Curtis: On the bottom it says retreatcard but then if it has 3 stars you need 3 energy to retreat him.

Vivian: Is that for everybody or just for Ratatat?

Curtis: It depends how much he needs.If he needs none, he can re-treat without anything.

Vivian: What does that mean? Does itmean he can back out . . . ?

Curtis: Yeah.

Vivian: What about this part? (point-ing to right hand upper cornerof a Pokémon card)

Curtis: Resistance by 30 from psychic.In psychic Pokémon if they do30 damage to ’em that 30damage won’t do anything be-cause of his resistance. Andbecause his weakness is fight-ing so let’s say a guy namedMachop did 20 damage to ’emplus that that would be 40and he would be knocked outof the game. And you needone colorless energy to doquick attack with this 10+.You need no energy to doPokémon power tricky.

APPROPRIATING POKÉMON: A FIRST LESSON

My nephew Curtis bought his firstpack of Pokémon trading cards at agesix when he and my husband Andywalked into a corner store in the

neighborhood and he noticed familiartelevision cartoon characters on thepackaging of collector cards. Poké-mon is a name given to an ever-growing series of what are called‘pocket monsters,’ imaginary charac-ters that have various capabilities,such as being able to transform intodifferent versions of the same charac-ter, and powers, such as using elec-tricity or fire to fend off opponents.These characters live in an alternatereality where they are able to evolveby winning battles over one another.

The human characters in the cartoonare trainers who prepare the Poké-mon for battle. A majority of thehuman characters are children. Oneof the main characters is Ash, a ten-year-old who travels the countrysidecollecting and training Pokémon.Most of the cartoon’s storylineevolves around Ash. As Curtis beganengaging in Pokémon gaming, thatis, as he became someone whoplayed the Pokémon trading cardgame, he took on the role of Ash thetrainer. As Ash, he collected andtraded cards not only with his ownfriends but with other children hemet at trading card clubs located instores where the cards are sold. Healso began creating his own versionsof the collector cards.

In this article, I highlight opportuni-ties for engaging pleasurable andpowerful literacies (Comber, 2000)

by looking closely at Curtis’s appro-priations of the popular text Poké-mon. Specifically, I show theliteracies Curtis learned and usedwhile participating as a member ofa Pokémon club and in creating hisown Pokémon cards (see Figure 1).The term “literacy/literacies” is usedto represent a variety of skills andstrategies used by learners includingreading, writing, drawing, and soforth when negotiating and con-structing meaning. My intent is toshow that engagement with popularculture texts can teach us aboutlearning and literacy and to discussthe powerful and creative learningstudents can bring to the aspects ofpopular culture with which theychoose to identify (Gee, 2003).

This work is part of a case study ofCurtis’s participation with the popularculture text Pokémon over a five-year period from 1996–2001. Theopening exchange took place early inthe study as Curtis attempted to teachme about the components of a Poké-mon card. It was immediately clear tome that this text was more complexthan I had imagined. Resistance,power-tricky, colorless energy, andHP were all details that meant noth-ing to me and caused endless confu-sion! I was lost, but Curtis waspatient with me. He waited and thenwaited some more as I attempted tounderstand, and he explained things

What Pokémon Can Teach Us aboutLearning and Literacy

We can learn much about the codes and ways

of talking and doing associated with popular

culture texts by closely observing children.

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to me over and over giving me timeto make sense of the unfamiliar genreand unfamiliar discourse in talkingand working with Pokémon text. In asense, he was teaching me how toparticipate in a Pokediscourse, thePokémon way of talking aboutgaming and using the cards. He wasteaching me to break the code so thatI could participate with and makemeaning of Pokémon text. Eventu-ally, I learned enough to imagine thepotential for learning and literacy de-velopment available through engag-ing with this popular culture text.

