This presentation builds upon work in media and fan studies to explore the use of fanfiction tasks as bridging activities for advanced language learners in a technology-enhanced university English as a foreign language class. Presented at TBLT 2017 in Barcelona, Spain.

1. Shannon Sauro
Malmö University, Sweden
FANFICTION TASKS IN THE ADVANCED LANGUAGE
CLASSROOM

2. Online Fandom
“the local and international networks of fans that develop around
a particular program, text or other media product” (Sauro, 2014,
p. 239)

3. CALL in the Digital Wilds
“informal language learning that
takes places in digital spaces,
communities, and networks that are
independent of formal instructional
contexts”
(Sauro & Zourou, 2017, p. 186)

4. Online Fan Practices &
Language Learning
• Anime and manga consumption
(Fukunaga, 2006)
• Fan site web design (Lam,
2006; 2000)
• Debating and moderating
(Curwood, 2013)
• Spoiling (Sauro, 2017)
• Scanlation (Valero-Porras &
Cassany, 2016; 2015)
• Fanfiction (Black, 2006;
Lepännen, et al, 2009)

5. Fanfiction
"writing that continues,
interrupts, reimagines, or just
riffs on stories and characters
other people have already
written about."
(Jamison, 2013 p. 17)

6. Bridging Activities
Pedagogical activities that
incorporate student-
selected texts and provide
“vivid, context-situated, and
temporarily immediate
interaction with ‘living’
language use” (Thorne &
Reinhard, 2008, p. 562).

7. The Course
• Teaching English literature course in a Swedish University
secondary school English teacher education program
• Emphasis on bridging literary competence and language
development
• B2-C1 level
• Cohort 2013 (n=55), 12 stories
• Cohort 2014 (n= 80), 19 stories
• Cohort 2015 (n=68), 16 stories

8. The Blogging Hobbit
Blog-Based Collaborative Role-play

9. Task modeled on Harry
Potter role-play community,
Darkness Rising, on
LiveJournal.
• Communal Blog
• Individual players/writers
participated using blogs made
for their character
• Stories begin with a prompt or
background in a post.
• The story evolves in nested
comments
(Sauro, 2014)

10. A collaborative story of a missing moment from Tolkien’s
The Hobbit:
Task 1: Story outline and map
Task 2: Collaborative roleplay fanfiction - each group member to
write from the perspective of one character from The Hobbit
Task 3: Reflective paper
Detailed instructions available as a PDF here.

11. “this writing activity has
influenced my language
skills…. During this project I
have been able to expand
my repertoar [sic] of
English words which are
not so commonly used in
everyday English anymore.”
(Student 14)
(Sauro & Sundmark, 2016, p. 420)

12. “[a]fter a short while,
the writing became
very fluent and I did
not have to think too
hard before writing”
(Student 40)
(Sauro & Sundmark, 2016, p. 421)

13. It is lying still, yet it spins around
It tries to move but its body is bound
All because of the precious it stole
Fool us again and they eats it whole.
(from The Mirkwood Mysteries)

14. Learner Fanfiction (172,911)
• N=31 stories produced by
Cohorts 2013 & 2014
• 2000-16000 words each
• Rated Teen
• Gen
• Canon compliant
Ao3 Fanfiction (92,760)
• N=18 stories posted Dec 1
2013 – Jan 31, 2015
• 2000-16000 words each
• Rated Teen
• Gen (no het or slash)
• Not alternate universe or
other sub-genres

15. Top 10 Content
Lexemes in Classroom
Fanfiction
Top 10 Content Lexemes
in Online Fanfiction
Thorin
Bilbo
Gandalf
Dwarves
Say
Kili
Time
Fili
Think
Bombur
Thorin
Kili
Bilbo
Say
Thranduil
Eyes
Time
Head
Fili
Brother

16. Keywords
Third Person Plural Pronouns: we, our, us
Character Names: Gandalf, Beorn, Balin, Elrond,
Gollum, Dori, Bombur, Bilbo
Species: dwarves, goblins, wizard, elves

17. Negative Keywords
Third person singular pronouns: she, her, his, him
Kinship terms: son, sister, mother, brother, uncle
Character names: Thranduil, Legolas, Tauriel, Bifur
Contracted forms: d, s, re, t

18. “…fanfics that get really popular, they
kind of answer to some kind of
fantasy that people have about the
characters. Or something they really
want to explore or they create an
alternate universe … We didn’t have
anything like that, really. I mean, I
think ours was very, kind of, very
much like the book it a way, so
maybe it wasn’t as exciting as some
other fanfiction because it wasn’t
innovating in that way…”
B, Dream Team Interview
(Cohort 2014)

19. A Study in Sherlock
CollaborativeCasefic

20. A Study in Sherlock
Collaborative mystery writing
1. Retell a Sherlock Holmes mystery or tell an
original mystery but in an alternate
universe.
2. Tell an original Sherlock Holmes mystery in
the original context (Victorian London).
3. Instructions available in PDF here

21. Swapping & Bending
Fusion &
Alternate Universe

22. The Fanfiction (Cohort 2015)
• 16 completed casefics (avg. 5726 words)
– 10 published to private blogs
– 6 published to the fanfiction archives Ao3 and
Fanfiction.net

23. “First off, I am highly Americanized in
my English use, and I blame
Hollywood. It has been a welcomed
challenge to write in British. My
biggest inspiration has once again
been the BBC show.…I truly enjoyed
using the word ‘foggiest’ in a text,
and it is now a part of my vocabulary.
My American is being invaded, ‘the
British are coming!’”
(Student 54, Cohort 2015)

25. “…my interest in Doyle and the
Sherlock Holmes world is still at
an intermediate level…. On the
other hand, my knowledge of
the Scooby Doo universe is far
greater and I could enter that
verse much easier than the
universe of Sherlock Holmes. As
a child I loved the characters of
the Mystery Gang and therefore
I really enjoyed this task.”
(Student 18, Cohort 2015)

26. Reception in Fandom
• A Study in the Electric Field – no data
• The Morbid Poet – 71 hits, 2 kudos
• The Second Generation Detective – 98 hits, 6 kudos
• The Adventure of the Ghost of Torchwood Manor – 88 hits, 2 kudos
• A Murder in Ink – 90 hits, 2 kudos
• A Soon to be Royal Scandal – 209 hits, 3 kudos, 2 bookmarks

27. Acknowledgements
Sherlock Graphics
Fox Estacado of The Art of Fox Estacado: Fine Fan Art and Geekery
(artbyfox.storenvy.com). All rights reserved and used in this presentation with
permission.
@shansauro | ssauro.info| shannon.sauro@mah.se | slideshare.net/Shansauro/