The New Arrivals

One of my favourite books has no words. Yet it came as no surprise this week to discover that Shaun Tan’s The Arrival was at the heart of an educational research project which has won the 2015 Edward B. Fry award from the Literacy Research Association of the USA. Visual Journeys through Wordless Narratives was co-authored by Dr Evelyn Arizpe, a lecturer in the School of Education at Glasgow University, along with Professor Teresa Colomer of Barcelona and Dr Carmen Martínez-Roldán of Columbia University in the USA.

Dr Arizpe, whose team worked in Glasgow schools with children from 13 countries, found that their strategy of using The Arrival as a basis for discussion and learning gave teachers mechanisms to tackle difficult issues around migration with Scottish children, as well as refugee and asylum-seeking pupils.

“Immigrant children try very hard at school. Often it is the local children who don’t really don’t understand what they have been through and who are susceptible to negative stereotypes. When you give them a book that allows them to put themselves into the immigrant child’s shoes, they begin to understand.”

Immigration is an increasing global phenomenon, as conflict in the Middle east and other regions forces people to seek refuge in other parts of the world, including the UK, and schools and teachers in host countries must continually find new ways of working with an increasing numbers of the new arrivals. Language and literacy development are crucially important if children are to be integrated quickly into their new communities, but finding texts which cut across cultural boundaries can be difficult. The research carried out by Arizpe and her colleagues reveals the benefits of using wordless narratives such as picture-books and graphic novels to support immigrant children’s literary understandings and visual literacy. It also reveals, according to the report’s publishers Bloomsbury, ‘the wealth of experiences the children bring with them which have the potential to transform educational practices.’

What the report’s reviewers said:

“Product of an outstanding international research team, Visual Journeys Through Wordless Narratives offers the reader narratives by immigrant children about their feelings, emotions, experiences and knowledge inspired by Shaun Tan’s famous picture book The Arrival. Anchored in the metaphor of the journey, and using a visual journey as support, this unique, fascinating, and well-organized volume is a fine tribute to Tan and a genuine hymn to teaching and integration of immigrant children from diverse cultural and linguistic origins.” –  Maria da Graça Pinto, Professor, University of Porto, Portugal.

Detail from ‘The Arrival’ by Shaun Tan

“In this evocative book, Evelyn Arizpe and her co-authors reflect on their ambitious research project to explore responses of immigrant children in Glasgow, Barcelona and Arizona to Shaun Tan’s complex wordless picture-book, The Arrival. Framed by Tan’s eloquent introduction and by the authors’ in-depth analyses of the students’ responses, the book offers readers new understandings of the power of visual narratives to engage these young immigrants’ literacy skills, personal reflections and imaginative powers. This is an important new international addition to texts on picture-books, visual literacy and issues of immigration.” –  Ingrid Johnston, Professor, Department of Secondary Education, University of Alberta, Canada.

“This fascinating and remarkable international research bears close reading and re-reading. A highly significant examination of the potential of wordless picturebooks to support immigrant children as learners and meaning makers, it is inspiring, thought provoking and engaging. This important book also reveals the critical nature of the teacher’s role in developing literary understanding through image based narratives and offers new hope for intercultural understanding in the classroom.” –  Teresa Cremin, Professor of Education, The Open University, UK,

Watch Canadian children welcoming their new neighbours, Syrian refugees. Heartwarming!

 

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Digital Narrative Changes Gear

“My name is Alice. I’m nineteen years old, I have a boyfriend and I work at a remote gas station just outside the city. I’m up against the clock to deliver my latest college assignment before the deadline, but as usual things aren’t exactly going to plan. I’m surrounded by clutter and paperwork, bombarded by alerts and text messages. The last thing I need is a mysterious customer turning up in a gas-guzzling sports car…”

The new-look Inanimate Alice website

Fans of Inanimate Alice, the popular digital novel for young adults, will be delighted that the much-awaited Episode 6 is due for imminent release. Building on the life experiences of the young protagonist Alice Field, Episode 6 takes the series to a new level, both in terms of the narrative and digital storytelling itself, moving from 2-D to a 3-D gaming platform and what is described as a ‘fully immersive’ experience for readers. Alice is now aged 19, and working in a remote gas station on the outskirts of town to pay for her studies at the local college, where she is …………well……….creating her own story. And this time around readers get to see under the bonnet and inside the engine of the story via Alice’s development blog, where she talks to the reader about scripting, 3D audio, video game graphics, spatial narratives and more.(http://devblog.inanimatealice.info/). This is a feature which started with the beautifully-crafted ‘Development Journal’ to accompany Episode 5: Hometown 2, and is especially interesting for students who are developing their own digital stories. Here is how the story-makers for the Bradfield Company describe what they are trying to achieve:-

“With Episode 6, I’ve been exploring Alice’s drive to become a games designer using the sort of technology and approach I could very much imagine Alice herself getting excited about. This episode feels like an immersive game – you literally are in Alice’s shoes. It’s quite multi-layered. As she gets older, the issues Alice has to deal with as her story unfolds get more complicated, and the more ambitious, adventurous and (hopefully) accomplished she becomes with new media.”

Andy Campbell, Director of Digital Media at One Development Trust (and Inanimate Alice developer)

“The challenge with Alice, traditionally a linear narrative, has been to build up her storytelling strengths (add more emotional arcs and depth, create three-dimensional characters) while responding to the user’s actions with a greater measure of agency (meaning, your choices have real consequences). The episode is in Unity 3D, which introduced a range of new interfaces and a free-roam environment with a first-person point of view. Instead of “playing as Alice,” my idea is to play as a “friend of Alice”—going along on her adventures, interacting with her, and occasionally making choices and taking actions that she might not like. The trick is, fans of Alice know that the user never actually sees her. In past episodes, her presence is most prominently featured in the form of narrative statements—simple text on the screen, aimed at her audience in an indirect but personal way. We’ll see how that plays out in this new format.”

Lorri Hopping, Game Developer, writer and narrative designer on Episode 6: The last Gas Station

If you can’t wait for the official release of Episode 6, you can watch the trailer and sign up for early access on Alice’s website at http://www.inanimatealice.com which will also give you free access to the Development Journal referred to earlier and some sneak previews of Episode 6 screenshots. I also have it on good authority that plans are underway for a special Teachers’ Edition of IA some time in the New Year, which will bring all of the educational resources from Episodes 1-5 into one neat package for use in the classroom.

In the meantime don’t forget that you can already access these episodes and some fantastic resources absolutely free by going to the website and clicking on Education. The Create link will take you to a gallery of content created by students of all ages from around the world, as well as the ‘featured classroom’ of Kristal Doolin, young ‘Teacher of the Year’ who talks about how Inanimate Alice transformed the way her students developed their literacy skills.

Finally, for a comprehensive overview of the learning opportunities afforded by using Inanimate Alice in the classroom, I would suggest you check out this article by Robert Stumbles, an educator with over 15 years experience teaching in schools in Australia and Japan. Fantastic stuff. Enjoy!