Response to February 17 readings

Let’s give it up to anime and Manga as they have completely taken over both teenagers and adults alike! When we had our first class, I heard Dr. D use the term “Manga” and I was immediately lost in space. Most of my classmates seemed to know what the term meant but I was clueless. But since this was a new class I was hoping to learn more about it as our classes progressed. And so I did. With the help of my T.V remote and my fourteen year old son, I scrolled the On Demand Menu and found ‘Anime’ under ‘Cutting Edge’. Interestingly, I’d seen this before but never ventured to find out what it meant. Sadly, I couldn’t learn too much about it because the clip kept breaking up. I gave up.

From the reading, Rhiannon and Eileen diverted from what we as teachers might define as the ‘norm’ and creatively reconstructed complex storylines which they, according to the writer, would not otherwise feel free to share with their teachers because they felt that they would be ostracized as ‘weirdoes’.
I honestly think Fanfiction involves higher level thinking skills- skills which we continually struggle to inculcate in our students’ everyday. Anime or Manga-this is an excellent way to introduce a genre that students love to watch and integrate it into their own writing. If our students are so plugged into the media in all its forms ,why are we as teachers still unplugged?.

One of the main issues the author referenced is that according to the multiliteracies framework, Fanfiction is now a genre worth paying attention to. It meets all the criteria that the proponents of Multiliteracies framework established. One such criterion is that fan writing involves the use of ‘available designs to create redesigned texts’. Anime, for instance is the available media text from which fans can creatively generate their own pieces of writing.

Furthermore, students love to watch cartoon shows. Children have developed a fan base of characters in the games or cartoons. They know the storylines in those shows so well so why not utilize the characters to develop other story lines? Video games are bombarding most households. Teenagers are spending the bulk of their time on the Internet, where they have become to large extent creators of the content on the net.

As educators, we need to rethink ways to tap in to this resource as a teaching and learning
tool. Rhia and Eileen define fanfiction as just fun, creative, a stress reliever and a form
of social networking. My major concern is that faced with a rigid curriculum which we
must abide by and even more so with the stringent measures outlined by the NCLB laws
and the burden of accountability left solely on the teachers to provide satisfactory results
to meet the AYP, how will the teacher track this ‘unsanctioned’ mode of writing?

Since teachers are continually seeking to provide data-driven instruction, then using
anime- inspired stories diagnostically at he beginning of the school year to jumpstart the
Writers’ Workshop is definitely a refreshing approach. In a nutshell, fan writing is a
genre worth considering in literacy education.