Here’s where we’ll discuss Kevin Moberly’s “Composition, Computer Games, and the Absence of Writing.” PDF | Link Actually, even though this is “appearing” on the site on Tuesday night, I’m writing it before I leave town for the conference. So this is sort of me teaching into the future/from the past?
I think this is kind of a complicated article for a couple of reasons. First off, I’ve never played World of Warcraft, and while I think Moberly describes it well enough, I had a hard time following some of his explanations here and there. Second, Moberly is making a number of fairly complicated theoretical connections to a number of things that might be a little fuzzy to some of you. We can talk more about that as the questions come up though.
The paradoxes of incorporating voice protocols into a game like World of Warcraft are interesting for sure, and I like his reference to Myst, a game I am vaguely familiar with. It was a game in which books played a huge part in that game, but there was essentially no “text” explaining to the player how to do things.
In any event, I appareciate Moberly’s discussion of how WoW requires its players to make certain rhetorical, communication, and community-building skills that are a lot like composition studies and writing instruction. Still, I’m not sure if WoW (and some other games similar to this– Second Life immediately comes to mind as a place/set up that has been used for teaching) is really a great space for teaching per se. A better metaphor, perhaps. And the other thing is I have heard about WoW is that it’s about as addictive as crack, so I’m not so sure that it’s a good idea to encourage that among young college students….
Something that stood out to me when I read the line, “While many contemporary computer games recognize the power of writing, they present it as outmoded…” It was the idea that writing is rarely integrated into video games, which raised the question “how does this illustrate a perspective on the value of certain types of intelligences?”
Let me explain, I might be totally off-base here, but I was thinking about how video games, even complex ones like the WoW game mentioned in this article, tend to provide the player with a series of multiple choice options. People who are “good” at these games can choose the best option from the choices that they are provided with. Players aren’t asked to come up with choices that are outside of the realm of the game because the game is confined by the designer’s prescribed list of options. Even WoW is confining the players by specific constraints.
Is it possible to have video games that allow the player to model or develop a more creative form of intelligence by working with an infinite number of options? Probably not. The game that provides people with a completely blank slate (like a parent giving a child a blank sheet of paper) versus giving players a prescribe set of choices (like a parent giving a coloring book) will have my vote.
I’m not into multiple-choice tests – even virtual ones.
Well, I think a completely blank sheet is likely not possible, and, if you think about it for a moment, it also is probably not a “game.” Just stepping away from video games for a moment: games like Monopoly or basketball or whatever ping-pong are “fun” and people are “good” at them in part based on the fact that these are rule-governed systems. In other words, we think of the best players as being ones who are creative within the realm of the rules. A player who doesn’t follow the rules– either by “making it up” as they go along or by cheating is generally considered a “bad players.”
I agree, we live in a rule based society so just to throw out the rules is not a good thing. We have rules for a reason. I think a blank slate it like a blank computer screen or paper, when people go to write they want some conventions or rules to follow so they know where to begin.
In considering WoW, it’s important to note that writing is an enormous part of a player’s experience. I think Moberly makes a very good point about how video games present writing as outmoded; however, there are some very important points the article doesn’t bring up, particularly in relation to WoW. Confession: I was a two year WoW addict.
In WoW Coordination between online avatars is an enormous part of being successful in WoW and to coordinate players need to type/write to each other in a chat space. Moreover, the most successful WoW players maintain very active websites and forums for the purposes of communication. A lot of the major players in WoW do use voice communication when actually in the heat of a big battle; however, written communication is the primary mode of exchanging important strategies, outlining arguments for coordination avatars, and addressing important conflicts between players.
I thought it was interesting how Moberly makes the connection between the player who spends years creating an identity online in his or her gaming world, but never does anything with that identity in “real life” to the composition classroom where students spend hours and months creating writing pieces that rarely make it into their outside lives. He goes on to say that the WOW identity creation “require students to participate in a mode of discourse that is traditionally privileged by the university: a process that is designed to acculturate students into a socio-political understanding of what constitutes ‘meaningful’ participation in the context of the academic and non-academic discourse communities in which they are involved.”
I’m curious about what do other people think about all this. Do you see how gaming and WOW as having as much meaning as what we’re doing in the English classroom? I wonder if we could integrate this into the teaching of “characterization” and flat versus round characters. Could be an interesting lesson plan!!!
Totally interesting point, Angie, with the whole identity online vs. identity in their writing. This kind of saddens me because it just shows that a lack of interest and a disconnect in writing is there, but it exists in gaming? I always saw myself in my writing and really created a “person” on the page– but I also realize that this is rare and is, perhaps, the reason why I am a writer but so many other people aren’t.
I wasn’t able to fully form an opinion about this article to answer your question of, “Do you see how gaming and WoW have as much meaning as what we’re doing in the English classroom?” Patially this is because I was completely unfamiliar with WoW at the onset. (Like I said earlier in the week, I am in no way a gamer or even have gamer friends.) I definitely see your point, though, in trying to integrate the ideas of game characterization in writing. I remember one of my classmates in ENGL 515 did a presentation on having students create avatars to represent characters in a story they were writing. I suppose that is an example of merging those two things? Hmmm. Let me know if you have any other thoughts.
