Exploring the narrative art of David Wiesner: using a grammar of visual design and learning experiences on the world wide web
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Author(s)
Unsworth, Len
Ortigas, Isabel
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2008
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This paper discusses the use of 'a grammar of visual design' with children's literature. This 'visual grammar' is an account of the meaning-making resources of images that has been developed by Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen. The basic ideas of the visual grammar are firstly illustrated with a description of images mainly selected from the picture book, Zoo by the British author, Anthony Browne. The focus is then on the picture books of David Wiesner and the ways in which the grammar of visual design can be used to enhance discussions of the author's visual narrative techniques. What is proposed here is that developing ...
View more >This paper discusses the use of 'a grammar of visual design' with children's literature. This 'visual grammar' is an account of the meaning-making resources of images that has been developed by Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen. The basic ideas of the visual grammar are firstly illustrated with a description of images mainly selected from the picture book, Zoo by the British author, Anthony Browne. The focus is then on the picture books of David Wiesner and the ways in which the grammar of visual design can be used to enhance discussions of the author's visual narrative techniques. What is proposed here is that developing students' understanding of the Kress and van Leeuwen concepts of visual design will allow them to engage in more productive analysis of the pictorial aspects of Wiesner's and other artists' picture books, both in book format and in the readily available websites with activities using Wiesner's and others' picture book art.
View less >
View more >This paper discusses the use of 'a grammar of visual design' with children's literature. This 'visual grammar' is an account of the meaning-making resources of images that has been developed by Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen. The basic ideas of the visual grammar are firstly illustrated with a description of images mainly selected from the picture book, Zoo by the British author, Anthony Browne. The focus is then on the picture books of David Wiesner and the ways in which the grammar of visual design can be used to enhance discussions of the author's visual narrative techniques. What is proposed here is that developing students' understanding of the Kress and van Leeuwen concepts of visual design will allow them to engage in more productive analysis of the pictorial aspects of Wiesner's and other artists' picture books, both in book format and in the readily available websites with activities using Wiesner's and others' picture book art.
View less >
Journal Title
L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature
Volume
8
Issue
3
Publisher URI
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2008. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, providing that the work is properly cited. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
Subject
English and Literacy Curriculum and Pedagogy (excl. LOTE, ESL and TESOL)