Opening the box: literacy, artefactsand identityMary Scanlan

Abstract

This article discusses research which was carried outwithin the ESRC-funded Home–School KnowledgeExchange Project (2001–2004). Through a process ofcollaborative action research an activity based onprevious project work was devised. Children wereasked to select artifacts from home that would inspiletheir creative writing in school. This activity explicitlyallowed children to present aspects of their identitywithin the school domain and for knowledge of homepractices to permeate the literacy curriculum. Theresearch explored the constraints that the contempor-ary literacy curriculum imposed on the activity, inparticular the problematic status of oracy. The gainsthat the activity afforded some children, both curricu-lum-based (extended pieces of work, improved struc-ture to writing) and personal (increased motivation,heightened self-esteem), are also examined. Theresearch highlighted the relationship between literacyand identity in that the activity allowed the expressionof both figurative and positional identity. Additionallythe importance of popular culture in the formation ofindividual and group identity is discussed.

Key words: literacy, identity, writing, home, curricu-lum, oracy

Introduction

This study explores how the influence of the home,exemplified through artefacts, can impact on the literacycurriculum in the school and thus allow the expression ofpupil identity. These artefacts from pupils out of schoolworlds are conceptualised in my study as key indicatorsof identity. Dyson (1997, 1999) argues for the permeabilityof the curriculum to enable such influences to be utilisedwithin the classroom. My research explores how aspectsof identity might be acknowledged within the formalliteracy curriculum. I also examine the importance ofartefacts within identity creation and analyse the role ofpopular culture in pupil identity.

My research was carried out as part of the Home–School Knowledge Project (ESRC reference numberL139 25 1078) in an inner-city infant school in thesouth-west of England. It was theorised within anaction research framework (Elliot, 1991), which was

designed to be sustainable and give ownership to thepupils, school and parents involved. Thereforethrough a collaborative process, activities were de-vised with the aim of acknowledging pupils’ out ofschool identities and building on these within theclassroom. Before the action described in this paper Ihad carried out various activities in the school, whichincluded making a video about writing and providingthe pupils with disposable cameras to use at home.Each activity was reviewed after completion and theoutcome impacted upon the next planned action (forfurther information on this and other project activitiesplease see Feiler et al., 2007). Because of the collabora-tive nature of the action research it was evident thatparents felt involved in and appreciated the indivi-dualised nature of the initiative, evidenced by the highresponse rate (29 of 30 children took part in the activitydescribed in this paper). Inspired by the work of Marshand Thompson (2001) an activity was devised in whichparents and pupils collaborated to select artefacts inthe home which they felt might inspire creative writingin school. It is the opportunity this activity afforded forthe expression of pupil identity that is discussed in thispaper.

Background

At the time this research took place (2003–2004) theliteracy curriculum within many UK schools wasconstrained by the highly prescriptive Literacy Hourframework that had been introduced in 2001 (DfES,2001). It might therefore be argued that the expressionof individual identity was not a high priority withinthe curriculum at that time. Additionally it mightbe stated that this framework highlighted certain aspectsof literacy learning (such as reading and writing) tothe detriment of other aspects such as oracy (Haworth,2001).

Despite these restrictions my research was undertakensuccessfully due to a number of factors, the mostimportant of which was the teacher’s experience as aclassroom practitioner and her clearly articulatedviews on literacy learning. She had the confidence toquestion contemporary orthodoxy and organise thelearning in her class in the way she felt was mostsuccessful for her pupils.

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r UKLA 2010. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Literacy

Literacy, identity and artefacts

My research builds upon the work carried out byresearchers such as Moll and Greenberg (1992) andDyson (1999) who emphasise the need for schools toacknowledge the rich linguistic and cultural resourceswhich pupils bring to settings. In my work artefacts fromthe home are theorised as symbols of cultural resourcesand of identity. It is clear that through the conceptualisa-tion of literacy as a social practice the issue of identity ishighlighted. Hull and Schultz (2001) comment that Gee(1990) uses the notion of Discourse to reframe under-standing of literacy especially in relation to identity.

