Worlds and Readers: Augmented Reality in Modern Polaxis

This article presents a close reading of the augmented reality (AR) comic Modern Polaxis, which was created by Stuart Campbell. Possible Worlds Theory was applied to discuss how fiction, which creates its own possible worlds, integrates the additional layer(s) of AR into its storyworld. The analysis additionally sheds light on the reader’s position and how the augmented layer may affect the literary experience. We also discuss how the AR interface may contribute to digital literature more generally.

Semiotisk arbeid i læringsprosesser

Organizing Shared Digital Reading in Groups: Optimizing the Affordances of Text and Medium

Children develop their language when they explore and talk about literary texts. In this study, we explore the design of shared digital reading as a basis for critical reflection on the reading situation in an institutional context with its given opportunities and limitations. We examine six videotaped readings of one specific picture book app, with a focus on the strategies used by teachers in early childhood education and care institutions to control children’s access to the medium and the types of verbal engagement (about the story and about the medium) that are generated by these different strategies. We use qualitative and quantitative analysis of video data. A qualitative categorizat…

Dagens Rødhette i en flerkulturell kontekst – mulighet for en ny identitet?

The starting point for this article is the tendency in recent Norwegian children’s and Ya fiction to thematize cultural encounters in an increasingly multicultural and globalized world. The picturebook Little Miss Eye Flap ( Skylappjenta , 2009) written by the Pakistani-Norwegian author and actor Iram Haq and illustrated by Endre Skandfer, presents a modern version of traditional folktales such as Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel . However, the traditional structure of home – away – home gives particular emphasis to the phase of homelessness, not providing any safe return to harmony. This condition of liminal space between cultures is discussed in light of the concepts of reflexive ident…

Introduksjon og teoretiske perspektiver

Life of a Fatso : Young, Fat and Vulnerable in a Scandinavian Society of Perfection

This chapter offers a close reading of the young adult novel Miss by Synne Sun Loes (2017). The story is about 16-year-old Ea who is at the point of dropping out of school. The title carries a double reference—on the one hand, to Ea’s feeling of being a mis(s)fit and, on the other hand, to her critique of her best friend turning into a ‘Little Miss Perfect’. The analysis discusses two main questions: What has made this teenager from a well-off family so vulnerable? and How is her resistance expressed? The analysis explores how Ea positions herself as an outsider through bodily and social protest, making her both vulnerable and strong, and discusses this in relation to Judith Butler’s (2016)…

Digital collaboration inside and outside educational systems

This article takes its outset in findings from an ongoing research project investigating the use of digital and multimodal resources in teacher education (TE) in Norway. The material studied is mandatory assignments in different courses in TE, asking how teacher students collaborate through digital media in their production of texts for learning, and how the design of these literacy practices can be influenced through the teachers’ design of the assignments. In focus group interviews the researchers found that the students preferred organizing collaborative processes through Facebook groups rather than through the university’s learning management system. This created a space between formal…

Metode og data

A Design-Oriented Analysis of Multimodality in English as a Foreign Language

This empirical article investigates multimodality in English as a foreign language, both as seen in the use of multimodal texts as artefacts and pedagogical texts for learning, and through an analysis of the multimodal learning designs. We present observations from a year 10 classroom in Norway that worked with the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Alexie, 2007). We explore a four-week teaching sequence, asking how different modes were involved when the educator designed literacy events around the novel, and how multimodality is present in the students’ meaning making. Our aim is to make explicit and discuss some of the silent literacy practices in English teaching at l…

Oppsummering, drøfting og nye utfordringer

Litterært engasjement og innlevelse i bildebokapper

I denne artikkelen settes søkelyset på den litterære opplevelsen når barn leser bildebokapper i små grupper i barnehagen. Vi ser på hvordan det Rosenblatt (1994) kaller estetisk lesemåte kan komme til uttrykk i lesernes engasjement og innlevelse. Vi har gjort et strategisk utvalg av eksempler fra et empirisk materiale med totalt 24 filmer av applesing i barnehager, der barna enkeltvis og som gruppe viser et stort engasjement. Analysen søker å svare på spørsmålet: Hva er det som skaper dette engasjementet blant barna? Og hvordan blir engasjementet ivaretatt i samspill med barnehagelæreren som leder lesingen? I analysen utdyper vi den estetiske lesemåten ved hjelp av Marie-Laure Ryans (2015, …

Ecocritical Perspectives on Children’s Texts and Cultures: Nordic Dialogues, Nina Goga, Lykke Guanio-Uluru, Bjørg Oddrun Hallås and Aslaug Nyrnes (eds) (2018)

Review of: Ecocritical Perspectives on Children’s Texts and Cultures: Nordic Dialogues, Nina Goga, Lykke Guanio-Uluru, Bjørg Oddrun Hallås and Aslaug Nyrnes (eds) (2018)Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature series, 299 pp.,ISBN 978-3-319-90496-2, h/bk, €129.99, p/bk, €89.99ISBN 978-3-319-90497-9, eBook, €74.89

Mellom kunnskapsdiskurs og sosial diskurs: Ukeplaner som sjanger og vurderingspraksis

Denne artikkelen undersoker ukeplanen slik den brukes og forstas i kommunikasjonen mellom skole og hjem i barneskolen i Norge. Vi ser ukeplanen som en type funksjonell sakprosa som er svaert utbredt, og analyserer hvordan sjangeren ukeplan er utformet, hvilke funksjoner den fyller, og hvordan den posisjonerer barn og foresatte i forhold til skolens vurderingsarbeid. Analysen omfatter 34 ukeplaner samlet inn fra 12 skoler med spredning i geografi og klassetrinn. Ukeplanene er utpreget multimodale tekster, og utformingen analyseres i form av meningsklynger som danner monstre av obligatoriske og valgfrie elementer. Basert pa kritisk diskursanalyse undersokes ukeplanen som en sjanger som gjor e…

What is visual-numeric literacy, and how does it work?

This article explores the concept of literacy related to the use of data visualizations. Literacy is here understood as the ability to make sense from semiotic resources in an educational context. Theoretically the discussion is based in social semiotic theory on multimodality in the tradition of New Literacy Studies. Empirical examples are taken from observations in two Social Science classrooms in upper secondary school in Norway, where the students work with publicly available data visualizations to answer tasks designed by their teacher. The discussion sums up factors that affect reading and learning from such complex resources: taking time to explore axis system, variables, and digital…

Designing Dialogs Around Picture Book Apps

In Norwegian kindergartens there is a strong emphasis on communication and language stimulation. In this educational context the reading of picture book apps offers an opportunity for extended dialogs, which have great didactic potential in that they integrate language knowledge with cultural knowledge. In this chapter we discuss what dimensions of the picture book text (words and pictures), medium (app on digital tablet) and situation (adult-child relations) that the teacher needs to take into consideration when designing dialogs to encourage early language and literacy development in kindergarten. This work represents the first phase of a major innovation project that will develop a resea…