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Building Bridges From Classrooms to Networked Publics: Helping Students Write for the Audience They Want
Abstract
Research about adolescents sharing creative writing in interest‐driven online communities has suggested that teachers can play important roles in helping young writers realize the potential of online spaces. Framed by sociocultural notions of new literacies and a conceptual framework theorizing the rhetorical situation when sharing writing in networked publics, this instrumental case study examined the design and implementation of a high school elective course supporting students to critically analyze and participate in online creative writing spaces. The authors collected observation, interview, and artifactual data and then analyzed them inductively to generate testable assertions about how bringing together the potential audiences in classrooms and networked publics affected writing instruction and the writing act. Findings revealed how controlling the makeup of audiences raised privacy issues, cultivating interactions with audiences required persistence, and conceptualizing audiences affected these students’ writing. Suggestions for designing writing instruction to include networked publics and recommendations for classroom‐based research are shared.
... Continuing to investigate youth and school literacies, researchers have leveraged fandom practices in classroom spaces (Lammers & Van Alstyne, 2018;Magnifico et al., 2018). Chandler-Olcott and Mahar (2003) proposed bringing fan literacies to school spaces to reframe students perceived as struggling as "capable literacy learners" (p. ...
... Skerrett and Bomer (2011) showed how intentionally centering Latinx youth's out-of-school literacies in the classroom can support reading processes and literary analysis skills. Lammers and Van Alstyne (2018) argued that teachers supporting students with entering and participating in fanfiction spaces allows for increased learner autonomy to choose the medium and context for writing. ...
Building on youth literacies in formal learning spaces is a promising direction for asset-based literacy learning designs. However, in response to ways that academic spaces can deaden passionate literacy study, it is important to attend to the resulting affective flows of such practices. This study traces how affect was sustained and dampened in a high school English classroom that intentionally brought together academic and fandom practices. We listened to how affective encounters with the popular text Grey's Anatomy unfolded across the class, with a particular focus on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) focal students’ experiences. We found derision and dismissal of certain texts and experiences by peers (undergirded by dominant narratives about fandom and literary taste) dampened affective resonance. All the same, collective intensities were sustained through respectful discourse between fans and potential fans as well as BIPOC women's fugitive literacy practices resisting dampening practices of White students.
... olika sätt att använda skrivande, på fritiden har till stor del fokuserat på vad och i vilka syften ungdomar skriver (t.ex. Grover m.fl., 2016;Lammers & Van Alstyne, 2019;Vaughan, 2020). På fritiden kan exempelvis skrivandet vara ett sätt att knyta och upprätthålla sociala kontakter, men även ingå som en central del i ungdomarnas kreativa och identitetsskapande utveckling (se t.ex. ...
... Ett liknande mönster kan man se i internationella studier av ungdomars skrivande på fritiden (se översikt av Vaughan, 2020). Ungdomar skriver bland annat i sociala medier (Warner, 2016), sms (Grover m.fl., 2016;Mesch m.fl., 2012), lyrik och låttexter (Bickerstaff, 2012;Padgett & Curwood, 2016) och fanfiction (Curwood m.fl., 2013;Lammers & Van Alstyne, 2019). ...
Med utgångspunkt i New Literacy Studies syn på skrivande som en social praktik
syftar föreliggande studie till att synliggöra ungdomars skrivpraktiker på fritiden.
Mer specifikt undersöktes vad ungdomar skriver, i vilka syften de skriver, vilka
uppfattningar de har om sitt eget skrivande och hur dessa uppfattningar relaterar
till vad och i vilka syften de skriver. Tretton ungdomar från olika
gymnasieprogram deltog i semistrukturerade intervjuer som analyserades
innehållsligt för att identifiera konkreta skrivhändelser, funktioner och
uppfattningar om skrivande. Resultaten visade att de vanligast förekommande
skrivhändelserna hade en kommunikativ funktion, t.ex. sms, inlägg i sociala
medier och meddelanden i dataspelschattar. Ungdomarna iscensatte olika
skrivhändelser även i syfte att planera/organisera, dokumentera, lösa problem,
uttrycka kreativitet och bilda sig. Ungdomarnas uppfattningar om skrivande på
fritiden rörde sig på en skala från negativt (svårt och tråkigt) till positivt (enkelt
och roligt). Både individexterna (t.ex. intressant och relevant ämne) och
individinterna (t.ex. god språklig behärskning) faktorer bidrog till ungdomarnas
uppfattningar om skrivande som något positivt. Särskilt påtagligt var att en god
språklig behärskning av engelska var en viktig motivationsfaktor till att skriva på
fritiden. De negativa uppfattningarna formades däremot nästan uteslutande av
individinterna faktorer som relaterade till bristande språk- och skrivfärdigheter
och kunde förstärkas av rådande normer och föreställningar om språklig
korrekthet och skrivriktighet i samhället.
