This reflective practice presentation builds on prior work that has looked at the use of fandom tasks (Sauro, 2014) for language learning. Such tasks include those that focus on fanfiction, defined by Jamison (2013) as "writing that continues, interrupts, reimagines, or just riffs on stories and characters other people have already written about" (p. 17). Initial investigation of fanfiction in the advanced English classroom has shown that collaborative fanfiction tasks that makes use of blog-based role-play to tell a missing moment from a story can be useful in bridging both language and literary learning (Sauro & Sundmark, in press 2016). However, although such tasks borrow from digital and linguistic practices found in online fan communities, the resulting stories do not fully reflect the linguistic or literary norms of the fanfiction in the digital wilds. This was a concern for language learners whose interest in publishing their online fanfiction was to communicate with online fans and fan communities. The means of addressing this may lie in better integrating fan practices and fan voices in the tasks themselves and in actual classroom practice. This presentation, therefore, explores the revision and implementation of collaborative fanfiction tasks and instructions that do just that. Building on previous blog-based fanfiction projects, the current project, A Study in Sherlock, was carried out as part of a course for students in the teacher education program at a Swedish university who were specializing in teaching English at the secondary school level. Students self-organized into small groups of 4-6 to write and publish online a collaborative mystery inspired by a Sherlock Holmes story. As part of their preparation, students were guided in the reading of several Sherlock Holmes mysteries, but were also required to read Sherlock Holmes fanfiction that had been identified by online fans as representative of the tropes and specific fan genres found in this type of fan writing. In addition, online several fanfiction writers were contacted to share writing activities they used when helping other novice fanfiction writers and these were incorporated into class instruction. Once completed, these stories were shared with online Sherlock Holmes fan communities. Analysis of the language, content, and formatting of the 16 completed online stories as well as the reaction of fans, in particular to the six stories that were published to online fanfiction archives, revealed advantages for integrating fan practices into task design and teaching to support greater mastery of fanfiction genres in a manner more likely to reach (fan) readers and thereby link the digital wilds with the language classroom.

1. Shannon Sauro
Malmö University
shannon.sauro@mah.se
A STUDY IN
SHERLOCK
BRIDGING THE DIGITAL WILDS
& THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

2. “…’fan’ is actually a much wider social category, referring to a mode
of participation with a long history in a variety of cultural activities,
including literature, sports, theater, film, and television.”
(Cavicci, 1998 p. 3)

3. “A fan is a person with a relatively deep positive emotional conviction
about someone or something famous, usually expressed through a
recognition of style or creativity.”
(Duffet, 2013, p. 18)

4. Online Fandom and Fan Practices
“the local and international networks of fans that develop around a
particular program, text or other media product and which foster the
sharing of responses to the source material, including the production
of novel fan-generated content.” (Sauro, 2014, p. 239)

5. Bridging Activities
Pedagogical activities designed to
address the needs of advanced
foreign language learners:
• Language & language awareness at
advanced levels
• Bridging the divide between language
& literature instruction
• Link the texts and genres of the
language classroom to digitally
mediated texts and genres
increasingly relevant to learners
outside the classroom.
(Thorne & Reinhard, 2008)

6. Fanfiction
"writing that continues,
interrupts, reimagines, or
just riffs on stories and
characters other people
have already written
about."
(Jamison, 2013 p. 17)

7. The Blogging Hobbit:
A task-based fanfiction project (Sauro, 2014) culminating in the
writing of a collaborative story of a missing moment from
Tolkien’s The Hobbit and published in a blog or online fanfiction
archive (Sauro & Sundmark, 2016).

8. Lingering Concerns
• Not as innovative as real
fanfiction
• Demotivating for nonfans and
others
• Ethics of using fan spaces for
education

9. “…fanfics that get really popular,
they kind of answer to some kind
of fantasy that people have about
the characters. Or something they
really want to explore or they
create an alternate universe … We
didn’t have anything like that,
really. I mean, I think ours was
very, kind of, very much like the
book it a way, so maybe it wasn’t
as exciting as some other
fanfiction because it wasn’t
innovating in that way…”
B, Dream Team Interview
(Sauro & Sundmark, under review)

10. “…I would choose another book. I
felt it unfair to work with The Hobbit
on such a project since a big part
was to connect with a character
from the book and write from that
perspective. To choose a book with
absolutely no women at all made
me not wanting to take neither
Tolkien nor this assignment to
heart.”
(Nonfan, Cohort 2014)

