Moving Image, Media, Print Literacy and Narrative

by David Parker, former Research Officer, bfi Education

(for more information, please contact Mark Reid using the Contact form)

Abstract

This paper outlines findings from a pilot project undertaken by the Centre for Research on Literacy and the Media, a joint initiative by the BFI and King's College London, School of Education. The project involved a group of primary school pupils adapting a text into a moving image medium, and then examined the impact of this translation on their print literacy. The results suggest that informed practical use of media can have benefits for the literacy development of Key Stage 2 pupils. A possible basis for the correlation is explored taking as its focus 'narrative structure'.

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The Centre for Research On Literacy and the Media

The Centre for Research on Literacy and the Media is a joint venture between King's College, London and The BFI. The Centre's interest concerns the uses of moving image media as an aid to enhancing the literacy skills and practices of pupils from Key Stages 1 to 4. The research outlined here is taken from the first year's work at The Centre. Two projects have been running simultaneously, one in a year 3 primary class, the other in a year 7 secondary class. The primary school project - which forms the basis of this paper - is principally interested in making moving image media and the literacy practices involved in the process. The secondary school project is specifically interested in the literature curriculum and the role that filmic adaptations of literary printed texts play in the process whereby students are required to read, talk and write about literature.

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Introduction

Neither the primary nor the secondary school projects are directly concerned with the concept of 'media literacy', but rather the ways in which media can be used to facilitate development in pupil's abilities to speak, listen, read and write - as outlined in the National Curriculum guidelines for English (1995). The traditional view of literacy as the combination of the functional skills of reading and writing is now understood as an effect of a particular moment in educational and social history (Street, 1995 and 1984; Freebody, 1995; Barton, 1994; Baynham, 1994; Gee, 1990; Garton and Pratt, 1989; Freire and Macedo, 1987; Vygotsky, 1986; Brice Heath, 1983; Goodman, 1982). At the same time contemporary culture has added a whole host of new communicative practices which use language in ways related to but not identical with traditional print literacy. While there is a considerable body of literature which has considered these new media as extensions and transformations of the concept of literacy there is almost no work which has considered the relations between these new media and the new acquisition of the practices associated with print literacy.

The Primary School Project

During the earliest stages of the project the aim had been to find current initiatives in school that used moving image media as a pathway into print literacy development. However, on completing an extensive telephone and postal survey of LEA's in England and Wales it became clear that moving image work within the context of English moving image work within the context of English teaching focused strongly on media studies. We found that this was also reflected in the literature; our search and review of publications served to illustrate that the use of media was geared towards developing media literacy (Sefton-Green, 1998; Hilton, 1996; Buckingham and Sefton-Green, 1994).

With no initiatives running in schools, a scheme of work was designed which would introduce the variables 'print literacy' and 'moving image media' through a scheme of work where the former was developed by the latter. Lesson plans were grounded in and informed by observations made during extended visits to The Film and Video Workshop animation classes in Hackney primary schools. The result was a programme of fourteen lessons. Their objective was to adapt the story Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl into an animated film. This text was chosen specifically for its association with existing films many primary school children were likely to have seen, as well as its general suitability as a narrative for a year 3 class.

The School and the Participating Classes

The partnership school was a two form entry primary located in Chiswick, West London. The school has strong links with parents and channels of communication between home and school are well established. The class incorporating our scheme of work was made up of thirty pupils, thirteen boys and seventeen girls. The nominal 'control' class also numbered thirty (fourteen boys and sixteen girls). The 'control' class pupils followed a scheme of work that had already been planned by their class teacher before our scheme of work had been written. Both classes were predominantly white UK in terms of ethnic origin.

The project budget included funds to ensure that each child had their own copy of the source print text in both classes. The teachers were asked to read the story to/with the class at the end of each day, as well as set reading homework so that each pupil would have eventually read through the story at least twice. The choice of text was important here. Roald Dahl's writing continues to hold a strong appeal for children and it was the case that many of the pupils in both classes had an awareness of the story, either from having had it read to them before, or by reputation.

Both teachers adopted child-centred approaches to teaching and learning and were given equally high ratings in an OFSTED inspection which took place whilst the pilot project was running. In talking to both teachers it was emphasised that the pupils in both classes could be encouraged to read the text at home and in class, thereby balancing the type of reading experiences between regulated and 'own-pace' work.

