Pedagogical Implications

Collaboration

Collaboration has frequently been heralded as an effective learning practice, even more so in the 21st-century workplace as collaboration across departments and nation states becomes more common. Because the modern world of gaming relies heavily upon collaboration, gamers already come to the classroom equipped with collaborative experience. Similarly, students have the opportunity to explore the benefits of collaborative work (Black, 2009, p. 694) when engaging in online fan-fiction communities, like Fanfiction.net. The social practice of collaboration in both of these communities allows students to participate in community learning and partnered authorship once they are given a fan-fiction-based assignment.

New Literacy Studies has even revealed how digital spaces provide an effective forum for this collaboration. As Kathy Ann Mills explained, “Empirical research by the New Literacy Studies has drawn attention to the collaborative nature of digital practices—that is, engagement in joint activity centered on shared interests or knowledge domains” (2010, p. 257). For gaming fan-fiction, this “knowledge domain” would be reliant upon students’ gaming interests, which would also translate into the digital literacies of gaming. That is, digital practices like forum-posting or collaborating in an online chat with other gamers would provide students with a comfort level as they complete fan-fiction projects online. Gaming, therefore, can not only help students “establish special rapport with friends and colleagues of their generation” (Pandey, Pandey, & Shreshtha, 2007, p. 48), but also establish familiarity with the interfaces of fan-fiction websites, which imitate in-game menus and gaming-related websites.

As a constructivist pedagogical approach that “encourages constructive and reflective thinking that intentionally creates collaboration and a conversational atmosphere,” (Keengwe, Onchwari, & Agamba, 2013, p. 889), gaming fan-fiction would also allow writers and readers of fan-fiction to work together to build stories and define the rules that govern their writing styles. As a common courtesy to other writers, fan-fiction writers and readers are expected to leave feedback for every story they read. This creates a reciprocal environment where writers comment on each other’s work and build relationships of trust. Soomin Jwa (2012) explained the benefits of writing in this dialogical fashion:

Regardless of the level of their English…people with different orientations respect each other and willingly spend time reviewing updated postings and building common enterprises based around their favorite popular culture texts.  It is not by chance that a dialogical interaction takes place in this space, and that such engagement with members not only promotes the writer’s affiliation with his or her audience but also guides the overall direction of his or her fanfiction writing. (p. 331)

Seen as peers and fellow fans, reviewers of fan-fiction provide a layer of confidence and comfort to writers.  The dialogical exchange is generative as writers genuinely want to hear what reviewers think and generally follow the advice of their reviewers.  Because one goal of fan-fiction is to appeal to various fans, audience satisfaction (as evidence by reviews) is important.

And because fan-fiction nearly always focuses on positive feedback as readers respond with an encouraging attitude, students who see themselves as “weak” or “basic” writers are given the opportunity to explore the effectiveness of their own voices.  Instead of being afraid of peer criticism or fearful of negative comments, writers are immersed in praise.  As Juli Parrish (2010) explained in “Encouraging Feedback: Responding to Fan Fiction at Different Colored Pens,” “this positive attitude takes a variety of forms: encouraging authors to continue writing, mentoring less experienced or less confident writers, and softening the impact of critical analysis” (p. 214). Support from the fan-fiction community creates a uniquely collaborative writing process that allows writers to take risks without fear of rejection.  Parrish further expressed that, in fan-fiction writing, “there is a desire to develop as readers and writers, and to help one another to do this as well” (2010, p. 224).  Because writers and readers are invested in the fandoms of their stories, they are appreciative of one another’s ideas and work together to create new possibilities for their favorite characters. 

This focus on praise, however, should not be construed as uncritical. Fan-fiction reviews are rigorous and written with great care to help writers improve. As Parrish suggested, “[fan-fiction] feedback. . . becomes a powerful and necessary part of the texts to which it responds, and critical respondents become co-authors, in a sense, of narratives of critical reading and writing” (2007, p. 121). Because ownership of the text becomes collective, in a way, writers and reviewers feel responsible for the success of a given story. Reviewers, therefore, consistently come back to a story for chapter updates and revisions so that they can continue the critical conversations with their peers.

Through this collaboration, writers are encouraged to try new things and build upon one another’s ideas.  For instance, in the reviews for Discar’s (2012) “Gaige’s ECHO Logs” on Fanfiction.net, thewhitepeach wrote, “I think it would be an interesting idea to do a few ‘Q&A’ chapters” (2013). Though Discar hasn’t created these Q&A chapters, other fans of the game have the opportunity to use this advice and write a potentially engaging new thread.  And in another review, Sonanoka21093 (2013) wrote:

Ohh, that was just ‘darling’! I’m actually thinking about doing an audio log story, myself, but on a vastly different fandom…. I'm saying this because, well, you gave that little push in the right direction! I never would have imagined writing an audio log without reading this story.

Discar’s fan-fiction story was so important to Sonanoka21093 that she was encouraged to write a similarly-styled story. Essentially, writing fan-fiction not only grants writers more confidence, encouraging them to practice writing on their own, but it also, more importantly, allows writers to see the various approaches one can take towards writing.  Through this constructivist learning, “where interaction between learners, peers and other members of the learning community takes place” (Keengwe, Onchwari, & Agamba, 2013, p. 888), student writers would be able to engage more with the writing and editing process and develop a stronger sense of agency for what they’ve written. Collaboration on the idea-generation level creates an ideal forum for community learning and partnered authorship that can only be achieved in a welcoming environment, like the one afforded by fan-fiction.