CULTURAL CROSS-OVERSWith its introduction to Americantelevision in 1996, Pokémon quicklybecame popular culture material forchildren in playgrounds, neighbor-hood streets, and sometimes school-yards. It was an imported Japanesecartoon dubbed in English and cre-ated in anime style. Curtis was alsoresponsible for introducing me to

the world of anime (post-warJapanese animation) cartoons be-ginning with Pokémon (http://www.Pokémon.com) and later other pop-ular culture gaming texts, such asDigimon (http://www.digimoncity.com), Dragonball Z (http://www.dragonballz.com), Yu-Gi-Oh! (http://www.yugiohkingofgames.com/intro.html), and most recently, Bey-blade. Anime film was first intro-duced in the 60s by master animatorOsamu Tezuka, who in 1963 pro-duced Japan’s first televised anime,Astro Boy (Vallen and Thorpe, 2001).At that time, anime was produced bypainting images on cels. Cel anima-tion is based on a series of frames orcels in which the object is re-drawnin each consecutive cel to depictmotion. This was the technique usedby all cartoon creators before thedawning of computer animation.

Carrington (2003) notes that the car-toon heralded a new wave of distinc-tive animated genre. This success

resulted in themovement of thiscultural artifactfrom its limitedrole in children’stelevision pro-gramming to apresence in class-rooms, lunch-rooms, anddoctors’ officesas the cartooncharacters beganto appear onbinders and pen-cils, backpacksand lunch boxes,band aids, chil-dren’s clothing,and in feature-length films,videos, CDs, andtrading cards.

Pokémonbecame such ahot topic for

conversation that even John Stosseldedicated a 20/20 segment to it,whereby he balked at those whoclaim that Pokémon viewing encour-ages kids to gamble. It has even hada turn at being on the cover of Timemagazine (1999). Pikachu, one ofthe most known Pokémon charac-ters, was included in the Thanksgiv-ing Day Macy’s Parade, joining theranks of Snoopy and Curious Georgein an American tradition. Further, inNovember 2001, the Academy ofMotion Picture Arts and Sciencessponsored a lecture on Japanese An-imation. Even more interesting, theUniversity of Hawaii Center forJapanese Studies Endowment sponsored a two-day conference,Pikachu’s Global Adventure, in November 2000. The conference involved an international team of professors, lecturers, and mediascholars from around the world who gathered to discuss the phe-nomenon Pokémon.

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Curtis at age 6 Curtis at age 8

Figure 1. Curtis creating Pokémon Cards

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LEARNING FROM CURTISOne of the most prominentcrossovers of anime appeared in themanufacturing of trading cards thatchildren and adults collect. To suc-ceed in the trading card arenameans knowing the value of one’scards. Knowing the value of a cardrequires an understanding of how toread the cards. Pokémon gaming,therefore, does not involve actualphysical battling over cards but sys-tematic analysis of which cards to

trade with whom in order to add tothe value of one’s collection. It re-quires a deep understanding ofwhich kinds of cards carry the mostcapital in the game of trading cards.

The primary way for children to de-velop this understanding is throughjumping in, playing, talking, anddiscussing as well as designing andredesigning their own versions ofthe cards. This immersion takesplace as children engage with Poké-mon texts in multi-mediated waysthrough various genres, and throughthe use of different sign systems,such as film, video, music, books,and magazines. Sefton-Green (2001)presented a case study of his six-year-old son’s initiation into the lit-eracy practice of playing Pokémonvideo games using a Game Boy, atrademark for a particular kind ofhandheld video game. He observedthat the availability of Pokémonacross a range of platforms (TV, film,

games, toys, etc.) is the reason whyattention to one literacy domain can“miss the point.” Basically, he notesthat if a broad range of readings of aparticular text is available through avariety of platforms but our focus ison one particular platform, such asprint literacy, then our reading is notas informed and resourced as itcould be, which limits participation.

Curtis became increasingly knowl-edgeable about drawing on multiplesources to learn about Pokémon.Creating his own cards required himto learn to use a variety of resources,such as those listed previously, aswell as his friends and the Internet.In a sense, he was introduced to therole that research plays in craftingor designing a text. Arriving at thispoint in his learning, however, wasnot easy.

