring teenagers’ curiosity through Peter Sís’s The Wall <?page no="222"?> Cohen, Louis/ Manion, Lawrence/ Morrison, Keith/ Bell, Richard Colin (2017). Research Methods in Education. 8th ed. London: Routledge. Daugaard, Line Møller/ Johansen, Martin Blok (2014). Multilingual children’s interaction with metafiction in a postmodern picturebook. Language and Education 28 (2), 120-140. Deardorff, Darla K. (2006). Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization, Journal of Studies in International Education, 10, 241-266. Farrar, Jennifer/ Arizpe, Evelyn/ McAdam, Julie (2022). Challenging picturebook and literacy studies. In Ommundsen, Åse Marie/ Haaland, Gunnar/ Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (eds.). Exploring Challenging Picturebooks. Oxon: Routledge, 43-56. Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative “description of personality”: The Big Five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 59, 1216-1229. Gruber, Matthias J./ Gelman, Bernard D./ Ranganath, Charan (2014). States of curiosity modulate hippocampus-dependent learning via the dopaminergic circuit. Neuron 84 (2), 486-496. Heggernes, Sissil Lea (2021a). A critical review of the role of texts in fostering intercultural communicative competence in the English language classroom. Educational Research Review 33, Article 100390. Heggernes, Sissil Lea (2021b). Intercultural Learning Through Texts: Picturebook Dialogues in the English Language Classroom. PhD, Oslo Metropolitan University. Heggernes, Sissil Lea (2022). Intercultural learning through Peter Sís’ The Wall: Teenagers reading a challenging picturebook. In: Ommundsen, Åse Marie/ Haaland, Gunnar/ Kümmerl‐ ing-Meibauer, Bettina (eds.). Exploring Challenging Picturebooks. Oxon: Routledge, 163-182. Hoff, Hild Elisabeth (2016). From “intercultural speaker” to “intercultural reader”: A proposal to reconceptualise intercultural communicative competence through a focus on literary reading. In: Dervin, Fred/ Gross, Zehavit (eds.). Intercultural Competence in Education: Alternative Approaches for Different Times. Palgrave Macmillan: London, 51-71. Iser, Wolfgang (1978). The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kaminski, Annett (2013). From reading pictures to understanding a story in the foreign language. Children’s Literature in English Language Education 1 (1), 19-38. Kress, Gunther/ Leeuwen, Theo Van (2021). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (2017). Metaphorical maps in picturebooks. In: Goga, Nina/ Küm‐ merling-Meibauer, Bettina (eds.). Maps and Mapping in Children’s Literature: Landscapes, Seascapes and Cityscapes. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 75-91. Lushchevska, Oksana (2015). Representation of self within Soviet ideology: Yelchin’s “Breaking Stalin’s Nose” and Sís’s “The Wall: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain”. Journal of Children’s Literature 41 (1), 22-30. Matos, Ana Gonçalves/ Melo-Pfeifer, Sílvia (2020). Literature and Intercultural Learning in Language and Teacher Education. Berlin: Peter Lang. Maxwell, Joseph A. (2010). Using numbers in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry 16 (6), 475-482. List of references 221 <?page no="223"?> McGilp, Emma (2016). “This book opens the wrong way, miss! ” Using multilingual picturebooks to explore languages. Race Equality Teaching 34 (1), 9-13. Mour-o, Sandie (2013). Response to the lost thing: Notes from a secondary classroom. Children’s Literature in English Language Education 1 (1), 81-105. —. (2015). What’s real and what’s not: Playing with the mind in wordless picturebooks. In: Evans, Janet (ed.). Challenging and Controversial Picturebooks: Creative and Critical Responses to Visual Texts. London: Routledge, 181-200. Nikolajeva, Maria/ Scott, Carole (2006). How Picturebooks Work. Children’s Literature and Culture. New York: Routledge. Ommundsen, Åse Marie/ Haaland, Gunnar/ Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (2022). Introduction: Exploring challenging picturebooks in education. In Ommundsen, Åse Marie/ Haaland, Gun‐ nar/ Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (eds.). Exploring Challenging Picturebooks in Education. Oxon: Routledge, 1-20. Pantaleo, Sylvia (2017). Critical thinking and young children’s exploration of picturebook artwork. Language and Education 31, 152-168. Raney, Karen (1998). A matter of survival: On being visually literate. The English and Media Magazine 39, 37-42. Richardson, Laurel/ St. Pierre, Elizabeth Adams (2018). Writing: A method of inquiry. In Denzin, Norman K./ Lincoln, Yvonna S. The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. Los Angeles: Sage, 818-838. Rosenblatt, Louise M. (2005). Making Meaning with Texts: Selected Essays. Portsmouth: Heine‐ mann. Say, Allan (2009). Tea with Milk. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Silvia, Paul J. (2017). Curiosity. In: O’Keefe, Paul A./ Harackiewicz, Judith M. (eds.). The Science of Interest. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG, 97-107. Stahl, Aimee E./ Feigenson, Lisa (2015). Observing the unexpected enhances infants’ learning and exploration. Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 348 (6230), 91-94. Torseter, Øyvind (2012). Hullet. Oslo: Cappelen Damm. Tveit, Åse Kristine (2022). Challenging picturebooks in the school library: An untapped re‐ source? In: Ommundsen, Åse Marie/ Haaland, Gunnar/ Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (eds.). Exploring Challenging Picturebooks. Oxon: Routledge, 183-202. Vidor, Constance (2012). Peter Sís: Artist of freedom. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature 50 (4), 1-10. Wade, Shirlene/ Kidd, Celeste (2019). The role of prior knowledge and curiosity in learning. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 26 (4), 1377-1387. Yeom, Eun Young (2019). Disturbing the still water: Korean English language students’ visual journeys for global awareness. Children’s Literature in English Language Education 7 (1), 1-21. Yin, Robert K. (2014). Case Study Research: Design and Methods. 5th ed. Los Angeles: SAGE. Youngs, Suzette/ Serafini, Frank (2013). Discussing picturebooks across perceptual, structural and ideological perspectives. Journal of Language and Literacy Education 9 (1), 185-200. 222 8 “Who’s that man? ” - Stirring teenagers’ curiosity through Peter Sís’s The Wall <?page no="224"?> List of illustrations Fig. 1: The cover of The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (Sís, 2007) From THE WALL: GROWING UP BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN by Peter Sís. Copyright © 2007 by Peter Sís. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers. All Rights Reserved. Fig. 2: Illustration from The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (Sís, 2007) From THE WALL: GROWING UP BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN by Peter Sís. Copyright © 2007 by Peter Sís. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers. All Rights Reserved. Fig. 3: Illustration from The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (Sís 2007: 22-23) From THE WALL: GROWING UP BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN by Peter Sís. Copyright © 2007 by Peter Sís. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers. All Rights Reserved. List of illustrations 223 <?page no="226"?> 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse and retrospective reflections from the classroom Sandie Mour-o Abstract For teenage learners, substance abuse is difficult to understand, and literature has a role to play in helping them come to terms with either their own problems or those of others close to them. Little has been written about picturebooks dealing with issues of substance abuse with English language learners. This chapter will share a retrospective description of how a teacher of English in Portugal substituted textbook-based activities, around a topic included in the national programme for health and sex education, with a unit of work developed around a picturebook about drug abuse, The House that Crack Built (Taylor/ Thompson Dicks, 1992). Data were collected from interviews with the teacher, observations of classroom activities, and the teenage learners’ work. I describe and discuss the teachers’ decisions and her approach to planning, implementing and assessing the activities, as well as the learners’ responses, and conclude by highlighting the richness of opportunities provided for developing language skills through the visual-verbal affordances within such a challenging picturebook as well as critical thinking and creativity. Warm-up: Engagement questions ▸ To what extent might the national curriculum and your personal beliefs impact on the planning of a learning sequence around a picturebook? ▸ How comfortable do you feel with addressing sensitive issues such as substance abuse with your students? ▸ What other texts might be considered alongside The House that Crack Built to create a text set on the topic of-substance abuse? 9.1 Picturebooks, older learners and social challenges Picturebooks have long been valued for their potential to bring contemporary social and political issues into the classroom (cf. Botelho/ Rudman 2009; Dolan 2014; Leland, Lewison/ Harste 2013; Pierce et al. 1993; Short 2009; Vasquez 2017) covering topics which foster critical literacy. Within the field of English language education, picture‐ books are also seen as resources for developing wider educational goals as these unique <?page no="227"?> multimodal objects take learners beyond the mundane of the lexical-driven objectives which tend to dominate language education (cf. Bland 2013; Mour-o 2015; Morgado 2019). Empirical studies in the language classroom have demonstrated the affordances of picturebooks for reaching such wider educational goals. Research written in English reports on the effects of sharing picturebooks with teenagers and young adults when used as a vehicle for moving beyond language learning per se and to support opportu‐ nities for talk, interaction and interpretation, “to think for real and to speak for real” (Mour-o 2013: 87). For example, Lee and Gilles (2012) facilitated a learner exchange through a blog, where lower and upper secondary learners in the US and Taiwan discussed culturally relevant texts, in picturebook format, via cross-cultural online written communication. Mour-o’s (2013) research with a group of upper secondary learners in Portugal demonstrated that the “interanimation between picture and word fostered discussion as motivator for language use, thus opportunities for interthinking” (p. 102). Bae (2014) completed a quasi-experimental, classroom-based study resulting in positive effects on literacy ability and intercultural sensitivity with lower to middle secondary learners in South Korea. Classroom interventions by Heggernes (2019) and Sindland and Birketveit (2020) demonstrated that Norwegian secondary learners can manifest the skills and attitudes associated with Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) during and after picturebook read-alouds. Heggernes (2019) also highlighted certain dialogic features associated with her learners responding to a picturebook and contributing to a participative ethos. In Schwebs’ (2019) and Yeom’s (2019) studies, based on reading circles with Norwegian and South Korean students respectively, the picturebooks were used as points of entry for the promotion of perspective taking through talk. The picturebooks in these studies represented a variety of titles and topics. Lee and Gilles (2012) focussed their selection of picturebooks on “multi-cultural themes […] with the intention of exposing the students to diverse ethnic heritages” (p. 165). Mour-o developed a learning sequence around The Lost Thing (Tan 2000), which she considers a “challenging picturebook” due to its affordances for multiple interpretations. In Bae’s (2012) study, the picturebooks were representative of global literature, defined as “multicultural literature, international literature, and various literatures which include cross-cultural content” (p. 5). These include picturebooks translated into or written in English published outside the US, picturebooks written by immigrants in the US, picturebooks written and published in the US but with settings in other countries (p. 6). Yeom (2019) used a multicultural picturebook, Tea with Milk (Say, 2009) which would fall into the category of a picturebook written by an immigrant in the US. Heggernes (2019: 43; see also her chapter in this edited volume) described The Wall: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain (Sís 2007) as “an unconventional choice”, representing an unknown culture and context (communism in old Czechoslovakia). Sindland and Birketveit (2020) and Schwebs (2019) used The Soccer Fence (Bildner/ Watson 2014) which also embodies an unknown culture and context for their Norwegian students. 