Reading Response: Gaming, Writing, and Teaching

I am very interested in the potential uses of gaming to teach writing. Of course, games can be used to teach narrative writing. Numerous games include strong narrative aspects, some pre-determined much like a movie or novel and others that are interactive and/or even created by the gamers. World of Warcraft, Everquest, and Fable are just a few examples.

Games' potential for teaching critical literacy is also readily apparent. Students could be encouraged to critically reflect on how they customize their avatars during their initial creation and gameplay, as well as the options provided by the game. For example, students could critically analyze how they choose to develop the avatar in Fable, how their choices are limited or influenced, etc.

Finally, I had not considered how games could directly teach writing, as in Moeller and White's, Bono's, and King's essays in the CCO gaming issue. Creating a game would be an excellent way to teach rhetorical literacy, as students would produce both a narrative and an electronic artifact.

Questions about E-Portfolio

I have started organizing my e-portfolio on my Eng 625 Google Site, and I have few questions for anyone with answers.

First, how are we supposed to handle the Digital Dictionary? Since it is supposed to be included in Dr. Cadle's forthcoming anthology, should we still include it in our site? If so, is it possible to link to it? Will those with whom it is shared be able to see it as long as they're logged into a Google account? Or should we just copy and paste into a word document and then attach it? Should we try to distinguish between our individual contributions and those of our classmates?

Second, how can I capture/obtain screenshots from websites or web-browsers? I need screenshots of Zotero, Facebook, and Blackboard. I know I can take pictures of my monitor and then post those, but I would prefer to obtain higher-quality screenshots, if possible. I suppose I could take my personal laptop, which has the Zotero research on it, to the Meyer Library, hook it up to the network, print the Firefox-Zotero display, scan the printout, and then post that. Same for Facebook and Blackboard. If someone can point me toward a less convoluted process, please let me know.

Reading Response: Diversity, Discourse, and Identity Construction Online

Our reading for this week revolves around the themes of diversity, discursive practices, and the construction of identities in and through digital spaces. "But I'm Just White or How 'Other' Pedagogies Can Benefit All Students," Samantha Blackmon provides a very nice pedagogy for incorporating diversity of perspective, discourse, and identity into the classroom. By encouraging all students to explore their social and cultural histories, the uniqueness of each student becomes apparent. This facilitates the opening of students' minds and perspectives, while also making them aware of the discourses that they have always taken for granted, never thinking critically about them since they were too deeply embedded within them. It's hard to see the entire forest when you're deep in the middle of it. Students also learn about their identities and the many influences upon them. I will definitely keep in mind Blackmon's suggestions for the next course I teach.

"Taking Black Technology Use Seriously" was an interesting discussion of African-American discursive practices on a predominately African-American website. Adam Banks shows how even oral discursive practices can be represented through writing. Further, he shows that these practices both create and are created by the identities of those who use them. I especially like Banks' assertion that scholars should focus on how technology is used instead of just access to it. This sets him up to make another key point--that even seemingly frivolous uses of technology (downloading rap lyrics or watching music videos) can be put to critical use. I think it's important to meet student where they are and help them grow.

The last reading, "A Real Effect on the Gameplay," was particularly interesting to me, since I have a rather extensive history with gaming. I've never played Dungeons and Dragons, although I'm familiar with it. I have played a huge amount of real-time strategy games, which typically provide an opportunity to construct or play around with an identity. For instance, in Age of Empires, you can play a campaign as Atilla the Hun. So you get to enjoy being "the scourge of God." If you're playing as your unique character, you essentially assume the roles of King and Conquerer. Quite a heady identity for a teenager. As though the spectacle of the game isn't enough, you get to assert complete mastery at a time in your life when very little seems to be in your control. I never would have thought about these issues if I hadn't read Jonathan Alexander's essay.

Reading Response to "It wasn't me, was it?"

I found "It Wasn't Me, Was It?" to be the most interesting reading for this week, as far as plagiarism is concerned. "Champing at the Bit" was a nicely comprehensive yet lucid explanation of copyright laws and their trend toward favoring the author, but DeVoss and Rosati's essay hit on some really important points, including:

"American academic writing is full of often conflicting complications, the most obvious of which is expecting students to come up with and develop an original idea, while requiring them to find plenty of material to back up their supposedly new and original idea or perspective on a subject" (155).

The paradox of the original research-paper has always caused students difficulties, ranging from coming up with the original idea to finding sources to support it to preventing plagiarism. As DeVoss and Rosati point out, students often struggle to determine what counts as "common knowledge" versus what must be cited, and they sometimes engage in what Rebecca Moore Howard calls patchwriting in which they work through new concepts or information by splicing an original passage with their own writing. Howard thinks this should be given a positive value as a step in one's progress as a writer. DeVoss and Rosati steer clear of such judgments, focusing on presenting information and discussing the impact of the internet on plagiarism. Essentially, they suggest that teachers engage students in discussions of intellectual property rights, critical online research, and the like.

