ABSTRACT
Children’s drawing and writing have varying degrees of permanence. Durability is dependent on what is valued as well as the affordances of media and the practices associated with them. From the multitude of texts children produce, some are kept, some are discarded, and some are forgotten or lost. Parents save those they prize, and schools retain curricular work for the purposes of assessment and accountability. Other texts have a fl eeting existence: those made with a stick in the sand, fi ngers in condensation on a window or chalk on tarmac. Unless these are recorded, they are short-lived, ephemeral, here and gone in a moment. Does transience equate with worthlessness? Does temporariness preclude or dilute semiotic work?
