Week 11 - Pinterest Board

Image: MKH Marketing 
 
I had a really good time joining Pinterest for this class. I resisted Pinterest for the longest time because I knew that I would spend hours online just looking at all the pretty pictures and interesting ideas. I don't consider myself really old or out of touch with youth.... apparently I am. When I realised I didn't know anyone between the ages of 13-19 for the popular culture interview in week 10, I began to feel a little bit funny!

I decided to use the information I gathered from the online interview I conducted from Week 10 to make the majority of the Pinterest board. Some of the pins I added from my knowledge of popular culture these days. I noticed that there was a lot of interest in re-appropriation and nostalgia for times gone by ie. Audrey Hepburn, flower headbands, used jeans, etc. There is also an undeniable urge to be young and free ie. YOLO, 'Royals' song lyrics, etc.

I'll definitely be maintaining this blog into the future!

Week 10 - Popular Culture Interview

Caution Teenagers by CGP Grey http://www.cgpgrey.com/

This week we were required to ask a ‘young person’ some questions about popular culture. Unfortunately I don’t really know anyone from the ages of 13-19 so I took to the online world to ask some teenagers there. I used a forum on the NaNoWriMo website to post my questions and received a wide variety of responses which I will discuss below. NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month and is an international online gathering of people aiming to write at least 50,000 words during the month of November. The teenagers that replied to my thread are either aiming to write 50,000 words this year or have participated in earlier years. Obviously trying to write 50,000 words in a month isn't the typical goal for your every day teenager, but I think the answers I got from my teens were interesting nonetheless.

The questions I asked the teenagers are as follows:
1. Who is your favourite actor/actress at the moment? Why?
2. What is your favourite movie?
3. What is your favourite Young Adult novel?
4. Who is your favourite singer/band?
5. What do you think is the definition of "popular culture"?
6. How much time do you spend on the internet?
7. What are some popular trends you see at the moment? ie. clothing, accessories, etc.
8. What kind of social media do you use regularly? ie. Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, etc.
9. Do you think role-playing/writing fan-fiction is educational? Why?
10. What do you think are the pressures that young people face in today's society?

You can view the answers to the thread here.
Unfortunately the above link is dead so here is a link to the teenage forum I initially posted my question on.

It was interesting to read the definitions that young people had about popular culture. The majority agreed that it was a trend or something along the same lines that a large number of people followed. Other comments were made as to popular culture being something the media pressed upon the public, others said that popular culture was something that became very popular very quickly only to be forgotten a few weeks or months later. An interesting reply from someone named Fantasy-Writer said that popular culture is the things they only know about because they are popular ie. Abbey Road, 'We Are the Champions', Romeo and Juliet. I liked that comment as a rebuttal to the idea that pop-culture is fleeting, Fantasy-Writer argues that popular-culture is something timeless.

I also enjoyed reading the answers to the question of what pressures young people face today. It was nice to get some candid responses about sex, relationships, school and family pressure, as well as pressure from the media. A comment by consequenceofsounds highlighted the disillusionment some young people feel about being born in the 90's and not feeling valued by the rest of the world. There seems to be an awareness that growing up in a world surrounded by technology has it's benefits and curses.

I hope this thread continues to get replies because I enjoy reading them!

Week 9 - 826 National

This week I wanted to share with you one of my favourite TED Talks. The TED (Technology, Education, and Design) Conferences are essentially a way for people to get together and talk about “Ideas worth spreading”.

One of my favourite literary authors is Dave Eggers. I was introduced to his books and quarterly publication Mc Sweeney's, through a friend. I can't remember exactly how I stumbled on to his talk, but it was inspiring and really stuck with me over the years.



As an aspiring writer and a person interested in the education of young people, 826 Valencia-San Francisco is a fascinating concept. Dave Eggers talks about taking the stigma away from learning, the unconventional pirates shop front leads into the tutoring centre, and the fact that students were running down the street to attend a tutoring is so great to hear. My brief experience with teaching taught me that sometimes the traditional classroom setting does not work, that there are ultimately students who slip under the radar and go un-noticed. Even more than that, the idea of engaging every single student in a class of 25 for an hour at a time for five hours a day gets difficult for a teacher and arguably more-so for the student.