226 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse <?page no="228"?> However, Schwebs highlights its explicit Apartheid topic, which was the focus of a unit of work on Human Rights during her research. In all cases discussion amongst students was facilitated through teacher mediation despite the lack of specific reference to this in most of the articles. This mediation was especially important when considering the topics these picturebooks covered, topics which can be cognitively and emotionally challenging. When introducing challenging topics into the classroom, Pierce et al. (1993) recom‐ mend a “supportive context of ongoing discussion” (p. 151). One of the first principles for bringing a well-selected picturebook into the classroom is that it should lead to “good conversations” (Leland/ Lewison/ Harste 2013) which involve interpretations and disagreements around “shared literature experiences” and the “author’s message” (p. 19). In all the empirical studies mentioned in the previous paragraph, the teen language learners were expected to respond to and share (orally or in writing) their interpretations of the picturebooks, either together in known class groups or with unknown others, to engage in a deep reading of these cognitively and emotionally demanding multimodal texts. According to Bland (2023: 10), “deep reading has a cooperative emphasis on transacting with peers and dialogically participating in the literary text, experiencing empathy, sharing critical perspectives and responding creatively.” The objective is to “shift the focus from working with literature to the communicative process of reception, embracing literature working on the reader” (forthcoming, italics in original). This shift is key to the inclusion of picturebooks as resources for the language classroom, as they provide meaningful opportunities for active skill use (speaking and writing) in the target language. Simultaneously, this shift challenges learners to think, reflect, and engage in meaningful interpretations based on their unique personal experience and background - a transaction with literature (Rosenblatt 1995). 9.2 Picturebooks about substance abuse Literature is one of the resources that can help learners understand substance abuse and come to terms with either their own problems or those of others close to them. There is a small number of picturebooks on the topic of substance abuse, although most focus on parental alcoholism and are popular with support groups and counselors for their clear depiction of the process of addiction (e.g., Jones 1983; Tabor 1999). What has been written about picturebooks dealing with issues of substance abuse highlights the controversy around their “explicit, realistic treatment or their didactic tone” (Koehnecke 2001: 17). Such picturebooks fit into the category of “challenging” (Ommundsen/ Haaland/ Kümmerling-Meibauer 2021) or “radical” and “subversive” (Reynolds 2007) due to their focus on a social problem - drug abuse. They move from seeing the child reader as innocent with an unknown, symbolic future to “[foreclosing] on childhood” (Reynolds 2007: 2) and require that readers engage with the complex events depicted in the narrative and “move closer to adult knowledge and 9.2 Picturebooks about substance abuse 227 <?page no="229"?> experience” (ibid). Whitelaw (2017) has also labeled such picturebooks as “disquieting”, for they “raise questions that reverberate” (p. 39) and “actively cultivate a more complex orientation to knowledge as a thing not already made” (p. 40). She also suggests that such picturebooks “deepen our relational identities with texts and with and among people in the contexts in which they are read” (p. 40). This also depends upon the skills of the teachers as they mediate the picturebook read-aloud and the students’ opportunities for transaction (see Ellis/ Mour-o 2021). 9.2.1 The House that Crack Built The House that Crack Built (Taylor/ Thompson Dicks 1992) is categorized as a non-fic‐ tion picturebook (Smith-D’Arezzo/ Thompson 2006) and is indicated as suitable for learners of all ages (back cover notes). Written for English speaking readers in the US, it parodies a familiar nursery rhyme but describes “the creation, distribution and destructive effects of crack cocaine” (copyright page). Using the literary technique of rhyme, the narrative becomes memorable and cannily encourages participation during the sharing. The intended reader should already know the childhood rhyme, and Griffith (2000: 89) suggests this might lull them “into believing that they are going to hear something known, playful and quite innocuous” which contributes to making the transformation so powerful - the old and the new create moments of shock and dis‐ quieting. Always ending in “… the house that crack built”, the ever-increasing rhythmic, hip-hop, verbal text takes the reader deeper into the cumulative consequences of “drug abuse and non-interference” (Alter 2019: 247). In the final opening the whole rhyme is presented and begins with these four devastating lines: And these are the Tears we cry in our sleep that fall for the Baby with nothing to eat, born of the Girl who's killing her brain, smoking the Crack that numbs the pain, (…) Focusing on just the verbal rendition of this transformed childhood rhyme does this picturebook an injustice, for the interanimation between the visual and verbal codes results in a composite text which exacerbates the rhythmic, ever-shocking telling words with ever-shocking showing pictures. 228 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse <?page no="230"?> Fig. 1: The House that Crack Built (Taylor/ Thompson Dicks 1992), front and back covers Looking more closely at this multimodal, aesthetic object, it is a 40-page picturebook, though quite small in size, measuring 20 cm by 20 cm. The front and back covers (see Fig. 1) are one whole image of the street where the narrative takes place - it sets the scene with a gutter full of cigarette ends and joint roaches. Four figures are depicted here: two are painted on the wall mural, separated by a symbolic crack, hanging as though in mid-air. They are a woman and a child, their skin is pale and sickly, their faces stylistically reminiscent of cubism and the portrait Le Rêve (Picasso, 1932). The dislocated head position is seen again in illustrations inside the book, “representative of the tortured life addicts live” (Koehnecke 2001: 28). The two other figures are children - a smaller girl child with her back to us looking up at the mural and a boy child looking on, nonchalantly, hugging his skateboard. These children are not characters from the visual narrative and possibly represent the children this picturebook is written to help. They are children with nothing to do; children whose parents are not around much; shoeless children in an urban setting, waiting for something that never comes … powerless children (Alter 2019). The visual narrative continues with the front endpapers scattered with leaves. Upon first viewing there is no way of knowing what they are, but when reaching the back endpapers, with the same scattered leaves, it is clear they are from the coca plant. The rhythmic, hip-hop rhyme slowly reveals itself, line by line, on the right-hand page (recto), with the illustrations always on the left-hand page (verso). They are square illustrations with a white boarder. A framed illustration provides “a limited glimpse ‘into’ a world” (Moebius 1986: 150), it creates “a sense of constraint and demand[s] detachment” (Nodelman 1988: 53). As readers we are being shown the consequences but are not involved in the actions depicted there, rather we are voyeurs. As voyeurs we are taken through the causal sequence: House - Man - Soldiers - Farmers - Plants - Drug - Street - Gang - Cop - Boy - Crack - Girl - Baby - Tears. The key words in the verbal text are written with a capital letter, but the first new line in the rhyme is also given emphasis as it is both larger in size and in bold. The typography thus 9.2 Picturebooks about substance abuse 229 <?page no="231"?> communicates information beyond being the symbol(s) which represent the spoken word (Serafini/ Clausen 2012) and highlights the focus of each opening. The verbal text leads our eyes and thus our interpretative attempts as each framed illustration depicts the key word written with a capital letter. We are visually encouraged to return to the verbal text and read the rest of the rhyme as well, as there is a small, black, down-facing arrow directly underneath, which leads us to the repetition of the previous lines of the cumulative rhyme (see Fig. 2). Fig. 2: Opening 2, The House that Crack Built (Taylor/ Thompson Dicks 1992) Figure 2 shows Opening 2, where the verbal text tells us that ‘This is the Man who lives in the House that crack built.’ It is the illustrations that show us who this man is - a sleek, clean-cut individual, with an original Matisse, La Nu Rose-(1935), hanging on his wall. He looks out at the reader, a demanding gaze, engaging us in his wealthy confidence. Each spread is dominated by a clean whiteness, the verbal text on the left-hand verso and the white-framed illustration on the right-hand recto. Words and images communicate their meanings differently, but they are both seen and thus when we turn the page, we do not separate our reading of the words from our reading of the illustrations, for as meaning makers these modes have “literal relationships as well as symbolic ones” (Nodelman 1988: 53). Nodelman describes our reading of a multimodal text as a “contrapunctual arrangement of mutual correction” (1988: 243) as we move back and forth between the verso and the recto pages, construing and reconstruing our understanding of these individual signifiers and their compound message(s). Many of the illustrations take unusual perspectives. Opening 4 shows a close-up of the Farmer, but he is not looking at us and is subserviently crouched down. In the background, we can see the legs of a woman or girl, with no shoes, faceless in the sequence of events. The verbal text reinforces the hopelessness of these characters by inserting the word ‘fear’ into the hip-hop rhyme, “These are the Farmers who work in the heat, and fear the Soldiers, who guard the Man who lives in the House that crack 230 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse <?page no="232"?> built.” In Opening 5, the coca plant is seen from below, we look up at its green leaves against a sunny blue sky, a pretty plant with bright red berries and white flowers. The verbal text reinforces the farmers’ hopelessness, “These are the Plants that people can’t eat, raised by the Farmers who work in the heat …”. Fig. 3: Opening 7, The House that Crack Built (Taylor/ Thompson Dicks 1992) The first instances of overturned heads and the “fragmentation experienced by drug users” (McDaniel 2001: 220) appears in Opening 7 (see Fig. 3). The verso already presents six lines of the rhyme and begins “This is the Street of a town in pain that cries for the Drug known as cocaine […]”. The recto shows us the street. Through an open window, we see the back of a woman whose head is at an awkward angle. She is holding a baby whose features we can just make out. Outside the window, there is an anguished woman banging her head on the wall and a man with an overturned head. The cigarette ends or joint roaches create a middle space separating a dodgy-looking character (maybe the dealer) from those ‘in pain’. Opening 12 repeats the fragmentation technique. The rhyme is now almost complete and fills the verso page. It begins, “This is the Girl who’s killing her brain, smoking the Crack that numbs the pain (…)”. The recto illustration portrays the window from the inside, the girl now slouches against the sill holding a crack pipe, her belly bulging in a tight green dress and her head upside-down with smoke puffs leaving her mouth. In the bottom right corner of the illustration there are some white sheets, they appear as if by chance but belong to the baby we are about to see on Opening 13. The rhyme increases in length on the stark white verso page upon each page turn and the larger, bolder line of the rhyme leads the reader to make connections with the image on recto. But the more the rhyme increases in length the more there is to think about, the longer the lines become the deeper we go into the cycle of dependence. In the final opening the whole rhyme is presented - the first line, “And these are the Tears we cry in our sleep” is represented in the illustration on recto with a baby lying on 9.2 Picturebooks about substance abuse 231 <?page no="233"?