The dissimilarities between the girls' fanfics and English language arts practice essays might have offered an interesting entry point for discussion about how different communicative contexts can narrow the range of Available Designs to draw on.
Creative writing can be incredibly important for self-expression and emotional intelligence. Without properly exploring different ways to write creatively, students may struggle to properly express such things.
Instead of writing Eileen and Rhiannon's texts off as derivative, we began to see them as contributions to an ongoing, intertextual conversation about such issues as friendship, loyalty, power, and sexuality.
At times, however, it appears that both gifts could have benefited from the assistance that contact with their teachers or classmates might have provided.
We hope that insights about out-of-school literacy practices that deeply absorb adolescents may help us devise new ways to make school literacy more meaningful and engaging.
More studies into modern adolescent literacy practices can lead to higher engagement and appreciation within literary contexts and motivate students to properly and effectively apply the knowledge they gain inside and outside of academic spaces.
Rhiannon herself showed ambivalence about bringing her personal writing into school when we asked if she had ever shown her stories to one of her teachers: "[No, and] I don't think I'd want her to read them anyway," she replied, "because they're in a fashion that she probably wouldn't understand even if I tried to explain it to her. I just think that she isn't open-minded."
fanfictions could be included in the range of texts teachers consider for diagnostic purposes in order to get a sense of what individuals can do as readers and writers, as well as what they value.
What is surprising, however, is the scarcity of research that examines the potential of new tools for showing and telling in the school curriculum.
See Adolescents' Anime Inspired "Fanfiction" for more in depth explanation. Much of the current school curriculum does not include more creative, personal subject matter, which has the possibility to make students feel less interested in class.
I propose that young people's engagement with these kinds of ideological messages and materials is central to their becoming the critical readers and writers we say we value.
When school work is deemed relevant and worthwhile, when opportunities exist for students to reinvent themselves as competent learners (even rewrite their social identities), then literacy instruction is both possible and welcomed.
Content area teachers and teacher educators who are open to considering the implications of this finding could incorporate into their regular class assignments opportunities for students to integrate subject matter texts with available online texts.
Because many young people growing up in a digital world will find their own reasons for becoming literate--reasons that go beyond reading and writing to acquire academic knowledge-it is important to remain open to changes in subject matter learning that will invite and extend the literacy practices they already possess and value.