#using fandom

Written by: @robinwritesallthethings

So most of you probably don’t know this, but I used to be a teacher. Like, a legit college-level English teacher. I taught composition and literature to mostly freshmen students, and honestly, it was a blast. I quit to become a writer because that is my first passion, but truthfully, I still love to teach. Luckily, since I work for The Citrus Scale, I still have plenty of opportunities to do just that.

One of the biggest obstacles teachers face in any classroom is how to connect with students. Especially when you’re teaching something like literature, the first question students have is why do they need this? And actually, I like this question. I think it’s very astute to wonder about the value of what you’re being taught and why, and I was always happy to answer.

This is where fandom can really benefit you. If students are interested in what they’re working with, or at the very least feel like they can understand it, they are far more likely to listen to what you’re saying. In my literature classroom, we studied romance, and we read… wait for it… Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, and Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James. Yes, I broke a few brains with that last one, just for the record. Apparently several of my students had never heard of the Internet, you know what I mean? And yes, someone’s grandmother literally called the college to complain about me teaching Fifty Shades. To her credit, when she found out my plan for it, she agreed with me and withdrew her complaints, which was a better result than I could have imagined.

A lot of people at the administrative level were skeptical of my choices. Even though most of them had never read Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey, they just couldn’t see the value in requiring students to read them. They saw them as...