Dr Lisa Stephenson

Arted’ was a 3-year transnational project involving partners across six European countries (England, Iceland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Austria). The project aimed to create more equitable creativity-for-wellbeing opportunities for children in primary and secondary schools, examining how creative practitioners’ knowledge could be transferred to teachers, preservice teachers and parents/carers through the co-production of interactive resources. Whilst evidence links creative arts engagement with positive wellbeing for young people, no research literature focuses on this transference from creative practitioners to pre-service teachers and parents/carers. We aimed to bridge this gap in understanding by examining how preservice teachers’ creative identities and creative self-efficacy evolved through creative engagement. The project methodology drew from empirical research evidencing learners’ creativity and wellbeing dispositions, incorporating concepts of co-agency and boundary crossing. The paper analyses the piloting and evaluation findings, identifying how affective, creative experiences supported preservice teachers to ‘shift’ their creative mindsets, develop professional agency and creative self-efficacy.

Research highlights the importance of providing learners with wellbeing literacy providing learners with the tools (competence) to understand and communicate their feelings and experiences and recognise the feelings of others (fostering relatedness). These aspects of learning are felt rather than taught. Whilst global organisations such as OECD Learning Compass 2030 and UNESCO Framework for Action 2030, provide normative discourses on the Global skills, knowledge, and attitudes that should be taught to equip young people to become ‘change agents’, this is yet to be reflected in educational policy in England. Drawing from longitudinal action research undertaken over eighteen months in an English primary school, the paper systematically explores children's affective engagement and meaning-making through drama pedagogy, inquiry, and story-making (Drama Worldbuilding). The concept of co-agency is applied to explore pupil engagement and action within the workshops. The paper responds to a critical need to understand and include pupils’ perspectives of learning through the arts addressing methodological gaps in empirical research into creative learning. The research evidences new ways to recognise and understand how collaborative drama pedagogy activates and distributes relational learning. Drawing from learners' perspectives, the data analysis reveals a set of malleable creativity and wellbeing dispositions (values, attitudes, mindset) that support a deeper articulation of how creative pedagogy works through meta-affect. The data also presents a model of affective knowledge co-creation evidencing how learners experience collective creativity.

At a time of escalating global climate change and political, educational, social, and economic divides, children face uncertainty about their futures and are anxious about them (Barnes, 2011). The question of how contemporary education might support the necessity to act together in facing these changes continues to be a challenge. This is set against the backdrop of an externally configured national curriculum and system of accountability and a rise in poor mental health in schools. This research inquiry is based on a professional belief that the current primary national curriculum (DfE, 2014) in England is not preparing young people adequately to thrive in the world together. I argue that education, like an eco-system, is at a tipping point because it has lost a sense of connection. Drawing from my practice as an artist–teacher–researcher in a primary school during one year, the inquiry systematically explores the ways in which drama as a creative pedagogy might offer a mediation space (Whitty, 2010) which enables more relational learning. This is because the expressive arts operate using a unique set of pedagogical principles which value children’s active participation, emotional sensibilities and cultural references as rich learning resources. The practice of Drama Worldbuilding is explored as a pedagogy involving critical hope because it focuses on activating collective creativity and purposeful action within story worlds. While investigating this practice, this thesis examines the meaning of ‘purposeful’ learning in contemporary times. Central to this inquiry is the exploration of children’s engagement in the workshops alongside my own critical reflections, which focus on the embodied and material ways in which they made meaning. This is carried out to address several methodological gaps in empirical research, which highlight a lack of focus on children’s perceptions of creative learning (Cremin and Chappell, 2019, Davies et al, 2013, Manyukhina and Wyse, 2019). Analysed through a series of story weaves and affective mapping techniques (Deleuze and Guatarri, 1987), the pedagogy explores the ways in which children’s emotional sensibilities were activated and negotiated within story worlds. The inquiry draws from feminist philosophy and new materialist thinking (Ahmed, 2004, Hickey-Moody 2015, Haraway 2003, Massumi, 2015) to explore a notion of collective creativity which is concerned with becoming open to new possibilities and embracing difference. The concept of meta-affect is developed within the inquiry as a powerful pedagogical tool. The data analysis reveals a set of emerging wellbeing dispositions which articulate children’s perceptions of meta-affective learning over time alongside a visual conceptualisation of ethical citizenship. Presented as an action research case study, the story is told through an autographic account using images, illustrations, metaphor and text, and it also uses tenets of ARTography (Leavy, 2015). The inquiry aims to support a deeper articulation of how creative pedagogy works through meta- affect. More widely, it aims to provide a heuristic which could be useful for teachers and artist educators interested in expanding their teaching repertoires, fostering students’ collective creativity and critical thinking, offering a potential pedagogical space for rewilding the curriculum. Research questions: How can dramatic inquiry support children’s learning in the 21st century? How does the use of positioning and role in drama enable relational learning and give voice to participants? How is knowledge produced through these workshops? What sort of thinking does dramatic inquiry promote?

