Closing Thoughts The online adolescent fan culture found in affinity spaces is passionate about reading for pleasure, so much so that they are willing to spend hours of their own time outside of school analyzing the books they love—often dystopian, horror, or fantasy titles— as well as creating their own novel responses to those titles that most captivate them. (Wilhelm and Smith, 2013, 2016; Curwood, 2013). What might this mean for teaching? Knobel and Lankshear (2014) suggest three takeaways for teachers: • Explore firsthand how your students create and remix content using various multimodal mediums. Most importantly, perhaps, understand their collaborative learning process and the continual learning-mentoring-assessment loop that they use to help each other shape and refine their fan-created literary content. • Understand the fluid, problem-solving, multidimensional nature of the new literacies. Use the language of the new literacies in the classroom to give all students a shot at acquiring it. • Draw upon the assessment prevalent in new literacy spaces—the continual cycles of feedback always in the service of learning. It’s this assessment, available at the moment of need, that fosters deep learning. As Curwood (2013) writes, “For teachers, young adult literature such as The Hunger Games trilogy offers a powerful way to capitalize on their students’ interest, integrate technology into the curriculum, and promote critical engagement with literature.”
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CHAPTER 3: EQUITY
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