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AI Literacy with Gifted Children: Iterative Co-Design and Critical Multimodal Practices

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Title: AI Literacy with Gifted Children: Iterative Co-Design and Critical Multimodal Practices
Language: English
Authors: Tolga Kargın (ORCID 0000-0003-2380-2383), Arda Karataş
Source: Reading Research Quarterly. 2026 61(2).
Availability: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 14
Publication Date: 2026
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Descriptors: Artificial Intelligence, Digital Literacy, Academically Gifted, Children, Foreign Countries, Student Developed Materials, Cooperative Learning, Story Telling, Cartoons, Books, Computer Games, Gifted Education, Science Teaching Centers, Arts Centers, Design, Environmental Education, Elementary School Students
Geographic Terms: Turkey
DOI: 10.1002/rrq.70103
ISSN: 0034-0553
1936-2722
Abstract: Drawing on Critical Multimodal Literacy theory (CML), this qualitative case study explores how four gifted fourth-grade students used generative AI tools to create products aimed at solving environmental pollution problems. During the 10-week project, held at the Science and Art Center in Türkiye, the children collaboratively produced a storybook, comic book, and two digital games. Data collected from session video recordings, the researchers' field notes, student artifacts, and semi-structured interviews were subjected to content analysis. This revealed that the children integrated their critical perspectives with multimodal strategies and incorporated AI as a co-designer while generating ideas, storyboarding, and producing a storybook and comic book. The children demonstrated their AI literacy in several ways, particularly revising their prompts until the AI generated the desired outputs and checking the outputs' factual accuracy and consistency. The children's storybook and comic book focused on collective action and environmental justice, while the digital games encouraged the players to adopt responsible waste-related behaviors. The children showed creative agency and critical awareness during the AI-mediated process, thereby demonstrating that even young gifted children can use AI tools to create critical multimodal texts and interactive digital content that aims to help solve a real-world problem. This study makes a novel theoretical contribution by integrating iterative AI co-design within CML as a model for developing AI literacy and social agency in gifted elementary students. The study also extends recent debates about youth agency, authorship, and ethics in the age of AI, offering a new perspective.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2026
Accession Number: EJ1503746
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0193225970;[nrnu]02apr.26;2026Apr27.05:00;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0193225970-1">AI Literacy With Gifted Children: Iterative Co‐Design and Critical Multimodal Practices </title> <p>Drawing on Critical Multimodal Literacy theory (CML), this qualitative case study explores how four gifted fourth‐grade students used generative AI tools to create products aimed at solving environmental pollution problems. During the 10‐week project, held at the Science and Art Center in Türkiye, the children collaboratively produced a storybook, comic book, and two digital games. Data collected from session video recordings, the researchers' field notes, student artifacts, and semi‐structured interviews were subjected to content analysis. This revealed that the children integrated their critical perspectives with multimodal strategies and incorporated AI as a co‐designer while generating ideas, storyboarding, and producing a storybook and comic book. The children demonstrated their AI literacy in several ways, particularly revising their prompts until the AI generated the desired outputs and checking the outputs' factual accuracy and consistency. The children's storybook and comic book focused on collective action and environmental justice, while the digital games encouraged the players to adopt responsible waste‐related behaviors. The children showed creative agency and critical awareness during the AI‐mediated process, thereby demonstrating that even young gifted children can use AI tools to create critical multimodal texts and interactive digital content that aims to help solve a real‐world problem. This study makes a novel theoretical contribution by integrating iterative AI co‐design within CML as a model for developing AI literacy and social agency in gifted elementary students. The study also extends recent debates about youth agency, authorship, and ethics in the age of AI, offering a new perspective.</p> <p>Keywords: AI literacy; critical multimodal literacy; generative AI; gifted children</p> <p>This study explores how gifted elementary students utilize generative AI as a co‐designer within a Critical Multimodal Literacy (CML) framework to address environmental pollution. Through an iterative process of critical inquiry, AI‐supported ideation, and refinement, students developed storybooks, comics, and digital games. The results demonstrate that young learners can move beyond passive AI consumption, exercising high creative agency and "critical wonder" to produce socially responsive multimodal content while developing essential AI literacy competencies. *Layout assisted by NotebookLM.</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/NRNU/02apr26/rrq70103-toc-0001.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMMvl7ESepq84yOvsOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="rrq70103-toc-0001.jpg" title="." /> </p> <p></p> <hd id="AN0193225970-3">Introduction</hd> <p>On the first day of the project, four gifted fourth‐grade students—Berrak, Evren, Bilgen, and Mete—discussed how using generative AI tools could help them develop solutions to environmental pollution. The first decision they had to make concerned the final products. The children made various suggestions, which differed in popularity among the group. For example, Berrak proposed and later prepared a storybook to present dramatic scenes of environmental pollution to appeal to readers of all ages, whereas Evren and Mete initially suggested a board game featuring a detailed map but later decided a digital game would be more attractive. In just a few weeks, the two children developed two digital games: The first aimed to teach waste recycling to younger children while the second aimed to promote waste sorting skills. Finally, Bilgen, suggested a comic book that integrated recycling and sustainability to engage children by combining information and entertainment. Her approach drew on classroom discussions and her mother, who is a teacher. United by their shared goal, the four students named themselves the Eco‐Friendly Koalas and, from their very first meeting, began experimenting with generative AI to write stories, design characters, and create visuals.</p> <p>Activities to educate gifted children should not only aim to improve academic performance but also develop creativity, critical thinking, and social responsibility (Renzulli [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref1">37</reflink>]; Sternberg [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref2">42</reflink>]). Rapid changes in educational technologies offer important opportunities to unlock the potential of gifted students in these respects (Pfeiffer [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref3">36</reflink>]; Subotnik et al. [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref4">44</reflink>]). More specifically, interaction with generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, if done correctly, can help improve gifted students' critical thinking and ability to creatively solve daily problems (Burriss and Leander [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref5">5</reflink>]; Kim [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref6">20</reflink>]; Kumar et al. [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref7">24</reflink>]; Mishra et al. [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref8">34</reflink>]).</p> <p>Global issues like environmental pollution require all individuals, starting from their immediate environment, to act responsibly in line with sustainable development goals to generate solutions (UNESCO [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref9">45</reflink>]). One of the goals of contemporary education should therefore be developing awareness among gifted individuals about such issues, both locally and globally, and producing innovative solutions through effective use of technology (e.g., generative AI tools) (Gagné [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref10">12</reflink>]; Sternberg and Davidson [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref11">43</reflink>]).</p> <p>AI has become an umbrella term used to describe systems that can mimic human thinking, in line with rapid advances in fields like machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing (Duan et al. [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref12">9</reflink>]; Lathuiliere et al. [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref13">25</reflink>]; UNESCO [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref14">47</reflink>]). AI applications are currently being used effectively in a wide range of fields, from education to health care, industry to defense, and are transforming every level of social life. These technological transformations make it increasingly important for children to become not only technology users but also critical and creative AI literates from an early age (Beck and Levine [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref15">4</reflink>]; Holmes et al. [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref16">15</reflink>]; Kalantzis and Cope [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref17">19</reflink>]; Kumar et al. [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref18">24</reflink>]; Luckin [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref19">27</reflink>]; Zhao and McEwen [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref20">49</reflink>]). This necessity is supported by the changing nature of digital texts in the age of AI, which requires pedagogical shifts towards disruptive multiliteracies and a critical sense of wonder (Rowsell [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref21">39</reflink>]).