At a time of escalating global climate change and political, educational, social, and economic divides, children face uncertainty about their futures and are anxious about them (Barnes, 2011). The question of how contemporary education might support the necessity to act together in facing these changes continues to be a challenge. This is set against the backdrop of an externally configured national curriculum and system of accountability and a rise in poor mental health in schools. This research inquiry is based on a professional belief that the current primary national curriculum (DfE, 2014) in England is not preparing young people adequately to thrive in the world together. I argue that education, like an eco-system, is at a tipping point because it has lost a sense of connection. Drawing from my practice as an artist–teacher–researcher in a primary school during one year, the inquiry systematically explores the ways in which drama as a creative pedagogy might offer a mediation space (Whitty, 2010) which enables more relational learning. This is because the expressive arts operate using a unique set of pedagogical principles which value children’s active participation, emotional sensibilities and cultural references as rich learning resources. The practice of Drama Worldbuilding is explored as a pedagogy involving critical hope because it focuses on activating collective creativity and purposeful action within story worlds. While investigating this practice, this thesis examines the meaning of ‘purposeful’ learning in contemporary times. Central to this inquiry is the exploration of children’s engagement in the workshops alongside my own critical reflections, which focus on the embodied and material ways in which they made meaning. This is carried out to address several methodological gaps in empirical research, which highlight a lack of focus on children’s perceptions of creative learning (Cremin and Chappell, 2019, Davies et al, 2013, Manyukhina and Wyse, 2019). Analysed through a series of story weaves and affective mapping techniques (Deleuze and Guatarri, 1987), the pedagogy explores the ways in which children’s emotional sensibilities were activated and negotiated within story worlds. The inquiry draws from feminist philosophy and new materialist thinking (Ahmed, 2004, Hickey-Moody 2015, Haraway 2003, Massumi, 2015) to explore a notion of collective creativity which is concerned with becoming open to new possibilities and embracing difference. The concept of meta-affect is developed within the inquiry as a powerful pedagogical tool. The data analysis reveals a set of emerging wellbeing dispositions which articulate children’s perceptions of meta-affective learning over time alongside a visual conceptualisation of ethical citizenship. Presented as an action research case study, the story is told through an autographic account using images, illustrations, metaphor and text, and it also uses tenets of ARTography (Leavy, 2015). The inquiry aims to support a deeper articulation of how creative pedagogy works through meta- affect. More widely, it aims to provide a heuristic which could be useful for teachers and artist educators interested in expanding their teaching repertoires, fostering students’ collective creativity and critical thinking, offering a potential pedagogical space for rewilding the curriculum. Research questions: How can dramatic inquiry support children’s learning in the 21st century? How does the use of positioning and role in drama enable relational learning and give voice to participants? How is knowledge produced through these workshops? What sort of thinking does dramatic inquiry promote?