‘‘A Discourse is a sort of identity kit which comes completewith the appropriate costume and instructions on how toact, talk and often to write, so as to take on a particular socialrole that others will recognise’’ (Gee, 1990, p. 142).

Gee also suggests that people attain new literacies andthe attendant social identities through acquisition(informal apprentice-style learning) rather than teach-ing (learning through formal instruction). Bartlett(2005) notes recent research (e.g. Moje et al., 2004),which emphasises the bidirectionality of literacy andidentity and also examines literacy in relation to locallyrelevant social structures. Pahl and Rowsell (2005)argue that identity is the most important ingredient inteaching and learning literacy:

‘‘literacy is a culturally mediated and practice-infusedactivity that constantly pulls on the personality of thespeaker, the writer or the reader’’ (Pahl and Rowsell,2005, p. 98).

In their anthropologically based study of identity,Holland et al. (1998) claim that identity is created andhighlight the elements of social negotiation that areinvolved in identity production. They assert that, asactors in socially and culturally constructed worlds,people develop more or less conscious conceptions ofthemselves, and that identity is a trace of a person’sparticipation in these figured worlds. These authorsalso identify and contrast two different elements ofidentity: figurative and positional identity. Figurativeidentity refers to aspects of identity related to culture(e.g. shared meanings):

‘‘Narrativized or figurative identities . . . have to do withthe stories, acts and characters that make the world acultural world’’ (Holland et al., 1998, p. 127).

Positional identity in their view refers to one’s sense ofself in relation to systems (e.g. of power or affiliation):

‘‘Positional identity . . . is a person’s apprehension of hersocial position in a lived world’’ (Holland et al., 1998,pp. 127–128).

Bartlett (2005) too states that positionality signifiesunderstanding of one’s position in systems of hier-archy and is inextricably linked to locally relevantsocial structures such as class, race, age and gender.

Holland et al. (1998) stress the importance of culturalartefacts in allowing individuals to develop figurativeaspects of their identities and state that these artefactsmight be objects, symbols, narratives or images. Bartlett(2005) agrees that identity creation entails figuredelements or aspects that relate to culture, for examplesocially shared meanings, and argues that we need tolook more closely at the role of these cultural resourcesin identity work. Additionally Bartlett notes that theway in which people use cultural artefacts to contest ormaintain positional identities is vitally important:

‘‘students can use cultural artefacts – images, symbols,discourses etc. - to modulate their behaviour, cognition,and emotion enough to overcome negative socialpositioning’’(Bartlett, 2005, p. 3).

Therefore the selection and utilisation of artefacts wasa key factor in my research, as they were seen asrepresentative both of pupils’ cultural worlds and alsoof their positioning within relevant social structures.

Identity, popular culture and shared worlds

As Pahl and Rowsell (2005) comment it is clear that anycurrent exploration of identity necessitates examiningengagement with popular culture. It can perhaps bestated that while popular culture seems to play animportant part in children’s social worlds it does notalways seem to be welcome within the school domain(Lambirth, 2003). However, its omission has beenquestioned. In Marsh and Thompson’s (2001) researchparents make media boxes to support their children’sliteracy development in the home. The contents ofthese boxes reflect aspects of popular culture such asBob the Builder. The researchers discover that byutilising the cultural capital of these particularfamilies, parents feel more confident and engage morefully with home–school activities. Marsh (2003) buildson this work by further exploring the extent to whichliteracy practices of the home and the school permeatethe opposite domain. One finding is that schoolsremain very resistant to the idea of popular culture(which perhaps can be seen as part of home literacypractice). Indeed she finds that the literacy practices ofthe home do not appear within the school domain, butthat schooled literacy practices do infiltrate the home; aprocess she terms ‘one way traffic’.

Dyson (1999) explores the ways in which childrenappropriate material from popular culture and use thisboth in unofficial peer worlds and also subversivelywithin the official curriculum. She focuses her researchon children’s written text and describes (1997) how

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children draw extensively on popular media (inparticular Superheroes) in ‘free’ writing times. Thisprocess meets the needs both of the official schoolcurriculum and the social needs of the childrenthemselves. She demonstrates how the children areinvolved in the social processes of affiliation, distancing,resistance and negotiation in this activity. Bartlett (2005)comments that Dyson’s work shows children authoringpowerful selves, and Dyson (1999) herself claims thatthis appropriation is directly linked to identity:

‘‘Children can use these materials to construct their ownidentities as well as to establish intersubjectivity (sharedworlds) with others as kids, girls and boys, children of aparticular cultural group, and, as they progress throughschool, as students’’ (Dyson, 1999, p. 370).

