Pictures of Youth: An Introduction to Children’s Visual Culture (FutureLearn)

The course provides an introduction to popular types of visual culture for children and young people. By the end you will gain a deeper understanding of children’s film, television, drama, picturebooks and comics.

You will discover the wide variety of works on offer, learn to decipher these media, understand some of the ways in which they are conceived and consumed, and have a go at creating your own analysis.

Syllabus

Week 1: Picturebooks

Week 2: Comics

Week 3: Film

Week 4: Television

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

- Evaluate how images can be explored critically, drawing from visual analysis and childhood studies

- Interpret visual-verbal interplay in picturebooks

- Explain the imaginative work required by young readers/viewers to construct meaning

- Discuss the traditions of children's visual culture and the plurality of ways in which childhood can be or has been represented

- Reflect on the place of images throughout a child’s development