Report from Middle Earth: Bringing Fanfiction into the EFL Classroom

Report from Middle Earth Bringing Fanfiction into the EFL Classroom  

Shannon Sauro Malmö University

[email protected] | @shansauro | http://ssauro.info

Björn  Sundmark  The  literature  side  of  this  collaboration.    

Bridging Bridging  the  Language  &  Literature  Divide  

Within  ELT  and  foreign  language  teacher  education  in  general,  there  is  an  interest  in  bridging  the  long-­‐standing  division  between  literary  studies  and  language  training  (Paran,  2008).  

"writing  that  continues,  interrupts,  reimagines,  or  just  riffs  on  stories  and  characters  other  people  have  already  written  about."      

(Jamison,  2013  p.  17)    

Fanfiction Fanfiction  

Fanfiction/Fandom  &  Applied  Linguistics  

•  Case  studies  of  L2  learners’  use  of  fanfiction  in  anime  fandoms  to  transition  from  novice  writer  in  English  to  successful  writer  (Black,  2006;  2009)  

•  Bilingual  fanfiction  writing  practices  of  young  Finnish  fans  of  American  television  shows  to  index  multilingualism  and  global  citizenship    (Leppänen,  et  al,  2009)  

•  An  L2  English  learner’s  development  of  a  textual  identity  through  fan  site  web  design  and  interaction  in  fan  spaces  (Lam,  2000)  

•  Youth  writing  of  self-­‐insert  fanfiction  to  confront  and  examine  social  issues  in  their  local  context  (Leppänen,  2008)  

Applied Lx

”A  rich  source  of  inspiration  for  the  development  of  …technology-­‐mediated  tasks  can  be  found  in  the  language  play  and  language  use  of  online  media  fandoms…“  

 (Sauro,  2014,  p.  242)  

TBLT A  Task-­‐Based  Approach  

Part  I:  The  Quest  Can  fanfiction  be  used  in  a  formal  classroom  context  to  bridge  the  language  and  literature  divide  in  second  language  instruction?  

•  Swedish  University    •  Secondary  school  English  teacher  education  program  •  Children’s  literature  course  

•  1st and 3rd semester students •  Organized into groups of 2-6 •  Engaged in collaborative fanfiction based on a

missing moment from Tolkien’s The Hobbit •  Cohort 2013 (n=55), 12 stories •  Cohort 2014 (n= 80), 19 stories

Context Context  &  Participants  

Develop  an  outline  of  major  plot  points  of  a  collaborative  story  that  consists  of  a  missing  moment  from  The  Hobbit    

&  

Create  a  map  of  an  unchartered  section  of  Middle  Earth  in  which  this  story  takes  place.    

Task  1:  Outline  &  Map  

Build  upon  the  outline  and  map  generate  in  Part  I  to  write  a  blog-­‐based  collaborative  story  (role-­‐play  story)  based  on  a  missing  moment  from  The  Hobbit.    

Each  writer  will  select  one  character  and  contribute  6  paragraphs  to  the  story  from  that  character’s  voice  and  perspective.    

Task  2:  Collaborative  Fanfiction  

1.  What  did  the  collaborative  role-­‐play  writing  process  require  you  to  pay  careful  attention  to?  

2.  Describe  at  least  two  linguistic  features  of  your  character’s  style  of  speaking  or  thinking  that  you  were  careful  to  include.    

Task  3:  Reflective  Paper  

3.  In  what  way  can  creative  writing  like  this  influence  the  development  of  reading,  writing,  listening  and  conversation  skills  in  English?      

Literary Competence Course  Goal  One  Analysis,  Summary  and  Discussion  of  a  Literary  Text  

"We  discussed several different possibilities for where to place our storyline,  but  after  some  initial  discussion  of  a  more  quest-­‐like  approach  we  opted  for  the  tranquillity  of  The  Shire....  I  personally  believed  we  opted  for  the  best  option  since  we  can  work  the  characters  in  such  a  way  to  add  personal  flare,  at  the  same  time  as  we  gave  the  impression  that the fan fiction portrayed a story that could have taken place within the confines of the book, and which in no way meddled with the outcome of the story.”  

