Children's lit…pb rev 19/5/05 5:05 pm Page 1

children’s literature and computer based teaching

Includes
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND COMPUTER BASED TEACHING
CD-ROM
for PC users
“This stellar book extends teachers’ thinking well beyond ‘book
spaces’ and into ‘digital spaces’ by offering theorized approaches to
analyzing children’s literature across media, and careful descriptions
of effective learning activities that are rich in detail and practical
advice. This book (and its digital spaces) is an indispensable guide
to engaging with children’s literature and new digital media.”
Michele Knobel, Montclair State University, USA.
“The book overall is exciting, informative and practical, outlining
children’s
important theoretical perspectives and ideas while also providing
much wisdom and advice to teachers about how to transform their
literary programs.”
Frances Christie, Emeritus Professor of Language and Literacy
literature and
Education, University of Melbourne and Honorary Professor of
Education, University of Sydney, Australia.

This book connects classroom teaching of children’s literature with the

computer based
digital age. It celebrates the charm of children’s literature and its role in
literacy development, as well as the appeal of information and
communications technology (ICT) to students and its capacity to enrich
students’ learning and enjoyment of literary texts.
teaching
The authors outline the ways in which children’s literature is developing
new dimensions, for example:
• The re-publication of children’s books on CD ROM and the
world wide web
• Web resources for working with literary texts, including email
discussion groups

unsworth • thomas • simpson • asha

• Children’s participation in the collaborative construction of
on-line narratives
The book provides practical guidance for teachers who are inexperienced
with ICT. It describes and discusses implementation of activities that
extend traditional approaches to literary texts and take advantage of
available technology.

Len Unsworth is Professor in English and Literacies Education in the

School of Education at the University of New England in Armidale,
len unsworth •
angela thomas •
Australia. Angela Thomas is a lecturer in English and Literacy Education
at the University of Sydney, Australia. Alyson Simpson is a lecturer in
English and Literacy Education at the University of Sydney, Australia.

alyson simpson •
Jennifer Asha is a primary school teacher experienced in teaching
students with a wide range of abilities, and a research assistant and
tutor in education at the University of Sydney and the Australian

jennifer asha •
Catholic University.

Cover design: del norte (Leeds) Ltd ISBN 0-335-21636-6

www.openup.co.uk 9 780335 216369

Children’s literature
and computer-based
teaching
Children’s literature
and computer-based
teaching

Len Unsworth, Angela Thomas,

Alyson Simpson and Jennifer L. Asha

Open University Press

Open University Press
McGraw-Hill Education
McGraw-Hill House
Shoppenhangers Road
Maidenhead
Berkshire
England
SL6 2QL

email: [email protected]
world wide web: www.openup.co.uk

and Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2289, USA

First published 2005

Copyright © Len Unsworth, Angela Thomas, Alyson Simpson and

Jennifer L. Asha 2005

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of
criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher or a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency
Limited. Details of such licences (for reprographic reproduction) may be obtained
from the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd of 90 Tottenham Court Road, London,
W1T 4LP.

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 335 21636 6 (pb) 0 335 21637 4 (hb)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

CIP data applied for

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

Printed in the UK by Bell and Bain Ltd, Glasgow
 Contents

About the authors vii

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

1 Changing dimensions of children’s literature 5

2 Exploring children’s literature on CD-ROM and the www 22

3 Booktalk ‘on-line’
Learning about literature through ‘book raps’ 44

4 Playing in the MUD, performing in the palace 63

5 A snapshot of three teachers’ classroom practices

integrating ICT and children’s literature 89

6 Middle Earth meets the Matrix!

Teachers researching classroom practice using ICT
and children’s literature 106

References 127
Index 137
 About the authors

Jenny Asha is a primary school teacher experienced in teaching gifted and

talented children as well as those with learning difficulties. She holds a
Master’s degree in English and Literacy Education and shares her passion for
conventional and computer-based literacies as a guest lecturer and conference
speaker. As president of an Australian Literacy Educators Association local
council, she leads a group of teachers and librarians interested in promoting
the use of conventional and electronic children’s literature in the primary
classroom.

Alyson Simpson is a lecturer in Primary English and Literacy Education in the

Faculty of Education at the University of Sydney. Alyson is an experienced
classroom teacher, teacher librarian and researcher. Her research projects
include an investigation of the pedagogy of book raps, an exploration of
visual literacy in primary schools and an examination of multimodal learning
environments.

Angela Thomas is a lecturer in Primary English and Literacy education in the

Faculty of Education at the University of Sydney. Angela is an experienced
classroom teacher, educational consultant and research project manager. She
is the coordinator of the Electronic Literature and Literacies in International
Education (ELLIE) project and website in the Faculty of Education, where she
teaches in the Bachelor of Education (Primary) and Master of Education
programmes.

Len Unsworth is Professor in English and Literacies Education at the Univer-

sity of New England in Armidale, Australia. Len was a classroom teacher in
Queensland before moving into teacher education at the University of West-
ern Sydney, and then the University of Sydney prior to taking up his present
position. His publications include Literacy Learning and Teaching (Macmillan,
1993), Researching Language in Schools and Communities (Continuum, 2000)
and Teaching Multiliteracies across the Curriculum (Open University Press, 2001).
 Acknowledgements

We would very much like to express our deep gratitude and thanks to the
on-line palace community of Middle Earth. In particular, the owner of the
palace, Laurie Sorenson, has been extremely generous in inviting teachers to
bring their classes of children onto the palace, and in preparing a special
section of the palace for this purpose. She has spent long hours in consultation
with the authors of this book in planning the research project outlined in
Chapter 6. We are also deeply indebted to the computer programmer of the
palace, Russel Dell, who listened to the creative ideas for the role-playing and
then wrote sections of complex programming to turn these ideas into reality. A
special thank you is also extended to Lin Ahearn, who has spent time teaching
us Elvish and preparing avatars for the research project. These three members
of the Middle Earth community were also responsible for preparing custom
software for our purpose at no charge (available for free download from the
ELLIE website (http://sirius.linknet.com.au/ellie/) or from the accompanying
CD-ROM), for which we thank them immensely. For teachers visiting Middle
Earth to join us in the research project, please look out for Nimue, Thanatos and
Elrond (their respective screen names) and join us in expressing appreciation
to them for their work.
We would also like to thank the teachers whose exciting classroom work is
showcased in Chapter 5. We are delighted to present their work as exemplary
cases of teachers who are enhancing their classroom work in children’s litera-
ture by the meaningful integration of ICT. These teachers include Mark Pearce,
from Sydney, Australia, and Coco Veillette from Quebec, Canada. We are most
grateful for their contributions to our work in this area. In Chapter 5 we have
also mentioned the contributions of undergraduate students who designed
lesson plans for the class working on an e-book. We wish to thank the Uni-
versity of Sydney BEd primary students who volunteered for the ELLIE project
and made a contribution to the classroom lessons described in Chapter 5. In
particular, we thank Lillian Wassef and Suzanne Teulan.
In Chapter 4 we discuss the work of Swiss educator Edgar Goetschi, who
was kind enough to take us on a tour of his educational palace, Meetpoint, and
to take time to explain how he used his palace in the classroom to teach
foreign languages. We thank him for his time.
The authors would also like to acknowledge the graphic artists who
designed original artwork for the room backgrounds of the Kids, Enfants,
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Kinder palace. These are featured in Chapters 4 and 5. These talented artists
include: Maarten Toner, Dan Backus and David Washington.
Our appreciation is also extended to the following people for giving us
permission to reprint their images: Roger Garland (for his Tolkien-inspired
artwork illustrated in Chapter 6), and Scott Martins, of Worlds Apart Produc-
tions, for allowing us to print a screenshot of the role-playing MUD featured in
Chapter 4. We would also like to thank Lothian Books for permission to repro-
duce the cover and two pages from Dreamwalker by Isobelle Carmody and
Steve Woolman.
 Introduction

Children’s literature continues to develop as a popular and enriching cultural

and educational experience, and as a valued resource for literacy teaching in
schools. More and more computer-based activities related to children’s litera-
ture are now becoming available, but the evidence is that the majority of
teachers, even younger, recent graduates, are in need of guidance in seeking to
make effective use of the computer facilities that are now widely accessible in
their schools and classrooms. At the same time, more and more children rou-
tinely use computers outside of school to access their interests. The burgeon-
ing of children’s literature sites on the internet reflects not only the popularity
of children’s books but also the integral part played by the internet in child-
ren’s experience of such books. The popularity of the computer connection
with children’s literature is also reflected in the recent production of new
CD-ROM versions of classic children’s books such as Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland and The Little Prince and popular contemporary stories such as
Stellaluna and The Polar Express. Exciting new forms of digital narrative for
children are also appearing in CD-ROM format and on the world wide web
(www) and more and more children are communicating their experience of
story via email, and various forms of electronic forums and chatrooms.
This book shows how the use of computers in English teaching can
enhance and extend the engagement of computer-age children with the
enchantment of the possible worlds of literary narratives. The focus is on the
use of computer resources in teaching with conventional book-based literary
texts. While the orientation is one of practical support for classroom teachers,
it is ‘research-led’ support, reporting the results to date of a range of ongoing
studies by the authors, dealing with the nature of image/text relations and
their role in the construction of literary narratives, relationships between con-
ventional book and computer-based versions of ostensibly the same literary
narratives, and the role of on-line communities of various kinds in the critical
appreciation of children’s books and the interpretation and generation of new
forms of multimodal, digital narratives. The teachers we have worked with
2 INTRODUCTION

have enthusiastically taken up the classroom implications of our research and

have adopted an ‘action-research’ orientation, investigating optimal adapta-
tions for meeting the needs of the particular classes of children they teach.
Here we will introduce the theoretical and practical research bases for this
teaching, provide examples of programmes of classroom work, and encourage
our readers to explore the ideas in their own classrooms, seeking support and
sharing experiences on our Electronic Literature and Literacies in Inter-
national Education (ELLIE) website (http://sirius.linknet.com.au/ellie/).
The first chapter deals with the enduring and evolving nature of literature
for children in a world in which conventional and digital multimedia rou-
tinely provide multiple versions of the same ‘story’ and where relationships
among stories and explicit attention to the ‘constructedness’ of story are so
much a part of the engagement of readers/viewers. In this chapter we outline
‘usable’ tools for classroom work on developing children’s understanding of
‘visual grammar’ as a resource for interpreting and constructing images, and
key concepts in a functional approach to verbal grammar as a means of under-
standing how language is deployed to achieve different kinds of meanings. It
is this semiotic knowledge that will assist teachers to work with children on
critically understanding the inter-relatedness of ‘how’ stories are constructed
in both conventional and computer-based formats and ‘what’ the stories are
telling them.
Chapter 2 discusses well-known works of children’s literature that have
been re-published in CD-ROM format and on the worldwide web (www), and
also the sources and types of on-line resources for working with published
children’s literature in book format. In comparing electronic and book ver-
sions of literary texts we make use of the functional approaches to visual and
verbal grammar outlined in Chapter 1 and explore the commonalities and
differences in the interpretive possibilities of the different story versions. As
well as listing many useful websites for enhancing work with particular books
and authors, we also provide a framework for describing the aspects of work
with literature that the on-line materials support. These include the context of
composition, dealing with author background, story sources, unpublished
drafts and related stories; the context of interaction, dealing with the materi-
ally interactive/agentive role of the reader, the blurring of story comprehen-
sion and composition, hypertext and non-linear reading, and ‘search/
selective’ reading of story; and the context of response, concerned with reader–
author and reader–reader interaction via email, chatrooms, on-line com-
prehension and reading extension activities. Finally, in this chapter, we
exemplify various types of on-line resources for working with an illustrated
novel for young adolescents – Dreamwalker by Isobelle Carmody and Steven
Woolman (2001), indicating www sites available to support teaching/learning
activities for this book as well as complementary off-line work.
Chapter 3 is an introduction to ‘book raps’. Essentially a book rap is a
 INTRODUCTION 3

conversation about reading a book that takes place on-line among school
children over a number of weeks. In this chapter we propose participation in
book raps as a useful addition to within-class discussion of books. We explain
how teachers can organize for their classes to participate in book raps and
indicate a range of websites that conduct raps. Illustrative evidence for the
benefits of book raps to student learning is included as is a sample unit of work
showing how participation in a book rap can be incorporated into the regular
classroom teaching programme. Teachers and their students can participate in
book raps at different levels of involvement from passive observation to the
generation of new raps. Book raps are also one area where the application of
ICT to classroom learning can be achieved without requiring teachers to have
high levels of technological expertise.
Chapter 4 explains two different types of on-line communities or ‘virtual
worlds’: a MUD (multi-user domain or multi-user dungeon) and a palace. A
very large number of these virtual worlds exist in cyberspace. People of all ages
join these worlds for the enjoyment of interaction with the communities.
Many virtual worlds involve intensive role-playing as a means of constructing
a collaborative narrative. Participants communicate through a wide range of
literate practices from spoken text, to computer commands, to visual images,
to the use of sound effects or sound bytes. We describe how these virtual
worlds operate and provide examples and discussions of the types of collabora-
tive literary narratives in which children can participate on-line. One of these
is a MUD called ‘Moose Crossing’, which was designed by children for children,
and another is a palace called ‘Kids, Enfants, Kinder’. In each case we detail the
multiliteracies (Unsworth, 2001) children are learning through their participa-
tion and we also show how these virtual worlds can enhance classroom work
with children’s literature and literacy.
In Chapter 5 we illustrate the work of three teachers: Jenny, Mark and
Coco, who have gradually been integrating the use of computers into their
classroom practices. The snapshot of Jenny’s classroom illustrates a teacher
beginning to include websites to enrich literature-based units of work that
have a focus on visual literacy and narrative structures, putting into practice
some of the ideas outlined in Chapters 1 and 2. Her unit of work described in
this chapter is designed for younger children aged 7 to 9. The snapshot of
Mark’s classroom reflects his efforts to engage his class, in which many of the
children have English as a second language, in interactions with children from
Finland. He worked with the authors on a project called ELLIE (Electronic
Literature and Literacies in International Education) to explore the use of elec-
tronic forums (similar to the book raps described in Chapter 3) to excite and
stimulate children’s discussions about novels and e-books. Coco’s snapshot
represents a teacher with an interest in developing her children’s collaborative
narrative writing using the on-line virtual environment of the palace, as
discussed in Chapter 4.
4 INTRODUCTION

In the final chapter, we invite teachers to undertake a programme of work

with their own students, which adopts the transformative classroom literacy
practices we have described in the previous chapters. We suggest an action
research approach investigating the impact of the changes on student learning
as part of the normal classroom teaching/learning programme. To this end we
outline a research plan and provide the tools to begin the work. We offer a
programme of lesson plans, teaching strategies and methods of observing
and analyzing what children are doing with children’s literature and ICT,
focusing on the world of Tolkien: Middle Earth. The main site for classroom
work and associated action research will be the Middle Earth palace (Sorenson,
2000–2004, on-line), a g-rated visual virtual world. We also offer a means of
sharing classroom experiences and communicating the research outcomes,
through publication on the ELLIE website.
Our aim is to collect teachers’ reports about the research to share with
others, and to develop a network of educators who are willing to trial and
explore the most effective means of developing children’s multiliteracies in
digital contexts. We hope that this book will help introduce more computer-
based activities related to children’s literature into primary classrooms.
1 Changing dimensions of
children’s literature

Introduction

Many children today are well oriented to engaging with the ‘radical change’
in narrative form and presentation of contemporary children’s literature
(Dresang, 1999) because their out-of-school experience with fictional narrative
characters often embraces their various incarnations in picture books, car-
toons, videos, DVDs and CDs, as well as in traditional and electronic games.
While children’s out-of-school experience of fictional narrative may ‘tune’
them to much of the innovative narrative form and technique of contempor-
ary picture books and novels (as well as accompanying multimedia ‘back-
stories’ and para texts), this is frequently not the case for their teachers (and
their parents). Nevertheless, children’s literature continues to be seen as a
crucial resource in nurturing the child’s progress from basic literacy to a level
of critical and cultural literacy necessary for effective adult life (Hollindale,
1995). As Margaret Meek has long pointed out, it is the kinds of texts that
children have access to and the kinds of interactions they experience around
those texts that influence the kinds of readers they become (Meek, 1988). To
sustain the facilitative role of children’s literature in classroom literacy devel-
opment we need to understand the evolving nature of children’s books as
objects in their own right and also how they are positioned by publishers,
educators and readers as phenomena in the new multimedia world in which so
many children move so easily.
In this chapter we will focus on children’s books as objects in their own
right. First, we will indicate some of the key aspects of ‘radical change’ that
characterize current and emerging literary texts for children. Second, we will
outline recent work on a ‘grammar of visual design’ (Kress and van Leeuwen,
1996), which provides an accessible and systematic description of the mean-
ing-making resources of images and helps us to understand the changing
narrative role of images in children’s literature. Third, we will show how func-
tional descriptions of verbal grammar (Halliday, 1994; Matthiessen, 1995) can
6 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

provide both an accessible interpretive resource for teachers and children

working with the text of literary narrative and a common theoretical basis
with the functional grammar of images, facilitating understanding of image–
text interaction in meaning-making. In Chapter 2 we will take up the position-
ing of children’s literature in the multimedia world, the contextualization of
children’s books on the internet and the recontextualization of some literary
texts in electronic format on CD-ROMs and on the worldwide web.

Radical change in children’s literature in a

screen-age culture

Children growing up in the early years of the twenty-first century have been
born into a culture that differs immeasurably from past cultures. These chil-
dren are the ‘net-generation’ who take the personal computer and the internet
for granted. Communication in this digital culture is marked by the interactiv-
ity, immediacy, and complexity of both images and text. This is a culture that
has facilitated and promoted the ‘radical change’ in books for children in a
way that has never been done before (Dresang, 1999). The construct of radical
change was developed by Dresang (1999) to identify and explain books with
characteristics reflecting the interactivity, connectivity and access that charac-
terize our emerging digital society. Some books with these characteristics pre-
date contemporary digital culture as noted by Dresang and by Mackey (1994),
but for the net-generation, semiotic devices such as cuts, flashbacks, split-
screen images, hyperlinks and non-linear progression, multiple conclusions,
etc., are very much the norm. Increasingly, these devices are deployed in ways
that integrate the use of language and image. In a textual habitat saturated
with images, moving and still, alone and in all manner of hybrid combin-
ations with texts and sounds, today’s children are likely to possess a richer and
more acute understanding of visual imagery and its modes of deployment
than any other generation (Lewis, 2001). Children’s literature is a key source of
sustained reading by net-generation students, but to optimize its potential for
learning, teachers need to appreciate the nature of the radical change in these
books, which engage young readers.
Three categories of radical change are identified by Dresang: (1) changing
forms and formats; (2) changing perspectives; and (3) changing boundaries. In
the latter category, Dresang discusses the complex ways in which characters
are presented and the greater frequency of ‘unsolved endings’ as well as the
representation of new communities and treatment of previously ‘forbidden’
topics. The focus here will be more on the first two of Dresang’s categories,
dealing with aspects of narrative technique.
 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE 7

Changing forms and formats

David Macaulay’s (1990) Black and White is cited by Dresang as exemplifying

in its narrative technique the non-linearity of hypertext. It consists of inter-
related storylines involving parents and their children, a herd of cows, a train
journey, and an escaped convict. All four storylines are represented on each
double-page spread, each illustrated with a distinctive style and palette and
each with some connections woven into the others. Towards the end of the
book, the four storylines break through their borders and come together, but
the reader is left to speculate on the uncertainty of what happens next.
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (Scieszka and Smith,
1992) is metafictive work in that it explicitly draws attention in the text to its
status as a constructed piece of fiction. In this story two narrators, Jack (of the
beanstalk) and the Little Red Hen, interrupt the story and each other, present-
ing an ironic and non-linear narrative where words become pictures, and the
pictures not only illustrate the content but also the playful disruptions to the
narrative. David Wiesner’s The Three Pigs (Wiesner, 2001) is also a metafictive
tale. The wolf’s huffing and puffing blows the first pig right out of the story.
One by one, the pigs exit the story frame and follow their own adventures.
After folding a page of their own story into a paper plane, they fly off to visit
other storybooks. Again, variation in illustrative style and fonts and shifts in
perspective are used to provoke readers to ponder the conventions of story as
they engage with an unconventional story form.
Not all books reflecting the non-linear organization and format of digital
media are picture books. Similar innovative formats occur in novels for
young readers such as Spring-Heeled Jack by Philip Pullman (1989), which is
fragmented, with multimodal pages, and quirky organization (Bearne, 2000).
Other examples of novels using the non-linear organization characteristic
of hypertext cited by Dresang are Whirligig (Fleischman, 1998) and Holes
(Sacher, 1998).

Changing perspectives

The construction of story from a singular point of view via a distanced

omniscient narrator has given way to some extent in contemporary fiction to
more frequent inclusion of multiple points of view often voiced by characters
who ‘speak for themselves’, or by a narrator who adopts variable points of view
throughout the story. These have been referred to as polyphonic narratives
(McCallum, 1999). Dresang (1999) cites recent examples of polyphonic narra-
tives. For example, Making up Megaboy (Walter, 1998) is the story of an ‘average
kid’, Robbie Jones, who, on his thirteenth birthday, shoots a Korean shop-
keeper. The story is told in short media-like accounts and computer-generated
graphic representations of 19 people associated with Robbie – his parents,
8 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

friends, minister, teacher, a lawyer, a news anchor-person, the barber and

others. Robbie never speaks for himself. The story raises questions about how
such a thing could happen and the community in which the boy lived could
not imagine why he would do it. But shifts in point of view also occur in
more light-hearted stories such as ‘Unhappily Ever After’ in the collection
Quirky Tales by Paul Jennings (1987). In this story, a young boy, Albert, is about
to receive corporal punishment from his balding old headmaster for allegedly
circulating a note (‘BALD HEAD BROWN WENT TO TOWN RIDING ON A
PONY’). The story begins from Albert’s point of view:

Albert pulled up his socks and wiped his sweaty hands on the seat of
his pants. He did up the top button of his shirt and adjusted his school
tie. Then he trudged slowly up the stairs.
He was going to get the strap.
He knew it, he just knew it. He couldn’t think of one thing he had
done wrong but he knew Mr Brown was going to give him the strap
anyway. He would find some excuse to whack Albert – he always did.

Then there is a shift to Mr Brown’s point of view as Albert knocks on

Mr Brown’s door:

Inside the room Brown heard the knock. He said nothing. Let the
little beggar suffer. Let the little smart alec think he was in luck. Let
him think no one was in.
Brown heard Albert’s soft footsteps going away from the door.
‘Come in, Jenkins,’ he boomed.

Such changing perspectives are also a feature of contemporary picture books

where both language and images are used to construct different points of view.
Anthony Browne’s Voices in the Park (Browne, 1998) constructs the ‘same’
event of a visit to the park from the point of view of a mother, her son and a
father and his daughter. Not only is the representation of the event quite
different in each case, but also the appearance of the park changes according
to the perspective of the character from whose point of view the event is
communicated.
The role of images in the construction of complex variation in point of
view in picture books has been demonstrated by Williams (1998) in his discus-
sion of images in Anthony Browne’s Gorilla (Browne, 1983). Williams notes
the association of changes in vertical angle with variation in point of view.
Initially the high angle views of Hannah position the reader as more powerful
in observing ‘just a little child’. However, when Hannah makes a request of
her father in the fourth image, the reader takes up a vertical angle, which is
much lower and is, in fact, an exaggeration of Hannah’s perspective. ‘The
 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE 9

reader is no longer positioned as just an observer of the girl, but literally

associated with her perspective by taking on a similar power position with
respect to the father’ (Williams, 1998: 29). Williams goes on to point out that
there is no stable relationship with respect to power between the reader
and the focalizing character, so the child reader cannot simply associate
with Hannah’s orientation, at least not in any simple sense of identification.
Williams sees this aspect of the visual construction of point of view as most
important for discussion of children’s entry into visual practices in that young
readers are simultaneously positioned as both engaged as part of the narrativ-
ized experience and somewhat detached from it as observer of Hannah’s
actions and responses.
The kind of image analyses in Williams’ work with Gorilla has also been
useful in explicating changes in point of view that occur when picture books
are recontextualized in multimedia CD-ROM formats. Stellaluna (Cannon,
1996) is constructed from quite different points of view in the book and elec-
tronic versions (Unsworth, 2003b) and the animated images in the CD-ROM
version of The Little Prince (de Saint-Exupéry, 2000) also construct different
points of view from those in the linear and book versions (Unsworth, 2003a).
In the next section we will explain this kind of image analysis and further
indicate its usefulness in working with children’s literature.

Re-thinking reading images in picture books:

a ‘grammar of visual design’

The interactivity of contemporary literature for children constructs young

readers as active meaning-makers ‘filling in’ the possibilities left by interpre-
tive ‘gaps’ or ambiguities within the text, images or the interaction between
them (Lonsdale, 1993; Meek, 1988; Prain, 1998; Stephens and Watson, 1994;
K. Watson, 1997; Williams, 1987). But the extent to which such active inter-
pretive reading is taken up is also influenced by the kinds of shared talk
children experience about texts. Teachers, parents and other co-readers who
appreciate the interactive complexity of children’s books and can enjoy with
children both the story and the visual and verbal means by which it is con-
structed, not only encourage pleasure in reading, but also enhance ‘net-age’
children’s analytic satisfaction of understanding the ways in which the text is
producing pleasure and how it is positioning them as interpretive agents
(Chambers, 1985; Meek, 1988; Misson, 1998). In order to facilitate such inter-
actions, this section of the chapter addresses the role of explicit, systematic
knowledge about the meaning-making resources of images.
Far from lessening children’s enjoyment of literature, analyzing the means
by which images make meanings helps them feel they are getting closer to the
texts and what it is they enjoy about them (Misson, 1998: 108; Nodelman,
10 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

1988: 37). However, if children are to learn how to analyze the ways images
make meanings, they need to gain knowledge of the visual meaning-making
systems deployed in images. There is significant support for the view that
systematic knowledge of this kind is essential and that it should be explicitly
taught (Doonan, 1993: 8; Nodelman, 1988: 37). But what kind of description
of visual meaning-making resources is most appropriate for analyzing multi-
modal literary texts for children? The grammar of visual design described by
Gunther Kress and Thao van Leeuwen has been shown to be a productive
analytic resource in recent work with children’s literature (Astorga, 1999;
Lewis, 2001; Stephens, 2000; Styles and Arizpe, 2001; Unsworth, 2001, 2003b;
Williams, 1998, 2000), which can be used in explicit teaching with young
children (Callow and Zammit, 2002).
Kress and van Leeuwen’s work (1996, 2001) recognizes that images, like
language, realize not only representations of material reality but also the inter-
personal interaction of social reality (such as relations between viewers and
what is viewed). The work also recognizes that images cohere into textual com-
positions in different ways and thus realize semiotic reality. More technically,
Kress and van Leeuwen’s functional semiotic account of images adopts from
systemic functional linguistics the metafunctional organization of meaning-
making resources:

• the ideational metafunction involves the representation of objects

and their relations in the material world;
• the interpersonal metafunction involves the nature of the relation-
ships among the interactive participants;
• the textual metafunction deals with the ways in which linguistic and/
or visual signs can cohere to form texts.

Here we will explore ways in which this metafunctional framework adopted by

Kress and van Leeuwen can describe visual meaning-making in picture books.
Although, as in language, the three metafunctions are realized simultaneously,
we will initially discuss each separately. First, we will consider aspects of repre-
sentational structures, which visually construct the nature of events, the objects
and participants involved, and the circumstances in which they occur. Sec-
ondly, we will examine the construction of interactive meanings in images,
which include the interpersonal relationship between the viewer and the
represented participants. Then we will investigate how aspects of layout con-
struct compositional meanings, which are concerned with the distribution of
the information value or relative emphasis among elements of the image. As
far as possible we will draw examples of images from one book, Zoo, by
Anthony Browne, but where necessary we will also refer to other well-known
picture books.
 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE 11

Representational meanings

According to Kress and van Leeuwen, images construct representations of

reality that are either ‘narrative’ or ‘conceptual’. Narrative images can depict
participants (human or non-human) participating in actional, reactional, ver-
bal events or mental events (the latter by means of ‘thought clouds’). Some-
times several of these processes occur in the same image. Representational
images are characterized by the presence of ‘action lines’ or ‘vectors’ and/or
speech balloons and thought clouds. Action lines can be seen in Zoo in the
fourth image in the book showing the family walking along a path and ‘Harry’
climbing a pole. For example, with Dad and the older son the vectors formed
by the right leg advanced and the heel of the left leg lifted from the ground
generate the vectors we read conventionally as indicating walking forward.
This image also illustrates verbal processes showing the mouths of Mum and
Dad slightly open and speech balloons containing their utterances. The walk-
ing processes in this image are actional because the participants are not acting
upon anyone or anything else. However, such processes can be ‘transactional’
if the participant is acting on someone or something else, as is the case with
the boys wrestling each other in the image opposite the rhinoceros.
Reactional processes are when the participant’s eyeline is directed to
another participant. In Zoo, opposite the image of the orang-utan is a crowd
image in which all participants are reacting to something. In the case of Mum
in this image, this is noticeable because her head and body are slightly tilted,
indicating her close observation in reaction to something. Reactional processes
like these are non-transactional because the phenomenon the participant is
reacting to is not shown within the image. Such images are an important
narrative technique in creating the ‘gaps’ to be filled by the active reader. In
this case we infer the people in the crowd are reacting to the orang-utan, but
because the gaze of Mum and a number of other participants is directly
towards us, we are positioned with the point of view of the zoo animals. The
types of processes in which characters participate in images are important in
characterization and to the ways in which particular points of view are privil-
eged by the author/illustrator. In Zoo, Mum appears in only four images. Three
of these depict her in non-transactional reactional processes, such as the one
we have described, and in all cases she appears to be looking directly at us. The
last of these images is aligned with Mum’s utterance towards the end of
the book:

“I don’t think the zoo really is for animals,” said Mum.