The concept of children using popular culture to createaspects of individual identity and also to construct andutilise ‘shared worlds’ was key within my research, ascan be seen from the following discussion.

The activity

As part of the action research process this activity builton a successful previous one in which children hadcaptioned photographs taken in the home. Whenreviewed all participants indicated that they wishedto keep the focus of any future action on writing.Subsequently this activity started with the teacher andchildren collaboratively composing a letter for parents,which went home with an empty shoebox over theChristmas holidays, and explained that:

‘‘We are interested in finding out more about whatmotivates children to write, and also to produce highquality written pieces . . . The idea of the shoebox is foreach child to be able to use it to collect items they thinkwould be a good and motivational stimulus for writing’’.

The letter also listed artefacts suggested by thechildren:

‘‘A special stone or crystal, rocks, shell, shiny pebbles,things from a beach, a ‘magic’ piece of paper or a book,photos, Christmas decorations or tree pieces, bugs [plasticones?] toys or teddies, rings or other jewellery, glitter,leaves, flowers, a star, drawings of imaginary things,places or people’’.

When the boxes were returned every child gave an oralpresentation to the class describing why they hadchosen their box contents and how they planned to usethese in their writing. The shoeboxes were then usedfor individual or collaborative writing, and subse-quently the children had an opportunity to share orswap boxes. The writing was word-processed, spiralbound and taken home to share with parents.

Although the children’s stories are presented, thefocus of this paper is the oral aspect of the activity.

I undertook three semi-structured interviews with theteacher (before the activity, immediately after the activityand a follow-up interview 6 months later). The teacheridentified eleven children (six boys and five girls) onwhom the activity had a positive impact in terms of theirwriting (which she termed ‘a literacy breakthrough’).Once this sample had been selected I undertook elevensemi-structured interviews. In terms of literacy abilitythis sample contained two high attaining, five middleattaining and four low attaining children (as judged bytheir teacher). For this discussion on identity I will focuson three of this sample (two boys and one girl). One ofthe children was in the middle attainment group andtwo were classed as low attaining. I used Bearne’s(2005a, b) work on formative and performative talk toanalyse the pupils’ oral presentations.

The overwhelming majority of children in my researchhad sourced a wide range of artefacts. It must beacknowledged that through the use of the letter theteacher had perhaps placed (informal and unspoken)limits on the selection of artefacts. However, I wouldargue that it remained clear that there was a real senseof autonomy over the choice of artefacts. I analysed theartefacts in terms of suggested and non-suggested objects.

In the following discussion the choices of threechildren (all names are pseudonyms) (John, Harryand Caroline) are discussed. John and Harry areanalysed in terms of figurative and positional identity,respectively, and Caroline’s choices are analysed inrelation to popular culture and identity creation.

Literacy, identity and artefacts

As we have seen figurative identity concerns thoseaspects to do with a shared cultural world, e.g.narratives, acts and characters. In the followingvignette we can see how the activity allowed John topresent aspects of his figurative identity (Table 1).

John’s oral presentation

John: ‘‘And I’ve got this, this in here as well. [Wooden owl]Um, my granddad gave it to me. You can actually,um you can actually open, umm you can actually cutthis in half and to do that and there’s an owl inside.And, I’ve got this . . . shell inside. I went snorkellingand I found this shell at the bottom of the sea. Notright at the very bottom but it was very deep. Butum, well it was kind of deep’’.

John: ‘‘ Um, the skeleton was dead and then it came aliveagain’’.

Teacher: ‘‘Is this for the story?’’John: ‘‘ and it spooked the town’’.

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Teacher: ‘‘Aah, it spooked the town in the story? So you’vegot skeletons and ghosts coming in your story’’.

