Drawing Children’s Knowledge About Practices of Writing

Author(s):

Aspa Baroutsis(presenting / submitting)Annette Woods Barbara Comber Lisa Kervin

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

31. LEd – Network on Language and Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

31 SES 09 A, Multilingual Children, Language Development and Research Methods

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-24

13:30-15:00

Room:

W4.24

Chair:

Ana Sofia Pinho

Contribution

Examining how young children learn to produce texts is increasingly important as global societies move further towards a ‘knowledge economy’ (Drucker, 1993) that is built on the primacy of digital communication. Brandt (2015) theorises that there is a ‘turn to writing as a mass daily experience’ (p. 3). Within such a context, writing rather than reading becomes the dominant form of mass literacy (Brandt, 2015). However, across a number of nations including Australia (ACARA, 2015), the UK (Fisher, 2012) and the US (IES, 2011), children currently perform less well in writing than reading on standardised measures of literacy. In addressing these gaps in literacy achievement, a fundamental rethinking is required about whose knowledge is valued. Anning (2003) suggests that within many institutional contexts, understandings of writing relentlessly tend towards policy-driven school versions of literacy, without children’s views being taken seriously (p. 32). While global policy and practice contexts focus on performance in standardized tests (Grek 2013; Lingard and Sellar 2013), the research focus in this paper is on children’s perspectives about the experience of learning to write.

Our objective in the research reported here was to start by asking children about their perspectives and experiences of learning to write in the early years, and to use this knowledge to inform pedagogy and policy practices. We were interested in what children could tell us about their daily experiences of learning to write. As such, we began this project about learning to write in current education contexts with the children as key informants. We collected data through a children’s survey which was administered in individual interview sessions with young children in the early years of school. As part of this survey we asked children to draw themselves learning to write. Conversations between the child and the researcher during this drawing and survey response process were recorded.

The paper is underpinned by theoretical understandings that acknowledge children as competent and capable agents in their own lives who have something meaningful to say (Danby & Farrell, 2004; Thomson, 2008). Fielding (2004) suggests that children are able to speak for themselves and advocates for a ‘dialogic alternative’ in schooling, where educators speak ‘with’ rather than ‘for’ children (p. 305). Similarly, Cook-Sather (2006), argues that educators should ask and listen to children’s perspectives of their experiences with their learning as a means of shaping education policy and practice. Drawing on these perspectives we have used participatory approaches where researchers are co-constructors of knowledge with children. As such, we take up children’s drawings as one form of communication which informs our research.

In seminal work, Kress (1997) suggests young children use drawings to create stories or narratives that represent or display the people and objects in their story (p. 24). So rather than only understanding drawings as artefacts, we question the purposes of children’s drawings. To achieve this we ask the following research questions:

What are the literacy practices that have produced these drawings? and
How have the children engaged in the drawing activity to produce these representations of writing?

This approach privileges children’s thoughts and ideas, assuming that children will draw what they experience (Coates & Coates, 2006; Cox, 2005) rather than only depicting what they know and see about the process of writing. In utilising the visual mode, children can ‘show’, as well as ‘tell’, of their experiences. Within the process of drawing and the accompanying talk children communicate and represent aspects of their experiences (Kress, 1997). It is these experiences that we explore in this paper.

Method

The paper presents an analysis of data collected as part of a multisite, collaborative, qualitative study across two schools in Australia. The sites were purposefully selected from communities of high poverty, servicing children from diverse cultural and/or linguistic backgrounds in Australia. Both schools performed substantially below the Australian schools’ average in writing as measured by the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests, a standardised test used to measure literacy. Following a process of informed consent, 217 children enrolled in the first four years of schooling at these two schools were surveyed through one-on-one interviews with a member of the research team. The survey was designed to capture the children’s perspectives of when, where, how and with whom they write. At the end of the survey, as a culminating activity, the children were invited to draw in response to the prompt: ‘Can you draw a picture of what learning to write or writing looks like to you?’. While we acknowledge that this process is not neutral (Thomson, 2008), it has attempted to privilege the child’s point of view (Cox, 2005). Children’s drawings have a material reality. However, we recognise their drawings as representations of the socio-cultural world (Cox, 2005), rather than only being life-like reflections of objects. In this way, we acknowledge the purposefulness and representational potential of children’s drawings. Therefore, our analysis focuses on the social act of writing where ‘meanings are constructed and negotiated in a social context’ (Cox, 2005, p. 123). Drawing on socio-material perspectives (Fenwick, Edwards, & Sawchuk, 2011), we pay attention to the children’s representation of the spaces they occupy as writers, along with the tools, texts, resources and people they identify as being involved. As such, we explore the processes and practices of learning to write, depicted in the children’s drawings, as they make meaning of their experiences. Our data gathering method aligns with our theoretical perspectives that value listening to children. Accordingly, we have incorporated the visual research technique of ‘draw and talk’ (Coates & Coates, 2006), affording children the opportunity to use non-verbal and verbal modes of communication. When including the associated talk during the drawing process, researchers are potentially able to draw richer and deeper understandings of children’s perspectives (Kress, 1997; Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006).