Reactional processes can be transactional where both the reacting participant

and the phenomenon appear in the same image. There are no such images in
Zoo. In Gorilla (Browne, 1983), however, there are several such images. One of
12 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

note is the triptych showing the toy gorilla and the doll where the gorilla
grows in size over the three images. The final image in the triptych shows the
startled doll with hair standing on end looking at the enormous gorilla.
There are also no examples of thought clouds in Zoo. In Pat Hutchins’
Don’t Forget the Bacon (Hutchins, 1978), we find both speech bubbles and
thought clouds, with the latter being central to the way the book plays with
the strategy of mental rehearsing of the shopping list in order to remember all
the items. Conceptual images depict classifications or part–whole relations or
symbolic relations. In Zoo, the first image showing separate images of the four
members of the family arranged in tabular format under the heading ‘My
Family’ is an example of such a conceptual classificatory image. Further
examples of this kind of conceptual classificatory image occur in Piggybook
(Browne, 1986), where we have the double-page spread of four images depict-
ing the various kinds of work done by Mum during the day and a subsequent
page of four images showing the work she did at night. While such conceptual
images are not common in picture books, conceptual symbolic images occur
very frequently. In Zoo, there is the obvious symbolic image of Dad with the
clouds in the shape of horns positioned on each side of his head, as well as
many more complex symbolic attributes in images such as the symbolic cruci-
fixion in the close-up image of the gorilla (Styles and Arizpe, 2001).
While the actional, reactional, mental and verbal processes in which
participants are involved are the central aspects of the visual narrative struc-
tures described by Kress and van Leeuwen, they occur in circumstances such as
the setting in which the processes take place, the means by which the processes
are effected and the accompaniment of other participants while such processes
take place. Far from being an inert background, the settings of images can
provoke active engagement of the reader in the nature of the development of
the narrative. This can be easily seen in the provocative aspects of the settings
of the images in Zoo. For example, the pattern of grass in the setting for the
image of the tiger, implying the mirror shape of a tiger and further implying
the tiger’s constant pacing backwards and forwards. Circumstances of means,
dealing with the instruments by which processes are effected can be equally
intriguingly provocative. For instance, the second image in Where the Wild
Things Are (Sendak, 1962) shows Max chasing the dog. But why is Max chasing
the dog with a fork? Circumstances of accompaniment in the images of picture
books are often commented upon in the context of some readers failing to
notice that minor participants accompanying the main participants are
involved in their own subsidiary narrative in the sequence of images. In Don’t
Forget the Bacon (Hutchins, 1978), there is the dog being tantalized/tormented
by the butterfly throughout the story and it has been reported (V. Watson,
1996: 151) that adult readers frequently do not notice the adventurous baby in
Chicken Licken (Ormerod, 1985).
 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE 13

Interactive meanings

We will outline three main aspects of the account of interactive meaning in

images provided by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996). The first of these is the kind
of contact between the viewer and the represented participants in the image –
whether the viewer interpersonally interacts with or observes the represented
participants. The second aspect is the social distance – whether the image is
located along a continuum characterized by a close-up, medium or long shot.
The third aspect is the interpersonal attitude that is constructed by the vertical
angle (high, medium or low shot) and the horizontal angle (whether the repre-
sentation is from an oblique angle or whether the viewer seems to be parallel
or ‘front on’ to the image).
One kind of contact between a viewer and the represented participants is
referred to by Kress and van Leeuwen as a ‘demand’. This is where the gaze of
one or more of the represented participants is directly towards the viewer. As
we have already mentioned, three of the four images in which Mum is
depicted in Zoo are demands, with Mum’s gaze directly toward us as viewers.
The image of Dad with the clouds positioned to imply horns on the side of his
head is also a demand with Dad looking directly at us. Such images engage the
viewer in a kind of direct pseudo-social interpersonal exchange with the parti-
cipant(s) in the image. These images occur less frequently in picture books
than those which do not engage the viewer in this way (Nodelman, 1988:
151). Images in which there is no direct gaze toward the viewer are called ‘offers’
by Kress and van Leeuwen. In Zoo, all the images of the animals are offers.
None of the animals, including the close-up image of the gorilla, have their
eyeline oriented directly to the viewer (cf. Styles and Arizpe, 2001).
The social distance in the early pages of Zoo is quite remote with fairly
long shots depicting the family as they drive to the zoo and somewhat distant
as they line up for their tickets. The image of the boys wrestling is more of a
medium social distance, where although we can see all of their bodies, they are
bent over and as such fill the frame, so we appear quite close to them. The
image of Dad with the cloud-horns is much closer and the image of him laugh-
ing is a fairly intimate close-up. We have noted that most of the images of
Mum are demands and, in fact, the first of these is a medium to close-up image
with the rest more distant, perhaps to intensify the viewer/participant inter-
action and alignment of the viewer with the point of view that Mum repre-
sents both in this image and in the subsequent ones. Most of the animal
images are socially quite remote, with one or two approaching medium social
distance such as the orang-utan and the tiger. The striking exception to this
pattern is the extremely intimate close-up of the gorilla.
The vertical angle of the image accords relative power to the viewer or the
represented participant(s). Low-angle images show the represented partici-
pants looking down on the viewer and hence the represented participant is
14 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

accorded more power the lower this vertical angle is. This is used to great
effect in Zoo with the cloud-horned image of Dad represented as towering over
the positioning of the viewer, indicative of the power Dad exercises in the
family. A noteworthy high-angle image is that of the orang-utan (‘Miserable
thing’) emphasizing its ‘downtrodden’ demeanour and lack of power. It is also
interesting that the first demand image of Mum looking through the green
grille wire is at eye level with the viewer, indicating equality of power.
When the viewer is ‘front on’ or the horizontal angle of the image is
parallel, the effect is to maximize the viewer’s involvement or identification
with the world of the represented participants. In Zoo, once the family is
inside, the majority of the images depicting them have parallel horizontal
angles maximizing our involvement with them. This is not the case for the
depiction of the animals. Our view of them is side on or from an oblique angle.
Even with the close-up of the gorilla, the frontal angle is not parallel. We are
probably closest to being ‘front on’ with the baboons, and Mum’s comment is
interesting here:

“They remind me of someone,” said Mum. “I can’t think who.”

One further aspect of interactive meaning described by Kress and van Leeuwen
is modality. This refers to the extent to which an image depicts the realism of
the aspects of the world it represents and is determined by the benchmark of
the high quality colour photograph. People judge an image to be ‘naturalistic’
if it approximates this level of representation. Colour is a major influence on
naturalistic modality. Naturalistic images have high colour saturation rather
than black and white. Their colours are diversified rather than monochrome,
and they are modulated, using many shades of the various colours. Modality
also varies along a scale from maximum delineation of detail features of parti-
cipants to the schematization of detail. In highly schematic images a head may
be represented by a circle, the eyes by two dots, and the mouth by a curved
line. In Zoo, the family is depicted with somewhat lower modality than the
animals and within the animals the highest modality occurs in the close-up of
the gorilla. Lower modality tends to imply more generic representation and
perhaps in Zoo this helps to generalize the attitudes portrayed by the family.
The high modality of the gorilla combines with the extreme close-up to effect
the intimacy of the interaction with the viewer.

Compositional meanings

In picture books the double-page spread is the usual syntagm with left/right
division the most common means of organizing the information value of the
images. This reflects the feature of written English where what is given infor-
mation occurs in the first part of the clause and what is new comes at the end
 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE 15

of the clause (Halliday, 1994: 296–302). In John Burningham’s Come Away

from the Water, Shirley (Burningham, 1977), the given situation of the parents
commanding Shirley from their seats on the beach always occurs on the left-
hand page and the new situations of Shirley’s adventure are always depicted
on the right. On the other hand, somewhat unusually in Burningham’s Granpa
(Burningham, 1984), it is the imagined or remembered situation that is con-
sistently depicted on the left and the given or familiar situation on the right. In
Anthony Browne’s Zoo, once the family have arrived at the zoo, the humans
are consistently on the left and the animals on the right.
The form of framing of images, or lack thereof, is a very active feature of
layout in constructing the nature of the narrative. In Zoo, the framing around
the images of the family is not prominent nor straight – as if the images had
been cut out from somewhere else. By contrast, once the family arrive at the
zoo, the images of the zoo animals are all on the right-hand pages and they are
all heavily framed with thick, black, straight border lines. This pattern is main-
tained until we see a much more distinct albeit not quite straight grey-black
bordering around the image of the boys wearing their monkey hats. Then we
see a distinct yellow border around the image of the family and other members
of the public looking at the orang-utan. Then the second last image of the
book shows the older son, the narrator, who had a very strange dream in his
room that night. This image has the same thick, black, straight border that
surrounded all of the images of the animals in the zoo, so the transposition of
framing is complete. There is one exception to the framing style for the images
of the zoo animals. This is in the image of the gorilla. Note that, from a natural-
istic point of view, this is the image of highest modality in the book and it is at
a very intimate social distance. The gaps in the outside border separating the
quadrants mean that the gorilla’s face is actually divided into four separate
pieces. We have earlier noted the crucifixion symbolism of this image. Suffice
it to say that the use of framing is far from incidental to the construction of the
interpretive possibilities of this book.
Even this brief outline of key elements in Kress and van Leeuwen’s gram-
mar of visual design indicates the ways in which knowledge about the visual
resources for constructing the different kinds of meanings in images can
enhance the opportunities for learning in talk around texts and increase the
potential for expanding young readers’ interpretive reading practices.

Re-thinking interpretive reading: engaging with the

grammatical form of literary texts

If we are to help children understand some of the ways in which literary texts
achieve their effects, we need to have access to the kind of grammatical
description that will enable us to talk directly about language form and its use
16 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

in constructing the various kinds of meanings at stake. Systemic functional

grammar (SFG) provides the kind of resource that teachers, and ultimately
children (Williams, 1998, 2000), can use to enhance their understanding of
the relationship between the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of literary texts. Space will
not permit a detailed account of SFG for these purposes here – for an accessible,
chapter-length introduction to basic concepts of functional grammar, see
Ravelli (2000), Unsworth (2001) and Williams (1993) – however, we can gain
an appreciation of the use of key functional grammatical concepts as interpre-
tive resources by applying them to a ‘grammatical’ reading of Anthony
Browne’s Zoo.
SFG proposes that all clauses in all texts simultaneously construct three
types of meanings. These are the same three types of meanings described earlier
as the basis for Kress and van Leeuwen’s grammar of visual design:

• ideational meanings involve the representation of objects, events and

the circumstances of their relations in the material world;
• interpersonal meanings involve the nature of the relationships
among the interactive participants;
• textual meanings deal with the ways in which linguistic signs can
cohere to form texts.

Ideational meanings are realized grammatically by Participants, Processes

and Circumstances of various kinds. Circumstances correspond to what is trad-
itionally known as adverbs and adverbial phrases. Processes correspond to the
verbal group, but Processes are semantically differentiated. Material Processes,
for example, express actions or events (like ‘walk’, ‘sit’ or ‘travel’), while Men-
tal Processes deal with thinking, feeling and perceiving (‘understand’, ‘detest’,
‘see’) and Verbal Processes deal with saying of various kinds (‘demand’, ‘shout’,
‘plead’). These different kinds of Processes have their own specific categories
of participants. Material Processes, for example, entail Actors (those initiating
the process) and Goals (those to whom the action is directed), while Mental
Processes entail a Sensor and a Phenomenon.
Interpersonal meanings are realized by the mood and modality systems.
Much of this aspect of functional grammar is familiar to those with experience
of more traditional grammars. The declarative, for example, is realized by the
ordering of Subject followed by the Finite Verb, while the interrogative is real-
ized by the inversion of this ordering. The modal verbs (‘can’, ‘should’, ‘must’,
etc.) indicate degrees of obligation or inclination and modal adverbs like ‘fre-
quently’, ‘probably’, ‘certainly’ enable personal stance to be communicated
through negotiating the semantic space between ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
Textual meanings are realized in part by the Theme/Rheme system. The
Theme of a clause in functional grammar is that element that is in first pos-
ition. This is usually the Subject (‘The weather is mild in Australia’), but an
 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE 17

adverbial element could be placed in Theme position (‘In Australia the weather
is mild’). This is not as common, and is likely to occur more frequently in more
formal written language than in informal spoken language. When some idea-
tional element other than the Subject is placed in first position in a clause, we
call it a marked Theme, in that it draws more attention due to is relatively less
frequent use.
Although the three major grammatical systems realize the three main
types of meaning simultaneously, in order to show how they can be used as
a resource for understanding the patterned construction of literary texts,
the construction of ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings will be
discussed separately in the following three sub-sections.

Textual meanings: Theme in Zoo

In Zoo, the Themes are mainly the family members or the animals and they are
also the subject of the sentence so they are the most usual or ‘unmarked’
Theme choice:

Harry started crying and Dad told me off.

Everyone laughed except Mum, Harry and me.

The elephant just stood in a corner stuffing its face.

The fact that marked Themes i.e. where, apart from conjunctive devices or
modal adverbs like ‘probably’, etc., some other element like a complement or
circumstantial adjunct (adverb or adverbial phrase) precedes the subject and is
thus in the topical Theme position in the clause, occur much less frequently
than unmarked Themes (where the subject precedes all other elements except
conjunctives and modal adverbs) makes a marked Theme a signal that the
reader’s attention is being drawn to what is being dealt with at this point in the
text. In some picture books marked Themes signal the episodic development
of the story.
Marked Topical Themes occur in only five clauses in Zoo (Browne, 1994)
and they are all located at the boundaries of episodes in the story as indicated
in Table 1.1. In addition, in Zoo there is only one instance of a dependent
clause preceding the main clause in a sentence:

When we finally got there Dad had to have a row with the man in the
ticket booth.

This can be understood as a clause functioning as a marked Theme (Martin,

1992: 435).
18 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Table 1.1 Marked Themes reflect episodic boundaries in Zoo

Episode Marked Themes

Orientation Last Sunday we all went to the zoo.

In transit to the zoo After a while Harry and I got really bored.
Events before lunch When we finally got there Dad had to have a row with the man
in the ticket booth.
Events after lunch After that we went to the gift shop to spend our pocket money.
Conclusion In the car Mum asked us what was the best bit of the day.
Coda That night I had a very strange dream.

The role of the pattern of Theme selection in highlighting readers’ percep-

tion of the structure of narrative and drawing attention to experiential mean-
ings integral to interpretive possibilities of text segments has recently been
discussed by Knowles and Malmkjaer (1996: 75) in relation to The Secret
Garden (Burnett, 1992). They also discuss Thematization as ‘a powerful tool for
reinforcing a writer’s explicit message’. To support this discussion they analyze
part of the opening paragraph in the final chapter of The Secret Garden to point
out how Burnett used Theme choice to pre-empt opposition to her strong
claim about the effect of the mental lives of Mary and Colin on their physical
condition.
Exploration of the patterning of Theme selection is an aspect of the analysis
of textual meaning-making which can be introduced to very young readers to
consider simple structural features of narrative. It can also introduce young
readers to the ways in which writers draw attention to the interpretive possi-
bilities of story and can be extended to the investigation of quite complex
issues about the textual construction of ideological positioning in narratives.
However, the textual meanings realized by Theme selection also need to be seen
in a complementary relation to the realization of ideational and interpersonal
meanings.

Ideational meanings: processes and participants in Piggybook and Zoo

In a study by Williams (1998) primary school children who had very little prior
systematic knowledge of grammar were able to use functional descriptions of
Process types, Participant and Circumstances, to see how different examples
encode a variety of meanings relevant to the representation of character in
Anthony Browne’s Piggybook (Browne, 1986). The teacher drew attention to
‘said’ as the most common verb used in quoting or reporting speech and then
experimented with the children in choosing alternative verbal processes like
 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE 19

‘yelled’, ‘whispered’, etc. It was this orientation and subsequent discrimination

of verbal processes (saying verbs) that enabled the children to discuss the effect
of Browne’s selection of verbal processes like ‘squealed’, ‘grunted’, ‘snorted’
and ‘snuffled’. The children were also able to appreciate that in the first part of
the story Mrs Piggott was the only Actor engaged in Material Processes (action
verbs) which entailed a Goal. While Mr Piggott and the boys were Actors in
Material Processes, they didn’t actually act upon anything whereas Mrs Piggott
‘washed all the breakfast things . . . made all the beds . . . vacuumed all the
carpets . . . and then she went to work’. At the end of the story, however, all the
characters were Actors in Material Processes that had Goals, e.g. ‘Patrick and
Simon made the beds. Mr Piggott did the ironing.’
It is the introduction of the use of this metalanguage as a resource that
facilitates further grammatically-based interpretive work. For example, in
Anthony Browne’s Zoo, Dad is the dominant Sayer (in 16 verbal processes),
while Mum is the Sayer six times, as is the narrator, and Harry is the Sayer only
once. But ‘said’ is only used three times to project/report Dad’s speech. On the
other occasions the Verbal Processes reporting/projecting Dad’s speech are
‘roared’, ‘snorted’, ‘howled’, ‘jeered’, etc. However, for Mum and the narrator
only ‘said’ is used. But beyond Verbal Processes, although the narrative is
about an excursion, there is a fairly even distribution of Verbal, Material and
Relational Processes, with Mental Processes being the least frequent. While the
narrator and Harry are sometimes Senser in Mental Processes of perception
(‘Next we saw the baboons’), the only character who is Senser in Mental
Processes of cognition is Mum – (‘I don’t think the zoo really is for animals’).
As young readers are alerted to these patterns of grammatical choice, they
can begin to read the ‘constructedness’ of characterization and the bases of
alignments of readers with the point of view of particular characters.

Interpersonal meaning: mood and modality in Zoo

An examination of the deployment of the grammatical resources of the mood

and modality systems in the dialogic text and the language of the narrator can
also facilitate understanding of the construction of point of view and the dif-
ferential alignment of readers with the various characters of the narrative. We
will look first of all at the dialogic text in Zoo. Table 1.2 shows the distribution
of speech functions.
Dad dominates the dialogue. He issues more commands and they are
qualitatively different from Mum’s commands. While Dad’s commands are
direct and at times intimidating (‘Come DOWN you little ratbag!’), Mum’s
command is modified by the more positive vocative, ‘boys’, and by the inclu-
sive imperative ‘let’s’ (‘ “Come on, boys,” said Mum, “let’s get something
to eat.” ’).
Dialogue is usually initiated by the questions from the boys or Dad. The
20 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Table 1.2 Speech functions of characters in Anthony Browne’s Zoo

Command Question Statement

Character Total utterances Imperative Interrogative Declarative

Dad 14 3 4 7
Mum 7 2 0 5
Harry 4 1 1 2
I (narrator) 5 2 3 0

boys ask yes/no questions seeking permission (usually about eating) and why
questions about their father’s negative response to their earlier request. In
contrast, the dialogue initiated by Dad is in the form of wh-questions which
are riddle-type jokes and one rude rhetorical question about the boys (‘Which
one is the monkey?’). Although the boys are supposed to answer the riddles,
the punchlines are actually supplied by Dad, which only he finds funny. So
Dad does not engage in meaningful dialogue with the boys. Instead he
either imposes his speech on them or answers their questions in the negative
without giving reasons (‘Because I say so.’). On the other hand, when Mum
refuses the boys’ request to have lunch, she does not do so with a direct ‘no’
but uses a declarative clause to express her negative answer. She says by way
of explanation, ‘But, we’ve only just got here.’ The only time Dad addresses
Mum directly is to refute her sympathetic utterance ‘Poor thing’, concerning
the tiger.
Examining the interpersonal grammar of the dialogue, then, can contrib-
ute to an understanding of how character is constructed. But the mood and
modality choices within the narration are also important in this respect. The
use of modal verbs indicating a high level of obligation to describe Dad’s
behaviour points to the fact that Dad behaves this way habitually (‘Dad had
to have a row’; ‘Dad had to do his King Kong impersonation’). The inclusion of
mood adjuncts like ‘sometimes’ and ‘of course’ reinforces this notion of habit-
ual behaviour (‘Sometimes he can be really embarrassing’; ‘Of course Dad had
to do his King Kong impersonation’). And the comment adjunct ‘luckily’ indi-
cates the feeling of relief in the narrator (‘but luckily we were the only
ones there’). The modal verbs and mood adjuncts also construct the narrator’s
judgments on events. For example, the unwelcome obligation to look at the
polar bears and the boredom experienced in doing so is expressed not only by
the negative attribute ‘stupid’ and repetition of the circumstance of location,
‘up and down’, but also in the high modal verb ‘had to’ and the modal adjunct
‘just’ (‘Then we had to go and see the polar bear. It looked really stupid, just
walking up and down, up and down.’)
 CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE 21

Conclusion

The use of these kinds of functional grammatical analyses and related image
analyses has been shown to be viable, engaging and productive in classroom
work with children (Callow and Zammit, 2002; Williams, 1998, 2000) and
these have been incorporated in state education syllabus documents (Educa-
tion Queensland, 1995; New South Wales Board of Studies, 1998). They have
also been useful in explicating image/text relations in picture books, such as
The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan (Marsden and Tan, 1998),
exemplifying aspects of Dresang’s radical change (Unsworth and Wheeler,
2002). In Chapter 2 we will apply these analyses to explore the nature of the
recontextualization of literary texts from book to various kinds of electronic
presentation formats.
2 Exploring children’s literature
on CD-ROM and the www

Introduction

In this chapter we will investigate children’s literature re-published in CD-

ROM format and on the world wide web (www). We will also look at sources
and types of on-line resources for working with published children’s literature.
Finally, we will discuss one example of an illustrated novel for young adoles-
cents – Dreamwalker by Isobelle Carmody and Steven Woolman (2001). We will
indicate a range of www resources available to support teaching/learning activ-
ities for this book and we will also outline the kind of complementary off-line
work needed to develop children’s knowledge about the verbal and visual
grammatical construction of the interpretive possibilities of narrative.

CD-ROM versions of children’s books

In this section we will consider the categories of children’s literature produced

on CD-ROMs, the media and presentation formats used, and the need for
critical engagement with hypertext features as narrative techniques.

Types of children’s literature on CD-ROM

The most commonly occurring categories of literature for children in CD-ROM

format are traditional tales of various kinds, and what might be considered
‘classic’ children’s stories – often originally published more than fifty years
ago. Here we will not be concerned with purpose-written, instructional graded
reading scheme stories such as those used in studies by Medwell (1998)
and Lewin (2000). Stories like The Three Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears
and Jack and the Beanstalk, are now widely available in electronic format (see,
for example, http://www.interactivebook.com), as are fables like The Tortoise
and the Hare and other tales such as The Golden Touch (see, for example,
 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW 23

http://www.antelope-ebooks.com). Quite a number of traditional tales

published in book format in a variety of versions have been made into feature
films and today many appear on DVDs as well as CD-ROM storybooks. A well-
known recent example is the Disney movie and CD-ROM storybook of Mulan
(Disney, 1998).
Classic books on CD-ROM include illustrated stories like those of Beatrix
Potter such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Potter, 1987), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s
The Little Prince (de Saint-Exupéry, 2000), Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland (Carroll, 2000) and other children’s novels like The Secret Garden
(Burnett, 1992) and Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery, 1999). Relatively few
contemporary literary texts for children are published in CD-ROM versions.
Picture books currently regarded as works of children’s literature rarely appear
as CD-ROMs, with some notable exceptions such as The Polar Express (Van
Allsburg, 1997), The Paper Bag Princess (Munsch, 1994), Stellaluna (Cannon,
1996), and George Shrinks (Joyce, c.1994). Similarly, it is usually only
exceptional novels for children that subsequently appear as CD-ROMs, such as
readings of the ‘Harry Potter’ books (Rowling, 1999) and innovative books like
Sophie’s World (Gaarder, c.1997).

Media and presentation format

Some books are re-published as audio CDs only, which may also include music
background and various sound effects. On some CDs these audio features
occur with the text and images. In some cases the images are static, simply
transposed from page to screen. This is the case with The Paper Bag Princess
(Munsch, 1994) for example. In other cases the original images from the book
appear as animations on the CD as in The Polar Express (Van Allsburg, 1997). In
this CD the animations activate automatically, but in others like The Little
Prince (de Saint-Exupéry, 2000), the animations are controlled by the mouse
‘clicks’ of the viewer. This raises the issue of ‘interactivity’ as a key aspect of
children’s narrative experience in a digital age (Dresang and McClelland,
1999). Interactivity can relate to both ‘navigation’ through the digital text and
story construction. Navigation concerns the selection of participation options
such as having the story read to you or reading it yourself, and in the latter case
then determining how to change to the next screen (usually ‘turning the page’
by clicking on the bottom right-hand corner), knowing how to ‘quit’ the story
and return to it, and whether returning necessitates starting from the begin-
ning or whether you can go directly to a particular page somewhere in the
story. Such navigation matters are not completely separate from story con-
struction since many CDs enable readers/viewers to choose particular parts of
the story to read rather than proceeding linearly. As Margaret Mackey points
out, given the structure and presentation of contemporary narratives and
children’s experience of electronic multimedia, ‘It seems fairly clear that the
24 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW

idea of following the narrative thread from beginning to end of the story is
now perceived very broadly as just one option for engaging with fiction’ (1999:
28). A study of fifth grade children using CD-ROM stories indicated that few of
the groups reading at the computer conformed to the convention of reading
the text from start to finish (Trushell et al., 2001).
Interactivity also involves the construction of story from the presentation
of print and images (as well as the audio). One aspect of this interactivity
concerns the options for ‘decoding’ the text. On some CDs children may
choose to have the text read aloud (often with highlighting of text segments
synchronized with the voice over) or to read it themselves. The latter option
may also allow children themselves to highlight text segments or single words
and have just those read aloud. The other aspect of interactivity relating to
story construction concerns the use of hypertext or ‘hot spots’ – frequently
linked to elements in the images. Clicking on these activates some kind of
animation and/or additional text, usually dialogue with audio. Such hot spots
may be integral to the story, peripheral to the story or incongruous with the
story. The CD-ROM version of George Shrinks (Joyce, c.1994) contains hot spots
that are integral to the narrative. In this story George is left to look after the
house and his younger sibling for a time while his parents are out. George
literally shrinks to the size of a mouse and this turns the normal routines into a
series of dramatic events fraught with danger as well as comedy, not the least
of which concerns the now threatening company of the family cat. In the CD
version the foreshadowing of the potential danger posed by the cat to the
now very small George is achieved by clicking, which on one occasion acti-
vates the cat’s paw reaching to the dressing table and towards the diminutive
George in his bed. On the other hand the CD version of Stellaluna (Cannon,
1996) includes many incongruous hot spots with animated images which are
gratuitous intrusions into the narrative. In this story a baby bat, Stellaluna, is
separated from its mother when she was avoiding an attacking owl. Stellaluna
lives in a nest with a family of young birds and adopts bird-like behaviours.
Eventually Stellaluna and the mother bat are reunited but Stellaluna visits the
birds she has made friends with and lived harmoniously with despite their
differences. Clicking on images in the early part of the story initiates a number
of activities of jungle animals which are quite unrelated to each other or to the
story, like a monkey running up a tree, elephants splashing water at each
other, a giraffe drinking and then gargling and a bird sliding down the giraffe’s
neck. In some CDs the hot spots are between these two extremes providing
animations that are peripheral or incidental to the main concerns of the story.
For example in The Little Prince (de Saint-Exupéry, 2000), clicking on his hand
causes his sword to move or clicking on his shoulders causes his epaulettes to
fly off and return to his shoulder. The Little Prince also contains many examples
of hot spots that are integral to the narrative.
 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW 25

Developing a critical perspective on hypertext as a narrative device

Much of the research on hypertext in CD-ROM stories for children laments the
role of incongruous hot spots distracting children from engagement with the
actual story and the consequences for story recall and conventional measures
of traditional story comprehension. Typically such researchers call for CD-
ROM design that is more faithful to goals of engagement with story and char-
acter (Burrell and Trushell, 1997; Labbo and Reinking, 2000; Miller and Olsen,
1998; Trushell et al., 2001; Underwood, 2000). This seems eminently reason-
able, but it does tend to maintain the orientation of the research (and teaching)
to an exploration of new electronic routes to conventional literacy practices.
Literary authors and teachers may well seek to deploy hypertext resources
towards the explication of plot theme and character, but as we have noted,
the majority of CD-ROM narratives in children’s literature are adaptations of
traditional tales or classic stories. Given the social construction of these elec-
tronic books with multiple contributors to their composition and the demands
of marketability, it is likely that hypertext will continue to be used for a range
of ‘product’ engagement techniques. Some authors will become more familiar
with hypertext and will co-opt it to generate innovative narrative techniques
while, inevitably, in some texts what are seen as more frivolous uses of hot
spots will continue. From a teaching point of view, it is important to ‘harness’
children’s fascination with hypertext and develop their knowledge about vari-
ous types and purposes, so that this kind of meta-knowledge can put them in a
position to develop a critical appreciation of the use of hot spots. This may
mean a more proactive focus both in teaching and research on hot spots that
are integral to the thematic concerns of the story. Fortunately these are readily
identified in a number of the more prolific and widely accessible CD-ROM
stories. In one of the many ‘Arthur’ stories by Marc Brown, Arthur’s Teacher
Trouble (RandomHouse/Broderbund, 1994), which was used in the Underwood
(2000) study, some hot spots were related to the storyline. For example, click-
ing on Arthur when he first meets his stern new teacher produced a ‘thought
cloud’, which articulates Arthur’s anxiety about being in this teacher’s class.
What is also needed is a more elaborated account of ‘integral’ and ‘peripheral’
hot spots to facilitate a more detailed understanding of the relationship
between electronic presentational format and the interpretive practices of
children reading these new digital narratives derived from the original book
formats. It could be argued that reading the CD-ROM version of George Shrinks
(Joyce, c.1994) or The Little Prince (de Saint-Exupéry, 2000) is in fact the experi-
ence of reading two quite different narratives from the book versions of those
stories – with quite different interpretive practices and responses. This is
largely due to the hypertext activations of different elements of the story and
different points of view constructed through the hyperlinked animations
(Unsworth, 2003).
26 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW

WWW access to children’s books

The longest-standing internet source of free books re-published on-line is

Project Gutenberg (http://www.promo.net/pg/). It publishes books that are no
longer in copyright, so these are books that were published before 1925. Many
classics of children’s literature such as the stories of Lewis Carroll, Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, Hans Christian Andersen, Edgar Allen Poe and Beatrix Potter are
available. In general, these are available as ‘text only’ versions. The Inter-
national Children’s Digital Library (http://www.icdlbooks.org/) is a project of
the University of Maryland and the internet Archive. It also provides free on-
line versions of children’s books which are out of copyright. For this collection
the books are scanned and hence the original formats including illustrations
are available on-line. Another resource is the University of Virginia’s Electronic
Text Centre (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/subjects/Young-Readers.html).
Again, out of copyright books have been scanned so that illustrations are
included. The Rosetta project hosted by the University of Maryland (http://
www.childrensbooksonline.org/) also provides scanned copies of classic and
out of copyright children’s books including illustrations. Other such collec-
tions are available at http://www.classicreader.com/, http://www.blackmask.
com/page.php, http://www.bibliomania.com/, http://www.worldwideschool.
org/library/ and http://www.fairrosa.info/. There are other sites with versions
of classic stories that include text, animations and audio so that you can have
the story read to you, or read it independently and typically also play an on-
line game related to the story. One such site includes a number of the stories of
Hans Christian Andersen (http://www.andersenfairytales.com/en/main).
As one would expect, very little current or relatively recently published
literature for children is available on the web free of charge, as authors need to
derive an income from their work. Nevertheless, from time to time some works
are made available on-line by established authors. In 1995 Australian author,
John Marsden, published a book entitled Cool School: You Make it Happen in the
tradition of the ‘choose your own adventure’ stories. In this story the reader
takes the part of a new student on the first day at a new school. A series of
choices provides a variety of consequences which can make this a great day, or
the worst ever. This story is currently available in its entirety as a ‘webridged’
hypertext story, which visitors can read on Marsden’s website (http://www.
panmacmillan.com.au/johnmarsden/csmain.htm – retrieved 4 April 2004).
Popular Australian authors Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzman regularly
advertise offers of free (hardcopy) books to visitors to their websites. Their
popular comic stories entitled Wicked were originally published as six separate
volumes. These have now been re-published as single ‘giant’ volume (Jennings
and Gleitzman, 1998), and Gleitzman is offering unsold copies of the second
of the six originally separately published books (Wicked Part 2) as a ‘giveaway’
 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW 27

to visitors to his website who mail a request to him. As he notes, readers will be
able to appreciate this story much better if they have read Wicked Part 1, so
this is now available in full on his site (http://www.morrisgleitzman.com/ –
retrieved 4 April 2004).