I don’t know if this speaks to your point exactly or not, but it is interesting to me that while players in these games care deeply abou the identities they create in games like WoW (well, at least the ones who stick with it), that caring deeply is rarely present in a course like first year writing. There are lots of reasons for this, and to be honest, I’m not sure it’s possible to really initiate a “caring deeply” pedagogy in the first place. Anyway, something I’m thinking about when I read your comment, Ashlee.
These games are so complex and multilayered that to say there is nothing valuabele in games just doesnt make sense to me. I got lost here just in the description of the game itself and I have had students do projects on these games and what they are like. I think that this really is a way to engage the player and have a good discussion of the conventions of the game to discuss the conventions of different genres of writing as well. I never even think about the idea of the kinds of writing in video games and I dont know what to think of the idea of writing embedded in the games themselves. I think that point alone makes for a good discussion of the reading and writing that is necessary in these games and what kind of writing is necessary. I think it also leads to a discussion about creating these games and what goes into that, who is creating them and for what purpose. These games are not just people playing games but this is very serious business.
I’ll say that first, this was certainly a difficult article for me to get through because after a while, all the descriptions of what happens in these complex games just starts to run together for a non-gamer like myself. I do see the implications of construction of self, the socio-political elements of discourse, etc. But, to be honest, I’m just not as convinced that this is really going to help the “words in a row” writing. Obviously composition plays a key role in playing these games and, IMO anything that encourages the practice of writing with achievable or desired outcomes is a positve… but, I’m just not all that convinced of how it could be used to actually improve the writing itself.
Yes! I felt the same way! I saw the connections he was making, but I questioned how they could necessarily inform how we tend to teach writing. As skeptical as I was when reading the Gee article regarding critical awareness, this article made me think I was going too easy on it, perhaps, as if critical awareness didn’t matter. Achieving some kind of balance between the two seems ideal, but as we all know, that’s easier said than done…
I was just thinking yesterday about assignments that might teach critical awareness of video games. I think having students do a rhetorical analysis of a game would be a good place to start. I’m not exactly sure how I’d set it up, but I think it’s possible.
Well, two thoughts:
* I think as an analogy/metaphor, it can help the kind of rhetorical and discursive skills we always value in writing classes. This I think is Moberly’s main point: if gamers/students can apply the same kinds of strategies they apply in game play with making video games, they might have something there.
* I think one of the assumptions y’all are making here is that “words in a row” constitutes “real writing,” and it is what we ought to value above any other forms. I don’t agree with that at all, and I think that most of what we’ve been talking about this semester suports that. It’s not that we have a completely different symbol system or whatever, but how we use words in a row in online spaces, in games, in social networks, on wikis and blogs, etc., etc., is different. And, I would argue, probably more important in students’ lives than writing an academic research paper.
I wasn’t necessarily meaning that “words in a row” are more important, but I was more thinking about it like in terms of how we were discussing some of the mulitmedia stuff. Yes, I think there is certainly some benefit, but if you were to focus on mulitimedia in FYC more than words in a row, it might be a bit of a disservice… perhaps better suited for advanced writers. That’s kind of how I was thinking about gaming in terms of the rhetorical and discursive skills. Important, but might be a disservice to younger, less experienced writers if we were to focus on them & gaming instead of taking a more “traditional” approach, teaching mechanics, sytax etc.
Dave, I’m actually not sure yet how much time we need to spend teaching actual writing to get students to write better. I know that sounds odd, but there seems to be evidence to support the idea that the more time we give students to think about writing on their own the better they write. I’m kind of hooked on the WWV approach we talked about last week. I think something like that could really work in a FYC class too, if balanced the correct way. There are a lot of things to work out of course, but I would definitely be persuaded to try something similar for a semester to see how it works. A lot of what I wrote here is really vague and needs to really be thought through more specifically, but in general I think there is a learning connection between writing and working with other modes that might be really powerful in FYC.
I think a tension exists between writing and composing within the world of FYC. When I think about where to fit a lot of this cool multimodal stuff in FYC class I find I’ve got to be REALLY delicate. The curriculum for FYC is already too large and to think of including all this new stuff is a bit nightmarish. Also, in FYC I do want to make sure my students become betters wordsmiths. Personally, I do think students will become better writers in a course like WWV; however, I’d be hard pressed to back that statement with good evidence. The point is that while I think a lot of this stuff is cool I think it’s to early to say it really does work.
Ditto for me too, Carrie and Dave! I see the connections as well, but I am not so sure of the applicability to ‘real’ writing.
But, I don’t necessarily agree with the characterization of the student who spends years in a composition class and never publishes as being kind of a waste. I think that, for some people, the very act of creating is enough. Think of all the work that Emily Dickinson did not care to share with the world. She seemingly was happy just living in her own little world and creating something. I don’t feel that we should necessarily consider someone who creates for just himself as a waste.
I am with you Judy, the person who does not publish doesn’t make him a waste or time ill spent. Writing can be for just the person and personal growth. I liked Gee’s article but had a hard time relating to this one.
I talked to a couple of gamers I know and they are in it for pure entertainment. It goes with that thing that certain things like FB, video games, texting are not part of the classroom. They are out of their element there.