Hooked on peers’ drawings: Learning through the visual wildfire

Children’s drawing activity has been theorized as traces of cognitive and biological development, with cultural variations as minor sources of visual and traceable influence. Even though present, less research has been done on documenting the social aspect of drawing; seeing drawing as visual communication between children. This aspect of drawing development, or learning, is visually traceable, but is still often neglected because children´s drawings can be seen in light of a discourse emphasizing the individual solitude and expression of the professional artist. Collection of drawings, observations and interviews took place in one elementary school art room for one academic year among students of 9 to 12 years of age. In a case study sociocultural theory was used to investigate children’s formal and informal drawing activity; a segment of the findings is presented in this lecture as a narrative analysis of parts of the data. The result indicate that meaningful drawing activity among these children formally (in drawing classes) and informally (outside formal drawing teaching) included ”hooking up” with parts of peers` drawing focus, explained as the visual wildfire. These processes are seen as dialogical and therefore valuable for children developing their ability to communicate visually through drawing.