... Another study explores how a teacher who intentionally centers her primarily Latinx youth's out-of-school literacies in the classroom facilitates conversations about the social construction of what "counts" as literacy, leading to student metacognitive growth around "their reading preferences and processes, understandings of literary concepts such as theme and gender, and literary analysis skills" (Skerrett & Bomer, 2011, p. 1276. Lammers and Van Alstyne (2018), describing an instrumental case study where a teacher provided support for students' fanfiction writing in a classroom context, argue that entering and participating in fanfiction spaces in classroom settings allows for increased learner autonomy to choose the medium and context for writing. Moje (2007) has been urging scholars to consider how the navigation of metadiscursive practices, "begin[ning] with students' interests, knowledge, and practice as a way to teach them content knowledge" (Moje, 2007, p. 27) can be a social justice pedagogy, as it allows youth space to produce and critique knowledge. ...
... Another study explores how a teacher who intentionally centers her primarily Latinx youth's out-of-school literacies in the classroom facilitates conversations about the social construction of what "counts" as literacy, leading to student metacognitive growth around "their reading preferences and processes, understandings of literary concepts such as theme and gender, and literary analysis skills" (Skerrett & Bomer, 2011, p. 1276. Lammers and Van Alstyne (2018), describing an instrumental case study where a teacher provided support for students' fanfiction writing in a classroom context, argue that entering and participating in fanfiction spaces in classroom settings allows for increased learner autonomy to choose the medium and context for writing. ...
Traditional educational contexts often silence the literacies of vulnerable BIPOC youth (Kirkland, 2013; Paris, 2012) and our English classrooms must be reconceptualized to interrupt the cycle of deficit-framed literacy instruction and disproportionate referral to remedial or special education services leading to unjust systems such as the “school-to-prison” pipeline (Sealey-Ruiz, 2011). One asset-based direction is to recognize and center youths’ cultural literacies, specifically their recreational fan activities (Emdin & Adjapong, 2018; Magnifico et al., 2018). In this study, I conducted a social design experiment (K. D. Gutiérrez, 2018) around a high school course with the goal of creating space for “conscious reflective struggle” (Beach, 1999, p. 130) for youth regarding their identities in and across discourses. This course centered participation in and contributions to multiple fandom discourses, supporting youth in developing and navigating complex literacy practices through a disciplinary and metadiscursive lens. My first article is an overview of our social design experiment with a focus on how I collaboratively followed “equity trails” (Gutiérrez & Vossoughi, 2010) in the design. This paper uses empirical data from this study to systematically describe the ways social design experiments disrupt and transform each stage of the research process. My second article is a portrait of Alex—a Puerto Rican cis-female artist and focal student—her meaningful learning trajectories in this acafandom context across activity systems. In this paper I trace form-function shifts in classroom interactions to trace ways that Alex made sense of syncretic literacies (Gutiérrez et al., 2013) and followed trajectories of collateral, encompassing, and mediational transitions (Beach, 1999). Finally, my third article is a nonrepresentational account of the "affective resonances" (Phillips & Killian Lund, 2019) of BIPOC focal youth’s embodied experiences in the classroom. In this paper I listen for ways these youth’s passions were sustained or dampened as they engaged with certain textual communities throughout the semester. These papers show how is possible to design learning ecologies in diverse public school spaces that not only center youth interests but support them extending their passion and navigating critically across conversations that are meaningful to them.
... Morrell and Duncan-Andrade (2002) suggest promoting academic literacy through the study of hip-hop in English classrooms and Lyiscott (2019) describes ways to integrate hip-hop cyphers into classroom spaces. Lammers and Van Alstyne (2018) argue that participating in fanfiction spaces in classroom settings allows for increased learner autonomy to choose the medium and context for writing. Thomas and Stornaiuolo (2016) show how Black youths in fandom spaces practice restorying in ways that "address persistent inequities in literature, literacy education, and beyond" (p. ...
