Analysing Colour

Analysing Colour

Students will consider how colour has been used to create the world of the text before analysing the use of visual techniques through a close study of an illustration.

Student activities

Task no. 1

Initial responses

View Tina Matthews reading Out of the Egg on her website.

Discuss the following questions as a class:

  • What colours are used in the story?
  • How does it make you feel?
  • What do you notice about how colour is used throughout the story?
  • Why do you think that Tina Matthews has decided to use colour in this way?

Complete a Think, Pair Share activity in which you consider:

  • The way the reader is positioned to feel about the world in which the hen lives.
  • The seed and the red feather are the only colourful features on this page. What do they represent?
  • How do you think the world came to be like this?
  • Why was this allowed to happen?
  • What is the solution for a world like this?
a green seedling growing in dry cracked earth. A red feather floats beside the seedling

Task no. 2

Positioning the reader

Listen to Tina Matthews speaking about this illustration.

Tina Matthews - Representing Change

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Caption on bottom

Annotate the illustration using post it notes. Project the illustration on the board in the classroom. Stick each post it note next to the relevant part of the illustration. What do you notice about the following?

  • The way that the characters are positioned on the page
  • The use of colour
  • The size and body language of the chick and the hen

Consider why Tina has chosen to illustrate the page in this way and how it positions readers to feel about the characters and their situation.

After each student has placed their post it note onto the board, discuss the details that the class noticed including which of the characters the class empathises with the most and why.