Performing Kamishibai

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. By examining the multiple modes involved in kamishibai through actual student performances, this volume overturns commonly held expectations about literacy in the classroom and provides a critical perspective on assumptions about other media.

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.

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