By offering one-on-one volunteer tutoring to students, there is guaranteed learning that occurs. The validation a student gets from getting their ideas heard in this space is tangible. 826 Valencia grew so popular that they had over 1,400 volunteers and began to move to local schools, now there are chapters all over the United States. How did this non-profit organisation get so big? I wonder if it is the simple act of encouraging members of the community to share their skills and expertise to help young people. Dave Eggers mentions that if a volunteer can only offer two hours a month then those two hours were priceless and utilized by the team.

The two hours for each session are broken down into three parts. For the first thirty minutes a student is helped with their homework regardless of the subject, thirty minutes is then spent reading with the tutor, and the last hour is spent writing. This kind of program encourages students to finish their homework quickly and enables them to go home at the end of the day and enjoy spending time with their family.

I'd love to see a chapter of 826 National open in Australia. I can see this type of non-profit organisation working hand-in-hand with libraries and schools to benefit young people and hopefully let them know that their voices matter and need to be heard.

Week 8 - Scholarly Article

For the first assessment in this course we were required to formulate a thesis around a learning pack we had studied for an essay. I chose Learning Pack A – Youth and Popular Culture because it was the most interesting to me. I wanted to know why a large number of young people liked to spend time online and whether or not that time spent online was productive educationally. In my research for the essay I came across a number of articles, however, it was one by Angela Thomas of the University of Sydney that caught my attention.

The article Fan fiction online: Engagement, critical response and affective play through writing, discusses fan fiction specifically in relation to teenage girls and how they interact with each other online. For those unfamiliar with the concept of fan-fiction, Thomas describes it as:

“Borrowing settings, plots, characters and ideas from all forms of media and popular culture, fans weave together new tales, sometimes within the accepted canon, sometimes blending several ideas from different sources together in a type of fiction called 'Crossovers', and sometimes imagining new possibilities for additional characters, different histories or different settings to build on existing stories, called 'Alternative Universe' fiction.” (Thomas, 2006, p.226).

For more information and to see examples of fan-fiction, please click HERE
Fan-fiction provides writers (of any age) the ability to engage with their popular interests and develop their writing skills. If a person is a fan of Harry Potter they are able to write a specific fan-fiction. They can do this by creating their own character and inserting it into the world of Harry Potter or they can use an existing character from the Harry Potter universe. When I was younger I was heavily involved in the online world of fan-fiction. This article somewhat validated the feelings I had in regards to just how much engaging in writing and critiquing the work of others improved my literacy skills.

Image Credit: www.publicdomainpictures.net

The article is separated into five main parts: the social practices of fan-fiction, fictional role-playing and collaborative writing, transforming texts, fan-fiction as a means for critical response to texts, and fan-fiction as identity play. I don't want to go into detail describing the article, what I do want to do however is to draw attention to the fact that much of the skills I developed as a writer and critical thinker were developed organically. I was so engrossed in the world of Harry Potter I wanted to become part of it and that is how I found fan-fiction.

As teachers and librarians I think we need to be aware of the way young people are engaging not only with pop-culture but with the online world. I believe fan-fiction and other collaborative writing activities like text-based role-playing are beneficial to teenagers because they learn through play. The article by Angela Thomas provides a great introduction to the world of fan-fiction, I'm excited to see what other research is forthcoming.

Reference List
 
Thomas, Angela. Fan Fiction Online: Engagement, Critical Response and Affective Play through Writing [online]. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 29(3), 226-239. Retrieved from: http://search.informit.com.au.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=250482439837148;res=IELHSS

Introductions....

Hi! My name is Annette. I'm currently a student at QUT and I'm studying my Masters in IT: Library and Information Science. I was very close to enrolling as a teacher-librarian but decided against it at the last minute. I figured the same reason I decided not to pursue my teaching career would probably be the same reason I would not enjoy being a teacher-librarian. Take from that what you will :)

I enjoy working with young people and I enjoy watching them form their views around popular culture. I love learning and participatory culture and affinity spaces and hope to eventually research in this area one day.