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[CCBC-Net] Zwerger, Classroom Use
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From: Maia <maia>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 13:05:54 -0700
Hmm, let me back up. Yes, of course, the story can be read without pictures. My point is that when you are supplied with pictures (be they the illustrations in a book or the visual aspects of a movie*), these images impact the idea you have in your mind - your mind's eye lens of the story. Any set of illustrations tends to define the parameters of your mind's eye story, unless you have been exposed to the story without the pictures first AND have a tendency to retain your own imagery over any imagery that might be later supplied. Do you agree? That - quite unconsciously - what we see defines the story as powerfully as what we read - e.g. if Alice is shown as a snarly faced girl with red hair, then that image will take hold in our minds? Now, of course, a carefully conscious reader may be able to tease apart somewhat the text from the image - but I'd argue that it is impossible to do thoroughly without either self-constructing or obtaining from elsewhere a strong "set" to counteract the one provided.
IF you accept this idea, then Alice's many faces could be a marvelous tool for showing how the eye speaks to the mind, all unwary we. One interesting game could be to divide students into groups by editions at first - one could read only Disney, another Tenniel, another Oxenbury, another Browne or Jansson or Zwerger and then have each student write up a description of the story. Would the stories be groupable by artist - e.g. would the Tenniels sound more similar to eachother than the Oxenburys and so on? Of course, this wouldn't work as well if the students were already familiar with Alice as if they weren't - but still, I think you might find some interesting differences.
And then, if you did (!), students could begin to evaluate what makes Story - is it the words alone, or is it some convoluted interaction of word and image and design? And if it is the latter, then is Oxenbury's Alice the same "story" as Browne's? (And is the Caldecott being awarded for this kind of convergence of story, and if so, is this why it is an illustrator's award? All of which makes me think that it would be interesting to see more books where the images were the first defined aspect, and the words followed later. If I took Oxenbury's images alone, would I develop the same sort of story as Carroll's at all?)
Maia
*Egads, with movies we have to consider soundtrack too - comparable to the impact of the reader's voice on a story? What is supplied when you, the teacher, read the story, versus when the children hear the story spoken by their own internal voices? But that's another topic altogether, I suppose, unless you are serious about looking intensively at the whole impact of something like Disney-fication on a story.
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 13:05:54 -0700
Hmm, let me back up. Yes, of course, the story can be read without pictures. My point is that when you are supplied with pictures (be they the illustrations in a book or the visual aspects of a movie*), these images impact the idea you have in your mind - your mind's eye lens of the story. Any set of illustrations tends to define the parameters of your mind's eye story, unless you have been exposed to the story without the pictures first AND have a tendency to retain your own imagery over any imagery that might be later supplied. Do you agree? That - quite unconsciously - what we see defines the story as powerfully as what we read - e.g. if Alice is shown as a snarly faced girl with red hair, then that image will take hold in our minds? Now, of course, a carefully conscious reader may be able to tease apart somewhat the text from the image - but I'd argue that it is impossible to do thoroughly without either self-constructing or obtaining from elsewhere a strong "set" to counteract the one provided.
IF you accept this idea, then Alice's many faces could be a marvelous tool for showing how the eye speaks to the mind, all unwary we. One interesting game could be to divide students into groups by editions at first - one could read only Disney, another Tenniel, another Oxenbury, another Browne or Jansson or Zwerger and then have each student write up a description of the story. Would the stories be groupable by artist - e.g. would the Tenniels sound more similar to eachother than the Oxenburys and so on? Of course, this wouldn't work as well if the students were already familiar with Alice as if they weren't - but still, I think you might find some interesting differences.
And then, if you did (!), students could begin to evaluate what makes Story - is it the words alone, or is it some convoluted interaction of word and image and design? And if it is the latter, then is Oxenbury's Alice the same "story" as Browne's? (And is the Caldecott being awarded for this kind of convergence of story, and if so, is this why it is an illustrator's award? All of which makes me think that it would be interesting to see more books where the images were the first defined aspect, and the words followed later. If I took Oxenbury's images alone, would I develop the same sort of story as Carroll's at all?)
Maia
*Egads, with movies we have to consider soundtrack too - comparable to the impact of the reader's voice on a story? What is supplied when you, the teacher, read the story, versus when the children hear the story spoken by their own internal voices? But that's another topic altogether, I suppose, unless you are serious about looking intensively at the whole impact of something like Disney-fication on a story.
-- maia at littlefolktales.org www.littlefolktales.org the Spirited Review: www.littlefolktales.org/reviewsReceived on Wed 25 Oct 2000 03:05:54 PM CDT
