Archive for October 10, 2011

Tonight we were talking about fandom in the English classroom. You can read the guest post from our host Peter Gutierrez (@Peter_Gutierrez) with his thoughts on the subject from before the chat here.

The conversation touched on the idea of pop culture - which we generally consider to have the biggest fan bases among teens - and how our fan activities actually connect to what we want our students to be able to do. Read. Analyze. Write. Connect with others. Participate in a larger dialogue. It can't be a "spoonful of sugar" approach - we shouldn't just be using flash to get kids to find the classics (or in CCS terminology "challenging works") to go down easier. We need to see this as a valuable connection to the activities we engage in and the "work" we do when we are impassioned about a subject. And talk about how they connect to the work we do in any subject - not just those that they are most impassioned about.

Which leads to the thought that we as educators need to wave our fan flags a little more often. Share what we geek out over, what we know a lot about - whether it's our subject matter or not. We stand to make vital connections with our students in doing this.

The entire chat can be viewed here.