From exclusion to inclusion: Audiovisual identity literature of young students

Abstract

The situation during the current pandemic caused by COVID-19, this time of isolation, difficult health situations, and often familial and social trouble, increasingly provokes a reflection on the literature that is offered in the curriculum for pupils at early school age. My focus in this article is texts of audiovisual literature that use the code of new media and address the issue of dysfunction in the home, which can also be exacerbated in these difficult times. I am referring to the loneliness of a child, adults’ disregard and misunderstanding of children, and domestic violence, but also the needs of people with mental disabilities and the situations of their relatives, especially the youngest ones. It is worth noting that guidelines formulated by the government for early literature classes were not based on or preceded by conversations with children in order to explore the aforementioned issues. Meanwhile, literature defined as a kind of thought laboratory, among other things, stands in opposition to governmental regulations. Especially in the current situation, students need literary works which speak to them through relevant content and through the media poetics to which contemporary children and adolescents are accustomed. A reflective teacher can use such books to guide the children to make a discovery about the world, find their own place the texts of identity audiovisual literature which, in building a narrative, fits into the categories of audiovisuality proposed by Adam Regiewicz and deals with the forementioned problems.