ABSTRACT
Existing texts can provide a source for text making. Children engage with materials found in storybooks, comics, non-fi ction resources, on the web, and so on, and produce something in response. Where the resulting text is identical to or very like the original, this would generally be viewed as copying. Deemed to be ‘nothing’ because it is mere replication, copying is unworthy of attention. Considered ethically ‘wrong’ or educationally unacceptable, the very act of investigation of itself acknowledges that it goes on. Albeit founded on well-established societal principles and well-substantiated educational concerns, these discourses have held back study of children’s ‘copying’ as something that warrants serious attention. Is copying ‘just’ replication? What if it is examined as semiotic work?
