Social Media Storytelling: Using Blogs and Twitter to Create a Community of Practice for Writing Scholarship

This paper argues that social media can function as an informal community of practice in writing scholarship where knowledge is absorbed into a user’s identity and practice through storytelling. Social media has increasingly attracted academics and educators as a method of trialing new research ideas and classroom strategies, seeking early peer review, and as a knowledge translation strategy for sharing research findings. Platforms such as Twitter and blogs work in tandem to provide exposure, encourage reflection, and build community. Storytelling becomes a form of persuasion, through use of literary strategies, to influence change. This argument recognizes how social media writing is situated in a unique genre and requires writing strategies that may be unfamiliar to academic writers. A social media storytelling interlude demonstrates a case of social media persona development for writing scholarship and acts as an example of the voice, tone, and literary strategies of social media writing. The paper concludes with a discussion of strategies aligned with researching the impact of social media on pedagogical practices.


Introduction
If we want a different future, we need to tell a different story (King, 2003). & Smith, 2009). But stories don't always need to be fictionalized to achieve knowledge transfer, as Thompson (2016) observes. Social media can be a place to share those conversations that take place in hallways and classrooms, as a mechanism to collect raw ideas into more formalized thought. Some of these ideas may not be ready for academic publication but still beg discussion (Saunders et al., 2017).
In situated learning that takes place in communities of practice, participation is a constant negotiation between understanding and experience (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Storytelling can become a motif for bridging the dichotomy between understanding and experience in learning situations. One of the exemplar case studies Lave and Wenger used to facilitate the description of a community of practice was the exploration of membership in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) where storytelling is actively used to facilitate the transition of an identity as an alcoholic into the identity of a nondrinking alcoholic. Old timer AA members tell their personal stories of alcoholism as a model for the newcomers who can recognize themselves and their experiences in those stories. Newcomers then learn to tell their own stories through exposure to the stories of veteran members. The way the stories are told is not taught. Stories of alcoholism are built as, around the circle, each member tells a piece of their own story, which, through resonance and relatability, triggers the next storyteller who builds upon the words said and tells their story as it relates to the previous story.
A similar process functions on social media. A Twitter user may start with their own story which can trigger other twitter users to add their contribution to that story through retweeting or through replying to the original Twitter user. The short context-free quippy stories on Twitter can stimulate a variety of responses that may or may not fit the context sitting behind the original tweet. The interpretation of the tweet, now in the hands of the audience, matters little if the goal is to inspire and stimulate reflection in other scholars. Academic Twitter is a mix of novice and experienced scholars, and the social levelling that occurs on the platform makes it the great equalizer (Lupton, 2014). In this way, knowledge can be built and will contribute to the identity of the virtual novice scholar through reflection on the issue and reflection on their own practices as researchers and educators (Stewart, 2015;2017;Thompson, 2016). Reflection on practice can contribute to decisions to experiment with a new practice in their research or with their students. Stories told in this fashion have the power to bind the storyteller and the receiver together which acts as an incentive for learning and action. Those interacting with a tweet must translate the lesson from tweet to fit the context of their own classroom or assignment. The emotional and reflective engagement that occurs

Social Media Writing: A Genre Unto Itself
In social media writing, a sense of timing is mandatory for success. Literary elements can be employed, plot constructed, scenes set, characters described, narrator positioning established, conflicts introduced, and resolution proposed (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000;Coulter & Smith, 2009).
Interpretive integration emerges from professional experience and personal reaction. Knowledge sharing begins by trialing ideas through "tweets," 280 character "soundbites" on a subject of interest to the tweeter, which may be expanded on in a blog, which functions to test out ideas prior to a formal academic publication. Following publication, an academic paper can again be shared and discussed within the online networked community of practice.
Tweets, or microblogs, constitute a genre of writing which is more personable than the voice used in academic contexts, which enhances the relatability factor of the message being sent (Stewart, 2016). Twitter users report that the best twitter accounts to follow tend to have a distinctive voice which varies with content, employs humorous conventions, and integrates the personal and the professional into a unique identity (Lupton, 2014). Alternatively, long form blogs can be written in many formats and for many reasons. While some blogs do tend to adopt a similar formal tone like a peer reviewed paper, many blogs take a more casual voice than an academic paper (Mewburn & Thompson, 2013;2017;Thompson, 2016). Blogs can also be written to mimic the tone and voice present in journalism or a diary. Some blogs are used as curation sites to collect lists, catalogues, web links, and other resources so they are available for easy retrieval (Thompson, 2016). Twitter and blogs are a place you can mold your writing and make the most of imitation, manipulate pop culture, or emulate your heroes.
I wanted to talk about writing, its frustrations and elations, its profoundness and its ridiculousness.

I wanted to be colloquial about it.
That voice blog evolved into a class assignment, and the class assignment evolved into a published paper. 4 That story has a happy ending. anonymous because I was scared I would fail. I was scared I would be found out an imposter. I was a career educator, writing instructor, and registered nurse-a strange and wonderful combination which has brought me many privileges in this academic world in a discipline that doesn't talk much about its writing. I've called myself a strange combination of seasoned academic and early career researcher. AcademicsWrite is a persona-a character I created for which I was the narrator. She isn't me. She isn't not me. I try to be human but not personal. Personal doesn't work when your avatar is a Red Door. Your followers expect you to stay in character. My character tweets about writing. I focus on inspiring. I'm not a writing tipster; I don't believe any of my tips will work for you, because my audience already knows how to write. They just need to learn to feel good about that. I aim to reflect back at you your own emotional reality while you face the blank page-while you suffer the angst you feel about the shitty paragraph you just wrote. Those are the tweets that work for AcademicsWrite. Quirky observations about muses, the incoherent writing of philosophers, the writing problems you solve standing naked in the shower, and my not-so-secret desire to drop a fourletter word in an academic publication. 5 I write blogs that often start with tweets or tweet threads. 6 I wrote a blog about how writing is devalued and a blog about writing myths. I wrote a blog about storytelling and research while I prepped to write this paper. The writing myths blog prompted someone to share with me a source 7 that makes me think I may never need to write another thing about writing again. My mission is over.
My work is done here. Someone else wrote a comment that told me that no one believed these myths anyhow, and he was right. No writing scholar believes these myths, but I witness these myths alive and festering among my non-writing scholar colleagues. Writing scholars already know that teaching grammar does not improve writing; that discourse struggles are perceived as grammar mistakes; that successfully writing in one course or one discipline doesn't mean they will successfully pull off my assignment without guidance; and that sometimes our students writing problems are simply because they can't read our language. Sometimes when community building it will seem like we preach to the choir. But that's OK. Preaching to the choir is what keeps them singing. 8 But I know I