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74 Drawing in Preschools:
A Didactic Experience
Nina Scott Frisch

Abstract

To be understood, visually, often depends on how

skilled one is in catching form and translating it
into a two-dimensional surface. This is a chal-
lenge we are confronted with early in life.
Children’s learning strategies in drawing are not
always understood or encouraged. This article
presents a socio-cultural analysis from Norway of
a pedagogical practice that attempts to shed light
on the question, How does the preschool teacher
support 3–5 year old children when they are draw-
ing something they see, and how do children in
this age group respond to this support?

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© 2006 The Author. Journal compilation © 2006 NSEAD/Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Introduction
Drawing is a major activity in Norwegian
preschools. Children often tell stories while draw-
ing; the drawing processes and products often
reflect how children understand and what they
emphasize. The drawing processes that take
place in preschools are often, although not
always, pre-planned as part of regular learning
activities. These processes help children catch
the form of objects and the pictorial representa-
tion that exists in a larger learning milieu; they are
about expressing ideas, stories and concepts. In
this sense drawing is an activity that prepares the
child for visual communication with an adult. It is
not hard to understand why a focus on content
knowledge in drawing is highly relevant within our
cultural framework where visual communication
is an essential part of our society. A focus on
drawing processes in preschools is therefore
appropriate. Three questions arise. Is it possible
to define relevant approaches to teaching draw-
ing in preschools? Can we develop approaches
that challenge the children intellectually and
perceptually in developing their motor skills while,
at the same time, experiencing an enjoyable activ-
ity? Is it possible to develop didactic approaches
in the teaching of drawing that maintain the
essential educational activities of preschools
while allowing for a more systematic approach in
the teaching of drawing as part of a child’s social-
ization into visual communication?
The preschool age is a sensitive time in a
child’s development because the child depends
on pedagogical actions of adults. To be able to
teach drawing in preschools it is necessary to
have a research basis that tells us something
about how children learn to draw. If we focus on
the child’s drawing and the drawing process, it is
possible to get information about how the child
interacts with the environment. At the same time
this focus tells us something about how the child
learns to draw. The purpose of my research is that
the results can be used as a basis for pedagogi-
cal preparations in the process of teaching
drawing in preschools. I therefore want to explore
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the following research question: How does the 75
preschool teacher support 3–5 year old children Nina Scott Frisch
when they are drawing a form they see, and how
do children in this age group use this support?
Method
For a period of about two months, the preschool
staff and the children worked on the theme
Myself. Two days a week and approximately two
hours a day were used to work with this theme
in one preschool. About 200 drawings were
collected. They were drawn by 25 children in
two departments or classes (18 children were
3–6 years old and seven were 1–3 years old).
Approximately half of these drawings or observa-
tions were of themselves. I clustered the data with
the aim of sorting out the observations that clearly
could indicate how the children captured their self-
image. I was left with about 45 drawings.
Through close collaboration with the pre-school
staff I collected data consisting of the drawings and
the contextual observations of the drawing
processes. The preschool staff wrote down their
experiences during the theme work. Their writings
are different voices uttered directly from the
research field. In addition I conducted group inter-
views and separate interviews of the preschool
staff using the data as a basis for our conversation.
The data is documentary in the sense that I am deal-
ing with real writings. I can compare myself with an
interpreter of a text, an archeologist or an art histo-
rian where the research material functions as the
object of the researcher’s theoretical interpretation.
All qualitative methods rely on the researcher’s
interpretation of the research data. This interpre-
tation demands the researcher’s concentration,
creativity, use of theory to understand, and ability
to communicate his or her findings. The research
material reflects a construction that consists of the
researcher’s interpretation of the substance in the
data. However, these results are looked upon as
one of many possible interpretations.
Theory
Research on children’s drawing is popular because
76 it is a source of understanding a child’s cognitive,
Nina Scott Frisch emotional, visual and motor processes. But we
see too often that the child’s drawing is taken out
of context by focusing only on the product (the
drawing) to explain the child’s internal processes.
