Learning card
Romance, Horror… or Creepy pasta? Understanding literary genres through Wattpad
This activity is aimed to carry out a reflection about genres in literature: from traditional books genres to the new ones, rising in the platforms of social reading and social writing as Wattpad.
- Book
- Fan Fiction
- Social Media
- Wattpad
- Writing
To recognize, discuss and evaluate literary genres in narrative.
To develop reading and comphrension practices
- Foreign Languages
- Language
- English
- Italian
- Spanish
Structure
- 10-13
- 14-16
- Computer or Interactive blackboard to view the Wattpad platform
- Mobile phones to allow students to browse stories and analyze content using Wattpad on their own devices
Process
- • What is a genre in literature? • Do I understand the differences and characteristic among literary genres? • Which are the literary genres most appreciated by me and my peers? • Which is the genre I’m most able to use in writing? Why? • What is a genre in literature? • Do I understand the differences and characteristic among literary genres? • Which are the literary genres most appreciated by me and my peers? • Which is the genre I’m most able to use in writing? Why? • What is a genre in literature? • Do I understand the differences and characteristic among literary genres? • Which are the literary genres most appreciated by me and my peers? • Which is the genre I’m most able to use in writing? Why?
Session 1: Teacher starts the work by asking to students if they read and write in Wattpad.
A map of the most popular stories is thus created, by adding also drawns, images and popular phrases.
As homework students are invited to browse the Session News in the app Wattpad and to map which are the present genres put as tags to describe the narratives. Students are invited to underline “uncommon” genres and to take at school an example of one of them.
Session 2: teacher collects all the examples of literary genres gathered by students in Wattpad.
Thus she/he invites each student to shortly describe to the classroom which are, in his/her opinion, the main characteristics of such genre.
Teacher can thus connects such reflection to a broader explication of the issue of literary genre, connecting traditional genres as romance, horror, thriller, fantasy and so on, to the new examples proposed by students (some new genres in Wattpad are the fan-chick, creepy pasta, and so on)
A comprehensive visual map of the narrative genres can be created and each month quotations from readings of the students, coming from traditional books as well as from Wattpad stories can be added to the map.
Teacher can evaluate the quality of the genres descriptions provided by students. They can also check if students are able to recognize different literary genres and describe their characteristics.
- BOLD, M. R (2016) The return of the social author. Negotiating authority and influence on Wattpad, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Sage: 22.3
- BLACK, R. W. (2008) Adolescents and Online Fan Fiction. New York: Peter Lang
- ELLIS, M. J. (2011) Peer feedback on writing: is online better than on paper? Journal of Academic Language and Learning, 5.1, pp. A88–A99.
- JENKINS, H. (2012) “Cultural acupuncture:” fan activism and the Harry Potter Alliance. Transformative Works and Culture, 10. Retrieved from: http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index. php/twc/article/view/305. doi: 10.3983/twc.2012.0305.
- JENKINS, H., PURUSHOTMA, R., CLINTON, K., WEIGEL, M. and ROBISON, A. (2007) Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Chicago, IL: The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved from http:// newmedialiteracies.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf
Gabriella Taddeo INDIRE (National Institute for Documentation Innovation and Research in Education), Italy
Simona Tirocchi, University of Turin, Italy
- Book
- Fan Fiction
- Social Media
- Wattpad
- Writing