This article traces how multiple equity-focused goals were negotiated in collectively designing a classroom that centered joyful fandom literacy practices , considering how teacher-researchers and youth use expanded conceptions of equity trails in a social design experiment to reset harmful but normalized classroom, disciplinary, and fandom practices. Using methods of collaboratively aligning equity-focused questions, subsequent instructional designs, and the perception of consequences by various participants to audit the commitment to equity across the design, action, analysis, and reflection, the findings follow the consequences of design choices as conceptualized by both teacher-researchers and focal BIPOC youth. We found that some equity trails-particularly ones that privileged shorter timespans linked with institutional assessments-conflicted with equity trails restructuring larger ecological systems aiming to transform fandoms or disciplines. We suggest that design researchers must center conceptions of power when telling research stories making visible the various and divergent ways participants chase after equity together.
... Building on calls for literacy educators to use "new literacies pedagogies [to] invite marginalized youth into the classroom space" (Haddix, Garcia & Price-Dennis, 2017) and considering affordances for out-of-school spaces to bypass classroom concerns around assessment for writing in affinity spaces (Lammers & Van Alstyne, 2018), the Fall 2020 class's objective was to build a writing community to support youth with outward-facing writing prompts in genres such as fiction, poetry, fanfiction, memoir and personal essay, and social media postings, the top genres selected by the students in a survey. Throughout the program, teens were guided in analyzing the genres of writing and creating written works that they were encouraged to share during the meetings as well as publicly share or post online to contribute to larger conversations in socially transformative ways. ...
This chapter connects the experiences of student writers in two affinity-group writing programs on Zoom within larger arts spaces. The authors lift up the relational and pedagogical structures that make space for student creative learning processes in out-of-school-time spaces, examining creative writing as a way of knowing. The chapter draws on affect theory to trace ways of feeling literacy through the event, showing how focal students developed their own affective systems of engagement and developed different
kinds of self-knowledge through creation. In this process, writing emerged for both focal students as a way of knowing each other.
... olika sätt att använda skrivande, på fritiden har till stor del fokuserat på vad och i vilka syften ungdomar skriver (t.ex. Grover m.fl., 2016;Lammers & Van Alstyne, 2019;Vaughan, 2020). På fritiden kan exempelvis skrivandet vara ett sätt att knyta och upprätthålla sociala kontakter, men även ingå som en central del i ungdomarnas kreativa och identitetsskapande utveckling (se t.ex. ...
Language in school, leisure time, and working life: Current arenas for Swedish research in applied linguistics
... Fanfiction refers to stories written by fans of a media property such as anime, manga, or novels (Jenkins, 1992). There is a burgeoning literature on fanfiction that considers the possibilities of employing it as an out-of-class pedagogical practice, which explores how learners' experiences traverse across formal and informal learning contexts (Cornillie et al., 2021;Lammers & Marsh, 2018;Lammers & Van Alstyne, 2019;Sauro & Sundmark, 2019). ...
This study explores the possibilities of using fanfiction as an out-of-class mediating tool to enhance in-class writing development in distance learning environments. For this purpose, seven Japanese language learners participated in an out-of-class fanfiction writing activity during their spring break. Since the notion of agency is reactive to different learning contexts, it was employed to bridge classroom-based and out-of-class learning practices. To assess learners' level of agency, participant observation and three semi-structured interviews were conducted before, during, and after the fanfiction activity. The data drawn from interviews were analyzed as per the relationships between agency, engagement, self-regulation, autonomy, and investment. First, the issues and stressors that inhibited learners from active participation in in-class learning were identified. Then, a comparison of the agency level regarding learners' in-class practices before and after their participation in the fanfiction activity was made. The results of the analysis indicate that learners' level of agency was developed, and several positive attributes of agentic learners were observed. Furthermore, learners capitalized on affordances of their dynamic interactions with fanfiction writing as they became more fluent in in-class writing and fostered their ability to express their voice.
Literacy scholars have called for writing instruction to promote civic engagement, student agency, and multimodal composing. This study addressed this call by describing a research‐practice partnership to reimagine writing instruction in a high school English course by incorporating human‐centered design challenges. Using case study methods, we describe the process to negotiate curriculum, the divergent ways teachers implemented it, and the positive impact it had on students' attitudes toward writing. Through a transliteracies lens, we found that negotiating a (re)designed curriculum means working through tensions that can lead to new ways of thinking about writing. The (re)designed instruction centered 21st century composing practices that were inherently multimodal and resonated with students' out‐of‐school composing practices. This led to a positive shift in students' attitudes toward writing. The study suggests that incorporating “wicked problem” design challenges has the potential to reimagine how we teach writing in secondary education.