Pupil Assessment

There were a number of different outcome measures. Two assignments were completed by both classes with a view to generating some statistical interpretation. The first was a series of comprehension questions based on chapter one of the story. The second was a piece of first person narrative writing - a diary entry for one of the fox cubs. It was important, of course, not to ignore the useful qualitative material generated by this project. Additional data included the scripts and their various drafts, the storyboards, the spoken input during times of discussion and debate, the reading of the script when rehearsing and recording the soundtrack and the process of drawing, editing and talking around the animated pictures. Qualitative data was gathered from all these areas.

The final outcomes, in terms of end products, were in the case of the moving image group the animated version of the source text and in the case of the print based group a simplified book of the same story for younger and/or emergent readers. At the present time the animated version is being transferred to VHS format.

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The Pilot Project

1. The Moving Image Class

It was intended that the class teacher would feel confident enough with the material to introduce and supervise the lessons unaided. To this end it had been arranged that meetings would take place towards the end of the Easter term to discuss the rationale underpinning the lessons, thereby contextualising the aims and objectives embedded within the planning. However, as the scheme of work began it became clear that she was reluctant to take the whole task on, preferring to supervise some of the lessons after they had been introduced to the class by the researcher. Over the duration of the project this meant that the introduction of lessons fell roughly equally in number between researcher and teacher.

The lessons were structured around reading and writing activities based upon the source text. An emphasis was consistently placed upon the visuality of the narrative - key questions revolved around what images, movements or scenarios were suggested by the prose and how pupils could best transform these into a script format. Even greater emphasis was given to the need for accuracy as well as imaginative interpretation in the pupil's writing. This was because children would rotate each scripted chapter around the class to be animated by their peers. Since animation would take place in small groups (pairs or threes) out of the classroom it was important that scripts conformed to conventions of layout, spelling, punctuation etc. - there would simply be no time to constantly refer back to the authors of the script with queries. In this way the success of the adaptation depended almost completely on the quality and accuracy of the children's writing. This had massive implications for the differentiation of literacy tasks across a mixed ability group of children. It is impossible to adopt a differentiation by outcome model for obvious reasons. Therefore it was decided to pair off children in groupings which took into account the spread of ability, sacrificing the motivational aspects of friendship groupings for what was hoped would be a Vygotskian 'scaffolding' approach to learning - more able pupils aiding the less able and at the same time rationalising their own learning.

Stimulus for the initial written tasks took the form of video clips from Terry Jones' adaptation of The Wind in the Willows. These were viewed in conjunction with the relevant sections of the screenplay and the storyboard (these resources were contained in a teaching pack from Film Education entitled Screening Stories). The links between the three formats (video, script and storyboard) were explored through discussion. Differences emerged quite early on.

Referring to the unfinished look of the storyboard, Shane said:

"The storyboard is rougher looking than the video. It's not even like a comic book..."

Julia noticed that much of the printed matter on the screenplay were cues and directions, not speech:

"The script has lots of words you don't read out loud."

Thomas pointed out the different mixture of visual and printed symbols:

"The storyboard is like a comic and the script is more like a list..."

Some of the similarities between the formats were also remarked upon during the discussion.

Isobel saw a strong visual corollary between the sketchy storyboard and the finished video extract:

"The storyboard has got the main pictures from the video, like in a freeze-frame."

And, finally, the main teaching point of that first lesson which we hoped to convey [that films were produced via a combination of written media] was articulated matter-of-factly by one pupil who stated that:

"The film is a mixture of this one and this one [holding the script in one hand and the storyboard in the other]."

The next stage involved the production of storyboards and scripts based on the source narrative. This work was lengthy with much re-drafting taking place as the class struggled to conform to the storyboard and screenplay layout. Both researcher and class teacher supervised this work and guided pupils with regard to the format. As each draft was completed the scribe would have their work spell-checked by their partner and then by the teacher. Final drafts were word processed and given another spell check by the computer before being saved into a single file and printed off as a complete screenplay.

At this stage animation began alongside a repeated 'reading-through' of the script as a class. Animation was completed on a per chapter basis. Pupils were given a different chapter from the one they had worked on and by reading both the script and the storyboard they decided which section[s] of the chapter were most intrinsic to the development of the story. This involved 'reading back' through their memory of the story as well as explicit reference to the text to check minor details.

The animation stages of the project were not classroom based. This stage of the pilot was planned on a time-out basis, taking pairs of children to use a computer set up in the hall where they would spend an hour at a time animating the most indicative scene from the scripted chapter they had been allocated.

