Pirates and poachers: Fan fiction and the conventions of reading and writing

Abstract

This article explores what teachers and students can learn about contemporary story‐telling from a study of fan fiction – that is, stories created by readers and viewers out of the canonical material of previously published fictions. Drawing on the example of Pirates of the Caribbean, it investigates ways in which fan fiction writers develop codes and conventions to govern themselves. For example, online litmus tests establish when a writer is self‐indulgently writing ‘Mary Sue’ characters into a story; the self‐styled Protectors of the Plot Continuum patrol the fictional limits of an imagined world to make sure that canonical information is not violated by fan fiction writers. This article makes use of such examples to investigate how quality control in fan fiction is codified, and to explore what teachers can learn from such enterprises about contemporary writing, reading and viewing. It compares these possibilities with issues of online literacy outlined by Henry Jenkins under three headings: the participation gap, the transparency problem, and the ethics challenge.

Thousands of Positive Reviews

“…For instance, the insights from the present study suggest that distributed mentoring could be successfully applied to formal educational contexts as a useful peer mentoring mechanism, building on previous related work exploring the incorporation of fanfiction in classroom settings [43,49]. An internet-based peer review system joining a number of classrooms together would help facilitate distributed mentoring.…”

Adolescents’ Dialogic Composing With Mobile Phones

“…Digital storytelling has been widely studied even though it is a digital composing practice uncommon among youth (e.g., Hull & Nelson, 2005;Lundby, 2008). Other studies of exceptional youth digital engagement include English language learners using the web to practice English (e.g., Black, 2007Black, , 2008Black, , 2009Lam, 2000Lam, , 2004Lam, , 2006Lam, , 2009Lam & Rosario-Ramos, 2009;Lam & Warriner, 2012), youth composers of fan fiction (a niche subculture; for example, Black, 2009;Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2003;Jenkins, 1994;Mackey & McClay, 2008), and teens interacting in virtual worlds (e.g., Thomas, 2004Thomas, , 2005Thomas, , 2007, an activity taken up by just 8% of teens (Pew Internet and American Life, 2009). While this work has provided rich insight into the digitally literate lives of some adolescents, there is little work that highlights the naturally occurring digital literacy practices of mainstream youth who struggle with schooled literacy.…”

A Pilot Study of Fan Fiction Writer’s Legal Information Behavior

“…Jenkins, 2013; see also Black, 2008), and that participating in fan fiction can develop writing skills (see e.g. Black, 2008;Mackey & McClay, 2008;Wren, 2014). Further, asking participants about their experiences in fandom and how fandom benefits them seemed to put participants at ease before moving on to legal questions about copyright issues, which may seem more like a "test. "…”