Pedagogy and pictorial evidence: interpreting Post-Reformation English prints in context

Abstract

This article discusses the increasing emphasis on using pictorial sources in teaching, learning and assessment in history and asserts that pedagogies for interpreting visual imagery need to be purposefully aligned in relation to the particular media or production contexts under study. Expecting students to be able to glean meaning from images without a supportive pedagogy generally leads to simplistic interpretations and discussion rarely goes beyond what is literally ‘seen’. Interpretation of pictorial sources is a cross-curricular concern, with learning programmes increasingly making use of the widespread availability of visual media.

To illustrate the way in which knowledge of context is essential to successful readings of pictorial evidence, this article examines prints produced in the Post-Reformation period in England. Through an illustration of their unique characteristics it can be seen that critical contextual understandings need to be integrated into pedagogical approaches. In the teaching of history in New Zealand, as in many history curricula, the increased recognition of the importance of pictorial evidence is an expression of the necessity that students adopt the historians' practices of investigating sources. This article provides suggestions of how these expectations can be met through appropriate pedagogies.

Keywords:

• history
• pedagogy
• pictorial sources
• prints
• visual evidence

Notes

1. In 1994 a report by the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA) criticised the way images were used in texts and Robert David's study set out to see whether improvements had been made by 1998 in secondary school history textbooks.

2. The notion of the ‘pictorial turn’ was first proposed by W.J.T. Mitchell in an article published in Artforum, March 1992.

3. In New Zealand secondary schools, the nature of assessment is determined by individual schools for junior levels (Years 9 and 10) while for senior levels (Years 11–13), which include the subject of history, there is a nation-wide assessment system known as the ‘National Certificate of Educational Achievement’ (NCEA). The NCEA comprises both internally assessed and examination components.

4. For the Level 3 history resource interpretation standard under the NCEA there are three criteria against which students are assessed: ‘Demonstrate an understanding of historical ideas and/or differences in points of view indicated by the evidence’; ‘Analyse historical relationships indicated by the evidence provided’; ‘Make valid judgement(s) about the usefulness and/or reliability of the evidence’. Level 3 is the assessment level for students in their last year of secondary school in New Zealand, i.e. Year 13 students aged 17–18.

5. In New Zealand, Year 13 history students study one topic for the entire year and the teacher makes the selection from two available topics – England 1558–1667 or Nineteenth-century New Zealand history. This topic is then examined at the end of the school year, while internal assessment components may address any historical topic selected by the student and/or teacher.

6. A total of 4906 students sat the resource interpretation standard in 2009, of which approximately 3300 would have addressed the questions on the topic England 1558–1667.

7. Tessa Watt analysed the stocks of ballads recorded in publishers' listings, and the Stationers' Company registration lists, and found that woodcut pictures had became a standard feature of religious ballads by the early seventeenth century. Of the surviving publications, which Watt identifies as 45 religious ballads, only one-fifth of sixteenth-century ballads are illustrated whereas for the period 1600–40 more than five-sixths are illustrated (Watt 1991, 142).

8. For example, in the central woodcut for Death's Dance, representatives of a range of social classes are illustrated as evidenced by their dress. The man at the front of the crowd is in rags while the woman immediately behind him wears an elegant gown (see Day 1987, vol. 2, 56–7).

9. An image of this engraving can be viewed on the British Museum website at http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/online_research_catalogues.aspx by entering the title of the work into the search box there. Alternatively it can be found in Walsham (1999), plate 37, 260.