Exploring the Transformative Effects of Nonfiction Picture Books Through a Study of Young People's Engagement With the Threshold Concept of Evolution

• In Event: 63.087 - Sheraton Roundtable Session 11 - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 63.087-8 - Reading as Transformative: The Power of Texts to Spark the Imagination of Young Readers

Abstract

Recent research points to the role that non-fiction plays in deepening students’ learning about their world (Yenika-Agbaw and Lowry, 2018) and developing their critical understanding of knowledge production (Sanders, 2018). Given the importance of non-fiction in shaping young people’s understanding of the world, it is striking that there is still a relative absence of research on young readers’ responses to these texts. This presentation emerges out of a larger project that analyzes the manner in which current non-fiction picturebooks represent ‘threshold concepts’ (Meyer & Land, 2003) such as evolution, chronology and deep time. These are complex ideas that challenge picturebook creators to push the boundaries of what is possible within the space available, making use of an art form that hinges on, “the interdependence of pictures and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and on the drama of the turning page” (Bader, 1976, p.1) to invite young readers into negotiations with the text and with each other that have the potential of transforming their understanding of the world.
The study that this presentation will draw on is a multiple case study that involves the researchers working with two classes of students between the ages of nine and twelve in Canada and the United Kingdom. As part of the study, each class will read a representative sample of picturebooks and complete a series of activities in response to them that will include: group discussions; collaborative brainstorming; and visual and written reflections (e.g. diaries, maps, timelines, photomontages, video diaries). The order and nature of the activities will be negotiated with the young people who will be invited to reflect on how their understanding of time and belonging to the natural world develops through reading and responding to the picturebooks. The final phase of the project aims to facilitate a dialogue between young people in Canada and the United Kingdom about the experience of reading these picturebooks. This cross-cultural dialogue is significant because it supports the young people in utilizing technology to co-create meaning across national boundaries and because it provides the researchers with a means of sensitively drawing comparisons between the two communities of young people.
The presentation will draw on theories of reader response (Rosenblatt, 1938), critical literacy (Luke, 2012) and embodied metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999) to explore how young people draw on a scientific understanding of evolution and a historical understanding of events leading to its genesis to transform their ‘mental models’ and imagine a meaningful sense of belonging in time and space.

Authors

• Erin Elizabeth Spring, University of Calgary

• Eve Tandoi