</p> <p>Research shows that children in Türkiye and elsewhere spend a significant portion of their daily lives interacting with digital devices and platforms (Altun [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref22">2</reflink>]; Delisle Nyström et al. [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref23">8</reflink>]; Hedderson et al. [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref24">13</reflink>]; Konca [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref25">21</reflink>]; Ofcom [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref26">35</reflink>]; Rideout and Robb [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref27">38</reflink>]). However, high levels of interaction with digital technologies do not necessarily mean that children use these technologies correctly or effectively. AI literacy aims to enable children to select AI tools appropriate for their purposes and, rather than directly using the outputs of generative AI tools, to understand how they work, identify biases and incomplete or incorrect content in the outputs, and make ethically conscious choices (Holmes et al. [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref28">15</reflink>]; Kumar et al. [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref29">24</reflink>]; Long and Magerko [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref30">26</reflink>]). This critical evaluation is at the heart of a broader literacy agenda that requires a skeptical "critical wonder" toward AI designs (Rowsell [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref31">39</reflink>]). Furthermore, becoming AI literate and effective users of AI tools at an early age provides children with the foundations for developing more complex technological skills in later years (UNESCO [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref32">46</reflink>]).</p> <p>Many countries are updating their education policies and developing strategies to integrate AI into the curriculum in order to strengthen children's AI literacy (Australian Government Department of Education [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref33">3</reflink>]; UNESCO [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref34">47</reflink>]). Initiatives in countries like the US, the UK, China, and South Korea prioritize the development of critical thinking, problem‐solving, and ethical awareness among children (Luckin [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref35">27</reflink>]). Although no studies have yet investigated integration of AI into the curriculum in Türkiye, the education ministry recommends using AI with gifted children in state‐run Science and Art Centers (Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı [MEB] [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref36">31</reflink>]).</p> <p>While <emph>Reading Research Quarterly</emph> (<emph>RRQ</emph>)'s recent special issue on "Literacy in the Age of AI" has illuminated how adolescents and young adults grapple with AI‐mediated authorship, ethics, and agency (e.g., Burriss and Leander [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref37">5</reflink>]; Higgs and Stornaiuolo [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref38">14</reflink>]; Kumar et al. [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref39">24</reflink>]; Beck and Levine [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref40">4</reflink>]), few studies have investigated how younger children, especially young gifted learners, develop AI literacy and critical multimodal practices. Accordingly, the present study builds on the recent discussions in the <emph>RRQ</emph> regarding children's use of AI by foregrounding elementary students' voices, their iterative engagements with AI as a co‐designer, and their critical creative agency in addressing real‐world problems.</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-4">Critical Multimodal Literacy Framework</hd> <p>The Critical Multimodal Literacy (CML) framework offers a holistic approach that brings together critical literacy theory's aims of questioning and transforming social inequalities with multimodal literacy's capacity to produce meaning through multiple modes (Ajayi [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref41">1</reflink>]; Cappello et al. [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref42">6</reflink>]). Arguing that power relations in society are always somehow reflected in texts, critical literacy theory aims to enable individuals to uncover these power relations by reading "words and the world" together and take action to prevent injustice (Freire [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref43">11</reflink>]). In practice, critical literacy pedagogy entails students critically analyzing texts they come across, questioning whose voices are emphasized or silenced in these texts, developing alternative perspectives, and producing their own pieces with social responsibility (Janks [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref44">17</reflink>]; Kumar et al. [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref45">24</reflink>]; Luke [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref46">28</reflink>]; Mills [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref47">32</reflink>]). For example, in some studies, students addressed social issues they encountered in their own lives and conveyed their critiques to wider audiences by making short films that critically examined these issues (Mills [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref48">32</reflink>]).</p> <p>Teachers also have various responsibilities in assisting students become good critical readers. In particular, to create a critical thinking classroom environment, teachers should bring daily issues into the classroom, create a discussion environment where opinions can be freely expressed, and become role models by asking the right questions (Shor [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref49">40</reflink>]). When such a classroom environment is established, critical literacy offers a holistic pedagogical approach that not only equips students with the skills to analyze digital or printed texts but also creates an environment that encourages them to question social inequalities and generate alternative, innovative solutions (Beck and Levine [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref50">4</reflink>]; Burriss and Leander [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref51">5</reflink>]).</p> <p>Multimodal literacy theory is based on a social semiotic approach that argues that meaning production from text is not limited to printed text alone; rather, meaning is shaped by the combined use of printed text and other semiotic resources, such as gestures, facial expressions, sounds, speech, music, and other semiotic resources (Jewitt [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref52">18</reflink>]; Kress [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref53">22</reflink>]; Kress and van Leeuwen [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref54">23</reflink>]). Particularly with the extensive use of digital technologies in various areas, individuals are increasingly exposed to digital texts on a daily basis. Hence, they need to be able to critically analyze and produce these complex, multimodal texts in order to extract meaning from them or produce meaningful texts themselves (Kumar et al. [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref55">24</reflink>]; Mills [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref56">32</reflink>]). Research shows that, through multimodal literacy classroom activities, students can learn to extract meaning from multimodal texts and produce and share meaningful multimodal texts through activities like blog reading and writing, designing online comics, or producing stop‐motion animations (Jewitt [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref57">18</reflink>]; Mills and Chandra [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref58">33</reflink>]). To facilitate these activities, teachers need to develop new pedagogical approaches that provide the students with appropriate digital tools and opportunities to develop their technical skills.</p> <p>CML develops through activities in which participants both analyze and produce multimodal texts. They should do so while critically examining power relations implied by the texts and prioritizing social justice in their own text production. CML analysis thus goes beyond the printed or spoken text itself to consider factors like visual elements, sound level, tone of voice, sound effects, background music, posture, gesture, and facial expression, while the produced texts should use various modes effectively to convey their messages (Ajayi [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref59">1</reflink>]; Burriss and Leander [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref60">5</reflink>]; Cappello et al. [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref61">6</reflink>]). Ajayi ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref62">1</reflink>]), for instance, reported on a CML classroom project in Nigeria in which students created critical multimodal texts such as Facebook posts, digital stories, and drawings to raise awareness about gender inequalities in their community. The CML framework encouraged students to adopt a critical perspective based on their own social identities and daily lives and to promote social change in society regarding this issue (Freire [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref63">11</reflink>]; Hull and Katz [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref64">16</reflink>]).