Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Young learners with reading and writing difficulties cannot reach their full potential in school. Teachers, parents and illustrators of children’s books cannot assume the efficacy of illustrations as an aid in developing reading skills as a matter of course. Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus theory explains perceptual diversity. Illustrations, as varied visual contexts, can be interpreted in different ways and, therefore, also provoke different meanings. The thesis proposes that the young learner should be provided with a diversity of visual stimulants. The thesis proposes that such visual stimulants comprise multiple characterising in illustrated form. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Jong leerders met lees- en skryfprobleme kan nie hul volle potensiaal bereik nie. Onderwysers, ouers en illustreerders van kinderboeke kan nie die effektiwiteit van illustrasies as hulpmiddel in die ontwikkeling van leesvaardighede as vanselfsprekend aanvaar nie. Pierre Bourdieu se habitusteorie verduidelik perseptuele verskille in die registrasie van beeld en teks. Illustrasies, as gevarieerde visuele kontekste kan op verskillende maniere geïnterpreteer word en daarom roep dit verskillende betekenisse op. Die tesis stel voor dat die jong leerder variasies in visuele stimulante behoort te ontvang. Die tesis stel ook voor dat sodanige visuele stimulante multikarakterisering in geïllustreerde vorm behels.

UNIVERZITA KARLOVA v PRAZE Pedagogická fakulta katedra primární pedagogiky PRÁCE S LITERÁRNÍM TEXTEM METODAMI DRAMATICKÉ VÝCHOVY WORKING WITH LITERARY TEXT BY THE HELP OF DRAMATIC EDUCATIONAL METHODS Vedoucí diplomové práce: doc. Mgr. Radek Marušák Autor diplomové práce: Tulisová Kristina Studijní obor: Pedagogika předškolního věku Forma studia: kombinovaná Diplomová práce dokončena: duben, 2012 2 Prohlašuji, že jsem diplomovou práci vypracovala samostatně s použitím uvedené literatury. V Praze dne ………………… Podpis: ……………………… 3 Poděkování: Děkuji doc. Mgr. Radkovi Marušákovi za odborné vedení této diplomové práce. 4 Abstrakt: Tato diplomová práce se zabývá dítětem předškolního věku a jeho zájmem o knihu pro děti. Zjišťuje, s jakými literárními žánry jsou děti v mateřské škole seznamovány. Ověřuje rozdíl mezi dvěma postupy při práci s knihou pro děti, a to předčítáním a prostřednictvím metod dramatické výchovy. V první části jsou rozpracovány dvě hlavní oblasti: literatura a dramatická výchova ve vztahu k dítěti předškolního věku. Druhá část zjišťuje prostřednictvím dotazníkového šetření míru a podobu využívaní literárních žánrů učiteli mateřských škol. Na dotazníkové šetření navazuje zpracování výsledků akčního výzkumu, který se zabýval mírou dětského zaujetí pro dané knihy. Hlavním kriteriem pro vyhodnocení...

Au lendemain de la défaite de 1967 appelée la naksa, une génération d’intellectuels syriens, égyptiens et libanais s’engagent dans l’écriture et l’illustration pour les enfants. Ce faisant ils se racontent et dessinent leur avenir idéalisé. La création arabe en littérature pour la jeunesse qui se développe dans les années 1970 est profondément animée par le souffle idéologique de son temps. Elle pose les jalons structurels, thématiques et graphiques qui inspirent la production contemporaine. Les auteurs, illustrateurs et éditeurs entendent parler à l’enfant arabe du monde dans lequel il grandit. Ils mènent une réflexion sur les thématiques, sur les niveaux de langue arabe, sur l’image figurative, ses héritages, sa structure et ses codes. Leur quête est littéraire, artistique et identitaire : ils sont les initiateurs d’une renaissance, une nahda pour les enfants. Ces questionnements sont les pierres d’angle de notre recherche. Celle-ci se concentre sur le mouvement avant-gardiste de création arabe en littérature pour la jeunesse des années 1970 à nos jours, elle ambitionne d’en étudier les rouages et les ouvrages, d’observer l’articulation entre l’œuvre, son intention, son mode de production et son message. Il s’agit d’une part d’archiver les mémoires et les histoires collectives et individuelles, d’élucider les héritages et les filiations de ces créateurs, de suivre l’évolution de leurs motivations idéologiques, artistiques, économiques. Il s’agit d’autre part de faire une lecture au plus prés de notre corpus, une étude de l’évolution des thématiques au fil du temps mais aussi une analyse des albums eux-mêmes, dans leur structure linguistique et graphique. / After the defeat of 1967, known as the naksa, a generation of Syrian, Egyptian and Lebanese intellectuals began writing and illustrating children's books. In doing so they gave form to an idealized future. Children's literature that developed in the Arab world during the 1970s was greatly influenced by the ideological climate of the time. It laid the structural, thematic and graphical foundations on which today's work is based. The goal of authors, illustrators and publishers was to produce works for Arab children which described the world in which they were growing up. Their work was centered on themes, on the different levels of Arabic, on the figurative image, its heritage, its structure and its codes and conventions. Their objective was literary, artistic, and a quest for cultural identity. They were the vanguard of a renaissance, a nahda for children.These questions form the basis of this research. It concentrates on the avant-guard movement in children's literature from the 1970s to the present day. It attempts to study the way it worked and what was published, to observe the connections between the work itself, its aims, the way it was produced and its message. The research involves, on the one hand, documenting recollections and stories, both collective and individual, tracing the heritage and interconnections among of those involved, to follow the development of their ideological, artistic and economic motivation. It will also involve a detailed study of illustrated books for children, an examination of the thematic evolution over time, as well as a semiological reading of the books themselves, with reference to their linguistic and graphic structure.