> a green mound (the mother’s belly perhaps? ) under a shower of tear-like drops seen against a deep blue sky (see Fig. 4). As we reread (or recall even) the rhyme, the baby in the image is a constant reminder of the causal choices that have been made throughout this picturebook. We have to decide for ourselves if it is alive or dead - there is no final happy ending, for “a positive outcome can only be achieved if readers read beyond the text and draw conclusions from the story told” (Alter 2019: 236). Fig. 4: Opening 14, The House that Crack Built (Taylor/ Thompson Dicks 1992) There is an afterword, written by Michael Pritchard who works with children and young adults as a probation officer, counselor and standup comedian, which calls for action. It describes the choices we make about what we do in life. He writes, Together [the author, illustrator and publisher] have created a tool that can be used to open discussion and to help children learn to make the right choices. Together they have reminded us that in small and personal ways each of us has the power to change the world. (Pritchard 1992: n.p.) Alter (2019) argues that The House that Crack Built is a dystopian picturebook which depicts society as “bad place” and as such should be read as “a warning [so that] we as readers can hope to escape its pessimistic future” (Baccolini/ Moylan 2003: 7). This is what makes this small-sized picturebook so very successful. There is no didactic call to say ‘No! ’, rather “the grotesque consequences of taking crack cocaine” (Koehnecke 2001: 25) are gradually shown in the illustrations as we move from the beautiful mansion with the swimming pool to the crying baby with the mother’s crack pipe in view. The illustrations reveal the pain and suffering of those involved voluntarily or by chance. As readers we look on, are shocked, put in a position where we need to talk about what we have seen and heard, and finally - hopefully - challenged to take action. 232 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse <?page no="234"?> 9.3 The House that Crack Built in the classroom Smith-D’Arezzo and Thompson (2006) recommend The House that Crack Built for older children precisely because of its depictions of substance abuse, child abuse and neglect. Pierce et al. (1993) state that “[t]he book's compelling message heightens awareness and challenges readers to take action”, however, they recommend that the book be used “in conjunction with other books showing how drugs cut across racial and economic barriers” (p. 152) due to the characters being mostly people of colour. In all it is considered “[a]n effective, non-preachy tool for drug educators at any level” (Kirkus Reviews n.d.). In the field of ELT, such topics as substance abuse are often omitted from coursebooks due to the publishers’ wishes to “sanitize” the content, following assumptions regarding customer sensitivity (Gray 2001: 159), and to my knowledge, there has been no published empirical research into using a picturebook like this with English language learners, despite its recognized didactic nature. Mour-o (2011) challenges readers of her blog to consider planning for such an event but thus far only Alter (2019) has provided a theoretical discussion around “Society's Cataclysmic Decline in The House That Crack Built” (p. 426ff). She highlights the relevance of this picturebook for teenage language learners by developing “students' appreciation for visual and verbal stylistic devices” (p. 250) and extending their knowledge of the cubist style for depicting addiction (p. 249). In addition, she suggests that a teacher may want to further develop media literacy and reflect with the learners on an intended audience and the stereotypical visualisation of drug abuse with people of colour (p. 251). This chapter therefore intends to fill the gap in reporting on evidence-based potential of such a picturebook for secondary language learners and describing actual classroom practice. 9.3.1 Filomena and her discovery of picturebooks Filomena (a pseudonym) is a Portuguese teacher of secondary English who I had worked with on a previous picturebook project (see Mour-o 2013). After reading my blog post about The House that Crack Built (Mour-o 2011) she expressed an interest in trying it out with her secondary students. The rest of this chapter takes a retrospective, narrative approach to describing and discussing how Filomena planned for and used The House that Crack Built with different groups of learners over a period of six years. 9.4 Methodology A retrospective approach yields useful information concerning “the nature of phenom‐ ena” and is considered a “valuable exploratory tool” (Cohen/ Manion/ Morrison 2018: 423). Filomena brought The House that Crack Built into her classrooms on four different occasions between 2013 and 2019 and the data used in this narrative account comes from some early observations I made in 2013 and 2014, examples of children’s work and 9.3 The House that Crack Built in the classroom 233 <?page no="235"?> worksheets I collected, together with reflective records written by Filomena in 2021 prompted by questions, and the transcription of a one-hour interview with Filomena where I asked further questions based on her reflective records. The limitations of a retrospective approach include the possibility that the informa‐ tion shared may be “faulty, selective and inaccurate”, that we may “forget, suppress or fail to remember certain factors” and as individuals “we might interpret [our] past behaviour in light of subsequent events [or learning]” (Cohen/ Manion/ Morrison 2018: 354). However, the description of Filomena’s practice, and its discussion, will contribute to an understanding of the realities encountered in the language classroom, based on the development and repeated use of teaching ideas around one particular picturebook by an experienced practitioner and the subsequent reporting and reflecting on its concrete classroom implementation in a way that would be impossible in an experimental method. The interview raises several issues which are relevant to teacher professional development and mentoring which I will later be highlighting in my discussion. 9.4.1 Context: Education in Portugal Formal, compulsory education in Portugal comprises three sequential cycles of primary education (Grades 1 to 9) together with secondary education (Grades 10 to 12). The 3 rd Cycle, the cycle in focus in this chapter, is for learners from 12 to 15 years old in Grades 7 to 9. Since September 2015, English has been part of the curriculum from Grades 3 to 9, before this it began officially in Grade 5. In Grade 9 English is allocated three lessons of 45 minutes a week. The programme for English in the 3 rd Cycle (Ministério da Educaç-o 1997) presupposes the following: A language is a potential expression of the SELF that serves interpersonal relationships and the accomplishments of social interaction. As a determining factor of socialization and personal valorization, it allows the individual to develop awareness of himself and others, translate attitudes and values, access knowledge and demonstrate skills; (Ministério da Educaç-o 1997: 5 [own translation]) The aims for English consider the learner globally and provide teachers with an opportunity to develop cross-curricular projects and make connections with personal development areas. All subjects in the Portuguese education system require a textbook, and English is no exception. As is recognized throughout the ELT world, teachers tend to be led by the textbook and plan for learning according to textbook units, “[…] we are in an era of textbook-defined practice. What the majority of teachers teach and how they teach […] are now determined by textbooks” (Akbari 2008: 647). 234 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse <?page no="236"?> 9.5 Planning for The House that Crack Built Based on her prior experience with using picturebooks in class, Filomena wanted to use a class-set again, enabling three students to share a book - the maximum number in a class is 30 students. So, once Filomena had decided to use The House that Crack Built, she wanted to purchase a class-set herself, as the school would not finance this additional cost. This initial financial output also meant she has used and reused the picturebooks during four different academic years between 2013-2014 and 2019-2020. Students in Grade 9 are expected to reach B1 (CEFR, Council of Europe 2020) at the end of this grade, however Filomena described her students’ language profiles ranging from as low as A1 and as high as C1. When asked how many lessons she took to implement the different activities she replied, “It depends on the characteristics of the groups of students [and] if they are more or less participative. But usually two 90-minute lessons” (Interview transcription). 9.5.1 Annual planning The theme of drugs and addictions is part of the topic ‘Teenage problems’ in the 3 rd Cycle English Programme but it is also part of the Education for Health Programme which should be developed across school subjects in the 3 rd Cycle. Filomena was able to connect with the topic ‘Addictions’ as well as ‘Being yourself ’, covering the socio-affective areas of ‘peer pressure, self-esteem, and attitudes and feelings.’ When justifying the inclusion of The House that Crack Built in her planning Filomena wrote “the picturebook easily fits into the programme no matter the coursebook we are using” (Filomena, reflective records). She described planning for its inclusion during two different textbook units: ‘The magic of reading’ - reading a different type of book and commenting on its content seems a great way of showing how important reading is and how much we can learn about different areas of life; and ‘Life enriching experiences’ - reading is one of life enriching experiences, so again, reading and exploring an authentic book in the classroom gives students the chance to appreciate the experience. (Filomena, reflective records) Associating drug use with a form of literature (a picturebook) is creative, and this seemed to satisfy Filomena in the programme-textbook puzzle that ensues at the beginning of every academic year. The communicative intentions outlined in the programme can be identified to support her planning and included the following: • Relate events and issues • Develop a greater understanding of a topic • Give an opinion about issues/ events • Counter-argue and confront opinions • Analyze and be critical • Ask for and give advice 9.5 Planning for The House that Crack Built 235 <?page no="237"?