En forfatterskole for børn: Fritidslivets bud på et praksisfællesskab

Abstract

Title: An Author School for Children: Spare Time Writing and Communities of Practice 

Children’s interest in writing fiction in their spare time is an increasing phenomenon and children’s texts and writing practices get attention from established literary institutions as libraries and publishing houses. In recent years, many children have participated in organized writing courses and the so called author schools are very popular. This article is about an author school which takes place in a public library in Copenhagen. The author school is looked upon as a new literary institution with guidelines and concepts which both correspond and conflict with the concepts and ideas of the public library. The article is based on documentary analysis, observation studies and interviews with 14 young participants from the author school. They meet once a week with the ambition of writing fiction and they are taught by professional authors who position them as equal writers. The theoretical background of the analysis is Etienne Wenger’s theory about learning in a community of practice. According to Wenger, collaboration, engagement and motivation are important elements in a community of practice, and these elements are identified and critically discussed in this concrete setting. In the last part of the article, it is discussed how the practice in the author school could be related to other reading and writing practices in children’s lives.