 (Student  37,  Gandalf)  

 "Smaug  is  a  proud  dragon  and  mostly when he talks he starts his sentences referring to himself.  He  is  an  old  dragon  who  frightens  whoever  who  he  speaks  to  with  manipulative  and  dangerous  words.”                                                                                                                                                    (Student  12,  Smaug)    

“Bombur  can  be  described  best  as  a  fat  dwarf  with  an  immense  appetite…that  is  very  clumsy,  as  the  rest  of  the  twelve  dwarves  gladly  like  to  make  fun  of.  Despite the rather poor description of Bombur,  I  argue  that  under  all  the  fat  is  a  delicate  little  dwarf. It is often described in the book indirectly  his  dissatisfaction  with  having  to  come  last  for  everything.  Which  Bombur  for  example  do  when  Gandalf  will  present  Bilbo  and  the  dwarves  one  by  one  to  Beorn.”  

 (Student  13,  Bombur)  

Language Development Course  Goal  Two  Writing  a  Fictional  Narrative  Using  Different  Narrative  Techniques  

The Stories 11 Tales (49,445 words)

Breaking Breaking  the  Fourth  Wall  “Bombur,  it’s  time  for  you  to  start  hauling  or  you  will  receive  a  one  way  ticket  down  the  waterfall!”  Kili  yelled.  That  got  Bombur  moving  faster  than  ever,  except  the  time  they  ran  from  the  skin  changer,  but  that  comes  later  in  the  story.    

(from  The  Wooden  Bridge)  

It is lying still, yet it spins around It tries to move but its body is bound All because of the precious it stole Fool us again and they eats it whole

(from  The  Mirkwood  Mysteries)    

Foreshadow Foreshadowing  Through  Song  Through  coal-­‐black  sludge,  in  the  thicket  you  will  

trudge  With  sticky  feet,  so  sticky  feet  

A  safe  road  you  allege,  dwarves  soon  hanging  by  a  thread  

Seeing  hairy  legs,  little  Ori  begs!  In  the  darkness  you  shall  dance,  through  a  pack  

of  monsters  prance.  They  can’t  see  you,  they  can’t  see  you  

But  the  thing  that  you  carry  is  not  all  that  merry  Not  keen  to  linger,  seeks  its  masters  finger  

He  will  see  it  retrieved,  you  will  all  be  deceived  The  Mirkwood  will  impede  you.  

 (from  Down  in  a  Hole)  

Language Development Course  Goal  Three  Understanding  Language  Development  

"I  have  not  worked  in  this  way  before  with  reading  and  writing  where  you  tend  to  go  back  to  your  book  like  a  dictionary  to  highlight  special  features  from  your  character.  It was very important to read the book to make the story work.  It  was  too  bad  that  everyone  in  my  group  clearly  didn't  read  it  since  they wrote things that wouldn't be possible according to the book.”    

(Student  15,  Gollum)      

"...I  have  been  forced  to  become  a  better  listener  when  it  comes  to  the  collaboration  part...  Because everyone interprets the book differently so it was important to listen carefully,  how  everyone  thought  of  their  character,  and  the  set  we  chose  to  write  about.”  

(Student  41,  Balin)  

It  was  kind  of  hard  to  make  it  fuse  together  as  one  type  of  text.  

We  chose  blogger  because  it  was  the  most  simple  and  none  of  us  had  ever  written  a  blog  before.  

If  you  try  to  read  it  in  one  sitting,  it’s  confusing.  If  you’re  a  follower,  it  makes  sense.  

We  wanted  to  imitate  a  real  blog  where  authors  didn’t  know  who  comes  next.  This  meant  we  didn’t  move  forward  when  we  needed  to.  There  was  a  lack  of  plot  progression.    

Inspiration  for  task  and  technology  and  model  from  the  Harry  Potter  role  play  fanfic  community,  Darkness  Rising,  on  LiveJournal.  •  Communal  Blog  •  Individual  players/writers  

participated  using  blogs  made  for  their  character  

•  Stories  begin  with  a  prompt  or  background  in  a  post.  

•  The  story  evolves  in  nested  comments    

(Sauro,  2014)  

“As  language  educators,  we  must  be  attentive  to  the  particular  ways  that  communication  technologies  transform  spatial  and  temporal  relations  and,  accordingly,  be  willing  to  reconsider  the  understandings  and  beliefs  that  have  traditionally  underlain  our  practice.”  

(Kern,  2014,  p.  341)  

Reconsider Understandings  and  Beliefs    

“An  equally  important  part  of  the  educational  design  challenge  for  technology-­‐mediated  TBLT  is  teachers.”  –  Teachers’  technological  needs  and  motivations  –  Empirical  investigations  of  teachers  who  

implement  technology-­‐mediated  TBLT    

(González-­‐Lloret  &  Ortega,  2014,  p.  9)  

Practitioner Practitioner  Research  &  TBLT    

Cohort  2013  Provided  with  a  model  blog-­‐based  story  from  LiveJournal  and  given  instructions  to  select  a  blogging  platform  to  publish,  to  create  individual  blogs  and  communal  blogs.    