This impact paper provides large-scale, longitudinal evidence from over 4,000 children showing how collective creative pedagogies support pupils’ social, emotional, and ethical development within the curriculum. Rationale: Evidencing Children’s Voices on Collective Creativity, Wellbeing and Social-Emotional Learning National and international guidance (OECD; DfE Curriculum and Assessment Review) highlights the importance of helping pupils work collaboratively with others, listen actively, consider different perspectives, and act responsibly. These competencies underpin behaviour, wellbeing, citizenship, and academic learning, yet they are not always developed systematically or equitably. Creativity is widely positioned as a core educational priority, yet dominant research continues to privilege individualised, cognitive accounts of creative capacity. Such approaches marginalise children’s voices and under-theorise the social, relational, and ethical dimensions of creative learning. This impact paper applies the term collective creativity (Stephenson, 2022) in the classroom and focusses on relational learning. This paper shares longitudinal work which addresses gaps in empirical research by examining children’s experiences of social-emotional learning through a creative pedagogical approach called ‘Drama Worldbuilding’ which uses collective story making, inquiry-based learning and problem-based learning to activate ethical action (Stephenson, 2022). The impact paper synthesises empirical data from three longitudinal projects conducted across 19 primary schools and involving more than 4,080 children and their 72 teachers over five years, in which teachers co-designed their humanities curricula with creative practitioners from Leeds Beckett University to support children’s social-emotional learning. Children’s articulations of their learning across the three projects is evidenced as a set of impact dispositions (values, attitudes, mindsets), conceptualised as Eight Dispositions for Collective Creativity, Social-Emotional Wellbeing and Ethical Action. The importance of this empirical research lies in its scale, depth, and focus on pupil experience. It evidences how collective creative pedagogies are actually experienced by learners, not just how they are intended to work. This addresses a major gap in existing research, which often focuses on outcomes, theoretical models or teacher perspectives rather than sustained pupil voice. By examining a collective, creative pedagogical approach, Drama Worldbuilding, the impact paper provides robust evidence of how social and emotional learning, ethical understanding, and collaboration develop through shared imaginative and inquiry-based learning. The research expands the approaches to social and emotional learning to include the term ‘ethical agency’- an understanding of WHY we act and the ability to make responsive decisions in response. Rather than treating these dispositions as add-ons, the evidence shows how they are formed through relationships, dialogue, and joint problem-solving within curriculum learning. This paper offers credible, large-scale evidence that collective creative pedagogies can activate: pupil wellbeing and belonging, communication, empathy, and ethical action, engagement and motivation and curriculum intent. The pedagogical approach and disposition framework have been used across different age phases and disciplines by a range of creative practitioners and makes a unique contribution to understanding collective creativity through the experiences of children and young people. It is being applied Initial Teacher Education through an international project lead by the author.

The Story Exchange project was a 2 year project (2021-2023) co-developed between Bowling Park Primary in Bradford and Story Makers Company, a practice-based research centre, at Leeds Beckett University. Working with artists, teachers and children, cross eight inner city schools. The project focused on co-creating an imaginative and culturally relevant curriculum through drama and storytelling with a focus on oracy, language and verbal and non-verbal communication development with children ages 7-10 years old across schools. Five artists co-planned, co-taught and co-reflected with teachers across schools, using a coaching approach as they embedded a story-making curriculum within the foundation subjects.

Across Europe, the need for teaching practices that foster collaborative pedagogy involving creativity, active student engagement and culturally responsive learning is seen as critical. Effective social-emotional communication and language skills enhance positive life outcomes and educational attainment. However, language ideologies in English education policy often advocate deficit thinking in monolingual and monocultural classrooms. This case study shares the practice and research findings of a two-year 'Story Exchange ‘project by employing co-participatory research with teachers, artists, and young people. Seven primary schools worked with five artist-educators in the North of England to bring the Humanities curriculum to life through an oral storytelling and inquiry approach called Drama Worldbuilding. Dismantling deficit models of oracy, the project aimed to promote imaginative, culturally relevant learning by building on the linguistic strengths of all children, especially Black and Global Majority children—seeing these assets as rich affordances of learning. Teachers were paired with one of five artist-educators and given time and space to co-plan, co-deliver, and co-reflect on curriculum learning, engaging them in systematic action research. Employing a translanguaging approach, the research evidences the impacts of the pedagogical approach on children's social-emotional literacy, presenting a new co-designed Framework of Dispositional Learning through Embodied-Dialogic Oracy.

Creative learning is increasingly being recognised as a crucial part of children’s holistic education. In this paper, we critically explore our experiences as artist-educators working across four differing European countries, namely, England, Iceland, Germany, and Greece. These experiences of prac-tice are set against educational policy landscapes which have progressively eroded opportunities for young people to engage in the creative arts in education across many European states. We are involved in a three-year Erasmus+ funded project, “arted,” which aims to transfer the knowledge of artists working in education to school and home contexts, offering more equitable arts opportunities for young people through the co-creation of open access resources. Combining Deleuzoguattarian theory and narrative, we examined our collective ideologies of creativity and principles of arts practices within differing national curricular policy contexts as part of our co-creation process. This rhizo-textual analysis highlighted the heterogenous features of our work as artist-educators, which have enabled us to hold spaces for creative arts learning within differing national policy contexts. These resistance spaces act as a social critique of educational policy. Through the process of this analysis three ethical principles emerged which collectively underpin our interactive guides for teachers and parents within the project.

