Restorying Wattpad: How Queer and/or Trans Youth Are Redesigning the Imagination and the World

• In Event: 63.084 - MTCC Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: 63.084-13 - Queer in K–12 Schools: School Change and LGBTQ Narratives

Abstract

In a 21st century networked world, queer and/or trans youth are harnessing digital, open-source platforms to restory the dominant narratives of LGBTQ experience in literature and media for young people (Thomas and Stornaiuolo, 2016). Tracing such restorying practices, this paper examines how these youth are reading and writing themselves into existence on Wattpad—a popular, open-access digital platform. Specifically, this paper examines how restorying when considered as a form of redesign (Janks, 2010) reshapes the imagination and thus creates new possibilities for being in a world characterized by more diverse social (justice) futures (New London Group, 1995). Restorying Wattpad concludes with strategies for cultivating restorying practices in ELA classrooms.

Author

• James Joshua Coleman, University of Pennsylvania