> • Warn or explain • Express emotions and values • Discuss logically But for Filomena, the benefits of bringing this picturebook into the classroom went beyond all the formal lists of language learning outcomes. She wrote in her reflective records: […] it makes us think about the different perspectives of the people involved. It makes us step into the workers’ shoes who need to work in the farm to raise the drugs because they have a family to feed or into the child’s shoes who is suffering because of the addicted mother or into the businessman’s shoes who makes a lot of money at the expense of other people’s lives. When using this picturebook, we are not only working the English language, but we are also creating empathy towards others, we realise that there are different perspectives of the same situation, that there are different realities out there. It is definitely an unforgettable book! (Filomena, reflective records) 9.5.2 Lesson planning Picturebook read-alouds, when taken into the EFL classroom, have a beginning, middle, and end, and Ellis and Mour-o (2021) recommend that the before-, during, and after-reading aloud stages replicate the planning of any typical communicative activity. However, the picturebook, as multimodal literature, dictates how these stages progress. The before-reading aloud stage involves setting up the learning experience and providing “a point of entry to ignite interest and curiosity and to stimulate prior knowledge which will enable the [learners] to connect the information in the story to their own lived experiences” (Ellis/ Mour-o 2021: 24). It is often during this stage that the picturebook peritext - the front and back covers of the picturebook, the endpapers, the title page and dedication, and any other front or back matter which is relevant - is used as an entry point. The during reading aloud is likened to a performance which depends upon the systematic interaction between the picturebook as an aesthetic object (i.e., how the pictures and words interanimate), the learners (i.e., all they bring to the read-aloud event) and the teacher, and the way they share the picturebook (i.e., what they say and do and how). This stage of the read-aloud is unique, as the learners are discovering the picturebook for the first time and are beginning to unravel the multimodal message(s). This stage may be repeated to allow for more opportunities for interpretation. The after-reading aloud stage depends upon the purpose of bringing the picturebook into the classroom, but follow-up activities should contribute to stimulating learners to think and reflect, and to give personal responses and justifications around their individual interpretations. Recalling the concept of ‘deep reading’ mentioned earlier, the idea is to afford opportunities to transact with and dialogically participate in the process of reception. 236 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse <?page no="238"?> 9.6 The activities and retrospective descriptions To introduce the sequence of activities around The House that Crack Built, Filomena did not tell her students the picturebook was about drugs. Instead, she emphasized the fact that she was bringing something different into the classroom to prompt dialogue in English. She also explained that she wanted them to try hard to use English as they talked to each other and highlighted the importance of listening to each other, clarifying that dialogue is a combination of listening and speaking. Filomena also prepared a worksheet for her students (appendix). This she justified as important to guide them, so they could take notes and keep these in one place. It also provided important evidence of the different activities they had undertaken, if any justification was required. 9.6.1 Before reading aloud activities 9.6.1.1 The original rhyme The verbal text of The House that Crack Built is based on a transformed childhood rhyme unknown to the Portuguese students, so it was important to let them experience the original rhyme before sharing the picturebook. Filomena chose an animated YouTube version of the rhyme, which she shared with each group of students at the beginning of the sequence of activities. This exposed them to the cumulative concept, which she talked about with them. It also allowed them to experience the rhyme’s playfulness which she hoped would contribute to their feelings of shock and disquieting, important for the interpretative process which followed. 9.6.1.2 The picturebook The picturebook as a form of children’s literature is not something students of this grade level will expect to encounter in their English lessons. Thus, it was important to explain what a picturebook was from a multimodal perspective, emphasizing that both pictures and words are meaning signifiers. Filomena also pointed out that picturebooks can be for any age and that this picturebook had been created for students in secondary education in the US. In her reflective records Filomena wrote the following about her students’ reactions to the picturebook: This was the only picturebook I used with them as I was only one year with these groups of students. Their first reaction is that picturebooks are for children, but once we start discussing the pictures, they soon realise there is a lot more about the book than they thought. The fact that the illustrations and the story are so powerful make them change their mind. (Filomena, reflective records) 9.6 The activities and retrospective descriptions 237 <?page no="239"?> 9.6.1.3 The picturebook peritext Filomena had learned about the importance of peritext and its contribution to the visual narrative during her previous experience with picturebooks, so she was aware of the necessity to contemplate these parts of the picturebook in her planning of the activity sequence. The picturebook had been photographed and placed onto PowerPoint slides (the cover, endpapers and title page, as well as all the framed illustrations on the recto of each opening) and could be projected onto the wall of the classroom. At this point in the lesson, she showed the front cover, read the title and the creators’ names, and asked students to predict three words and three images they expected to see inside the picturebook and to write these down on the handout to support future discussion around the picturebook. The students had not been told that they are going to be discussing drugs in this lesson, yet whenever Filomena implemented this plan, she noticed that many students predicted the picturebook would contain words like ‘drug’, ‘addict’, ‘cocaine’, ‘crack’ and images of a similar ilk. Other students, who were less worldly regarding substance abuse, tended to have no idea what the picturebook would be about and found this predication activity more challenging. The following extracts are based on transcriptions of students justifying why they expected to hear and see content associated with drugs, drug users and poor neighbourhoods from the session observed (2013/ 2014). Extract 1: Students’ comments on the front cover and title S1: Addictive drug, people are expecting something. The guy with the t-shirt is waiting for the drug or the money. S2: We see a poor neighbourhood, a crack in the wall they are with no shoes […] and they don’t have many clothes and normally in a poor neighbourhood are many drugs and many traffic and [drug dealers]. S3: I’m thinking that the house is not a very good because the people that are in the image spend all their money on drugs and don’t have money to fix their house. S6: I think the woman with the baby is a ghost. Because [they look like they are floating] S7: […] And the idea that the crack represents the smoke from the cigarette of the children, because in the poor neighbourhoods the children have a fresh contact with drugs and arms and bad stuff. (Transcription notes 2013/ 2014) These comments exemplify the students’ transactional experience with the picturebook taking a life to text stance as they “[forge] connections between the picturebook and their own lives” (Sipe 1999: 127). Although Filomena had no evidence these students had experienced substance abuse personally or in association with family or friends, it is obvious that they are aware of the signs of a community of drug users from either personal experiences or from watching films and television. 238 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse <?page no="240"?> 9.6.2 During reading aloud activities This part of the read-aloud experience was planned in two phases: First as a joint read-aloud activity and second as a small group book-browsing activity. 9.6.2.1 Joint read-aloud The joint reading aloud of the picturebook involved the students contributing to the read-aloud. For this, the 14 lines of the rhyme were copied onto separate strips of paper and Filomena showed the projection of the picturebook. As she showed each opening, she read out each of the lines in bold in the rhyme, and a student was given the previous line of the rhyme to read aloud immediately after. Gradually as the illustrations were shown, more students were brought into the reading aloud of the rhyme and involved in the cumulative joint read-aloud experience. Table 1 provides an example of the first 5 Openings. Opening 1 Teacher This is the House that crack built, Opening 2 Teacher This is the man who lives in the House that crack built, Opening 3 Teacher These are the Soldiers who guard the Man, Student 1 who lives in the House that crack built. Opening 4 Teacher These are the Farmers who work in the heat, Student 2 and fear the Soldiers who guard the Man- Student 1 who lives in the House that crack built. Opening 5 Teacher These are the Plants that people can’t eat, Student 3 raised by the Farmers who work in the heat Student 2 and fear the Soldiers who guard the Man- Student 1 who lives in the House that crack built. Tab. 1: The cumulative joint read-aloud of The House that Crack Built This was an unusual way to introduce a piece of literature or to read a picturebook aloud in class, but it was very powerful. The images remained on the wall during the repetition of the rhyme, and as they became more grotesque, they were seen for longer amounts of time as the rhyme increased in length. The final illustration of the baby on a green mound with tears raining (see Fig. 4) remained on the wall for the longest as it is the last image and one of the most shocking. The individual voices of the students also represent the different characters in the picturebook, and this too was effective. Filomena described the students always wanting to repeat this activity. She explained why this might be during our interview: 9.6 The activities and retrospective descriptions 239 <?page no="241"?> The first time, before they understand what [the activity] is about and the rhythm it creates, sometimes it's hard for them. I think that's why they want to try it a second time because some of them realize that it sounds nice, that it is something interesting to do and it’s different from what we usually do, and [so] we usually try to do it a second time. (Interview transcription) This did not mean that the joint read-aloud always ran smoothly. It was important to carefully select a student for the final line “… who lives in the House that crack built” so that they take their role seriously during the joint read-aloud - they say their line eleven times! In the lesson observed, a student began to say this line in a silly voice, which caused the other students to laugh, however, once they were asked to take their role seriously, the joint read-aloud continued with the planned final impact. Filomena confirmed that this was an important consideration when setting up this part of the sequence and another reason to do it twice. In her reflective records, she explains that discipline can be a problem, but did not feel it interfered with the outcome of the activity sequence. Once the picturebook had been experienced like this, the students reflected on their initial predictions as well as on the question prompt “What feelings/ emotions did you experience while listening to the story? ” The discussion around feelings and emotions was important for the development of empathy and perspective taking. During the joint read-aloud in the lesson observed, I saw students nodding and commenting at their correct predications, as well as showing and or voicing their shock at the words and illustrations. Students shook their heads, covered their eyes, murmured to their partners and most were visibly affected by the multimodal experience - one student, close to me, gasped and said in Portuguese “… and the baby is dead. No! That can’t be.” Students were visibly uncomfortable at being put in a position where they had to decide on the ending of this shocking picturebook - there were real moments of disquieting, and the resulting feelings and emotions prompted real responses and discussion. The students were all motivated to get into think-pair-share mode: thinking for a moment and writing their thoughts and feelings on the worksheet, then discussing their predications and feelings with a partner and feeding their ideas back to Filomena and the rest of the class. During the whole-class conversation around predictions and opinions regarding the picturebook and its message, Filomena also shared with her students some of the new language she had learned when she first looked at this picturebook. The word ‘roach’ was most memorable for everyone, and it subsequently appeared in many of the students’ comments and written texts. 