Rebecca W. Black

Access and Affiliation: The Literacy and Composition Practices of English-Language Learners in an Online Fanfiction Community.

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.

Language, Culture, and Identity in Online Fanfiction

This article draws on constructs in second-language acquisition, literacy, cultural, and media studies as theoretical bases for examining how networked technologies and fan culture provide a young English language learner (ELL) with a site for developing her English language and writing skills. During this process, she also develops an online identity as a popular, multiliterate writer. To understand how this happens, the notion of identity is explored as a fluid construct that shifts over time with this ELLs long-term participation in a fan community. Popular and fan culture are also examined as points of affiliation and as dialogic resources that she appropriates, both in her writing and in her interactions with other fans. In so doing, the article demonstrates how popular culture and technology converge to provide a context in which this adolescent ELL is able to develop a powerful, transcultural identity, discursively constructed through the different cultural perspectives and literacies that she and other fans from across the globe bring to this space.

LANGUAGE AND LITERACY DEVELOPMENT IN COMPUTER-MEDIATED CONTEXTS AND COMMUNITIES

This article describes second language uses of Internet communication tools, Web environments, and online gaming, and critically reviews existing research and emerging technologies representing diverse pedagogical conditions in three distinct computer-mediated configurations: (1) instructed and institutional intraclass discussion and interclass partnerships, (2) transcultural partnerships and structured participation in “open” Internet environments, and (3) interaction in ongoing Internet-mediated environments that include popular culture blogs and Web sites, fanfiction communities, language and/or culture communities, and online games. We propose that a critical-and-constructive appraisal of existing and emerging digital media, communicative genres, literacy practices, and the communities made possible through them, can help to forge more responsive, and more ecologically responsible, language-learning opportunities for students who are expected to navigate increasingly mediated social and professional worlds.

Massively distributed authorship of academic papers

Wiki-like or crowdsourcing models of collaboration can provide a number of benefits to academic work. These techniques may engage expertise from different disciplines, and potentially increase productivity. This paper presents a model of massively distributed collaborative authorship of academic papers. This model, developed by a collective of thirty authors, identifies key tools and techniques that would be necessary or useful to the writing process. The process of collaboratively writing this paper was used to discover, negotiate, and document issues in massively authored scholarship. Our work provides the first extensive discussion of the experiential aspects of large-scale collaborative research.

Online Fan Fiction and Critical Media Literacy.

Abstract This article explores English-language-learning (ELL) youths’ engagement with popular media through composing and publicly posting stories in an online fan fiction writing space. Fan fiction is a genre that lends itself to critical engagement with media texts as fans repurpose popular media to design their own narratives. Analyses describe how three ELL youth employ creative agency as they fashion fan fiction stories that are relevant to their own lives. Findings reveal that contemporary participatory media, such as fan fiction writing, involve sophisticated forms of literacy that can serve as useful resources for promoting in-class learning. However, the study also suggests that students would benefit from expert guidance in the areas of critical consumption and production of media and digital texts.

Design and evaluation of a computer science and engineering course for middle school girls

A significant focus in the United States recently has been to increase engagement and interest in STEM curricula, particularly among girls and underrepresented minorities [3]. In this work, we take an approach to teaching and learning that supports flexibility, experimentation, and play with technology. With this approach, we aim to make STEM curricula more comfortable and engaging for all types of children and teens, with a particular emphasis on lower socio-economic status female students. We designed and tested a computing course for middle school girls, and this work resulted in three best practices: hands-on work incorporating creativity through crafts into engineering and computing, the frequent presence of an audience to motivate engagement, and engineering-focused individual roles structuring group work. Pre- and post-surveys and exit interviews revealed significant changes in attitudes and an enthusiasm for engineering projects and careers as a result of participation in the course.

Barbie Girls and Xtractaurs: Discourse and identity in virtual worlds for young children:

This paper examines the ways in which Mattel’s Barbie Girls and Xtractaurs, online sites aimed at girls and boys of six years of age and up, respectively, offer markedly distinct literate and semiotic resources for their young users. Analysis focuses on the multimodal layers of meaning and the mediating tools, artefacts, and literacy objects that both afford and constrain certain types of play and shape the possibilities for self-representation and interaction in these spaces. Through content analysis and comparison of the two sites, the authors explore the kinds of discourses made available in these spaces and examine how they might impact on young players’ perceptions of the social roles and life opportunities accessible to them both within and outside of these virtual worlds.

Chapter 12. Identity and interaction in internet-mediated contexts

In a recent fi ctional short story, Salman Rushdie (2008) describes an epiphany experienced by Akbar the Great. It seems that Akbar, whose reputation was so vast as to be “too much to be a single human personage,” became suddenly aware of the indexicalities evoked by the pronouns “I” and “we” and the ways they contribute to constructing multiple selves and social worlds. In particular, Akbar began to meditate “about the disturbing possibilities of the fi rst person singular, the ‘I’ ” in application to himself, and reciprocally, he became aware that perhaps his many subjects, who he had always reductively presumed to be monodimensional, were in fact pluralities of selves, “we-s,” just as he was. Akbar’s epiphany resulted in the following realization:

Affordances and Constraints of Scaffolded Learning in a Virtual World for Young Children

In recent years there has been a marked increase in the number of virtual worlds aimed at populations between the ages of 6 to14 years. This article examines the content and design of one such site, Webkinz World, as a sociocultural context for informal learning. Focusing on the design and activities of this site sheds light on the ways in which Webkinz World supports learning, especially for nascent users, and the apparent limits of these structures as users gain more expertise. with school-based skills, such as sophisticated learning and literacy practices (Apperley, 2010; Gee, 2003; Salen, 2007; Steinkuehler, 2007), collaborative problem solving (Squire, 2005), informal scientific reasoning (Steinkuehler & Duncan, in press), and informal science learning (Fields & Kafai, 2009; Kafai, 2008; Kafai & Giang, 2007). The majority of the aforementioned research has focused on games targeting adolescents and adults; however, of late, there has been a veritable boom in the arena of virtual worlds for elementary school aged children. Sites such as Webkinz World, Club Penguin, Barbie Girls, and Poptropica are wildly popular, with registered user bases that number in the millions (Compete, Inc., 2009). In spite of the sheer numbers of children who frequent such DOI: 10.4018/ijgbl.2011040104 International Journal of Game-Based Learning, 1(2), 52-64, April-June 2011 53 Copyright

Contrasting Visions: Identity, Literacy, and Boundary Work in a Fan Community.

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 peoples 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.