Books are teachers too

Using picture books for classroom discussion

Rules of Summer

Shaun Tan

One of the great delights of a job in literacy is being able to spend time with great literature as part of a working day. A particular delight for me is exploring a wide range of picturebooks and using them as texts to teach by. A teacher read-aloud with these texts can, I believe, be justified to all age levels. They are a powerful tool for creating discussions and allowing children of all reading abilities to engage in high level thinking and talk.

Well-chosen texts become the teacher too. An open discussion is a platform for all participants learning from each other. As ‘the teacher’ in these discussions, I do lead the group through the text but I endeavour to create a space where the text and the discussion teach us all.

In regards to well-chosen texts, I write here about my experience with using Rules of Summer (Tan, 2013) with Year 7, 8 and 9 students (11-14 year olds) in a NZ classroom. Shaun Tan is the illustrator and author of this text and he is one who can be relied on for books that challenge and delight. His picturebooks are complex and have a depth that invites and promotes discussion with older students.

From the website: http://www.rulesofsummer.com.au/#!home

RULES OF SUMMER, is a deceptively simple story about two boys, one older and one younger, and the kind of ‘rules’ that might govern any relationship between close friends or siblings. Rules that are often so strange or arbitrary, they seem impossible to understand from the outside. Yet through each exquisite illustration of this nearly wordless narrative, we can enjoy wandering around an emotional landscape that is oddly familiar to us all. As you venture deep into the story, the poetic images become darker, more mysterious and unsettling, drawing towards a redemptive ending that affirms the depth of true friendship, a bond that is equally wonderful and inexplicable.

Prior to sharing with Year 8 and Year 9 groups, I showed the students how an illustrator creates a message using tools such as colour and light and symbol. I chose to explain these tools particularly, because of the way they are used in Rules of Summer. I also explained to the students that a picturebook has two sources of meaning we need to consider: the words and the pictures.

When exploring a picturebook with students, I aim for a natural conversation and discovery of the book, with me as one of the active participants. The event becomes one of interrogating the text together rather than one of interrogating the students for their understanding. The understanding grows as the group engages with the book and with each other’s ideas. This is certainly true of my experience of using this book in a classroom.

The first reading was one of exploring and finding out as much as we could about the story. Discussion occurred as we explored (and a second reading would add to this).

An exploration of the cover helped establish a thread for reading the text. We looked for clues that we had from the cover, both front and back. Two characters are presented on the cover, the setting (or season) is evident from the picture and the title, and the ‘blurb’ on the back cover states: Never break the rules; especially if you don’t understand them. A type of mystery is set up because we wondered what these rules could be, who might make them, and what happens if you break them. By wondering these things (or similar as the children decide), a thread for discussions is established. I found it useful to be able to keep referring back to these main ideas during our discussion and to look at what each page told us about this mystery.

The endpapers allowed us to explore further. The group I worked with noticed the boys looked similar (perhaps brothers rather than friends) and that one boy was running after the other. They established that the boy who was running had missed his ride on the other boy’s plane, with the clue they used being that there was an empty seat behind the boy flying the plane.

Each page outlines a rule that mustn’t be broken. The students discussed a range of ideas through their initial noticing on each page:

·      the boys were brothers;

·      the younger one seemed to be having trouble on each page, including:

o   missing his ride;

o   dropping the drum stick;

o   dropping his jar;

o   leaving the door open overnight;

o   ruining the plan;

o   forgetting the password;

·      the older brother is in charge and more capable, shown by:

o   having his jar tied on;

o   making the younger brother clean up;

o   having many robots ready for the parade;

o   being the umpire who makes the decisions;

o   winning the fight;

·      the older brother is grumpy when the door was left open (eyebrows down and arms folded);

·      a black bird on every page;

·      the cat has taken over the younger brother’s space; cat images everywhere;

·      the isolation and aloneness of the younger brother once the fight is lost;

·      the birds fly away once the big brother comes to rescue;

·      the big brother helps the little brother up;

·      the big brother takes the drum;

·      the little brother gets his place back and seems bigger now;

·      the winner’s crown has been discarded.

This initial noticing helped the children to work out the plot and follow the story as it unfolded. They could see that the younger brother was always doing the wrong thing to the annoyance of the older brother. This sibling dynamic is a thread that can be used to guide the discussion, without too many pre-planned ‘teacher’ questions. On each page, we can look for clues about the particular event, who has broken the rule, and how each brother is feeling?

We discussed what the black bird on each page might mean and the students thought that it usually meant bad luck or bad feeling. The bird could be seen in a range of ways and this symbolism is worth exploring. Is he like an accuser, always there when the little boy is not meeting the standards?

The children found the dark pages, where the little boy is being isolated, quite disturbing. I talked to them about what the illustrator was helping us to feel by using grim images. The illustrations help us to feel what the characters are feeling. The isolation is one of emotion rather than of actually being sent away. The final pages are of hope and helping, of a sense of resolved conflict. 

One student in the group talk noticed the discarded crown at the end of the story and this started a discussion with the students about the older boy not being interested in his winner’s crown anymore. I love it when students come up with ideas I hadn't considered and when they help me to understand the story in a way I hadn't before I read it to the group.

Some of the students were able to identify themselves as either the big or small brother, in relation to their own place in a family. Those who were younger siblings could identify with the feeling of always doing things wrong or not being quite clever enough. One student, who was an older sibling, talked about how his younger brothers must feel and how he might have to do what the big brother in Rules of Summer eventually did, helping the younger brother in various ways.

The more I explore this text, the more I see its depth. It certainly has created opportunity for much discussion with groups of students and with groups of teachers.