9.6.2.2 Small group book browsing The next activity involved getting into groups of three and looking at the picturebook. The students were asked to read it together, looking closely at the illustrations, and to decide which illustration they thought was the most powerful, and why. This was supported by the worksheet, where students had to write notes to help remember 240 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse <?page no="242"?> individual and shared ideas. The classroom buzzed during this activity. The students were not used to having a copy of a picturebook in small groups, and they enjoyed looking carefully at the illustrations and noticing different details. There was a lot to talk about, and the noise was a result of the enthusiasm with which they went about the task. The selected powerful openings varied in each group and a student was elected as representative to share their justifications with the rest of the class. Group 1 selected Opening 1, which illustrated the mansion with a swimming pool - the house that crack built. In the first extract, Student 1 presented their group’s ideas and other students in the class commented in response, challenging their choice and clarifying why they think the image is powerful. Group 1 justifying their choice of a powerful image: S1: … this is the most powerful picture because this is the place where everything starts. If the man who lived in this house didn’t deal drugs, so this man is destroying all the lives of the rest of the people in this book. […] how can a man get richer and richer selling this thing? And apart from this, he is winning money from destroying life. S2: The image is not powerful the consequences of it are. S3: The drugs destroy life because luxury and the good life. (Transcription notes 2013/ 2014) Group 2 selected Opening 14 (see Fig. 4) as the most powerful image, highlighting the powerlessness of the baby in the causal events. The group justified the choice as follows: S4: To resume the story, the consequent of the house that crack built. Filomena: How does it show the consequences? S4: Because of the drugs most people that are innocent are killed and have problems it wasn’t the fault of them. S5: I don’t think it’s raining on the picture I think that the points that are in the less dark blue are stars or tears. (Transcription notes 2013/ 2014) Group 3 also selected Opening 14 and focused on sharing their interpretation of the illustration bringing in the notion that the use of the colour green represents hope. This interpretation is a mix of positive hopefulness - the green earth bringing hope, and pragmatic pessimism - the baby is dying. Group 3 justifying their choice of a powerful image: S6: We have a baby we have probably it’s raining the tears of the baby. I think this [points to the green mound], the earth, a green earth because not everything is bad like we think. When we are sleeping, we have some dreams, and the dreams can be good, and we can imagine things we can’t do in real life. The baby is not good is probably dying I think is not feeding. S7: They saw green positive thoughts, the green like hope. 9.6 The activities and retrospective descriptions 241 <?page no="243"?> 1 Smart Shops are retail establishments that specialize in the sale of psychoactive substances. They were made illegal in Portugal in March 2013. S5: We think tears represent suffering. (Transcription notes 2013/ 2014) When responding in writing to the reflective prompts, Filomena described her feelings about the students’ analysis of the picturebook: “Every year is different, and students come up with different interpretations for the same pictures and that is really enriching for me as a person and as a teacher as I’m always learning with them” (Filomena reflective records). During our interview she expanded a little on the importance of different interpretations, […] this [topic] is more common to them okay it's a drug problem so it's something that they are used to talking about, though not from the different perspectives that the book shows but what I felt sometimes was that because they have different ideas about the same picture sometimes there's some conflict between them and then they always want to be right, not wrong, so sometimes there is a discussion about it but it's not a bad thing they are just standing up for their point of view so I think that's a good thing too that they try to justify their choice in what they think is right. (Interview transcription) The objectives of this learning sequence, as we have seen above, included giving opin‐ ions, counter-arguing and confronting opinions as well as explaining, analyzing and discussing logically. What Filomena is reinforcing is the opportunity the interpretative gap provides for her students “to think for real and to speak for real” (Mour-o 2013). 9.6.3 After reading aloud activities Activities in this stage of the learning sequence should focus on providing opportunities for students to use the topic and language they had been exposed to and, in Filomena’s case, to lead into writing. Filomena described three different activities. 9.6.3.1 Discussion around drugs in Portugal This first activity involved a class discussion on the topic of drug use in Portugal, which enabled learners to contextualize their reading experience. Filomena prepared question prompts to lead the discussion and highlighted key words which emerged from the interaction. 1. Is selling drugs ever justified? 2. Why do poor communities have gangs? Can gangs have a positive influence? 3. Should Portugal make cannabis legal? 4. Do you agree that Smart Shops 1 were closed? 5. What do we need in order to be happy? 242 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse <?page no="244"?> According to Filomena, her students integrated many of the new words they had learned, when talking about the picturebook, into their classroom discourse, and their written assessments at the end of the activities. This suggests that such discussions can provide access to target language and ideas which is later used in a meaningful context. 9.6.3.2 Creative writing activities Filomena highlighted the role of writing in the process of working with the picturebook and she did this in two different ways. The first involved the students thinking about the cumulative rhyme from a different perspective and rewriting it by replacing the word ‘crack’ with a positive word like ‘love’, ‘hope’, ‘happiness’ etc. Two examples of these cumulative rhymes follow. The first is by a group of three girls, entitled ‘This is the heart of a girl in love’: This is the heart of a girl in love. This is her face showing happiness. This is the guy who she´s in love with. This is the heart of the guy who loves the girl. This is the love that they feel for each other. This is the smile on their faces. Those are the parents of the teens in love. This is the family that they build together. The second was written by a group of boys and is called ‘This is the feeling known as peace’. It humorously involves the reggae singer Bob Marley: This is the feeling known as peace. This is the hippie who is transmitting the feeling known as peace. This is the van, left by the hippie, who is transmitting the feeling known as peace. This is the radio, left turned on in the van, left by the hippie, who is transmitting the feeling known as peace. This is the music style called reggae, which is playing on the radio, left turned on in the van, left by the hippie who is transmitting the feeling known as peace. This is Bob Marley, inventor of the music style called reggae, which playing on the radio, left turned on in the van, left by the hippie who is transmitting the feeling known as peace. This is the smile on the face of Bob Marley, inventor of the music style called reggae, which playing on the radio, left turned on in the van, left by the hippie, who is transmitting the feeling known as peace. And this is the happiness, shown by the smile on the face of Bob Marley, inventor of the music style called reggae, which playing on the radio, left turned on in the van, left by the hippie, who is transmitting the feeling known as peace. 9.6 The activities and retrospective descriptions 243 <?page no="245"?> The second time Filomena did this activity (2014/ 2015) she collaborated with one of the art teachers, and the students created virtual books, illustrating their rhyme. Filomena noted the following in her reflective records: The second time I used the picturebook with the collaboration of the art teacher was amazing. After writing their own cumulative story, they did the drawings to illustrate it and this was very meaningful, especially for some students who were not particularly good at or interested in English. I saw them engaged in the English lesson as I had never seen them before! (Filomena, reflective records) The art lesson sequence lasted for around eight weeks, and was structured around illustration objectives, which were part of the Grade 9 art and design programme. The resulting books were displayed on screens in the school library and in the school entrance hall, so that the school community could see them. They were also placed online and made open access through the school’s website. The feedback from the students and the art teacher was very positive. This approach to collaborating with the art teacher was something that Filomena would have liked to have done on all four occasions of using this picturebook, however it depended very much upon the willingness and availability of colleagues. In her reflective records Filomena wrote: “This collaborative work depends on how open colleagues are to working together, on how they are willing to make it fit into the learning programme and on trying to make our programmes go together” (Filomena, reflective records). The availability of colleagues is often a problem, especially when teachers are placed in schools on one-year contracts due to the centralized annual teacher placement system in Portugal, and guaranteeing the same teacher remains in a school to continue a project is not always possible. The other writing activity involved the students selecting one of the illustrations from the picturebook and imagining a dialogue between the characters in it. They did this in small groups, and Filomena confirmed how much they enjoyed the activity. The dialogue writing was also included in the assessment activity and Filomena used the created dialogues for reported speech practice during both class and assessment activities - something I will discuss later. 9.6.4 Language focus When asked if she encountered any difficulties while preparing to use The House that Crack Built, Filomena emphasized the challenges she felt in always keeping the learning programme in mind. She explained, “The idea is to use a different resource to motivate students who are a bit tired of coursebooks without neglecting grammar or vocabulary that needs to be covered” (Filomena, reflective records). As we have seen from the activity outlines, Filomena’s language focus was on vocabulary related to addictions, but also words the students needed to know to talk about the picturebook and the images (e.g., endpapers, title page, cover, opening, frame 244 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse <?page no="246"?