Thursday, January 31, 2008
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Read in Mirror!
The professor's blog for English 4304, the Writing and Culture Capstone Course for English Majors, Spring 2008. The topic for this capstone course is "Rhetoric(s) of Information, Reading, and Writing in a Digital World."
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5 comments:
Ch. 5 Harry Potter (169-191)
Main Concept: "Fanfic" and the Potter Wars
Minor Concepts: literacy, ticket-to-play, affinity spaces, scaffolding
The Potter Wars began when students realized they actually enjoyed literature again. Teachers, publishers, librarians, civil liberty groups, Warner Brothers, students, religious figures, and parents fought over whether Harry Potter should be discussed online through various outlets or even on the shelves at all. Harry Potter, a series of novels about a boy that takes a stand, is supported by brave friends, and never gives up, allows for readers to escape their everyday lives and live through Mr. Potter. Fans thus turned to online outlets to continue their alternative lives join a community with others like themselves. Jenkins lists several websites that epitomize the Harry Potter fanfic culture. Heather Lawver created www.dprophet.com with the hopes of opening up a forum for fans like herself to have a way to continue the Harry Potter fantasy. The Daily Prophet newspapers circulate in the novels; online it is the same paper but the articles are written by fans – not Rowling. Fans can join book clubs, learn the History of British culture, upload podcasts, and get a break down of each chapter of each novel on www.sugarquill.net. Posting stories and art is the main focus of www.fictionalley.org. All the sites offer advice and collaboration for fanfic works and thus turn into something that is not threatening. Jenkins discusses literacy as a key component to success and he broadens the definition to include the consumption and expression of media. Harry Potter leads to literacy because it encourages young adults to critically analyze the texts and form a love for reading at considerably younger ages than average. Jenkins also sites Dyson’s idea of a ticket-to-play which states that fantasy gives kids a ticket to be part of something somewhere where they would not be allowed usually. James Paul Gee coined the term affinity spaces for places where people collaborate on popular culture and learn more than would occur in the classroom. He claims this occurs because the fans can move at their own pace and learn from their peers better than their superiors. Sweeny discusses Scaffolding as a means for building knowledge in a step by step manner. Because the Harry Potter stories and characters are already developed, fans can focus on taking plotlines a step further or advancing their already built up knowledge. Jenkins states that this process makes it easier for fans to engage and express their thoughts at a deeper level. These fanfic sources allow young adults to be heard, have support systems, move at their own pace, and enjoy the art of writing. Harry Potter has induced a resurgence of the literary culture that was left in the dark due to the average 4.2 TV sets in households. So why would critics be against this movement? Rowling claims that her fans are the "life blood" of her success; thus she does not mind the fanfic websites. Once Warner Brothers bought her rights to the movies they became more wary of the fanfic culture; they claim that the fans infringe on their intellectual property and began to shut the websites down. In return the fans banded together and stood up for their rights to express their creativity. Is fanfic overreaching or is it the best motivator for student involvement that incorporates media literacy?
Chapter 5: Muggles for Harry Potter (pp. 192- 198)
Primary Concepts: transmedia storytelling, free expression
Secondary concepts: book banning/burning, Christian fundamentalism and the occult, globalization
The Harry Potter Wars weren’t (and aren’t) limited to struggles between Warner Brothers and fan fiction. According to Jenkins, “The Harry Potter books have been at the center of more textbook and library controversy over the past several years than any other book” (192). Many of the attacks on the Harry Potter series come from conservative Christians who are concerned that the themes of witchcraft and magic will open children up to the occult. For such critics, the books themselves are not the only issue; participation in trans-media storytelling – from role-playing to video gaming – brings children to experience Harry Potter in a more dangerous way. They may even begin to seek more sources of information about magic outside of the books, to better fill out the imaginary world as they see it. To many fundamentalists, this curiosity leads directly to the occult.
With the spread of globalization, our culture has become increasingly secular in order to satisfy a wider range of consumers. Christian fundamentalists seem particularly threatened by this, as well as by other pagan ideas entering our culture and the classroom, such as “the worship of the earth transformed into ecology” while Christian ideas are banned from the classroom by the separation of church and state (195). They fight back by crying out against the use of Harry Potter in the classroom, and staging the occasional book burning. However, this often has the effect of making people promote the novels and their own freedom of expression even more passionately than before, as in the case of kid-SPEAK! (www.kidspeakonline.org), a forum where children discuss free speech and censorship issues.
I don’t think this isn’t really all about Harry Potter. The underlying question is a reasonable one: Who is controlling the education of America’s children? Who has a say in what they are learning? How much control should parents have in the classroom, as opposed to the educators?
You can check out my blog for some more links to online resources about this topic.
Chapter 5- focus on current websites
Digital literacy: take the definitions defined on literacy and apply them to online databases/websites in general.
Digital literacy seems to be a common problem among certain generations. It seems to me that older generations are not as "technologically advanced" as younger generations and digital literacy primarily affects the older generations. Think about it...when refrencing to school websites in order to choose your college/ grad school/ you do most of the searching. Most parents call the admissions office or are adamant about attending open houses to gain paper information. I think there is a huge gap with the technological advances, and this does not affect us or in the future our offspring, but it affects our mentors/teachers/ parents. Because we have come so far with techology, it is difficult for those of previous generations to fully comprehend the changes.
As we grow more diverse in media, digital databases, etc. I wonder...will possibly one day we be at the same disadvantages as our elders?
Good coverage of the reading for today. I'll be interested to see how you present ideas in class and what others have to say. On the last point Mandy made, do you think that your technology skills will someday become obsolete because you can't keep up with the rate of change? Will this make you less literate? There are days when I think that whole worlds (LOTS of fan cultures, for example) have passed me by because I still choose to read books and talk to colleagues and friends f-2-f, which diminishes the time I can spend in front of a screen. I think I've done a decent job of keeping up with computer technology (from a 64k Xerox 820 in 1982) to today (2 macs and a PC, plus an interactive phone). I'm surely not as digitally literate as some of you, but I am literate. Perhaps the lesson here is conscious choice, when we can know what we are missing or trading off. I am grateful that I work in an environment where I can constantly try to figure out what my choices are. -Dr. L
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