Drawing from the Beliefs for Integrating Technology into the English Language Arts Classroom , as well as prior scholarship on digitally mediated communication, rhetorical studies and composition, assessment, and digital literacies, this theoretical article presents a framework for creating and assessing digital multimodal compositions. The Interconnected Framework for Assessment of Digital Multimodal Composition conceptualizes digital multimodal composing through three interconnected and layered domains: audience, mode and meaning, and originality. Though the three domains are defined individually, they are inextricably linked within the recursive processes and products of digital multimodal composing to contribute to intended meaning. The authors describe and justify the domains, present assessment considerations, and conclude with implications for practice and suggestions for designing assessments relevant to context and task.
Two central tensions—structure and privacy—emerged when a group of teachers developed Write4Change, an online writing space that connected students in the United States, Italy, and South Korea.
In this study, I explored how a high school English class’s multimodal project broadened student and teacher participation. Previous research has established that multimodal composing expands the nature of classroom texts, opens opportunities for identity expression, and extends access to audiences. Less is known about how affordances work together to increase options for more students and teachers to participate in school‐based writing. Informed by affinity space and multimodality frameworks, this article adds to a small pool of classroom affinity space studies. Through grounded theory analysis, findings reveal that a multimodal project provided students opportunities to participate as interactive audience members, pursue less typical routes to status, and express identity; their teacher experienced an opportunity to participate more flexibly. Pertinent to a rise in online learning and increasingly prevalent and complex ways to create multimodal content, findings illuminate classroom affinity space features focused on broadening participation.
Adolescents in the 21st century engage with popular media in a variety of ways. Adolescent students' interactions with video games, videos, social media, and other forms of popular media have become a growing topic of study among academics interested in popular media's role in in-school literacies. To complicate matters, secondary classroom teachers continue to grapple with state and national standards that address traditional reading and writing skills. This systematic literature review focuses on what articles from practitioner journals reveal about adolescent participation in popular media, and how media skills are addressed. The analysis provided here is based on a random sample of 35 articles focusing on popular media and in-school literacies.
Building communicative competence in textual and multimodal literacies has become a linchpin of learning, of engagement with the world, and of participation in online and blended spaces. Young creators now compose online and with digital tools, often in what we call “user-generated content affinity spaces” – interest-based spaces that focus on creating and sharing self-made content. Such spaces focus on processes of developing users' creations and sharing the products with an audience. These spaces have been inspirations for teachers to reinvigorate classroom practices and expose students to learning opportunities for creation and critique. But questions remain about models of participation in such spaces, especially those that idealise youth who are the most highly engaged while ignoring those whose participation is less visible. Here, we share three experiences of bringing user-generated content affinity spaces into more formal learning environments and reflect on the tensions emerging from these efforts. We end by outlining steps to develop theory and interventions to navigate tensions and propel the field forward.
What is new about how teenagers communicate through services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? Do social media affect the quality of teens' lives? In this eye-opening book, youth culture and technology expert danah boyd uncovers some of the major myths regarding teens' use of social media. She explores tropes about identity, privacy, safety, danger, and bullying. Ultimately, boyd argues that society fails young people when paternalism and protectionism hinder teenagers' ability to become informed, thoughtful, and engaged citizens through their online interactions. Yet despite an environment of rampant fear-mongering, boyd finds that teens often find ways to engage and to develop a sense of identity. Boyd's conclusions are essential reading not only for parents, teachers, and others who work with teens but also for anyone interested in the impact of emerging technologies on society, culture, and commerce in years to come. Offering insights gleaned from more than a decade of original fieldwork interviewing teenagers across the United States, boyd concludes reassuringly that the kids are all right. At the same time, she acknowledges that coming to terms with life in a networked era is not easy or obvious. In a technologically mediated world, life is bound to be complicated.
Young fanfiction writers use the Internet to build networks of reading, writing and editing – literacy practices that are highly valued in schools, universities and workplaces. While prior research shows that online spaces frame multiple kinds of participation as legitimate, much of this work focuses on the extensive contributions of exceptional young authors. In this paper, we foreground the contributions of fanfiction reviewers and focus on their interactions with writers, exploring their communicative literacy practices and hypothesising about how we can make their reading and writing more visible and more effectively consider their learning practices. To do so, we conducted a linguistic analysis of fanfiction review comments on two sites, FanFiction.net and Figment.com. While fanfiction readers provide writers with an authentic audience for their creative work, our findings indicate that the review comments that they leave generally do not offer specific feedback regarding the craft of writing. For this reason, we argue that teachers' expertise is still needed in the difficult task of developing young adults' composition, peer review and critique skills.
