Motivating children to 'write' stories through the use of visual art and technology

In this thesis the viability of using visual art and technology to motivate children to write stories is explored from a pedagogical and empirical perspective. A study was devised where forty-two children in grades four and five participated in a visual art workshop where they created a drawing and an accompanying story. In addition, the children were provided with three different technologies through which to record their stories: handwriting, dictating and typing. The children were required to produce a sample handwritten story for comparison to those written with one of these technologies. Results indicate that although children reported being motivated to communicate through visual art and alternative writing technologies, the stories created after the workshop and assessed by a teacher-developed rubric were significantly worse than the sample stories and the expected performance levels of the provincial Education and Accountability Office (EQAO). Reasons for this outcome could be that children lack experience communicating through alternative means, and that they are more concerned with the technicalities of authorship such as spelling, grammar and formatting in their drawings and writing.