Abstract :
As art objects, picturebooks have the potential to contribute to readers’
aesthetic development. Many scholars and practitioners have recognized how using
picturebooks with older students can augment their reading motivation and extend
their understanding of visual elements of art and design, as well as develop their
literacy, language, and thinking skills. The Red Tree (Tan, 2001) was one of the
picturebooks used during two multifaceted, classroom-based research projects with
Grade 7 students. The studies explored how the students responded to and interpreted
picturebooks and graphic novels with metafictive devices, and examined how
the students transferred their knowledge and understanding of various literary and
art elements when creating their own multimodal print texts. Overall, the content
analysis of the students’ written responses to The Red Tree revealed an adoption of
an ‘‘aesthetic attitude’’ (Doonan, Looking at Pictures in Picture Books, 1993, p. 11)
towards the picturebook. The students’ responses reflected how they positioned
themselves as active readers who looked closely at Tan’s sophisticated and metaphorical
paintings, and who embraced a co-authoring role as they interpreted the
emotional landscapes and textual fragments in the picturebook. The article concludes
with a discussion of several pedagogical issues associated with using
picturebooks in middle years’ classrooms
