Week 13 - Book Review: The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

I am unashamed to say that I am a fan of reading young adult (YA) fiction. I try to keep up with the latest books and often stand around the teenage fiction section at the bookstore in the hopes of catching some snippets of conversation from kids about what they are reading. I was not aware of the popularity of The Fault in Our Stars (TFiOS) by John Green however, until starting this course and decided to pick up a copy during mid-semester break. Firstly I was surprised to hear that young people were devouring a book about teenagers and cancer. Secondly, I was even more surprised to hear that this story didn’t involve vampires, magic, or zombies, and that it wasn’t set in a dystopian world where kids fight each other to the death. Maybe I’ve been too far out of the loop, but it seemed to me that for a while at least, there was a real trend for YA fiction to have supernatural or fantastical elements to them. It is refreshing to read a book about ‘normal’ teenagers and the trials they go through simply by growing up. The fact that the two protagonists both have cancer is probably the realest part of the story, even though to ‘normal’ teenagers cancer may be as foreign as a dragon or vampire.

I believe the story paints an accurate picture of young romance and teenage disenchantment with the world. The protagonist is a teenage girl battling with a fictional form of cancer in her lungs. She meets her love interest during a cancer support group, him having lost the lower part of his right leg to cancer. They fall in love over a book and go on a search to find the author so they can ask him about the ending.

This story made me laugh out loud and it made me cry. I think it captures the essence of love, loss, hope, and grief, all at the same time. I found myself reflecting on my life and the things I take for granted every day (like breath! I don’t need a machine to help me breathe, how lucky!). I liked how the parents were treated as human beings, they were not the foreboding ‘other’ or antagonist in the story, they were just there and it was great to read.

I find myself wondering still why young people are so taken with the story. Is it the romance? Is it the characters? Or is it the fact that John Green does a fantastic job at not talking down to his readers. The story-telling is sophisticated, there is no condescension in the prose, and he treats his target audience like the young adults they are. I like this approach and I think it is his writing moreso than the actual story that has helped his popularity, very reminiscent of the movie Juno in some ways.

John Green also uses a variety of social media to connect with his fans and does this very successfully. You can find him on his blog/website, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, or Tumblr

Image Courtesy of Penguin Books.

Week 12 - Portrayal of Teenagers on Television

As a person interested in Young Adult fiction, I've always been happy to see the crossover from book to television series. The Gossip Girl books were the first series I read which eventually became a television program. For me it was an easy switch to go from book to television series simply because I wanted to see the characters I read about suddenly come to life on screen. As with most cases, the plot of the television show starts to diverge from the plot of the book, but the general premise remained the same -Gossip Girl was a show about the lives of rich teenagers in New York City. Below are some of the initial advertisements used to engage young people with Gossip Girl.

These advertisements were used to draw people into the show who hadn't necessarily read the books. For more perspectives on the advertisements, check out these blog posts here and here. The images are provocative and sexual but it's arguably the text that makes the show more appealing. Phrases like “mindblowingly inappropriate” and “every parents worst nightmare” are sure to get the attention of young people because it is mysterious and slightly rebellious. The world of Gossip Girl is decadent and exciting for your average teenager, the characters drink at cool bars, have the latest fashions, and do a good job of looking constantly beautiful. Are these the types of role models that young people should be looking up to?

When I was in high school, The OC was the show that everyone watched. It was about a bunch of teenagers living the good life in a part of California called Orange County. I watched the show because it was cool and because the girls wore pretty clothes and the guys looked 'hot'. The actors employed to play these characters on the show were not sixteen, they were in their middle and late twenties. Why do television producers feel like it is necessary to cast such older actors to play teenagers? I guess there are legal and monetary reasons that the general public aren't privy to, but if the target demographic of the studio is teenagers, wouldn't it be more relatable to have 'real' looking kids on there?

This leads me to television shows like Homeland and Mad Men. These television programs have teenagers in their cast who look like REAL teenagers, not the prettied up models that seem to be on all the shows targeted at teens these days. Is this because the target audience of Homeland and Mad Men are more or less adults who don't care about whether or not the teenager is portrayed 'beautifully'?

As an avid television consumer I find it refreshing to see 'normal' teenagers playing teenagers on TV, I just find it difficult to comprehend why they need to be on shows aimed at adults. Why do the shows aimed at young people need to have good-looking, unattainable model-types, giving young people false ideas about what they should look like or how they should act? I'm frustrated but I will still (un)ashamedly watch the shows.

Images courtesy of CW.

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.