Using on-line resources for teaching with

children’s literature

There is a veritable plethora of websites that can be used to support teaching

with children’s literature. Here we will address strategies for identifying and
then locating relevant sites, but more particularly we will outline a framework
for clarifying the kinds of support for learning with children’s literature that
the various types of websites can provide.
To find sites at the point of teaching preparation need one can, of course,
deploy a ‘search engine’ like yahoo or google and search on the book title and/
or author. This is likely to yield thousands of ‘hits’, which can then be refined
by a more advanced search. However, it is useful to be aware of key categories
of sites, which may enable more strategic ‘surfing’ to locate lesson support
materials. Specialist sites dealing in detail with children’s literature and educa-
tion have become established over a number of years. Well regarded among
these are the Carol Hurst site http://www.carolhurst.com/, the University of
Calgary children’s literature website http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/
and the Vandergrift’s children’s literature page hosted at Rutgers State
University of New Jersey http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/ChildrenLit/
index.html. These pages provide access to a wealth of information including
links to author websites, resources for classroom learning activities, critical
discussion of issues in children’s literature, links to professional journals and
associations and other websites related to children’s literature. Publishers’ web-
sites are often a good starting point, especially for established authors and/or
illustrators who tend to work with the one publishing company. They typic-
ally provide a link to or maintain the author’s/illustrator’s own website. A
number of the sites listed have links related to ‘visual literacy’ and some
specialist sites focus on the work of illustrators of children’s literature, such
as the site developed by the society of book illustrators in Australia (http://
www.thestylefile.com/about_us_page.htm). The International Board on Books
for Young people (IBBY) (http://www.ibby.org/) and the Children’s Book
Council (http://www.cbcbooks.org/) provide an international perspective on
children’s literature, including awards and prizes for outstanding literary
works for young readers.
When we look at websites to assist in implementing classroom work with
children’s literature, we find they provide, to varying degrees, material in one
or more of five main categories:
28 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW

1 The context of composition of the story.

2 The promotion of the book and enticement of potential readers.
3 Exploration/learning activities dealing with the construction of the
story and its themes.
4 Opportunities for readers’ response to the book.
5 Participation in book-related activities such as game-playing, purchase
of book merchandising, etc.

The context of composition

This includes author/illustrator biographical information and often informa-

tion about the genesis of the book. For example, if we go to Aidan Chambers’
website: (http://www.aidanchambers.co.uk/), which we could locate by look-
ing up ‘authors’ on the Penguin publishers site, or any one of the several
children’s literature sites we have mentioned, we will find some information
on the genesis of The Present Takers (Chambers, 1983). Chambers says that a
friend found out that his daughter was being badly bullied at school and that
no one seemed to be able to stop it. The friend asked Aidan Chambers – as an
ex-teacher – what he would do. Chambers says he didn’t know what to say so
he wrote the book to find an answer. He indicates that the first half of the story
is pretty much the way it happened in real life and that he made up the second
half. Similarly, David Almond (http://www.davidalmond.com/) comments on
the origin of Skellig (Almond, 1998), explaining that the name comes from the
Skellig Islands, which are off the south-west coast of Ireland. However,
Almond says that he is not sure who or what the character Skellig is or where
he comes from, how he got into the garage or where he goes to in the end. ‘He
remains a mystery – like much of life.’

The promotion of the book and enticement of potential readers

On publishers’ and authors’ websites this frequently includes excerpts from

the book with audio to enable the potential reader to hear the story segment
read aloud – sometimes by the author. David Almond on his website (http://
www.davidalmond.com/) reads short excerpts from his novels. One chapter
of each of Morris Gleitzman’s books is available in text form on his site (http://
www.morrisgleitzman.com/) and audio is available for several of these. As
we noted, Gleitzman also offers hardcopy books as ‘giveaways’ and a similar
offer is made from time to time by Paul Jennings http://www.pauljennings.
com.au/. Readers may sample electronically one chapter from each of Beverly
Cleary’s books on-line (http://www.beverlycleary.com) and similar oppor-
tunities are available on many authors’ and publishers’ sites. On-line book-
sellers like Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com) and Alibris (http://
www.alibris.com) include short segments of the books with images (but not
 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW 29

usually with audio). They also provide reviews including some sent by pur-
chasers of the books.

Exploration/learning activities dealing with the construction of

the book and its themes

These are sometimes provided on publishers’ websites as well as on some of

the other kinds of sites we have mentioned. The types of learning activities
suggested vary widely. Some are fairly general ideas for classroom work. In
common with most of the teaching suggestions provided on-line, the Beverly
Cleary site (http://www.beverlycleary.com) offers classroom resources for all of
the books as ‘.pdf’ files that can be downloaded free of charge. The materials
for the ‘Ramona’ books (Cleary, 1976, 1978, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1986) include
summaries of the stories, character sketches of Ramona, her family, friends,
teachers and other characters, and suggestions for classroom use of the books.
The latter include ‘read alouds’, ‘independent reading’ and ‘literature circles’
and are very general suggestions such as:

Arrange for four to six students to meet as a literature circle and dis-
cuss books they have read about Ramona. Each literature circle could
prepare a project based on its book(s) to present to the class.

Other suggested activities include responses to reading that are focused on

activities outside the book rather than the narrative itself:

When Ramona daydreams about having her mother all to herself in

Ramona and Her Mother, she imagines her mother selecting books
from her bookcase that she enjoyed hearing as a child. Using the
descriptions Cleary provides throughout the various Ramona books,
ask students to figure out what books might be in Ramona’s bookcase.
It might be fun to set up a Ramona bookcase in the classroom and
invite students to read the books Ramona loves.

Lothian books (http://www.lothian.com.au) also provide ‘downloadable’

teaching resources for many books including The Rabbits (Marsden and Tan,
1998), which won the Children’s Book Council Picturebook of the Year award
in Australia in 1999. The book is a powerful allegory of colonization from the
perspective of native Australian animals. It addresses the consequences of
the arrival of a group of rabbits with a very different way of life. The rabbits
bring new food and animals, and make their own houses to live in, eventually
dominating the environment and its indigenous inhabitants. The publisher’s
website provides an extensive list of activities based on the book. What is clear,
however, is that these are learning tasks to be undertaken and any actual
30 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW

teaching of the understandings required to respond to the tasks, for the most
part, will have to be facilitated by the teacher, as can be seen in the following
excerpt:

Activities

• Comment on the style of illustrations.

• Read the book. Jot down some words to indicate what you felt after
an initial reading. What words come to mind?
• What is an allegory? A dictionary definition will give you an
answer. Find other allegories – see if you can find some in picture
book format.
• This book is clearly not about rabbits. What do you think it is
about? Why do you think The Rabbits was chosen as the title of the
book? Give reasons for your answer. How are they depicted?
• There is a paucity of words in this book, yet they are used with
tremendous effect. Find examples where words are used unusually
to convey a concept. Explain what effect those words have.
(retrieved from http://www.lothian.com.au, 16 May 2004)

Our current research into the web-based pedagogic resources for working
with children’s literature (Olondriz Ortigas and Unsworth, forthcoming)
suggests that teachers can contribute a great deal to enhance currently avail-
able material. What is needed is more emphasis on learning experiences pro-
viding explicit guidance to assist children in appreciating the narrative art of
literary texts through an understanding of the grammatical choices of image
and language that construct the engaging interpretive possibilities of the story.
Part of our data concerning websites using the picture books of David Wiesner
demonstrates our viewpoint.
The extent and range of websites dealing with Wiesner’s books (all
retrieved on or about 1 October 2003) indicate they are a popular tool for
learning and that they are used by classroom teachers in a variety of ways. It
seems that the majority of web-lessons involving Wiesner’s books focus
mainly on two types of activities. The first type uses the book as a starting
point for broader thematic units. For instance, Tuesday (Wiesner, 1991) is read
to begin a study of the use of transition words to show that time has elapsed.
The class is then asked to use these words to write about the life cycle of a
plant or animal (http://www.tie-online.org/2002/handouts2000/lessons.pdf-).
A sample Sector 7 (Wiesner, 1999) activity asks students to use cotton balls,
glue, and paper to design different types of clouds (http://faculty.ssu.edu/
sect7.htm). June 29, 1999 (Wiesner, 1992) is recommended reading for classes
learning about vegetables. Other activities for the book consist of making a
graph of favourite vegetables, listing adjectives to describe them, and making
 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW 31

vegetable soup; students are also asked to locate the different US states and
cities mentioned in the story (Reading Rainbow Teachers Activities Episode
#100 June 29, 1999 gpn.unl.edu/guides/rr/100.pdf-). One can also find a
website that suggests reading Hurricane (Wiesner, 1990) when learning about
weather patterns (http://www.eduplace.com/tview/tviews/h/hurricane.html).
The second type of activity works beyond the particular text. One website
suggests that classes write the words for Tuesday (http://faculty.ssu.edu/
%7Eelbond/tuesday.htm#hor6); another asks students to write a continuation
for either Tuesday or Sector 7 (http://faculty.ssu.edu/(elbond/tues.htm). The
Children’s Art Activities website invites the class to read Hurricane, then exam-
ine the wallpaper in the main characters’ room – which is the source of the
protagonists’ imaginary adventures – and later design their own wallpaper,
keeping in mind adventures they would like to have (http://www.nccil.org/
forchildren/txt_aa_dw.html). Students are also told to look for Wiesner’s
self-portrait in the same book, then to draw their own self-portraits. The class is
also asked to imagine how the June 29, 1999 space creatures’ planet might
look. A website for The Three Pigs (Wiesner, 2001) has students designing
structures that would withstand extreme conditions (http://eduscapes.com/
caldecott/02a.htm). Another recommends that students write a story about
other folktale or fairytale characters that could be rescued by the three pigs
(http://www.vickiblackwell.com/lit/threepigs/html).
These activities may lead to valid learning experiences for students. How-
ever, they fail to take into account the superb qualities of Wiesner’s art itself.
There is a shortage of activities that examine the elements of his picture books
to determine how he creates stories with universal appeal. Despite Wiesner’s
countless awards as an author/illustrator, few resources investigate how he
utilizes and designs each book’s images and text to tell a story from a unique
viewpoint and to engage the reader in the picture book experience.
Some websites do have activities that look at aspects of Wiesner’s images.
The Trumpet Club website for Grades 1–3 states that the pages in Sector 7
(Wiesner, 1999) have a lot of visual information, yet only goes as far as to ask
students to look at the book page by page and list what they notice (http://
www.trumpetclub.com/primary/activities/sector7.htm). The Children’s Art
Activities site goes further, it explores the use of ‘bird’s eye view’ as the view-
point in Tuesday (http://www.nccil.org/forchildren/text_aa_dw.html). The
Reading Rainbow site also asks the class to discuss Wiesner’s use of different
perspectives in his illustrations for June 29, 1999 (Wiesner, 1992), such as close-
up and long shots, bird’s eye view, and ground level looking up (Reading
Rainbow Teachers Activities Episode #100 June 29, 1999, gpn.unl.edu/guides/
rr/100.pdf-). One website, a picture book illustrator study for Year 6 classes,
comes closest to a possible systematic analysis of Wiesner’s (and other authors’)
visual images. The unit has as one of its aims: ‘To assist students to develop an
awareness of the role of an illustrator and also of the media and illustrative
32 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW

techniques used by illustrators to render their messages in visual texts’

(http://www.teachers.ash.org/au/bookzone/Docs/VisLit_tch.pdf-). The specific
activities involve students in observing how Wiesner uses colour, shape and
image size to convey a mood, as well as how he uses frames to create a film-like
episode in Tuesday (Wiesner, 1991).
These four lessons available on the internet could be a good starting point
to study the meaning in a picture book’s images, thereby enriching class
discussions about Wiesner’s illustrative art. However, they could also remain
perfunctory or peripheral activities if teachers and students do not have the
means to discuss the meaning-making resources of images with some depth of
understanding.
In their article ‘Discussing text and illustration with others’, Nancy
J. Johnson and Cyndi Giorgis talk about how:

readers . . . benefit from the support that discussion provides. This

means that teachers and librarians can introduce literature with layers
of meaning. Some books rely on language or text structures that read
like a puzzle. Others present illustrations that hold the potential
interpretation or texts that introduce situations that are not readily
understood . . . reading and discussing such books with others can be
illuminating and exciting.
(2000: 109)

David Wiesner’s picture books are a stimulating and rich source of imagery and
unique points of view, and being able to discuss how his images create mean-
ing for a viewer could be just as exciting and could help students develop a
greater appreciation of the author/illustrator’s craft. What is vital is that
teachers and students have access to a language that can be used to discuss the
semiotics of visual images:

Teachers and students need . . . a language for talking about language,

images, texts, and meaning-making interactions . . . to develop an
educationally accessible functional grammar . . . a metalanguage that
describes meaning in various realms. These include the textual and
the visual, as well as the multimodal relations between the different
meaning-making processes that are now so critical in media texts and
the texts of electronic multimedia.
(New London Group, 1996: 27)

We have provided an introduction to this kind of metalanguage in Chapter 1

and show its application later in this chapter in discussing the illustrated
novel, Dreamwalker by Isobelle Carmody and Steven Woolman (2001). Further
work using this metalanguage is dealt with in subsequent chapters.
 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW 33

Opportunities for readers’ response

Many author websites encourage readers to communicate with the author by

email. In most cases this does not mean direct email contact, but emails are
frequently responded to by the author’s posting of general responses to com-
mon email topics. This is the case with the Morris Gleitzman site referred to
earlier. Some sites solicit children’s reviews of books, which can be typed on
screen on the website and submitted electronically, as is the case on the Roald
Dahl site (http://www.roalddahl.com/index3.htm). Specialist children’s lit-
erature websites (http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/) include links to on-
line discussion groups for children where they can submit reviews of books
and read reviews of others. Some publishers’ websites encourage submission
of responses to aspects of particular books, such as the current ‘Harry Potter’ dis-
cussion issue on the Scholastic site (http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/
home.asp – retrieved 4 April 2004):

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harry had dreams about
walking down a hallway to a door. Eventually when he stumbled across
the real hallway in the Department of Mysteries, he realized this
dream was a premonition. Have you ever had a dream that turned out
to be a premonition? Describe the dream and whether it helped you.

We will consider children’s participation in on-line discussion groups more

in Chapter 3.

Participation in book-related activities such as game-playing

and purchase of book merchandising

Downloading of screensavers, book plates and copies of artefacts from stories

are very much part of the web-world of children’s literature. Competitions
are conducted on-line, such as Scholastic’s ‘Wizard Challenge’ (http://
www.scholastic.com/kids/games.htm), where participants can test their ‘Harry
Potter’ knowledge. Electronic games related to fictive narratives are now not
only becoming a common part of the post narrative experience, but are also
becoming part of a suite of experiences comprising the initial introduction of
new narratives. We referred earlier to the popular Wicked stories of Paul
Jennings and Morris Gleitzman. On Paul Jennings’ website (http://www.paul
jennings.com.au/ – retrieved 4 April, 2004), he now asks visitors ‘Why don’t
you check out our “Wicked” animations? Here you can meet Rory, Dawn and
the Appleman or have a go at squashing the SLOBBERERS.’
Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith are probably best known for their metafictive
work, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (Scieszka and Smith,
1992). Their website (http://www.baloneyhenryp.com/ – retrieved 4 April
34 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW

2004) currently promotes their new book, Henry P. Baloney and included on the
site is an electronic game entitled ‘Henry’s Piskas Game’.
The prominent role of electronic games in concert with children’s litera-
ture as a marketing strategy can be clearly seen in the Penguin site for young
readers (http://www.penguinputnam.com/static/packages/us/yreaders-new/
featuredbooksites-start.html – retrieved 4 April 2004):

Welcome to the Penguin Group for Young Readers Featured Book Sites
portal. Here, you’ll find all of your favorite Penguin Putnam char-
acters, from Peter and Fudge to Winnie-the-Pooh. There are activities,
interviews, reading tips, screensavers, and on-line games! What are
you waiting for?

Learning activities with Isobelle Carmody’s

Dreamwalker : on-line/off-line

In this section we will first of all consider a range of on-line resources that
could be used to support classroom work with the gripping novel Dreamwalker
by Isobelle Carmody, richly illustrated by Steve Woolman (2001). A lot of
fascinating learning experiences can be generated using these resources but
there remains a paucity of material which addresses the actual narrative art
entailed in the textual construction of the story through language and image.
We will therefore also indicate the kind of complementary off-line learning
activities that can develop learners’ engagement with an appreciation of the
literary ‘constructedness’ of the novel.

Surveying on-line resources

The fascinating story and striking images of Dreamwalker will appeal to readers
from about 10 years of age to adulthood. The narrator, Ken, is a young ado-
lescent who has been an insomniac since childhood. His driving interest is
drawing and his ambition is to become an artistic composer of comic books.
His long waking hours in the night are largely spent drawing stories and on
one such occasion he creates the sorceress, whose vampire-like minions, which
emanate from her dreams, feed on unwitting sleepers. One day Ken wakes
from a dream and finds himself in the world he has created, where one of his
characters, the beautiful Alyssa, claims to have imagined him in a dream. As
the intricate plot unfolds, we are drawn into an incredible situation where it
becomes impossible, even for Ken, to tell who is the creator, who has been
dreamed and who is the dreamer.
The main potential of the www resources for enhancing classroom
activities with Dreamwalker is the facilitation of work with children on
 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW 35

intertextuality – exploring related texts dealing with similar themes.

Biographical notes about the author and information on the context of com-
position of the story are very limited on the websites of publishers
(http://www.penguin.com.au/puffin/default.htm) and booksellers (http://
www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/authors/Isobelle_Carmody.htm) retrieved in April
2004. Promotion of the book and engagement of readers on these sites rely
only on cover illustrations and brief reviews/synopses. Learning activities
are included on one of the publisher’s sites (http://www.lothian.com.au).
These include a summary of the plot and a list of suggested tasks for students,
which include some ‘response’ to aspects of the novel, but appear, for the most
part, like a series of ‘comprehension questions’ that presuppose students’ cap-
acity to compose answers rather than scaffolding them to appreciate how the
language and images of the text create its interpretive possibilities.

1) Ken is the main character. Do a pen portrait of him outlining the

type of person he is. Touch on his background, what interests him,
his skills and his ambitions and occupations.
2) Where does Ken get his ideas?
3) What effect does this story have on Ken? What effect do the
characters, particularly the two Alyssas, have on him?
....
6) Who is the ‘Deformed One’ referred to in Chapter 3? Why is this
epithet used?
7) Describe the sorceress and her role in the story.
8) Who is the bard? What part does the bard play?
(Extract from Teachers’ Notes, http://www.lothian.com.au
– retrieved 4 April 2004)

Searching beyond publishers’ sites revealed the range of resources that could
be used for intertextual work related to Dreamwalker. The sites included
another children’s novel and a comic book – both with the same title and a
related theme, a free e-book on-line, a gallery of a science fiction and fantasy
art including a work entitled ‘Dreamwalker’, as well as on-line role-playing
games and clubs with the same title and themes (see Chapter 4 for other
examples of on-line role playing game narratives).
The summary information for the Dreamwalker comic series indicates its
potential for intertextual study with Carmody and Woolman’s Dreamwalker:

Karen Brinson is a Dreamwalker, capable of projecting herself into

the dreams of others. It is an ability she is learning to control with
the help of Mrs Tobias, her eccentric neighbour and closet psychic.
But dreamscapes can be fragile, delicate places. Karen must be careful
not to trespass and do serious and irreparable harm to the psyche of
36 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW

the person whose dreamworld she has entered. Five issues of this series
were previously published by Dreamwalker Press. The Tapestry series
begins all-new stories and is the perfect jumping on point for new
readers.
(http://www.calibercomics.com/Checkout4Pro/dreamweaver.htm
– retrieved 15 May 2003)

The free on-line e-book, The Dreamwalker’s Daughter, also has clear intertextual
connections with the Carmody and Woolman story (and with the Harry Potter
stories):

Sarah made it through her first year at Dragon’s Wood with a lot of
help from her friends. All she wants is a year without nightmares and
what she finds out about herself makes her long for the days of
nightmares and dreamless sleep potions.
(http://www.thedarkarts.org/authors/tproctor/DD01.html
– retrieved 4 April 2004)

The science fiction and fantasy artist, Cally G. Steussy has created a work called
‘Dreamwalker’, and on her website includes a short narrative about her picture:

Nesaka was just a poor girl, orphaned by bandits and raised by an

innkeeper who only kept her because it meant an unpaid pair of hands.
Then her magic began to bloom. She has the ability to walk in dreams,
as well as normal magic – but at times, HER dreams decide to walk the
waking world, and cannot be defeated until she awakens. Nesaka des-
paired of ever learning to control her powers, and honestly con-
sidered giving up, until she met her soulmate – another dreamwalker.
The two met often in dreams, until one day a powerful dream grabbed
both of them and became reality (that’s where Nesaka found her staff,
btw). They escaped the dream, and were rescued by a pair of sorcerers
from a school of magic. Now they’re learning how to use their magic,
and how to keep their pasts from using them.
(http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/s/t/steussy/nesaka1clrsz.jpg.html
– retrieved 4 April 2004)

Much of this material the students can engage with directly on-line. This is not
possible with the comic books, although some teachers may explore purchas-
ing these. Using only the materials directly available on the www, students can
consider which aspects of the Dreamwalker stories are common in terms of
plot, theme and character. Clearly there are some similarities between the
comic book heroine, Karen Brinson, and the character Nesaka, behind the
picture created by Cally Steussy. Themes of the Dreamwalkers using their
 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW 37

powers to defeat forces of evil permeate some of the on-line materials as well
as the Carmody and Woolman story. The images on the web can also be
used to complement exploration of the Steve Woolman images. The second
novel entitled Dreamwalker by Mary Summer Rain (1993) was located on a
bookseller’s site (http://www.hamptonroadspub.com/bookstore/product_info.
php?products_id=61). The cover of this book, shown on the website, has some
visual features that are quite similar to those used by Steve Woolman in his
depiction of the sorceress on the cover of Carmody’s Dreamwalker, which can
be seen on the publishers site (http://www.lothian.com.au). The Cally Steussy
image is very different from both of these, and comparison can be used to
initiate an exploration of the ways in which the language and images in the
Carmody and Woolman book are selected to reflect the uncertainty (on the
part of the narrator, Ken, and the readers!) as to what is occurring in the dream
world and what is occurring in the ‘real’ world.
We mentioned earlier how electronic games were fast becoming part of
the context of composition of children’s literature as well as part of the
context of extended merchandising. While this is not directly the case with
Dreamwalker, games and role-playing on-line are certainly part of the wider
intertextual context of the stories. One on-line role-playing game is entitled
‘Dreamwalker: Roleplaying in the land of dreams’. The brief scenario for
the game indicates the intertextual connections to much of the material we
have discussed:

Humanity is under attack. The enemy is an alien species that assails us

in our most vulnerable state – while we sleep. The Taenia Spiritus are a
race of soulless, hive-minded creatures that invade our dreams in
order to foster and feed off the negative vibes and emotions caused by
their presence.
You are a Dreamwalker. Whether by drugs, prayer, meditation or
natural ability, you are able to leave your own dreams and travel into
the Dreamworlds of others. Once there you can manipulate the
dream’s spiritual energy, or mana, to produce wondrous effects.
You have been recruited by Project Dreamwalker – a government-
backed organization that unites others like you in order to rid the
spirit world of the Taeniid plague. The task is difficult. Not only do
you face the Taenia but you must also satisfy the whims and desires of
the Dreamer in whose mind they are ensconced. Can you do this and
still maintain a grasp on your own sanity?
Good luck, Dreamwalker. You may be our last hope.
(http://dreamwalkerrpg.home.att.net/ – retrieved 4 April 2004)

Again, even if students do not participate in the game, the directly available
on-line materials, including synopses and the images on the introductory
38 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW

website are the kinds of resources that can provoke new perspectives on reading
the novel itself.
Although more tenuously linked to the notions underlying the Carmody
and Woolman Dreamwalker, students may be interested to visit the ‘Dream-
walker Holt’ – an on-line role-playing/collaborative story composition site:

The Dreamwalkers are a pure-blooded, reindeer-riding elf tribe living

on the tundra and in the mountains of northern Junsland, long
before the continent was named. We are called Dreamwalkers because
we ‘Journey’ in the ‘spirit world’ with the help of the Crystals. (A little
like human Shamanism!)
Dreamwalkers’ Holt is a (mostly!) Swedish on-line Holt.
(http://www.randomdice.com/dreamwalkersholt/menu.asp
– retrieved 4 April 2004)

The site publishes guidelines for story contributions, which are common to
many such sites but indicate the key character role of Dreamwalkers very early
in the list:

# Each member may have one ‘personal’ character who is currently

alive. Other characters you create will have to be adoptables or char-
acters common to the Holt, except for a child/children too young
to leave the parent(s). (Up to around ten or twelve years of age.)
However, there’s lots of history to play with!

# No wanderers allowed (for now – we may have some ideas for later
on!). Your character has to be a Dreamwalker, a Two Rivers’ Wolfrider
or a ‘halfbreed’. (Or possibly a Troll!) (This also means that we’ll never
run into Cutter’s tribe, for example!)

There are several sites celebrating Carmody’s work and including images of her
(for example, http://www.skynet.net.au – 4 April 2004) and some including
discussion boards where readers can post comments and questions about her
books (http://www.allreaders.com). The latter are opportunities for learners to
publish perspectives on Dreamwalker not dealt with on other sites. One such
perspective is an appreciation of the verbal and visual ‘constructedness’ of
the narrative art, which teachers can assist children to develop using the
functional resources of visual and verbal grammar outlined in Chapter 1.

Exploring the use of image and language in Dreamwalker off-line

In this section we will briefly focus on developing children’s understanding of

the interactive or interpersonal meanings constructed by images and text and
 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW 39

how these influence our interpretive responses to the text. First, we explore the
interactive meanings of three images at the beginning of the story, and then
we will explore the role of interpersonal meanings in the language of two
segments later in the novel – one when Ken and Alyssa in the dream world are
trying to work out what the sorceress is trying to do, and one when Ken and
Alyssa in the real world are beginning to negotiate closer sharing with each
other.
The images we will consider are of two of the main characters – the sorcer-
ess depicted on the cover of the book (Figure 2.1) and then the images of the
sorceress and the narrator, Ken, on the first double-page spread of Chapter 1
(Figure 2.2). Our approach would be to model the application of the grammar
of interactive meanings in images using the front cover image of the sorceress
and then scaffold the children’s application of these grammatical concepts to
interpreting the images on the first double-page spread of Chapter 1.
We might begin by noting that this cover picture of the sorceress is a
narrative image and that the main processes are screaming, violent tossing of
the head and flailing of the arms. The tossing and flailing are indicated by the
vectors or action lines shown in grey as the rapidly changing positions of the
head and arms. Then in terms of interactive meanings we might ask the chil-
dren where they would be positioned if they were with the sorceress and they
actually took this image as a photograph. This enables them to understand the
vertical position – they are positioned below the sorceress as if she has power
over them. They are also positioned at an oblique angle to her frontal plane, so
there is no feeling of inclusion with her, they are not part of her world. In
addition, she is not looking directly at them, so there is no contact or demand
for interaction. They are observing her rather than interacting with her.
Then we might ask the children to consider these questions about inter-
active/interpersonal meanings in relation to the first double-page spread. The
children will notice that they are positioned quite differently in relation to
these images than they were positioned in relation to the cover image. By
thinking about this difference in terms of the vertical and horizontal angles
of the images and whether the images are offers or demands, the children
will be able to articulate how the meaning-making resources of the images
are deployed to construct them as viewers in this different position. There
are, of course, many other features of the images at work that also contribute
to this positioning of the viewer, but space will not permit us to pursue
these here.
We can examine the interpersonal resources of the language in a somewhat
similar manner. Again we would model the examination of the interpersonal
grammar and then provide an opportunity for the children to apply this know-
ledge to another segment of the story. In the short passage below from page 31
of the novel, Ken and Alyssa in the dream world are reasoning about the
intention of the sorceress.
Figure 2.1 Dreamwalker Cover
Figure 2.2 The sorceress and Ken
42 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW

01 Alyssa gave a queer, rumbling sound that startled Ken until he

understood that she was growling.
02 ‘This is evil news indeed.
03 She was trying to establish a link to your world.
04 Perhaps you are right in thinking it was partly her magic that
drew you here.
05 That could also explain
06 why the guards were searching tonight.
07 They were looking for you.’
08 Ken’s skin broke into a chilly sweat of fear.
09 ‘It becomes more important than ever to try to get you away
from here,’
10 Alyssa said.
11 ‘If she has you,
12 she will use you
13 to establish a path to your world.’

In Alyssa’s initially uncertain speculation we notice the use of the low modal
adverb ‘Perhaps’ and the low modal verb ‘could’. Then in clause 7 she is more
confident about her deduction and the modals and modal adverbs disappear.
Then in her confident knowledge in clauses 11–13 the high modal ‘will’
appears. Through this kind of discussion the children can learn how specula-
tion and uncertainty are realized grammatically and the grammatical means
by which this is changed to being sure and confident. Following this kind of
discussion the children might be asked to consider quite a different context
where modal adverbs and verbs feature prominently, such as the following
segment from page 44 when Alyssa in the real world and Ken are beginning to
negotiate a closer sharing with each other:

01 ‘Imagine
02 if I wanted to write a poem about this whole thing that happened
to you.’
03 ‘It would be an epic poem.’
04 ‘It could be,
05 but I would want to try to tell everything in a few perfect
words.’
06 Ken looked at her slyly.
07 ‘I’d really like it
08 if you showed me one of your poems.’
09 She gave him a sharp look.
10 ‘Well maybe.’
11 She bit her lip.
12 ‘I’ve been wanting to ask you something.’
 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ON CD-ROM AND THE WWW 43

It may help some children to have the modal verbs and adverbs highlighted
and to focus on the effects of these choices. Alyssa’s use of ‘could’ in clause 4
accepts Ken’s suggestion even though in the next clause she indicates her
preference for another form of communicating Ken’s experience. Children
might also consider the role of the intensifier ‘really’ by Ken and what the
effect would be if this were simply omitted, or if some alternative was used,
such as ‘kind of’. Similarly, they could consider the effect of ‘maybe’ in clause
10, by imagining other possible endings of that clause and how these would
impact on interpreting the relation between the two characters.
In working with Dreamwalker the www resources provide primarily
opportunities for ‘going beyond the text’ whereas learning experiences involv-
ing students ‘getting into the text’ needed to be generated off-line. At present,
our view is that this is likely to be the case for most children’s books, but as
teachers and children look more at the role of language and images in the
narrative art of children’s literature, perhaps there will be more www-based
resources oriented to ‘getting into the text’.

Conclusion

In this chapter the emphasis has been on children’s literary texts available in
electronic format and on-line resources supporting teaching and learning
about children’s literature. We have briefly noted opportunities for children to
produce on-line responses to literary texts. In the next two chapters we focus
on children’s on-line discussion of literature and their collaborative on-line
production of multimodal narratives.
3 Booktalk ‘on-line’
Learning about literature
through ‘book raps’

Introduction

In this chapter we introduce the widely successful concept of book raps – a

programme involving children talking about books with others using elec-
tronic media of email and web-based discussion forums. The chapter starts by
outlining reasons why teachers have found the use of book raps such a valu-
able addition to their existing classroom practices involving talking about
books. The response from teachers has been extremely positive, as they have
observed first hand the potential of book raps. As a direct result of their inter-
active design, book raps have stimulated children’s enthusiasm and enjoy-
ment of books, bringing about more complex modes of communication and
therefore more complex appreciation of texts. To demonstrate this potential, a
programme for working on-line with literary texts is described and instruc-
tions are given about how to take part in a book rap for the first time. Finally,
examples of different kinds of involvement with raps are outlined and a
number of international websites hosting book raps are indicated.

Why discussions on the net?