</p> <p>In short, applied as a pedagogical model, CML can transform learning, both individually and socially. It does so by combining critical literacy, which aims to identify and respond to social issues, with multimodal literacy, which can encourage learners' innovativeness and enrich their expressiveness. In the current generative AI context, this framework should be continuously updated to account for the opaque layers and hyper‐accessibility of AI‐generated content. This requires a shift toward "disruptive multiliteracies" and "critical wonder" to uncover hidden agendas and biases (Rowsell [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref65">39</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-5">Present Study</hd> <p>Adopting the CML framework, the present study examines a pedagogical intervention focused on gifted fourth‐grade students in a small town in Türkiye. The intervention aimed to promote the students' critical and creative use of generative AI tools to analyze complex real‐world problems and propose solutions. A primary goal of gifted education is to increase students' ability to identify social issues and then develop effective solutions (Renzulli [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref66">37</reflink>]; Sternberg and Davidson [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref67">43</reflink>]). In the present study, the students were asked to critically analyze a specific real‐world problem, environmental pollution, and use AI to develop creative multimodal products to promote solutions to this issue.</p> <p>The study addressed the following research questions to investigate the intervention's effects on the participants:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> While using AI‐tools to develop multimodal products to promote solutions to environmental pollution, do gifted elementary students both integrate a critical perspective and draw on multimodal strategies?</item> <p></p> <item> How do these students engage with AI tools during a critical multimodal literacy project addressing environmental pollution?</item> <p></p> <item> What kinds of critical awareness and creative agency emerge as these students use AI tools to develop multimodal products?</item> <p></p> <item> What are these students' reflections regarding the benefits and limitations of using AI tools during a critical multimodal literacy project?</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0193225970-6">Methods</hd> <p>This study adopted a qualitative case study design, which enables in‐depth examination of a specific situation within its real‐life context (Yin [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref68">48</reflink>]). This research design requires detailed investigation of a system with clearly defined boundaries, such as a specific person, a small group, or a specific program, using multiple data sources, such as interviews, observations, and documents (Creswell and Poth [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref69">7</reflink>]). Rather than generalize the findings, a Qualitative Case Study aims to detail how and why specific processes emerge (Stake [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref70">41</reflink>]). In educational research, qualitative case studies are often used to examine specific teachers, students, or educational programs that differ from others in some way in order to understand, in detail, how the particular event occurred and why it succeeded or failed (Dyson and Genishi [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref71">10</reflink>]; Merriam [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref72">29</reflink>]).</p> <p>This study was designed as a qualitative case study to examine in depth how a specific group of young gifted students, prompted to take a critical perspective, interacted with generative AI tools to produce multimodal content to help solve real‐world problems. The participating students were already knowledgeable about environmental pollution and experienced and skilled in using digital technologies. In examining the process of the activity, the study focused not only on the multimodal products but also on how the students interacted, how they made decisions, and what they thought about their experience.</p> <p>Several steps were taken to increase transparency. First, we monitored the participants' use of AI tools, particularly ChatGPT (GPT‐4, OpenAI, 2024) for text and DALL·E 3 for image generation. Second, to find out how they refined their use of the tools, we recorded their prompts in a shared logbook to document the various iterations of the prompts. Third, for the AI outputs participants chose to use, we noted whether they used them as‐is or made modifications. This documentation of the process enabled us to evaluate the students' AI literacy practices, particularly regarding evaluating, verifying, and adapting AI outputs.</p> <p>Another key methodological issue in the present study was the researchers' positionality. In particular, as the participants' Science and Art Center teacher, the second author, Arda, facilitated the sessions. Although this dual teacher–researcher role gave Arda a deeper understanding of the context and the opportunity to closely observe the students, it also involved a power asymmetry between teacher and students. Three steps were taken to help minimize potential bias and thereby ensure the validity of the data. First, Arda wrote a reflexive memo after each session. Second, the data were triangulated across the different sources (field notes, video records, interview records, and artifacts). Third, the first author, Tolga, who did not facilitate any sessions, provided an external check by auditing Arda's data coding.</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-7">Participants and Setting: The Eco‐Friendly Koalas</hd> <p>As already mentioned, the study participants were gifted fourth‐grade students. They were drawn from a district in the Aegean Region of Türkiye, predominantly populated by families with low socioeconomic status engaged in agriculture and livestock farming. As gifted children, the participating students were eligible to attend state‐run Science and Art Centers, which provide gifted students with enriched, small‐group (4–5 students) educational opportunities beyond normal school hours in art, science, mathematics, technology, social sciences, and other subjects. The centers' educational programs prioritize the development of creativity and skills like critical thinking, problem solving, and research.</p> <p>This study was conducted with a group of four students in the classroom of Arda, who is also a Science and Art Center teacher. The students, who come from rural, agricultural families, with limited access to advanced digital tools outside the Science and Art Center, participated in the study voluntarily. Written consent was obtained from both the parents and the students, and the students were informed that they could leave the study at any time. After the study topic was determined, in their group discussion the students named their group "Eco‐Friendly Koalas." The group comprised experienced students who had previously received training in critical thinking skills, academic writing and reading, creative writing, critical media literacy, and generative AI tools at the Science and Art Center and carried out studies in these areas. Given their past experiences and accumulated knowledge, they can be considered competent in both generating solutions to environmental issues and effectively using generative AI tools. At the beginning of the study, the group received specific training to introduce the CML framework and AI literacy. The students also brought their own abilities to the activity. Mete and Evren (all names are pseudonyms), who had knowledge and skills in software, coding, and digital game design, took responsibility for digital game design. Bilgen and Berrak, on the other hand, who were interested in creative writing, aesthetic design, and storytelling, took responsibility for content and scenario creation, visual narrative structures, and other tasks. This division of labor within the group was decided by the participants themselves at the first group meeting based on their individual strengths.</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-8">Data Collection</hd> <p>The study was approved by the Uşak University Social Sciences and Humanities Research and Publication Ethics Committee on November 7, 2024 (decision number 2024‐203). The data collection process lasted 10 weeks. The duration of the activities varied from week to week. Table 1 presents the number of minutes allocated for each week's activities.</p> <p>1 TABLE Study plan.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><th align="left">Sessions</th><th align="center">Activities</th><th align="center">Objectives</th></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td align="left">Session 1(40 min)</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– The Biggest Problem in Our School activity</p><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>○ Identification and listing of problems</p></list-item></list></list-item></list></td><td align="center">Evaluate participants awareness of local school‐related issues and guide them in identifying and prioritizing the most significant problems</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Session 2(90 min)</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– CML framework</p></list-item><list-item><p>– AI Literacy</p><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>○ AI tools and prompt‐writing strategies</p></list-item><list-item><p>○ Critical use of AI tools</p></list-item><list-item><p>○ Using AI tools to produce multimodal texts</p></list-item></list></list-item></list></td><td align="center">Introduce participants to CML framework and help them gain experience in AI literacy by exploring critical uses of AI tools and practicing multimodal text production</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Session 3(120 min)</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– Examination and evaluation of media products about environmental pollution</p></list-item></list></td><td align="center">Help participants recognize environmental pollution as both a local and global issue through critical and multimodal analysis of media representations</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Session 4(90 min)</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– Determining content types to be produced as solutions (games, stories, visuals, etc.)