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Module 5
Twitter Fiction
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Activities/Assignments
● Add a comment to Module 5’s
blog post in which you respond to Carla Raguseo’s statement: “Twitter fiction
can provide learners with a rich language experience in easily digestible
fragments. It challenges them both as readers and as writers to attempt and
explore multiple meanings and to develop academic skills such as synthesizing
and paraphrasing while fostering structural and semantic awareness in playful
experimentation.”
● Live tweet @JessL THREE initial reactions and responses
as you make your way through ONE
of the three Twitterature readings
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Saturday, 31 May 2014
Module 5: Twitter Fiction
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While I'm not sold on the idea fo twitter fiction I find Carla Raguseo's statement to have merit. I recently had a conversation with my teenaged daughter about her young english teacher using twitter in the class curriculum. My daughter tried and failed to explain how it had benefited her. I did however notice that she had an increased interest in english class and made some rather articulate oberservations about The Great Gatsby and real life. This article has allowed me to see what my daughter's teacher was doing. He made the class relevant and challenged the class to truly understand literature a little at a time and on different levels. I love that you can take a great piece of work and manipulate it in a fun way to encourage language learning. As well they had to use critical thinking skills to accomplish this. Definitely exercises the brain in a different way
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteIn reading Carla Raguseo’s statement “Twitter fiction can provide learners with a rich language experience in easily digestible fragments. It challenges them both as readers and as writers to attempt and explore multiple meanings and to develop academic skills such as synthesizing and paraphrasing while fostering structural and semantic awareness in playful experimentation” I am intrigued by the idea of Twitter hosting more than simple conversation. As an interactive and open publishing platform, Twitter allows anyone access to a myriad of topics, users, news, ideas, and events that are ongoing and updating every moment. Carla discussed the user of this space being a “prosumer” or a producer as well as a consumer of knowledge and information. This constant need and drive for new knowledge, new events, new news stories has created a very different world of fast paced regurgitation of knowledge. It is hard to see where and when creativity can mingle within the ever-changing news streams. In many ways, I still question the use of Twitter for more than news hits, daily content posts, and simple article “retweets”.
But on the contrary, I have noticed a direct shift on the way news is produced, events are broadcasted, and how advertising had reached new heights. Our headlines in media, not just Twitter, have to be short, and demand attention in a sea of waving hands.
Though Carla states that as Twitter users, we must develop a deep “syntactic and lexical awareness to construct meaning”, I question the number of Twitter users who have done the same. Twitter users often must abbreviate, throw sentence structure to the wind and make a headline in 140 characters or less. Granted I do agree that Twitter can be a space for “playful experimentation.” In reading many profiles of literary greats (Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe) I see the ability to create unique “fictional” characters via Twitter and create comic or unique commentary on daily events. This is a unique characteristic that allows for creative writing and educational learning. (The Talus Balls in Edmonton for example seem to constantly Tweet about their location and what they can or cannot see)
I guess this pessimistic response would love to believe that Twitter could and will hold out more hope for a place of deep and meaningful literary work. In the meantime, I think it is an amazing networking site that offers a whole host of potential for creativity, but will we get it there without cluttering it with advertising?
In Carla Raguseo's 'Twitter Fiction: Social Networking and Microfiction in 140 Characters' I was introduced, for the first time, to the world of Twitter Storytelling. Something I would not have thought plausible began to unfold in my mind as I grasped the concept that entire volumes of classic literature could be broken down into segments and paraphrased to be made digestible for the masses. Back stories could created and characters explored who were not fully flushed out or understood in the original novel - Fans and authors alike can use this medium to launch stories into new directions and even, to prelude the launching of a new book or series.
ReplyDeleteTwittories are as good as a 'taste' of ice-cream - done well, they could leave you wanting for more and imagining what the next taste will be. If however, the principles of proper syntax, writing rules and phrasing are not followed, the medium via the author can fail miserably.
What Raguseo does not discuss of this medium is that, in order to follow the plot, you would need to know the 'Time Stamp' of when the thread started, else be completely lost in the sequence of the story. For the reader, there is an adaptation period, trying to grasp the rules of this new mode of storytelling and perhaps, with the obvious anticipation, the frustration of the story not unfolding at a rate they find acceptable or desirable. Finally, with the interactivity of this medium, does the author yield to the demands of the reader and as a result, does the story suffer? This is a concept I imagine Raguseo has taken into consideration, despite her regard for the 'Twittory'. While I see the enriching and delight of watching events unfold, the story process may be problematic from a sustainability point of view.