The essence of a book rap is to take the best of classroom work with literary
texts and make it available to more students. The basic model could be run
within a school via an intranet. The only requirements are that someone plan
a unit of work based on a literary text that includes questions to stimulate rich
discussion, and that this person also provides input for teachers to use to frame
up their lessons, and is ready to sum up and answer questions from book rap
participants.
In the ideal book rap model children still interact with texts to examine
the construction of story through print and image, but as well as speaking to
children in their own classroom, they interact with others who come from
 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’ 45

different geographical locations. The means of interaction is via the internet

on email lists. This style of interaction has a number of benefits: it creates new
communities of learners, aligns with favoured contemporary modes of com-
munication among young people, encourages reflective participation, facili-
tates involvement of those not at ease with face-to-face communication and
has the bonus of providing a written record of interactions for later evaluation.
Alongside the increasing use of ICT, the reading of books remains a very
popular and culturally highly valued activity. The enduring attraction of read-
ing stories to children and young people is clearly nurtured through the work
of their teachers sharing books with them. Book raps do not replace this
important face-to-face sharing of reading and learning through literature.
They build on it by deepening the students’ potential responses to text through
engagement in meaningful conversations with others. This is partly achieved
by the vastly increased audience for students’ shared responses on-line and the
potential broader range of interactants including older and younger students
as well as teachers in other schools – often in other countries. Book raps offer a
means of creating an on-line community that ‘meets’ regularly to discuss liter-
ary texts in such a way that critique, comparison and shared understanding are
made possible through reciprocal patterns of interaction. Through an on-line
framework students from different geographical locations who have read the
same book are guided through a staged sequence of discussion activities by a
rap coordinator.
However, the benefits of book raps are not just an increased number of
readers talking about the same book. Raps have also increased the depth of
readers’ literary understanding through a combination of on-line, guided
learning and in-class teacher support. The story below told by a classroom
teacher illustrates one encounter with book raps where a combination of on-
line conversation, scaffolded tasks and guided learning led to the creation of a
positive literacy experience for one unmotivated reader:

Simon’s story
As part of a book rap in 2001, eleven- and twelve-year-old children
were asked to write reviews on the Children’s Book Council short-
listed picture books for the year and post them to the email list. In the
class where I was teaching, I modelled review writing, we worked on
joint construction of reviews and then I gave each child a book to
which they were meant to respond. One boy, a resistant reader and
writer, wrote a very short and disparaging review of Tohby Riddle’s
book The Singing Hat based on his own personal feelings. He did not
want to take part in the task as he found it annoying to read a picture
book and engage with the text through writing. He posted his nega-
tive opinion and thought he had finished with the task. What he did
not consider was that his posting would be read by other children of
46 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’

his own age, some of whom might have different opinions to him.
The next library lesson when the children read the incoming emails
there was one addressed directly to Simon. The writer, a peer of his
own age, disagreed with him and gave some sound reasons why they
thought the book was worthy of being on the short list. It caused an
unexpected reaction. This was not a teacher who was marking his
work for assessment purposes; this was another kid who was taking
him on. I have never seen Simon so motivated to read closely and
write. For the first time in his troubled literacy experiences, he reread
a book and carefully argued his case, still negative but this time with a
more complex rationale. Because of the complex interaction set up in
the book rap, he was brought face to face with an unknown peer who
wanted to have a conversation with him about a book. It was a
moment of real engagement that was stunning to see.

If we consider Simon’s story, we can see that there are two key elements that
led to its positive outcome. The success of individual book raps depends as
much on the programme of discussion that is shaped by the coordinator of the
book rap as on the nature of the interaction that takes place in the classroom
and on-line between rappers. Simon’s interaction with a peer occurred because
a student wrote back directly to him, yet this is not the usual pattern of con-
nection in book raps where rappers mostly write back to the coordinator. His
teacher had also carefully scaffolded his learning following the rap point set up
by the coordinator so that he was prepared for the task which required him to
consider the construction of the text he read. But what was new to his
engagement with text was the on-line interaction.
Book raps have the potential to increase students’ motivation to engage
with literature and to increase the sophistication of their engagement, as dem-
onstrated through the nature of their on-line shared, interactive responses.
Fortunately, book raps are also one area where the application of ICT to class-
room learning can be achieved without requiring teachers to have high levels
of technological expertise. If as Turnbull reports (as quoted in Lankshear and
Knobel, 2003: 70), teachers are hampered by lack of understanding of, and
confidence in technology, then book raps will demonstrate how they need
only learn some very simple technological skills to work on-line in the familiar
teaching area of children’s literature. The aim in introducing book raps here is
to show one use of ICT in the classroom that provides ‘transformational learn-
ing experiences for students’ (Andrews, 2003) and to encourage teachers to try
it out.
 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’ 47

Background and essential features of book raps

In simple terms, a book rap is a conversation about reading a book that takes
place on-line among school children over a number of weeks. Its main aim is
to develop ‘a love of literature by sharing books with children and having
them share with each other’ (Stubbs, 1999: 59). Although the term ‘rap’ has
become most commonly associated with poetry or other modes of rhyming
and often rhythmic spoken texts, in this case the term ‘rap’ is taken to mean
talk. The adoption of the term ‘rap’ by the original designers signals the moti-
vation of the rap organizers to break down traditional formats of classroom
work with literary texts to create the possibility of more open communication
among a broader range of readers.
Begun in 1996 as an on-line curriculum project with Oz-projects, book
raps have emerged as a key example of purposeful e-literacy practice in Aus-
tralia (Simpson, 2004; Stubbs, 1999). The raps provide an opportunity for
students to develop a wide range of language skills as they read books,
defend their personal point of view, justify choices and review texts. They
have been used successfully in Australia with children and young people
ranging from the first to the final years of schooling to construct interactive
critical literacy events with students beyond their own classroom and across
a diverse range of communities. Raps conducted in recent years are listed in
Table 3.1.
The two rap sites discussed in this chapter were created in Australia by the
New South Wales Department of Education (NSW DET) and the Queensland
University of Technology (QUT). The address for the QUT book raps from
2000–2005 is http://rite.ed.qut.edu.au/old_oz-teachernet/projects/book-rap/.

Table 3.1 Examples of titles on rap lists from the Queensland University of Technology and
the Department of Education and Training NSW run in 2001–2003

Year Run in Queensland Run in NSW

2001 Teddy book rap Big Mob Dreaming – The Bunyip

2001 Bob the Builder and the Elves The Binna Binna Man
2001 Fantastic Mr Fox Book Week – Picture books
2002 Someone Like Me Henry Lawson
2002 A Pet for Mrs Arbuckle Book Week – Early childhood
2002 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
2003 Njunjul the Sun Only the Heart
2003 Hating Alison Ashley Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge
48 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’

The NSW DET book raps site is http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/schoollibraries/

teaching/raps/.
It is the commitment of physical space on a server, the human support of a
webmaster and participant access to the internet that allow the raps to take
place. The server hosts the website that students make contact with; the web-
master keeps and maintains the files that format the structure of the rap as a
series of web pages and email lists; and the internet makes it possible to con-
nect individual computers together so that students can interact. A teacher
joining a rap needs access to a computer with an internet connection. This
could be in the classroom, in the library or at home. To take part in a rap, the
teacher or responsible child will need to be able to log on to a website, enter a
password, access and post emails.
Each rap focuses on a particular story and has its own coordinator. The
coordinator is a volunteer who has offered to create and run a rap. This means
they will choose the text for the rap, design the rap and be responsible for
answering the emails that are sent in. At the developmental stage, the rap
coordinator makes decisions about: the age level that the rap will be suggested
for; the kinds of questions and activities that they will create; the possibility of
using live links to other sites for resources; the benefits of connections to
authors, illustrators and other experts; and when the rap will be run. The book
choice may be based on curriculum knowledge, favourite author, recently
published book, or some other rationale. An introductory message is written
inviting students to join the rap. It gives details about the coordinator so that
students know to whom they are writing.
A series of rap points is also written by the rap coordinator. These are
questions that will guide the students through their interaction with the text.
After the coordinator has designed the questions for the rap, they are then sent
to a webmaster. The webmaster is the person in control of the rap projects at
the host site. It is the webmaster’s responsibility to assess the suggested out-
lines and call for amendments according to site policy. Although the rap
coordinator has authority to approve the shaping of the rap, the webmaster
has the final authority to approve the content and format of the rap. Feedback
from the webmaster to the rap coordinator may include requests to align the
rap points with particular curriculum requirements, to edit language to accord
with certain syllabus expectations or to broaden the interactive scope of the
rap by adding in more links. When the changes have been made, the webmas-
ter then transfers the information into a formalized structure for each particular
website and posts it live to the net. Each rap is advertised on-line in summary
form with details such as: when the rap is to start, when the rap points are to be
posted, what the rap points are to be, the publishing details of the book, the
age suitability of the rap participants, the coordinator’s name and resource
links to other sites or to support materials for teaching. A calendar of upcom-
ing raps allows teachers to select the rap that they wish to join with time for
 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’ 49

planning the incorporation of the rap into their usual programming for work
with literature in the classroom.
There is a language that is particular to the organization of the rap. It creates
a culture and history for those involved and is a kind of code that is internal to
the rap to signal the different activities to complete and to signify that those
who take part are a special group. The specialist terms include: rap point, rap-
pers, rap map, rap wrap up. It is clear that the words are used to construct a self-
referential vocabulary that will be recognized only by those who have taken
part in a rap. The use of the language creates a means of identifying and being
identified with the system. For example, a rap sheet is the on-line version of a
black line master, prepared before the rap starts as support material for teachers
to use. A rap map is one of the features encouraged for use in the book raps
where participating rappers create a map to track where the emails that they
receive are coming from. It is a tangible reminder that their communication is
traveling far and wide (or just to the next suburb in some cases).
An essential part of the book raps are the email lists that are set up for
participants to communicate with the moderator and with each other. There
are two main lists, one for the students to post their responses to the rap points
and the other for teachers to discuss their work on the rap with each other. The
teacher list has closed access for teachers only, while the student list is open to
students, teachers, the rap coordinator and other participants and observers.
The student email list receives the communication from the rap coordinator.
This takes the form of the initial introduction, the rap points, rap point feed-
back and finally the rap wrap up. The student email list also receives the
responses from participants wishing to respond to the rap points or others’
messages. Responses may be sent as messages from whole classes, small groups
or individuals. The choice depends on how the teachers are running the rap in
their classroom – whether it is for the whole class or as an extension reading
activity or special option for those who wish to join.
When students respond to the rap points, all their emails are posted on
this email list. The potential is there for all list members to receive all the emails
sent to this list. This can amount to a very large number of emails to read, so
management of incoming and outgoing messages is an issue for teachers.
What computer is used to send and receive emails? Who collects the emails?
Who reads the emails? Who sends the emails? These are all issues that need
resolving within each teacher’s personal plan for the rap. In raps with large
numbers of participants, instead of reading all emails, some schools only read
the responses from a chosen number of schools. The decision also needs to be
taken whether to print out all emails or read them on screen. This limits the
number of people who can read the emails easily, so again it is a management
issue.
Teachers may nominate to join their own dedicated list as an addition to
the student list. The email list for the teachers is used to provide further
50 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’

support for teachers. Its main purpose is to provide a forum for teachers that
may be used to discuss educational issues. The webmaster will monitor this list
to provide technological advice for those who report that they are having
problems. It is commonly used to discuss teaching strategies and for sharing of
ideas and activities. The teachers’ email list receives communication from the
rap coordinator but not the same messages sent to the children. The coordin-
ator’s messages to the teachers are to further explain the rap points or point
out any special preparation there might be for participation. The quantity of
postings on the teachers’ list is much less than that on the students’ list.
As well as links to current raps, the websites for the raps may also carry
links to records of past book raps. If still live, these archives are made available
for general viewing. They show the rap points and the responses to display
how the discussion ran and to make it possible for those who did not take part
to make use of questions or other resources some time after the event.
It is easy to plan a programme of work around a book rap, as there is a set
procedure that occurs for each rap. This is summarized in Table 3.2.

Table 3.2 An overview of steps to participate in a book rap: timeframe 4–6 weeks

Teacher Coordinator Students

Chooses rap from selection Designs rap and submits Read book
and joins list. Introduces it to webmaster
book to students
Prepares introduction Sends rap introduction Respond to coordinator
with students by writing introduction
including: name of school,
location and message of
welcome from students to
other schools
Note location of other rap Sums up introduction Use rap map to mark where
schools messages and posts schools are. (not obligatory)
Works with students on rap point 1 Respond to introductions
rap point 1 from other schools. (not
obligatory)
Respond to rap point 1 in
discussion and then email
Works with students on Summarizes responses Respond to rap point 2 in
rap point 2 and posts rap point 2 discussion and then email
Works with students on Summarizes responses Respond to rap point 3 in
rap point 3 and posts rap point 3 discussion and then email
Finishes off with rap wrap Summarizes responses Complete rap wrap up work
up comment to class and posts rap wrap up
 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’ 51

The entire series of rap points and in some cases suggested teaching activ-
ities is presented on-line weeks before the commencement of the rap. This
allows for forward planning for the teacher to develop a set of lessons that are
framed around the rap points. It is possible for one teacher to run a rap in her/
his own room or for a librarian to run all of the same age group through the
same rap using similar lesson plans. It would be equally possible for a group
of teachers teaching on the same age group to take it in turns to programme for
raps since the core of the preparation work is already done. Teachers may
choose the book they wish to base their unit of work on by accessing the rap
calendar, which lists what will be available for each term of the school year.
For example, the list for the New South Wales Department of Education and
Training raps in 2001 showed the choice of a range of books for different
ages over the year: Big Mob Dreaming – The Bunyip (Big Mob Dreaming – The
Bunyip, 1997) for children aged 6–7 years, Mrs Millie’s Painting (Ottley, 1997)
for children aged 8–9 years, the Children’s Book Council short-listed picture
books for children aged 10–12 years, Binna Binna Man (McDonald, 1999)
for students aged 14–15 years, and Othello (Bentley, 1982) for students aged
16–17 years.

Enhancing ‘talk about text’ through book raps

Soldier on the Hill by Jackie French (1997) was the subject of a rap conducted
in 2000. A sample from this rap is shown in Figure 3.1. It demonstrates how
in the first rap point instructions were given to older primary school students
that carefully positioned them to consider the verbal construction of the text.
The moderator led the readers to appreciate French’s use of sensory verbs and
adjectives in order for them to engage more deeply with the experience of the
main character.
Talking about literary texts has long been seen as a useful way to encour-
age students to read texts and read them more closely and critically. Two key
approaches to talk about text in the classroom that have been successfully used
by teachers are Chambers ‘Tell me’ questions (Chambers, 1985) and Daniels’
literature circles (Daniels, 2002). These models of book talk are quite different.
Although they both ask readers to talk, they employ talk for contrasting
purposes.
Chambers’ famous ‘Tell me’ questions focus attention on the way that
children may be prompted to reflect on their responses to a text after reading
it. For example, the question ‘Who was telling the story?’ asks the child to
consider the construction of point of view in a narrative. Instead of just accept-
ing their first impression of a character, the question ‘Did we ever get to know
what the characters were thinking about?’ suggests the possibility of other
reasons behind a turn in the plot. ‘Does anyone know anything about the
52 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’

Hi rappers,
I am so keen to have you start to think about the book that I am going to ask you
to think about two things in one rap point. One is about the writing of the text
and the other is about the background information. I am assuming that you
haven’t had time to read the whole book yet so the first rap point can be
answered even if you have only read chapters 1–2.

Rap point one: (a)

Jackie French is a writer who writes so that you can hear/see/feel what it is like to
be the character (if you don’t believe me read Someone Like Me). My first chal-
lenge to you is to think about the words she uses to do that. For example, when
we first meet Joey at the start of the book Jackie French describes the scene so that
we know exactly what has happened without her saying so directly. Examine the
text to see what you could draw/paint, record as sound effects or gather together
to touch after reading the first chapter. Limit yourself only to what she describes
and then see what incredible detail she has given you.

Once you have done that, write for yourself the beginning of a story which builds
a similar amount of sensory detail for the reader. Why is it so important?

Figure 3.1 Rap point 1 for Soldier on the Hill rap

writer?’ raises issues of cultural context concerning the historical perspective a

writer might give to a particular topic. ‘Have you read other books like this
one?’ asks children to make connections between texts via a range of compara-
tive elements. The mix of open-ended questions that Chambers offers to
teachers shifts the level of response from simple, factual recall to more com-
plex empathy and deeper textual awareness. These questions may be used with
any text and any grouping of children.
The example in Figure 3.2 demonstrates the kind of responses given in a
rap where a directed but open-ended question was asked. The students need to
have the prior knowledge necessary to deal with these kinds of questions.
Some of the language is provided as scaffolding, and links to other sources of
information are given, but the basic premise is that teacher will have already
prepared their students to be able to bring into play a metalinguistic approach
to written text and visual image, consistent with the orientation described in
Chapter 1. The following responses indicate that the children were able to take
the direction of the rap point into their classroom, spend time looking closely
at the text and then write their own texts making use of the same techniques as
Jackie French. The students show that they were able to develop deep textual
awareness in this context.
 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’ 53

I was sucking on a green sour tasting gooseberry when I tripped over a sharp twig
and fell on to a sharp prickle on a gooseberry tree. Ouch the prickles were jabbing
into the back of my legs. Blood was running down my legs. I was seeing rabbits
jump slowly across my face I was fainting.
One cold winder night, I could hear the soft touch of rain on the tin roof and
the trickle of water running down the gutter. I could hear the owls hooting outside.
The rain is gradually dying down and the sun is beginning to rise. I lay in my bed
and look at the sunrise. My alarm went off and I gradually but slowly got out of
bed. I slowly drifted down the creaky old staircase.

Figure 3.2 Student responses to rap point one shown in Figure 3.1

By contrast, Daniels’ literature circles (Daniels, 2002) are not organized by

questions but by the roles that each reader in a small group is assigned during
the reading of the book. The roles are related to tasks that are completed in
response to the text. For example, the word wizard researches word use in the
text, the artful artist depicts a part of the text in some kind of media. Literature
circles were first designed to encourage independent reading and collaborative
learning (Daniels, 2002) as a kind of interactive reading opportunity run in
small groups in the classroom environment. At the start of a literature circle
the readers nominate to join a particular group to discuss a book that they
select. The group nomination of a text is viewed as a key factor in the success of
these reading activities. The children read the text while carrying out their role
and then after the reading is completed, each child has the responsibility to
report back to the group. Talk in this situation is used to share what has been
learnt but not to reinterpret the text.
The rap point 1(b) from the Soldier on the Hill rap shown in Figure 3.3
demonstrates a different focus from rap point 1(a). In point 1(b) readers were
asked to share what they had learned from background reading, considering
the cultural context and genesis of the story.

When Joey is rescued by the stranger, he is afraid of him because of his race and
speaks of him in a way which we would not consider appropriate now. What is
the historical background to the events on the story that makes it possible/likely
that Joey would be feeling that way about someone who saves his life? Use books
or the research website listed on the book rap intro page for information on
Australia at the time of the story. Write a short summary of the reasons behind
Joey’s attitude.

Figure 3.3 Rap point 1(b)

54 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’

Just before the end of this rap, a teacher wrote to comment on the children’s
learning (Figure 3.4). She refers to the third rap point they have just finished
and notes that it has created an extension activity for the students to explore
after the rap finishes. She was excited by the literacy experiences that had been
created for her students by someone other than her in a context that encour-
aged a lot of discussion and active reflection both in the classroom and on the
email list.

We spent some time doing – Compare and contrast Joey’s lifestyle with theirs. We
will use this information for each child to do a brief ‘time window’ role play.
We are looking forward to the final rap point. There have been lots of great
learning outcomes and the children have been motivated to think about a variety of
subjects and consider their own thoughts and responses to some of the situations
that Joey experiences.

Figure 3.4 Teacher reflection on the rap

Including book raps in classroom units of work

This section provides an example of how a particular book rap was integrated
into a classroom programme of work. The Children’s Book Council (CBC)
short-list book rap from 2001 is used to demonstrate the programming that
was needed to incorporate on-line work into a classroom programme for chil-
dren aged 10–12 years. The lessons required familiarity with the books and the
use of computers to type, compose word documents as well as access websites
successfully and send emails. When the link was accessed for the CBC Book
Week rap, a series of hypertexts presented the rap points and proforma in the
form of work sheets that had been prepared to scaffold the rap across its seven
weeks. It was then the teacher’s responsibility to plan how the rap points
would fit into the literacy programme that would run across the whole term of
ten weeks. As the dates of the rap points were published before term started,
the teacher knew there was time to work with the students to prepare them for
the rap before they were expected to send any emails to the list. With this
knowledge the teacher was able to organize a guest speaker in the previous
term so that the students would have already been alerted to the topic.
The main aim of this book rap was to encourage critical analysis of tech-
niques used by writers to create certain effects, to use language creatively, to
position the reader in various ways and to construct different interpretations
of experience. The programme of work including the book rap is outlined in a
format typical of teachers’ records of their planning of such units (see Box 3.1).
 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’ 55

Box 3.1 Book Week programme

Focus area and rap points Lesson structure

Previous experience A professional movie reviewer (a parent within the

to build field school) was invited to speak to all the children in
knowledge the age group in the school as preparation for this
Guest speaker and book literacy unit. He had recently published a review of
reading in library the newly released movie Spider Man in a national
newspaper. He spoke of the writing process from
interview, to notes, to draft, to published form. He
also talked about audience expectations, special
effects, actors, marketing and plot construction in
answer to questions raised by students. The students
at this stage were not aware of the book rap focus but
did know that they were expected to learn about
reviews during the year as one of the set of required
text types.
The librarian has introduced the short-listed books to
the students during the previous term. They have all
heard the books read out loud and seen the images in
a whole-class situation but have not looked closely at
the texts themselves.

Lesson 1 The teacher revises social purpose and

Introduction to review organizational staging of response texts. This
texts as type of response. includes discussion of the grammatical features
Reading and writing needed to construct structural elements of a
review texts review including the context in which the text
is experienced, a description of the text, and a
judgement about the text. The grammatical
focus for this group was on the use of modality
in expressing opinion, and noun groups
with adjectival phrases for emphasis of
detail.
Book rap is now live Using an authentic example of a movie review
to the net for a recent movie that children would know, the
School needs to register teacher models the structure used. Students
intention to take part. discuss purpose and audience given the context
of publication (kids movie section of newspaper).
They identify key structural features of the
review and the verbal grammar used to create
them.
56 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’

Students are then given scaffolds designed according

to their level of ability to construct a review of a
simple chapter book that they have all recently read
with the task of writing a review suitable to be placed
in the library for younger children to read.
The lowest level scaffold is of the whole review cut
up into different sentences. This group is also given
another sheet that has section headings printed on it.
The task is to regroup the sentences to achieve the
correct structure as modelled. The middle group is
given a scaffold with the section headings and the
beginnings of sentences only. They are to complete
the sentences with appropriate language to achieve
the social purpose of the review. The top group is
given section headings only and they must write the
review using correct structure and grammar.
After independent writing time is up, groups made
up of one or two from each level mix to compare
their work for similarities and differences. The whole
class then gathers for sharing and feedback. The
reviews that are selected as appropriate will be
published and placed with the book in the school
library.

Lesson 2 As a lead-up to the book week rap, the teacher

Introduction to book introduces the topic of awards in relation to the
rap topic. books they have seen in the library. Students discuss
Talking and listening the difference between the CBC awards that are
about book awards. awarded by adults for children’s books and the Kids
Writing an introduction. Own Australian Literature Awards that are awarded
by children for children’s books. They discuss how
awards are given, who gives them and on what
grounds. They discuss past CBC winners and whether
they agreed with the judges’ decision or not.
They talk about the role of a book judge and what
they need to know to make their decisions. Students
try to guess the judges’ vote for this year given their
knowledge of the books so far. When they realize that
they need more information about the books to
make a sound judgement, they discuss how they will
be led to examine the books to see how the texts
have been constructed visually and verbally.
 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’ 57

Book rap week one Outline book rap to preview what tasks the children
rap requirements will have. That is to examine one text closely for its
During the first week construction and then write a review judgement
rappers send a short based on their scaffolded knowledge. Explain that
introductory message their reviews will be sent to others who are taking
about their class or part in a book rap following the same steps as them.
group and give some In effect, it will be a chance for children to vote for the
information about their CBC books, so it is an authentic task. They will carry
school and its location. out this voting before the official results are published
After reading other and then compare their comments with the judges.
schools’ introductions Remind them of visiting reviewer and his outline of
rappers locate schools his job and suggest they begin to take note of reviews
on their Rap Map. in different contexts.
If possible, introduce Introduce book rap map to show how other schools
students to the six short- will be tracked and then in small groups some
listed picture books. compose a short introduction with basic details of
Optional activities class group to be posted on-line. One small group
Visit Children’s Book look on-line for other introductions to log on rap
Council site. map. Another small group look on-line for
Visit author and background information from the CBC website.
illustrator sites for
background In whole class grouping compare introductions and
information. compile ‘best’ bits. On-line groups report back on
Commence rap what introduction messages and/or information they
journal writing. have found. Rap map is displayed on wall for future
reference and additions. A file is started on author
information on the class computer and pages are
book marked for others to read later.

Lesson 3 NB: Rap point one asks the students to look closely
Looking closely at the at the book Fox (Wild and Brooks, 2000) from the
construction of a text. short-list and to use the proforma supplied on-line
Learning about visual to carry out investigations focusing on verbal
grammar. grammar and visual grammar. (The teacher may use
these proforma or not but as they are designed to
Writing guided analysis
help all students within the rap community have
of text and image.
the same experience of a text, it is a good idea to
Writing guided personal
use them.)
response.
58 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’

To support the students’ work before they start their

guided group work, the teacher models a reading of
Fox. Then, using key questions from rap points as
guide, the teacher begins an examination of the text.
The teacher first discusses the concept of cultural
knowledge to help students interpret the images and
text using clues from the vocabulary and images that
match their everyday understandings. At this stage
the students are only using what they already know
to ‘read’ the text critically. They write a short
individual response to the text to record this first
reading referring to the clues they found.
Book rap week two Then the students are introduced to some of the
Rap Point 1 technical language available to describe their
(a) In which country is common sense readings. Terms such as: font,
this picture book set? colour, layout are named as design features on the
(b) What design proforma to indicate use of specialist technical
features has the language. Their effects are discussed using other
illustrator Ron key terms. (Other terms have been introduced in
Brooks utilized in previous lessons on visual grammar such as
the layout of Fox? demand, offer, vectors, social distance.) Using these
(c) The author Margaret terms the students are asked to work in small groups
Wild has dealt with and write a second response analyzing how the
several issues and images contribute meaning to the text. They must
themes throughout look closely at the illustrations and verbal grammar to
this book. What justify their decisions.
relevance do these The third part of the lesson is an extension activity for
issues have for you? those who may finish the two response texts quickly.
Students are asked to write a short personal response
text about how they believe the issues and themes of
the book are relevant to them in the contexts of
school and friendships. They are to discuss in small
groups the real-life situations that they could describe
as parallel with the action of the story. This kind of
response moves the student away from role of text
analyst and back towards text participant.
At the end of the lesson, the class forms as a whole
again to compare responses given for parts b and c.
These responses are then collated with responses
from part a, and posted to the rap list.
 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’ 59

Lesson 4 As a whole class, brainstorm the criteria used to assess

Reading books. each picture book for a review. Students complete
Talking and listening proforma 1 for Rap Point 2.
about reviews. Teacher then names mixed ability groups to work on
Writing guided review. texts. Each group is given one of the short-listed books
Book rap week three to reread. Students examine their nominated picture
Rap Point 2 books and record comments on proforma. Using the
Which of the short-listed scaffold from previous lessons on text construction,
picture books is the class’ students then write a review of their book.
or groups’ favourite? At the end of the lesson the whole class gathers to
Construct a written hear the group reviews. Based on a discussion of the
review of the text reviews given, the class votes to determine which title
selected. will be the class favourite and the book that they
would award the first prize to. The group decision is
then posted to the list.

Lesson 5 Although there is no official activity for the rap as

Talking and listening it is Book Week, the class work continues. Students
about reviews. collect reviews from the weekend paper and the
Writing comparative Children’s Book Council site to discover the winning
responses. titles. Teacher displays awards announcement.

Book Week Students compare their reviews with judges’

There are no set rap comments and with other postings from the email
activities for this list. They may respond directly to those postings.
week. (NB: this is when the challenge to Simon’s opinion
occurred, see p. 45). Children could note
differences in review writing and features included in
comments.

Lesson 6 Individually students decide their personal opinions

Rap Point 3 of the judges’ decision. Prepare the outline of a
Do you agree with the written response in the form of an exposition text.
judges’ choice of the They would need to employ the correct structure for
best Picture Book of the an argument and give clear examples from the text
Year? Justify your opinion to support their point of view. Students will need to
by referring to the justify their stance referring to the reviews posted in
reviews posted in Rap Rap Point 2.
Point 2 by your own class In small groups students share their opinions. Then,
or group and other as a whole class, students discuss the judges’
schools. decision. Tally the numbers for and against the
judgement, taking note of the key reasons for
arguments given.
60 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’

You may also refer to Post a summary of the results and opinions.
award reports collected
from newspapers during
Book Week. Share your
ideas and feelings with
other rappers.

Lesson 7 As a whole class discuss the difficulties of being a

Rap Wrap Up book judge (e.g. problems in reaching a consensus)
(a) In this rap you have and the considerations judges need to make (e.g. the
closely examined criteria used to assess picture books).
Picture Books. Whole class jointly constructs a paragraph that
How has your records their final comments to be posted to the list.
understanding
Individually students complete a personal evaluation
of a picture book
proforma. In small groups share opinions and give
judge’s role been
feedback to the teacher on the experience of
developed?
participating in the rap. Recommend future action to
(b) What have you
be taken.
enjoyed and learnt
from participating in As extension work students could consider designing
the rap? their own rap to be used with peers or younger
children.
Post your final response
as a short comment.

Getting started with book raps

Teachers can participate in book raps at different levels of involvement from

passive observation to the generation of new raps. It is possible to observe the
raps as a silent participant by signing on for the rap but then not sending in
any responses. This gives a teacher the chance to see how much commitment
is required to be involved in a rap and how the process operates. The next step
would be to sign up for a rap and participate in a selection of the rap points as
they suit the class programme. It is a common occurrence that schools will
sign up, then realize that they do not have the time to complete the rap fully,
so they drop out. There is no compunction to complete a rap but if at all
possible it is better to complete the rap cycle so that students get a ‘taste’ of
what participation in a rap would involve.
The most fulfilling experience for the teacher and the students is to par-
ticipate in a full rap by signing on in the beginning and following through
all the rap points and accompanying activities as modelled on-line. The rap
points set up minimum expectations but it is up to the individual teachers to
 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’ 61

then develop their own class interpretation of the work needed to form
postings. The model given in Box 3.1 of the teacher working with the
Book Week rap demonstrated that work could be done ahead of and after
the rap.
After participating in existing raps, the next level would be to design your
own rap. It is possible, as suggested earlier, to use the basic model of the book
rap and organize a rap simply using a school intranet. The teachers of one age
group of children could design a rap that suited their literacy goals for
the term. The class just down the hall or across the playground could still
communicate via email to create an interactive on-line literacy experience for
students at a local level.
A challenging level of involvement in a rap would be for a teacher to
design a rap her/himself for one of the websites. After one senior primary class
had experienced raps several times, they suggested to their teacher that they
design a rap for others. They had enjoyed the work and thought they had a
good idea of what would make an interesting rap. They chose the age range
they wanted to design the rap for, slightly younger than themselves, and the
book they wanted to model the rap points on, Billy the Punk (Carroll, 1996).
They chose that book as they thought it would stimulate good discussion,
something they saw as essential for a successful rap. They then designed some
thought-provoking rap points that were sent off as a proposal to the http://
rite.ed.qut.edu.au/old_oz-teachernet/projects/book-rap/ site. The program-
ming steps found on the site as support structures for potential coordinators
were followed (see Figure 3.1). As the rap included rappers emailing the illus-
trator and posting illustrations to the list, the rap plan was quite complex. The
planning of the rap encouraged the students to look closely at the text, and to
consider the role of good questions in a learning situation, the importance of
planning towards a known literacy outcome and the use of technology as a
communication tool.