</p></list-item><list-item><p>– Using AI tools in the process of designing digital games</p></list-item></list></td><td align="center">Support participants in selecting content formats (e.g., digital games, stories, visuals) and applying AI tools to begin developing digital solutions</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Session 5(90 min)</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– Creating stories and developing narrative structures supported by AI</p></list-item></list></td><td align="center">Enable participants to design story narratives and strengthen their creative expression using AI assistance</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Session 6(100 min)</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– Visualizing the created stories using visual production tools</p></list-item></list></td><td align="center">Guide participants in transforming their written stories into visual narratives with AI‐supported creation tools</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Session 7(150 min)</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– Integrating AI‐generated media content</p></list-item></list></td><td align="center">Facilitate integration of text, visuals, and other media elements to produce cohesive AI‐generated content</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Session 8(90 min)</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– Evaluation of produced content (Session 1)</p></list-item></list></td><td align="center">Provide structured feedback on produced content and encourage reflection to improve media artifacts</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Session 9(90 min)</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– Evaluation of produced content (Session 2)</p></list-item></list></td><td align="center">Offer second round of evaluation and support refinement of participants' work based on peer and instructor input</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Session 10(150 min)</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– Sharing produced content with other students at school</p></list-item></list></td><td align="center">Support participants in presenting their final products with other students at an exhibition</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>All 10 sessions were recorded with a video camera, and while the researcher took field notes throughout the study. In addition, the students' prompt logs and AI outputs were collected to capture how they interacted with the AI tools. Thus, the data not only reflected human activities but also the AI's integral contributions to co‐designing the final products. At the end of the study, the participants' digital products were collected, and semi‐structured interviews were conducted regarding the students' thoughts about their experience with AI tools while finding solutions to environmental pollution. The interview questions were prepared by the researchers and revised based on expert opinions. The findings were achieved by analyzing and triangulating a rich data set, which included video records, researcher field notes, digital artifacts, and semi‐structured interview records.</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-9">Data Analysis</hd> <p>We implied an inductive content analysis (Merriam [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref73">30</reflink>]) to our rich datasets, including textual and visual features of the artifacts (i.e., stories, comic books, and digital games), interview transcripts, and field notes. By means of iterative coding, similar codes were organized into main themes, which were then classified more to answer the four research questions.</p> <p>To increase the trustworthiness of the analysis, a codebook was developed that connected each code to relevant concepts in CML and AI literacy. The two researchers coded the data independently, and then they compared these codings, discussed, and resolved any discrepancies. In order to ensure that the study produced a transparent audit trail, each researcher documented how they reached their interpretations.</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-10">Findings</hd> <p>As already explained, the students designed four distinct products for raising awareness about environmental pollution: a storybook, a comic book, and two digital games. This section reports the findings in the same order as the research questions, namely those related to the critical and multimodal dimensions of the student‐created products; those related to how the students engaged with the AI tools; those related to the forms of critical awareness and creative agency that emerged as the students designed the products; and those based on the students' reflections on the advantages and disadvantages of using AI to assist them during the project.</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-11">Critical and Multimodal Dimensions of the Students' Products</hd> <p>Berrak's storybook shows how gifted children can use AI tools to produce texts that critically examine environmental issues and encourage collective action. For example, when the story's protagonist complains, "What can we do now? Despite all our efforts, the environment is still polluted," he refers to the insufficiency of the individual actions. In response, the protagonist's friend says, "Together we are stronger," which emphasizes how solidarity may help promote social change. Berrak, supports the story's claim that collaboration has transformative power by including contrasting images of black smoke and polluted rivers (Figure 1a,b) versus clear water and vibrant fish (Figure 1c). These choices exemplify both CML's critical dimension in the project (i.e., addressing systemic pollution and amplifying children's voices) as well as its multimodal aspect (i.e., strategically using contrasting colors while integrating textual and visual elements).</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/NRNU/02apr26/rrq70103-fig-0001.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMMvl7ESepq84yOvsOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="rrq70103-fig-0001.jpg" title="1 (a–c) Example images from Berrak's storybook." /> </p> <p></p> <p>Like Berrak's product, Bilgen's comic book offers an environmental critique. However, it also advocates recycling as a specific solution to environmental problems. In particular, the comic book highlights the importance of agency in young people's civic engagement, such as when a character asks, "Should we start an awareness campaign about recycling?" As in Berrak's product, the textual message is reinforced visually, in this case with images of classrooms, recycling bins, and green landscapes (Figure 2a–c). Bilgen's comic book various CML themes, particularly transformative action (by talking about campaigns led by young people), connection to students' lives (by promoting realistic recycling practices), and multimodal integration (by combining cartoon dialog, icons, and varied color palettes to match the ideas).</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/NRNU/02apr26/rrq70103-fig-0002.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMMvl7ESepq84yOvsOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="rrq70103-fig-0002.jpg" title="2 (a–c) Example images from Bilgen's comic book." /> </p> <p></p> <p>The first two products thus have several key similarities. First, their creators position children as change agents. Second, they use dialog to create emotional appeals. Third, to encourage the reader/viewer to engage more critically with the ideas, they use color symbolically (e.g., darker and lighter tones to represent pollution and renewal, respectively) (see Table 2). Importantly, the two products do not merely criticize environmental damage; rather, they both offer practical responses. In this sense, they succeed in achieving CML's dual goals, namely creating critical consciousness and incorporating multimodal meaning‐making.</p> <p>2 TABLE CML analysis of Berrak's storybook and Bilgen's comic book.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><th align="left" /><th align="center">Analytical dimension</th><th align="center">Storybook</th><th align="center">Comic book</th></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td align="left">Critical Dimension</td><td align="center">Social/Environmental Issue Addressed</td><td align="center">The story focuses on environmental pollution caused by factory waste and its impact on the local community, particularly a children's park and the river.</td><td align="center">The comic book addresses general environmental issues, particularly waste, pollution, and lack of recycling habits. It emphasizes collective responsibility and the importance of environmental education.</td></tr><tr><td align="center">Critical Perspective & Voice</td><td align="center">The narrative focuses on the children's perspectives (e.g., the character Efe). It presents them as having agency to criticize and act in response to systemic issues. The voices of the authorities do not appear until the children have taken the initiative themselves.</td><td align="center">The comic book presents multiple student voices who critically discuss environmental responsibility, promoting youth perspectives as central to environmental discourse.</td></tr><tr><td align="center">Transformative Action & Agency</td><td align="center">The children initiate a town‐wide cleanup and awareness campaign, symbolizing bottom‐up civic action. The text promotes solidarity, as in the statement "We are stronger together."</td><td align="center">The comic book shows students working together to promote recycling, environmental activism, and civic responsibility. Their sense of agency is indicated by declarations like the following: "By working together, we can make our environment a cleaner place."</td></tr><tr><td align="center">Connection to Students' Lives</td><td align="center">The story encourages students to see themselves as agents of change, reflecting real‐world possibilities of activism and responsibility within their communities.</td><td align="center">By showing the students taking action, debating, and influencing their peers, the comic book suggests some realistic ways for young people to promote environmental sustainability.</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Multimodal Dimension</td><td align="center">Textual Strategies</td><td align="center">The book's language has both emotional depth ("What can we do now?") and conveys hope. The dialog‐driven narrative emphasizes group decision‐making and empowerment.</td><td align="center">The dialog in the comic book represents awareness, concern, and solution‐focused thinking. The storyline is guided by the use of collective phrases and aspirations for a better future.</td></tr><tr><td align="center">Visual Representation</td><td align="center">The story is accompanied by comic or anime style illustrations. These show various negative environmental conditions and emotional states, including black smoke, dead fish, concerned expressions, and positive images of solutions, including clean water and smiling faces.