Research Information System
Reading Research Quarterly, vol.61, no.2, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
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.