2. The Non-Moving Image Class

The long term planning for the non-moving image class already included a scheme of work in which the text Fantastic Mr Fox would form the basis of a range of language activities. The weekly plans and lesson outlines indicated quite clearly that this would be a solidly print-based programme of study. No visual media would be used. A series of written activities - book reviews, diary entries, police reports, journalistic reports, story summaries - were used to explore the themes within the story.

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The Role of Narrative in Literacy use in both classes

While the scheme of work was, as previously mentioned, designed to test the impact of the moving image media on the development of print literacy, it also offered an opportunity to investigate the place of narrative in language use and literacy development. It is this facet - the role of the narrative - that I propose to focus on in this paper, as a means of giving one possible theoretical context for the pilot project results.

Narrative has long been acknowledged as a key element in literacy development (Hardy, 1975; Toolan, 1988; Martin, 1989; Fox, 1993) and this should come as no surprise since we all read, write and imagine narratives long before and long after our formal schooling has taken place. The sequential placement of categories remembered or initialised as propositions might be said to underpin almost every rational thought and action. Narrative is the construction we use to make meaning from visual, printed and aural media. A number of narrative schema have been suggested as the basis for recognition of the form (Propp, 1968; Genette, 1980; Branigan, 1993). Nearly all researchers agree on the following format:

  1. introduction to setting and characters;
  2. explanation of a state of affairs;
  3. initiating event;
  4. emotional response or statement of a goal by the protagonist;
  5. complicating actions;
  6. outcomes;
  7. reactions to the outcome.

Narratives that conform to the above schema have their basis in oral tradition. Words spoken as stories, instructions, conversations, remembrances, these all form the basic constituent elements of narrative (Rimoon-Kenan, 1983). Accordingly, spoken stories offer an obvious bridge into written language - a necessary transition if children are to be fully literate in terms laid out within the National Curriculum. Unsurprisingly, then, the National Curriculum places great emphasis on the use of narrative as a means of developing literacy at Key Stages 1 and 2. One of the ways narrative may aid a child's passage into full schooled literacy is through its transposability. For example, Romeo and Juliet can appear as a play in the theatre, a ballet, a cartoon, a musical, a film - and in all these guises still maintain a recognisable identity as the story about two feuding families whose children fall in love. Narrative, then, is not media specific. It is open to re-interpretation and re-invention across a whole range of communicative modes. It is this very transposability that may unlock the pedagogical potential of moving image media within the English curriculum.

The reason for this is that one of the most common transitions narrative makes is from book to film. Filmed adaptations of children's stories and classic novels makes up, on average, half of all UK and US film production (Caughie, 1997). The research undertaken within Media Studies suggests that children are able to operate at highly sophisticated levels when reading moving image narratives (Bromley, 1996; Robinson, 1997). Reasons for this are varied and debatable, but it seems likely that immediate exposure to spoken words and visual culture gives children an ability to manipulate these forms and make meanings from them before they reach school age. Problems sometimes arise, however, when such children are later introduced to the arbitrary sign system of the alphabet and the practice of writing language.

The pilot study outlined above offered the opportunity to explore the role of narrative in literacy development through the use of both print-based and moving image media. The class utilising moving image media was attempting to transpose a story from one form to another by using a range of literacy practices contextualised by artefacts (films) embedded in children's social interaction (talk about films, TV, video games etc.). From the outset, then, the written tasks, discussions and reading would hold meaning and have purpose for the class in the way that a traditionally print-based scheme of work might not.

In a sense the use of moving image media within schools could begin to acknowledge the ways children come to language and literacy via wider cultural, community-wide understandings. If language and literacy are not neutral then one of the ways popular culture reflects such difference is through the powerful modes of communication associated with film, video and music. Bringing this into the classroom bridges the gap between out-of-school enculturated language and literacy practice and, by comparison, what can seem a stilted and decontextualised schooled literacy.

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Written outcomes

If spoken language is learned through interaction, particularly in collaboration with more able speakers who take time to shape their exchanges to their appreciation of the young child's growing consciousness it becomes reasonable to investigate whether or not literacy learning is best acquired through similar affective and collaborative interaction. With this in mind, the work undertaken in the moving image class was based on group work activities - most often in pairs and no larger than groups of four. In the non-moving image class group work also formed the basis of written activities.

During week eight pupils in both classes were asked to write a first person account of how Mr Fox might be feeling after being shot at by the farmers at the end of chapter three. It should be made clear that by week eight the moving image class was close to compiling a complete script. They had successfully storyboarded the whole book and were gradually being introduced to the animation package on the computer. Every child in the class had read through the book twice. The non-moving image class had also read through the book twice and were completing a simplified version of the book for use with younger children.