Like most children, when Curtisbought that first package of cards atthe corner store he had no idea howmuch he had to learn. His initial at-traction to the cards came from aconnection he made to the Pokémoncartoon on television. In a sense, hesaw the cards as an extension of hisTV viewing experience. As he playedwith his original set of cards, he situ-ated himself in the televisual (relatingto or shown on television) realityprovided by the TV show (Luke,2002), even though he had not yetmastered the game. It was when hebegan to play with the cards in thecompany of his friends that he devel-oped a new identity in the Pokémongaming world. According to Gee(2001a), since reading and thinkingare social achievements connected tosocial groups, we can all read andthink in different ways when we readand think as members (or as if wewere members) of different groups.

READING, THINKING ANDLEARNING AS MEMBERSOF A GROUPAs a new member of the Pokémonworld, Curtis immediately recog-

nized the need to learn the codes(the specific ways of talking anddoing) associated with this popularculture text. He also learned aboutGame Boys and Pokémon gamemodules that could be played onhandheld pocket computer units.Since he received a pocket unit forhis birthday, Curtis moved back andforth between the two-dimensionalcard game and the virtual spaceprovided by the computerized game.

More than ever, Curtis became inter-ested in surfing the electronic net-work (also known as the Net) to findout more about the various Pokémonand their characteristics. He wouldthen share printouts of his findingswith his friends who did the samewith him. In conversation with someof the older children at his school,he became privy to tools of the tradeincluding the use of magazines writ-ten to provide gaming strategies forboth the computer game and thecard game. This led Curtis to becomean avid reader and a frequent visitorto bookstores and neighborhoodstores where magazines are sold. Hedid not often buy the magazines butspent a great deal of time browsingthrough them. While developingbrowsing skills, he learned toquickly locate identifying key wordsand phrases as he flipped throughthe pages of a magazine. He alsolearned to read a table of contentsand an index. Another skill he de-veloped was what Sefton-Green(2001) refers to as “mapping space”whereby Curtis learned how to“read” the maps within the strategyguide and orient himself within thevirtual environment of the game.

If Gee (2001a) is right about the rela-tionship between social achievementand social groups, then the first thingthat children’s engagements withsuch popular culture texts can teachus is to be attentive to the ways inwhich children collaboratively con-struct a particular culture that ishighly organized and to ask what it is

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Pokémon gaming,therefore, does not

involve actual physicalbattling over cards but

systematic analysis of which cards to trade

with whom in order to add to the value of one’s collection.

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about these cultures that keeps them“in the game,” in spite of the increas-ing challenges involved with playingit. The more that Curtis and hisfriends learned to “read” Pokémontexts, the more they understood howto play the trading card game. Themore they played the game, the morechallenging it became. With eachnew challenge came the thirst formore information that would lead tothe development of more complexstrategies for playing. This causedthem to become more immersed inthe game leading them to be furtherengaged with new symbolic and dis-cursive practices that helped them toachieve their goals of playing thegame well, such as understandinghow to quickly read the symbols andimages on a card as well as knowingwhat language and actions to use tobe a successful player.

The intensity with which Curtis andhis friends participated with the pop-ular culture text seemed to call for aspecialist discourse that works simul-taneously to include the initiated andto exclude others, even though thiswas not done deliberately (Sefton-Green, 2001). The complex discursivepractices they used signaled mem-bership in the group for only thosewho had previously been initiatedinto Pokémon discourse. For somechildren, this was enough incentiveto learn more, read more, and partic-ipate more fully in the game.

Playing the game well involvedlearning how to strategically outma-neuver other players, learning howto be analytical about what movesand strategies to employ, and devel-oping good problem-solving skills.Being able to continue to participatein this literate culture required theongoing learning of a growingcommunity of literate practicesassociated with problem solving, ana-lyzing, and strategizing. It was dis-cussion, challenge, and the constantexchange of ideas that created thespace needed for this learning to be

sustained and generative. By genera-tive, I refer to the ways in whichCurtis and his friends continuouslysought out new, more challenginglevels of participation in the game.