–  Blogger  –  Wordpress  –  Livejournal  –  A  blogging  platform  they  already  know.  

      Blogs  (12)  –  Wordpress,  Blogspot.se,  Blogggplatsen.se,  Publishme.se    

The  community  blog  was  complicated  because  it  was  hard  to  connect  all  the  character  blogs  to  the  community  blog.  But  we  finally  managed.  

Most  succeeded  in  taking  advantage  of  a  blog  format  though  one  of  the  lower  performing  groups  published  the  entire  text  of  their  story  in  one  single  post,  ignoring  any  of  the  other  tools  available  in  the  blogging  platform.  

The  main  downside  was  when  we  posted  what  we  had  written,  it  became  backwards…  

In  our  blog,  it  starts  from  the  beginning  and  then  goes  to  the  end  instead  of  the  other  way  around.  

Cohort  2014  Provided  with  the  model  Livejournal  Community  as  well  as  examples  from  Cohort  2013.  Revised  instructions  also  allowed  students  to  select  from  multiple  online  publishing  options  in  addition  to  blogs.  

Blogs  (12)  –  Wordpress,  Blogspot.se,  Blogg.se    

Archive  of  Our  Own  (3)  –  Online  Fanfiction  Archives  

Facebook  (2)  –  Public  Groups  

Other  (2)  –  Google  Docs,  Papyrus  

Despite  being  a  tool  heavily  used  by  all  students  in  this  cohort,  only  two  groups  set  up  public  groups  on  Facebook  to  host  their  stories.  

We  decided  to  present  through  a  blog  but  it  proved  more  challenging  than  we  had  thought  due  to  formatting  issues.  Big  challenge  and  no  reward.  We  decided  to  give  up  on  formatting  the  title.  

We  spent  a  lot  of  <me  managing  the  blog.  Only  one  of  us  had  used  a  blog  before,  but  it  was  

rewarding  because  we  succeeded.  

Customizing  the  blog  to  sequence  the  posts  into  chapters.  

Hosting  of  multimedia  on  a  group  blog  to  illustrate  the  performance  of  a  song  written  as  part  of  their  story  and  performed  during  the  final  oral  presentation.    

So  you  could,  like,  jump  and  skip  to  chapters  and  so  on.  And  you  could  do  the  whole  thing  at  once.  And  I  had  like  friends  who,  like,  could,  what’s  it  called.  Print  it  and  like  have  it  in  booklets.  Because  they  have  that  function,  that  digital  function.    

Our  story  is  so  much  better  looking.    Yeah,  because,  when  you  have  like  this  blog  posts,  it  comes,  like  the  first  is  at  the  bottom  and  then  you  have  to  read  up.  And  that  was  like  really  annoying  when  I  looked  at  the  other  groups.  Because  I  read  most  of  the  other  groups,  but  I  shut  some  of  them  down  after  like,  okay,  now  I  can’t  handle  this  anymore.  Exit.  Exit.  No.    

L:  We  were  really  looking  forward  to  comments.      M:  Nobody  has  commented.  

Compared  to  other  fanfic<on  stories  on  Archive  of  our  Own,  ours  had,  we  had  a  lot  of  chapters  and  like  preBy  short  texts.  And  it  was  kind  of  harder  to  read,  in  my  opinion.  It  wasn’t  one  flowing  text  since  it  was  so  very  segmented.    

Researcher  (&  Practitioner)  Positionality  

“Researchers  who  are  trained  in  their  own  discipline’s  methodological  tradition  can  be  unaware  of  the  presuppositions  of  their  discipline’s  methodology  without  having  gone  through  a  critical  reflection  process  or  having  been  exposed  to  alternative  paradigms  and  their  assumptions.”    

(Lin,  2015,  p.  22)  

Positionality

“users’  interpretation  of  what  is  made  possible  by  the  technology,  based  on  their  own  technological  competence  and  communicative  intent”  

(Tagg  &  Seargeant,  2014,  p.  165)  

Affordances Affordances  

“The  idea  that  there  is  no  universal  medium  adequate  for  all  tasks  may  be  obvious,  but  it  is  of  key  pedagogical  importance,  for  when  educators  design  tasks  they  also  need  to  consider  which  of  the  various  available  mediums  will  be  most  compatible  with  the  goals  of  those  tasks.”    

(Kern,  2014,  p.  342)  

Compatibility Task  Compatibility  

Until  the  Next  Journey  1.  Is  it  really  fanfiction  if  the  students  aren’t  actually  fans?  2.  How  well  does  in-­‐class  fanfiction  reflect  genre  norms?  3.  Is  this  something  that  can  be  done  with  young  learners  or  

less  proficient  learners?      

