A common challenge facing language teachers is the development of classroom activities and tasks that encourage sustained engagement in and with the target language (Sauro & Thorne, 2021). One promising source of inspiration comes from autonomous language learners in the digital wilds, communities, networks and digital spaces that are unassociated with schools and universities where autonomous language learning occurs (Sauro & Zourou, 2019). Among these wild spaces are online fan communities, where fans of books, movies, bands, performers, television shows and other media engage in a wide range of fan practices (Sauro, 2017). One of the best known of these fan practices and one which lends itself well to the language and literacy classroom is fanfiction, a type of creative writing that transforms and builds upon exiting stories, characters, and universes (Jamison, 2013).

 

Research on fans writing fanfiction in the digital wilds has inspired language teachers and researchers to explore ways of bringing this digitally mediated practice into their own classrooms at the university (Sauro & Sundmark, 2016) and secondary level (Cornille et al., 2021) and as outside of class activities to foster second language writing fluency and agency (Naderpour, 2022). Developing fanfiction writing tasks and activities that foster the right balance of play, engagement, and learning is not without its challenges, however.

 

Accordingly, in this talk, I explore key lessons I have learned over the past decade when working with language teachers about how best to bring fanfiction tasks into classroom contexts. This includes how to make space for student innovation and interest, ways of adapting fanfiction tasks for different language levels, and creating opportunities and explicit guidance for AI use in a way that supports student language and literary learning.