The Missing Tooth - Case Illustrations of a Child’s Assembled, Out-of-School Authorship

Oct 15, 2026

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Case illustrations of a six-year-old boy’s adventures with a missing tooth examine authorship through social semiotics, New Literacy Studies, and critical positioning. The analysis shows how his preferred meaning-making and communication modes—linguistic, symbolic, musical, and more—carry distinct semiotic affordances and limits. Authorship is framed as socially situated design, negotiation, production, and dissemination across multimodal resources.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages23

Reading Time58 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Narrow Views of Authorship and Meaning-making

The Missing Tooth: Case Illustrations of a Child’s Assembled, Out-of-School Authorship Kari-Lynn Winters Brock University Abstract Case illustrations of a six-year-old boy’s adventures with a missing tooth are used in this paper tore-define a broader notion of authorship. Drawing on theories of social semiotics, New Literacy Studies (NLS), and critical positioning, this notion of authorship not only interweaves the boy’s preferred modes of meaning-making and communication, but also considers his sociocultural environments. Findings suggest that each mode of meaning-making (linguistic, symbolic, musical, etc.) has its own semiotic potential (both affordances and limitations) and that all authorship needs to be framed critically, within social contexts, in order to better understand and facilitate young children’s abilities to garner, interpret, design, and communicate ideas across a range of semioticsystems. Keywords: authorship, assemblage, multimodality, social practices, critical literacies Kari-Lynn Winters is an award-winning scholar, children's author, playwright, and elementary school teacher. She is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at Brock University. Her interests include drama in education, children's literature, critical literacies, and multimodal forms of learning/communicating. More information about Kari-Lynn (including a detailed CV) can be found at: [http://www.kariwinters.com](http://www.kariwinters.com). [Email: kwinters@brocku.ca](Email: kwinters@brocku.ca) Brock Education, Vol. 22(1), Fall 2012, 3-25 Kari-Lynn Winters The Missing Tooth: A Child’s Authorship Introduction Research suggests that children create and communicate by using a range of multimodal systems (e.g., drawing, singing, writing, talking) within their social contexts (Dyson, 1997; Jewitt & Kress, 2003; Pahl & Rowsell, 2005; Ranker, 2006) . Additionally, within these environments they build critical power relations with others (Larson & Marsh, 2005; Lewis, 2001; Marsh & Millard, 2001; Moss, 2003) . Defining authorship in these broader ways—in ways which include the multimodal, sociocultural, and the critical—have recently been publicly supported by international and national organizations (cf. Alliance for Excellent Education, 2012; IRA, 2011; NCTE, 2012) . Yet despite research findings as well as concerted efforts from numerous organizations to expand notions of authorship, there is still a tendency to simplify it, to think of authorship as words alone or as an isolated, non-social event (Siegel, 2006; Winters, 2010) . Instead of isolating authorship or opposing printed texts to other expressive forms (e.g. , drawing, singing, writing), this paper suggests that authorship is always multimodal, social, and critical. Meaningful information is created and communicated through the processes of design, negotiation, production, and dissemination within diverse and differently situated communities. And within these social communities, authors identify power relations and develop their identities (Kendrick, 2003; 2005) . When thinking of authorship in these broader ways, authors are offered broader and more authentic communicative options (Rogers, Winters, La Monde, & Perry 2010; Stein, 2008; Winters & Vratulis, in press.) Using theories of social semiotics, New Literacy Studies, and critical positioning alongside close analyses of my son’s out-of-school meaning making and communication, I demonstrate how even young children have the potential to author purposefully and with sophistication, in ways that are semiotic, social, and critical. Further, this paper offers a way to document and analyze these complexities, suggesting one way that education stakeholders (e.g., parents, administrators, teachers) might trace and assess broader notions of authorship (cf. Authorship as Assemblage, Winters, 2009) . I believe that there is much at stake for education if adults continue to ignore children’s representations

FAQs

What theoretical frameworks does the paper use to redefine authorship?

The paper draws on social semiotics, New Literacy Studies (NLS), and critical positioning to broaden authorship beyond traditional text-based writing.

How does the study describe the child’s meaning-making modes?

It suggests that meaning-making modes such as linguistic, symbolic, and musical resources each have specific semiotic potential, including both affordances and limitations.

Why does the paper argue that authorship should be framed critically within social contexts?

Because young children’s abilities to garner, interpret, design, and communicate ideas depend on socially embedded processes that connect meaning-making to power relations and identity development.

Oct 15, 2026

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