> etc.). However, she also highlighted the usefulness of this picturebook to teach relative pronouns and relative clauses adding “without even realising it they are learning this item. They did it almost in a natural way when they were writing their cumulative story” (ibid.). Similarly, when writing their dialogue around one of the images, she asserted that “they had to apply the rules of questions and statements, affirmative and negative forms, etc.” (ibid.). Filomena also used these dialogues to practice reported speech and stressed how much her students enjoyed transforming sentences they had originally created themselves. Examples that she incorporated into a test follow: Report the following sentences. “I’m feeling numb now”, the boy said. “We worked very hard for our boss yesterday”, the farmers said. “I have tried to give up on these drugs”, the mother said. “Stop selling drugs”, the man ordered. (Excerpt from a written test) These sentences are clearly associated with the picturebook and contextualise the grammar focus in a very creative way. 9.6.5 Assessment of learning School-based assessment across the education system in Portugal is test-oriented and directed towards grading students, rather than towards providing feedback to improve learning. A recent OECD report suggests that “formative assessment is not used systematically” in Portugal (OECD 2019: 12). As a result of this, Filomena was very conscious of the need to show evidence of learning and, as we have seen, she wanted to take every opportunity to follow the learning programme. Filomena acknowledged that assessment was a “difficult issue, and it is no different when using a picturebook” (Interview transcription). 9.6.5.1 Formative teacher assessment Filomena took notes of students’ participation and browsed through their written notes and answers in the handout to support her ongoing assessment. Regarding participation Filomena wrote, “encouraging their participation by praising them or asking them to share their opinion, showing them there’s no right or wrong answer is, in my humble opinion, the best way to assess their progress” (Filomena, reflective records). During a presentation she gave at a teachers’ conference, Filomena highlighted the different opportunities for listening and speaking she had set up, these included listening to each other during the cumulative read-aloud of the verbal text, interacting with each other during the small group work and whole class discussions, as well as listening to others while viewing the YouTube version of the original rhyme. During 9.6 The activities and retrospective descriptions 245 <?page no="247"?> our interview, I pressed her for more information about assessing the oral activities she had planned and the participation of all students. She highlighted the opportunities this picturebook had given her to collect information on less able students’ and quieter students’ oral participation. The following dialogue occurred in our interview: Filomena: … the thing is that the weaker students, because there was no right or wrong answer they were also willing to share what they thought even if it was in Portuguese but they really wanted to share their thoughts as well and I think that's the good thing about the illustrations because it helps them, they don't need to read anything to participate, to be part of the activity and I think that that's what I remember about it. Also, because they were working in small groups, they were also able to contribute to it much easier, yeah it's a lot easier, the fact they were they work in groups it's something that is really important and they can add ideas and they can say what they think […] Sandie: So, how is that different to what you would normally do then? Wouldn't you do group work or creating stuff in groups normally? Filomena: Through the course I would, but not with images not with illustrations usually. Well sometimes we do have images but I don't think they are as suggestive as the ones from a picturebook [describes using individual student-selected images to create stories] but it's not the same thing as having a book, having a story, having something real, it's meaningful to them and the fact that it is real is what makes them more willing to do the task I think, and that's why I think the picturebook is so good, and this particular one, maybe because it is about discovering what it all means. (Interview transcription) Once again, Filomena is reinforcing how motivating the interpretative gap is for her students to engage in thinking and speaking for real, no matter how well they speak English. Also, the relevance of having multimodal input to interact with, providing opportunities for interpretation beyond the written word, is of relevance. All students can look at and make their own sense of an illustration as there is no right or wrong answer. There was no evidence of formative student-led assessment through reflecting and reviewing learning and considering how, if at all, the picturebook had contributed to improving their English and in what way. Nevertheless, at the end of this sequence of activities Filomena always asked her students to let her know what they enjoyed most and least. In her reflective records she described some of their responses: When all the activity was completed, I asked the students to write about the experience of working with the picturebook. Most of them mentioned the fact that they enjoyed it because it was easy to understand, they liked working in small groups, expressing their ideas, writing their own story. The pictures in the book are quite powerful and I think that also makes it memorable for most students. Even those who may have not enjoyed it so much, will remember it because it was a different activity. (Filomena, reflective records) 246 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse <?page no="248"?> 9.6.5.2 Summative teacher assessment On all occasions Filomena developed a test around the work they did together, and this was the main assessment tool. As I mentioned earlier, Filomena developed the test questions to incorporate the students’ classroom conversations. For example, a section of the test included an excerpt about the picturebook followed by comprehension questions, and ending with the following: Having read and studied the book in class, do you agree that the book is “a tool that can be used to open discussion and to help children learn to make the right choices”? Justify. (Excerpt from test) Here she is encouraging her students to remember and reflect on what they discussed in class and write about it. A focus on language components included, as I have already mentioned, the section on reported speech. Another section involved changing the verbs in sentences, based on the cumulative sequence, into the past tense. For a final writing activity there was usually an option to write about the picturebook, based on an illustration which the students were asked to describe and comment on. Filomena justified this by saying, “This way I can check if they can use the right language to write about what has already been discussed in class” (Filomena reflective records). As I mentioned earlier, this was usually the case, and she was able to identify words, expressions and topics which had been part of the classroom discussions. 9.7 Possible ways forward for Filomena In her reflective records, Filomena had mentioned changing the worksheet into a Google questionnaire, so the students could all see their responses on a screen, which would prompt further response and talk. She had noticed they were not very motivated to use the worksheet. However, during our interview another issue emerged which we talked about, and which subsequently gave her ideas for changing her approach to some of the activities she had used over the four years. The idea was prompted by her admitting that some students had told her they found the think-pair-share activity a little repetitive. She thought that a more dynamic approach using post-its might be more appropriate. If students wrote their predictions about what the picturebook was going to be about on the post-its, these could then be placed around the classroom wall after the first read-aloud, and as a whole group they would discover what their peers had predicted and look for patterns. She felt that it might be difficult to manage but would involve moving around and interacting more. I encouraged her to include space and time to justify their predictions, which as we have seen, generated some useful language and was relevant for positioning the reader with this multimodal text. 9.7 Possible ways forward for Filomena 247 <?page no="249"?> Finally, we talked a little about supporting colleagues to try out The House that Crack Built. Filomena had been at her school for seven years before any of her colleagues had agreed to try it out - an attempt which had been thwarted by the Covid 19 Pandemic. She had found my support and companionship important in her early picturebook steps, and she described her attempts at helping her own colleagues during our interview: … [my colleagues] had decided that this year they would do it. I had already shared everything I had, the powerpoint, the handout and everything so we were just hoping to get together and see how we would do it. I even told them if you want me to go, I can go with you and be there because I know it's not easy it was not very difficult for me because you were there, and I started with you and that was really helpful, and I felt more confident right, and I had already discussed everything with you. It's a lot different from having the book for the first time and just okay let's do this. I know it's not easy so I told them if they wanted me to be there with them, I wouldn't mind if the timetable allowed me to do so. (Interview transcription) Filomena is acknowledging the difficulties that she knew fellow teachers faced when introducing something quite different into their teaching repertoires. She wanted her colleagues to feel as supported and safe as she had felt, when they tried out this picturebook. She shared some of her earlier fears, which included not knowing how the students would react to the picturebook or how she would be able to use it to help them learn English. She shared how she had also been nervous about learning, and using, the picturebook metalanguage confidently. But these fears and uncertainties had been overcome and she was now confident about how she was able to integrate this picturebook into her own planning and teaching repertoire. So confident, that she was now ready to make changes and improve what she already felt was a successful learning sequence. She ended her reflective record with, ‘It’s funny because the more I talk or write about my experience with this picturebook, the more I want to work with it again! ’ (Filomena, reflective records). 9.8 Reflections around a retrospective approach to sharing practice Filomena used her plan for teaching The House that Crack Built four times over a six-year period. She had her resources ready - a class set of the picturebook, a PowerPoint with the recto page illustrations and the strips of paper to set up the joint read-aloud with her students, as well as the outlines for worksheets and tests. She was comfortable with the way she had used the picturebook in her teaching, despite some niggling issues which, after talking through them, she was considering changing. She had been able to sustain the original intervention due to her own personal convictions that it was beneficial for her students, even though she was the only teacher in her school using picturebooks and approaching substance abuse in such a way. We might even describe her practice as established, in the sense that through its iteration, it had 248 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse <?page no="250"?> become engrained in her annual planning and become a ready-to-use, familiar option. Filomena has even “diffused” her experience (McKenney/ Reeves 2012) by sharing her practice (ideas and resources) with others and offering to coach them. Nevertheless, despite Filomena’s satisfaction with her practices, this retrospective reflection has highlighted at least one area that could be further developed. The House that Crack Built has all the ingredients for developing a critical stance towards contemporary social and political issues and for disrupting the commonplace by supporting learners in “becoming aware of the underlying systems which are operating in texts” (Leland et al. 2013: 132). The characters in the illustrations are mostly people of colour (Pierce et al. 1993), this could and should be interrogated, with the option of extending the students’ conversations through further transaction with text sets to answer the questions: ‘How is substance abuse portrayed? ’ and ‘Who is portrayed alongside substance abuse? ’ Text sets are multimodal in nature (i.e., pictures, videos, songs, real stories from real people etc.), providing manifold perspectives on an issue in focus. They support “deeper understanding” by extending students’ comprehension of a topic and helping them see that “the reading event is an experience in itself ” (Leland et al. 2013: 200) - this ensures critical literacy becomes a clear objective in language education. Such an approach to using any form of literature in the classroom requires confi‐ dence and support, so alone Filomena may not undertake this refinement of her ‘comfy’ teaching plan. Her choices of what to do next will depend upon her careful orchestration of what she believes is possible and relevant for her teaching/ learning context, keeping the curriculum constantly in view and relying upon her self-perceived strengths. I know I have benefitted enormously from being Filomena’s mentor. I have been privileged to enter her classroom, experience her trials and triumphs, and reflect with her in preparation for this chapter. Maybe by continuing this symbiotic relationship, we can continue together to take steps to ensure that critical literacy is included in the teaching and learning objectives of her future picturebook endeavours. List of references Primary literature Bildner, Phil/ Watson, Jesse, J. (2014). The Soccer Fence. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. Jones, Penny (1983). The Brown Bottle. Centre City, MN: Hazelden. Say, Allen (2009). Tea With Milk. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Tabor, Nancy (1999). Bottles Break. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge Taylor, Clark/ Thompson Dicks, Jan (1992). The House that Crack Built. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books. List of references 249 <?page no="251"?> Secondary literature Akbari, Ramin (2008). Transforming lives: Introducing critical pedagogy into ELT classrooms. ELT Journal, 62(3), 276-283. Alter, Grit (2019). Society’s cataclysmic decline in picturebooks and visualizations of fairy tales. 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Research Methods in Education (8 th edn). Abingdon: Routledge. Council of Europe (2020). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment - Companion volume, Council of Europe Publishing, Strasbourg. Available online: www.coe.int/ lang-cefr. Dolan, Ana Maria (2014). You, Me and Diversity. Picturebooks for Teaching Development and Intercultural Education. London: Trentham Books. Ellis, Gail/ Brewster, Jean (2014). Tell it Again! The New Storytelling Handbook for Primary Teachers. London: British Council Ellis, Gail/ Mour-o, Sandie (2021). Demystifying the read-aloud. English Teaching Professional, 36, 22-25. Gray, John (2001). The global coursebook in English language teaching. In: Block, David/ Ca‐ meron, Deborah (eds.). Globalization and Language Teaching. London/ NewYork: Routledge, 151-167. Griffith, Kathlyn (2000). Nursery rhymes: Everything old is new again. In Schiller, Wendy (ed.) Thinking Through the Arts. London, 86-95. New York: Routledge. 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Children’s Literature in Education, 32(3): 203-224. McKenney, Susan/ Reeves, Tomas C. (2012). Conducting Educational Design Research. New York: Routledge. Ministério da Educaç-o (1997). Programa Inglês: Programa e Organizaç-o Curricular. Ensino Básico 3º Ciclo. Lisboa: Departamento da Educaç-o Básica. Moebius, William (1986). Introduction to picturebook codes. Word & Image, 2(2), 141-158. Morgado, Margarida (2019). Intercultural mediation through picturebooks. Comunicaç-o e Sociedade, Special Issue 2019: 163-183 Mour-o, Sandie (2011). The house that crack built. https: / / picturebooksinelt.blogspot.com/ 2011 / 10/ house-that-crack-built.html (last accessed 25 March 2022) Mour-o, Sandie (2013). Response to The Lost Thing: Notes from a secondary classroom. Children’s Literature in English Language Education Journal. 1(1) 2013: 81-106. Mour-o, Sandie (2015). The potential of picturebooks with young learners. In: Bland, Janice (ed.). Teaching English to Young Learners. Critical Issues in Language Teaching with 3-12 year olds. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 199-218. Nodelman, Perry (1988). Words About Pictures. The Narrative Art of Children's Picture Books. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. OECD. (2019) TALIS Country Notes - Portugal. Volume I: Teachers and School Leaders as Lifelong Learners. Paris: OECD Publishing. https: / / www.oecd.org/ education/ talis/ TALIS201 8CNPRT.pdf Ommundsen, Ase Marie/ Haaland, Gunnar/ Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina (eds.) (2021). Explor‐ ing Challenging Picturebooks in Education. International Perspectives in Language and Literature Learning. New York: Routledge. Pierce, Kathryn M./ Short, Kathy G./ Bognar, Beverly/ Burke, Connie/ Dix, Tonya/ Scordias, Mar‐ garet/ Von Dras, Joan/ Woodman, Marie/ Searcy, Cindy/ Viviano, Roxanne (1993). Children's books: Contemporary social and political issues. The Reading Teacher 47(2): 148-157. Reynolds, Kimberley (2007). Radical Children’s Literature: Future Visions and Aesthetic Trans‐ formations in Juvenile Fiction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Rosenblatt, Louise (1995). Literature as Exploration. New York: Modern language Association of America. Schwebs, Runa B. (2019). Use of Literature Circles to Promote Cultural Knowledge and Oral Communication. Exploring the issues of apartheid and human rights through literature circles. Unpublished MA dissertation. Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway. Serafini, Frank/ Clausen, Jennifer (2012). Typography as semiotic resource. Journal of Visual Literacy, 31(2) 1-16. Short, Kathy G. (2009). Critically reading the word and the world. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature, 77(2): 1-10. List of references 251 <?page no="253"?> Short, Kathy G./ Day, Deanna/ Schroeder, Jean (2016). Teaching Globally. Reading the World Through Literature. Portland: Stenhouse Publishers. Sindland, Lydia/ Birketveit, Anna (2020). Development of intercultural competence among a class of 5th graders using a picture book. Nordic Journal of Modern Language Methodology, 8(2), 113-139. Sipe, Lawrence (1999). Expanding the worlds of children’s literature. Theory in Practice, 38(3): 120-129. Sís, Petr (2007). The Wall: Growing up behind the iron curtain. New York: Frances Foster Books. Smith-D’Arezzo, Wendy/ Thompson, Susan (2006). Topics of stress and abuse in picture books for children. Children’s Literature in Education, 37, 335-347. Tan, Shaun (2000). The Lost Thing. Sydney: Lothian Books. Vasquez, Vivian M. (2017). Critical Literacy Across the K-6 Curriculum. Abingdon: Routledge. Whitelaw, Jessica (2017). Beyond the bedtime story: In search of epistemic possibilities and the innovative potential of disquieting picturebooks. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature, 55(1), 33-41. Yeom, Eun Y. (2019). Disturbing the still water: Korean English language students’ visual journeys for global awareness. Children's Literature in English Language Education Journal, 7.1, 1-20. List of illustrations Fig. 1: The House that Crack Built (Taylor/ Thompson Dicks 1992), front and back covers. From THE HOUSE THAT CRACK BUILT, ©1992 Clark Taylor. Illustrations by Jan Thompson Dicks. Used with Permission from Chronicle Books, LLC. Visit www. ChronicleBooks.com. Fig. 2: Opening 2, The House that Crack Built (Taylor and Thompson Dicks 1992) From THE HOUSE THAT CRACK BUILT, ©1992 Clark Taylor. Illustrations by Jan Thompson Dicks. Used with Permission from Chronicle Books, LLC. Visit www. ChronicleBooks.com. Fig. 3: Opening 7, The House that Crack Built (Taylor and Thompson Dicks 1992) From THE HOUSE THAT CRACK BUILT, ©1992 Clark Taylor. Illustrations by Jan Thompson Dicks. Used with Permission from Chronicle Books, LLC. Visit www. ChronicleBooks.com. Fig. 4: Opening 14, The House that Crack Built (Taylor and Thompson Dicks 1992) From THE HOUSE THAT CRACK BUILT, ©1992 Clark Taylor. Illustrations by Jan Thompson Dicks. Used with Permission from Chronicle Books, LLC. Visit www. ChronicleBooks.com. 252 9 Crack in the classroom: A picturebook about the social problem of drug abuse <?page no="254"?> Appendix: Handout The House that crack built by Clark Taylor and illustrated by Jan Thompson Dicks A. Before listening to the story 1. Based on the title write at least 3 words and 3 images you expect to find in the picturebook. Words Images B. While/ after listening to the story 2. What feelings/ emotions did you experience while listening to the story? 3. What other feelings/ emotions did you experience after looking at the book with your group? 4. Which illustration do you think is the most powerful? Explain. 5. Discuss the following questions: - Is selling drugs ever justified? - Why do poor communities have gangs? Can gangs have a positive influence? - Should Portugal make cannabis legal? - Do you agree that smart shops were closed? - What does one actually need in order to be happy? 6. Look at the words that begin with capital letters and think about the reason why they might be capitalized. Example: This is the House that crack built. Appendix: Handout 253 <?page no="256"?> As so often, this started with a cup of coffee… A personal reflection on this publishing process Grit Alter and Thorsten Merse This edited book is the result of a critical reflection that we have started about six years ago. Thorsten invited Grit for some coffee, and we know that good ideas often start with a cup of coffee, and showed her a picturebook that mesmerized him. It was Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, the book that we also showcase in the introduction. As supporters of diverse and colorful societies in which people have the freedom to be who they want to be and can unfold not only their potential but create lived identities, we loved the book right away. How Mr. Tiger follows his convictions, how he does not let himself be discouraged by the critical looks he receives, how he develops the self-confidence to be who he feels he is deep inside and makes this visible for the outside world to see - what a great story! We quickly developed ideas for classroom reflections in our university courses, and it did not take long to recognize that this book might actually also be intriguing for intermediate and advanced learners. For them, the message would be captivating, the visual design and interplay of verbal and visual text would be compelling, and they could ponder the moral behind the book and what it is that author and illustrator may have had in mind for their child readers when they created the book. This was step one. Step two was Grit’s engagement with trauma fiction and dystopian picturebooks. For the former she worked with picturebooks on residential schools - a devastating part of North American history that has recently gained new attention when mass graves with children’s bodies were discovered on former residential school yards in Canada in 2021. In this project, Grit applied the concept of trauma fiction to children’s picturebooks that try to narrate society’s atrocities to this young audience. Due to the violence and abuse the books allude to, and their intricate interplay of verbal and visual text which refrains from speaking the unspeakable while simultaneously presenting the daily life at these schools, reading these picturebooks can enhance interand transcultural learning as well as visual and multimodal literacy in both intermediate and advanced learners. A second project focussed on picturebooks that present society as no-good places. As reflected in the introduction and specific chapters in this edited volume, texts such as The Girl in Red and The House that Crack Built narrate harsh realities of life in the big city with its threatening violence and seductive chances, and the devastating consequences of drug abuse, are perhaps not suitable for young readers - but promising texts for more advanced learners. We continued our work on other projects, but we held on to this idea of using picturebooks with intermediate and advanced learners with the aim of moving this text format up to EFL education in secondary schools. Time and again, our conversations returned to this idea, and we had the feeling that there might be more to discover if <?page no="257"?