Conclusion

The raps sites described in this chapter are both established in an Australian
context. However, there are many international websites that showcase chil-
dren talking about books using electronic media. One of these is the Book
Chat site from New Zealand (http://english.unitecnology.ac.nz/bookchat/
home.html). The format for the discussions on this site is quite similar to the
book raps. Another very interesting site is the E-pal site from America (http://
www.brick.net/~classact/nbooks.htm). This site includes the potential for
children to discuss texts with children who speak a language other than their
own. The two web forum discussion sites discussed in Chapter 5 are examples
of children’s cross-cultural exchange of ideas about books. These include the
62 BOOKTALK ‘ON-LINE’

Finnish-based Netlibris, and the Australian ELLIE. There are many other ways
that children may interact on-line through a common engagement with liter-
ary texts. The next chapter discusses other on-line communities in which
students can participate in collaborative co-construction of imaginative
narrative.
4 Playing in the MUD,
performing in the palace

Introduction

This chapter outlines two different types of on-line communities or ‘virtual

worlds’: a MUD and a palace. These virtual worlds are prolific – hundreds of
each type are currently on the net. In each of these hundreds of worlds is a
community of participants, who join for pleasure and exist through collabora-
tive participation in community events. Many of the worlds are themed, from
social interaction only, to intensive role-playing worlds, which require the
people entering into them to adopt various roles for the purpose of playing an
interactive on-line ‘game’. Whichever the case, the inhabitants of these worlds
communicate through a wide range of literate practices. To participate and
have a presence in an on-line community is to communicate through multi-
modal channels – from spoken text, to computer commands, to visual images,
to the use of sound effects or sound bytes.
Of most interest in this chapter will be the types of worlds which
encourage role-playing, since in these worlds participants are engaged in the
collaborative construction of narratives, many of which are based on existing
children’s literature. Previous research (Dudfield, 1992) examined the height-
ened use of children’s language when participating in role-playing experi-
ences. This research illuminated children’s use of more sophisticated texts in
terms of vocabulary, adjectival and adverbial clauses and a host of other lin-
guistic features. Other research (Thomas, 2003) has explored the notion that
when in on-line spaces, even the act of performing ‘one’s self’ in text (let
alone role-playing another character) required high demands of children’s
language. This chapter will examine the types of literacy required of children
when participating in role-playing virtual communities which are based on
literature.
In explicating the multiliteracies and literary dimensions of these worlds,
many examples are taken from communities that involve people of many age
ranges. These are drawn upon to highlight the range of literacy events across
64 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE

the communities. Examples of communities that are devised for children

under 16 are also provided, but these are less prolific or are private and
restricted to the public for ethical reasons, so fewer examples were found. It is
recommended that teachers select one of the existing child-oriented worlds to
visit. For teachers with a modest amount of technical knowledge, it is possible
to create a palace without too much difficulty. Not for the faint-hearted, creat-
ing a MUD requires some programming knowledge and it is recommended
that technical assistance be sought for this purpose. We will discuss several
suitable existing sites that focus on children’s literature both in this chapter
and in Chapter 6, however, so minimal technical knowledge is required.

Description of MUD/MOO and examples of its use

MUD is an acronym for multi-user domain or multi-user dungeon. A MUD is a

text-based synchronous chat space. A similar type of chat space is called a
MOO, MOO being short for MUD, Object-oriented. In these spaces, users log
on via a telnetting software program and have the ability to build the atmos-
phere of the environment by making ‘objects’ which have particular attributes
and which can perform certain functions on command (e.g. an object could be
a ‘cat’, which could be programmed to purr or slink about the room on com-
mand). Users need to learn some simple commands to negotiate the space
and communicate effectively. If users also wish to make objects, they will need
to learn some simple programming language. There are simple commands
needed to move from one room to another (e.g. the command ‘go south’ will
transport a user to the room south of the entrance), to view the space and the
other players (the command ‘look Anya’ will result in a screen of information
about the player Anya), and to communicate with others (the command from
player Iona, ‘whisper Anya [hello]’ will send Anya a private message saying,
‘Iona whispers hello to you’).
Traditionally, the boundaries between MUDs and MOOs have been
distinct, with MUD environments being dedicated to themed role-playing
(traditionally of a Dungeons and Dragons nature), and MOO environments to
social interactions. These boundaries have blurred somewhat in recent times,
and it is common to find ‘role-playing MOOs’ as well as social MOOs. We
will concentrate on any form of role-playing text-based environment in this
chapter, since it is the role-playing that affords children innovative ways
of experimenting with narrative. The term MUD will be used throughout,
however, we will mean it to also include role-playing MOOs.
There is a wide range of role-playing themed MUDs, from Cyberpunk
themes, to ancient Greece themes. Many are devoted to myth, lore and medi-
eval fantasy. Players log on to the space and adopt a character. Some MUDs
have a long and complex process for character building. A MUD about Middle
 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE 65

Earth, for example, requires a player to choose between dwarf, hobbit, elf,
human, orc, and so on. DartMUD for example (http://www.dartmud.com/)
entices players with the lines:

You may choose to be a gallant warrior, a powerful mage, a wily thief,

the best chef in all the land, or any combination of these or other
skills. Your character can lust for raw power, work to make the world a
more peaceful place, or play the part of a leprous beggar who learns
everyone’s secrets. You can choose one of fourteen races including
some familiar faces, as well as unique races with distinct backgrounds.
(Dartmud, 2004, on-line)

Players will select a profession and develop skills and talents throughout their
participation in various events in the on-line space. As players acquire skills
and money, these are included in a player’s profile. A profile is partly con-
structed by the player, and partly by the computer program, which will ascribe
it various attributes, skills and rewards that may be gained by the player. A
typical character profile might look like the one shown in Figure 4.1. This
profile came from a character on the MUD ‘Cybersphere’, a MUD with a
cyberpunk futuristic theme.
Once characters are formed, they begin to participate in the world as that
character. Many themed MUDs have associated websites with lists of rules, tips
and ideas, maps of the world, and so on, to assist new players in orienting
themselves to the world. Experienced players will be marked in various ways to
assist new players as they begin their journey into the world. In many com-
munities, these players are called gods or wizards, those this nomenclature
alters to fit the theme of the community. Gods and wizards also have add-
itional ‘powers’ or computer commands at their disposal. These commands
include behaviour management commands (i.e. if a player breaches the proto-
col of the community they can be disconnected and banned) and world-
building commands (i.e. some players are able to build new rooms and objects
for the world once they have proved their programming skills as well as their
trustworthiness).
As players log on to the community, they seek out others and begin role-
playing. Sometimes it may take some ‘out of character’ discussion to negotiate
the general focus that the role-playing will take. This strategy is highly
recommended when working with children. This will enable the children to
have some reflective time to orient themselves before commencing the role-
play. Although essential to the community, the role-playing is only one part of
belonging to the world, which is built through a rich tapestry of literacy
events, including: building a character, creating rooms and objects, thinking
of challenges and quests, and elaborating on the myth and lore to provide the
contexts for the role-playing.
66 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE

Fabienne
She’s skinny and it makes her look taller than the 5′9″ she really is. Her long face
isn’t exactly beautiful, but it has an intriguing quality. Maybe it’s her eyes, her
dark eyes that always seem to hide more than they reveal. Or maybe it’s her long
black hair that hangs around her face as if it’s always still wet. Maybe it’s her lips,
thin but well defined, as if they had been drawn with a very fine pencil. Maybe it’s
her poise, her back always straight, her head always high. Or maybe it’s the way
she gesticulates when she speaks, deliberately as if she were conducting a big
orchestra. Maybe it’s her voice, the kind of voice that would belong to someone
with a glass of whisky and a cigarette, sitting in the corner of a dark bar, singing,
accompanied by an accordion.
She’s wearing a long leather coat. It has a collar of fake raccoon fur that
seems to be torn loose from the right lapel. The long leather coat has a double set
of buttons that Fabienne keeps unbuttoned. Under her long leather coat you can
see the faint glimmer of a burgundy silk shirt. She also wears a faded pair of black
jeans. Shiny fourteen hole Dr. Martens cling to her feet.
Fabienne is skilled in Martial Arts, Aikijutsu, Japanese and Gun Repair. Her
skills with the knife, swords and pistol are impressive. She has advantages of
superhuman intelligence, superior stealth, remarkable strength and dexterity,
good thievery and ability to have implants.
She is in excellent health. She is holding a credstick, a katana, a copy of
Gideon’s Bible and a glass of zot.

Figure 4.1 A character profile created by a member of the Cybersphere MUD community
Source: Dudfield (1999)

Figure 4.2 is an example of role-playing from a gypsy themed MUD in

which the players (all older teens) have read and studied a series of literary
fiction upon which their world is based.
In this example, the users have researched the Romany language and
culture in order to authentically create characters and contexts to role play in a
gypsy world. It is on-line experiential drama, with a unique and unparalleled
combination of improvisation due to the fictional dramatic context, and reflec-
tion due to the technological medium that allows a degree of delay time and
plan out time for ‘speech’.
Features evident in this example include: use of explicitly written verbs or
processes related to paralinguistic features, bodily movement, facial expres-
sions, and vocal descriptors (e.g. R walks over, C bobs his head, K whistles, R . . .
says); use of dialogue and punctuation such as . . . to indicate pauses in speech;
adverbs (e.g. R . . . nods faintly, K . . . turns slightly, K says quietly) to provide
indicators of modality (the degree to which the actions are occurring, e.g. the
word quietly tells us that K speaks with a quiet voice, within the possible
 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE 67

K whistles a little to himself as he tends to his garden near the tree. His hands are
coated with dirt, but he has not taken off any of his rings.
R walks over near the garden and sets his hands to his waist. “Good evening
Kirvo . . .” He turns slightly to C smiling “and praIa”
K looks over his shoulder, “Oh . . . greetings, all.”
C bobs his head in a nod, smiling crookedly, “Hey there, guys, what’s up?”
K hmmms to himself, and says quietly, “I’m trying to sense the relationship
between the plants and the spirits of the wind and sky.”
R glances over to his tsera and turns back to D “Nothing” C nods faintly,
“What, like a dandelion?”
K nods, “Yes prala, exactly.” He glances to the tsera a moment, then looks to
R, then looks back at his plants.
R raises his brows and sighs as he gazes upon the plants. K keeps looking at
the plants, moving soil, “What is it R?”
C has a peek at the vegetation as well, but he isn’t a gardener, so his glance
isn’t with a great deal of understanding.
R lowers his head a little and says “Nothing . . .” He bites his lip a little and
changes his tone to speak in Romany.

Figure 4.2 An example of themed role-playing from a gypsy MUD

Source: Dudfield (1998)

range of soft to loud; for a further discussion of modality, see Chapter 1) and
adverbials or circumstances describing aspects of the action such as the loca-
tions of their physical on-line bodies (e.g. near the tree, near the garden, to his
waist, over his shoulder) as cues for each of the other participants. This is a text
in progress, a drama unfolding.
User K, who plays the role of the mage gypsy (a ‘wise one’ or spiritual
leader), has interactional control in this small excerpt, but all participants
typically have equal degrees of control, offering and using cues to sustain their
roles and develop the narrative. A feature of technological literacy is that all
participants are able to ‘speak’ without interruption. As their ‘real’ or ‘eco-
logical’ selves are alone at a keyboard, they read, write and respond to the texts
on their screen at their own leisure. They have time to reflect and formulate
responses. Their words will be processed the instant they press the return or
enter key, and will be seen by all. Further discussion of this particular example
can be found in Dudfield (1998).
Players sometimes write the stories of their role-playing or the context of
their role-playing into myths, which are then published on-line. One example
of this is at ‘Shattered Kingdoms’, see Figure 4.3.
68 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE

Talde Silvertree lived the first half of his life as a trapper and woodsman in the
village of Elisair. He was a quiet and peaceful elf who deeply loved his native forest
of Selkwood. However, near the end of his prime, in his hundred and thirty-first
summer, shame was brought to the Silvertree name thanks to Talde’s actions. He
had been accused and convicted by the elders of Elisair of being a drow sympa-
thizer and was outcast from Selkwood. In their shame, Talde, his sister and his
cousin left Selkwood, never to return, and travelled to make their home in the
woods on the western shores of Lake Everclear.
It was in this forest that Aster was born, many decades later. Aster was the
fifth of six children born unto Talde and his wife (little is known about Aster’s
mother except that she may have been half-elven; Aster does not like to speak
about her). Aster lived the first eighty years of her life there, in the forest, with her
father, mother, three brothers, two sisters, aunt, uncle, and cousins in a close and
independent family. She learned a lot about the ways of the wilds from her father
and from the many travellers her family took in who passed through the woods.
She heard tales of far away lands and strange creatures which made her young
imagination run wild, inspiring her with a lifetime of incurable wanderlust.
However, this all came to an end on one cold, rainy night when her father took in
the wrong traveller.

Figure 4.3 Example of writing a myth based on role-playing at ‘Shattered Kingdoms’

Source: Shattered Kingdoms (2004, on-line)

Another example of writing based on role-playing at a MUD is at ‘The

Eternal City’. In this case, however, the writing was done as a way of establish-
ing the theme of the MUD in its conception, to provide a context and stimula-
tion for the role-play. A number of myths and legends were written by way of
this form of introduction, see Figure 4.4.
The richness of language used in these role-playing texts is, to our minds,
both exciting and unique – tapping into and blending what is loved about
traditional folk-lore, narrative and storybuilding, with new forms of writing
based on the degree of interactivity with others, the type of reflective writing
described above and the use of programming commands to perform a range of
acts. Children are required to write both as speakers and writers and this com-
bination of orality and writing is something quite unique to internet literacies.

Facilitating knowledge required by teachers for

implementing into classroom

Participating in a MUD and navigating inside the worlds require, as previously

mentioned, a telnetting program to connect to the space. Many internet
 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE 69

No one remembers who built the Harbor of the Moons, nor its towering counterpart,
the spires of unknown stone that rises from the cliffs of Iridine. No one can say when
Moonfall first took place, when the first purplish-black storms appeared, roiling
through the moonlit countryside in furious silence. No one remembers just how old
the inner city really is, nor or to what ends of Midlight its folk were scattered.

Iridine is a vast and ancient metropolis, its origins lost in myth. It is the beloved
city of the sun god, Ereal, said to be raised as a monument to his victories over
the eclipsing moons. It is home to both the savagery of the great Coliseum
and the refinement of the Senate, the twin centers of the mighty Iridine Republic.
It is the Eternal City. It always has been and always will be.

The streets of the City course with human life. Legionaries, workers, priests, ped-
dlers, and patricians crowd the plazas and cobblestone roads. Thieves dart amidst
the crowds, picking pockets and lifting goods, while constables gallantly attempt
to police the busy byways. . . .

Figure 4.4 Example of writing a myth to stimulate role-playing at ‘The Eternal City’
Source: Skotos (2004, on-line)

browsers support telnetting protocol automatically, but the interface pro-

duced automatically is very rough and raw, and difficult to manage. One prob-
lem for example is that when typing in words into the raw telnet program, one
cannot see the words until pressing enter. It’s important to be able to see what
you are typing in a separate line before sending it to the other people in the
MUD, for reasons of editing and checking and keeping track of what you are
trying to say.
It is best to download a special telnet program which has a much better
interface and overcomes this and other problems. Such programs are free on-
line and are always being developed and improved by MUD lovers who want
to increase their enjoyment and ease of participation. Examples of these
include: Gmud and Zmud (for PC users), or MudDweller and MacMush (for
Mac users). These can be downloaded free from many sites, for example, the
Virginia Tech site managed by Hatfield (2004, on-line), called ‘The EBBS
Gallery of Client Software for Muds and/or MOOs’, which is located at http://
ebbs.english.vt.edu/mudmoo.clients.html. Some commercial role-playing
and/or interactive gaming MUDs have developed a telnet program with a spe-
cially customized graphic interface. An example of this is shown in Figure 4.5.
These examples are from either private or commercially owned MUDS
which have been designed by both teens and adults, with access available to
anybody. Teachers and parents may want to exercise some caution before
allowing their younger children to participate in these communities, as out of
70 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE

Figure 4.5 An example of a telnet interface from ‘The Eternal City’

Source: Skotos (2004, on-line)

character comments could be offensive. Most MUDs have strict rules and
protocols and the wizards, gods and administrators ensure a safe environment
as best as possible. With some monitoring, most role-playing MUDs would be
suitable for older children and teenagers. However, for those who are novices
in role-playing or ‘MUDDING’, or who wish to ensure all other users are
either children or teachers, the virtual community of MOOSE Crossing is
recommended.

MOOSE crossing: a MUD designed for children by children

The most popular MUD-type environment designed for children is Amy

Bruckman’s Moose Crossing (Bruckman, 1994a, 1994b, 1997). Bruckman
has established and developed Moose Crossing over the past eight years with
the assistance of both computer designers and educators. Children have
 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE 71

participated in the developing of the space as they have developed the necessary
programming skills. All members of Moose Crossing are aged 13 and under.

MOOSE Crossing is an excellent way for kids 13 and under to expand

creative writing skills and learn to program at the same time. Kids can
create objects ranging from magic carpets to virtual pets to even a
pokémon; a world based on your imaginations. They can also build
virtual rooms and cities, such as King Tut’s Pyramid, the Emerald City
of Oz, or Hogwarts. Kids can meet and interact with other kids from
all around the world. The world of MOOSE Crossing is built by kids,
for kids.
(Bruckman, 1997, on-line)

We will return to discuss MOOSE Crossing later in the chapter.

A rationale for use in pedagogic terms

Understanding the nature of a narrative is a key to purposeful role-playing, in

particular, aspects of plot, setting and characterization. In many MUDs, players
are also given guidance on how to effectively role-play through text. An
emphasis is placed on developing strong characterization and also on under-
standing aspects about narrative techniques. Casey (2003, on-line) writes,
‘[r]ole-playing is about characters. More specifically, it’s about characterization
– making a particular character seem alive, seem real. And even beyond that, we
generally want our characters to seem interesting.’ Casey explains that one of
the important rules for players when developing character is to ‘Show, don’t tell’
(Casey, 2003, on-line, emphasis in original), and offers the following example:

Jenny moved through the crowd like a dancer, weaving in and out of
the spaces. Her small form slipped easily through places where others
could not go, letting her move through where they would be stuck
waiting. But the one thing she never did was touch anyone.
(Casey, 2003, on-line)

Typing in the actions and showing various aspects about a character arouse
much more curiosity in the readers, and leave questions about the character
that the role-playing may unfold. Players are encouraged to type in all of
the affectual cues to supply the other players with an understanding of the
character’s thoughts, emotions and intentions, in order to drive the narrative
along. Some experienced players will take a lead role in perpetuating the narra-
tive, by introducing complications and inviting other players to band together
on a quest to resolve those complications. Those players with some longevity
72 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE

in games then have stories to boast about and trophies to reveal in future
meetings. The participation in a quest will result in the acquisition of some
form of social or economic capital that is recognized and valued by the
role-playing community.
According to Cucik (2001, on-line) in text-based communities and in par-
ticular text-based role-playing adventures, ‘the player’s brains [are] the most
sophisticated graphics device available’. Books have worked on this principle
too, but in the virtual MUD world, players need to be able to write vivid
descriptions of rooms and actions to help create images in the minds of other
players, and this type of descriptive writing is vital for creating the atmosphere
of the environment.
A high level of literacy is required for children to effectively participate in
on-line communities. For even the simplest form of communication, children
need to be involved in a complex process of both writing (to ‘speak to others’)
and reading (to ‘read’ what other people say to them). In themed role-play
spaces, children are also required to use sophisticated vocabulary consistent
with both the theme and their role within the role-play. As demonstrated in
the example of the gypsy-themed MUD, some children also research other
languages to use where appropriate. Also, the need to supply the other players
with rich descriptions of actions and emotions results in a highly crafted piece
of collaborative writing. Children are motivated to write in various forms for a
very strong purpose: the pleasure afforded by the game. MUDs provide mean-
ingful and pleasurable purposes for children to read and write in collaboration
with others, the virtual community providing plentiful opportunities for
development of literacy skills with a focus on literary texts. Moreover, the
computer literacy or ‘technoliteracy’ skills developed include developing
logical understandings and basic programming skills.
As mentioned previously, one of the best MUDs we recommend for
teachers of younger children is Amy Bruckman’s MOOSE Crossing. Bruckman
explains the educational theory behind Moose Crossing, as:

The design of MOOSE Crossing was guided by the educational theory

of constructionism. Constructionism states that we build our own
knowledge based on what we experience, and will therefore learn
especially well when we build personally meaningful projects. Chil-
dren on MOOSE Crossing take part in constructing their own pro-
jects, which allows them to practice their reading, writing, and
programming skills. They are taking part in a hands-on experience
which uses their language and programming skills. The MOOSE
Crossing community provides ample support for children in the form
of a knowledge resource, a sounding board for ideas, and an apprecia-
tive audience.
(Bruckman, 1997, on-line)
 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE 73

The wide range of skills children can develop through participation in quests,
projects of world-building and interactive role-playing are legion. Through
reading and writing in virtual environments, children develop their powers of
imagination and inventiveness. Through collaboration with others, they
become critically aware of how to manipulate the resources of both language
and programming to create their world and participate in the game and role-
play. Most importantly, children will be able to participate in the worlds of
children’s literature through immersing themselves in the characters, plots,
and climactic twists of the narrative.

Examples of specific classroom applications

Engaging children in a MUD role-playing experience will require the teacher

to prepare some initial off-line classroom activities. Some suggestions for a
sequence of lessons are indicated below. These lessons require teachers to
locate a suitable MUD and either notify the owner or secure permission from
the owner to allow the class to participate. For most g-rated MUDs, permission
is required and accounts (which are free of charge) for children to access need
to be created by the owner. As noted previously, it is important to go through
these steps to ensure children are interacting in a safe space on-line. These
lessons are also designed for just one class of children. In the first instance, it is
advisable to work with just one class until the teacher and students are all
confident with how the MUD works. However, the ideal way for these lessons
to be used would be for several interested teachers to all work together in
separate classrooms with the off-line work, then join together on the MUD to
create a truly interactive role-play, using the affordances of the space to its
greatest advantage. Box 4.1 shows the sequence of lessons.
In this sequence of lessons, much work is done off-line to support the on-
line work. The teacher needs to scaffold children’s understandings carefully
throughout the sequence, and the on-line component should be considered as
part of the normal literacy programme, not as a replacement for it. We also
believe that the work children do on-line should be celebrated off-line,
through publishing logs of interactions as a record of their collaborative writ-
ing. This could also be valuable in talking to parents about their children’s
work on-line.

Description of palaces and examples of their use

The palace is a visual virtual world, similar to a MUD but existing through the
visual. The palace was an initiative of Jim Baumgartner, who first approached
Time-Warner Interactive (a company mostly concerned with role-playing
74 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE

Box 4.1 MUD role-playing structure

Lesson 1 To prepare children for the types of characters and events

Reading myths and which occur in typical MUDs, it is important to first
legends immerse them in the language of myth, legend and
folk-lore. During the reading process, the class could
make lists of the typical types of characters, and the
typical types of quests and events that can be found.
Using traditional tales such as the Greek myths and
legends, Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, or elements from
modern tales such as Harry Potter would provide
children with an understanding of the language of myths
and legends.
Lesson 2 In this lesson, the teacher should select the MUD in which
Reading the specific children will participate. The teacher should collect all of
legends of the MUD the background myths, legends and character guides to
read through and discuss with children.
The teacher should guide children in their
understandings that myths and legends have both heroic
‘good’ characters, and not so heroic ‘unseemly’
characters, and that myths and legends only work
because their characteristic feature is quest to
overcome evil.
Lesson 3 Children select characters and decide on the features of
Writing and the character to fit within the theme of the MUD. There
drawing character should be a range of both good and unseemly, and the
descriptions based teacher may like to remind children of the features of
on a theme good descriptions (e.g. adjectival and adverbial phrases
to build up an image of what the character looks like and
how it acts and moves).
Children can also draw their character and consider the
visual features which will highlight their inner character as
well as their outward appearance. They should use
resources of visual grammar to assist in their drawings, for
example ‘my character has shifty eyes, he never makes a
direct contact (or “demand”) by gazing out at the
audience because he doesn’t want anybody to discover
his secrets’ (Chapter 1 outlines the scope of visual
grammar elements that may be used here).
Students should share their descriptions and drawings.
These could be placed on a display board for the duration
of the series of lessons, so that the class can read and
discuss them when off-line.
 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE 75

Children can then log onto the MUD for the first time
and be guided in writing their character descriptions on-
line into the MUD space.

Lesson 4 Children should write their own legend to describe the

Storytelling about history of their own character. This is particularly
characters important because it will provide motivations for actions,
behaviours and events to come. For those less seemly
characters, it will also reveal what happened to them or
their ancestors to cause them to be unseemly. These can
be published on-line or published within the MUD (on the
MUD message boards) for all to read. Teachers may also
like to make a hard copy book of ‘Our myths and legends’.

Lesson 5 All MUDs will have a list of commands and an associated

Learning how to help file to assist new users in basic movement about the
emote: basic MUD into different rooms, and in ways to communicate
commands to the other users. MUDs vary in the commands they
use, but one example is the ‘whisper’ command. The
command, whisper <user> hello, will send a private
‘whisper’ or message to the user saying hello. The
specific user and no others in the room only see this
message.
The teacher and children can explore and
experiment in this lesson, practising the commands and
looking at the help files to learn how to move about. The
teacher may like to print the help files for children to read
when off-line, but this play or exploratory time is crucial in
helping children develop the confidence of using the
space effectively before commencing the role-play.

Lesson 6 Children should now be ready to begin the role-playing

Beginning the in character. The teacher should ask the children to log
role-play in on and pretend it is just another normal day in their
character character’s lives. It may be advisable to start groups of
children in different rooms doing particular tasks (for
instance, one group might be in the ‘market’ space,
purchasing goods and another group might be in
the village square, talking to each other about their
morning). Children should be encouraged to move about
the world and mix with different groups in role. The
teacher could keep a log of all the interactions to talk
about with the class off-line, using a range of questions as
a guide such as:
76 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE

• What were the actions that Bethany did and what did
they tell us about her character? (The children could
highlight the verbs or processes used by Bethany.)
• How did Laura’s description of the way she moved in
the room show something about her character? (The
children could highlight adverbs and adjectives used by
Laura.)
• What did the descriptions Adam used to portray the
emotions on his face tell us about he was feeling? (The
children could search for Adam’s use of sensing verbs
(mental processes) or adjectives used to describe his
facial features.)
• How did Joel show us that he was an unpleasant
character? (The children could search through Joel’s
contributions and identify the type of language he used
to create a negative impression of him. If the children
have done work on evaluative language or appraisal
(see Droga and Humphrey (2002) for a simple
introduction to appraisal), then they could be asked
specifically to identify the words of negative ‘affect’
used by Joel).
Through this guided reading of the role-playing log, the
teacher is scaffolding the children’s understandings of the
types of language to suit both the theme of the MUD and
the affordances of the on-line environment. The teacher
is also making explicit to children the grammatical
resources used by authors to construct characterizations
in their narratives.

Lesson 7 Off-line, the class could discuss an appropriate

Developing the role- complication to introduce into the role-play. It could
play: introducing a be based on what has happened in the role-playing to
complication date (a review of the logs might help in deciding the
complication), or it could be based on ideas taken from
existing myths and legends but adapted to the theme of
the MUD. A discussion off-line will provide some time for
rehearsal of general ideas and provide a scaffold for their
storying on-line.
When ready, the children can go on-line and perform
the role-play. This may take more than one lesson if it is
working well.
Once again the teacher can make a log of the
interaction for off-line reflection and discussion. The log
 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE 77

could be displayed for the period between lessons 7 and 8

to give children opportunities to consider how the
complication might be resolved.

Lesson 8 Using the written transcripts or ‘logs’ of the role-play

Resolving the (which can be obtained by activating the ‘log’ function,
complication this will automatically create a text file which will record
(denouement) the role-play), the teacher can brainstorm with the class
the ways in which the complication could be resolved. It
may be that different groups could devise alternative
resolutions. When some ideas are agreed upon, the
children could log on and complete the role-play, either
with one or multiple resolutions.

Lesson 9 In this lesson, children have an opportunity to retell their

Making own version of the role-play, focusing on how their
storyboards character acted, felt, and interacted. Children can make a
storyboard to illustrate their story from beginning to end,
telling it from their point of view. In creating the images,
children should carefully consider the relationships
between themselves and others, as well as the way in
which they want their character to be perceived by the
readers of their storyboard. They should once again draw
upon their understanding of the grammatical resources
used to create meaning.
In creating the dialogue, children may like to make use
of the actual dialogue from the role-playing logs. If their
character wasn’t involved in any speaking for a particular
scene, they should be encouraged to use thought
bubbles to reveal what their character was thinking.
Children should also include directions to specify action,
movement and emotion for each scene on the
storyboard. This could be taken from the role-play logs
but could also be developed or altered to show a
particular character’s perspective more clearly.

Lesson 10 This lesson should be a celebration of the sequence of

Sharing and lessons, where children share their storyboards as well as
reflection their thoughts about the work they have done. During
reflection, the teacher could guide discussion using
questions such as:

• What did you learn in these lessons?

• What did you learn about myths and legends?
78 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE

• What did you learn about the ways in which authors

construct characters?
• What did you learn about writing a storyboard?
• What did you learn about the ways in which illustrators
construct characters?
• What did you think the most important part of the
role-play was and why?
• What were some of the things you learned about
computer programming?
• What parts of the sequence of the lesson did you enjoy
most and why do you think that was?

computer games) with his conceptualization, and after some development was
taken over by Electric Communities. Baumgartner and Electric Communities
wanted to create a world that resembled an interactive cartoon, deliberately
choosing not to create a photo-realistic world, in order for the palace to create
a sensory aesthetic with wide appeal.
A room in a palace somewhat resembles a comic book backdrop in
which the characters can create their own narratives, whether they be simply
conversational, confessional, theatrical, soap opera, educational, or other. The
palace has many rooms: some of these are connected in theme, others discrete.
Figure 4.6 shows the entrance room for the palace ‘Kids, Enfants, Kinder’
(Thomas, 1999–2003, on-line).
An avatar is the visual image used to represent a participant in the visual
world. There are many styles of avatars available, from sultry looking models,
to animé cartoon figures, or other objects such as a cloud. Each participant has
a virtual wardrobe of avatars and costumes to select from, including a range of
accessories such as glasses and hats. Here most of the avatars are cartoonish-
style children; the avatar of the realistic-looking person is the adult teacher
working with the group of children. Each participant has avatars available to
represent a range of poses, such as standing, leaning, sitting, stretching and
dancing. Some participants swap and change avatars more than a hundred
times in an hour, others will select their favourite avatar and never change.
The range of palaces on-line is varied and similar to MUDs: from role-
playing worlds, to spaces of social interaction. Media companies have been
quick to develop their own palaces for various purposes. In the months leading
up to the premiere of the movie The Blair Witch Project (Sanchez and Myrick,
1999), a Blair Witch palace was established to help create interest and intrigue
in the story. The station producing the TV show South Park (Parker, 1997–2004),
set up a palace for fans of the show, and the executive producer of the show,
Trey Parker, visited on several occasions to interact with fans.
 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE 79

Figure 4.6 Entrance room to the ‘Kids, Enfants, Kinder’ palace

Source: Thomas (1999–2003, on-line)

There are other fan-based palaces (some volunteer, others commercial),

which encourage the writing of ‘fan fiction’. Fan fiction is a term used to
describe the narratives created by fans to write possible episodes of their
favourite TV shows. This phenomenon is broad-based and certainly not
restricted to the palace, however, on the palace fans can both write their
episode, then adopt their favourite characters and organize virtual perform-
ances of their scripts. The Galaxy Station palace (palace://thegalaxystation.
com:9998), for example, encourages the writing and performing of Star Wars
fan fiction. Similarly, there are palaces dedicated to other movie favourites
such as the palace Emerald City (palace://oz.chatn.net:9998), which is dedi-
cated to the Wizard of Oz. A number of palaces have been established as sites
for learning as well as entertainment, some by educators, some by parents, but
most by the young people who inhabit these spaces for specific purposes that
will be described below.
80 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE

Some teachers have been using palaces as a resource for teaching com-
munication skills, internet literacy, graphic design, collaborative storytelling.
In 2000, Swiss educator Edgar Goetschi won a European ‘Netdays’ award for his
teaching program using the palace. On his palace, named MeetPoint (Goetschi,
1999–2004, on-line), Goetschi has images from many different countries as
different room backgrounds, and uses them to immerse children in the culture
and festivities of other countries. The Italian room is an image of Venice, and
upon entrance, children’s avatars are automatically turned into a mask, and
they share information about the carnival of Venice, for example. He also has
avatar contests, with children choosing a theme and designing appropriate
avatars using their graphic programs, and then parading themselves (and their
hard work!) in front of other student judges. Goetschi includes images of the
school building and of Switzerland for their friends from other countries to
learn about their culture. Although the main language in Switzerland is Ger-
man, children also learn French as a second language. Goetschi has a Paris
room and only French is permitted to be spoken in that room.
Other volunteer palaces have been designed for a range of educational
purposes. Kids Chat is a palace developed by a group of US parents who wanted
to ensure their children had opportunities to participate in safe communities
on-line. One of the features of this palace was the way in which children could
post questions about any schoolwork they were experiencing difficulty with.
Parents organized volunteer tutors to come on-line and provide additional
support for those children. Kids Chat also held trivia nights, quiz nights and
other fun competitions as a part of the regular community social events. The
Scout Hut is a palace designed by parents and scout leaders to teach scouting
principles. The Job Shop palace is a free job search workplace palace, holding
regular tutorials such as ‘how to perform well in an interview’. Other examples
of palaces based purely on children’s literature are discussed in Chapter 6.
However, educators and parents make up only a small proportion of the
palaces dedicated to teaching and learning. Young people themselves design
by far the majority of palaces with an educational purpose, to teach others
how to participate in the palace effectively. These palaces hold regular lessons
on various elements of computer graphics (e.g. how to make your own avatar,
how to work with colour palettes in your graphic program, how to make ani-
mated room backgrounds) and various elements of programming (e.g. how to
make objects move about on the screen, how to include pop-up text, and so on).