With that said, I enjoy the concept that has evolved in regard to the crafting 'fan-fiction' and profiles favorite fictional characters and stories. This concept extends the concept of blogging and Facebook discussions online, allowing resolution of dissatisfaction from the 'official story', while satiating fan desires for back stories and character exploration. Further, as proven by Twitter user creations in the past (Hashtags, Retweet) it allows the authors a look into what the fans see and how invested they are in the story.
I am intrigued by this avenue of thought as presented by Carla Raguseo and look forward to following it more closely.
Raguseo’s research and application of Twitter as a tool for developing language and literacy skills can only enhance and contribute to a variety of dynamic Language Arts curriculums. It enables a nurturing and guided framework through which to use the tool, fosters best practices and appropriate use, and instills a positive language acquisition environment.
ReplyDeleteThe twittering classroom, à la Carla Raguseo, offers students the opportunity to work collaboratively in an ongoing interactive narrative.
In Raguseo, Carla. (2010). “Twitter Fiction: Social Networking and Microfiction in 140 Characters,” The Electronic Journal for English as a Second Language, she refers to “a rich language experience in easily digestible fragments” where students of Twitter fiction construct narrative in small pieces. Creating content via this platform enables students to understand and reflect upon careful word choice that contribute logically and holistically to the development of plot, character, setting and other parts of narration.
“Playful experimentation” of Twitter fiction permits students to explore in a non-judgmental arena while working out the minutia. “That doesn’t sound right…that doesn’t work…what about…” encourages them to find solutions ranging from linguistic to plot direction. It also fosters growth, develops writing confidence and literacy skills.
With the creation and development of plot, setting and individual fictitious characters—@fictitiouscharacter—students are required to synthesize a multitude of sources into a cohesive direction. This process fosters not only language skills, but also structure and “semantic awareness”.
What a fantastic medium through which to develop a plethora of meaningful Language Arts skills—whether native or as a second language. Quelle chance oh fortunate students!
It seems students today are even more challenged to write in a coherent, organized and grammatically correct manner. Good writing requires practice and exposure to good literature. But students are from a generation that grazes for snippets of ideas on line and trades cryptic text messages with friends. Why read a book, when you can wait for the movie to come out?
ReplyDeleteBut ironically, as Carla Raguseo point out, “Twitter fiction can provide learners with a rich language experience in easily digestible fragments. It challenges them both as readers and as writers to attempt and explore multiple meanings and to develop academic skills.”
Writing an engaging 140 character story with an introduction, body and conclusion requires rigour and insight that can be transferred to longer works. For example, "Where are you going?" asked the wolf with sharp teeth. "No where you need know about," said the girl with a big knife beneath her red cape.
Rather than producing meandering works like James Joyce, Twitter fiction can help shape a generation of Ernest Hemingway-esque young writers who capture the essence of a matter in tight and compelling way. The best Twitter authors follow Hemingway's advice to "write the truest sentence that you know," in the fewest words possible.
Art forms develop and change with the popularity of a medium. Short and pithy is the new black.
Twitter fiction is the natural progression of the evolution of storytelling. Writers have always used new mediums to spark their creativity and challenge the borders of their abilities. This in turn challenges readers to find new ways of thinking and understanding. I agree with Raguseo that this medium provides an excellent learning experience for both writer and reader.
ReplyDeleteI am leery however, of twitter re-writes of existing texts. I can see the benefit of engaging a digital audience with works they might otherwise not have experienced and I am intrigued by the idea of distilling these works down to their essential meaning as interpreted by the writer who is doing the re-write. The idea of which meaning different "translators" would bring to the re-write is pretty interesting. However, by turning these works into bite-sized tweets, you are losing the voice of the author which I think is a huge loss.
By shortening a work down to it's twitter highlights, you lose the detail of the story, the nuance of the language and the context in which the story was written. These things may not be entirely necessary to glean the meaning of the text but they are the richness that makes the story worth reading.
For the current storyteller using twitter, it is their challenge to make their voice evident within the limits of the medium they have chosen. For the writers of the past who's works are being re-written for twitter, their voice is being unfairly lost. Twitter is not truly engaging the audience with these texts unless it is inspiring them to read the original.