DRAWING AND REDESIGNINGAS PARTICIPATORY ACTIVITIES

One of the participatory activitiesgenerated by membership in Curtis’sPokémon gaming community wasdrawing and re-creating existingcards. This seemed to be one way ofbecoming more knowledgeableabout and familiar with the variousparts of the cards. The children oftentalked throughout their drawing,sharing details about how they werecreating the various text and sym-bols. This talk involved the decon-struction of the cards—lookingclosely at the bits and pieces thatmade up a card to make sure thatthe new redesigns were recognizableto other gamers. Further, this talkusually was accompanied by soundeffects and impromptu leaps intodramatizing Pokémon battle moves.At some level, Curtis and his friendswere using drama as an editing toolto create their drawings. Thesedramatizations often led to actingout what would happen to the Poké-mon as they evolved or transformedinto more complex characters afterwinning a battle. For instance, whenStaryu, a five-pointed, star-shapedPokémon with a smooth round redgem in its center, wins a number ofbattles, it canevolve into amore com-plex creature,Starmie. In itsevolved state,therefore,Staryu turnsinto Starmie,a ten-pointedstar with amulti-faceted,brilliant redgem in its

center (see figure 2). It was duringtalk about evolutions that Curtis andhis friends began to redesign the ex-isting Pokémon cards to create theirown, often more complex, evolu-tions for the characters.

Redesigning StarmieA close examination of Curtis’s re-design of the Starmie card allows meto unpack the learning and literaciesthat resulted from this activity.Below, I outline some of the elementsand components of a basic Starmiecard and compare these to Curtis’sredesigned card (see Figure 3).

Although he gave it some new alter-native characteristics, Curtis keptStarmie’s name the same in hisredesign to keep it identifiableamongst his friends. Starmie’s repu-tation among gamers as a mysteriousPokémon with many move options(strategic ways of beating its oppo-nents) made it appealing to Curtis.Although Pokémon are supposedlynon-gendered, Starmie is seen bysome gamers as a girl’s Pokémon dueto its appearance as a starry jewel.Starmie also is seen as an enigmabecause of how its nonviolent ap-pearance is contradicted by its pos-session of some of the best moves inthe game. So in a sense, Starmie is avery powerful Pokémon, one that isworth having in a collection.

The original Starmie card has over 30different words, phrases, and images.Included are a wide range of icons,

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Staryu Starmie, an evolved StaryuFigure 2. Staryu and Starmie

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abbreviations, and symbols, each ofwhich refers to specific characteristicsand attributes of this Pokémon. Forexample, there are symbols such asan eye (symbol for what are knownas “mysterious” Pokémon that pos-sess psychic abilities) or a starburst(symbol for what are known as “col-orless” Pokémon). Then there are ab-breviations for terms like “hit points”represented by the letters HP, or“level” represented by the letters LV.Each card has on it different systemsof representation that childrenquickly learn to read. Sefton-Green(2001) suggests that the ease of read-ing such systems could be due to theprevalence of icons in many forms ofchildren’s culture. The iconic symbolsystems that appear on each cardwork to support the reading of texton the cards.

To be successful at playing the game,players need to know what eachdetail means because these details areused to evaluate and analyze whetheror not to battle and/or which Poké-

mon to put in a battle. For instance,a good player might battle her/hisStarmie card if the opponent (thePokémon card that the opposingplayer has put into battle) has aweakness for water (water is theclassification of Pokémon to whichStarmie belongs). What this means isthat an opponent with a weaknessfor “water Pokémon” would be lesseffective in battle against Starmie.More information about Pokémongaming rules and how to play thegame at a basic level are available athttp://www.sierrascollectibles.com/Pokémon_rules.htm.

Curtis’s RedesignCurtis created a ten-pointed starfreehand in his redesign of Starmie.It took several tries to get the anglesand the distance between the pointsjust right. To do this, Curtis layeredtwo five-point stars, one on top ofthe other. This kind of visual/spatialinformation is not available in anyof the strategy or rulebooks, so he

had to figure out how todraw Starmie through close examination of the originalcard. He also decided to em-bellish the background ofthe card by adding two starsand bubbles. The originalStarmie had a plain back-ground. The “bubble beam,”a spray of bubbles to disori-ent an opponent, is one ofStarmie’s primary attacks. A primary attack is a Poké-mon’s natural weapon. The addition of bubbles in the background of his redesigned card reminds the opponent of this character’s capabilities.

