Wattpad is a cultural artefact representing and changing current youth culture. This book is a self-reflexive attempt to unpack the social and cultural influence this artefact has on adolescents. In this study attempts will be made to describe some...
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The two screen shots above are analysis produced by Wattpad on its potential as a teaching tool. Unintentionally, Wattpad poses English and literacy teachers and a challenge. When we as teachers complain no one reads anymore, Wattpad proves us wrong. With this technology, teenagers are sneaking their mobile devices into school, not just to watch videos, but to read and write. Candice Faktor, General Manager of Wattpad disagrees with teachers who say their students are "self-obsessed youth addicted to their phones". Instead she argues that those phones are the very reason, "this is going to be the most literate generation, because they are used to writing, and they're used to creating." And Allan Lau, the founder agrees, "We just have to make sure reading and writing can adapt to the current culture." With attention spans becoming shorter, and a growing desire to follow stories as they unfold, Wattpad makes long content bite-size, which is more digestible in today's culture.
Educational researchers have found this difference between low engagement of in-school reading and writing tasks and the high engagement levels on Wattpad interesting. This difference has been explored in a Turkish study conducted on middle school children. Other studies revolve around whether the use of Wattpad for leisure negatively affects academic scores (Bal, 2018). Indonesian Students at Bina Darma university were found to have improved literacy skills after using Wattpad (Dewi, 2016). Another such study was done on College of Arts and Sciences students in Caraga State University. It was found that students who read on Wattpad once a week for an hour and student who read everyday for more than an hour were still able to maintain their academic scores (Jaguit, 2015). Korobkova (2014) on her study of One Direction fan fiction writers discovered their literacy improved and positively affected their academic work.
This begs the question: If Wattpad presents such an engaging reading and writing space for high school students can teachers use this platform to enhance our teaching?
Most teachers try to use the fan fiction material on Wattpad as way of teaching language and writing skills. Google it and sites like "Fan fiction for Literary" provide full lessons plans online for teacher use. Teachers teach students how to select suitable mentor texts and then let them post these online for feedback for a more authentic experience. Others may make the in-class exercises feel different from the fan fiction writing experience by making students write their own names or giving grades instead of allowing for reader feedback.