Using palaces in educational contexts

Over the past decade, society has embraced a ‘visual turn’ (Jay, 1989: 49), or a
‘pictorial turn’ (Mitchell, 1994: 13), and is now more than ever seen as ‘a
society of the spectacle’ (Debord [1967] 1977), in which imagery is central to
 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE 81

the creation of identity and the gathering and distribution of knowledge

(Chaplin, 1994). Visual culture and visual research methodology have
exploded in the literature (Abbott, 2002; Berger 1972, 2003; Jenks, 1995;
Mirzoeff, 2001; Norris, 2002; Prosser, 2001). There can be little doubt that the
visual worlds of cyberspace reflect this ‘cultural turn’ (Harvey, 1989) of visual
saturation. This is especially so since 1992, when Tim Berners-Lee and Marc
Andreeson invented the GUI (graphical user interface) turning our computer
screens from green text to thousands of colours, and adding iconography and
images.
Lemke (1998) claims that multimedia authoring and reading skills will
become the generic literacies of the Information Age. He argues that educators
need to help students develop the technical, critical and analytical skills to
become successful readers of hypertexts, decoders of the visual and analysts of
the text as a pastiche. They must develop the ability to read images, navigate
and achieve a sense of text, and have an understanding of the representational
codes and multilogues, which are used so profusely in cyberliteracies. Kress and
van Leeuwen (1996) insist that ‘visual literacy’ will become an essential tool.
Landow (1998) highlights the way in which texts are now co-authored
in collaborative interactive exchanges within cyberculture. He argues that the
notion of a single author of a text has become outdated. He explains:

By actively engaging themselves in the continuous exchange

and proliferation of collectively-generated electronic publications,
individually-designed creative works, manifestos, live on-line read-
ings, multi-media interactive hypertexts, conferences, etc., Avant-Pop
artists and the alternative networks they are part of will eat away at
the conventional relics of a bygone era where the individual artist-
author creates their beautifully-crafted, original works of art to be
consumed primarily by the elitist art-world and their business-cronies
who pass judgement on what is appropriate and what is not.
(Landow, 1998, on-line)

According to Landow, collaboration, collective writing, collective artistry and

group dynamics have become an integral part of social practices on-line. The
classroom example included below reflects Landow’s ideas and is a good
example of the ways in which children are actively and co-operatively creating
a blend of old and new forms of narrative in on-line spaces.

Setting up the palace

Some palaces have been designed so that they can be accessed from inside a
web browser. Details of one example of this are discussed in Chapter 6. Accessing
82 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE

the palace through a web browser, however, does not allow all the features of
the palace to be activated, so we recommend teachers download the free Palace
User software. If teachers wish to explore all palaces available, the free software
can be located at the Palace Planet website (http://www.palaceplanet.net). If
teachers want access to a limited number of G-rated palaces only, then the
software can be downloaded from the ELLIE website (Thomas, 2002–2005).
The specialized software is recommended because it has features which can be
customized by each user, including: the avatar and props and the cyborg script.
Once downloaded, we recommend teachers explore these features.
The avatar and props bag holds the avatars, images used to represent the
user when on the palace, as well as the props, which can be attached to the
user. A prop is an object that can be worn near or placed over the face; or a
small object that can be held (like a baseball bat or a cup) or attached (like a
hat, a pair of sunglasses or a wig). Avatars and props can be found in various
palace ‘libraries’ of images, but can also be home-made, from photos or images
preferred by the user. A picture of a child’s cat, for example, could be turned
into a prop, and then be seemingly sitting with the child, as part of the child’s
avatar. Avatars and props can be animated, so, using the same example of the
cat, the cat’s tongue could be animated to drink from a saucer of milk, or its
head could turn backwards and forwards as if to survey the room.
The cyborg script (denoted as the cyborg.ipt file in the user’s Palace folder)
allows each user to create fun words, actions, sounds and/or images to appear
or disappear on command. Typing in the word ‘party’, for example, might
then execute the associated script from the cyborg file to produce images
(props) of balloons, streamers, confetti, flowers, and so forth, all about the
room. Libraries of cyborg scripts are attainable at palaces and on palace help
websites such as the one at Palace Planet as mentioned above. There, users
can pick and choose ready-made scripts for their cyborgs, as well as coding
their own.
One final point to make about the palace environment is that it allows for
different levels of users to be denoted, those of member, wizard and god. At
most palaces, a member may enter, enjoy the environment, execute cyborg
scripts, and participate in the community. A wizard, on the other hand, has
access to special ‘powers’, that is, special, wizard-only commands. These com-
mands include those used for regulatory purposes (such as kick <username>,
which would allow the wizard to enforce any member violating the rules of
agreed code of conduct or netiquette to exit the community), and those used
for building purposes and coding purposes (such as createroom <name of
room>, which would allow the wizard to make new rooms for the palace at
will). It is recommended that some responsible children be given opportun-
ities to be wizards, though this will be at the discretion of the owner of the
palace.
 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE 83

Learning about role-playing

Teachers wanting to have children role-playing on the palace should show

children an example of a role-play and discuss its features. Role-playing on the
palace is a little different to the example shown earlier in the chapter related to
role-playing on a MUD. Figure 4.7 illustrates a sample role-playing session
between two characters, Maltriel and Eomer, at the Middle Earth palace
(Sorenson, 2000–2005). More information about the Middle Earth palace is

Eomer: *ignores the hurt welling up from her repeated insults and just nods*
Maltriel: *she walks into her room . . . sighing . . . . back to her prison, though it
may be fair and wishes that the rider upon his fell beast had seen her,
and taken her back to the mordor army camp, where she would be with
angmar most dear once again*
Eomer: *Eomer stands at the door, hating the moment of leaving his sister,
though she does not recognize him.*
Eomer: *He wishes to embrace her and tell her of his affection for her, how
much he missed her when she was thought dead*
Eomer: *but he knows she considers him an enemy*
Maltriel: *she wonders why the king stands in her doorway, lingering for so long*
Eomer: *He smiles politely and bids her farewell*
Eomer: *A guard closes the door*
Maltriel: your majesty . . .? *she asks*
Maltriel: aanug zark, skakh izub *she calls back to eomer*
Eomer: *Eomer opens the door again when she calls*
Eomer: Lady, you know I cannot understand the Black Speech.
Eomer: What did you say?
Maltriel: oh . . . forgive me then. i said, ‘good day, my lord.’
Eomer: *smiles broadly and bows* Good day, my lady.
Eomer: *He closes the door again*
Eomer: *but lingers outside it taking deep breaths to compose himself*
Eomer: *He reassures himself that someday the spell will be broken and she will
recognize him as her brother*
Maltriel: *she goes back to her bed and lies down, feeling weak again . . . the
actions of her enemies confuse her . . . she had been told they were evil,
and they were cowards . . . but they seem polite and kind to her.
Maltriel: *she only hopes it is not because she is a woman, do they treat her so.*

Figure 4.7 An example of a role-play at the Middle Earth palace

Source: Sorenson (2000–2005)
84 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE

included in Chapter 6. In the role-play, participants use an asterisk (*) to

denote the actions they are involved in to distinguish it from speech.
In this role-play, the participants have imagined an alternative ending to
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Tolkien, 1955), one in which the evil
Sauron had the ring, and had kidnapped and brainwashed Eowyn to think her
name is Maltriel and to believe that she fights for Mordor. This is an ongoing
role-play run by several of the members of the Middle Earth virtual com-
munity, and records of the role-play are kept on one of the member’s (The
Quiet Wraith) websites (http://members.aol.com/thequietwraith/). Teachers
could use examples such as the one in Figure 4.7 as well as ones from this
website to identify the features of the role-playing such as the combination of
dialogue between characters and the actions written inside the asterisks to
drive the narrative forward. Other features of role-playing are similar to those
discussed in relation to the gypsy MUD role-play outlined in Figure 4.2.

Examples of specific classroom applications

The palace Kids, Enfants, Kinder was established by Angela Thomas in 1999 to
explore children’s virtual role-playing and collaborative storying. Children
from Australia, Canada, the USA, Switzerland and France participated over two
years in a range of interactive on-line experiences. One of the most popular
features of this palace was the virtual theatre performances of Greek myth-
ology. In particular, the children enjoyed reading and participating in the
myth ‘Persephone’s Story’. Figure 4.8 is the first ‘room’ introducing the myth.
This is the myth about Demeter, goddess of nature, and her daughter
Persephone who was kidnapped by Hades and taken down to the Underworld.
To participate in this story, children first read through an on-line animated
version of the legend (this was built into the palace) to the point in the story
where Demeter cursed the land and the earth became barren. At this stage,
children were invited to select a character from a range shown in a book (see
Figure 4.9). Clicking on the character’s name would provide background
information for the character. Clicking the image would automatically turn
the avatar into that character.
The role-playing varied considerably from group to group but mainly
consisted of the characters bemoaning the plight caused by the devastation of
Demeter’s curse. Usually the teacher (or an assigned child) would enter in role
as Demeter (who would refuse to take away the curse until Persephone had
been returned safely from the Underworld), and then Hades (who would
refuse to allow Persephone to return), followed by the village mayor (who
would urge the villagers to make a plan to kidnap Persephone back from the
Underworld). Various students were allocated tasks to find out about the
Underworld and various other Greek characters.
 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE 85

Figure 4.8 The space for the beginning of the role-play about Persephone and Demeter
Source: Thomas (1999–2003, on-line)

The next part of the virtual drama involved the children (villagers) in the
whiteboard room drawing a map and telling of the folklore and family stories
they had ‘heard’ about the perilous journey from their village into the Under-
world. Figure 4.10 shows the map in progress, with Cerberus, the three-headed
hound, guarding the entrance to the Underworld, the poisonous attacking
squids of the River Styx, the frightening pecking parrots, the evil pit of snakes,
and so on. Each ‘villager’ was asked to draw or add something on to the map,
and to tell the story related to their drawing or addition. Some groups of chil-
dren then made special items to assist the brave volunteers who were to rescue
Persephone.
These special items included, for example, pictures done with graphic
programs of nets, bottles of potions, special armour for their characters to wear
(which was converted into an avatar so it could actually be ‘worn’), and differ-
ent types of texts, such as lyrics to a song which would soothe savage Cerberus,
86 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE

Figure 4.9 Participants select their role character

Source: Thomas (1999–2003, on-line)

prayers using respectful language to Zeus to ask for help, spells to ‘freeze’ the
snakes or to turn them into stone, and so on.
The role-play would conclude with Persephone and the volunteer rescuers
successfully returning from the Underworld to recount their perilous journey,
explaining how they had escaped and survived, as well as answering villagers’
questions. Students then had a chance to reflect out of role and to publish any
of the writing they had created throughout the drama, such as their imaginary
folk tales or their songs. Teachers reported back on the enthusiasm of students
and the high quality of writing and graphic designs that were produced.

Conclusion

Children have embraced the affordances of technological advances in cyber-

space. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2003, on-line) in the
2000 census, 45 per cent of Australian households with children under the age
of 18 had internet access. Of children between 5 and 14, 51 per cent used the
internet for chatroom purposes, an equal number of males and females fell
into this category, and there was no apparent difference between the propor-
tion of children using the internet in the city compared to those using it in the
country (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2000). Based on the exponential
 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE 87

Figure 4.10 Participants create a map of the journey to the Underworld

Source: Thomas (1999–2003, on-line)

growth of internet usage in the past and projected figures by the ABS, it is likely
that use by children under 18 (in the Australian context) will rapidly increase.
Australia is but one of the Western countries with a high internet usage by
children. According to a report commissioned by the US census (Newburger,
2000), in the year 2000, approximately 30 per cent of all children between 3
and 17 in the USA had (and used) the internet at home. As increasingly more
children come on-line and participate in on-line spaces, teachers would be
wise to explore and exploit these spaces to provide both safe and positive
learning experiences for children.
Advocates of digital media argue that the internet, due to its open, global
nature, allows children freedom from adult control, to escape from the usual
boundaries and lines between childhood and adulthood, and to define them-
selves in alternative ways from their off-line selves. Katz (1997) argues that the
ways in which children are creating their own autonomous cultures and
communities is one way children are bringing about new forms of cultural
88 PLAYING IN THE MUD, PERFORMING IN THE PALACE

expression. In cyberspace, children have the potential to become more active

and participatory through their involvement in virtual communities. If they
do, and how they might do it, are central concerns for society.
In this chapter we have argued that MUDs and palaces are exciting on-line
spaces for the construction of new types of blended narrative and storying.
They offer opportunities for children to develop expertise in communication
and electronic literacies, graphic design, computer programming, collabora-
tive storytelling, understanding children’s literature, collaborative problem
solving and in becoming responsible members of a community.
5 A snapshot of three
teachers’ classroom
practices integrating ICT
and children’s literature

Introduction

In this chapter we illustrate the work of three teachers: Jenny, Mark and
Coco, as they integrate and make use of the affordances of information
and communication technologies in their classroom practices. These teachers
have worked to varying degrees over the past five to ten years integrating the
use of computers into their classroom practices, and their work reflects their
wealth of experiences over this time. Additionally, it reflects their considered
experimentation and exploration of the possibilities and potentials of using
ICTs in the classroom in meaningful ways, to enrich and enhance their literacy
programmes.
The snapshot of Jenny’s classroom illustrates a teacher beginning to
include websites to enrich literature-based units of work that have a focus on
visual literacy and narrative structures, putting into practice some of the ideas
outlined previously in Chapters 1 and 2. Her unit of work described in this
chapter is designed particularly for younger children aged 7 to 9. The snapshot
of Mark’s classroom reflects his efforts to engage his class in which many of the
children have English as a second language, in interactions with children from
Finland. He worked with the authors on a project called ELLIE (Electronic
Literature and Literacies in International Education) to explore the use of elec-
tronic forums to excite and stimulate children’s discussions about books and
e-books. The use of forums to talk about books is discussed in Chapter 3, in
terms of what some teachers call ‘book raps’. Mark had not explored electronic
literature prior to working on the ELLIE project, so he was excited to introduce
this new concept to children, and extremely impressed with children’s
responses to the unit of work he implemented. Coco’s snapshot represents a
teacher with an interest in developing her children’s collaborative narrative
writing using the on-line virtual environment of the palace as a stimulus. The
palace was discussed in Chapter 4.
Through sharing these stories and explicit examples of lessons
90 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES

implemented by the three teachers, we present a range of exemplars for the

integration of ICT and children’s literature in the literacy classroom. As Snyder
and Joyce (1998) asserted, not to attend to the possibilities of new technologies
would be a considerable neglect of duty.

Snapshot 1: Jenny

Jenny has been developing her work with both children and teachers in the
area of visual literacy. Working as both a teacher and a literacy advisor with
teachers, she has developed an interest in enhancing her work with children
and teachers by exploring ways to integrate the use of ICTs with her work on
visual literacy. Here she shares her unit of work with younger children using
websites related to children’s literature, coupled with a movie version of a
children’s book. As Margaret Mackey (2002) has noted, we are living in an age
of multiple versions of texts. In this unit about Shrek, Jenny shows how she
encourages young children to explore websites, movies and original versions
of a narrative, see Box 5.1.

Box 5.1 Unit of work for young children: Shrek

Background This unit for 7 to 9-year-old children is based on the

information about the picture book Shrek by William Steig (1990) and the
texts Dreamworks movie adaptation of the story. The
movie internet site www.shrek.com is also used as a
resource. In the picture book, Shrek overcomes a
number of perils on his way to find his princess.
However, the traditional narrative phrasing is given
a ‘monster’ twist. His parents ‘kicked’ him goodbye
instead of ‘kissed’ him goodbye, and the happy
couple live ‘horribly’ ever after instead of ‘happily’
ever after.
The images in the book are ‘long shots’ showing
the characters from an impersonal distance and
through drawings that have low modality,
intentionally not depicting the characters as
realistic. In contrast, the movie version has complex
images that appear very close to realistic and the
viewer sees the characters from a variety of social
distances including intimate views. The plot of the
movie varies significantly from the original story
with many more characters, including several
 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES 91

from well-known fairytales and with additional

complexities of plot that a movie-length story
allows. Both versions highlight the message, ‘Be
yourself’.
The unit of work explores the structure of narrative
texts and visual and verbal narrative techniques.

Lesson 1 • Whole-class discussion about Shrek the movie,

Comparison of versions children share their opinions about favourite
of the story characters and the theme of the story.
• The teacher appoints willing children to go
in role as the characters in the movie and
participate in ‘Hot Seat’, answering questions
posed by classmates about their character. (Hot
Seat is a drama technique whereby one child
enters a selected role, sits in the ‘hot seat’ as a
symbol for the role-playing to commence, and
responds to questions in character. It is always
valuable to brainstorm the questions that the
children may like to find out about the character
to give the ‘hot seat’ children a little time to think
about how they might answer. The teacher
should be the first person to be ‘hot seated’ to
provide a model for appropriately responding to
questions if children are new to this technique.)
• In small groups children complete a chart briefly
outlining the plot, listing the characters and
describing the theme of the movie.
• The teacher reads the picture book to the class
and leads a discussion of the plot, characters and
theme, comparing them to the movie version of
the story. The class jointly constructs a chart to
display on the wall with those created by small
groups.

Lesson 2 • Whole class uses the computer lab to explore

Exploration of movie www.shrek.com, with a particular focus on the
site www.shrek.com character descriptions and images. The teacher
may provide a ‘viewing guide’ to scaffold
children’s purposeful viewing of the images,
including such questions as: ‘What colours are
used for each of the characters?’, ‘What has the
illustrator done to show the difference between
92 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES

the heroes and the villains of the story?’, ‘What

parts of each character seem to be the most
carefully drawn?’, and so on.
• Once the class is back in the classroom, the
teacher leads a discussion of the images in Shrek
the movie comparing them to the illustrations in
the picture book.

Lesson 3 • The teacher revises the discussion about images

Noun groups from the last lesson.
• Using copies of screen shots from shrek.com on
the data projector or overhead projector, the
teacher defines ‘noun groups’ and uses an
example from the character descriptions on-line
to highlight the use of adjectives and adjectival
phrases to develop the noun group, for example:
‘Lord Farquaad, the measly four-foot-tall ruler of
Duloc’, ‘the neat, orderly and power-hungry
Lord Farquaad’. The teacher could then take one
of the given descriptions and demonstrate to
children how to turn that description into a noun
group, for example, in the character profile on
Dragon, we read: ‘it breathes fire and eliminates
knights’. The teacher could show children how
to change this into: ‘the fire-breathing, knight-
eliminating dragon’, and so on.
• The class contribute to jointly writing
descriptions of another character and the teacher
encourages the use of appropriate and effective
noun groups.
• The class break into small groups and use paper
copies of screen shot images to write further
descriptions.
• The teacher displays modelled, joint and
independently constructed descriptions on a wall
in the classroom, highlighting the children’s
effective selection of noun groups.

Lesson 4 • The teacher models the creation of a story map

Narrative structure, of a well-known fairytale or recently shared story.
story maps • In small groups, children create two story maps
showing both the movie and picture book stories
of Shrek.
• Discuss and compare story maps, as a class.
 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES 93

Lessons 5 and 6 • The teacher defines ‘Given’ and ‘New’ (see

Rotating groups – Chapter 1 – ‘Compositional Meanings’) and
narrative techniques gives examples using images from texts known
to the whole class. The teacher then gives an
explanation of the activities and assigns each
group a task. Children will complete two
activities in Lesson 5 and another two in Lesson
6. The teacher will supervise all groups but gives
focused attention to activity one.
1. Children view part of the movie Shrek and
comment on the use of Given and New with
assistance from the teacher. (The movie
shows Shrek and the donkey walking from left
to right across the screen as they journey to
rescue the princess and as they return the
layout is reversed.)
2. Children use a worksheet (see Figure 5.1) to
guide their observations and comment on the

Figure 5.1 Example of worksheet for visual literacy activity

94 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES

use of close up/intimate distance shots on

www.shrek.com.
3. Children use multiple copies of the picture
book to find and record all of the noun groups
in the text.
4. Children read from a collection of fractured
fairytales/stories with fairytale references.
For example, The Frog Prince Continued by
Jon Scieszka and Steve Johnson (1991) and
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly
Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka and Lane
Smith (1992).

Lesson 7 • The teacher leads a discussion about the

Intertextuality and fractured fairytales read in Lessons 5 and 6
Fractured Fairytales sharing some stories in part or whole.
• Children make lists of the original fairytales
referred to in the fractured versions or the
traditional characters mentioned.
• The whole class watches the ending of the Shrek
movie where fairytale characters join Shrek and
Donkey in karaoke. Children list the fairytale
creatures present.
• The teacher explains the way authors and movie
creators use known characters to make the
viewer feel like they have been let in on a secret,
thus engaging the viewer.

Lesson 8 • The whole class use the computer lab to explore

Modelled writing a number of websites showing fractured
fairytales, e.g. The True Story of The Three Little
Pigs at www.shol.com/agita/pigs.htm and Roald
Dahl’s fractured version of a number of fairytales
at www.cupola.com/html/wordplay/htm
• Once back in the classroom, the teacher models
the creation of her own fractured tale drawing
attention to the narrative structure.

Lesson 9 • The teacher leads a discussion of the message of

Independent writing, both versions of Shrek and elicits from children
narrative that the theme ‘don’t be afraid to be yourself’ is
portrayed through both stories.
• The teacher reviews the modelled fractured
fairytale from last lesson.
 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES 95

• Children are asked to create their own fractured

fairytale, which contains a message such as the
one in Shrek. This lesson serves as an assessment
of children’s understanding of the concepts
taught through this unit of work.

Classroom considerations

The classroom was set up with two computers connected to the internet, a
television and video, a copy of Shrek on video, three copies of the picture book
and other picture books with fairytale references. The video of the Shrek movie
was available for children to watch at school outside of class time or to borrow
and view at home prior to the unit of work. Children were placed in mixed ability
groups for group work.

Snapshot 2: Mark

Mark is a teacher in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia. He works in a

school where over three-quarters of the children speak English as a second
language. Mark works part-time on a class of 10–11-year-old children and also
has a part-time position as the school’s computer advisor. Mark had worked for
some years with his classes using a range of software with children, including
the use of Powerpoint for the presentation of group and individual class pro-
jects, and the use of graphic programs to create digital art. He used the internet
as a source for researching information for school projects, but was looking
for meaningful ways for children to use the interactive possibilities of the
medium. Mark joined the ‘Electronic Literature and Literacies in International
Education project’ (ELLIE) being conducted by the authors of this book, and
worked closely with support and advice from Jennifer Asha in his classroom, to
explore these possibilities with his students.
The ELLIE project was conducted in two phases. In the first phase we
organized Mark’s class to interact with a class of children in Finland, using the
Finnish site called Netlibris (http://www.netlibris.net/international/). Netlibris
was designed by Finnish educators Minttu Ollila and Teresa Volotinen in 1996
to enrich teacher’s programs in children’s literature. The original Finnish
project, entitled Matilda, had as its aims the following:

• combine cooperative learning and individual curriculum in distance

learning;
• design and organize an ICT project that appeals particularly to girls;
• cooperation in offering the top students individual curriculum and
expert tutoring;
96 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES

• encourage and challenge the good readers

• to read more and different books
• to share their reading experience with other book lovers;
• increase reading among other students by using the Matilda students’
resources at classroom and school level;
• have students as responsible and empowered owners of the project: in
choosing the literature, setting the goals, designing the activities and
in evaluating the process.
(Netlibris, 1996–2005, on-line)

This project was extremely successful, winning many local and international awards
for excellence in the use of ICT in the classroom and learning. Consequently,
the site has flourished and grown beyond Finland and is now an international
program where teachers and children all over the world talk about children’s
literature. More about Netlibris and its aims can be found at both the Netlibris
website (1996–2005, on-line) or from an article published by Miller (2000).
Through this site, Mark organized for his class of children to work with a
class of children in Espoo, Finland. After much email discussion between
Mark, the Finnish teachers, and the ELLIE project team, it was decided that
the children would read the David Almond novel Skellig (Almond, 1998) as the
first stage of the project. This award-winning novel was popular with both
the Finnish and Australian audiences and was accessible in both English and
Finnish, so was an excellent choice.
Mark worked with the ELLIE team and his class of children to explore the
novel Skellig. In particular, they explored ways in which David Almond and
the illustrator of the front cover of the novel used image and text to construct
meaning. Mark, the Finnish teachers and the ELLIE team worked collabora-
tively on this sequence of lessons. As children in each class learnt progressively
more about the novel, they were encouraged to write their thoughts in a for-
mal response to the text, post it to Netlibris, and interact with the ideas posted
by other children. This interaction occurred in a similar manner to the book
raps as described in Chapter 3. Children responded to the novel and shared
their thoughts about the themes of the novel and the construction of the text
and image to realize these themes.
The second phase of ELLIE involved similar procedures except that in this
phase we selected an electronic narrative or e-book for the children to read and
respond to, and we used the ELLIE forums as a site for student discussion.
Additionally, we involved some undergraduate students in working with small
groups of children in Mark’s class, to engage our students in classroom-based
research related to children’s literature and electronic literacies. The e-text we
selected was one originally published by the BBC to accompany a television
series, and was entitled Spywatch. The BBC have since taken the e-book off-line
but educator Ben Clarke has (with permission) made it available for free
 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES 97

download for teachers at: http://www.lookandread.fsnet.co.uk/downloads/

sites.html#spy. Additionally Ben Clarke’s site (Clarke, 2000–2005) offers links
to schools that have downloaded the software and then uploaded it to their
own school servers, so the e-book is still active and accessible.
Spywatch is set in wartime England and traces the story of children who are
investigating the townspeople to help the police discover a spy who is active in
the town. The site makes good use of images, animations, sounds, hypertext
and literacy challenges to unlock doors and solve clues to develop the narra-
tive. It is multimodal, interactive, and combines games with the narrative to
produce an exciting reading experience for younger children. Mark thought
that although the story was targeted to children aged 7–9, it was at a suitable
level for his older children for whom English was a second language. Similarly
we thought it would also be suitable for the level of English required by the
Finnish children.
Box 5.2 is an example of the staged series of lessons that Mark, the ELLIE
research team and university students conducted with Mark’s class. Teachers
may like to take these lessons and adapt them to suit their own class and a
buddy class or classes. The ELLIE website (Thomas, 2002–2005) is available for
teachers to use for the lessons involving interaction between classes. More
details about the ELLIE website are outlined in Chapter 6. Additional teaching
notes are provided to assist teachers in conducting these lessons.

Box 5.2 Unit of work for non-English speaking background children

Learning about the construction of an e-book (Spywatch) and interacting with

children from Finland to discuss and share understandings about the e-book.

Lesson 1 • Ask children about their use of the internet and

Introduction to e-books; interactive on-line games.
discussing the differences • Establish the special features they can identify
between printed books such as animation and hyperlinks, and discuss
and e-books purposes for these.
• Explain to children that they will be reading an
‘e-book’ and ask them to predict what might be
different in the e-book to printed books.

Lesson 2 • In this session allow children to work in pairs to

Reading Spywatch read and explore Spywatch. Children will need
time to explore the site, to play some of the
games, and to skip back and forth between
narrative and game to uncover the clues and
solve the puzzle of the e-book (i.e. who the spy in
the town is).
98 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES

Lesson 3 Teaching note: If computer lab time or internet

Focused reading: time is limited, we suggest making a series of
examining the use of screenshots and printing out the hard copies to
images throughout teach this lesson.
the text • Children examine a series of images from
Spywatch and respond to questions about the
construction of the characters such as:
• Which characters in Spywatch are of high
modality (see Chapter 1 for an explanation of
modality)? Which are low? What effect does
the modality have on your interaction with the
different characters? Has the author done this
on purpose? What effect is the author trying to
create? (The author has purposefully varied the
modality of the pictures to create a particular
effect. For example, the author used higher
modality pictures for the children helping us to
solve the crime to help us feel more connected
with them. The author used lower modality,
cartoon-like pictures for the spies to distance
the spies from us, making out the spies to be
not like us and more easily seen as ‘the villians’.)
• How do the characters look at us/engage us
with offers or demands? At what times in the
narrative are demands made? Do you notice
any patterns in the use of offers and demands?

Lesson 4 Provide children with the following challenges:

Focused reading: • What sort of atmosphere does the music in
examining the use of Spywatch create? How does this suit the genre
sound throughout of the narrative?
the text • Select an excerpt of Spywatch that has few
sound effects or none at all and design some
suitable accompanying music. Choose some
instruments to use for your sound effects.
Decide on the different ways to play the
instrument to create different effects (such as
tapping, blowing, thumping, playing certain
notes, etc.). Write some music notation showing
how you would use these different effects and
other elements such as dynamics (loud and
soft), and tempo (fast and slow) to create your
sound effects.
 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES 99

• Perform your sound effects while showing the

relevant excerpts from Spywatch and explain the
choices you made to create your notation.

