THE GAMIFIED WRITING OF FANFICTIONS WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES IN AN ENGLISH CLUB

ABSTRACT

This study aims to understand relationships between school literacy practices and the gamified writing of fanfictions with the support of Digital Technologies (DT). The fanfictions are fictional stories written by fans based on an original product. They have become popular with the spread of the internet, especially among school-age teens. The justification for the development of reading and writing practices with the genre fanfiction, in this study, is based on a socio-cultural perspective of the literacy studies, in which the focus on learning a genre is not just in the assimilation of its structure, but in the ways in which the learning of a genre affords knowledge in particular ways. Mediations surrounding fanfictions took place in the context of an English Club with five subjects. The data come from statements of these subjects on the Classcraft gamification platform, from the fanfiction written during the Club classes and from a focus group performed with these subjects. In order to proceed with the analyzes, we constructed a timeline showing the relationship of the subjects with the fanfictions before the activities developed in the Club, the approximations, interactions and positioning during their writing trajectory and their perceptions about how the activities involving the genre from the use of different methodological approaches, after the writing practice of fanfiction. The results point mainly to the insertion of these subjects, as insiders, in different literacy practices involving the reading and writing of the genre fanfiction, mediated by the uses of DT. Furthermore, there are indications that the gamification allowed the subjects to evidence singular ways of positioning themselves in relation to reading, writing and different ways of being, acting and creating meanings in the school context.

Keywords:
fanfiction; literacy practices; gamification