By using socio-cultural theory as an analytical
device, the field of research expands to include
the context, that is, the registration of the
dialogues, the material environment and the
visual culture the child is a part of [1].
In our recent history we have emphasized chil-
dren’s drawings as individual expressions rather
than seeing their drawings as a way of socializing
into a common pictorial language, a common
pictorial culture. We have prepared teachers from
this perspective. Lowenfeld and Brittain [2]
analysed and sorted out thousands of children’s
drawings to see if they could find characteristic
features that could be used to describe the devel-
opment of pictorial marks among children. Their
research was ground-breaking in its time, and had
an immense influence on the thinking of teachers
in the United States and in Europe. In retrospect
one can see that the data were not put into cate-
gories showing the different effects of social
influence. One can also see in their research that
their theoretical framework influenced the choice
of research methods. They collected a large
quantity of drawings without gathering contex-
tual data. Contextual drawing analysis (analysis of
a drawing with description of the drawing making
process, including the dialogues connected with
this process) was undertaken by Wilson and
Wilson [3]. The result of their study showed that
many of the learning processes in drawing were
based on social interaction. That is, often children
learn to draw by looking directly at other pictures,
and by looking at each other.
According to a socio-cultural theory, it is a unique
feature of human development to use tools and
signs [4]. The core of socio-cultural theory is that
individuals and their historical and social context are
inseparable. One cannot be understood without
the other. The transfer of knowledge is a social,
cultural and historical phenomenon.
© 2006 The Author. Journal compilation © 2006 NSEAD/Blackwell Publishing Ltd
The neo-Vygotskyan, Cole [5], explains the term
‘culture’ as the synthesis of all tools and signs (also
called artifacts) available for a group of people. The
term ‘signs’ includes verbal language. He explains
the term ‘artifact’ as an aspect of the material
world that people use when interacting with their
physical and social environment. All human activ-
ity that uses artifacts is called mediated action [6].
If we look at drawing from this perspective, the
pencil is a historically and culturally developed tool
that is used in the mediated action of drawing.
Vygotsky explains drawing as part of the
child’s playing activity [7]. After a while the sign on
paper will be given a symbolic meaning, and will
become what Wilson and Wilson [8] call a ‘config-
urational sign’. A drawing of a cloud is a sign of a
cloud. A cloud is a natural object; a drawing of a
cloud is a sign. We could say that the use of
configurational signs is a kind of graphic language
that is based on verbal language.
In the process of drawing, preschool children
often use what Vygotsky called ‘egocentric
speech’ [9]. Egocentric speech is the child’s verbal
transmission between social speech and inner
speech, a kind of self-instruction. Children struc-
ture their drawing processes, and describe on
paper what they are drawing. Language guides
the drawing activity. Because humans are capable
of using language as a tool for self-instruction,
they can regulate their own drawing behaviour.
This is termed ‘self-regulation’ by Vygotsky.
According to Vygotsky, learning happens in a
social context, where language and dialogue play
an important role in the learning process. First, we
have experiences in an external social setting, in
cooperation with other people, on the intermental
plane. Through various processes and recon-
structions we then internalize, individually, these
experiences on the intramental plane. The child is
not placed in the role of a passive receiver, but is
looked upon as an active learner in this process.
Vygotsky referred to several factors that are
crucial for internalizing experiences from the
external social context. One of these factors is the
different kind of support from what he called the
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‘zone of proximal development (ZPD)’. ZPD is
explained as the zone between the zone of actual
development (ZAD) and the zone of potential
development (ZOPD). According to Vygotsky the
learning process begins in the child’s ZAD where
the child functions without support. Actual learn-
ing happens in ZPD or the zone between ZAD and
ZOPD. ZOPD is as far as the child can reach at the
time with support. The support in ZPD can be
from another competent person, technical
support, or books for example. Flem [10] explains
Vygotsky’s term ‘ZPD’ as a dynamic sensitive
area, where the child’s proficiency or skills are
developed together with support.
Wertsch [11] has furthered Vygotsky’s theory
by introducing the expression ‘intersubjectivity’.