References References  Black,  R.W.  (2009).  Online  fan  fiction,  global  identities,  and  imagination.  Research  in  the  Teaching  of  English,  43,  397-­‐425.    Black,  R.W.  (2006).  Language,  culture,  and  identity  in  online  fanfiction.  E-­‐learning,  3,  180–184.  Chan,  P.K.  (1999).  Literature,  language  awareness  and  EFL.  Language  Awareness  8(1),  38-­‐50.  Chapelle,  C.  A.  (2014).  Afterward:  Technology-­‐mediated  TBLT  and  the  evolving  role  of  the  innovator  in  M.  González-­‐Lloret  and  L.  Ortega  (Eds.).  Technology-­‐mediated  TBLT:  Researching  technology  and  tasks,  (pp.  323-­‐334).  .  Amsterdam/Philadelphia:  John  Benjamins.  González-­‐Lloret,  M.,  &  Ortega,  L.  (2014).  Towards  technology-­‐mediated  TBLT:  An  introduction.  In  M.  González-­‐Lloret  &  L.  Ortega  (Eds.),  Technology-­‐mediated  TBLT:  Researching  technology  and  tasks  (pp.  1-­‐22).  Amsterdam/Philadelphia:  John  Benjamins.  Jamison,  A.  (2013).  ‘Why  Fic?’  in  A.  Jamison  (ed.).  Fic:  Why  fanfiction  is  taking  over  the  world.  Dallas,  TX:  Smart  Pop  Books.  Kern,  R.  (2014).  Technology  as  Pharmakon:  The  promise  and  perils  of  the  Internet  for  foreign  language  education.  The  Modern  Language  Journal,  98(1),  340-­‐357.  Lam,  W.  S.  E.  (2006).  Re-­‐envisioning  language,  literacy,  and  the  immigrant  subject  in  new  mediascapes.  Pedagogies:  An  International  Journal,  1(3),  171–195.  Leppänen,  S.,  Pitkänen-­‐Huhta,  A.,  Piirainen-­‐Marsch,  A.,  Nikula,  T.,  &  Peuronen,  S.  (2009).  Young  people’s  translocal  new  media  uses:  A  multiperspective  analysis  of  language  choice  and  hetero-­‐glossia.  Journal  of  Computer-­‐Mediated  Communication,  14,  1080–1107.  Leppännen,  S.  (2008).  Cybergirls  in  trouble?  Fan  fiction  as  a  discursive  space  for  interrogating  gender  and  sexuality.  In  C.R.  Caldas-­‐Coulthard  and  R.  Iedema  (Eds.).  Identity  trouble:  Critical  discourse  and  contested  identities,  (pp.  156-­‐179).  Houdsmills,  UK:  Pallgrave  Macmillan.  Lin,  A.Y.M.  (2015).  Researcher  positionality.  In  F.M.  Hult  &  D.C.  Johnson  (Eds.),  Research  methods  in  language  policy  and  planning:  A  practical  guide  (pp.  21-­‐32).  Malden,  MA:  Wiley-­‐Blackwell.  Paran,  A.  (2008).  The  role  of  literature  in  instructed  foreign  language  learning  and  teaching:  An  evidence-­‐based  survey.  Language  Teaching  41/4:  465-­‐496.  Sauro,  S.  (2014).  Lessons  from  the  fandom:  Task  models  for  technology-­‐enhanced  language  learning.  In  M.  González-­‐Lloret  &  L.  Ortega  (Eds).  Technology-­‐mediated  TBLT:  Researching  technology  and  tasks,  (pp.  239-­‐262).  Amsterdam/Philadelphia:  John  Benjamins.  Tagg,  C.,  &  Seargeant,  P.  (2014).  Audience  design  and  language  choice  in  the  construction  and  maintenance  of  translocal  communities  on  social  network  sites.  In  P.  Seargeant  &  C.  Tagg  (Eds.),  The  language  of  social  media:  identity  and  community  on  the  Internet  (pp.  161-­‐185).  New  York:  Palgrave  Macmillan.  Van  den  Branden,  K.  (2006).  Introduction:  Tasks-­‐based  language  teaching  in  a  nutshell.  In  K.  Van  den  Branden  (Ed.).  Task-­‐based  language  education:  From  theory  to  practice,  (pp.  1-­‐16).  Cambridge:  Cambridge  University  Press.      

Slides available at https://mah.academia.edu/ShannonSauro