This thesis reports on a study which developed a profile of the reviewers of children's books in Australia. It then compared the profile with one which was developed by Kathleen Craver in 1984 of children's book reviewers in the United States. Five research questions were addressed by this study relating to reviewers and their opinions regarding review aspects, reviewer roles and review practices within the framework of their personal and professional background. Craver surveyed the reviewers from School Library journal because as a group, they provided the greatest potential for statistical significance of all the reviewing journals in the United States. As no Australian journal enjoys either the number of reviewers or the circulation of School Library journal, reviewers from eight journals which are most used by teacher and children's librarians were selected to form the population for this research. These journals are Fiction Focus, LINES, Magpies, Reading Time, Reviewpoin t, Review Bulletin, Scan and Tasmanian Resources Review. The reviewer profile which emerged from this study was very similar to Craver's in that it was not one which could be entirely defined in terms of group characteristics. Selected cross tabulations either with the particular journals, demographic details, or other variables, particularly those relating to reviewer experience failed to produce predictable behaviourial correlations. However, reviewers were united on certain issues which can be attributed to their own professional background.

Denna studie är en subjektiv bildanalys av barnböcker där syftet med studien är att undersöka hur genusaspekter kommer till uttryck i barnböckerna med fokuset på ett teknikinnehåll. I studien har jag valt ut några bilder i fyra Alfons Åberg- böcker samt en bild i en nyare bok - Hej Ruby, med fokus på digitalteknik. Bilderna har sedan analyserats utifrån Falks analysramverk där bilderna delas upp i fyra kategorier - denotativ nivå, inre kontext, yttre kontext och konnotativ nivå.  Studien har kommit fram till att tekniken den utvalda litteraturen följer vissa traditionella könsmönster. Exempelvis att tekniken i köket som oftast kopplas ihop med kvinnor blir bortglömd. Den syns inte lika väl som den typiskt manliga tekniken, som bygg och konstruktion, där tekniken är tydlig och kan ses som ett projekt. Studien lyfter även olika reflektioner kring valet av barnlitteratur samt vikten av boksamtal. / This study is a subjective image analysis of children books where the purpose of the study was to investigate how gender aspects are expressed in children books with the focus on content regarding technology. The study is aimed at educators who are active in preschool activities. The study is based on four Alfons Åberg-books and a newer book focusing on digital technology called Hej Ruby. The images have been analyzed based on Falk's analysis framework where the images are divided into four categories - denotative level, internal context, external context and connotative level. The study has found that the technology in children's books follows certain traditional gender patterns. For example, the technology in the kitchen, most often associated with women is forgotten, it does not show as well as the typical male technology, as construction where technology often appears as a project created by the man.

The aim of this research is to study how gender is constructed and represented in children's literature through image and text analysis of the four selected children's books from respectively Sweden, Poland, and Turkey. Through our analysis we want to demonstrate the prevailing gender discourses expressed in children's books through text and image. From this we want to create an understanding of the importance of the selection of children's books and the role of adults in com­municating and discussing the content. The study has feminist poststructuralism as theory which is part of social constructivism. To achieve the in-depth analysis, we used semiotic text and image analysis as well as multimodality and critical discourse analysis. The study's findings show that, based on semiotic image and text analysis, most analyzed books convey and portray a con­ventional and traditional image of femininity and masculinity. There are some break­through chal­lenges in the selected children's books that adults need to attend to in social practice with the chil­dren. The result we have reached is only partly in line with the curriculum for preschool gender equality. Some messages are also in conflict with them.