Lesson 5 • Make a list of the hyperlinks used in Spywatch

Focused reading: and their role. (In Spywatch, hyperlinks are a
Examining the use of unique feature of the e-text and provide extra
hypertext links information. They increase the interactivity of the
throughout the story.)
narrative • Ask children to take an excerpt from a novel such
as Skellig and suggest what words or phrases or
images might be transformed into hyperlinks.
Ask them to justify their selections in terms of the
various purposes of hypertext, such as: to add
further information; to explain a new concept; to
show a close-up of a concept; to show a visual
representation of a concept; to provide
background information, and so on. Hyperlinks
are sometimes thought of as a unique form of the
textual conjunction (Morgan, 1999), so children
could decide whether the word ‘and’, ‘because’
or ‘for example’ might be used to describe the
hyperlinks.

Lesson 6 • Introduce the concept of modal adjuncts and

Focused reading: modal verbs (see Chapter 1 for an introduction
Examining the use of to modality). Provide children with examples of
verbal grammar in the the same sentence but using varying degrees of
construction of the modality, e.g:
narrative Suzanne: You should do your homework.
Lillian: You must do your homework.
Suzanne: Natasha is always good
Lillian: Natasha is usually good.
• Find an excerpt from a text which uses a range
of modal operators (or write one to suit). Have
students role-play it in small groups. Involve the
children in a discussion about the effects of the
different modals.
• Read through the introduction of Spywatch and
ask children to identify the modal words present
(some of them are bolded and in capitals e.g.,
everyone had to go to a meeting, they MUST
be spies). Ask children how the modal words add
certain effects to the story, and ask them to
100 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES

exchange one modal word with another, stating

how the meaning had been affected by using these
types of modal operators (e.g. what does it make
you think of the character? Does it change the way
you think about the story? Does it change the
mood being created? Why do you think the
author used the modals they did rather than
other ones?).

Lesson 7 • Based on children’s discussions and developing

Responding to text: understandings about Spywatch, ask them to
writing first post on work in pairs to prepare a post which explains the
ELLIE most interesting things they have learned about
Spywatch to share with the Finnish children.
• Children post their responses to Spywatch on the
ELLIE website. (Note: children had already used a
forum to post their reviews and responses to the
novel Skellig, so did not require a separate lesson
learning how to post a message on-line. Children
had also already spent time on general
introductions, but this may take several
interactions between the classes before
proceeding to responses about the text.)

Lesson 8 • Children read each other’s responses, and those

Responding to text: of the Finnish children. Children are guided into
writing posts to interact a discussion on what they have learnt from the
with Finnish children’s Finnish children and each other about Spywatch.
ideas and add further ideas Children are to write a follow-up post to respond
about the text. to the Finnish children.
• Teachers involved may like to extend their
interactions with various focus questions on the
text, depending upon children’s needs. In our
case, Mark and the Finnish teachers moved to
work off-line (see lesson 9) and at a later date
planned to share their e-text ideas with each
other as a closure for the unit of interactive
work.

Lesson 9 • Children list features of e-texts for use when

Transforming new developing their own e-text.
understandings: creating • Examine other e-texts such as Josie True
a storyboard of own (www.josietrue.com) for elements of e-texts. Ask
e-literature. children prompt questions such as:
 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES 101

• What are the textual features that make

Spywatch and Josie True interesting, involving
and informative?
(students should be thinking of: pictures,
hypertext, grammar, music, motion, games/
interaction)
• What aspects of these features were
manipulated to highlight the narrative features
such as good and evil characters?
(students should be thinking of: modality,
offer/demand, genres, language use, etc.)
• Students take a known story such as fairytale or a
favourite novel and map out a hypertext,
multimodal electronic version in storyboard
form. The teacher may prompt with questions
such as:
• How can you make the narrative interactive?
• How does the story progress?
• How do the readers navigate from page to page
or from section to section?
• Where would it be appropriate to increase the
images and decrease the text?
• How can you make the text non-linear?
• How have you engaged the reader through text/
pictures/hyperlinks?
• How have you used music or sound effects to
support the narrative?
• Will there be only one possible ending, or
several?

Lesson 10 • Children choose ways to share their storyboards.

Presenting storyboards. Depending upon time and resources, the
children may do one or more of the following:
• Take digital images to include in their e-text.
• Draw, paint or create digital art images for the
e-text.
• Compose and notate music and sound effects
to include in their e-text.
• Map out a layout for an on-line version of the
e-text.
• Create a PowerPoint version of the e-text to
feature the hyperlinked narrative.
102 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES

• Storyboards may be displayed around the

classroom, or compiled into a class ideas book.
Ideally they could be published on-line for
children in Finland (or other buddy classes) to
enjoy.

Snapshot 3: Coco

Coco is a teacher in Quebec, Canada. She teaches elementary children aged

10–12. Coco is very active in on-line communities related to both teaching
and her own personal hobbies. She is on several mailing lists related to using
technology in the classroom, and regularly engages in on-line discussions with
colleagues. In 1999, Coco first began thinking about how to take her class to
the on-line visual worlds of the palace. To begin with, the purpose she had in
mind was to encourage children to practise their English with native speakers.
As Coco explored the possibilities of the palace, she ventured into the palace
Kids, Enfants, Kinder (Thomas, 1999–2003) and observed children engaged in
interactive role-playing and storying (see Chapter 4 for a discussion of one
example of this). Coco decided to use the literature and narrative writing focus
of this palace with her children.
In the first instance, Coco organized children into small groups to use the
room backgrounds as a stimulus for interactive storybuilding. Storybuilding is
a technique where the teacher carefully guides children’s responses to ques-
tions about a stimulus to structure a narrative. The questions are used as a
framing device to ensure that the narrative is structured according to the gen-
eric schematic structure of a narrative, i.e. it begins with an orientation that
introduces the characters, settings and circumstances of the story, it has a
series of events which lead progressively more to a complication and climax,
and concludes with a resolution of that complication. Questions are carefully
thought out by the teacher prior to the lesson. As children take turns respond-
ing to the questions, the narrative develops and takes shape. The teacher may
need to probe with unplanned questions to deepen the responses given by
children.
As the narrative develops through the storybuilding activity, children are
told they need to be accepting of the responses by others (sometimes the
teacher may need to intervene if a child gives an inappropriate response that
doesn’t fit with the established narrative). However, often children indicate
that they were thinking of other ideas to the ones offered by their classmates,
and that the storybuilding has stimulated their creative thinking. To this end,
it is often good practice to finish the storybuilding by inviting children (indi-
vidually or in pairs) to write their own version of the narrative, which may use
any, all or only some of the responses developed collaboratively.
 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES 103

Stimuli for interactive storybuilding can include interesting images, old

objects (such as an old children’s shoe), a page ostensibly torn from an old
diary (e.g. the teacher may write an imaginary diary entry on a piece of paper,
and burn the edges or drag a teabag over it to make it look old and mysterious),
a recording of a voice in distress, a postcard with some mysterious text on the
back of it, an old photo, and so on. Coco’s children were familiar with this
concept and had engaged in a number of interactive storybuilding activities in
their literacy programmes throughout the year. Unsure of how to introduce
her children to the on-line role-playing, Coco thought that using the back-
ground images in the palace as a stimulus for storybuilding would provide
sufficiently familiar structure to the children to introduce them to the virtual
environment without it becoming threatening to any of them. Figure 5.2
shows a small group of Coco’s children in the palace.
Using this room background, children responded to a series of questions
to develop the narrative. Box 5.3 is an example of a framework used by Coco in

Figure 5.2 Coco’s children engaged in interactive storybuilding on the palace

104 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES

Box 5.3 Storybuilding using the room background at the palace as a stimulus

Framework of questions

1. Somebody lives alone in the castle on the hill. That person has not left the castle
grounds for over ten years. Is the person a male or a female?
2. How old is s/he?
3. What is his/her first name?
4. What colour/length/type is his/her hair?
5. There is something interesting about this person’s (insert the children’s selected
name for the person from here on) hands, tell us what it is.
6. There is one distinguishing, striking feature about the person, what is it?
7. The person doesn’t have a happy demeanour – describe the expression that is
usually seen on the person’s face.
8. Did s/he always live alone there?
9. The castle is very large for one person – describe the person’s favourite room.
10. Why is this room their favourite room?
11. In the room is a photo of this person when she/he was a child. He/she looks very
like they are laughing. Who took this photo?
12. Where is the person when this photo was taken?
13. What happened to cause the laughter seen in the photo?
14. Looking about in the room, there is another item that seems like a special keep-
sake for the person. What is it?
15. Describe this thing.
16. What makes it so special to the person?
17. The castle is so isolated up on that hill. How does the person get supplies such as
food?
18. Is the person healthy?
19. Does he/she do any exercise?
20. Describe a typical day for this person (this question could be divided up into
morning, afternoon and night to make three questions).
21. Late one afternoon, the person goes into their favourite room. Describe his/her
movements in the room.
22. The person seems to be particularly distressed this particular afternoon, what is
the news that has caused this?
23. The person has decided to write a letter. Who is he/she writing it to?
24. What does he/she write in the letter?
25. Why is it so important for the person to send this letter immediately?
26. For some reason, the letter can’t be sent in the usual way, what is this reason?
27. How does the person decide to overcome this dilemma?
28. Describe the events that followed this decision.
29. By the end of this day, the expression on the person’s face has changed. Describe
this changed expression.
30. One year later, the person is no longer living in the castle alone. Who or what is
living there with them?
 THREE TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES 105

this storybuilding exercise. The framework begins with some simple and basic
questions, but as the narrative is developed, the questions are more probing.
The simple questions at the beginning are necessary for creating a shared
understanding of the details from which more creative ideas can flow. The
framework is devised to focus on one small aspect of a narrative and as such
it also provokes further questions without offering children the opportunity
to answer them in this specific session. This leaves space for later creative and
imaginative writing.
The storybuilding activity was a safe, risk-free experience to offer the chil-
dren, and it was one that didn’t involve children from other countries. What it
did do was to encourage confidence in Coco, the children, and the children’s
parents about the environment of the palace. Coco reported that children
were not only creatively stimulated from this experience on the palace, but
they were highly enthusiastic and excited and constantly asking for more – so
much so that she decided to introduce them to the interactive on-line role-
playing of the palace related to the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone.
Coco’s class was one of the classes reported upon in Chapter 4. The interactive
role-playing was conducted in English and with children from other countries,
so Coco’s initial purpose of engaging children in speaking English with native
speakers was achieved. It was achieved, however, with much more breadth and
depth in terms of curriculum outcomes than she had ever first imagined was
possible.

Conclusion

In this chapter we have presented snapshots of the classroom work undertaken

by three teachers: Jenny, Mark and Coco, in their quests to integrate informa-
tion and communication technologies into their work with children’s litera-
ture and literacy. Each of these teachers has generously offered detailed
examples of classroom planning to provide ideas that cater for a wide range of
children. These have included classes of younger children, children in English-
speaking countries who speak English as a second language, children from
non-English-speaking countries, and classes of older children. The lessons also
showcase a variety of uses of ICT, such as using websites, exploring e-books,
using discussion forums, and using the virtual world of the palace. Teachers are
becoming increasingly more creative in their integration of ICT into the cur-
riculum, and are using and exploiting the affordances of ICT to maximum
potential. The teachers whose classroom work is discussed in this chapter are
just such teachers.
6 Middle Earth meets the Matrix!
Teachers researching
classroom practice using ICT
and children’s literature

Introduction

In previous chapters we have presented a range of transformative classroom

literacy practices involving the use of children’s literature and the affordances
of information and communication technologies. These classroom practices
have included: reading and working with CD-ROMs and literature-based web-
sites (Chapter 2); talking about children’s literature in on-line contexts such as
book raps (Chapter 3); reading, writing and performing in character the liter-
ary narratives of a role-playing MUD or palace (Chapter 4); and discussing
e-books in electronic forums (Chapter 5). In summary, the classroom experi-
ences presented have required children to engage in the reading, writing and
creating of a range of multi-modal texts for varying purposes, showcasing a
diverse range of literacies throughout the book. In presenting new ways of
using children’s literature, we have also emphasized the value and richness of
existing classroom practices, and have offered these new ways as opportunities
to enhance and develop classroom literacy programs.
In this chapter, we offer a challenge for teachers to undertake a pro-
gramme of work that adopts the new transformative literacy practices. We
invite teachers to trial an action research project with the intention of explor-
ing the potential for using digital technologies in the literacy classroom in the
ways we have discussed in this book. We outline a research plan that starts
with explaining how to initiate a study, and we provide the tools to begin the
research. We offer a series of lesson ideas, teaching strategies and methods of
observing and analyzing what children are doing with children’s literature and
ICT in this programme. We also offer a means of communicating the research
outcomes, through publication on the ELLIE (Electronic Literature and Litera-
cies in International Education) website. Our aim is to collect teachers’ reports
about the research to share with others, and to develop a network of educators
who are willing to trial and explore the most effective means of developing
children’s literacy skills in digital contexts.
 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX 107

Teachers and students as co-researchers – implementing

transformative literacy practices

In explaining action research, Mills states that it is a systematic inquiry by

educators to gather information about practices of teaching and student learn-
ing ‘with the goals of gaining insight, developing reflective practice, effecting
positive changes in the school environment and the lives of those involved’
(2003: 5). We would like to adopt the four key concepts of action research as
defined by Mills to frame up the research project we are presenting here. We
will now discuss each of these concepts in turn.
Key concept one is that the research is ‘participatory and democratic’. We
hope teachers reading this book will have felt challenged and inspired to
explore some new ways of including ICT into everyday practices with children’s
literature. We hope many of our readers will trial some of the ideas we have
presented. But we also want teachers to take a critical stance in doing this, by
investigating the value and impact of adopting the ideas we suggest. In the
project presented here, we invite feedback and offer an opportunity for teachers
(and children) to post reports and observations on a public forum (the ELLIE
forum, described in more detail later). We want to know if your use of ICT in
your programmes has made a positive difference.
Key concept two is that action research is ‘socially responsive and takes
place in context’. In our experiences, we have talked with many teachers who
are aware that the internet is fast impacting on many aspects of life, and who
believe that it is important to respond to the changes in society by using the
internet in their classrooms. Cope and Kalantzis (1999) have challenged
teachers for some years now to prepare children for ‘successful social futures’
by providing them with the literacy skills they need for living in the Informa-
tion Age. Knobel (1999) has presented a number of case studies in which
children are finding vast incongruities between their literacy practices outside
of school involving technology, and the traditional literacy practices inside
their classroom walls. It is becoming more frequent now in classrooms to have
children with more knowledge and experience in a particular context than
their teachers. We believe it is a perfect time for teachers to learn more about
the uses of ICT in meaningful ways in the classroom to enhance and support
existing practices, and to take into account the everyday literacy practices in
which many of the students of the Information Age are already involved.
Key concept three is that action research ‘helps teacher researchers exam-
ine the everyday, taken-for-granted ways in which they carry out professional
practice’. We are very interested in the existing practices of teachers when
working with literary texts in the classroom. It is important for us to determine
how teachers can effectively integrate ICT into the professional work they do
as a matter of course. We are also interested in English teachers sharing best
108 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX

practices in an international context, developing networks and discovering

together what works best and how to do it. Our hope is that through sharing
experiences, we can learn from each other. The research design to be presented
below will be a starting point for what we hope to be a productive experience
for all participants in understanding and developing transformative literacy
practices.
Finally, key concept four is that ‘knowledge gained through action research
can liberate students, teachers, and administrators and enhance learning,
teaching, and policy-making’. We encourage all of our readers who embrace
this research project to share what they have learned through it with others –
with colleague teachers, the school community, parent groups, and the com-
munity at large. Our intention with this book is to offer a guide for teachers to
explore new ideas in a supportive context. We expect that students involved
will not only find participating on-line an exciting and fun experience, but
that the experience will be one which challenges, demands, and takes their
literacy skills to new levels. We also envisage that students with experience in
on-line contexts will be empowered to become co-constructors of their own
learning, by contributing ideas and working more collaboratively with the
teacher throughout the programme. Liberating indeed! We hope that this ‘on
the ground’ research work will provide new avenues for other teachers in the
future, and that in fact the experiences of our readers will impact at the policy
level in the future.
These key concepts of action research encapsulate the excitement and
enthusiasm we have in inviting our readers to become involved with us in a
common research project, to share our reports, and to discover together new
ways of using ICT in the English classroom. We see our role as an enabling one
– enabling teachers to generate clear and critical ways forward to improve and
enhance children’s learning. Through engaging in this project and participat-
ing in a global community, we believe that together we can make a difference
to the quality of children’s literacy learning in classrooms.

The classroom research project: Middle Earth

Meets the Matrix!

This research project will centre on a study of the world of Tolkien: Middle
Earth. We will present a series of lesson ideas as we articulate the research
design. It is important to keep a clear research focus in mind throughout the
programme, and this begins with defining our research question(s). We suggest
the following:

• In what ways (if any) is children’s literacy enhanced through their

participation on-line?
 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX 109

• What (if anything) did the children learn through their on-line par-
ticipation that they could not have achieved off-line?

Teachers may also have questions in mind such as ‘How does this enhance my
existing practice?’ These questions should help focus and inform the ways of
observing what happens throughout the project. The answers to these ques-
tions will be determined through collecting information at various stages of
the project.
In Chapter 4 we introduced the on-line visual worlds of palaces, sites for
interactive communication and role-playing. The main site for the research
will be at the Middle Earth palace (Sorenson, 2000–2005, on-line), a g-rated
visual virtual world. Instructions and free software required for joining this
site are outlined in detail at the Middle Earth palace website (RAGTime,
2002). The palace is owned by Laurie Sorenson, or, as she prefers to be called
on-line, ‘Nimue’, and she and her volunteer staff are all Tolkien aficionados.
The community members (ranging from age 11 to 70), have names such as
‘Elrond’ and ‘Hobbitness’ and they come from many different countries,
including England, the USA, Holland, and Australia. The palace is replete
with beautiful art work traversing all of Tolkien’s magical lands, from the
Shire to Lothlorien to Helm’s Deep. Many rooms have sound bytes from the
movie versions of the books, and each room has a drop-down help menu for
beginners, covering basics like movement from room to room in the palace,
and a map showing where you are located in Middle Earth. Avatars of
hobbits, elves and the other citizens of Middle Earth are hidden away in
rooms like Easter eggs, and children will find great enjoyment hunting
and collecting them. Some of the Middle Earth community members like to
speak Elvish (but always offer translations for the novice), others like to dance
and sing songs or recite poetry in the Hobbit tradition. Middle Earth also
has an associated website and web forum, as well as a text-based fantasy
role-playing site.
The Middle Earth website provides information about the palace, includ-
ing a list of staff members, the rules for participating, general background
information, instructions for joining, and sample rooms to show what the
palace environment is like, such as Figure 6.1.
The website describes the palace environment as follows:

Middle Earth is an interactive graphical chat environment, built by

and for Tolkien fans! For those of you who think ‘chat’ on the internet
is only ‘text on a screen’, you are in for a pleasant surprise . . . oh yes
precious . . . pleasant suprisssess . . . Middle Earth is made up of inter-
connecting chat rooms that are animated and scripted. You can navi-
gate with maps or take one of our tours of the books or the movies.
Our guests can interact with the rooms and other guests by moving
110 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX

Figure 6.1 Sample palace room at Middle Earth

around on the screen, chatting, activating scripts and by wearing

avatars.
(RAGTime, 2002, on-line)

We have selected this particular palace as the research site for a number of
reasons:

• It is an excellent example of a role-playing palace of the nature

described in Chapter 4.
• It is g-rated and this is strictly enforced by the staff, so children can be
ensured of a safe on-line learning environment.
• The worlds and words of Tolkien are enchanting to many age
 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX 111

groups, and provide a rich literary focus in which children can be

immersed.
• The palace has a number of in-built tutorials for beginners.
• The staff (the Gods and wizards) and community members are
friendly, fun, and more than willing to support teachers in their work.
The owner is very enthusiastic about the prospect of teachers and
their classes of students visiting and is happy to make any modifica-
tions or to add features to the palace if asked.
• There is an ‘Instant Palace’ version of Middle Earth, which means that
it can be accessed directly through a web browser.
• The palace has many existing fun features, such as the hidden
avatars, the music, the animated room images, maps, information,
links to Tolkien websites, and a dedicated website and newsgroup for
discussion.

Sharing the research outcomes (ELLIE)

We have created a research website with a focus on investigating ‘Electronic

Literature and Literacies in International Education’: the ELLIE website
(Thomas, 2002–2005). On this website we have started publishing ideas and
examples of research projects. The site has an in-built discussion forum that
was discussed in Chapter 5. On the website we have also started compiling a
range of web-based resources which may support teachers in undertaking the
‘Middle Earth Meets the Matrix’ research project. Below we have identified a
number of stages throughout the project when teachers might submit material
to the website. We invite teachers to engage in forum discussions and in the
submission of observations, impressions, and children’s sample creations at
all stages of the project. This will provide a valuable support network for all
participants in the project, with opportunities to manage any difficulties
experienced, and to seek assistance in understanding and interpreting
the data collected. As more participants share their reports, we will work
together to answer the research questions.

Managing the project

Box 6.1 is the outline of suggested lessons matched with various stages of
the research design. This project is suitable for children aged approximately
10–14 years of age. The lessons are designed to give children time to immerse
themselves in the rich world of Tolkien through both on-line and off-line
experiences. The end point of the lessons is an on-line role-play on the Middle
Earth palace. The lessons are meant as a guide only, and we expect that the
112 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX

Box 6.1 The Middle Earth Meets the Matrix Research Project

Potential curriculum outcomes

Through this unit of work it is anticipated that students will do the following:
• Revise the grammatical features of narratives and use these to co-construct
their own narratives.
• Discuss in detail the genre of fantasy and in particular, the Hero’s quest,
through comparing examples of literature across different cultures reflecting
this genre, and through writing in this genre.
• Conduct detailed investigations of the type of language used by different
Middle Earth characters in varying contexts (i.e. type of vocabulary used by
different characters, the language of songs and poems used by the Hobbits, an
investigation into the Elvish language, a study of riddles as used by Bilbo
Baggins in the cave, as well as the rich language of fantasy and description used
by Tolkien).
• Be able to describe and critique the style of Tolkien’s writing.
• Write, illustrate and participate in an extended fantasy story, drawing upon
knowledge of the genre.
• Practise and use sophisticated, extended vocabulary as appropriate to
characters and the fantasy context.
• Use technology to create texts and images (e.g. avatars).
• Demonstrate a high degree of technological literacy through effectively
participating in literary events in the digital context.

Lesson focus Lesson details Research focus

1. Reading The Teacher reading class novel: The These first lessons are
Hobbit Hobbit setting the stage for
Teachers may also like to show the the research. They are
film version of the The Hobbit, and designed to immerse
compare the film and book versions. the children in the
worlds and words of
During reading, the teacher may
Tolkien, to create
invite some guided discussions about
enthusiasm and to
the characters and Bilbo’s journey,
provoke curiosity.
such as What hints does the narrator
give that the cave will not be the safe
shelter the dwarves hope for? in
Chapter 4.
There are numerous teacher guides
to assist children in reading and
understanding the text. Some on-line
resources such as the Teachers @
 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX 113

Random House website (Random

House, 2004, on-line) and the
Webster School District website
(2004, on-line) provide valuable
examples if teachers are looking for
ideas.
Teachers may like to seek out an
appropriate book rap as described in
Chapter 3 to talk with other classes
about The Hobbit.

2. Creating a Children design a map of Bilbo Teacher begins

story map Baggins’ journey through Middle recording
Earth. Children can use Tolkien’s rich observations of the
descriptive language as a source for language use of
guiding their illustrations. children with focus
questions such as:
• Are the children
using any
specialized
language to
describe the
journey?
• How do children
talk about their
choices of images
used to illustrate
the map?

3. Character Children research characters in Teacher continues to

studies mythology such as elves, hobbits, record observations
dwarves etc. They may: of children’s use of
• write descriptions (using language and image.
knowledge of features of Teacher also compiles
descriptions, such as detailed noun a list of resources and
groups using a range of adjective associated websites
types), that best assist
• draw images (using knowledge of children in their
visual grammar as a guide), developing
• discuss qualities of characters such understandings – a
as bravery list of resources used
Using ideas by Lawrence (1987), we by teachers will be
suggest further exploration of the published at the ELLIE
114 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX

characters through games such as website so teachers

‘name the character’, which involves are invited to
allocating the students a character to contribute their ideas
research, and then to write clues, to this resource list.
draw pictures and/or role-play the
character in front of the group who
have to guess which character it is.

4. Introduction Teachers take the children onto the During this phase we
to the Middle palace and give them time to explore suggest the teacher
Earth palace its features. A quick way of exploring keep a journal of
is directly through the web using the reflections and
‘Instant Palace’ version: (http:// observations about
middleearthpalace.com:9984/ the experiences had
palace/client/instantpal.html). both by themselves
However, not all of the features are when first visiting the
available through instant palace, so palace, and by the
we recommend teachers download children as they
the free software ‘palace client’ and explore. It would be
connect using that. As previously valuable to tape
mentioned, this software can be record pairs of
downloaded from the Middle Earth children at a time
palace website. to examine the
language they used
We also recommend that teachers
as they explored,
visit the palace a number of times
negotiated and
prior to the children to familiarize
discovered the world
themselves with the features of the
of the Middle Earth
site, the rules, the staff, and so on.
palace.
This exploration phase of the project
may take some weeks, as the learning
curve may be quite steep.
We suggest doing the beginner
tutorials to best understand the
technicalities of the space.

5. Creating a In this series of lessons we Character

character for recommend that teachers use the descriptions and
role-play Maricopa website (MCLI, 2000, on- photo albums should
line) guide to creating characters for be collected as
‘a hero’s story’ in preparation for their artefacts for sharing
role-playing in part 7 of the project. and for future
This site provides a scaffold examination.
 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX 115

for children to develop an original

and rich background for their
characters, rather than relying on
using the popular characters from
Tolkien’s book.
This scaffold asks children to consider
where their character was born, what
their favourite pastimes when
growing up were, what their special
talents were and so on. This
background information will provide
a strong foundation for the in-role
action to come.
Once children have developed their
character, another way to consolidate
the background information would
be to ask children to create a small
photo album of their character’s life.
Children could also write captions to
support their ‘photos’.

6. Creating Teacher selects various sections of Texts and images

character the Hobbit to highlight some of the created by the
texts and specialized language use by Tolkien children should be
images. and by particular characters (for collected for sharing
example, the rich language used by on the ELLIE website
Tolkien to describe both characters and also for analysis.
and places; the songs of the dwarves
(Chapter 1), or the goblins (Chapter
4); the Elvish language (examples
might also be taken from Lord of the
Rings); and the riddles used by Bilbo
and Gollum (Chapter 5).
Children create texts and images for
role-play: songs, riddles, greetings
in Elvish, character expressions,
selection of avatars and props.
A detailed list of web-based resources
to assist teachers and children in this
process (for example, tutorials in
elvish, tutorials in making avatars)
are listed on the ELLIE website.
116 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX

7. Role-playing Everything has been leading up to the Transcripts of the role-

on the role-playing. play should be kept
palace: the The structure of the ‘hero’s quest’ for analysis.
palace quest. genre is outlined in a number of If teachers have video
on-line resources (e.g. the Random facilities, a video of
House website identified in session the role-playing
one above). The teacher should would be valuable to
discuss the structure and engage capture the visual
children in identifying the elements in elements of the
both The Hobbit and other examples experience.
of quest texts.
The role-playing should follow the After some time
three key steps of a quest: the has been spent
departure, the initiation and the conducting
return. During each of these stages preliminary analyses,
the teacher should organize for a we invite teachers to
particular child or a parent helper (or share reports of their
one of the Middle Earth community project on-line at the
members) to go in role as a guide to ELLIE website.
move the narrative successfully
through each stage.
Role-playing is best done in small Teachers may like to
groups of probably no more than use the forums on
8–10 children. Groups could be ELLIE to seek support
identified from session five above so in analyzing the role-
that children could work together playing transcripts
to select characters that could be together, or in
involved in the quest together. discussing any issues
Children could be involved in making or ideas that arose
decisions about the narrative out of during this (or any)
role throughout the stages of the stage of the research
role-playing. process.
Details of a possible quest to take and
the structures and stages of the quest
are detailed below.
At the conclusion of the quest, the
teacher may like to extend the unit of
work and have children write scripts
based on their role-play. Children
may like to recreate the on-line scenes
off-line, or they may like to repeat the
 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX 117

quest with their scripted lines.

Teachers are invited to share any
additional ideas on the ELLIE
website.

program will be adapted in numerous ways to suit the particular needs of the
class of children, and also to best meet the curriculum demands of each
teacher’s respective school, education department and country. In the project
design below we have also identified how the suggested lessons may in fact
meet such curriculum demands.

The role-play in Middle Earth: the quest to save Mithradir

The following role-play in Box 6.2 has been designed with the kind assistance
of the members of the Middle Earth community. It is important for the teacher
to first email the owner, Nimue, to discuss times and organize the groups so
that community assistance is available during the role-play. The teacher
should also email the project manager, Angela Thomas (a.thomas@edfac.
usyd.edu.au), to enable access to ELLIE forums and be directed to resources
necessary. Contact details are included at the end of this chapter. We suggest
the teacher work through the role-play rooms first without the children to
become familiar with how it works.

A further note about meeting curriculum demands

It is anticipated that the stages in the programme of work (fun!) will be suited
to varying modes of organization by the teacher. The reading of The Hobbit and
study of Elvish will clearly be a whole-class shared activity. Creating characters
would best be independent group tasks, while any stage where children are
actually on-line in Middle Earth should be a strictly supervised and guided
group task. We have suggested that on-line role-playing best be organized in
groups of no more than eight to ten children. However, the number of com-
puters with on-line access and the location of these computers may impact
upon group size. Ideally, a minimum of four on-line computers would be
required to best engage children in all experiences in the programme of work.
It would be valuable to invite parents to be part of the on-line experiences
too – not just for practical purposes of assisting teachers, but also to create a
wider excitement and enthusiasm for the project. It would also offer parents
an opportunity to learn something new about the technological world that
they might not otherwise have a chance to do. In this way, children will also
realize that learning is a lifelong process.
118 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX

Box 6.2 Details of the role-play

The role-play will take approximately three 1 hour sessions. It is designed to be

both challenging and fun. At various stages a group of children may need to do
further work off-line to progress their quest. The role-playing uses techniques of
experiential drama such as ‘teacher-in-role’, ‘still images’, ‘storytelling’, ‘image
making’, and ‘writing in role’ (Neelands and Goode, 2000; O’Neill, 1995; Taylor,
2000). It also makes use of the affordances of the palace, such as animated
scripting, on-line virtual theatre, avatar creation, and specialized coding
commands. Children are required to use both language and image for a range of
purposes within the overall quest.

Drama stage and

Palace room strategy Details of stage

Hobbiton 1. Group Children meet at Hobbiton Smials and are

Smials improvised role- told that all of their characters have been
Mallorn Glade play to familiarize called to a Middle Earth assembly to hear
each other with some important news. The assembly is
characters and to held in the room on the palace called
begin the process Mallorn Glade, which is in the Woods of
of enrolling. Lothlorien. There will be a picnic feast
waiting for them upon their arrival to the
meeting place so the characters can meet
each other, introduce each other and talk
together (in role) over food as they
wonder what the important news will be.