John: ‘‘And I’ve got army men’’.Teacher: ‘‘Why did you choose your ‘army man’?’’John: ‘‘I like the army, and it looks like they’re all

escaping’’.Teacher: ‘‘Yes, it does look a bit like that!’’John: ‘‘Pig . . .’’.Teacher: ‘‘Why did you choose your pig to put in your

shoebox?’’John: Cos I like stories like Babe . . . A knight. I put that in,

and I like knights. And I’ve got more knights. Andhe, he does stuff’’.

In terms of figurative identity, aspects of identity thatare related to culture, artefacts seem to holda particularly powerful place. John’s oral presentationallowed him to present key aspects of his identity (hisrelationship with a grandparent, his liking for ghosts,his preferred reading material and his interest in thearmy) through his choice and presentation of artefacts.

John was seen as a middle attaining pupil in literacy.As well as allowing John to express his identity theshoebox activity also seemed to have an impact on hisliteracy development. The class teacher said:

‘‘Certainly John came up with longer pieces . . . than henormally does, he often, you know he’ll say ‘I’m reallyslow’ and he did work much faster . . . on these occasionswhich was great to see him and obviously he felt reallygood about that . . . that he was speeding up at bit’’.

Additionally this breakthrough was sustained. In thefinal teacher interview in the summer term the teachercommented:

‘‘John’s one who actually said things to me later on in theyear about how much better he felt he’d got, that he usedto be really slow and he felt he was one of the slowest, andthat now he didn’t feel that way. . . . So yeah, [the shoeboxactivity] did work for him’’.

John’s story‘‘One day a boy had a skateboard. His name was J.One day something strange happened. The skateboardstuck to him. He rode it he went upside down.He stuck to the skateboard people tried to get him offbut he could not come off.He said a magic password it was ‘hazy’ he could getoff, he went home’.

Holland et al. (1998) theorised positional identity asconcerned with an individual’s perception of theirplace in social structures. The educational orthodoxy atthe time my research was carried out categorised pupilsas being within rigid bandings (high, medium andlower) regarding literacy attainment. There were veryfew opportunities for pupils to challenge their positionwithin this placement. Moreover it might be stated thatliteracy was defined in a very narrow way whichhighlighted reading and writing to the detriment oforacy (Haworth, 2001). In the following vignette we cansee how one child, Harry, was able to challenge andreposition himself as a literacy learner (Table 2).

Harry was seen as a low attaining pupil in thenarrower curriculum-type definition of literacy, asthe class teacher commented:

Table 1: John’s artefacts

Suggested Non-suggested John’s photograph of artefacts

Shell Cloth (with ‘Indian script’)

Toy soldier Chinese flutePlastic pig Flexible sunglassesPlastic figure of a knight Wooden carved owl

SkeletonVelvet bagMummy case from EgyptSmall plastic suitcaseBellPlastic cactusPaper clip

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‘‘Harry . . . really struggles with getting his ideas down.He has wonderful ideas in his head, can’t ever organisethem’’.

Harry’s presentation

Harry: ‘‘Um, my wand. Cos I was thinking that there wasa wizard. Um, he turned um my ‘fleecy’ [holds upcuddly toy] my um, a little lamb into um, um, intoa slave’’.

Teacher: ‘‘Turned him into a slave? Wow’’.Harry: ‘‘And then um, he started to remember his mum

and dad. And then he started to make plans. Andthen um, he defeated the wizard’’.

Teacher: ‘‘Aah! So he came up with a plan’’.Harry: ‘‘ without any magic’’.Teacher: ‘‘So he came up with a plan to defeat the wizard

without any magic’’.Harry: ‘‘But it took quite a long time to, to defeat him’’.Teacher: ‘‘What a great story idea, that one’’.

‘‘This ball, cos whoever’s losing in the match, umit helped them. Helped the team’’.

Teacher: ‘‘Oh what, so the football could actually act tohelp the team that’s losing? Ooh’’

Harry: ‘‘Yeah. This, erm, (. . .) dog. First it’s like a normaldog, but then it can speak to you and then um, wellit’s not a human, it just stays a dog but it canspeak human. And then the grownups can neverhear’’.