1. Extracts from the Moving Image Class

"I feel so stupid for what I did. I feel week. What would happen to Mrs Fox and my little foxes if I got killed by the farmers. How would they eat. And who would protect them. I should of looked carefully I thought I saw some metal in the moonlight night." (Merkala, 7 years)

"My ears hurt the same as my tail. That was the loudist bang I heard ever. Now I cant even speak to anyone because I feel very sad for wha I did. My wife says my tail will grow back but I don't care. I was care less that night. Now we might starve to death and its my fault. All I can see is the 4 walls. Brown dim and muddy like a pison." (Charlotte, 8 years)

"I can see the opening to our den. It's daytime the light is coming in. Blood is on my fur. My tail is ruend. My children are fritend and my wife is hungery. I been down here for days and days. I wont go out so they can shot me again. It is dark down here and it smells. If I keep thinking I might come up with a plan." (Gavin, 8 years)

2. Extracts from the Non-Moving Image Class

"I'm hungry and we thirsty dwon. Tomorrow I can try. I want water and chickins and sider from that nasty bean. Can we do something. I am cold." (Dominic, 7 years)

"I feel cold and afraid. My tail is gone forever. It won't grow back and I'm sad. The small foxis ask me what can we do dad and I tell them I am thinking in the corner." (Max, 8 years)

"I was nocked out. The gun got my tail and I suppose I was lucky that's all. I'm feeling pretty bad down here and so y family is to. I mad a big mistake and we might die from starvation." (Nadia, 8 years)

Both classes more than adequately summarised the character's feelings of guilt and sadness. Both sets of pupils displayed that they had read with meaning. However the written work from the moving image class seemed to have a little more depth and detail. And it is interesting to note that the additional material is distinctly visual, drawing the reader's attention to what the character can see thereby establishing a spatial relationship outside the abstract 'conscience'. In the three examples above the sentences of most interest to me are:

  1. "I saw some metal in the moonlight night."
  2. "All I can see is four walls. Brown, dim and muddy like a prison."
  3. "I can see the opening to our den. Its daylight light is coming in."

In each of these sentences we find a device used constantly in moving image media to predicate an audience towards a particular character and thereby create empathy. It is the use of point-of-view - seeing something through the eyes of another. What is interesting about these examples is not merely that a cinematic stance seems to be taken in terms of the written output, though that is certainly interesting in itself, but that in a piece of writing which aimed to establish the feelings or state of mind of a character, the class which was in the process of producing an animation understood that by spatially repositioning the reader inside the character you could access feelings without necessarily describing them.

The final written assignments given to both classes also generated some interesting data. Although yet to be interpreted statistically in depth, already some differences have emerged in the outcomes across both classes. The moderated National Curriculum levels ascribed to both pieces of work (the comprehension exercise and diary entry) suggest that the class utilised moving image media experienced a measured development in literacy practices in the order of one National Curriculum level, on average. The class following the print based scheme of work showed an average increase of less than one level - the baseline measures for both classes was the previous years SATs results. Normally one would expect to see movement between NC levels over a period of two years. The pilot project took place over three months.

The diary entry activity prompted the following response from pupils. The first is from the non-film class, the second from the animation group. Both pupils were deemed to be working at level 2 according to 1997 KS1 SATs data.

"Friday Today when I woke up I was horrified because I smelt Boggis, Bunce and been out side the hill. Me and my four brothers were very scared because we were very bored and hungry." (Sophie, 8 years)

"Dear Diary,

I've been trapped down in a hole for six hours at least. Some farmers want to kill my dad. I feel really sick and I would lke to get out of here. I'm really thirsty and hungry. Its pitch black in here and I can't see a thing. Are we ever going to get out of here? If not at least we will die in peace. I hope a fox lover or someone rescues us soon. But I really hope dad comes up with another brilliant idea. He's really great at escaping and stuff like that. I do so wish that dad was a quick thinker. But brilliant plans take up a lot of thinking time." (Dresden, 8 years)

Having marked and moderated the work with both class teachers using National Curriculum guidelines the writing by Sophie was considered to be level 2 whilst Dresden's was level 4. The first example lacks context - who are Boggis, Bunce and Bean and why should their presence be alarming? It also lacks causality - why should boredom and hunger induce fear? The second example, however, immediately contextualises the situation with a temporal measure ("six hours at least"), a reason for entrapment ("Some farmers want to kill my dad...") and infused by causality between sentences ("I do so wish that dad was a quick thinker. But brilliant plans take up a lot of thinking time"). There is also the use of setting in the second example, the creation of a spatial referent - we know the cub is "down a hole" and that it is "pitch black". There is no equivalent spatial referent in the first example. The diary entries by the moving image class were infused with spatial qualities - as if the narrative had taken on an abstract quality for them in a way it had not for the non-moving image group.