Mallorn Glade 2. Teacher in role The teacher comes on in role as the blue
to establish the wizard Pallando. Children are told by
purpose of quest Pallando that a young elf named
and guide the Mithradir was playing with his friend,
action. Curunir in the valley of Rivendell, when
the evil dragon Scatha swooped down
and snatched Mithradir in his talons,
flying away. Pallando says that he is
unable to use his wizardly powers in
Middle Earth, but will help direct them to
Elrond, since only Elrond, leader of the
elves, has the special gift of foresight.
Only Elrond may be able to reveal
whether or not Mithradir is alive, and if
so, where he is being held. Pallando
directs the children to the entrance of
Lothlorien, the Elven Escort room.
 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX 119

Elven Escort 3. Teacher in role Children are to go to the room Elven

Advice of the to respond to Escort to take the swan boat ride (click
Lady children’s the start button to commence the boat
The Silverlode questions, to ride, to be taken two people at a time)
Two Rivers encourage along the rivers Nimrodel and Silverlode
Meet speaking phrases to Lothlorien. When they arrive, the
Haldir’s Picnic in Elvish, and to teacher (or a parent, or one of the
further the quest. children) can go in role as Elrond to be
questioned by the children about the
whereabouts of Mithradir. When the
children arrive, they are surprised to
realize that Elrond only speaks Elvish, so
they may need to go and seek translation
assistance from the web or from one of
the community members of Middle Earth
to seek Elrond’s assistance. Elrond tells
the children: ‘At the bottom of the falls of
Henneth Annun in Ithilien sits Gollum,
and only Gollum has seen the path taken
by the dragon.’ Elrond also gives the
characters a fish (an avatar of the fish is
hidden in the room Haldir’s Picnic, and
can be retrieved by clicking on the image
of the bird) and tells them that they may
need the fish to summon Gollum.

The Forbidden 4. Teacher in Children are to hunt for the room that
Pool role, children meets this description (the room is
The Oliphant questioning, actually called The Forbidden Pool in the
The Forbidden telling riddles, lands of Gondor and Gollum appears
Pool following clues. after a click at the bottom of the pool OR
Ruins in Ithilien if the children are wearing the fish avatar,
but children should be given time to
explore the clues given by Elrond to try to
find the room themselves). The teacher
(or a parent, or one of the children, or a
Middle Earth community member) is to
go in role as Gollum and demand that
the characters entertain him with riddles
before he gives away any clues as to
Mithradir’s whereabouts. After the
children have told a few riddles, Gollum
tells them the next clue: ‘Grey as mouse,
120 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX

big as a house, nose like a snake, I make

the earth shake. As I tramp through the
grass, trees crack as I pass, with horns in
my mouth I walk in the South. Flapping
big ears, beyond count of years, I stump
round and round, never lie on the
ground . . .’ Find me, then click the
glowing horse twice, then ask the old
man of the ruins for your next clue (click
on his head but be sure you are holding
the ancient rune as you do so).

Ruins in Ithilien 5. Clue-seeking The ancient man of the runes speaks:

‘Scatha has hidden the elf you speak
of in his treasure cave. There is a secret
password you need to type to take you
directly to speak to Scatha. Shall I tell
you? You must beware though, as Scatha
will need a great deal of convincing to
give you custody of Mithradir! The secret
code you must type in exactly is: “Yala
onna” (Yala onna is elvish for “summon
creature”, and as each child says this
phrase, they are transported into the
room called The Hoard). It is an image of
a dragon with a hoard of treasures’.

The Hoard 6. Teacher-in-role The teacher or assigned person is to go in

to provoke role as the dragon, Scatha. The teacher
children’s use should hiss and spit and crackle and
of persuasive flame appropriately during this role-
language, playing session. The teacher (dragon)
problem solving should at first absolutely refuse to return
and further Mithradir, and tell the children that they
research about must have a convincing argument to
aspects of persuade her. At this stage the children
mythology. might want to go out of role and discuss
what they know about dragons in
mythology, and problem solve what
might work to charm or convince the
dragon to return Mithradir. They may
need to revise their understandings of
the genre of argument and persuasive
language, they may decide to make small
 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX 121

avatar props of gifts for the dragon, or

they may decide to create song lyrics to
charm it. Children may also like to re-
read Chapter 12 of The Hobbit, which has
descriptions of the dragon Smaug. The
teacher could point out the flattering
language that Bilbo uses to speak to
Smaug, such as ‘O Smaug the
Tremendous’ and ‘O Smaug the Chiefest
and Greatest of Calamities’ (Tolkien,
1937). They are then to return to the
room to try to charm the dragon. The
teacher is to continue being difficult to
persuade to really make the children
extend their use of language at this stage.
Finally, when the teacher feels the
children have worked hard enough (!),
the dragon can tell them that the only
way he will return Mithradir is if the
children retrieve its treasured Arkenstone
which was taken by the dwarves some
years previously. The Arkenstone is the
one ancient jewel coveted most by the
greedy dragon! The children will have to
ask how to find it, and the dragon can tell
them that there is a secret entrance to the
dwarves’ treasures in Moria somewhere,
marked by the symbol of an ancient rune.

Moria Hall 7. Improvised Children search for the clues until they
Dwarf Lobby role-play, treasure find the room called Moria Hall, at which
Various rooms hunt, resolving they speak the secret password (Moria)
of Isengard the problem, to enter the room with the hoard of
The Hoard completing the treasure. A group of dwarves are
quest and guarding the treasure in the room and
returning home. demand to know what the children are
doing there. The children then need to
ask for the Arkenstone. The dwarves
make the children explain why they want
it, then offer them the Arkenstone only if
they can return with the seven golden
artefacts of Isengard. The golden artefacts
are props hidden in various rooms of
122 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX

Isengard, and can be obtained by

spotting and clicking on the secret rune
symbol. Upon collection, the children
return to the dwarves and offer up the
seven artefacts (dropping the seven
props). Once all seven props are
dropped, they will each be given a piece
of the Arkenstone, which they have to
cooperate to piece together like a jigsaw,
then they can return to the room called
The Hoard to give the Arkenstone to the
dragon, Scatha. Once the Arkenstone is
dropped in the dragon’s lair, the missing
elf, Mithradir, will appear, and they will
all be transported back to the Mallorn
Glade.

Mallorn Glade 8. Storytelling in Upon their return, the children can tell
role the stories of the quest to the concerned
family and friends in Lothlorien. It would
be fun if the school principal or the
children’s parents were on-line waiting
for the questing characters to listen to the
stories. One of the children might like
to go in role as Mithradir to tell how
frightened it was in Scatha’s cave and
how grateful he was to the rescuers. The
teacher might like to add in a curious
ending by commenting that Mithradir’s
friend Curunir who was with him at the
time of the kidnapping by the dragon
‘looked none too pleased to see his friend
again, though masked his displeasure by
a thin smile’. This might pave the way for
further writing in role, or further role-
playing in the future.

Mallorn Glade 9. Reflection on The teacher should spend some time off-
the role-play line with the children to allow them to
through writing, tell their stories again, both in role, and
drawing, retelling then out of role. Groups might like to
and discussing retell their quest in a series of still photos,
what was learned. or in song, or through writing, to share
with others.
 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX 123

Collecting the research data

Above we have outlined times throughout the project during which observa-
tions of various activities may be collected. In addition to observations, we
have recommended other types of data also be collected. These included: col-
lecting artefacts such as the text and images created by students as preparation
for their virtual role-playing; keeping transcripts of the palace logs of the role-
playing and using the video and associated storyboards to examine language
use. Methods of analysis are discussed below. Additionally, we suggest giving
the children a questionnaire asking them to describe what they learned
throughout the unit. The questionnaire could ask such questions as:

• What did you enjoy most about the work you did on Middle Earth?
• What three things did you learn that were completely new to you?
• What else would you have liked to do about Middle Earth that you
didn’t get time to do?
• Did your teacher or your parents think you did something special in
this unit of work that you hadn’t done before?

As Mills states, ‘[I]t is generally accepted in action research circles that re-
searchers should not rely on any single source of data, interview, observation,
or instrument’ (2003: 52). Using a range of sources is termed ‘triangulation’
and it is recommended to ensure that varying perspectives can be closely
examined to understand complex phenomena. It also provides a systematic
and rigorous way to ensure that the conclusions from the research are clear
and well supported. The matrix in Table 6.1 reflects the research design taking
into account the need for triangulation.

Analyzing the research data

As Stake asserts, ‘there is no particular moment when data analysis begins . . .

[a]nalysis essentially means taking something apart. We take our impressions,
our observations apart’ (1995: 71). It is for this reason that we have
emphasized the posting of observations and data on the ELLIE website at
many stages throughout the research project. By sharing observations with
other teachers, we expect that discussions will ensue that will assist in the
interpretation of those observations. The questionnaires given to children will
also elicit from them the degree of learning they believe they have achieved
through the programme, and what they say about their own learning will
provide an excellent avenue for discussion and analysis. Some teachers may
feel that reflecting upon their observations and the children’s comments will
provide them with the answers to the research questions. However, in addition
to the observations and questionnaires, there is one other specific research tool
124 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX

Table 6.1 Research data collection

Data source

Research questions 1 2 3

In what ways (if any) Observations Artefacts created Role-playing logs –

are children’s and field notes by children for transcripts of
literacy skills recorded by on-line interactions
enhanced through teacher participation:
their participation avatars, songs,
on-line? elvish texts

What (if anything) Teacher records Artefacts children Questionnaires

did the children learn of children’s have created in given to children
through their on-line literacy previous units of
participation that achievements off-line work for
they could not have prior to the comparison
achieved off-line? research project

we wish to suggest teachers use together to understand and interpret the data
collected. This is a discourse analysis (both text and image) of the artefacts and
role-playing logs created by children.
Discourse analysis provides a means for looking closely at the ways in
which children have used language and images to construct their texts. Our
first research question, ‘In what ways (if any) are children’s literacy skills
enhanced through their participation on-line?’ requires an inspection of the
level of literacy demonstrated in the texts constructed by the children. The
second question, ‘What (if anything) did the children learn through their on-
line participation that they could not have achieved off-line?’ requires a close
inspection of the role-playing logs and a comparison between this and other
texts created by children. We would like to propose a basic ten-step process to
the discourse analysis:

1 Looking back over your observations, what are the common themes
or patterns you can identify that seem significant?
2 Reading through the artefacts children made, what grammatical
features of narrative (or other genres where appropriate) are evidenced,
and what in particular stands out as remarkable or unexpected?
3 Viewing the images children created in the various artefacts, what
visual grammar features are evidenced, and does anything stand out
as remarkable or unexpected?
4 What intertextuality is evidenced through the children’s role-playing
 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX 125

(i.e. what are the other texts that children draw from in order to
successfully participate in the role-play)?
5 In responding to the questionnaire, what are the common themes
children mentioned that seem significant?
6 In what ways did you observe children adopting or exercising power
throughout both the on-line and off-line experiences?
7 In what ways did individual children construct a sense of the character
they were role-playing, and what elements of the real child did you
see reflected in the character?
8 When discussing their experiences, what statements did children
make when referring to themselves, i.e. what ‘I-statements’ (Gee,
1999: 124) did they make?
9 What words or phrases used by children seemed particularly import-
ant in the role-playing context?
10 Overall, what did children learn about The Hobbit in this unit that
seemed unique or different to what they have learned in other units
on similar children’s literature, and to what would you attribute this?

This is a starting point for the analysis. For teachers wanting to learn more
about techniques of textual and visual discourse analysis, we recommend the
following references: Phillips and Jorgensen (2002), Gee (1999), Kress and van
Leeuwen (2001), and Rose (2001). As a conclusion to the analysis we invite
teachers to write a report of their experiences, reflections and findings from the
research project. We will collate these reports and publish them at the ELLIE
website, and (ideally) into a future print publication.

Further research possibilities

The ‘Middle Earth Meets the Matrix’ research project is one exemplar of the
type of research project that could be undertaken by teachers to investigate
meaningful ways of incorporating ICT and children’s literature in classroom
practice. However, there are other palaces and on-line forums dedicated to
children’s literature that could also work as a viable starting point for a similar
type of research project. The palaces Hogwarts (Maykitten, 2004), Harry Potters
(Aurora, 2004), and Bloody Brilliant (Layke, 2004), are dedicated to Harry Potter
fans and have related websites/discussion forums. The palace Nexus Quest
(Souza, 2004) and related website is dedicated to Pokémon fans. There are a
number of anime palaces dedicated to Japanese fantasy quests. Some palaces
have themes based on Arthurian legend or Greek mythology. A directory of all
palaces and a description of the palaces is book marked in the palace software,
so teachers can explore the range of sites and select one that best suits the
needs of the class. A word of caution, however, we have not talked with staff
126 MIDDLE EARTH MEETS THE MATRIX

members of each palace and cannot recommend that any palace apart from
Middle Earth will be suitable for a research project with children. Teachers
should explore the palace site thoroughly and seek permission from its owners
to ensure that children will be in a safe environment at all times. We wish
teachers well in pursuing other suitable research projects and offer the invita-
tion to you to share your experiences with us on ELLIE.

Conclusion

In this book we have presented ways for teachers to integrate information

and communication technologies with the teaching of children’s literature.
We have offered increasingly complex uses of technology in this integration:
from using websites by children’s authors in the classroom, to immersing
children in the on-line visual worlds of the palace and encouraging them to
use their knowledge of literature to create literary works of their own. In Chap-
ter 1 we outlined an explicit metalanguage for talking about text and image
with children. We have demonstrated how this might be incorporated into
practice in succeeding chapters when discussing a range of multi-modal ver-
sions of children’s literature. Finally, we have discussed the potential of a col-
laborative network of teachers engaging together in the ‘Middle Earth Meets
the Matrix’ research project, with interaction and collaboration through the
ELLIE website. We are eager to examine further how knowledge about child-
ren’s literature can be enhanced in on-line multi-modal social contexts, both
for the children we teach, and for us as teachers and researchers. We have
aimed to develop a shared language of the grammars of text and image, the
affordances of technology and how it might be included in studies of child-
ren’s literature. This, coupled with a shared vision of researching what class-
room practices are most conducive to learning, puts us in a strong position to
move forward and meet the challenges of preparing children for successful
social futures, drawing on the enduring lessons from literature and the increas-
ing affordances of ICT.

Contact details for the project

Email for access to the ELLIE forums and participation in the project through
Angela Thomas: [email protected]
Email for the owner of the Middle Earth palace, Nimue: [email protected]
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 Index

action research, 4, 106–26 steps in process, 50–1

data analysis, 123–5 usefulness, 44–6
data collection, 123, 124 Book Week rap, 54–60
dissemination of research, 108, 111 boundaries, changing, 6
further research possibilities, 125–6 Brown, M., Arthur’s Teacher Trouble, 25
managing the project, 111–17 Browne, A.
meeting curriculum demands, 117 Gorilla, 8–9, 11–12
research project using Middle Earth, Piggybook, 12, 18–19
108–11 Voices in the Park, 8
role-play in Middle Earth, 117–22 Zoo, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17–20
teachers and students as co-researchers, Bruckman, A., 70–1, 72
107–8 Burnett, F.H., The Secret Garden, 18, 23
actional processes, 11–12 Burningham, J.
affectual cues, 71 Come Away from the Water, Shirley, 15
Alibris, 28–9 Granpa, 15
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll), 23
Almond, D., Skellig, 28, 96 Cannon, J., Stellaluna, 9, 23, 24
Amazon.com, 28–9 Carmody, I., Dreamwalker, 2, 34–43
Andreeson, M., 81 Carroll, J., Billy the Punk, 61
Andrews, R., 46 Carroll, L., Alice’s Adventures in
Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery), 23 Wonderland, 23
artefacts created by students, 115 Casey, T., 71
as research data, 123–5 CD-ROM versions, 1, 2, 22–5
Arthur’s Teacher Trouble (Brown), 25 critical perspective on hypertext, 25
Aurora, 125 media and presentation format, 23–4
Australia, internet use in, 86–7 types of children’s literature in, 22–3
authors’ websites, 26–7, 28, 33, 33–4 Chambers, A., 51
avatars, 78, 82, 109 The Present Takers, 28
Chaplin, E., 81
Baumgartner, J., 73–8 character descriptions, 74–5
BBC, 96 character profiles, 65, 66
Berners-Lee, T., 81 character studies, 113–14
Billy the Punk (Carroll), 61 characterization, 71
Black and White (Macaulay), 7 characters
Blair Witch palace, 78 building for MUDs, 64–5, 74–5
Bloody Brilliant palace, 125 creating for role-play, 114–15
book awards rap, 54–60 Children’s Book Council (CBC) Book Week
Book Chat site, 61 rap, 45–6, 54–60
book raps, 2–3, 44–62 children’s literature, 2, 5–21
background and essential features, 47–51 radical change, 5, 6–9
designing, 61 verbal grammar, 3, 5–6, 15–20
enhancing talk about text, 51–4 visual grammar, 3, 5, 9–15
getting started, 60–1 circumstances, 16, 18–19
including in classroom units of work, Clarke, B., 96–7
54–60 classics, 22–3, 26
138 INDEX

classroom practices, 3, 89–105 discussion forums, on-line, 33, 44–6, 61–2

collaborative writing using a palace, 89, classroom practice, 89, 90–7, 98–102
102–5 ELLIE, 89, 90–7, 98–102, 111
English as a second language, 89, 90–102 see also book raps
palaces, 84–6 dissemination of research, 108, 111
visual literacy, 89, 90–5 Don’t Forget the Bacon (Hutchins), 12
see also lesson programmes Dreamwalker (Carmody), 2, 34–43
Cleary, B., 28, 29 exploring use of image and language off-
co-authoring, 81 line, 38–43
collaboration, 72, 73, 81 on-line resources, 34–8
narrative writing using a palace, 89, 102–5 Dreamwalker comic series, 35–6
colour, 14 Dreamwalker: The Path of Sacred Power
Come Away from the Water, Shirley (Summer Rain), 37
(Burningham), 15 ‘Dreamwalker: Roleplaying in the land of
comic books, 35–6 Dreams’, 37–8
commands Dreamwalker’s Daughter, The, 36
MUDs, 64, 65, 75 ‘Dreamwalkers’ Holt’, 38
verbal grammar, 19–20 Dresang, E., 5, 6, 7, 23
wizards’ special commands, 65, 82 Dudfield, A., 63, 66, 67
complications, in role-plays, 76–7
composition, context of, 28 EBBS Gallery of Client Software for Muds
compositional meanings, 10, 14–15 and/or Moos, 69
conceptual images, 12 e-books (electronic narratives), 96–7, 98–102
constructionism, 72 Electric Communities, 78
contact between viewer and represented Electronic Literature and Literacies in
participants, 13 International Education (ELLIE), 61–2
context classroom practice, 3, 89, 90–7, 98–102
action research and, 107 dissemination of research on website, 4,
of composition, 28 106, 111, 116–17, 125, 126
Cool School: You Make it Happen (Marsden), website, 2, 82, 97
26 email lists for book raps, 49–50
coordinator (book rap), 46, 48, 50 Emerald City palace, 79
Cope, B., 107 engagement, 45–6
Cucik, D., 72 English as a second language, 89, 90–102
Cybersphere MUD, 65, 66 enticement of readers, 28–9
cyborg script, 82 E-pal site, 61
‘Eternal City, The’, 68, 69, 70
Dahl, R., 33, 95
Daniels, H., 51, 53–4 fan fiction, 79
DartMUD, 65 Finnish students, 89, 95–102
data analysis, 123–5 Fleischman, P., Whirligig, 7
data collection, 123, 124 formats, changing, 7
Debord, G., 80 forms, changing, 7
demands, 13, 98 fractured fairytales, 94–5
Demeter and Persephone myth, 84–6, 87, French, J., Soldier on the Hill, 51–4
105 Frog Prince Continued, The (Scieszka and
democratic research, 107 Johnson), 94
descriptive writing, 72
dialogue, 19–20 Gaarder, J., Sophie’s World, 23
digital culture, 6–9 Galaxy Station palace, 79
discourse analysis, 123–5 game-playing, 33–4
discussion boards, 38 see also role-playing
 INDEX 139

Gee, J., 125 interpersonal meanings

George Shrinks (Joyce), 23, 24, 25 verbal grammar, 16, 19–20, 39–43
Giorgis, C., 32 visual grammar, 10, 13–14, 39, 40, 41
‘given’ and ‘new’ information, 14–15, intertextuality, 94
93 Dreamwalker, 34–6
Gleitzman, M., 26–7, 28, 33 inventiveness, 73
Gmud, 69
gods, 65, 82 Jay, M., 80
Goetschi, E., 80 Jennings, P., 26, 28, 33
Gorilla (Browne), 8–9, 11–12 Quirky Tales, 8
Granpa (Burningham), 15 Job Shop palace, 80
graphical user interface (GUI), 81 Johnson, N.J., 32
Greek mythology, 84–6, 87, 105 Johnson, S., 94
guided learning, 45–6 Josie True, 101
gypsy-themed MUD, 66–7 Joyce, M., 90
Joyce, W., George Shrinks, 23, 24, 25
Harry Potters palace, 125 June 29, 1999 (Wiesner), 30–1
Harvey, D., 81
Henry P. Baloney (Scieszka and Smith), 34 Kalantzis, M., 107
hero’s quest genre, 114–15, 116, 117–22 Katz, J., 87–8
Hobbit, The (Tolkien), 112–13, 121 Kids Chat palace, 80
Hogwarts palace, 125 Kids, Enfants, Kinder palace, 3
Holes (Sacher), 7 classroom applications, 84–6, 87
Hollindale, P., 5 entrance room, 78, 79
horizontal angle, 14 interactive storybuilding, 102–5
‘hot seat’ technique, 91 Knobel, M., 107
Hurricane (Wiesner), 31 Knowles, M., 18
Hutchins, P., Don’t Forget the Bacon, 12 Kress, G., 5, 10, 11, 13, 81
hypertext, 24, 99–101
critical perspective on hypertext as a Landow, G., 81
narrative device, 25 Lawrence, E.T., 113–14
Layke, 125
ideational meanings learning activities
verbal grammar, 16, 18–19 Dreamwalker, 34–43
visual grammar, 10, 11–12 on-line resources providing, 29–32
images, 8–9, 32, 98–9 Lemke, J.L., 81
creating for role-play, 115 lesson programmes
interactive meanings in Dreamwalker, 39, action research using Middle Earth, 111–17
40, 41 book raps, 54–60
visual grammar, 9–15 MUDs, 73, 74–8
imagination, 73 Shrek, 90–5
‘Instant Palace’ version of Middle Earth, 111, Spywatch, 96–102
114 see also classroom practices
interactive meanings, 10, 13–14, 39, 40, 41 Lewis, D., 6
interactive storybuilding, 89, 102–5 literature circles, 51, 53–4
interactivity, 23–4 Little Prince, The (Saint-Exupéry), 9, 23, 24, 25
International Children’s Digital Library, 26 logs of role-playing
internet, 1 action research, 123–5
access and usage, 86–7 MUDs, 73, 75–6, 76–7
children’s literature on the web, 2, 26–7 Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
importance of using in the classroom, 107 (Tolkien), 84
on-line resources see on-line resources Lothian books, 29–30, 35
140 INDEX

Macaulay, D., Black and White, 7 facilitating knowledge required by

Mackey, M., 6, 23–4, 90 teachers, 68–70
MacMush, 69 MOOSE Crossing, 3, 70–1, 72
Making up Megaboy (Walter), 7–8 rationale for use, 71–3
Malmkjaer, K., 18 sequence of lessons, 73, 74–8
maps, 85–6, 87, 93, 113 specific classroom applications, 73
Maricopa website, 114–15 Munsch, R., The Paper Bag Princess, 23
marked themes, 17, 17–18 Myrick, D., 78
marketing, 33–4 myths
Marsden, J., 21, 29 Greek, 84–6, 87, 105
Cool School: You Make it Happen, 26 reading, 74
Martin, J.R., 17 writing based on role-playing, 67–8, 69, 75
material processes, 16, 19
material reality, 10 narrative, 93, 95
Matilda project, 95–6 role-playing in MUDs, 71–2
Maykitten, 125 storybuilding, 89, 102–5
McCallum, R., 7 narrative images, 11, 12
McClelland, K., 23 navigation, 23–4
meanings net-generation, 6
verbal grammar, 15–20 Netlibris, 61–2, 95–6
visual grammar, 9–15 New London Group, 32
Meek, M., 5 New South Wales Department of Education
MeetPoint palace, 80 (NSW DET), 47–8, 51
mental processes, 11–12, 16 Nexus Quest palace, 125
metalanguage, 32, 126 Nimue, 109, 117, 126
verbal grammar, 3, 5–6, 15–20 Nodelman, P., 13
visual grammar, 3, 5, 9–15 non-linearity, 7
work with Dreamwalker, 38–43 noun groups, 92
Middle Earth palace, 4, 83–4, 108–25, 126
choice for research project, 108–11 objects, 64
data collection and analysis, 123–5 observation, 123–5
lesson programme, 111–17 offers, 13, 99
role-playing, 114–22 Ollila, M., 95
Miller, L., 96 Olondriz Ortigas, I., 30
Mills, G.E., 107, 123 on-line communities see virtual worlds
Mitchell, W.J.T., 80 on-line discussion forums see book raps;
modality discussion forums, on-line
images, 14, 98–9 on-line resources, 2, 27–43
verbal grammar, 16, 19–20, 42–3, 66–7, book promotion and enticement of
99–100 readers, 28–9
modelled writing, 94 context of composition, 28
Montgomery, L.M., Anne of Green Gables, 23 learning activities dealing with the
mood, 16, 19–20 construction of the book, 29–32
MOOs, 64 opportunities for readers’ response, 33
see also multi-user domains/dungeons participation in book-related activities,
(MUDs) 33–4
MOOSE Crossing, 3, 70–1, 72 for working with Dreamwalker, 34–8
Morgan, W., 99 open-ended questions, 51–3
Mulan, 23 Ormerod, J., The Story of Chicken Licken, 12
MudDweller, 69
multi-user domains/dungeons (MUDs), 3, Palace Planet website, 82
64–73 Palace User software, 82
 INDEX 141

palaces, 3, 73–86, 125–6 representational meanings, 10, 11–12

Kids, Enfants, Kinder, 3, 78, 79, 84–6, 87, research see action research
102–5 reviews, 33
learning about role-playing, 83–4 Book Week rap, 54–60
Middle Earth, 4, 83–4, 108–25, 126 role-playing
rationale for use, 80–1 Dreamwalker, 37–8
setting up, 81–2 Middle Earth project, 114–22
specific classroom applications, 84–6, 87 MUDs, 64–73, 74–8
Paper Bag Princess, The (Munsch), 23 on palaces, 83–6, 87, 105
parents, 117 room backgrounds, 78, 79, 80, 102–5
Parker, T., 78 Rosetta project, 26
participants, 16, 18–19 Rowling, J.K., 23
participatory research, 107
Penguin site, 34 Sacher, L., Holes, 7
Persephone and Demeter myth, 84–6, 87, 105 Saint-Exupéry, A. de, The Little Prince, 9, 23,
perspectives, changing, 7–9 24, 25
Piggybook (Browne), 12, 18–19 Sanchez, E., 78
Polar Express, The (Van Allsburg), 23 scaffolding
polyphonic narratives, 7–8 book raps, 45–6, 56
Potter, B., The Tale of Peter Rabbit, 23 creating a character for role-play in Middle
Present Takers, The (Chambers), 28 Earth, 114–15
presentation format, 23–4 MUDs, 73, 75–6
processes, 16, 18–19 Scholastic site, 33
programmes of work see lesson programmes Scieszka, J., 7, 33–4, 94
Project Guttenberg, 26 Scout Hut palace, 80
promotion, book, 28–9 search engines, 27
props, 82 Secret Garden, The (Burnett), 18, 23
publishers’ websites, 27, 28, 29–30, 33 Sector 7 (Wiesner), 30, 31
Pullman, P., Spring-heeled Jack, 7 semiotic devices, 6
semiotic reality, 10
questionnaires, 123–5 Sendak, M., Where the Wild Things Are, 12
questions, 19–20 ‘Shattered Kingdoms’, 67–8
Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Shrek, 90–5
47 Skellig (Almond), 28, 96
Quiet Wraith website, 84 Smith, L., 7, 33–4, 94
Quirky Tales (Jennings), 8 Snyder, I., 90
social distance, 13
Rabbits, The (Marsden and Tan), 21, 29 social reality, 10
radical change in children’s literature, 5, 6–9 socially responsive research, 107
RAGTime, 109–10 Soldier on the Hill (French) rap, 51–4
see also Middle Earth palace Sophie’s World (Gaarder), 23
Ramona books, 29 Sorenson, L., 4, 83, 109, 117, 126
rap calendar, 51 sound, 98–9
rap coordinator, 46, 48, 50 South Park palace, 78
rap map, 49 Souza, A., 125
rap points, 48, 51, 52, 53 speculation, 42
rap sheet, 49 speech bubbles, 11, 12
reactional processes, 11–12 Spring-heeled Jack (Pullman), 7
reader’s response, opportunities for, 33 Spywatch, 96–102
reflection Stake, R., 123
action research, 107–8 Star Wars, 79
by students, 77–8, 122 statements, 19–20
142 INDEX

Steig, W., 90 University of Virginia Electronic Text Centre,

Stellaluna (Cannon), 9, 23, 24 26
Steussy, C.G., 36 Unsworth, L., 9, 25, 30
Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid
Tales, The (Scieszka and Smith), 7, 33, Van Allsburg, C., The Polar Express, 23
94 Van Leeuwen, T., 5, 10, 11, 13, 81
Story of Chicken Licken, The (Ormerod), 12 verbal grammar, 3, 5–6, 15–20
story construction, 24 Dreamwalker, 39–43
story maps, 85–6, 87, 92, 113 Spywatch, 99
storyboards, 77, 101–2 verbal processes, 11–12, 16, 18–19
storybuilding, interactive, 89, 102–5 vertical angle, 13–14
storytelling in role, 122 virtual worlds, 3, 63–88
Stubbs, J., 47 MUDs/MOOs, 3, 64–73, 74–8
student email list (book raps), 49 palaces see palaces
Summer Rain, M., Dreamwalker: The Path of visual grammar, 3, 5, 9–15
Sacred Power, 37 Dreamwalker, 39, 40, 41
systemic functional grammar (SFG), 16 Spywatch, 98–9
visual literacy, 81
Tale of Peter Rabbit, The (Potter), 23 classroom practice, 89, 90, 91–5
talking about text, 51–4 visual turn, 80–1
Tan, S., 21, 29 vocabulary, 72
teacher in role, 118–20, 120–1 Voices in the Park (Browne), 8
teachers Volotinen, T., 95
classroom practices see classroom practices
email list for book raps, 49–50 Walter, V., Making up Megaboy, 7–8
Teachers @ Random House website, 112–13, Watson, V., 12
116 web browsers, accessing palaces from, 81–2,
‘Tell me’ questions, 51–3 111, 114
telnetting program, 64, 68–9, 70 webmaster, 48
texts, creating for role-play, 115 Webster School District website, 113
textual meanings Where the Wild Things Are (Sendak), 12
verbal grammar, 16–17, 17–18 ‘whisper’ command, 64, 75
visual grammar, 10, 14–15 Wicked stories, 26–7, 33
theme/rheme system, 16–17, 17–18 Wiesner, D., 30–2
Thomas, A., 63, 78, 79, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 97, Hurricane, 31
111, 117, 126 June 29, 1999, 30–1
thought clouds, 11, 12 Sector 7, 30, 31
Three Pigs, The (Wiesner), 7, 31 The Three Pigs, 7, 31
Tolkien, J.R.R., 108, 109 Tuesday, 30, 31, 32
The Hobbit, 112–13, 121 Whirligig (Fleischman), 7
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Williams, G., 8–9, 16, 18
84 Wizard of Oz, 79
see also Middle Earth palace wizards, 65, 82
traditional tales, 22–3 Woolman, S., 2, 34
transcripts of role-plays, 116 see also Dreamwalker
triangulation, 123 writing
True Story of the Three Little Pigs, The, 94 collaborative, 72, 73, 81, 89, 102–5
Trushell, J., 24 descriptive, 72
Tuesday (Wiesner), 30, 31, 32 myths and role-playing, 67–8, 69, 75

uncertainty, 42 Zmud, 69
United States, Internet use, 87 Zoo (Browne), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17–20