David Wiesner’s wordless picture book, Flotsam, serves as an excellent example of a transmedia storytelling that affords readers opportunities to foster new literacies by reading the images of the book. Every page of Flotsam contains an infinite number of possible story fragments waiting to be unpacked and inviting readers to author their own words, images, sounds.

Wiesner notes:

When you read a book with [written] text, you're hearing the author's voice. Without text, your own voice is free to tell the story. I may have been thinking one thing as I worked on the book, but a reader can think something quite different, and their version of what is going on is as valid as mine.

Review one of the three images from Flotsam

Aliens on vacation under the sea

Family of octupuses sitting on sofas in underwater living room

Turtles migrating with city of green people on their backs

ACTIVITY: Reading Wordless Picture Books

Look closely at one of the images above. These images of Flotsam are jumping-off points for stories that go in completely new directions. For example, take the picture of the aliens under the sea and pose questions, like: “Where did they come from? Where are they going?" Questions like these extend the story beyond what the student sees on the page.

1. Choose an image.
2. Find something in the image that you can use as a springboard to extend the story beyond the words or image.
3. Choose one of three themes to consider when looking at the image (lenses, geographies, timelines/ histories).
4. Brainstorm around four actions—finding, decoding, recoding and releasing—comparable to annotating and ornamenting a text.
5. Write a new story whether it is through the written word, a performance, a song, dance or even a drawing.

Click on the below activity to participate in Flows of Reading Community of Practice and share your creations.

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