A random sample of language arts, social studies, and science middle school teachers from the United States were surveyed about their preparation to teach writing, beliefs about responsibilities for teaching writing, use of evidence-based writing practices, assessment of writing, use of technology, and adaptations for struggling writers. The findings from this survey raised concerns about the quality of middle school writing instruction. Many teachers believed their preservice and inservice preparation to teach writing was inadequate. Middle school students spend little time writing or being taught how to write. While most teachers used a variety of evidenced-based writing practices and made adaptations for struggling writers, such methods were applied infrequently. Most teachers did not appear to use assessment data to shape how they taught writing, and computers played a relatively minor role in middle school writing instruction. Even though teachers generally agreed that writing was a collective responsibility, language arts teachers placed a greater emphasis on writing instruction than social studies and science teachers.
As researchers seek to make sense of young people's online literacy practices and participation, questions of methodology are important to consider. In our work to understand the culture of physical, virtual and blended spheres that adolescents inhabit, we find it necessary to expand Gee's (2004) notion of affinity spaces. In this article, we draw on our research examining adolescent literacies related to The Sims video games, The Hunger Games novels, and the Neopets online game to explicate nine features of affinity space research that reflect participation in, and research about, online environments. We argue that studying adolescent literacies in affinity spaces affords us access to participants outside our geographic proximity, readily available web-based historical record of the affinity spaces' practices, and a way to trace literacy practices across portals, modes and texts. However, affinity space research poses challenges, including issues of recruiting and maintaining relationships with participants, the instability and impermanence of online environments and artefacts, and the porous boundaries of field sites. This article concludes with recommendations for future literacy research conducted in online spaces and implications for literacy teaching and learning. Our aim is to begin articulating a new methodological framework for studying affinity spaces: affinity space ethnography.
When writers write, how do they decide to whom they are speaking? How does this decision affect writers’ cognition about writing? Their motivation to write? In this article, I review literature on cognitive and social processes of writing, conceptualizations of audience, writing across distinct learning environments, and writers’ motivations. I then show how understandings of audience can be linked to those of motivation and interest—and how this combination may bridge a traditional divide between research traditions. Finally, I examine the implications of bringing these areas of literature together; the necessity of re-examining the role of audience in light of new media-infused learning environments; and the opening of possible areas for future research in writing, audience, and motivation.
The relationship of participation in online communities to civic and political engagement.
Young people today have grown up living substantial portions of their lives online, seeking entertainment, social relationships, and a place to express themselves. It is clear that participation in online communities is important for many young people, but less clear how this translates into civic or political engagement. This volume examines the relationship of online action and real-world politics. The contributors discuss not only how online networks might inspire conventional political participation but also how creative uses of digital technologies are expanding the boundaries of politics and public issues. Do protests in gaming communities, music file sharing, or fan petitioning of music companies constitute political behavior? Do the communication skills and patterns of action developed in these online activities transfer to such offline realms as voting and public protests? Civic Life Online describes the many forms of civic life online that could predict a generation's political behavior.
ContributorsMarina Umaschi Bers, Stephen Coleman, Jennifer Earl, Kirsten Foot, Peter Levine, Kathryn C. Montgomery, Kate Raynes-Goldie, Howard Rheingold, Allen Schussman, Luke Walker, Michael Xenos
With the rise of new technologies and media, the way we communicate is rapidly changing. Literacies provides a comprehensive introduction to literacy pedagogy within today's new media environment. It focuses not only on reading and writing, but also on other modes of communication, including oral, visual, audio, gestural and spatial. This focus is designed to supplement, not replace, the enduringly important role of alphabetical literacy. Using real-world examples and illustrations, Literacies features the experiences of both teachers and students. It maps a range of methods that teachers can use to help their students develop their capacities to read, write and communicate. It also explores the wide range of literacies and the diversity of socio-cultural settings in today's workplace, public and community settings. With an emphasis on the 'how-to' practicalities of designing literacy learning experiences and assessing learner outcomes, this book is a contemporary and in-depth resource for literacy students.
