Why Heather can write - 0 views
www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx
education fan_fiction fans fanwork harry_potter literature fanficforensics phd
shared by Nele Noppe on 02 Nov 08
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Teachers sometimes complain that popular culture competes for the attention of their students, a claim that starts from the assumption that what kids learn from media is less valuable than what schools teach. Here, however, much of what is being mastered are things that schools try-and too often fail-to teach their students. (It has been said that if schools taught sex education the same way they taught writing, the human race would die out in a generation.)
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we could talk about young anime fans who are teaching each other Japanese language and culture in order to do underground subtitling of their favorite shows.
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What difference will it make, over time, if a growing percentage of young writers begin publishing and getting feedback on their work while they are still in high school? And what happens when those young writers compare notes, becoming critics, editors, and mentors? Will they develop their craft more quickly-and develop a critical vocabulary for thinking about storytelling?
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And writing about Harry offers them something else, too: an audience with a built-in interest in the stories-an interest that would be difficult to match with stories involving original fictional characters. The power of popular culture to command attention is being harnessed at a grassroots level to find a readership for these emerging storytellers.
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themes that could not be discussed so openly in a school assignment and that might be too embarrassing to address through personal narratives or original characters.
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Fandom is providing a rich haven to support the development of bright young minds that might otherwise get chewed up by the system, and offering mentorship to help less gifted students to achieve their full expressive potential. Either way, these teens are finding something online that schools are not providing them.