The original Starmie cardhas 60HP (Hit Points or theamount of damage it can re-ceive which basically deter-mines how strong it is).Curtis’s card has 110HP,

making it 50HP stronger than theoriginal. While creating his card,Curtis talked about wanting his re-designed card to be almost twice asstrong as the original. His card alsohas a greater damage factor than theoriginal. This factor refers to theamount of damage caused to an op-ponent. Basically, a higher numberindicates the potential to causegreater damage. Curtis’s card has a90-damage factor while the originalonly has a 20-damage factor. Whatthis means is that when the originalStarmie battles an opponent, it cancause “20 damage,” whereas Curtis’snew Starmie would cause “90damage.” His card would causealmost five times the damage to itsopponent as the original.

Another item that he added to hiscard is a description for his Poké-mon’s primary and secondary at-tacks. Attacks are the weapons usedto overcome an opponent. The pri-mary attack he included is BubbleBeam (spraying bubbles to disorientthe opponent). He enhances thestrength of this attack by noting onthe card, “your opponent does 20less damage than usual. If theirattack does nothing, it does notwork.” For example, if the opposingPokémon does 40 damage when itbattles against Curtis’s Starmie, itsattack strength would automaticallyweaken by 20. “If their attack doesnothing, it does not work” wouldrefer to opponents who have 20 orfewer damage points who clearlywould have zero damage if battlingwith the redesigned Starmie. Thesecondary attack causes 70 damage.In combination, Curtis’s Starmiecould cause 160 damage to an op-ponent, which is quite substantial.He makes his Pokémon evenstronger by adding a notation that,“If your opponent makes you miss aturn, take that turn back.” Clearlyhe has made the new Starmie ex-tremely difficult to beat.

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Figure 3. Curtis’s Redesign of Starmie

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The final difference between thecards is that in the redesigned card,Starmie is at LV49 (level or positionwithin the hierarchy of cards) whilein the original, Starmie is at LV28.To create his card, he engaged in re-lational number work (more or lessthan, primary and secondary) and incalculation (addition, subtraction,multiplication).

Curtis’s redesigned card only fo-cuses on those symbols and textthat deal with strength. For in-stance, he left out information re-garding weight and height, both ofwhich are included in the original.Clearly, he was discerning and de-liberate in what he included andwhat he left out, in what symbolsand text he revised, and what sym-bols and text he maintained. This initself is an impressive skill to havelearned alongside all the other skillscalled upon to participate fully inthe Pokémon gaming world.

A CLOSER LOOK AT SKILLSCONSTRUCTED THROUGHENGAGEMENT WITH POKÉMON

In a study of first-person shootergames, James Gee (2003) used pre-viously documented research on lit-eracy development regardingimportant principles of learning tounpack the principles of learningthat undergird the playing of com-puter games. Many of these sameprinciples apply to the construction,understanding, and design of thePokémon gaming cards. Followingis a summary of intersections be-tween some of Gee’s principles oflearning and the repertoire of skillsCurtis used when designing hiscards. The italicized text representsGee’s principles followed by a briefexample of how each played out asCurtis engaged with Pokémon text.

Active, Critical Learning Principle:All aspects of the learning environ-

ment, including the ways in whichthe semiotic domain is designed andpresented, are set up to encourageactive and critical, not passive,learning. [Example: To trade cardssuccessfully, Curtis had to engage inan active, not passive, flurry of de-cision making regarding gaps in hiscard collection along with determin-ing how the value of particularcards would increase the worth ofhis collection.]

Design Principle: Learning about andcoming to appreciate design anddesign principles is core to thelearning experience. [Example:Curtis and his friends found greatpleasure in creating their own cards.Redesigning the cards required anunderstanding of how the originalcards were designed.]

Semiotic Principle: Learning aboutand coming to appreciate interrela-tions within and across multiple signsystems (images, words, actions,

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Tobin, J. (2000). “Good Guys Don’t Wear Hats”: Children’sTalk about the Media. New York: Teachers College Press.

• This ethnographic study focuses on how childrentalk about media representations of violence,gender, race, colonialism, and social class. Childrenused their understandings of middle-class familiesto distinguish between good guys and bad guys.The meanings children make from movies arise out of their experiences of living in a specific local context.

Dimitriadis, G. (2001). “In the Clique”: Popular Culture,Constructions of Place, and the Everyday Lives of UrbanYouth. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 32 (1),29–51.