Cambridge Core - Education, History, Theory - Literacies - by Mary Kalantzis
To counter inequitable, hierarchical classroom structures, research in the fields of language and literacy studies often looks to the affordances of online spaces, such as affinity spaces, for learning that is collaborative and knowledge that is distributed; yet, researchers continue to locate their studies in virtual spaces, outside classroom walls. This study, situated in a high school writing class, repositions the familiar classroom practice of peer feedback as a way to access affinity space features. Using qualitative case study design and grounded theory analysis, the study reveals that, when supported by an emphasis on social connection, the practice of peer feedback served as a portal for students with a range of writing experience and interest to collaborate and exchange honest feedback, practices indicative of affinity space features. Yet, traditional expectations preserved teacher roles and student roles in ways that prevented the class from more fully accessing the affinity space features of distributed expertise, porous leadership, and role flexibility. Discussion expands the field’s understanding of affinity spaces and their application in physical classrooms by outlining new features, theorizing these classroom spaces, and advocating for a reimagined vision of peer feedback in ELA classrooms where role reciprocity and flexibility resist traditional, inequitable classroom structures. Copyright © 2018 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.
This article describes the outcomes of a research project conducted at the Ministry of Stories (a London-based writing centre) which sought to develop an online, mentor-assisted, writing platform. Across a 3-month period, at four different sites across the UK, more than a hundred Year 7 pupils took part in the project, using the platform to write stories and get feedback from mentors who came from a variety of backgrounds. For reasons of space, pupil/mentor interactions are not discussed extensively in the article; however, these stories were collected and analysed alongside a range of other survey and interview data to establish how creative writing might be developed through online mentoring, the use of an online interface and the intersection of both these tools. The article seeks to answer some questions raised by the data collected in the project, and in turn, uses both the questions and the data to interrogate some of the discourses which surround the teaching of creative writing both in and outside the classroom, and in particular the tensions that occur between the teaching of writing skills, ‘official versions’ of writing in the classroom and children's use of their own cultural resources in creative writing.
In participatory cultures, the lines between producers and consumers of text are blurred, and communities emerge that are based on shared interest and peer support. Although literacy scholarship has mostly focused on youth engagement and literacy practices within online participatory cultures, scholars in the learning sciences investigate these ideas through connected learning. This article explores bringing connected learning principles into English classrooms and examines how one high school, partnering with the National Writing Project, redesigned their senior English course and senior capstone project around connected learning. The authors highlight its design and share students’ experiences with the project to illustrate the possibilities and tensions around designing for such a project in school settings.
The authors argue that women gamers, too often ignored as gamers, are in many respects leading the way in this trend towards design, cultural production, new learning communities, and the combination of technical proficiency with emotional and social intelligence. © James Paul Gee and Elisabeth R. Hayes, 2010. All rights reserved.
In this essay, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and Amy Stornaiuolo explore new trends in reader response for a digital age, particularly the phenomenon of bending texts using social media. They argue that bending is one form of restorying, a process by which people reshape narratives to represent a diversity of perspectives and experiences that are often missing or silenced in mainstream texts, media, and popular discourse. Building on Louise Rosenblatt's influential transactional theory of reading, the authors theorize restorying as a participatory textual practice in which young people use new media tools to inscribe themselves into existence. The authors build on theorists from Mikhail Bakthin to Noliwe Rooks in order to illustrate tensions between individualistic "ideological becoming" and critical reader response as a means of protest. After discussing six forms of restorying, they focus on bending as one way youth make manifest their embodied, lived realities and identities, providing examples from sites of fan communities where participants are producing racebent fanwork based on popular children's and young adult books, movies, comics, and other media. Situating these phenomena within a larger tradition of narrating the self into existence, the authors explore broader implications for literacy education.
Tinkering with the current educational system from within has not provided a just and equitable education for all children. in this book, acclaimed education theorist Joanne Larson poses basic questions about the nature and purpose of schooling. Proposing that what is needed is a new purpose that is more consistent with contemporary knowledge production processes—one that moves beyond the either/or binary of preparing workers/citizens in a competitive global economy or a democracy, Larson argues that the only real solution is to start over in U.S. education—the purpose of schooling should be to facilitate human learning, meaning making, and knowledge production toward just and equitable education for all.
