Sarah Jerasa and Sarah K. Burriss
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly important and influential in reading and writing. The influx of social media digital spaces, like TikTok, has also shifted the…
Abstract
Purpose
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly important and influential in reading and writing. The influx of social media digital spaces, like TikTok, has also shifted the ways multimodal composition takes place alongside AI. This study aims to argue that within spaces like TikTok, human composers must attend to the ways they write for, with and against the AI-powered algorithm.
Design/methodology/approach
Data collection was drawn from a larger study on #BookTok (the TikTok subcommunity for readers) that included semi-structured interviews including watching and reflecting on a TikTok they created. The authors grounded this study in critical posthumanist literacies to analyze and open code five #BookTok content creators’ interview transcripts. Using axial coding, authors collaboratively determined three overarching and entangled themes: writing for, with and against.
Findings
Findings highlight the nuanced ways #BookTokers consider the AI algorithm in their compositional choices, namely, in the ways how they want to disseminate their videos to a larger audience or more niche-focused community. Throughout the interviews, participants revealed how the AI algorithm was situated differently as both audience member, co-author and censor.
Originality/value
This study is grounded in critical posthumanist literacies and explores composition as a joint accomplishment between humans and machines. The authors argued that it is necessary to expand our human-centered notions of what it means to write for an audience, to co-author and to resist censorship or gatekeeping.
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To be a writer, one must write. Research shows when teachers write and identify as writers, they transfer their writing practice into their classroom, positively impacting their…
Abstract
To be a writer, one must write. Research shows when teachers write and identify as writers, they transfer their writing practice into their classroom, positively impacting their students' writing development. Shifting instructional practices or identities requires educators to self-determine a gap in order to take on transformative learning experiences, such as mentoring, professional development, or modeled learning. Often professional development is chosen by administrators for educators to shift their instructional practice, ignoring a teacher's curriculum-maker role, and best-loved self identity. This narrative inquiry analysis details one teacher-writer in a creative writing professional development residency as she supports educators with a goal to transform educators into teacher-writers. This chapter includes the small step successes and systematic struggles the author faced as she modeled the writer's craft and writer's workshop strategies with her teachers. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the important role teachers have to decide, navigate, and discover their own best-loved self-teaching identity.
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Chestin T. Auzenne-Curl and Cheryl J. Craig
This concluding chapter discusses how the unfurling of the Writers in the Schools (WITS) Collaborative took place against a backdrop of four pandemics: COVID-19, the movement…
Abstract
This concluding chapter discusses how the unfurling of the Writers in the Schools (WITS) Collaborative took place against a backdrop of four pandemics: COVID-19, the movement against racial injustice, climate change, and the inevitable economic despair that spills over into the field of education. The work looks backwards on the chapters in this book and their findings. It also looks forward to the lessons that the WITS Collaborative has taught – and will teach – as it moves toward a future unknown, yet much anticipated.
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Cheryl J. Craig and Chestin T. Auzenne-Curl
Craig and Auzenne-Curl reflect on how their individual experiences and personal practical knowledge developed in context over time contribute to a collective review of the…
Abstract
Craig and Auzenne-Curl reflect on how their individual experiences and personal practical knowledge developed in context over time contribute to a collective review of the backdrop of the stories of experience shared in this volume. The chapter provides context for the study that inspired the collection and a preview of the chapters yet to come.
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Marianne Martens, Gitte Balling and Kristen A. Higgason
This research article presents an exploratory case study of the sociotechnical landscape of BookTok, and how young people use it to connect with others around the books they love…
Abstract
Purpose
This research article presents an exploratory case study of the sociotechnical landscape of BookTok, and how young people use it to connect with others around the books they love, or those they love to hate. By observing the interplay between young people, books, and the technology (TikTok) that connects them, this study aims to explore how blending analog and digital media tools makes reading social and fun.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors selected three bestsellers available in English and Danish, and BookTokers who made related videos. This study used a qualitative, ethnographic (Pink, 2021) approach to explore interactions on the app. Inductive coding (Saldaña, 2021) helped the authors identify themes, and connect to areas of inquiry.
Findings
During the pandemic, TikTok and BookTok offered young people opportunities for reading engagement in social, bookish communities by using technology to promote reading in print. In doing so, their actions made reading and being a reader highly entertaining.
Research limitations/implications
As an exploratory case study, this research is not generalizable. But the findings will apply to future work on reading, publishing, and connected learning in a sociotechnical landscape.
Practical implications
BookTok connects print and digital formats, offering innovative possibilities for young people’s connected learning and reading promotion in schools and libraries.
Originality/value
Because TikTok is a relatively new tool, and its sub-community BookTok became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, research on this topic is still in its earliest stages.