• This study examines how two urban teens used keypopular texts to construct a sense of place by mobi-lizing the texts in specific ways and in particular

social networks—finding specific thematic links be-tween and across the texts and using those links toindex their relationships with family. The complex,emergent, and “messy” relationships many youthhave with popular culture are identified.

Stevens, L. P. (2001). “South Park” and Society: Instruc-tional and Curricular Implications of Popular Culture inthe Classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy,44 (6), 548–555.

• Through case study research, Stevens offers insightsinto how three middle-school teachers incorporatepopular culture media into their content area classesto encourage their students to become critical con-sumers of popular culture. Issues of planning, stu-dent response, and fitting popular culture into theexisting curricula are also discussed.

—Karen Smith

Research on Children’s Use of Popular Culture

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symbols, artifacts, and so forth) as acomplex system is central to the ex-perience. [Example: Curtis drewfrom and made use of multiple signsystems in creating cards throughengagement with books, magazines,videos, and the Internet. Curtis livesin Canada and uses the metricsystem. The cards use the imperialsystem. While creating his cards,Curtis used a conversion program hefound on the Internet to convert thePokémon’s weights and heights fromimperial to metric measurement.]

Committed Learning Principle andPractice Principle: Learners partici-pate in an extended engagement asextensions of their real-world identi-

ties. The learner gets lots and lots ofpractice in a context where thepractice is not boring. [Example:Curtis took on the role of Pokémontrainer as he created and designedhis own cards. With lots of effortand practice, he played out thisPoke-world identity for extendedand sustained periods of time.]

On-Going Learning Principle: The dis-tinction between learner and master isvague, since learners must undo theirroutinized mastery to adapt to new orchanged conditions at higher andhigher levels. There are cycles of newlearning, automatization, undoing au-tomatization, and new reorganizedautomatization. [Example: Card man-ufacturers sustain gamers’ interest inPokémon by continuously puttingout different versions of the cards.With each new version came anothercomplex set of understandings. Curtishad to continuously adapt to new orchanged conditions for trading, col-lecting, and designing.]

Situated Meaning Principle: Themeanings of signs (words, actions,objects, artifacts, symbols, texts,etc.) are situated in embodied expe-rience. Meanings are not general ordecontextualized. Whatever general-ity meanings come to have is dis-covered bottom up via embodiedexperiences. [Example: While de-signing Pokémon cards, the mean-ings of signs are situated in thedesigner’s experience as a collectorand trader of cards, which is con-textualized based on who the othertrainers are and on the corpus ofcards that they have on hand.]

Intertextual Principle: The learner un-derstands texts as a genre, a family of

related texts, and understands anyone such text in relation to others inthe family, but only after havingachieved embodied understandings ofsome texts. Understanding a groupof texts as a family of texts is a largepart of what helps the learner makesense of such texts. [Example: De-signing his own cards required Curtisto frequently engage with a varietyof related texts. He knew which mag-azine to go to for information on thestrengths of the various charactersand which Internet sites could offerhim further information. He alsoknew how the magazines, in con-junction with the Internet sites andother resources, worked to providehim with the information he needed.]

Multimodal Principle: Meaning andknowledge is built up through vari-ous modalities (images, texts, sym-bols, interactions, abstract design,sound, etc.), not just words. [Exam-ple: Curtis built up the meaning andknowledge underlying the creation

of Pokémon cards through movingback and forth between a variety ofmodalities, not just printed words.

Intuitive Knowledge Principle andAffinity Group Principle: Intuitive ortacit knowledge built up in repeatedpractice and experience, often in as-sociation with an affinity group,counts a great deal and is honored.It is not just verbal and consciousknowledge that is rewarded. Learnersconstitute an “affinity group,” that isa group that is bonded primarilythrough shared endeavors, goals, andpractices. [Example: Curtis and hisfriends formed an affinity group inwhich knowledge gained through re-peated practice and experience car-ried great cultural capital. Curtisbecame better and better at knowinghow to draw the various charactersand became “the” primary resourcefor neighborhood children whowanted to design their own cards.]

