This book presents an ethnographic and discourse analytic study of a highly popular online fan fiction writing space. Its analyses highlight the range of sophisticated literacy practices that English language learning youth engage in through their fan-related activities. Discussion also centers on how opportunities for language socialization, literacy, and identity development converge and diverge between academic settings and informal learning contexts such as fan fiction sites.

This book presents an ethnographic and discourse analytic study of a highly popular online fan fiction writing space. Its analyses highlight the range of sophisticated literacy practices that English language learning youth engage in through their fan-related activities. Discussion also centers on how opportunities for language socialization, literacy, and identity development converge and diverge between academic settings and informal learning contexts such as fan fiction sites.

An in-depth examination of the novel ways young people support and learn from each other though participation in online fanfiction communities. Over the past twenty years, amateur fanfiction writers have published an astonishing amount of fiction in online repositories. More than 1.5 million enthusiastic fanfiction writers—primarily young people in their teens and twenties—have contributed nearly seven million stories and more than 176 million reviews to a single online site, Fanfiction.net. In this book, Cecilia Aragon and Katie Davis provide an in-depth examination of fanfiction writers and fanfiction repositories, finding that these sites are not shallow agglomerations and regurgitations of pop culture but rather online spaces for sophisticated and informal learning. Through their participation in online fanfiction communities, young people find ways to support and learn from one another. Aragon and Davis term this novel system of interactive advice and instruction distributed mentoring, and describe its seven attributes, each of which is supported by an aspect of networked technologies: aggregation, accretion, acceleration, abundance, availability, asynchronicity, and affect. Employing an innovative combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses, they provide an in-depth ethnography, reporting on a nine-month study of three fanfiction sites, and offer a quantitative analysis of lexical diversity in the 61.5 billion words on the Fanfiction.net site. Going beyond fandom, Aragon and Davis consider how distributed mentoring could improve not only other online learning platforms but also formal writing instruction in schools.

What is fanfiction, and what is it not? Why does fanfiction matter? And what makes it so important to the future of literature? Fic is a groundbreaking exploration of the history and culture of fan writing and what it means for the way we think about reading, writing, and authorship. It's a story about literature, community, and technology—about what stories are being told, who's telling them, how, and why. With provocative discussions from both professional and fan writers, on subjects from Star Trek to The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Harry Potter, Twilight, and beyond, Fic sheds light on the widely misunderstood world(s) of fanfiction—not only how fanfiction is transforming the literary landscape, but how it already has. Fic features a foreword by Lev Grossman (author of The Magicians) and interviews with Jonathan Lethem, Doug Wright, Eurydice (Vivean Dean), and Katie Forsythe/wordstrings. Cyndy Aleo (algonquinrt; d0tpark3r) V. Arrow (aimmyarrowshigh) Tish Beaty (his_tweet) Brad Bell Amber Benson Peter Berg (Homfrog) Kristina Busse Rachel Caine Francesca Coppa Randi Flanagan (BellaFlan) Jolie Fontenot Wendy C. Fries (Atlin Merrick) Ron Hogan Bethan Jones Christina Lauren (Christina Hobbs/tby789 and Lauren Billings/LolaShoes) Jacqueline Lichtenberg Rukmini Pande and Samira Nadkarni Chris Rankin Tiffany Reisz Andrew Shaffer Andy Sawyer Heidi Tandy (Heidi8) Darren Wershler Jules Wilkinson (missyjack) Jen Zern (NautiBitz)

After centuries of rethinking education and learning, the current theory is based on technology's approach to and effect on the planned interaction between knolwedge trainers and trainees. Demonstrates, through the exposure of successful cases in online education and training, the necessity of the human factor, particualarly in teaching/tutoring roles, for ensuring the development of quality and excellent learning activities. The didactic patterns derived from these experiences and methodologies will provide a basis for a more powerful and efficient new generation of technology-based learning solutions.

Reading Girls captures the voices and literacy experiences of a diverse group of urban adolescent girls. The author—an experienced researcher and middle school teacher—intertwines investigations of multiple literacies, technologies, race, class, gender, sexuality, and gender expression to provide a provocative look at what helps and what hurts adolescent girls in school. Through engaging case studies, we see how traditional schooling fails to make room for crucial life topics, such as grappling with sexual or racial identity, understanding gang culture, or coming of age in urban America. Each chapter concludes with concrete strategies for improving both in- and out-of-school practices to better serve young girls, especially marginalized students.

In Language Online, David Barton and Carmen Lee investigate the impact of the online world on the study of language. The effects of language use in the digital world can be seen in every aspect of language study, and new ways of researching the field are needed. In this book the authors look at language online from a variety of perspectives, providing a solid theoretical grounding, an outline of key concepts, and practical guidance on doing research. Chapters cover topical issues including the relation between online language and multilingualism, identity, education and multimodality, then conclude by looking at how to carry out research into online language use. Throughout the book many examples are given, from a variety of digital platforms, and a number of different languages, including Chinese and English. Written in a clear and accessible style, this is a vital read for anyone new to studying online language and an essential textbook for undergraduates and postgraduates working in the areas of new media, literacy and multimodality within language and linguistics courses.