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...
Pedagogically, the structure of lesson plans found online and suggested by educational researchers can be conceptually reshaped to bring students into an experience of redemptive hope. Using a study done by Coelho, Costa & Santos (2019) in São Paulo on using Wattpad as a publishing site to teach English, I will try to unpack how this could be done. In this teaching unit, students were learning to write adventure novels by first reading some Wattpad adventure stories. Here are excerpts from their study that are relevant to my task:
First, the students read some excerpts from texts published by various users of this application. Then the teacher and the researchers read out loud some texts taken from Wattpad. Then the students, the teacher, and the researchers made comments on the texts read in the classroom, using Wattpad resources (using the annotation function).
Before students were given a month to write their own novels, they were given the following instructions:
Firstly, the texts should have more than ten and less than thirty lines, with more than three paragraphs, presenting at least two characters in two different settings, and one to three dialogues between the said characters. Then the students were expected to comment on the texts of three different classmates. The teacher would only evaluate the text that was published on Wattpad. The writer had to respond to the teacher's comments and the comments of the readers. Students were expected to explore, write, and give feedback on the Wattpad as an aid to their writing.
The results were as followed.
Although the participation was significant, the teacher responsible for the class emphasized that, according to his perception, the chapters produced in this activity did not have the same quality of previous textual productions written outside the virtual environment. We highlight that the researchers did not have access to such previous texts. However, we consider the teacher's report important as prior information of the students' writing process."
The second sequence: Editing the drafts
Three groups of six students and one of four students were organised bringing a total of four groups and they were set chapters to comment on or edit. Thus, each chapter would receive at least twelve comments, three from each group. However, the students' participation was far beyond what was expected. Each group received on average about sixty comments on each of the chapters. The most commented chapter received a total of 145 interventions and the least commented received 28.
Posting and commenting was guided by the teachers and rules of mutual respect and technical quality were emphasized. For example, students could not use low-slang words or offend their peers, and comments should highlight the positive and negative aspects of the chapter's aesthetics, focusing primarily on the criteria of evaluation of the three competences: from (a) presence or absence of accentuation to (i) use of figures of language (metaphor, metonymy, gradation, hyperbole, irony, among others).
Redraft
Therefore, with each comment, each group as a whole and its members in particular became aware of the mistakes they made in the writing process. The students edited their texts with special attention given to punctuation and paragraphing.
In the third didactic sequence, the groups had to improve their literary work and post it again for the appreciation of the whole class, as well as for the final evaluation of the teacher and researchers. The groups took 45 days to finish their novels.
In addition, each group had to briefly present the plot of their textual production to the class, discuss the difficulties they overcame and how the comments of their classmates had helped them construct the text. The oral presentation was carried out in four hours and each group had at least twenty minutes for oral presentation and ten minutes for discussion with classmates, the teacher and researchers.
The researchers found that the second sequence planned the interaction between groups in the form of a social network using Wattpad's digital social network. The third sequence prompted students to bring their work from the digital universe into the classroom. Their oral presentations and reflections allowed for in-class discussions and feedback. Thus, the two sequentially performed didactic sequences complemented each other: from the digital universe to the classroom, and vice versa.
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It would be interesting to try out the same sequence in New Zealand to see its effectiveness in the classroom not only in terms of literacy or novel writing but also in four areas of "The Circle of Courage" ( https://starr.org/circle-of-courage/). Firstly, the class shares the same aim of mastering the skill of writing adventure stories. This activity builds a sense of belonging within the physical classroom with the teacher offline. Online, it connects this class of students to other young people around the world who write and enjoy adventure stories. Both online and offline it encourages participation and practice of different cognitive and social tasks while student receive instant recognition for the content made. Students help each other without expecting anything in return showing generosity. Furthermore, Wattpad allows young users to become more and more independent with the goal that eventually they will engage with content without needing instructions from parents or teachers. The more they feel secure enough about their writing abilities, the more confidence they will have to help and teach others both online and offline. These qualities of mastery, belonging, generosity and independence empower students giving them hope for the future.
Van Brummelen (2009) says this hope is crucial to our work as teachers. Particularly, in this time of Covid 19, where many school remain online, Wattpad could play an even more important role not just in language teaching but in imparting a hope in Christ that counters loneliness and fear, and increases motivation.
References
Coelho, Costa & Santos. (2019). Education, technology and creative industry: A case study of Wattpad. Scielo. https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0100-15742019000300156&script=sci_arttext