Teacher: ‘‘Oh, so who, who hears it speaking to you?’’Harry: ‘‘Um, there’s little kids who hears him’’.

Teacher: ‘‘So, the grownups can’t ever hear him speaking?But the child can?’’

Harry’s story‘‘Five children and the last Beyblade.One day there were five children. They stared throughthe toy shop. There was the last Beyblade. A boy his agewas 17 he walked over to them. ‘STOP IT’. Why don’tyou have a Beyblade match?’’

Harry’s positional identity as a poor literacy studentwas challenged and repositioned through this activity,because the medium allowed his excellent oral skillsand imaginative story telling to be fully displayedbefore an appreciative audience. As well as allowingHarry to reposition himself as a skilled literacy studentthe activity again impacted on his written work. Theteacher commented:

‘‘And he did actually get a few sentences done. Which waslovely to see in that you could see him sort of thinking ‘Oh. . . that’s great, I have got a bit more . . .’ because he cansee other people covering pages . . . And he’s got like fivewords because he got obsessed with the spelling andthings . . . And [he was able to] just let go of the spellingget your ideas down’’.

In addition to helping to allow Harry to challenge hisidentity as a poor literacy learner the general impor-tance of oracy within the literacy curriculum was a keyfinding from my research. An example of this was

Table 2: Harry’s artefacts

Suggested Non-suggested Harry’s photographof artefacts

Toy car Magic wand

Toy dog Crazy bonesToy lamb Football

Binoculars10p coinHatToy skateboard

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when children shared their box contents with theirpeers. As the teacher commented:

‘‘I mean, interestingly, in one way the best thing they didwas the presentation of the box in terms of speaking andlistening skills – you’ve got to present the contents ofyour box and you’re number 26 and how are you going tomake sure everyone’s really hooked and cares about whatyou’re showing? And it got people talking about plots andthings as well. When they were getting them out theywere saying ‘I’m going to write a story about . . .’ andverbalising some of it’’.

Additionally even though the teacher felt the majorityof children were articulate she admitted that the highstandard of the oral aspect of the children’s work hadtaken her by surprise:

‘‘some of them did very good presentations I thought . . .You know they were actually quite a high qualitypresentations that they were doing, thinking about theiraudience, you know and how to keep them interested, andthe level of detail’’.Int: ‘‘Yeah, you weren’t really surprised by that? That’swhat you would have expected from the children anyway?’’‘‘As a group yes, but there are certain individuals that Iwas thinking ‘Oh wow’, There were. . . people that Ithought yeah now that’s really, you know that showsthey’re actually more confident and outgoing in thissituation than I’d expected’’.

Therefore it can perhaps be seen that this focus onoracy allowed some pupils to reposition themselves asliteracy learners, both through their oral presentationand in the following written work. It might also bestated that using oracy to promote self-esteem in thisway built pupil confidence and utilised a model oforacy for personal growth (MacLure, 1994).

Identity, popular culture and shared worlds

As we have already seen (Dyson, 1997, 1999) popularculture plays an important role in identity formation.However, the fact that it is not always welcome in theschool domain must also be acknowledged. In thefollowing discussion we can see that one child,Caroline, was able to bring to the classroom artefactswhich were significant in her out of school world butwhich were also representative of popular culture. Theacknowledgement of these artefacts allowed childrento present important aspects of their identities in theschool domain and also to establish shared worlds, e.g.as collectors of certain artefacts (Table 3).

Caroline had chosen several artefacts which representedchildren’s media interests such as films and cartoons, e.g.her Bart Simpson pen. These objects also represented theway in which commercial organisations had capitalisedon children’s interests. In her shoebox she had a free gift

from a cereal packet (a disc on which a word appearedwhen it was warmed), which featured an MTV cartooncharacter called Johnny Bravo. She also had two smallplastic figures, which featured characters from popularDisney films such as Lilo and Stitch and Ice Age. In aninformal interview with the researcher while the activitywas ongoing in the classroom she gave a very animatedaccount regarding why she had chosen these artefacts:

‘‘This is Lilo and um Lilo is the great character we . . . Iwent to watch her on at the cinema and as she stands stillshe wiggles [from the Disney film Lilo and Stitch] . . .This is the part of ‘Ice Age’ [Showing Sid a character fromanother Disney children’s film].’’Int: ‘‘Oh is it? Is that a film?’’‘‘It had, yeah, it had this slide to go with it and it goes‘Whee, up down’ . . . And ‘Johnny Bravo’ [in a deep voice]when you put it out in the sun . . . Then a word [appears]it says ‘Hip hop cool’ [said in an American accent].’’