At a time of escalating global climate change and political, educational, social, and economic divides, children face uncertainties about their futures. This is set against a rise in poor wellbeing and mental health amongst children. Whilst global organisations such as OECD Learning Compass 2030 and UNESCO Framework for Action 2030, provide normative discourses on the global skills, knowledge and attitudes that should be taught to equip young people to become ‘change agents’, this is yet to be reflected in educational policy in England. Central to addressing empirical gaps in research, is the exploration the impact of children's affective engagement in creative arts learning. Drawing from longitudinal action research as an artist–teacher–researcher in a primary school, the practice of Drama Worldbuilding is explored as a pedagogy of critical hope because it focuses on activating collective creativity and purposeful action. The research draws from theories of affect, wellbeing and immersive play to conceptualise new links between creativity, change making and wellbeing. The data analysis reveals a set of emerging creativity and wellbeing dispositions and adaptable competencies which support a deeper articulation of how creative pedagogy works through meta- affect. More widely, the research provides a heuristic approach which could be useful for teachers and artist educators interested in expanding their teaching repertoires, fostering students’ collective creativity and critical thinking, offering a potential pedagogical space for rewilding the curriculum.

Re-imagining Home was a collective immersive story response for children ages 7–12 years during Covid curated by artists from The Story Makers Company. This experience focused on connecting children in new ways through the processes of drama and storying. This paper explores the nuanced responses that children and artists negotiated online/offline story spaces as they lived through these experiences. ARTography (Irwin, 2013) is used as a form of practitioner inquiry from three of the eight artists perspectives, to critically examine the tensions of embedding our affective offline practices online. This includes exploring the rhizomatic ways in which children engaged both online/offline through the artefacts that they shared. The ways in which these hybrid story spaces reflected our affective experiences are explored as the ‘richness of the meanwhile’ (Bogost in Facer 2019, p. 7), described as ‘the dense network of activity going on at any one time’. These shared ‘fragmentary’ stories are explored as a critical pedagogy of hope, considering how the Story Weave offered new possibilities for reimagining future educator practices in troubled times.

This impact paper provides large-scale, longitudinal evidence from over 4,000 children showing how collective creative pedagogies support pupils’ social, emotional, and ethical development within the curriculum. Rationale: Evidencing Children’s Voices on Collective Creativity, Wellbeing and Social-Emotional Learning National and international guidance (OECD; DfE Curriculum and Assessment Review) highlights the importance of helping pupils work collaboratively with others, listen actively, consider different perspectives, and act responsibly. These competencies underpin behaviour, wellbeing, citizenship, and academic learning, yet they are not always developed systematically or equitably. Creativity is widely positioned as a core educational priority, yet dominant research continues to privilege individualised, cognitive accounts of creative capacity. Such approaches marginalise children’s voices and under-theorise the social, relational, and ethical dimensions of creative learning. This impact paper applies the term collective creativity (Stephenson, 2022) in the classroom and focusses on relational learning. This paper shares longitudinal work which addresses gaps in empirical research by examining children’s experiences of social-emotional learning through a creative pedagogical approach called ‘Drama Worldbuilding’ which uses collective story making, inquiry-based learning and problem-based learning to activate ethical action (Stephenson, 2022). The impact paper synthesises empirical data from three longitudinal projects conducted across 19 primary schools and involving more than 4,080 children and their 72 teachers over five years, in which teachers co-designed their humanities curricula with creative practitioners from Leeds Beckett University to support children’s social-emotional learning. Children’s articulations of their learning across the three projects is evidenced as a set of impact dispositions (values, attitudes, mindsets), conceptualised as Eight Dispositions for Collective Creativity, Social-Emotional Wellbeing and Ethical Action. The importance of this empirical research lies in its scale, depth, and focus on pupil experience. It evidences how collective creative pedagogies are actually experienced by learners, not just how they are intended to work. This addresses a major gap in existing research, which often focuses on outcomes, theoretical models or teacher perspectives rather than sustained pupil voice. By examining a collective, creative pedagogical approach, Drama Worldbuilding, the impact paper provides robust evidence of how social and emotional learning, ethical understanding, and collaboration develop through shared imaginative and inquiry-based learning. The research expands the approaches to social and emotional learning to include the term ‘ethical agency’- an understanding of WHY we act and the ability to make responsive decisions in response. Rather than treating these dispositions as add-ons, the evidence shows how they are formed through relationships, dialogue, and joint problem-solving within curriculum learning. This paper offers credible, large-scale evidence that collective creative pedagogies can activate: pupil wellbeing and belonging, communication, empathy, and ethical action, engagement and motivation and curriculum intent. The pedagogical approach and disposition framework have been used across different age phases and disciplines by a range of creative practitioners and makes a unique contribution to understanding collective creativity through the experiences of children and young people. It is being applied Initial Teacher Education through an international project lead by the author.