Expected Outcomes

Children’s knowledge about the practices of writing, overwhelmingly portrayed ‘traditional’ understandings of their experiences of writing. That is, that writing is an individual activity, undertaken in a classroom, sitting at a desk and chair. However, when children were asked about their drawings, they divulged a plethora of experiences and preferences. First, drawing on children’s relational preferences with writing, the writer was understood as an active participant in the writing process, bringing their ideas and emotions to the mix. The children’s drawings mostly represented writing as an enjoyable activity; however, writing also prompted less positive emotional responses when the children perceived themselves as not experiencing success. Additionally, while children’s writing identities are influenced by their relationships with others, most children did not include representations of collaborative writing practices. Those that did depict writing as a collaborative practice, placed emphasis on their collaborations with groups such as their peers, teachers and family. Secondly, the children’s material and spatial experiences of writing were predominantly represented through desks and chairs in indoor locations such as their classrooms. At times, their compositions expressed the materials of writing in a scale that miniaturised the writer, possibly suggesting that children perceive writing is an enormous task. Additionally, we gained insights into the varied preferences for writing such as standing rather than sitting, and using technology rather than pencil and paper. While hesitant to draw too many conclusions about variations across year levels, given the initial stage of our data analysis, there is an emerging trend suggesting that across the relational, material and spatial areas, younger children express their practices of writing in more unrestrained terms when compared to their older counterparts.

References

ACARA. (2015). National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy: Achievement in reading, persuasive writing, language conventions and numeracy: National report for 2015. Retrieved from Sydney: http://www.nap.edu.au/_resources/2015_NAPLAN_national_report.pdf Anning, A. (2003). Pathways to the Graphicacy Club: The crossroad of home and pre-school. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 3(1), 5–35. Brandt, D. (2015). The rise of writing: Redifining mass literacy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Coates, E., & Coates, A. (2006). Young children talking and drawing. International Journal of Early Years Education, 14(3), 221-241. Cook-Sather, A. (2006). Sound, presence, and power: 'Student voice' in educational research and reform. Curriculum Inquiry, 36(4), 259-390. Cox, S. (2005). Intention and meaning in young children's drawing. International Journal of Art and Design Education, 24(2), 115–125 Danby, S. & Farrell, A. (2004) Accounting for young children’s competence in educational research: New perspectives on research ethics. Australian Educational Researcher, 31(3), 35-49. Drucker, P. F. (1993). The rise of the knowledge society. The Wilson Quarterly, 7(2), 52-71. Fenwick, T., Edwards, R., & Sawchuk, P. (2011). Emerging approaches to educational research: Tracing the sociomaterial. London: Routledge. Fielding, M. (2004). Transformative approaches to student voice: Theoretical underpinnings, recalcitrant realities. British Educational Research Journal, 30(2), 295-311. Fisher, R. (2012). Teaching writing: A situated dynamic. British Educational Research Journal, 38(2), 299-317. Grek, S. 2013. Expert Moves: International Comparative Testing and the Rise of Expertocracy. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 695–709. IES. (2011). Writing 2011: National assessment of educational progress at grades 8 and 12. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2011/2012470.pdf Kress, G. (1997). Before writing: Rethinking the paths to literacy. London: Routledge. Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design (2 ed.). New York: Routledge. Lingard, B., and S. Sellar. 2013. ‘Catalyst Data’: Perverse Systemic Effects of Audit and Accountability in Australian Schooling. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 634–656. Thomson, P. (2008). Children and young people: Voices in visual research. In P. Thomson (Ed.), Doing visual research with children and young people (pp. 1-19). London: Routledge.

Author Information

Aspa Baroutsis (presenting / submitting)

Queensland University of Technology

Brisbane

Annette Woods

Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Barbara Comber

University of South Australia, Australia

Lisa Kervin

University of Wollongong, Australia

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