11. “But there are plenty of people
within fandom who believe
fanfiction has no place in the
classroom at all: to remove a work
from its ‘intended’ context and
divorce it from a largely unwritten
set of rules is a violation for many
fan writers.”
(Minkel, 2015, March 25)
Ficgate

12. A Study in Sherlock
Collaborative mystery writing
(casefic)
1. Retell a Sherlock Holmes mystery
or tell an original mystery but in an
alternate universe.
(Transformational
2. Tell an original Sherlock Holmes
mystery in the original context
(Victorian London).
(Affirmational)

13. Swapping & Bending

14. Fusion &
Alternate Universe

15. Assigned Example Fanfic
The Beleaguered Red-Head by
moonblossom
• Retelling of The Red-Headed League in
the BBC Sherlock Universe
The Adventure of the Bridegroom’s
Photograph by spacemutineer
• Original casefic based on a real life
mystery – ACD Holmes
The Vast Profundity Obscure by
mistyzeo
• Original casefic - ACD Holmes/His Dark
Materials fusion

16. Courses included two fanfiction
workshops created by fans to help
novice fanfiction writers:
1. Flashfiction workshop
(Emmagrant01)
2. The worst thing that could happen to
your fic (Roane72)

17. The Fanfiction
• 16 completed casefics (avg. 5726 words)
• 10 published to private blogs
• 6 published to the fanfiction archives Ao3 and Fanfiction.net

20. “Good afternoon, sir.
This is Bragevägen 21B,
the home of Sherlock
Holmes? Is he available?”
asked one of the officers
who introduced himself
as chief officer
Gregsson.
The von Sydow Murders

21. “First off, I am highly Americanized in
my English use, and I blame
Hollywood. It has been a welcomed
challenge to write in British. My
biggest inspiration has once again
been the BBC show.…I truly enjoyed
using the word ‘foggiest’ in a text,
and it is now a part of my vocabulary.
My American is being invaded, ‘the
British are coming!’”
(Student 54)

22. “…my interest in Doyle and the
Sherlock Holmes world is still at
an intermediate level…. On the
other hand, my knowledge of
the Scooby Doo universe is far
greater and I could enter that
verse much easier than the
universe of Sherlock Holmes. As
a child I loved the characters of
the Mystery Gang and therefore
I really enjoyed this task.”
(Student 18)

23. Reception in Fandom
• A Study in the Electric Field – no data
• The Morbid Poet – 71 hits, 2 kudos
• The Second Generation Detective – 98 hits, 6 kudos
• The Adventure of the Ghost of Torchwood Manor – 88 hits, 2 kudos
• A Murder in Ink – 90 hits, 2 kudos
• A Soon to be Royal Scandal – 209 hits, 3 kudos, 2 bookmarks

24. References
Cavicci, D. (1998). Tramps like us: Music and meaning among Springsteen fans. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Duffett, M. (2013). Understanding fandom: An introduction to the study of media fan culture. New York/London:
Bloomsbury.
Jamison, A. (2013). ‘Why Fic?’ in A. Jamison (ed.). Fic: Why fanfiction is taking over the world. Dallas, TX: Smart
Pop Books.
Minkel, E. (2015, March 25). From the Internet to the Ivy League: Fanfiction in the classroom. The Millions.
Retrieved from http://www.themillions.com/2015/03/from-the-internet-to-the-ivy-league-fanfiction-in-the-
classroom.html
Sauro, S. (2014). Lessons from the fandom: Task models for technology-enhanced language learning. In M.
González-Lloret & L. Ortega (Eds). Technology-mediated TBLT: Researching technology and tasks, (pp. 239-262).
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Sauro, S., & Sundmark, B. (2016.) Report from Middle Earth: Fan fiction tasks in the EFL classroom. ELT Journal.
doi: 10.1093/elt/ccv075
Sauro, S., & Sundmark, B. (under review.) Report from Middle Earth: Fan fiction tasks in the EFL classroom.
“One does not simply walk into Mordor”: Critically mining the digital wilds for language teaching.
Thorne, S.L., & Reinhard, J. (2008) "Bridging Activities," New media literacies and advanced foreign language
proficiency. CALICO Journal, 25(3), 558-572.
Slides Available At: http://www.slideshare.net/Shansauro