> we followed up on it - both in teaching practice and in research. We kind of had this itching in our fingertips and knew that there was something to it… Step three was taken when the German Association of Foreign Language Research (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Fremdsprachenforschung, DGFF) circulated the call for papers for their biennial conference in 2019. Aside from conference papers and symposia, the organizers also invited free formats for which applicants could suggest discussion rounds, workshops, and the like. This was our opportunity, we thought, to see in how far our conceptual idea of using picturebooks with intermediate and advanced learners would actually be convincing for practitioners, and whether there would really be something to it from the vantage point of research. Without much further ado, we put together a proposal and applied for one of the free formats by suggesting a workshop on “Re-thinking Picturebooks for Intermediate and Advanced Learners”. Investigating the topic in more detail, we were pleased to see that the respective research community had actually already been very active, having established a whole discourse into which we could inscribe and locate our own ideas. Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, Sandra Beckett, and Åse Marie Ommundsen are only three of the names we regularly encountered during our research. Discovering these scholars and their work, our excitement grew, and we were looking forward to putting this topic on a broader stage. Our proposal got accepted and we were thrilled to welcome an interested group of around 12 in-service teachers, aspiring and established researchers, student teachers as well as publishers to our workshop. In two afternoon sessions, we jointly explored the potential of picturebooks for secondary ELT classrooms further, we read and reflected upon texts together, linked these with principles and teaching objectives of secondary ELT - and, as organizers, we became ever more enthusiastic that what had started over a cup of coffee really took shape. When putting together the proposal, we already thought about turning the work and commitment that would go into the workshop into an edited book. From our experiences at conferences, we could tell that, particularly during such workshops, participants often develop a lot of creative ideas that are worth securing. Hence, step four led us to approaching publishers to see whether they might mirror and confirm the potential we saw in this idea. We suggested an edited volume on re-thinking picturebooks for secondary EFL education, and it was a priority for us to invite the participants of our workshop to contribute. We wanted to call for chapters that critically engage with the conceptual idea of picturebooks as a literary format beneficial for secondary English language teaching. And, of course, we wanted to include chapters with a practical notion, chapters in which practitioners reflect on their actual experience of reading picturebooks with their intermediate and advanced learners. We were positive that this mix would provide a very broad engagement with our predetermined goal to reconsider picturebooks outside of their more established primary education or child-related contexts - particularly so because as our intended audience we not only had future teachers, practicing teachers, and scholars of foreign language research and education in mind. We also wanted to open up this discourse to 256 As so often, this started with a cup of coffee… A personal reflection on this publishing process <?page no="258"?> literary studies, mainly because we wanted to challenge the notion that picturebooks are still underestimated as a literary format, and hence, to nudge them toward deeper academic reflections in literary studies as well. Step five included approaching the participants of our DGFF workshop, and in addition, international scholars who we knew would be keen on this idea, and invited them to contribute. What followed were exciting weeks of receiving committed and thrilling abstracts, and of engaging in critical and reflective conversations in which we exchanged, developed, and fine-tuned pathways into practice-driven, empirical, or conceptual research together with the authors you find collected in this edited volume. The result of steps one to five is what you are now holding in your hands. We are tremendously happy and thankful that the Narr Francke Attempto publishing house endorsed our idea and agreed to include this book in their literary studies series. We are tremendously happy and thankful that we could enthuse such a diverse group of authors for this project. We highly appreciate their creative ideas and their willingness to jump on this project both as academic scholars and as in-school practitioners - even though, in many cases, they had so many other things to do within the past three years, such as keeping their classes going or making sure that their students make it to the next grade. We would like to wholeheartedly thank all of you for offering your ideas and critical reflections to this book and for contributing so essentially to this discourse. In particular, we would like to thank Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer for providing us with a foreword to our book. From the early days of picturebook research onwards, she has been an essential voice in developing the idea of seeing picturebooks as the complex literary formats that they genuinely are - and of taking them seriously as literature. What an honor to have her contribute to our book! Certainly, we were not able to unfold the full potential of this complex topic. Future research as well as innovative classroom work in EFL education might yield more critical and productive insights into identifying more picturebooks suitable for secondary classrooms, into newly designed tasks and methodologies that facilitate learners’ literary engagement with the verbal and visual texts of picturebooks, and of course, bringing picturebooks into the university classrooms where future EFL teachers get to experience these rich texts while being prepared for their professional careers. Or: Why not have learners engage with creating multimodal picturebook texts from scratch, as a novel pathway into productand process-oriented ways of working with literature? Many options seem promising, and how does the saying go? After the book is before the book, right? So why not have another cup of coffee? As so often, this started with a cup of coffee… A personal reflection on this publishing process 257 <?page no="260"?> About the editors Grit Alter is Professor of Teaching English as a Foreign Language at the University College of Teacher Education in Innsbruck, Austria. Her research focusses on using picturebooks in English language teaching, teaching methodology and digital literacy in the primary English classroom, diversity education, and critical pedagogy. She is currently involved in projects on critical textbook studies, teaching Canada, and playful learning. Thorsten Merse is Professor of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Education at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), Germany. In his research, he explores interand transcultural learning, pedagogies of teaching literature, and digital education in EFL. He places particular emphasis on engaging with LGBTIQ+ diversity and Queer Theory in EFL Education and on researching teachers’ developing digital competences. <?page no="262"?> About the authors Sissil Lea Heggernes is Associate Professor in English Language Teaching at Oslo Metropolitan University. Her PhD study from 2021 explores English language students’ intercultural learning through texts, with a particular focus on the role of picturebooks. Her research interests include children’s and young adult’s literature, intercultural learning, critical thinking, reading, dialogic learning, and language teachers’ profes‐ sional development. Katja Heim's professional home base is the University of Duisburg-Essen, where she is a senior lecturer in EFL Education. Recently, she has also held interim professorships at the universities of Greifswald and Wuppertal. Her research interests are in the field of (social) inclusion in ELT, bridging theory and practice in EFL teacher education, learner autonomy, teaching English at primary level, as well as digital and hybrid teaching. Anne Herlyn is a teacher trainer at the Institute for Teacher Training in Freiburg (Vocational Schools) and is a teacher at a vocational school in Freiburg. She has taught ELT classes at the University of Freiburg and is teaching professional development courses to teachers in Baden-Württemberg. Among her main interests are the use of visuals in language teaching, as well as literature in the ELT classroom. Heiko Kist is Lecturer at the English Department of the University of Education Freiburg, Germany. He has worked as a language teacher in secondary schools in Germany and China. His main research interests are teaching literature in the EFL classroom, media literacy as well as gender and diversity studies. Annika Kolb is Professor at the English Department of the University of Education Freiburg, Germany. She has worked as a language teacher in primary and secondary schools in Germany and Spain. Her main research interests are teaching English to young learners and literature in language teaching. Helena Lopes is a teacher of EFL in Portuguese state schools. She is also a teacher trainer in CPD courses for teachers. She holds a PhD in Languages, Literatures and Cultures, area of specialization in Foreign Language Didactics. She is a member of CETAPS, FCSH, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Her interests include teaching and learning methodologies, picturebooks, and citizenship in EFL. Eleni Louloudi is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of English Language Education at Bielefeld University. In her PhD research, she investigated teachers' perspectives of critical literacies in Canada and in Europe comparatively. Her research interests include critical literacies, social justice education, translanguaging, children's literature and ethnographic methodologies. <?page no="263"?> Sandie Mour-o is a research fellow at CETAPS, Nova University Lisbon, Portugal. Her experience in English language education spans over 35 years as a classroom teacher, a teacher educator, educational consultant, and storyteller. Her research interests focus on early language learning, intercultural citizenship education, and classroom-based assessment, as well as picturebooks as aesthetic objects in all levels of language education.- Markus Oppolzer is Associate Professor of TEFL and Literary Studies at the Depart‐ ment of English and American Studies at the University of Salzburg. His research interests include visual narrative media (mostly comics and picturebooks), auto/ biog‐ raphy, teaching literature and critical media literacy.- Theresa Summer is Associate Professor of TEFL at the University of Bamberg. She taught English and Music at secondary schools for several years, is co-editor of the journal English 5-10, and aims to establish a clear link between theory and practice in teacher education while also considering interdisciplinary approaches. Her research interests include pop culture, critical pedagogy, global education, and grammar. 262 About the authors <?page no="264"?> The pedagogic value of picturebooks for teaching English in primary schools is undisputed. However, they also hold immense potential for secondary English language education. Their intricate design, thematic complexity, and rich options for competence development, e.g., in areas such as critical thinking or fostering visual literacy, transcend primary classrooms. This volume engages in a research-based discourse of how the transfer of this supposedly childlike literary medium to the secondary level can succeed. It legitimizes picturebooks as a complex text form that lends itself to competenceand content-oriented learning in English lessons with intermediate and advanced learners. The conceptual and empirical perspectives collected in this volume offer prospective and practicing teachers concrete insights on how picturebooks can enrich the classroom in many ways. A wide range of practical examples illustrates their potential for teaching English in secondary schools - from promoting different literacies and literary learning to focusing on topics such as the environment, social justice, or cultural diversity. With a foreword by Be�na Kümmerling-Meibauer. ISBN 978-3-8233-8474-8
