Risto Niemi-Pynttäri & Outi Kallionpää Great Writing 2012 London 1

Outi Kallionpää Senior teacher of Finnish and Literature at New Media High School of Rajamäki, Finland Master of Arts in literature, creative writing and Finnish language My family: Husband Marko (teacher), daughters Lumi-Emilia (13 yrs) and Oona-Roosa (10 yrs) and Onni (a golden retriever) My hobbies: jogging, yoga and reading/writing 2

The research project of the New Media Writing Doctoral thesis “ New Media Writing and Creativity at High School Writing Pedagogy“ Rajamäki High School is a pilot school of The New Media Writing research project The reaseach questions: 1. How new media writing could be taught at high school in a creative way? 2. What is the role of creative writing in the new media writing? 3. How the creative new media writing education effects on students motivation to write? 3

Risto Niemi-Pynttäri PhD Researcher, Literature, Creative Writing, University of Jyväskylä, Finland Literary blog writer ( Literature and prose styles in blogs Public spheres of Literary Writing Creativity in public spheres Flaming, trolling or agonistic debates Public Web at high school writing ? What are the threads and possibilities ? 4

Writing at high school Matriculation examination is the main goal of the education Writing is formal, academic writing Students, especially boys, lack motivation to study writing Creative writing seems to raise motivation to write in general Paradox: new media writing is not taught at school, but students write a lot in the new media outside the school 5

Writing and spoken language Question of the change of language, adopting new vocabulary, new ways of speaking. Creative self-expression is part of identity work of young people, of adopting new language. It is not only individualistic, but social as well. Importance of freetime for young, Young people´s social media is pluralistic, There are connections between problematic Internet use (PIU) of young and their lack of sympathy. Socially sensitive writing, combining figures and story. SIMS Using spoken language in writing - as narrative prose makes - it brings social nuances at language - and enriches the social web. 6

New media writing 7

Teaching new media writing The important skills the students should be taught about the audience and the feedback process: Use feedback selectively, learn to pick up those things which help YOU to develop as a writer. Separate the text from your personality. The estimating of the text is not the estimating of you as a person. Develop the skills of receiving feedback actively by learning spontaneous and dialogic interactivity. Teacher! Offer plenty of positive writer experiences to strengthen writer identity of the students. 8

Writer/reader and Cultural Power Reader is always part of social context of writing (Clark and Ivanic: The Politics of Writing) Writers position (situation, expression of cultural knowledge and personality) Readers position (imagined reader is often friendly, hostile readers at social web are not recognized) Dialogical relationship in the text (different values, online conflicts). Rhetorical possibilities of sharing differences between styles, attitudes, values. 9

SIMS stories and plurality Writing drama as creating situations between people The reader is free to take her point of view at the situation Take snapshots from the SIMS game, write the story between these pictures and publish it in a blog Or create situations between people carefully as in studio and take pics The genre of SIMS stories has sense of the plurality of youth cultures. 10

end 11