Mirror

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Students might write an essay explaining how a particular theme has been constructed within the text through the use of visual language, and outline their response to that theme. The child is foregrounded in both images, highlighting their focus in the text. However, the size of the child figure is small relative to the rest of the image, suggesting that to a child, the world is large and possibly overwhelming. My books start in a small way. They start with strong feelings and intuition as much as anything. I’m following an instinct, that I’ve learnt is worth taking seriously.

Introduce critical literacy concepts through interrogation of the cover. Reflect on such questions as: Discussion of particular elements: Classwill come together as a whole, where the teacher writes three elements of artonto the board: colour, texture and shape. As the class have previously foundknowledge of the elements, teacher will ask students to explain what each element means in reference to art. This discussion should be colour includingthe primary and secondary colours, complementary colours as well as warm andcool colours (National Gallery of Art, 2013). Texture will be referred to as howa surface actually feels and looks (National Gallery of Art, 2013). The classwill discuss shape as a flat area that is enclosed by the use of edges orthrough a particular outline to achieve a two dimensional shape, with manydifferent shapes being used by artists (National Gallery of Art, 2013).

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Create a dual character template where students identify elements of each protagonist’s character, focusing on appearance, actions, relationships with others and symbols. See this suggested template (PDF, 136KB). Traditionally, characterisation also involves speech. Class discussion could be used to explore the impact of the absence of this element of characterisation. When I feel I can take the ideas and visuals no further in this way, I start to work on the collages themselves, concentrating now mostly on colour and texture, though still refining and developing ideas as I go.

Where is the child positioned within each image? What does their position near the margins imply about the status of children?Using a table, students could compare the role of women as represented by the two mothers. Afterwards, students should write a paragraph to explain whether the mothers conform to typical gender stereotypes as they understand them. And then she has to collect water from the well, milk the cow, find and collect eggs and bake bread for breakfast. Her husband is seen counting out all his savings and placing them in his shoulder bag. How do the pictures appear to have been made? It isn’t always easy to tell with the different digital applications and printing processes that can be applied but encourage the children to look closely. Do the pictures look as though they are painted, drawn, collaged or created digitally? Refer to the section at the end where Jeannie Baker describes the process by which the images have been created. Use the medium of collage to create a spread depicting part of the children’s daily routine. Share these and notice the similarities as well as differences. As part of work in geography, you may want to choose a child from a different country and create a spread which depicts the same part of their day. Diary writing These worlds, as depicted in my project, couldn’t be further apart, yet with the showing of the parallel lives of the two families in my story, we see a simple truth.

I’ve explored building up my collages in layers to achieve a sense of space and depth within the works. They stay where I left them, sitting together, keeping an eye on me: and when I reach the top of the mountain, let out a great cheer. By the time she produced Window in 1991, Baker had done away with words altogether. The three hallmarks of a Baker book had now become the 3D collage art, a serious engagement with a major theme of environmental concern, and wordlessness. Window tells the story of a young man’s growth from babyhood to becoming a parent himself, and the simultaneous changes in the environment around his home, as bushland changes to built-up cityscape. Baker had devised skilful ways to tell a story without words; her readers, too, had developed the ability to read pictures. Belonging, sequel to Window, published a surprising 13 years later, is a more optimistic book, showing the renewal of urban space both by greening and by community-building. The author’s note states: ‘People are discovering the need to nurture and be nurtured by the unique character of the place where they live’. The collage illustrations in this book are amazing. The textures make everything look so real. And it’s the pictures that tell the story as this is a virtually wordless picture book. In pairs, students could conduct a role play of a meeting between the two protagonists. The emphasis should be on creating a sense of character that is clearly based on textual evidence and their conversation should focus on exploring each other’s context.

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The required resources are: Windowby Jeannie Baker, ‘The Artistic Work of Jeannie Baker’ worksheet, pencils; greylead and coloured, crayons, textas, etc. Students could take one of the themes from Mirror and compose a brief recounting of an incident in their own lives that also reflects this theme. Alternatively, students may wish to compose a poem or short story. Does the juxtaposition of each setting encourage a particular reading of each culture, such as Australian culture as more sophisticated or Moroccan culture as less industrialised and more connected to the land? I then went on to explore the region independently, travelling to a valley of mostly quite isolated villages, known locally as ‘the Valley of Roses’, through which the M’Goun River runs. The villages here are still very traditional. Once outside the main town of Kalaat M’Gouna, it’s a place where few tourists venture and a place rich with images and contrasts to western culture.