Set against the backdrop of children being “alienated” from their writing (Lambirth 2016), this paper is taken from a UKLA sponsored project where primary school teachers were trained to use process drama in order to give children more agency in their writing across the curriculum. Here we use discourse analysis (Gee 2010) to think about the children’s historical creative writing in relation to the drama lessons which are differently framed (Bernstein 2000) by the teachers. Building upon a theoretical model of drama as “blended space” (Duffy 2014) and writing as problem-solving (Bereiter and Scardamalia 1986), a case is made that process drama can lead to what we term ‘agentic writing’. Agentic writing, we demonstrate, involves children actively translating their embodied experience of the blended space into writing by making a range of intertextual borrowings. These borrowing serve both to capture and transform their embodied experience as the children gain agency by “standing outside language” to achieve “double voicedness” (Bakthin 1986). Seeing the relationship between process drama and writing in this light, we argue, provides a means of reconnecting children to the act of writing.

This study explores the relationship between preservice teachers’ perceptions of their professional identities and their progressive primary school writing practices as part of a University-school partnership project. We analyse preservice teachers’ identities using discourse analysis and find a tension between self-perceptions as progressive teachers and the difficulties they experience enacting progressive pedagogies. For the majority, these difficulties are overcome through reflective theorising, but in utilising process drama, their otherwise expansive identity-agency is restricted by their wider apprehension of neoliberalism. We conclude by underlining the importance of specialised and concurrent models of teacher preparation which align preservice teachers’ identities and practices

This paper focuses on the professional development of primary school teachers using drama to develop creative writing across the curriculum. Sponsored by the United Kingdom Literacy Association, the two-term project involved four teachers working with theatre educators to use process drama. The collaborative approach was supported by learning conversations, which took place after each lesson, involving Higher Education academics. Data were collected by academics observing the lessons, taking notes during learning conversations and undertaking interviews with the teachers in order to capture experiences of the landscape of education as they were encouraged to cross boundaries of practice. Data were analysed using Clarke’s model (2009) of teacher identity and this demonstrates how three of the four teachers resisted boundary crossing as a result of the landscape of performativity, which is seen to prohibit child-centred approaches. One teacher was able to cross boundaries and this is seen to be a result of the substance and telos of his identity. His boundary crossing emphasised the theatre educators’ reluctance to change their self practices - the paper concludes by highlighting the importance of all partners being involved in practice, learning conversations and data collection in order to create the ideal conditions for boundary crossing.

DOBSONWith increasing concerns in the UK about the positive mental well-being and flourishing of children, this research, using drama and creative writing with primary school teachers, children and a theatre company, looks at the links between creative processes and children’s well-being. This pedagogy applies a capability approach and we use this lens to examine children’s critical reflections on the project. Interview data highlight the link between agency, social imagination and subjective well-being. The study offers some concrete examples of the ways in which creative processes can move beyond an outcome-based understanding of the curriculum by offering a legitimate space for children to explore their values and develop competencies which are crucial for well-being in the 21st century.

This paper focuses on a Community of Writers creative writing project where twenty-five primary school pupils from lower socio-economic backgrounds took part in two weeks’ intensive creative writing workshops at a Higher Education Institution. Using practitioner enquiry and discourse analysis, this paper views identity as participation in “figured worlds” and highlights the relationship between the children’s creative writing outputs and their shifting “positional identities” (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner and Cain 1998). A case is made that children’s authentic creative writing can be nurtured by a community approach which promotes intertextuality and “hybridity” (Bakhtin 1981) as well as balancing pedagogical “structure” and “freedom” (Davies et al 2013) in order to provide textual space for writers to enact different identities. At a time when the assessment of writing values technicality over composition (see DfE 2015), this paper also presents an argument for the value of school-University research partnerships.

The Story Makers Press is a university-based publisher who focus on making and publishing hybrid stories with children who are under-represented in literature. This article explores the embodied drama processes used in the co-creation of our third book called ‘Zalfa Emir is Warrior' with eighteen 10–11-year-old girls from second generation Pakistani heritage. Utilising practitioner inquiry, the paper examines the ways in which the girls used Drama Worldbuilding as a form of counter storytelling and belonging. The project raises critical questions about the value of pedagogies which create ‘brave spaces’ to reflect the realities of our culturally diverse classrooms.