Despite the fact that these type of artefacts were notperhaps what had been envisaged by the teacher, it wasinteresting that the purpose of the activity had beenunderstood and adhered to and the artefacts wereutilised in exactly the way that the teacher had intended:

Int: ‘‘Will you put her [Talking about Lilo] in one of yourstories?’’‘‘Ah . . . the story that goes with the penguin . . . I’m goingto be . . . She’s/Lilo’s going to beat this penguin up . . .And her sister’s going to say ‘No, no, no, what are youdoing Lilo? You’re not meant to be fighting with apenguin!’’’

Caroline’s story‘‘One day it was Christmas Eve. Santa came to Poppyand Sam. Poppy had some slippers. Sam had a watergun. Mum had some sweets. Dad was making cake.Sam had boxing gloves. Mum went to the shop to getsome ice cream. And then an eagle shot past andwhizzed. When Mum came out, Mum and Dad andSam and Poppy are having their dinner together. ‘Passthe gravy Sadie’ Dad said’’.By Caroline

Caroline was seen as a low attaining literacy pupil. Theteacher described how the activity had helped her writing:

‘‘Caroline did a sort of list of objects in hers. And it did moveher away from/she’s often into this sort of pantomimish ‘Yeshe did, no he didn’t, yes he did’ sort of stuff and completelyloses it and it did help her to structure things a bit moreeffectively . . . And it was, you could see it starting to giveher a bit of structure . . . To proceed with . . .’’.

Dyson (1999) theorised that through the use of sharedartefacts children established subjectivity or shared

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worlds. As part of the activity children chose to workeither individually or collaboratively, and some there-fore played with, talked and wrote about each other’sobjects, e.g. John’s:

Int: ‘‘So what things did you use from someone else’s box?You used a skateboard did you? And who’s got . . . do youremember whose box it was from?’’

Harry’s:Int: ‘‘Oh right okay. Was it nice using someone else’s box?’’‘‘Yeah it was fun.’’

The attractiveness of other children’s artefacts ap-peared to be a factor in promoting collaboration. Harryadmitted that he did not have the desired toy at homeso had used another child’s:

Int: ‘‘So from your box which items which things did youchoose to write about?’’‘‘Um I put, I was thinking to put a Beyblade [a type ofspinning disc popular at the time] in. But I didn’t haveone . . .’’

Int: ‘‘Right okay’’.

‘‘So I . . .‘‘.

Int: ‘‘So actually you didn’t write about anything in yourbox . . . Was there anybody on your table who had aBeyblade?’’

‘‘Yeah D’’ [Another child in the class].

It is also interesting to note that in normal circum-stances these items might not have been utilised withinthe classroom. Indeed in the case of Beyblades manyschools at the time sought to ban them (Murphy, 2007).Therefore we perhaps need to question whether anuneasiness regarding the utilisation of popular culturein the curriculum might deny some pupils bothmotivational literacy experiences and opportunitiesto establish and enjoy shared worlds.

Table 3: Caroline’s artefacts

Suggested Non-suggested Caroline’sphotograph ofartefacts

‘Super’ toy car Sweetie holder

Model of Lilo (Liloand Stitch– Disney)

Sunglasses

Toy Penguin Photograph album –empty

Bart Simpsonsquirter pen

Free Gift from cerealpacket tag featuring acarton character calledJohnny Bravo

Two whistlesToy carModel of Sid (FromIce Age–Disney)

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Conclusion

Literacy identity and artefacts

We have seen that identity and literacy are inextricablylinked. Additionally in terms of figurative identity(aspects of identity that are related to culture) artefactsseem to hold a particularly powerful place. As we saw inour exploration of John’s oral narrative he presented keyaspects of his identity through his choice and discussion.Thus he presented himself as adventurous (his scubadiving, his admiration of his soldiers, his liking forknights, etc.) but also revealed that family relationshipswere important to him (a present from his grandfather).

