Journal Article

Awakening Socially Just Mindsets Through Visual Thinking Strategies and Diverse Picturebooks

Fugit, Misha, Moss, Daryl, Zapata, Angie

2017

Overview

[...]as Misha shared Andrea Davis Pinkney's (2010) Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down, a picturebook focused on the civil rights sit-in movement, she asked students to read local newspaper photographs (Witthaus & Johnson, 2015) depicting a sit-in led by Concerned Student 1950-a student-led activist group fighting to end racial hostility at MU-that was taking place a few blocks away on the university campus.Misha believed that asking students to examine the illustrations more carefully would help them make accurate inferences.[...]she asked several general questions to get students thinking about the story: \"What's going on in the illustrations?\" and \"What do you see that makes you ask that?\" Illustrator Brian Pinkney's watercolor and India ink illustrations gave the students much to question, learn from, and discuss.Daryl found that initially most students could notice and name details in visuals, but they were not accustomed to being asked to name and describe how they felt in response to those images.Since feelings are not often spoken about, shared, or studied in adolescent classrooms, students struggled to identify and articulate what they felt.Spaces for students to read visual depictions of social justice themes are generative opportunities to develop the kinds of mindsets and empathy needed to thoughtfully negotiate the sociopolitical messages often presented in diverse picturebooks.[...]for teachers like Misha and Daryl-who often do not share the same cultural and linguistic histories as their students but do share commitments to making a better world-the extended VTS approach provided a framework to navigate the complexities of discussions focused on issues of social justice.

• Publisher: Children's Literature Assembly
• Subject: Activism / Aesthetics / African American literature / Apartheid / Child development / Children & youth / Childrens literature / Civil Rights / Classroom Communication / Classroom Observation Techniques / Classrooms / Collaboration / College students / Critical Literacy / Critical Reading / Current Events / Discussion (Teaching Technique) / Education / Empathy / Feedback (Response) / Grade 6 / Grade 9 / Independent Reading / Justice / Language arts / Language history / Learning / Literary characters / Multilingualism / Narratives / Negotiation / Picture books / Protocol Analysis / Readers / Reading / Reading Aloud to Others / Reading Habits / Reading Skills / Refugees / Researchers / Social justice / Structural Analysis (Linguistics) / Structural Analysis (Science) / Students / Teachers / Teaching / Teaching Methods / Visual literacy