Oral language skills underpin children’s educational success and enhance positive cognitive, social, emotional and life outcomes. However, significant numbers of children struggle to develop competence in speaking and listening, especially children from areas of high economic deprivation (Dobinson and Dockrell, 2021). This is highlighted by the Oracy All-Party Parliamentary Policy Group (APPG), whose reports are advocating a renewed focus on oracy (2020). This case study shares the emerging findings from year one of a two-year project, funded by the Paul Hamlyn Teacher Development Fund. We are utilising drama pedagogy to bring the curriculum to life through storytelling, with an explicit focus on children’s oracy. The project is co-led by research and practice experts in drama pedagogy (Stephenson, 2022) from the Story Makers Company, Leeds Beckett University and school leaders from Bowling Park Primary. The eight partner schools are in the Bradford BD5 school’s network, and share an ambition to embed an integrated story approach to curriculum. Our focus is on embedding drama pedagogy within the humanities subjects, creating an imaginative story curriculum experience in Years 3 and 4 across the schools. As part of this knowledge exchange, teachers are paired with one of five artist educators (specialists in drama pedagogy) and given time and space to co-plan, co-deliver and co-reflect for 15 sessions across each year. Central to this process of professional development and learning (CPDL) is a coaching approach (Lofthouse, 2019), blended with expert pedagogical modelling and learning exchange. This article explores the ways in which our co-inquiry approach to CPDL was integral to supporting more sustainable pedagogical changes in the localised contexts of the schools involved.

Whilst the link between young people's well-being and the creative arts is strengthening, there is a lack of research which focuses on the roles that artists play to help teachers and parents engage young people in the creative arts. This paper explores the benefits of and barriers to artists working in education in six European countries (England, Iceland, Germany, Greece, Italy and Austria). Using the ‘5A's model of creativity’ and a view of professional development taking place within ‘landscapes of practice’, the data were analysed in order to explain how creativity is operationalised in the different contexts. Our study highlights the need for policy at a national and transnational level to value the creative arts in order to help teachers cross boundaries and utilise the full potential of the creative arts in schools. Our study also highlights that further research is needed into how artists shape teaching and curriculum and how schools engage parents in the creative arts in order to build an evidence-base relating to young people's positive mental health that can affect policy at these levels.

Story Makers Press (SMP) is a University-based publisher which co-constructs stories with under-represented groups of children in order to diversify representation in children’s literature and disrupt the way adult perceptions of normality pattern children’s literature (aetonormativity). In this paper we analyse six drama and creative writing workshops run by SMP with Czech and Slovak Roma children from an inner city primary school in the north of England to co-construct a story about climate change. Our analysis identifies how in developing the story, the children were often reluctant to draw upon their funds of knowledge relating to their Roma backgrounds, instead Westernising their protagonists and settings. We also explore how the children disrupt aetonormativity by interweaving magical elements into realistic narrative about climate change in order to establish a genre of magical realism. Finally, we identify how this genre of magical realism is problematic when considering stereotypical depictions of Roma characters in children’s literature and how changes were made to our story in light of a critical race theory reading of the first draft. As well as helping SMP to refine its processes, this analysis suggests that minority groups such as Roma need to be able to draw upon more literary representations of Roma in order to shape their creative outputs and that the curriculum needs to focus on developing children’s critical responses to the representation of minority ethnic groups in children’s literature.

Literary criticism of children’s literature asserts a one-directional view of power, with the adult writer constructing the child reader. Using ‘aetonormativity’– adult perceptions of normal patterning children’s literature – this paper explores what happens to aetonormativity when children co-construct publishable fiction (Nikolajeva 2010). We analyse drama and creative writing workshops run with 8 to 11-year-old children by Story Makers Press, a University-based publishing company representing marginalised children’s voices by involving them in writing processes. Our analysis shows how whilst we were interested in developing the story of the protagonist, the children drew upon their “funds of knowledge” (Moll 1992) to develop a gaming narrative. The effect was twofold: we constructed a “hybrid” text (Bakhtin 1986) which, unlike GameLit, explores the relationship between the protagonist and gaming; and a discourse counter to negative adult portrayals of gaming. As the children became invested in the fiction, they became effective editors and revisions were taken on board by the editorial team. The paper concludes that involving children in writing children’s literature can result in texts which disrupt aetonormativity by representing lived experiences. The paper also acknowledges that that further research is needed into how other children read and respond to texts co-constructed with children.