In the process of evolving into a new ZAD, the
more competent other and the child have to gain
intersubjectivity, a kind of mutual understanding
of the situation, before solving the problem.
Wertsch emphasizes the complexity of gaining
intersubjectivity in the ZPD, and uses the term
‘resistance’. Resistance can be a focus that
shows ‘hidden’ visual languages, configurational
signs and learning processes that belong to the
child’s own culture. This focus helps teachers to
an awareness of the difference (if there is one)
between adult culture’s images and the children’s
learning processes in drawing.
Wertsch builds on Bakhtin [12] when he
argues that dialectical processes develop differ-
ent languages. All languages relate to their
special contexts in the past, present and future.
When Bakhtin places language in an historical
and social context he claims that any utterance is
related to the community’s utterances. In any
utterance one will find traces of earlier utterances
and the source of future utterances in the social
sphere. A drawing can be seen as an utterance.
According to Bahktin ‘s theory a drawing will
incorporate configurational signs from the
community. In the drawn picture you will find past
configurational signs, those of the present and
the source of future configurational signs [13].
Bahktin claims, in his theory, that any utterance
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comes partly from the child and partly from 77
others. We could then say, that the drawing Nina Scott Frisch
belongs both to the child and to the community.
‘Scaffolding’ is a metaphor for support
systems given by the preschool teacher in the
child’s ZPD. Scaffolds are used in the building
trade to make it possible for the carpenter to
move from one level of a building to another.
According to Wood, Bruner and Ross [14], who
introduced this helpful metaphor, the scaffold
could be moved when the task was finished, to
new areas that needed work. In the context of a
learning situation, scaffolding is the offering of
physical and mental support systems so that chil-
dren can work on the tasks with which they are
faced. The essential idea here, according to Flem
[15], is that children are supported when they are
exploring something, and when they express the
need for support.
When we transfer the term ‘scaffolding’ to the
process of learning, there are several different
strategies that could be used to help the child
achieve a new ZOPD where competency is inter-
nalized. Tharp and Gallimore [16] describe six
support strategies as scaffolds in the ZPD. They
are as follows: (1) modelling, (2) contingency
management, (3) feeding back, (4) instructing, (5)
questioning and (6) cognitive structuring. In my
research the relevant strategies are modelling,
instructing and cognitive structuring (guided
reinvention).
Modelling is being given the opportunity to
imitate and to copy. This method or strategy has
been used within the subject of art for centuries.
According to Wilson and Wilson [17] it is the strat-
egy children often use all by themselves without
being taught to draw. Children copy the configu-
rational signs of others and imitate drawing
behaviour.
Instructing involves language as an important
component in teaching. A dialogue that involves
instruction could be an important part of a draw-
ing process. The use of a common system of
terms can lead the child to an awareness of visual
form.
78 Cognitive structuring is defined as two different
Nina Scott Frisch structures. The first structure is explaining. The
second cognitive structure is in the learning
process itself, for example, when the preschool
teacher gives a holistic, open and general descrip-
tion of the core task. It gives the children the
possibility of creating their own structures of
understanding or what Tharp and Gallimore [18]
call ‘guided reinvention’. This strategy is often
used in preschools when children, on their own
initiative, draw a picture after being read a story.
Another example is when children work with a
theme or a project initiated by adults, but where
room is given for children to find their own draw-
ing solutions.
As mentioned earlier, drawing is seen as cultural
and individual expression. The socio-cultural theo-
rist Zinchenko [19] discusses the relationship
between internal processes and external action. To ment was organized so that the child could reach
shed more light on this complex phenomenon, he pencils, paper and good drawing facilities such as
suggests looking for inner mental components in a chair and a table. The staff also placed mirrors
external action and drawing processes are exter- around the classroom. The theme was worked
nal actions where we could look for mental into assemblies with music and singing, reading,
components. Such learning processes are influ- and drama. The staff used Tharp and Gallimore’s
enced by individual and cultural factors. Some [20] strategy called guided reinvention to encour-
processes that clearly have a cultural origin will be age drawing. The children made drawings on their
internalized and individualized. The processes from own initiative.