</td><td align="center">The comic book uses anime‐style visuals to portray emotional engagement. Classrooms, green fields, and recycling bins visually reinforce the story's environmental messages.</td></tr><tr><td align="center">Symbolic Use of Color and Composition</td><td align="center">The story book's earlier images incorporate darker colors (e.g., black smoke, gray skies), whereas the final image incorporates brighter greens and blues in the final scene to represent environmental healing and hope.</td><td align="center">The comic book's narrative of recovery is supported by color transitions from dull urban spaces to vibrant natural scenes.</td></tr><tr><td align="center">Multimodal Integration</td><td align="center">The story book's images and text are mutually reinforcing. Facial expressions, gestures, and background elements enrich the message, while the layout mimics sequential storytelling (akin to graphic novels).</td><td align="center">The comic book combines text, facial expressions, recycling symbols, and environmental icons to support the story's underlying message. For example, scenes of collaboration amplify the message of unity.</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Alignment with CML Goals</td><td align="center">The story book fully adopts the CML framework by combining a critical consciousness with multimodality to offer both a critique of injustice and a model for social change.</td><td align="center">The comic book adopts the CML framework by promoting collaboration, youth voice, and critical engagement with environmental issues through diverse modes.</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Consistent with CML's focus on transforming agency, both Berrak and Bilgen chose to portray the stories' young protagonists as change agents (Ajayi [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref74">1</reflink>]; Cappello et al. [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref75">6</reflink>]). Regarding multimodality, the children's preferences were meant to reflect their critical awareness rather than simply provide aesthetic value. These included the color shifts in the images, such as from gray to green, and the employment of conversation to highlight collective responsibility. These findings indicate that the children actively used the AI tools to critically frame environmental injustice (see Table 2).</p> <p>As mentioned before, the team also developed two digital games aimed at younger children. In Mete's game, Collect, Collect, Recycle, the players have to distinguish recyclable and nonrecyclable objects. To symbolize the environmental burden of failing to recycle correctly, each time the player mis‐categorizes an object, a recycling bin icon grows larger, which reduces the playing space on the screen (Figure 3a,b). In Evren's game, Waste Train, waste falls from the sky and the player controls a train with labeled wagons, aiming to catch the falling waste in the correct corresponding wagon (Figure 3c). This game's objective is to teach young players how to sort waste into appropriate categories. Thus, in different ways, Mete and Evren incorporated ecological responsibility into the gameplay of their products.</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/NRNU/02apr26/rrq70103-fig-0003.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMMvl7ESepq84yOvsOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="rrq70103-fig-0003.jpg" title="3 (a–c) Digital games produced by Mete and Evren." /> </p> <p></p> <p>Mete's and Evren's efforts show how digital games can use multimodal integration (e.g., movement, color‐coded bins, animation) to present the players with important messages about environmental responsibility. More specifically, each game turns an abstract argument about the environment into an interactive experience that seems more likely to promote awareness and behavioral change in the player. The two games' multimodal integration of text, visuals, and play achieves several CML goals, particularly representing the voice of young people, criticizing systemic environmental problems, and promoting transformative action (see Table 3).</p> <p>3 TABLE Analysis of Mete's and Evren's digital games from a CML perspective.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><th align="left" /><th align="center">Analytical dimension</th><th align="center">Collect, collect, recycle</th><th align="center">Waste train</th></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td align="left">Critical Dimension</td><td align="center">Social/Environmental Issue Addressed</td><td align="center">The game addresses the lack of recycling awareness among younger children by teaching them to differentiate recyclable from nonrecyclable items.</td><td align="center">The game aims to develop environmental awareness in young children by teaching waste sorting skills.</td></tr><tr><td align="center">Critical Perspective & Voice</td><td align="center">The game conveys environmental responsibility through consequences: incorrect sorting leads to a shrinking safe space, symbolizing the real‐world risks of pollution.</td><td align="center">Players learn to categorize waste and develop accountability through gameplay that emphasizes sorting accuracy.</td></tr><tr><td align="center">Transformative Action & Agency</td><td align="center">The game allows young players to practice responsible sorting behaviors and experience intuitive feedback from mistakes.</td><td align="center">By choosing the correct wagon for each waste type, players build awareness and internalize positive recycling behaviors.</td></tr><tr><td align="center">Connection to Students' Lives</td><td align="center">The game is designed for children to internalize and practice sorting behaviors through intuitive gameplay, thereby making the issue personally relevant.</td><td align="center">The game is designed to simulate real‐world recycling tasks, encouraging children to replicate these skills in everyday contexts.</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Multimodal Dimension</td><td align="center">Visual Representation</td><td align="center">On‐screen elements include dynamic visuals of items appearing randomly, a moveable recycling bin, and a changing play area.</td><td align="center">The game includes a visually animated train with labeled wagons and falling waste items to create an immersive sorting scenario.</td></tr><tr><td align="center">Symbolic Use of Color and Composition</td><td align="center">The enlarging recycling bin visually represents the consequences of incorrect sorting: a reduction in space symbolizes the environmental burden.</td><td align="center">Different waste bins and falling items are color‐coded to visually reinforce correct categorization.</td></tr><tr><td align="center">Multimodal Integration</td><td align="center">The game combines movement (keyboard control), real‐time animation, and spatial feedback to convey environmental logic.</td><td align="center">The game combines motion (train movement), visual categorization, and interactive scoring to appeal to multiple sensory channels.</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Alignment with CMLF Goals</td><td align="center">The game supports CML by combining social critique (environmental harm) with interactive digital modes to foster awareness and behavior change.</td><td align="center">The game develops critical environmental awareness through an accessible and engaging, multimodal digital format.</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>The foregoing analysis of the storybook, comic book, and digital games (Tables 2 and 3) shows how each student integrated their individual critical approaches and multimodal strategies into their products while using AI tools. However, it is also necessary to analyze how each student engaged with the AI tools during this process. Accordingly, the following section reports the students' reflections about using AI as a co‐designer of their CML products.</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-15">Student Engagement With AI Tools While Designing CML Products</hd> <p>The interviews showed that, by participating in the AI‐supported CML project, these young gifted students developed a deeper understanding of environmental issues while also improving their critical literacy and creative thinking skills. All four team members (Berrak, Bilgen, Mete, and Evren) described AI as a co‐designer that helped them generate ideas and develop their multimodal products.</p> <p>More specifically, Berrak explained how she followed a two‐stage process of writing and visualization to create her storybook: "First, we completed the writing phase, entering various prompts ... The AI suggested scenes for the story. In other words, during the writing phase, the AI showed us what steps to take." That is, for her, AI did not replace her own creativity; rather, it provided support for organizing her story and imagining ideas visually. Indeed, as also summarized in Table 2, she used AI to address both the multimodal dimension of the project (i.e., integration of text and visuals) and the critical dimension by representing the systemic issue of pollution in her story.</p> <p>Similarly, Bilgen explained that she first developed the narrative for her comic book before adding the images, which she generated using AI tools. Like Berrak, Bilgen considered AI as supporting rather than dictating her efforts to create meaning. This suggests that her approach aligned with CML's intention to enable young people to develop their own voice and critical perspective (see Table 2). That is, the AI tools enabled both children to merge text and visuals into effective multimodal products that criticized environmental harm from a young person's viewpoint.</p> <p>For the digital games, Mete and Evren both said that they mainly used AI tools to generate the visual elements. For example, Mete said, "Working with AI made our job much easier. That is, it was much more practical to take the visuals directly from artificial intelligence and use them ... I didn't have to search and try to find the right visual. I just entered the prompt and got what I wanted. Also, since the edges of the visuals were automatically cropped, I could immediately take them and use them in my game." His reflection highlights two key benefits of using AI tools: efficiency, by not wasting time searching for things; and customization, by quickly identifying visual elements that matched his game's environmental theme. As a result, the AI enabled the two students to focus more on transformative actions by designing interactive games that effectively represented their environmental critiques. Table 3 shows that the participants selected the games' AI‐generated visual elements not for their own sake (e.g., aesthetically); rather, the they chose them to achieve multimodal integration in their game by combining movement, interactivity, and feedback loops.