Conversation Currents: Digital Storyworlds: Transmedia Literature in the ELA Classroom

As stories evolve into new, varied, and experimental formats in our current digital age, teachers, authors, storytellers, and readers are presented with myriad new conversations about the creation, discussion, and dissemination of literature. What does it mean to consume a story in the digital age? What do the terms we use to describe them—digital fiction, story worlds, transmedia, interactive fiction—really mean? In this conversation, author-educator-storytellers Kate Pullinger (Inanimate Alice) and Amanda Havard (The Survivors, Immersedition™), and language arts professor Melanie Hundley of Peabody College at Vanderbilt University discuss with LA the quintessential question of current literacies: As stories appear in varied digital formats, how will both new forms and content shape students’ discussions of narrative, their understanding of story, and their lives as readers?