the intermental to the intramental plane are indi- I will present three different scenarios. Each is
vidual, according to Vygotsky. Some of the representative of one of the clusters in the data
individual factors will be expressed in a social base, the drawings and dialogues of Aleksander
context and become part of a culture. age 4, Dafina age 3 1/2, and Malin age 5 years and
1 month. These drawing processes are presented
Analysis of data from a socio-cultural because they show how children of this age
perspective group use the given support, or find their own
As mentioned, the preschool staff initiated a support when drawing a figure they see.
project with the children of 1–3 years of age, that
consisted of working with the theme Myself. This A mirror as a scaffold:
theme was also developed with the 4–6 year Aleksander, age 4, was sitting in front of the
olds. The theme started the opening of the mirror and drew this picture (figure 1):
preschool after summer vacation because the Aleksander: ‘I forgot the ears!’ in Norwegian
staff had observed how focused the children dialect (Nd): ‘Det va øran æ hi glømt av!’ He then
were on themselves and each other during added his ears.
preschool openings. The goal was that each indi- Aleksander: ‘I have something underneath.’
vidual became visible in school, and was (Nd): ‘Nånn uinner har æ.’ He then drew his
introduced to the rest of the group. The environ- eyelashes.

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The context of Alexander’s drawing activity was 79
described above. His drawing actions were self- Nina Scott Frisch

initiated. He is in the act of drawing himself,

concentrated and focused on the traces he makes
on paper. Then he looked up, into the mirror, and
discovered his ears (‘I forgot the ears!’), and his
eyelashes (‘I have something underneath.’). These
were discoveries and corrections that were
expressed in a kind of monologue, or self-instruc-
tion, in the dynamic space between internal and
external speech. Here self-instruction consisted
of an interaction between inner language and
external visual stimulus (the mirror and the draw-
ing). The interaction between what Zinchenko
called internal processes (verbal self-instruction or
egocentric speech) and external action (the use of
external visual stimulus, mirrors, and the act of
drawing) was clearly shown. If we looked at the
drawing out of context, without documentation, it
would be difficult to see the special inner compo-
nents (thinking, correction by using the mirror) in
this ‘external’ visual expression. Aleksander used the mirror as a scaffold. The
The fact that Aleksander decided to draw, and mirror helped him see details that he would not
then made these discoveries, was part of his indi- have seen without the possibility of looking into
viduality, his unique personality. The pressure he the mirror. The mirror was a tool that helped
used on the pencil, his confidence in making a Aleksander into functioning within the ZPD. He
drawing, form part of his motor skills. But the extended his knowledge about himself and how
tools and the learning strategies he used were his head was shaped. This knowledge will be
culturally determined and consisted of the follow- internalized after repetitions and become what
ing features: (1) He used culturally created tools Vygotsky called part of his ZAD. By using the
(pencil and paper), as part of the drawing process. mirror Aleksander had an enhanced visual control
(2) He had been given the opportunity to practise; over his head as a configurational sign.
he had been doing the activity of drawing before.
This influenced his tracing. In the West drawing is A mirror and an adult as scaffolds
often viewed as an important part of childhood, Dafina, age 3 1/2, sat in front of a mirror and drew
as preceding reading, writing, counting and herself. She was talking to a grown-up (figure 2).
expressing oneself through visual images. (3) He
used an organized environment. This environ- Dafina: ‘I’m drawing myself.’ (Nd): ‘Æ tegne mæ
ment was created as a learning tool by the people sjøl, æ.’ Opposite page:
around him. An organized learning environment Dafina: ‘Look at the lines, what are they called?’ Figure 1
is a culturally developed tool, a way of thinking (Nd): ‘Sjå strekern, ka det heite?’. Aleksander’s
drawing
and acting that is built on culturally determined Adult: ‘They’re called eyelashes.’ (Nd):’Det heite
values, and culturally determined experiences. øyevippa.’ This page:
This can refer to Cole’s definition of artifacts as Dafina: ‘Look at the teeth!’ (Nd): ‘Sjå teinnern!’ Figure 2
the synthesis of all tools and signs. She then drew teeth in her mouth. Dafina’s drawing

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80
Nina Scott Frisch
Because Dafina was sitting and talking to an
adult, a new element was introduced in this draw-
ing process. This was a more competent other
who was helping Dafina when she needed it. She
had somebody to ask in this dynamic discovery
process. Just like Aleksander, Dafina noticed
elements in her face while using the mirror as a
scaffold, but she was also curious about terms.