</p> <p>Overall, the interviews revealed that the four students' use of AI tools was complementary:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> as an <emph>ideational partner</emph> in shaping narrative arcs (storybook, comic),</item> <p></p> <item> as a <emph>visual generator</emph> that supports multimodal integration (games), and</item> <p></p> <item> as a <emph>time‐saving resource</emph> that freed cognitive space for critical and creative engagement.</item> </ulist> <p>In short, the children's use of AI amplified their agency as designers, helping them achieve CML goals by linking their environmental critiques with multimodal composition, as systematically demonstrated in Tables 2 and 3.</p> <p>The interviews also showed that the students used AI as a co‐designer rather than using the content it suggested unchanged without further consideration. For instance, Berrak described creating her stories in two stages: writing and visualization, whereby the whole group first selected their preferred suggestions from AI tools before revising and finalizing them. Similarly, even though Mete noted how practical it was to generate images for a comic book using AI tools, the students did not allow this to eliminate their own critical agency. That is, they actively evaluated, adapted, and rejected the AI outputs as needed from their own perspectives. Previous research indicates that such behaviors, including iterative prompting, factual verification, and multimodal integration, exemplify early development of AI literacy competencies (Long and Magerko [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref76">26</reflink>]; Kumar et al. [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref77">24</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-16">Critical Awareness and Creative Agency in Designing AI‐Supported Products</hd> <p>Drawing on the reflections regarding the students' use of AI in the previous section, this section examines how this enabled the students to develop a more critical awareness of their audience, message, and design. It also considers how they developed the necessary creative agency to modify the original AI outputs so that they were more appropriate for making social critiques and promoting transformative action.</p> <p>Through their multimodal products, all four students showed that they had a critical awareness of their audience and message and that they maintained their individual creative agency while developing their products with the support of AI tools. Indeed, the interviews revealed how they made deliberate design choices in order to encourage social critique and behavioral change in their young audiences.</p> <p>For example, Berrak explained how her story made a call for collective action, such as in the claim that "small steps could lead to big changes." Such a statement does not only represent the theme of the story; rather, it also represents her own critical consciousness in that she portrays the children in her story as environmentally responsible role models (Table 2). That is, her experience of using AI tools to develop a multimodal storybook shows how such a process can help young people present important systemic problems and offer solutions in a manner that motivates the readers to take action themselves.</p> <p>Similarly, Bilgen described how she deliberately designed her comic book to engage her audience by being both "educational and entertaining": "We first created the story ... then made adjustments using artificial intelligence. As we provided information about environmental pollution, we took this information from artificial intelligence and checked its accuracy." Here, Bilgen shows how she adopted critical evaluation in that she conducted an internet search to check the validity of the suggestions of the AI tools. This aligns with CML's emphasis on interrogating sources in order to develop trustworthy knowledge. She also demonstrated her own agency by modifying the output from the AI tools to ensure that the content of her comic book successfully balanced providing the necessary information with being aesthetically pleasing and attractive to readers.</p> <p>The interviews also showed that the two students who designed the digital games also did so intentionally to influence the behavior of the players, as Mete explained: "In the game I made, people learned about recyclable waste by playing ... After playing this game, I hoped that people would pay attention to recyclable waste and learn not to throw the wrong waste in the wrong places." Here, Mete exemplifies making a conscious effort to turn the player's critical awareness, encouraged by the game, into transformative action by incorporating environmental education into the gameplay of his digital product (Table 3).</p> <p>While aimed at younger children than Mete's game, Evren's Waste Train game similarly incorporated AI‐generated visual elements to encourage the player to sort waste into appropriate categories. Evren used the power of AI tools to help him achieve the game's pedagogical goals while also communicating critical messages about recycling in an accessible, playful manner. As such, he demonstrated his own creative agency.</p> <p>Overall, the interviews confirmed that these young gifted students used AI tools effectively; that is, they retained agency by not passively accepting the AI outputs without adjustment. They gave prompted, evaluated AI outputs, and refined them to ensure they were aligned with their own critical stance and would communicate this to their audiences. By appropriately and critically incorporating various narratives, visual elements, and game mechanics into the four products that they developed using AI as a co‐designer, the Eco‐Friendly Koalas achieved critical literacy goals while demonstrating multimodal creativity. This enabled them to position their audiences as potential change agents.</p> <p>In making their design choices, the four students consistently related the content of each product to its intended audience. In this, they exhibited what Janks ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref78">17</reflink>]) calls the "design/redesign" function of critical literacy. For example, when Bilgen reported that she conducted an internet search before accepting any of the suggestions of the AI tools, she demonstrates ethical discernment and accountability. Similarly, when Mete reported designing his game to promote environmental behavioral change, he demonstrates praxis‐oriented literacy (Freire [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref79">11</reflink>]). That is, his approach views texts, including digital gameplay, as being interventionist rather than merely representational. Indeed, in each of their products, the four students as the Eco‐Friendly Koalas demonstrated how it is possible to respond to CML's dual imperatives by synthesizing critical awareness (i.e., diagnosing environmental injustice in this case) with creative agency (i.e., offering solutions).</p> <p>This section has explained how the products were shaped by the students' critical awareness and creative agency. The next section reports their reflections on the advantages and disadvantages of using AI tools during the process.</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-17">Student Reflections on the Advantages and Disadvantages of Using AI Tools</hd> <p>In their interviews, the students provided critical reflections on using AI tools. Their comments demonstrate that they had become more aware of the ways such technologies mediate multimodal production, both positively and negatively.</p> <p>For Berrak, AI tools were very helpful when generating narratives of the story. However, the visual outputs of the AI tools were not always consistent: "When we described a character, the image changed on the second page." Here, Berrak shows that she is critically aware that AI has both strengths (e.g., idea generation) and weaknesses (e.g., consistency in visual design). Furthermore, she shows that she can critically evaluate the outputs of AI tools (e.g., to ensure that AI‐generated images are consistent with the story she is developing).</p> <p>Like Berrak, Bilgen was also aware that AI outputs should be verified: "We took this information from artificial intelligence and checked its accuracy." She used internet searches to check the accuracy of AI outputs, which represents a critical literacy practice of recognizing misinformation risks. This enabled Bilgen to ensure that she produced an informative and credible comic book.</p> <p>On the other hand, Mete's comments focused on how AI made the production of visual elements more efficient: "Working with AI made our job much easier ... I just entered the prompt and got what I wanted." However, he recognized that such tools have limitations when it comes to designing board games, even if he highlighted the advantages of using AI to generate the visual aspects of his recycling digital game. This is because, in the latter case, it is more critical to make sure that the choices are visually appropriate and consistent. Mete shows how he is still in charge of his own agency while also recognizing the power of AI by switching his focus from board games to digital ones. In other words, he may reconsider his design options in light of the technological constraints of the particular design context.</p> <p>Evren also reported that using AI solutions made it easier to design his digital game and increase its attractiveness to potential players: "Artificial intelligence played a very important role in these activities ... The things produced looked like real objects ... Thanks to artificial intelligence, the work we produced was more eye‐catching and beautiful." His comments especially underline how important AI is for the multimodal components of the products. That is, the students were able to generate visually appealing designs that helped them achieve their critical educational goals (Table 3).