The Blogging Hobbit

Abstract

Curatorial note from Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities: Sauro and Sundmark incorporated the practice of online fandom into the classroom to help learners enhance their understanding of literary texts through the development of critical literary analyses and blog-based collaborative writing (“Report”). For this project, learners were divided into groups and focused on underdeveloped moments from The Hobbit. By compiling visual materials to support their plots, learners (re)produced a fictional space in which the story was set, allowing the writer-reader to associate the event with a specific time and place. Whether working on a blog, a fan-fiction Web site such as Archive of Our Own, or using another social media tool, the learners, who each assumed the role of one of the characters, used their characters’ voices to collaboratively construct their stories (ultimately uploaded to the class Web site). Requiring learners to employ visual and textual modes along with collaborative writing using social media enhances their multiliteracy competencies.