Insider Principle: The learner is aninsider, teacher, and producer (notjust a consumer) able to customizethe learning experience and domain/ game throughout the experience.[Example: The more that Curtis andhis friends created cards and en-gaged in exchanging cards, themore they liked it and they learnedabout it. This learning always tookplace in social spaces in particularcontexts with his affinity group andgave him opportunities to take ondifferent roles.]

LITERACY INSTRUCTION ASBROAD-BASED PARTICIPATIONIN A RANGE OF LITERACIES

Language is not the only importantcommunication system in themodern world; images, artifacts,and many other visual symbols areparticularly significant (Gee 2001b).Popular culture texts such as Poké-mon cards and games are the kindsof materials that many kids read,have access to, and participate with

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Popular culture texts such as Pokémon cards andgames are the kinds of materials that many kids read,have access to, and participate with as literate beings

in the new millennium.

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as literate beings in the new millen-nium. Through engagement withsuch texts, children like Curtis andhis friends participate in an openpedagogy where print text is notprivileged. Rather it becomes one ofmany symbol systems used as agenerative multimodal tool for cul-tivating multiliteracies that include

different forms of literate behaviorsbeyond those traditionally associ-ated with literacy, such as readingand writing. Children’s culture isbased on broad participation in arange of literacies. In this openpedagogy where learning is notpredetermined but generated by afunctional need to continue to learnto play the game better, Curtis andhis friends thrived as literate beingscontinuously seeking out moreknowledge and willingly taking upthe challenge of participating in agame that grew in complexity anddifficulty over time.

As a former preschool and elemen-tary school teacher, I ask myselfhow young children’s participationwith popular culture text couldinform my own literacy teachingpractice and my students’ learning.My intent is not to sell teachers onusing popular culture texts in theclassroom, even though I have beenwitness to their power. Further, Iam not arguing that everythinglearned from playing Pokémon is

good. I am arguing that there is alot we can learn about how to sup-port literacy development bywatching children closely as theyengage with such texts. My intentis to show the sorts of literate be-haviors that come from children’sparticipation in and use of popularculture texts such as Pokémon.

I believe there are important ques-tions that those of us who workwith young children can ask withregards to popular culture texts. Forinstance, what can we learn aboutwhat motivates children to stay inthe game in spite of the increasingcomplexity of that game? What at-tracts them to the game in the firstplace? How can we capitalize on thenew literacies developed throughengagement with everyday populartexts that children encounter duringthe course of daily life? What doesit mean for learning to be social?What happens to literacy develop-ment in these social spaces? Whatrole do multimodal texts and the in-tegration of different symbol sys-tems play in literacy development?

Pokémon texts are one example ofthe sort of highly complex literaciesthat children are now facing in thisnew millennium. In essence, this ar-ticle is about developing “new liter-acy” pedagogies. These pedagogiesgo beyond debates over basic skillsand best methodology and are in-formed by observation and analysisof children’s participatory engage-ment with texts for which they havean affinity and for which they arewilling to participate in complexlearning situations for a sustainedperiod of time.

References

Carrington, V. (2003). “I’m in a bad mood.Let’s go shopping”: Interactive dolls, con-sumer culture and a “glocalized” modelof literacy. Journal of Early ChildhoodLiteracy, 3(1), 83–98.

Comber, B. (2000). What really counts inearly literacy lessons. Language Arts,78, 39–49.

Gee, J. P. (2001a). Reading as situatedaction: A sociocognitive perspective.Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy,44(8), 714–725.

Gee, J. P. (2001b, July). Critical literacy as dis-course analysis. Paper presented at theCELT Rejuvenation Conference, Chicago, IL.

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have toteach us about learning and literacy. NewYork: Macmillan.

Luke, C. (2002). Re-crafting media and ICTliteracies. In D. Alvermann (Ed.), Adoles-cents and literacies in a digital world(pp. 132–146). New York: Peter Lang.

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What Pokém

on Can Teach Us

Children’s culture isbased on broad

participation in arange of literacies.

Vivian Vasquez is assistant professor inthe School of Education at American Uni-versity in Washington, D.C. Previous tothis, she taught preschool and elementaryschool for 14 years.

Author Biography

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