She wanted to know what the lines above her
eyes were called. With regard to language and
drawing Dafina was in the ZPD. She saw that she
had eyelashes, and placed these lines above her
eyes on the picture while inquiring about verbal
expressions. She developed both her language
and her drawing. We saw how Dafina was using
her social environment to learn, and we saw how
she was in charge of her own learning.
A model as scaffold
Malin, age 5 years and 1 month, was sitting
together with a group of other children that were
4–6 years old. She was talking partly to herself,
partly to the others. She was making a drawing of
herself (figure 3).
© 2006 The Author. Journal compilation © 2006 NSEAD/Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Malin: ‘Big head.’ in Norwegian (Nor): ‘Stort
hode.’
‘Must have big eyes.’ (Nor): ‘Må ha store øya.’
‘Button nose.’ (Nor): ‘Knappnese.’
‘This is how Kristin draws princesses.’ (Nor):
‘Sånn tegne Kristin prinsessa.’
‘Now, and one, two, three, four, five.’ (Nor):
‘Sånn, også en, to, tre, fire, fem.’ She was count-
ing her fingers while drawing.
‘Where are the legs supposed to be?’ (Nor):
‘Hvor skal beina være?’
‘One, two, three, four, five.’ (Nor): ‘En, to, tre,
fire, fem.’
‘I really should be putting a dress on, but I have
pants [trousers] on today. I have red pants on
today, look at those pants! They look nice.’
(Nor): ‘Egentlig skulle jeg hatt på kjole, men jeg
har jo bukser i dag. Røde bukser har jeg i dag, se
den buksa! Den blei fin.’
‘The jumper should be blue. There is something
missing.’ (Nor): ‘Jumperen skal være blå. Det er
noe som mangler.’
‘There.’ (Nor): ‘Sånn.’
‘And, and … mouth.’ (Nor): ‘Og, og … munn.’
‘Now I have red legs.’ (Nor): ‘Nå har jeg røde
legger.’
‘Now I’m writing my name’. (Nor): ‘Nå skriver jeg
navnet mitt.’
Malin’s drawing of herself was made from a
mental model. She stated that she was using a
model in the observation above. Earlier she
learned to draw princesses with the help of the
learning strategy of modelling. She drew herself
as Kristin (a girl she knows), drew princesses,
with a large head and a button nose. She stated
in the documentation that she had been using a
kind of princess-pattern, that really should be
wearing a dress, but she adjusted the drawing
so that it matched what she was wearing that
day (‘I really should be putting a dress on, but I
have pants on today. I have red pants on today.’).
She combined a model learned through visual
control, and used visual control at the moment
to adjust the model. She used a socially learned
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pattern and adjusted it individually. We could say
that her mental model (Kristin’s princess) was
part of a pictorial culture. We have seen this
schema for a face and body before, and it was
learned in a social context. Malin learned from
another child and from a broader pictorial
culture. But Malin also showed us her individu-
ality by adjusting the drawing so that it looked
more like her. The drawing process showed her
individual features. She coloured with great
confidence. But her drawing activity also had a
socio-cultural history (as in the analysis of
Aleksander’s drawing).
Contextual analysis of children’s drawing by
Wilson and Wilson showed that children learn to
draw from each other. Malin used this strategy.
She learned to draw princesses from Kristin,
through social interaction. She remembered
Kristin’s pattern, she repeated it and adjusted it
using visual control (she changed the dress from
the pattern to the pants she wore that day).
Bakhtin placed language in an historical and
social context; he claimed that any utterance was
related to those in the community. We find
Kristin’s princess in Malin’s drawing of herself.
