Young Pupils’ Joint Creation of Multimodal Fairy Tales Using Analogue and Digital Resources

Abstract

The present study aimed to explore ‘what’s happening’ and ‘what’s possible’, when young pupils jointly create multimodal texts in small groups. This was achieved by studying the process when pupils in a grade 2 classroom (i) created handwritten fairy tales, (ii) drew images, and then, (iii) transformed them into animated multimodal texts using a digital application during three small-group activities. Data comprises video recordings, pupils’ multimodal texts (writing and drawings), teaching materials, and lesson plans. This qualitative case study focuses on one group of three pupils aged 8–9. The study is theoretically grounded in the designs for learning perspective, with the Learning Design Sequence Model utilized as an analytical tool. The teacher’s design for learning—including her planned activities and the resources made available to the pupils—appeared to have a major impact on what happens and what becomes possible for the pupils in their design for learning. The teacher’s design also influenced what competencies the pupils could (and chose) to draw upon in the different activities. An important result was that the pupils positioned themselves and each other in quite different ways during the small-group activities, which partly could be explained by the different affordances of the resources provided, as well as the teacher’s design. The detailed descriptions of how the pupils’ positioning changed in relation to the teacher’s design for learning and the available resources add valuable knowledge to the field of educational research.

An Exploration of How Multimodally Designed Teaching and the Creation of Digital Animations can Contribute to Six-Year-Olds’ Meaning Making in Chemistry

“…Some conflicts arose during this process, but that was something that the pupils solved by themselves. Thus, this study supports previous findings [43] showing that learning activities where digital tools and digital resources are afforded often create a high level of engagement, in terms of negotiating, contributing, making suggestions, and making choices of what signs to use. Furthermore, signs of learning could be discerned in all groups during the pupils' collaborative creation of the animations.…”

“…We applied purposive sampling when selecting the participating classroom teacher since the focus was to sample participants in relation to the posed research questions, in a strategic way [42]. A teacher who had participated in one of our previous studies [43] served as a gatekeeper [44]. She put us in contact with preschool class teachers who were interested in designing lessons in line with the focus of this study.…”

Narrativt skrivande i årskurs 1

“…Resultatet kan användas för att öka lärares didaktiska medvetenhet i sina val av läranderesurser samt deras iscensättning. Värdet av multimodala läranderesursers meningserbjudande för elevers narrativa skrivande är redan fastställt (Sofkova Hashemi et al, 2020;Hell, 2022;Pantaleo, 2024;Wernholm et al, 2023). När det gäller just grafiska modeller är flera skrivforskare dock kritiska för dess överanvändning i skrivundervisning (Wray & Lewis, 1997;Riley & Reedy, 2005;Alber-Morgan et al, 2007;Thorsten, 2019) trots att tidigare studier inte specifikt undersöker hur eleverna använder grafiska modeller.…”

“…I denna studie bidrar jag med ny kunskap om hur grafiska modeller och en modelltext erbjuder unga elever berättelseelement som de re-designar i sitt narrativa skrivande. Likt Wernholm et al (2023) tillämpar jag ett designteoretiskt ramverk (Björklund Boistrup & Selander, 2022;Selander & Kress, 2021) och utgår ifrån lärarnas val för att designa formella skrivsituationer (Palmér, 2013;Svanes & Øgreid, 2020). I skrivsituationerna re-designar eleverna de erbjudna resurserna genom samtal och gemensamt parskrivande.…”

“…De riskerar att fungera som en tvångströja om de är beständiga eller upplevs av eleverna som ett tvång att inkludera i sitt skrivande (Myhill & Warren, 2005). När det gäller grafiska modeller som skrivpromptningar verkar det finnas en konsensus om att dessa representerar en prototypisk textstruktur (Wernholm et al, 2023) och bör användas under en kort period för att inte begränsa elevernas skrivande (Wray & Lewis, 1997;Riley & Reedy, 2005;Alber-Morgan et al, 2007;Thorsten, 2019). Forskningen ger sammantaget bilden att visuellt stöd är en tillgång för eleverna, men just grafiska modeller som skrivpromptningar flaggas som ett potentiellt begränsande riskmoment.…”