Zahra


 * Resource: ** []


 * Explanation of the resource: ** The Kids Health website provides information about children’s health in general, including feelings, injuries, staying safe, even healthy recipes! Also, there is a wide variety of information about the human body. You can click on a body part to watch movies, take quizzes, read articles, solve word finds and do activities about all parts of the body. Also on this website, there a certain pages for parents, teens and kids. The website is developed by The Nemours Foundation (1995-2009).


 * Relevance to the outcome: ** This website is relevant to the outcome LT S2.3 //Identifies and describes the structure and function of living things and ways in which living things interact with other living things and their environment// as it specifically relates to the human body as it describes the structure of the body, the functions of the body and how the body interacts with the environment.


 * Aspect of Literacy suitable to be explored: ** Structured Analytical Images

Focusing on the use of structured analytical images as part of visual literacy in factual texts would be suitable to explore with children using this website as it has many pictures and diagrams accompanied by written text.

Unsworth (2001) states that structured analytical images show part/whole relationships and depict an object with its parts labelled. Furthermore, Unsworth (2001) specifies that they may occur as coloured drawings and maps, however on this website, they are coloured graphic images. Structured analytical images are vital as they refer to the participant representing the whole as the Carrier and the parts as Possessive Attributes. This is a significant concept children must understand to be able to interpret any given diagram or map.

Numerous examples of structured analytical images are on the website. For example, our Unit of Work will focus on the digestive system, so getting students to have a look at what the digestive system is and what parts make up the digestive system is vital. The image of the digestive system shows the Human body outline as a Carrier, and has parts of the digestive system (Possessive Attributes) labelled using lines. Students just by looking at the image are able to gage what and where the digestive parts are. To further deepen their information, students can roll the mouse over any labelled part (written text) or the actual body part (visual text) and read more about and view another image of that particular body part in a box on the right of the main image. This is showing students that the structured analytical image can be viewed just by looking at it as a whole, or can be viewed in parts of that whole.

There are also animated movies on the website showing how things work in motion. For example, a movie showing how the heart pumps blood includes a picture of the heart and a label is added to the picture every time the voice over introduces a different part. This would also add to students’ knowledge of structured analytical images as it becomes clearly evident that when a part of the heart is mentioned verbally by the voice over, it is represented in written text (label) and visual text (image/picture).

Structured analytical images offer a representational meaning to images. Callow (2006) puts forward certain questions that need to be asked to students to develop their knowledge on structured analytical images. They include questions such as //what information is the image representing? Show me on the page/screen where you found that information. Does the image order or classify the information to explain a concept?Has the illustrator/designer used labels or captions? What types of images are used?// All these are used to analyse how the image is being represented to the viewer and the Kids Health website is a fanastic resource to use for these questions to be analysed.