Malin’s drawing of herself was her own expres-
sion, but it was also the expression of the
community. Kristin’s princess was inspired by
cartoons or comic strips. Variations of Kristin’s
pattern for drawing a princess can be seen as part
of configurational signs, or utterances, found in
the broader community.
To sum up, this analysis responds to the ques-
tion: How does the preschool teacher support 3
-5 year old children when they are drawing a form
they see, and how do children in this age group
use this support?
The data indicate that:
1. Observation of a model, that is, the use of the
scaffold modelling, is part of the preschool
teacher’s arrangements for supporting the
children when they draw themselves.
Observation is a learning strategy that is
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actively used by the children of this age group 81
(looking at themselves in a mirror, and at other Nina Scott Frisch
children’s drawings.)
2. The children use the scaffold in getting feed-
back, in the sense of seeking answers. This
means that to be in dialogue with a more
competent other is part of the child’s learning
strategy in the drawing process.
3. Children in this age group use egocentric
speech or self-instruction in the process of
drawing what they see.
4. All of 1–3 above happens within the use of the
scaffold guided reinvention.
I will now discuss the results with socio-cultural
theory as my interpretive focus, and further look
at these interpretations in the light of relevant
research.
Discussion
The data showed that the story, the fantasies, the
drama in the drawing, that is, verbal utterances
about the person being drawn, were not included
in the utterances connected to the learning
processes in visual control. Hopperstad [21]
showed how language is developed together
with the making of a drawing. She showed that
the child created meaning in this symbiosis, or
unit of drawing and storytelling. Representative
examples from data produced in my study
showed that when there was a focus (through
guided reinvention) on gaining visual control the
verbal utterances were dominated by the chil-
dren’s visual findings.
Bae’s [22] report from the field of practice tells
us about how drawing processes are a source of
activity that expose the child emotionally, intellec-
tually and socially. From my study I find that the
drawing and the drawing process are a kind of
print of the individual’s social relations and contex-
tual conditions. But it also catalyses emotions,
knowledge, perception, experience and story-
making. Other children, the preschool staff and Opposite page:
the preschool material environment formed the Figure 3
social and contextual factors for the children. The Malin’s drawing
82 tension between the individual and the socio-
Nina Scott Frisch contextual is presently being debated within the
pedagogical and didactical professional arena. My
analysis with a socio-cultural perspective shows
that the individual perspective also manifests itself
within this focus. Research with a socio-cultural
focus as I have shown here, emphasizes common
cultural features in pictorial languages and in learn-
ing processes. We saw that the individuals were
interacting with their social and contextual envi-
ronment from their unique perspective. No one
has exactly the same socio-cultural history. From
this theoretical viewpoint, an individual’s socio-
cultural perspective must be unique even though
it has many common features with others, as
Bakhtin claimed.
In the beginning of his book, Eisner [23]
discussed the phenomenon of what his adver-
saries called ‘academizing kindergarten’. He
argued for a more systematic approach to deal
with the preschool child’s natural need for
learning within the field of visual subjects. The
counter-argument of this view has been that the
systematic approach could remove the child’s
natural playful approach to learning in preschools.
The systematic approach was demonstrated in the
preschool referred to in my study by working with
the theme Myself, arranging the material environ-
ment by making mirrors available as scaffolds and
by using the learning strategy guided reinvention.
Alexander’s and Dafina’s drawing processes
were self-initiated, and were genuine expres-
sions. Lowenfeld and Brittain categorized this
developmental stage as the scribbling stage (2–4
years). They stated that the child does not try to
copy visual form, or to draw human beings prior
to the preschematic stage (4–7 years). Their data
were collected in the 1940s, but the theory
generated from their research is still a part of
the Norwegian preschool teacher’s education
curriculum. For the most part the data collected
in my study showed that there was a secure and
steady drawing ability among the children and
also a sense for details which is not indicative of
the term ‘scribble’. Dafina showed a curiosity for
© 2006 The Author. Journal compilation © 2006 NSEAD/Blackwell Publishing Ltd
details such as eyelashes and teeth at the age of
3 1/2. This reinforced the individuality of her
expression in drawing. Most preschool teachers
would identify these drawings as good drawings,
that is, children’s drawings that are characterized
by their different solutions to visually expressing
a face, and by being genuinely ‘child like’.
