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This article explores children's engagement with popular culture as an entry point for early literacy.
Lucas and Trevor, two kindergartners in a public New York City classroom, were humming Darth Vader's theme song ("The Imperial March," Williams, 1980) while simultaneously drawing different kinds of spaceships on their paper. Using terminology from the most current iteration of the intergalactic saga, they differentiated between "good" and "evil" characters and discussed the differences in various ships, from star destroyers to TIE (Twin Ion Engine) fighters.
The scene above was common in this classroom, as Star Wars artifacts in all their forms (e.g., movie episodes, television shows, clothing, action figures, Legos) dominated the social landscape. Just as in the larger culture in 2016 (and arguably for the last 40 years), Star Wars had become a cultural phenomenon in this kindergarten room, and while many of the boys cultivated play scenes using Star Wars material, many of the girls shared knowledge and understanding as well. Inevitably, popular culture enjoyed at such mass scale is impossible to avoid. Children bring an engagement with popular culture artifacts, icons, and media into the classroom space despite efforts to place them in the margins of official curriculum (Dyson, 2013). For teachers, therefore, understanding and participating in the complex cultural scene that took shape between the two friends above required understanding the references and storylines of this popular culture phenomenon. The value of that understanding, as we have come to appreciate, is that when examined closely, children's interactions around pop culture provide opportunities for authentic literacy practice.
Popular culture, however, is often reserved for children's "playtimes" or informal spaces, instead of being seen as a resource and even an entry into formal literacy. In this piece, I discuss the literacy potential of children's engagement with popular culture, specifically Star Wars. By using Trevor and Lucas's textual constructions (oral, written, and drawn) I explore how literacy is embedded and authenticated as they play out battle scenes. I highlight the creative and dynamic ways that children interact with popular culture, stressing that appropriations are uniquely constructed in social interaction. In sharing their work, I show how close analysis of children's written texts and play scenes involving popular culture affords teachers an opportunity to see literacy "at...