1st Edition

Performing Kamishibai An Emerging New Literacy for a Global Audience

By Tara McGowan Copyright 2015
232 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

230 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

230 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Kamishibai (paper-theater), a Japanese picture-storytelling medium, is gaining global interest as we move from a text-based culture to one that emphasizes multiple semiotic systems and performance. This is the first volume to explore the potential of kamishibai as a dynamic "new" interactive medium for teaching multimodal communication and shows how synchronizing oral, visual and gestural modes... Read more

Introduction: Why Kamishibai? 2. Multiple Kamishibais: The Evolving History of a Traveling Medium 3. The Modal Fluidity of Mr. G’s Classroom 4. Entering Narrative through the Kineikonic Mode 5. Illustration as Gesture: Synchronizing Hand, Voice, and Eye 6. The Three Rs: Writing, Recursivity, and Repertoire 7. The Modal Fixity of Ms. P’s Classroom 8. Upending Classroom Hierarchies by Juggling Multiple Modes 9. Performing Magic Conclusion: The Emergent Qualities of Text

Biography

Tara McGowan conducts kamishibai workshops in schools, libraries, and museums. In 2010, she published The Kamishibai Classroom: Engaging Multiple Literacies through the Art of ‘Paper Theater.’ Tara earned her PhD in literacy at the University of Pennsylvania and currently works at the American Philosophical Society Museum in Philadelphia.

"This is a fascinating and well-researched book. McGowan draws our attention to important deficits in traditional 'mono-modal' education, and presents us with a lively, interesting way of overcoming them." - Kate Katafiasz, Other Education Journal