Drawing from a study of one student's literate engagements with English studies and fan fiction and related fan art over her two years in an MA program, and that also reached back to the earlier writing she did for English classes and other writings before the study began, this article employs sociohistoric theory to examine the profoundly dialogic interplay of vernacular and disciplinary literate activities. Following a detailed look at the student's extensive involvement with fan fiction, the article elaborates the trajectory of linkages between fan fiction and English studies, paying particular attention to the repurposing of literate practices across these activities, the synergies and tensions that texture such interactions, and the long-term implications they have for the production of literate practice and person. Ultimately, the article argues for increased theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical attention to the heterogeneous assemblage of literate practices and identities that may be mediating literate action and, in particular, to the role vernacular literacies can play in developing disciplinary engagement and vice versa.
In the May 2009 issue of English Journal , we reported on our analysis of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress to provide a first look at changes in the teaching of writing over the past 30 years. In this article, we provide a more detailed look, drawing on data collected from visits to 260 English, math, social studies, and science classrooms in 20 middle schools and high schools in five states (schools all chosen for reputations for excellence in the teaching of writing), interviews with 220 teachers and administrators, and with 138 students in these schools, and a national survey of 1520 randomly selected teachers.
Although scholars have investigated the ways youths individually enact composing practices and the impact of audience on these practices, this study examines the impact of an audience physically present while composing in a shared, public space—an ambient audience. Blurring the line between traditional notions of audience and collaborator through a process of distributed co-construction with individual composers, the ambient audience proved generative for the composing work of individuals. This article highlights two examples of this distributed co-construction in action: the co-constructed framing of everyday experiences as the topic for created videos and the shared aesthetic of juxtaposition that the youth participants co-constructed while composing individual images. The results of this study suggest future research and development of instructional approaches that address the social nature of composing with a specific look at the ways publics influence processes of composing.
Drawing on sociocultural perspectives, this case study investigated ways that youths write, read, and critique poetry in an online affinity space. Specifically, it used a thematic analysis of interviews, a linguistic analysis of online feedback mechanisms, and poetic analysis to gain insight into how four teens engaged with poetry on the Figment website. Findings indicate that the adolescents adopted the identity of poets, followed role models for creative inspiration, and participated in the peer review process. In addition, there was a difference between conceptualization and the reality of the constructive feedback. This study broadens scholarly understanding about adolescent online poetic literacy, with the potential to inform teaching praxis.
This article focuses on learning and identity-related practices of young female fans of a popular British boy band called One Direction. Drawing on qualitative inquiry into a fanfiction community formed around the band, analysis highlights (a) the literate work fans engage in, including writing, reading, critiquing, and collaborating on multimodal texts, (b) identity work performed by the fans with respect to what it means to be a true fan, a teen, and an effective writer within this community, and (c) ways in which the literate and identity work weave together to inform participation and identification in the One Direction fanfiction community, creating both links and ruptures between young people's out-of-school and in-school spaces. Analyses center on the ways the fans themselves define their involvement, with a focus on subgroup identities. Interview data highlight the ways fans used linguistic, technological, and social resources to stake out certain identities and to negotiate status within the site. Although power-laden dynamics defined community participation, fans felt ownership over their literacy and identity production practices, often drawing a contrast to school practices. We then discuss the meanings youth make of their fan practices and their contrastive experiences in fan and school spaces, connecting study findings to current debates on the import of pop culture in formal schooling.
Building upon research exploring adolescent writing in technology-mediated contexts, this article examines writing and sharing in the online space of Fanfiction.net. Drawing on qualitative data from a longitudinal inquiry with a 16-year-old who writes in multiple contexts, this study explores the writing opportunities afforded on Fanfiction.net and how the fanfiction public shapes one adolescent's practices and perspectives as a writer. Grounded in a view of literacies as social practices and contemporary theories of audience and networked publics, this instrumental case study presents the particularity and complexity of writing within the Fanfiction.net public. Findings reveal how fanfiction's access, anonymity, and conventions create a multifaceted experience of writing for and sharing with audience in ways unavailable to this adolescent in school. The article conceptualizes networked writing and offers recommendations to foster classroom writing with a similar emphasis on audiences.
[Early View online - paper available upon request]
In order to understand the culture of the physical, virtual, and blended spheres that adolescents inhabit, we build on Gee's concept of affinity spaces. Drawing on our ethnographic research of adolescent literacies related to The Hunger Games novels, the Neopets online game, and The Sims videogames, this article explores the nature of interest-driven writing in these spaces. We argue that fan-based affinity spaces motivate young adults to write because they offer multiple modes of representation, diverse pathways to participation, and an authentic audience. As scholars and educators, we posit that these out-of-school spaces can offer youth new purposes, modes, and tools for their written work.