</p> <p>Taken together, the reflections suggest that these young gifted students are not passive users of AI; rather, they use it actively and evaluate it critically by recognizing both its advantages and disadvantages as a co‐designer. On the one hand, the students claimed that using AI helped them design more visually appealing multimodal products, saved them time, and increased their creativity. On the other hand, they found that the AI tools sometimes generated inconsistent, inappropriate, or inaccurate outputs and suggestions. Through these comments, the students showed a great degree of metacognitive awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of AI.</p> <p>One critical problem they identified was visual consistency. For example, Berrak reported how AI‐generated character images would change over successive outputs. The students responded to these issues by prompting the AI tools iteratively and using the outputs selectively. They also used internet searches to check the accuracy of the AI outputs. In adopting this practice, they confirm the findings reported by Higgs and Stornaiuolo ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref80">14</reflink>]), who observed how young people deliberate ethically while using generative AI. These practices suggest that AI literacy is more than just a technical skill. That is, as Beck and Levine ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref81">4</reflink>]) and Kumar et al. ([<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref82">24</reflink>]) argue, it includes reflective judgment as part of sociotechnical meaning‐making. In short, through their efforts in the multimodal project, the four students demonstrate how combining critical multimodal literacy with AI literacy can encourage socially conscious creativity.</p> <p>Findings section has demonstrated how the application of CML practices to the use of AI tools enabled four young gifted students to produce socially conscious products intended to raise awareness among a young audience of environmental issues and suggest solutions. The products they created (a storybook, a comic book, and two digital games) exemplify the students' adoption of a critical perspective and their implementation of multimodal strategies, while their reflections recorded in interviews showed that they had a nuanced understanding of the benefits and challenges of using AI during the project. Drawing on these findings, the next section discusses more broadly the question of how the use of AI tools can simultaneously enable and constrain the critical literacy and creative agency of young people.</p> <p>Table 4 summarizes the findings to increase the transparency of our analysis and minimize the repetition of information across the subsections. In the table, selected data excerpts and emergent themes are presented to show how we attempted to address each research question. As a summary, Table 4 indicates how these four research questions were addressed by evidence regarding the students' critical awareness and agency through their thoughtful use of AI, their multimodal products, and their reflections on the advantages and disadvantages of using AI tools during the CML‐oriented project.</p> <p>4 TABLE Alignment of research questions, representative data excerpts, and emergent themes.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><th align="left">Research question</th><th align="center">Representative data excerpts</th><th align="center">Emergent themes</th></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td align="left">RQ1. While using AI tools to develop multimodal products to promote solutions to environmental pollution, do gifted elementary students both integrate a critical perspective and draw on multimodal strategies?</td><td align="center">Storybook (Berrak): "Together we are stronger" combined with images that shift from polluted rivers to clean waterComic book (Bilgen): "Should we start an awareness campaign about recycling?" combined with images of recycling bins and classroomsGames: Recycling bin icon changing in size (Mete); Waste falling into labeled wagons (Evren)</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– Environmental critique and systemic awareness</p></list-item><list-item><p>– Youth as change agents</p></list-item><list-item><p>– Multimodal integration (color, dialog, gameplay)</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td align="left">RQ2. How do these students engage with AI tools during a critical multimodal literacy project addressing environmental pollution?</td><td align="center">Berrak: "AI showed us what steps to take."Bilgen: "We first created the story ... then made adjustments using AI."Mete: "I just entered the prompt and got what I wanted."</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– AI as ideational partner (storybook/comic book)</p></list-item><list-item><p>– AI as visual generator (digital games)</p></list-item><list-item><p>– AI as time‐saving scaffold for creative focus</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td align="left">RQ3. What kinds of critical awareness and creative agency emerge as these students use AI tools to develop multimodal products?</td><td align="center">Berrak: "Small steps could lead to big changes."Bilgen: "We took this information from AI and checked its accuracy."Mete: "After playing this game, I hoped that people would pay attention to recyclable waste."</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– Critical consciousness (systemic critique, accuracy verification)</p></list-item><list-item><p>– Creative agency (design/redesign with AI)</p></list-item><list-item><p>– Praxis‐oriented literacy (fostering behavioral change)</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td align="left">RQ4. What are these students' reflections regarding the benefits and limitations of using AI tools during a critical multimodal literacy project?</td><td align="center">Berrak: "When we described a character, the image changed on the second page."Bilgen: "We checked its accuracy."Mete: "Working with AI made our job much easier."Evren: "The things produced looked like real objects ... more eye‐catching."</td><td align="left"><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>– Recognition of AI's affordances (efficiency, creativity, visual appeal)</p></list-item><list-item><p>– Awareness of limitations (inconsistency, adaptability, accuracy)</p></list-item><list-item><p>– Emergent AI literacy (fact‐checking, iterative prompting, selective use)</p></list-item></list></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0193225970-18">Discussion and Conclusion</hd> <p>This study reported an intervention based on the CML framework that examined how four gifted elementary students used generative AI tools to design products addressing environmental pollution. The findings showed that the students demonstrated both critical awareness and creative agency in that they used AI as a co‐designer in their multimodal projects rather than being passive users of AI outputs.</p> <p>This study contributes to literacy theory by proposing that iterative AI co‐design within a CML framework can help gifted elementary students develop both critical AI literacy and social agency. In doing so, the study extends ongoing discussions in <emph>Reading Research Quarterly</emph>. More specifically, regarding Burriss and Leander's ([<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref83">5</reflink>]) argument that generative AI is reshaping post‐human literacy, our findings demonstrate how elementary school students can use iterative design practices to deal with a real‐world problem. The four students in our study also demonstrated similar ethical concerns to the adolescents in Higgs and Stornaiuolo's ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref84">14</reflink>]) study in that our participants preferred to verify AI outputs before incorporating them into their products, recognized and rejected visual outputs that were inconsistent, and understood the limitations of using AI tools for their multimodal project.</p> <p>Our findings also lend support to Kumar et al.'s ([<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref85">24</reflink>]) claim that literacy develops through human–AI interactions. For example, in refining their AI prompts and making multimodal design decisions, the children showed how meaning materializes through the interaction of human intentions, AI suggestions, and multimodal orchestration. Building on Beck and Levine's ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref86">4</reflink>]) examination of how older students can use AI as a writing partner, our findings suggest that young gifted learners can also negotiate authorship and agency while using AI tools, hence AI literacy can be integrated into curricula for younger learners. At last, our findings support Kalantzis and Cope's ([<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref87">19</reflink>]) claims that AI is redefining literacy, in our case by showing how co‐design with AI tools is used among elementary students.</p> <p>Turning to its theoretical contribution, our research highlights the need to understand AI literacy as an extension of CML rather than as an independent set of technical skills. Such an approach reconceptualizes prompt engineering as a semiotic practice, while verifying AI outputs requires a critical literacy approach, and multimodal integration should combine creativity with ethical judgment. In this research, we argued for integrating CML with AI literacy as a hybrid framework. Such a step, we believe, appropriately prioritizes the development of children's critical, ethical, and creative capacities while using AI and other novel technologies.</p> <p>Given the growing presence of AI, our findings also have important implications for pedagogy, curriculum, literacy theory and assessment. From a pedagogical standpoint, the outcomes of the intervention presented here indicate that a project‐based, inquiry‐driven approach like the one we implemented can assist young gifted students in growing their critical awareness and maintaining their creative agency while using AI tools as co‐designers. Teachers may well consider that generative AI tools are merely shortcuts to greater efficiency. However, our findings can encourage them to integrate such tools into their literacy projects because they can help students learn to experiment with multimodal products, make better ethical decisions, and reflect more deeply on their AI usage.