Caticorns and Derp Warz: Exploring children’s literacy worlds through the production of comics

Abstract

This article examines how an after-school comics club made a space for children’s literacy practices. 21 8- to 10-year-olds took part in the ten-week project. During that time the children made their own comic strips, and worked in groups to create their own self-initiated publications. These comics were sold at two comics fairs, which were collaboratively planned and organized. In this article the multimodal medium of comics will be explored. The concept of children’s literacy worlds will be discussed in relation to identity. Text World Theory will be examined as a framework for analysing children’s literacy worlds, with a particular focus on the bidirectional relationship between the discourse world and the text world. Action Research as a methodology is considered. Text World Theory is then used to interrogate the literacy worlds of two groups of children, examining the interplay of the discourse world and the text world of the two comics created. The article argues that the space for children to create their own, self-initiated narratives plays an important role in children’s meaning making and exploration of identity, through a bidirectional relationship between their discourse and text worlds. Finally, the article offers suggestions for future practice.