In terms of positional identity (one’s sense of self inrelation to systems) the activity allowed pupils toconstruct more powerful identities within the schooldomain. As we have seen in Harry’s case, this wasachieved through his fluent oral presentation. Hisnarrative demonstrated a vast knowledge of story-telling conventions, e.g. the place and power of magic(turning a cuddly lamb into a wizard’s slave, thefootball that helped the losing side to win). Addition-ally his imaginative and creative response to the taskwas evident, for example his idea about the dog thatcould communicate with children but not adults.

It is also perhaps fair to state that this activity allowedthe pupils more power and autonomy than is usuallyfound within a standard literacy lesson. This waspossibly because it was they, and not the class teacher,who held the knowledge about individual artefacts,and how they planned to utilise them.

Identity, popular culture and shared worlds

The teacher in my study shared some of the concernsexpressed by Lambirth (2003) regarding the possibleviolent and sexist nature of some popular culture.Therefore she did, as has been explored earlier, scaffoldthe activity so that definite messages were sent outregarding appropriate box contents. So although theselection of individual artefacts was left in the domain ofthe children, specific guidance had been given as to thetype of artefact that was suitable. Interestingly, somechildren managed to challenge the process. We havealready considered the contents of one child’s (Caroline)box in detail above, and saw that many aspects of popularculture (films, cartoons, etc.) were represented there. Ourdefinitions of what constitute literacy have of necessitychanged, and have widened to include screen-basedtexts. In their examination of out-of-school engagementwith popular culture texts such as The Simpsons (a cartoonseries) Greenhough et al. (2006) concluded that childrencan learn a great deal from these encounters especially ‘‘in respect of narrative and story making’’ (p. 63).

Dyson’s (1999) view that children use material frompopular culture to construct their own identities alsoappeared to be the case in my research. We saw for

example how John used his artefacts to present aspects ofhimself to the class, and that among these artefacts wererepresentations from popular culture, e.g. references to theWoody Woodpecker cartoon character and to Babe from thebook by King-Smith (1983) and the subsequent films.Dyson (1999) also claimed that children could use artefactsto establish intersubjectivity, i.e. shared worlds. In myresearch, representations from outside interests such asgames were shown to help establish allegiances, forexample when Harry used another child’s Beyblade in hisstory, and John used Harry’s toy skateboard in his work.

In conclusion it appears that opportunities whichallow children to express aspects of their identitythrough innovative activities within the formal schoolcurriculum are beneficial in many ways. They allowchildren to share aspects of their cultural identity, toexplore shared worlds such as those related to popularculture and to position and reposition themselves inrelation to local social structures. Moreover there canbe positive literacy gains such as producing betterstructured texts and becoming more motivated by, andconfident of, the writing process.

As was highlighted previously, at the time this researchwas carried out, the literacy curriculum in the UnitedKingdom appeared to be particularly inflexible andunreceptive to the type of individualised interventiondescribed above. However, it might be now be arguedthat with the new freedoms proposed within therecently published curriculum reforms. (e.g. DCSF,2009) there are now clear opportunities for morecreative approaches of the type described in this paper.

‘‘The new curriculum will maintain a strong entitlementand high minimum standards, but provide more flexibilityfor schools to tailor teaching to their circumstances and to theneeds of the pupils they serve’’ (DCSF, 2009, p. 28).

Additionally it is true that the status of oracy was notparticularly high at the time my research was under-taken. Recent policy has again highlighted this omis-sion, e.g. Rose (2009):

‘‘Discussion of reading and writing in primary educationsometimes fails to recognise the central importance ofdeveloping children’s spoken communication’’ (p. 56).

It is heartening to reflect that we currently appear to bemoving towards a literacy curriculum in which thebenefits of activities such as the one described in thispaper are both acknowledged and their usage promoted.

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CONTACT THE AUTHORMary Scanlan, The University of Winchester,Winchester SO22 4NR.e-mail: mary.scanlan@winchester.ac.uk

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