</p> <p>Regarding the curriculum and educational policy, although our intervention was conducted specifically with young gifted children in one Science and Art Center in Türkiye, the findings suggest that AI literacy should be integrated into enrichment programs as early as possible, including in mainstream classrooms. Currently, international policies largely claim that curricula need not focus on AI competencies until secondary or tertiary levels. However, our findings show that elementary students, specifically gifted children in our study, can successfully use AI support to design multimodal products. This indicates, first, that national curricula should start include AI literacy at younger ages and, second, that curricula should draw on a critical and creative pedagogical framework, as in the present study, rather than adopting a technical or vocational approach. This aligns with the call to transform teaching to meaningfully adapt to new concepts related to learning, education, and citizenship in the AI age (Rowsell [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref88">39</reflink>]).</p> <p>Regarding literacy theory, by considering AI literacy as an extension of CML, we propose a novel integrative framework that identifies a number of new sites of critical literacy practice. More specifically, we focused on prompt engineering, verifying AI suggestions and outputs, and incorporation of multimodality in texts. Based on this, we propose the principle of iterative AI co‐design to guide both research and pedagogy. In particular, we believe that our approach provides literacy scholars with a heuristic that can be applied across diverse contexts to analyze and design AI‐mediated learning interventions.</p> <p>In terms of assessment, our findings show that it is not enough to analyze only what students produce after interacting with AI tools products; instead, it is also necessary to analyze how they interacted with AI during the process. Our methodology reveals that it is possible to gather evidence of how critically engaged and ethically aware learners are while using AI tools, specifically from prompt logs, revision histories, and reflections. We believe that such an approach can both honor the students' agency and satisfy teachers' worries about preserving the integrity of evaluated work when students have employed AI tools throughout the process.</p> <p>Overall, the implications of our study add to the current debate as to whether the rise of AI tools requires a redefinition of literacy. That is, literacy needs to be redefined in a way that incorporates critique, multimodality, and technology‐mediated co‐construction. The experience of the young gifted students that participated in the present study indicates that iterative co‐design using generative AI tools can be implemented in a way that encourages critical creativity and social responsibility to address important issues like ensuring environmental sustainability.</p> <p>By combining CML and AI literacy, the present study demonstrated that even young learners can be ethically discerning while engaging in iterative problem‐solving to produce critical, socially responsive multimodal texts. In producing such findings, this theoretically innovative study provides practical guidance for the evolution of literacy education during the current AI era. Our study was limited to one specific setting in Türkiye, so future studies can conduct cross‐context and longitudinal research to investigate further how interventions such as the one reported here can facilitate the development of critical AI literacy in children and how iterative AI co‐design may offer a way to rethink literacy education more generally.</p> <p>As already alluded to, the present study has several limitations. First, as a case study, it only investigated the experiences of four gifted elementary students in one Science and Art Center in Türkiye during a particular educational intervention. While this methodology provided a rich, situated account, the findings cannot be generalized to all learners. The second limitation is that, although reflexivity and triangulation were applied as a counterweight, the interpretation of the data was inevitably shaped by Arda's dual role of researcher‐as‐teacher. Future studies can extend the present study's findings through research into the AI literacy practices of gifted children in other countries, longitudinal investigation of the development of AI literacies as students move through the school system, and experimental interventions to compare the outcomes of multimodal design activities conducted with or without AI support.</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-19">Funding</hd> <p>The authors have nothing to report.</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-20">Ethics Statement</hd> <p>This study was approved by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research and Publication Ethics Committee of Uşak University, Türkiye on November 7, 2024 (Decision Number 2024‐203).</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-21">Consent</hd> <p>Informed consent was obtained from the parents of all individual participants included in the study.</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-22">Conflicts of Interest</hd> <p>The authors declare no conflicts of interest.</p> <hd id="AN0193225970-23">Data Availability Statement</hd> <p>The data supporting the findings of this study contain sensitive information from young children and are subject to ethical restrictions. The ethical approval granted for this project permits only coinvestigators to access and analyze the primary data. Consistent with the ethical approval, data may be shared with the journal editor or reviewers upon reasonable request for the purpose of evaluating the manuscript.</p> <ref id="AN0193225970-24"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref41" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Ajayi, L.2015. "Critical Multimodal Literacy: How Nigerian Female Students Critique Texts and Reconstruct Unequal Social Structures." Journal of Literacy Research47, no. 2: 216–244. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X15618478.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref22" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Altun, D.2019. "An Investigation of Preschool Children's Digital Footprints and Screen Times, and of Parents' Sharenting and Digital Parenting Roles." 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  Label: Abstract
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  Data: Drawing on Critical Multimodal Literacy theory (CML), this qualitative case study explores how four gifted fourth-grade students used generative AI tools to create products aimed at solving environmental pollution problems. During the 10-week project, held at the Science and Art Center in Türkiye, the children collaboratively produced a storybook, comic book, and two digital games. Data collected from session video recordings, the researchers' field notes, student artifacts, and semi-structured interviews were subjected to content analysis. This revealed that the children integrated their critical perspectives with multimodal strategies and incorporated AI as a co-designer while generating ideas, storyboarding, and producing a storybook and comic book. The children demonstrated their AI literacy in several ways, particularly revising their prompts until the AI generated the desired outputs and checking the outputs' factual accuracy and consistency. The children's storybook and comic book focused on collective action and environmental justice, while the digital games encouraged the players to adopt responsible waste-related behaviors. The children showed creative agency and critical awareness during the AI-mediated process, thereby demonstrating that even young gifted children can use AI tools to create critical multimodal texts and interactive digital content that aims to help solve a real-world problem. This study makes a novel theoretical contribution by integrating iterative AI co-design within CML as a model for developing AI literacy and social agency in gifted elementary students. The study also extends recent debates about youth agency, authorship, and ethics in the age of AI, offering a new perspective.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2026
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1503746
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1503746
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1002/rrq.70103
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 14
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Artificial Intelligence
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Digital Literacy
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Academically Gifted
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Children
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Student Developed Materials
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Cooperative Learning
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Story Telling
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Cartoons
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Books
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Computer Games
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Gifted Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Science Teaching Centers
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Arts Centers
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Design
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Environmental Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Elementary School Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Turkey
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: AI Literacy with Gifted Children: Iterative Co-Design and Critical Multimodal Practices
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Tolga Kargın
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Arda Karataş
    IsPartOfRelationships:
      – BibEntity:
          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 04
              Type: published
              Y: 2026
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 0034-0553
            – Type: issn-electronic
              Value: 1936-2722
          Numbering:
            – Type: volume
              Value: 61
            – Type: issue
              Value: 2
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Reading Research Quarterly
              Type: main
ResultId 1