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This book presents a disciplined, qualitative exploration of case study methods by drawing from naturalistic, holistic, ethnographic, phenomenological and biographic research methods. Robert E. Stake uses and annotates an actual case study to answer such questions as: How is the case selected? How do you select the case which will maximize what can be learned? How can what is learned from one case be applied to another? How can what is learned from a case be interpreted? In addition, the book covers: the differences between quantitative and qualitative approaches; data-gathering including document review; coding, sorting and pattern analysis; the roles of the researcher; triangulation; and reporting.
Online fanfiction communities provide adolescent English-language learners (ELLs) with a forum for engaging in an array of sophisticated literacy practices. This article draws on constructs from literacy studies and second-language acquisition as conceptual bases for exploring the writing, reviewing, and social practices in an online fanfiction community. Analyses focus on how the networked structure of such sites facilitates English-language learning and promotes writing by providing ELLs with access to a broad audience of readers and multiple community writing resources. By highlighting the social and interactive nature of writing in this space, connections among language, literacy, and identity are emphasized. In conclusion, the author explores some of the possibilities that networked computer environments offer for developing authentic, interactive writing activities in the classroom.
In this companion volume John van Maanen's Tales of the Field, three scholars reveal how the ethnographer turns direct experience and observation into written fieldnotes upon which an ethnography is based. Drawing on years of teaching and field research experience, the authors develop a series of guidelines, suggestions, and practical advice about how to write useful fieldnotes in a variety of settings, both cultural and institutional. Using actual unfinished, "working" notes as examples, they illustrate options for composing, reviewing, and working fieldnotes into finished texts. They discuss different organizational and descriptive strategies, including evocation of sensory detail, synthesis of complete scenes, the value of partial versus omniscient perspectives, and of first person versus third person accounts. Of particular interest is the author's discussion of notetaking as a mindset. They show how transforming direct observations into vivid descriptions results not simply from good memory but more crucially from learning to envision scenes as written. A good ethnographer, they demonstrate, must learn to remember dialogue and movement like an actor, to see colors and shapes like a painter, and to sense moods and rhythms like a poet. The authors also emphasize the ethnographer's core interest in presenting the perceptions and meanings which the people studied attach to their own actions. They demonstrate the subtle ways that writers can make the voices of people heard in the texts they produce. Finally, they analyze the "processing" of fieldnotesâthe practice of coding notes to identify themes and methods for selecting and weaving together fieldnote excerpts to write a polished ethnography. This book, however, is more than a "how-to" manual. The authors examine writing fieldnotes as an interactive and interpretive process in which the researcher's own commitments and relationships with those in the field inevitably shape the character and content of those fieldnotes. They explore the conscious and unconscious writing choices that produce fieldnote accounts. And they show how the character and content of these fieldnotes inevitably influence the arguments and analyses the ethnographer can make in the final ethnographic tale. This book shows that note-taking is a craft that can be taught. Along with Tales of the Field and George Marcus and Michael Fisher's Anthropology as Cultural Criticism, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes is an essential tool for students and social scientists alike.
Going public: An adolescent's networked writing on Fanfiction.net
- Lammers
Composing in public: The ambient audiences of a writing lab
- Hall
- Kalantzis
Everything is a remix (remastered
- K Ferguson
Among the audience: On audience in an age of new literacies
- A Lunsford
- L Ede
Lunsford, A., & Ede, L. (2009). Among the audience: On audience in an age of new literacies. In M.E. Weisler, B. Felhler,
& A.M. González (Eds.), Engaging audience: Writing in an age
of new literacies (pp. 42-72). Urbana, IL: National Council of
Teachers of English.
Teaching with Harry Potter: Essays on classroom wizardry from elementary school to college
- J S Curwood
Curwood, J.S. (2013). Fan fiction, remix culture, and The Potter
Games. In V.E. Frankel (Ed.), Teaching with Harry Potter:
Essays on classroom wizardry from elementary school to college (pp. 81-92). Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education: Vol. 110. Rethinking identity and literacy education in the 21st century, part I
- D.E. Alvermann
Handbook of research on new literacies
- J. Coiro
- M. Knobel
- C. Lankshear
- D.J. Leu
Civic life online: Learning how digital media can engage youth
- H. Rheingold
Eliza and her monsters
- F. Zappia