Aleksander and Dafina began to draw human
faces with a sense for details, and were way past
their developmental ‘category’, the scribbling
stage. Kellogg [24] analysed a large quantity of
drawings made by 2–3 and 3–5 year old children.
She developed an interesting theory that the
child’s development of drawing skills is a congen-
ital linear progression that evolves independently
from the visual world. This progression consists
of ‘prehistoric’ visual forms, such as different
scribble-like traces, and then later, circle-like
forms, crosses and other basic shapes. Kellogg
traced a path that led back to the Celtic, Nordic
and Inca culture and actually showed similarities
in the making of visual form. She emphasized that
the child does not use these basic shapes as
symbols or as representing things or people from
the visual world. These shapes are part of the
child’s human archetypal repertory for graphical
form. According to Kellogg, children of 2–3 years
of age almost always produce abstract form. The
prime mover for this is a universal desire to
perceive and draw form. Dafina’s drawing
process is counter to Kellogg’s opinion. She was
3 1/2 years of age, and was showing, as
mentioned above, self-initiated curiosity in creat-
ing symbolic visual form by creating what Wilson
and Wilson term ‘configurational signs’.
My data shows that the story connected to the
drawing process focused on the visual aspects of
what was drawn. The creativity in storytelling had
its source in tracing visual form, not in a story
about what was drawn. Pedersen [25] showed
that the drawing made out of the child’s imagina-
tion benefited from alternating between different
drawing approaches. He found a higher quality of
representation and a richness of detail in these
drawings when children were allowed to use
JADE 25.1(2006)
alternative strategies. The experiences of the staff Acknowledgements 83
in my research confirmed this. They pointed out I am indebted to associate professor emeritus Nina Scott Frisch

while summing up the theme work that the draw- Jon Thoreau Scott at the State University of New
ings had more details, and that they could see York for discussing and correcting my English,
these details being used in other drawing and to associate professor Torill Moen at the
processes not fixed on drawing something the Norwegian University of Science and Technology
child was looking at. in Trondheim for comments on the structure of
Malin’s drawing of herself as a princess could this article.
be classified as a ‘cliché’ among preschool teach-
ers [26]. Her drawing culture valued Kristin’s
pattern for making a princess. We can assume
that is why she took the trouble to learn it. To draw
one’s self using someone else’s pattern could
create resistance among some preschool teach-
ers. From a socio-cultural perspective, teachers
could focus on the children’s ability to produce
form, and to master learning strategies. They
could also focus on Malin’s concentration and her
pride in being able to reproduce visual form that
has social value in her own children’s culture,
even though as reflective adults we may be scep-
tical of her girlish and maybe even commercial
gender socialization. In this context, while she is
drawing, we should see her as an illustrator
struggling with the craft of making visual two-
dimensional symbolic forms.
One could question whether or not the
strategy of guided reinvention is encouraging
self-initiated action. Can children’s drawing
actions be self-initiated and at the same time
guided? In my opinion guided reinvention is a
learning strategy that is ‘unlimited’, so that we are
talking about a kind of organized inspiration that
provides the possibility for the self-initiated action
of drawing. The absence of verbal instructions
from others is also an indication that actions were
being self-initiated. From the educator’s point of
view, it is important that the challenges given
to the children are within their ZOPD. For the
child it is important that the drawing process is a
pleasurable challenge. The data showed that
the children who used the scaffolds presented
to them in their drawing-making processes
succeeded in making configurational signs,
enriched by details, within their ZPD.

JADE 25.1(2006)
© 2006 The Author. Journal compilation © 2006 NSEAD/Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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JADE 25.1(2006)
© 2006 The Author. Journal compilation © 2006 NSEAD/Blackwell Publishing Ltd