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Brief Theoretical Interpretation

The data described thus far is incomplete and even when comprehensively analysed would, of course, be far from conclusive. Yet it does suggest that a positive relationship may exist between moving image media and literacy development. The nature of the relationship is something The Centre for Research on Literacy and the Media will explore as the pilot studies outlined here are developed over a longer duration and in a number of different schools. At this stage any theoretical account of how the moving image feeds into literacy practices is conjectural. One possible interpretation is that narrative plays a central role in moving image media facilitating the development of print literacy. Robinson (1997) suggests that children are learning about narrative from their encounters with narrative in whichever medium rather than being taught to read print by television or vice versa. Likewise, the research outlined here does not suggest that simplistically the moving image teaches children how to read print. Yet if we take narrative structure as a precursor to written language and furthermore, if we see the conventions of that structure as empowering rather than restricting, then we can begin to see how children might use an underlying awareness of narrative to fulfil various literacy tasks. But there may be an even stronger link between moving image media and print literacy than that implied by Robinson.

Knowledge of narrative as a cohesive tool, "an intersection of language, thought and culture" (Robinson, 1997) or as Hardy puts it "a primary act of mind" is all very convenient. It can seem to suggest that narrative is a miracle cure. There is, though, a difference between narratives delivered via distinct media and it is in these differences (not, as many have, suggested, in the similarities) that we might find clues to the latent pedagogy at work in moving image representations. This brings us back to the transposability of narrative and to the whole business of adaptation. The transformation of a story from one set of media specific codes to another involves a change in narrative structure. For example, those elements of a print narrative that are determined by the codes of representation associated with the novel would include the thoughts and feelings of all or some of the main characters. Their outward appearance, however, must remain to some degree undetermined. In a film the opposite is the case; the physical objects and actors are fully realised by the visual code of representation, yet the exact nature of thought, feelings and emotions of characters, or the presence of a third person narrator even, are almost impossible to convey visually. This relationship between explicit and implicit facets of narrative - what German theorists have termed bestimmt and unbestimmt aspects of a particular discourse (Chatman, 1980) - may act as bridges between different media representations of the same story. Perhaps this symbiotic relationship - with verbal and visual media ironing out each other's inadequacies, as it were, - may form the basis of our understanding the data collected from the year 3 classes in this pilot. Experiencing a single narrative in verbal and visual media may ease the burden of young readers and writers who not only have to process phoneme/grapheme information more explicitly but simultaneously have to make meaning from what they read.

The knowledge of narrative schema children bring with them to school is certainly one way they are able to negotiate new texts. Information from a text is sorted and measured by a schema against other kinds of knowledge base. The result is that certain information in a narrative is elaborately processed and assigned to a hierarchy in working memory according to relative importance while much else is discarded. The "value" of information increases according to its improbability so that typical and probable elements - so-called "unmarked" elements of a paradigm (Branigan, 1993) - carry the least amount of information. Transposed to a learning situation this would mean that the more typical information is for a perceiver, the less well it is recalled for it is already implicit in a guiding structure. Events in a text are therefore marked as salient and acquire special significance because of expectations defined by the internal order of a scheme.

The amount of information able to be discarded would, one might infer, increase with one's sense of familiarity with a text. This is where making media may be such a useful strategy. In order to adapt a text a number of readings must be made before a re-writing takes place. If, in the process of writing a script moving image resources are used as exemplars and teaching tools then pupils would be presented with two sets of features with regard to narrative schema - one set print-based, the other predominantly visual. This increases the probability of comprehending the narrative more quickly, of understanding it through memory. This is crucially important. When we say we remember a film or book we do not normally mean that we remember the angle from which it was viewed in the cinema or the exact words of the text. Rather, when we speak of comprehending something we mean that our knowledge of it may be stated in several equivalent ways. That is, our knowledge has achieved independence from the initial stimuli.

If comprehension of narrative is a crucial component in becoming fully literate then the use of moving image media, as in this pilot study, may develop an ability to discard more information as components of a known schema, so that greater 'cognitive space' would be left to construct meanings from the remaining improbabilities.

Last Updated: Wednesday, 21-Feb-2007 16:08:24 GMT