Det här är en studie som handlar om barnböckers innehåll. Syftet med studien var att synliggöra olika värdegrundsaspekter som finns i barnböcker i förskolan. Fokus var jämställdhet med ett särskilt fokus på stereotypa könsmönster. Ett urval av barnböcker som lånas ut via barnboksbussen låg till grund för studien och det var metoden kvalitativ textanalys som tillämpades. Både en styrd analys och en mer öppen analys gjordes för att få fram resultatet. Vid den mer öppna analysen framträdde värdegrundskopplade ord som gemenskap och respekt. Tidigare forskning visade att andra värdegrundskopplad ord som omsorg och empati var viktiga och tillsammans med orden gemenskap och respekt var dessa ord värdefulla för den här studien. Resultatet visade olika sätt att synliggöra värdegrund, till exempel att gemenskap kunde ses som vänskap och empati kunde handla om inkludering. I diskussionsdelen lyfts vikten av böckers inflytande i förskolan fram men arbetet med värdegrund och demokrati utförs inte bara med hjälp av böcker. Studiens kunskapsbidrag inom ämnet kan utveckla pedagogers förståelse för vikten av barnböckers innehåll. / This study is about content of children’s books. The purpose of this study was to clarify different aspects of values in children’s books in preschools. The focus was gender equality with primary focus on stereotypical gender roles. The selection was made from children’s books that were lent out through the children’s book bus (a portable library, on a bus). Chosen method for this study was qualitative text analysis. Both a controlled analysis and a more open analysis was made to make the result visible. During the more open analysis other value-connected words appeared and these words was community and respect. According to previous research also value-connected words like empathy and care was found and together with the words community and respect these words were valuable for this study. The result showed different kind of ways to make values visible. For example community was also showed as friendship and empathy could be about inclusion. The discussion addresses the importance of books in preschool, but the work with value and democracy through children’s books it’s not the only solution to convey good values. The studies knowledge contribution on the subject can develop preschool teachers understanding the importance of children’s book content.

In this essay, the children’s picture book Hilma af Klint: maps of invisibility by Ylva Hillström and Karin Eklund is analyzed with the aim of exploring the picture book as a medium and tool for art history writing. The analysis examines how the artist Hilma af Klint is portrayed and how art history is presented, as well as placing a particular focus on analyzing the interaction between image and text. The content is examined with semiotic image analysis, an inductive literature study as well as reception aesthetics analysis. The analysis concludes that Hilma af Klint as an artist is portrayed as fearless, curious and serious, and her artistic ambition is described as the desire to understand the universe. The design of the picture book and the ability to freely place and combine images and texts in different ways means that it is possible to convey the history of the art in several ways. With the picture book, sometimes several parallel stories are told; sometimes picture and text work together to complement each other, other tims the same thing is presented in both text and picture, or the pictures tell a story of their own or provide additional information that does not appear in the text. Depending on the experience of the viewer/reader, it is possible to derive different things from the picture book, and gaps can be filled as well as be left empty, which creates excitement and curiosity about the rest of the art world. Through the illustrations representation of af Klint's work and Eklund's way of illustrating the works the images in the book relate back to the children's/viewer's own world. The design of the picture book functions as a gateway to what it is like to look at art and art books and it works to create images within the viewer.

Libraries exist around us and for most of us they are a part of our every day life. But how often do we stop and think about their meaning? Libraries in fiction are usually not the center of the narrative, they play a role quietly in the background and offer a backcloth to the story. Yet they are a vital part of the story. Without them a big part of the magic in the stories would be lost. And what is their role in our lives? What do the libraries mean to the books they harbor, the readers who seek them out and society in which they have their axiomatic role? This essay’s focus is my story “Between the shelves”, which is about the young girl Julia and the mysterious passageway she discovers in her local library. Here she finds shelf after shelf with strange-looking books. They all seem to have peculiar titles, one of them is When Napoleon won the battle of Waterloo. Driven by her curiosity she starts reading the book, and soon finds herself inside it, living the battle. The library is not just a building, it is also a hub where different alternative realities can be reached through the books. In this essay I will compare the topics of my story, such as the interpretation of the library (both as a physical and mental place), the sense of mystery, interpretation of the librarians etc. to other fiction. I will compare these topics both with books for adults and for children to see if the interpretation differs.

Thesis (MPhil (Visual Arts. Illustration))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / When dealing with emergent literacy in South Africa, the didactic aspects of picture books are often privileged over their aesthetic quality and the idea of reading for pleasure. The themes of the books are not always locally relevant and for economic reasons, they often fail to reach the communities that need them the most. By looking at the history of relief printing within a community environment, I hope to highlight how communities themselves may be able to develop locally relevant children’s picture books, instituting a ‘grassroots’ approach rather than the paternalistic ‘top down’ approach of the past. I will also be looking at the narrative and stylistic elements of relief printing that are complimentary to the picture book genre and how these can be utilised for a pleasurable rather than didactic approach to the narratives.