So, I go to a secondary school that has a tremendous amount of freedom for what students can do with their education, including peer taughts, where students can teach a class on any subject, with a teacher serving as a guide and support. The curriculum is created by the student, homework assigned by the student, and graded by the student. With peer-taught, there are two options for when to teach: a class period during the regular school year, or during intensives. Incentives are up to ten day, all day long classes that do not follow traditional class subjects, such as international travel for history/social studies credit (I got to go to Greece last intensive!), fractals and vectoring as art or math credit, and others.
I want to do a peer-taught intensive on Analyzing Fandoms, where students would look at different fandoms of various media, and look at not only what they are fans of, but what the fans create. We would look at fan art, projects, fanfic (that’s partially where you come in), and other aspects of fans, in hopes of gleaning more about society and psychology.
Here’s where you come in: I want to look at multiple fandoms, and the materials they are fans of, and I need material, including fandoms and fan works. As much as I would love to have fans of literary works, due to time difficulties, I don't think I can. Unfortunately, this means no LoTR, Hunger Games, or Twilight *shudder*. This means I am likely sticking to movies or TV shows to show to the students. I can show those in one day and have the students look at what people are fans of, why they are fans of it, and what the fans have made, all in reasonable time so I can move on to the next fandom. I am going to have:
Star Trek, the largest and most famous fandom,
Star Wars, the second largest/most famous fandom, as well as the rival of Star Trek, so I can look at fandom rivalry too
My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic, because I’m biased. Well, that and I know the workings of the Brony fandom really well, and can go on and on about how fascinating they are sociologically.
I would have Doctor Who as well, but I feel bad about having three science fiction fandoms, and one cartoon, so I probably wont have it. This also rules out Firefly (probably, if you give a good enough argument for why I should I might include it) and other science fiction fandoms.
I think I can have five fandoms, with two days per fandom, mostly as buffers, and if we have time extra, to do a final project on a particular fandom either not covered in the class, or more in-depth on one we did cover. Whatever we do, it needs to be informative and FUN. Having learning while having fun is the entire point of incentives.
I need you to give me material on the fandoms, as well as two other fandoms to teach. A large fan site, something like Equestria Daily; where everything in the fandom is a few clicks away, would be the best, but links to fan celebrities is fine too. Most importantly for you though, I need fanfic, good fanfic, that shows how good it can be. Popularity is not too important, but length is; seeing as I want high school students to read it, I cannot have a monstrous fic that rivals War and Peace for length. A short to medium sized fic, that is reasonable to read in about five hours at most would be best, and if it is an extraordinarily popular one as well, all the better.
Do this, and I will probably show the students the PPC, showing members of all fandoms coming together with one singular goal: to kill bad fan fiction, and promote good writing. I will probably ask for more help later on, once I get closer to actually creating the curriculum, but I want to start compiling information now.
Thank you guys for any help you can give, I am truly appreciative of it.