DeVoss and Rosati miss an opportunity to really consider how the internet is changing--and will change--our views of plagiarism and authorship. If a student scours the internet for information, selects dozens of pieces of information (text, pictures, video, etc.), and then pieces it all together into something new and original, should this be considered plagiarism if none of it is cited? If someone posts something on the internet, isn't that tantamount to saying, "Here, use this."

Let me be clear: I am not referring to copying and pasting text; if I copy and paste someone's writing, then I have copied rather than created, and that is plagiarism simply because my creativity has no hand in the creation. I am also not referring to photographs or other media that are encrypted or protected; obviously, the author of this material is not saying, "Here, use this."

But if I synthesize a variety of resources, using my creative transitioning or splicing, then am I plagiarizing, patchwriting, or authoring an original document based on research (a research paper without the artifice of "good paraphrasing"). The power of the internet as a research tool--its ease of accessing, collecting, and copying large amounts of data or media--will eventually force a change in the academic view of plagiarism and authorship. If nothing else, teachers can google images or videos just as easily as the students, thus nullifying the need to cite them, especially since the citation amounts to a "type this into google" instruction.

Teachers can also google the text to check for originality, in which case they may find that their students have done a rather remarkable job of collecting, synthesizing, and presenting a broad array of seemingly disparate sources, in a surprisingly original and individual manner. If this occurs often enough in the future, will we see it as plagiarism resulting from poor research skills or a poor understanding of copyright? Or will we view it as a more honest (and technologically advanced) version of the "original" research-paper?

Multimodal Assignment: Meta-Narrative

Creating this academic blog was a very fun, interesting learning-experience. I am really glad I chose to analyze "300" in this medium. Another topic would not have been as ideally-suited to the digital environment, and a print medium would have been much too limited for "300." In contrast, the digital environment was perfect because this topic lent itself to using visual rhetoric. The images and videos really support and illustrate my analysis. In fact, they might prove my points better than my writing. There was also a lot of opportunity to use contextual hyperlinks, turning the blog into a great resource for someone who wanted to learn the historical and/or contemporary context of the movie. It would be a valuable resource even for someone who was interested only in Greek history. Inserting all the links was time-consuming but ultimately worth it.

I wish I had been able to make better use of audio clips. There were a couple places where audio would have been ideal, especially where I mention Leonidas shouting "Spartans! Prepare for Glory!" I tried to use embedded audio clips, but I found out that there were only two ways of doing so. The first was to contact the third-party website hosting the clips and get the html code. The second is to use a third-party service for creating and storing your own clips, such as Gabcast. I tried to use Gabcast, but it was very difficult to figure out and I finally gave up. I doubt that the audio-clip site I linked to in my second blog entry will be willing to release the html code for its clips, but I may try at a later date. For now, I am marginally satisfied with linking to the audio-clips. If one of my students chose this method of dealing with a technological impasse, I would be reasonably happy.

When I create a blog like this in the future, I will probably use a very similar process. I will write my text and then go back and insert the hyperlinks. I will do this more often as a I write, rather than entirely at the end. This will make it a little easier and less repetitive. I will also insert images and video to illustrate and support my main points or to simply provide context for my readers. Most likley, I will still do this at the end, after I have written my text. This way, I will know what kind of videos or images to look for. For audio-clips, I will try to find websites that provide html embedding code, just like YouTube does. If anyone knows of such a site, please let me know. In terms of the blog's overall rhetorical effect, I think it is important to choose topics that lend themselves to visual rhetoric and to effectively blend good visual rhetoric and good written rhetoric. I believe I pulled this off in this blog.

Multimodal Assignment: American Values in "300"

Both the image to the right and the one centered below can be downloaded for free at the official website for the "300" movie and DVD.

To sum up the movie "300," it contains a drug-induced erotic dance (the Oracle-girl), a softly pornographic love-making scene (Leonidas and Queen Gorgo), a hedonistic semi-orgy (Xerxes' court), a multitude of digitally-enhanced pecs and abs (the Spartans), and enough blood and violence to drench a frightened by-stander. It also explicitly and implicitly expresses fundamental American values, including freedom, duty, sacrifice, honor, justice, defiance, integrity, meritocracy, patriotism, and familial loyalty, devotion, and love. Arguments can also be made for other values, especially feminism.

So what does all this mean in the grand scheme? What does it say about American culture that its core values can be bundled with heaping helpings of sex and violence in a mainstream blockbuster movie that makes hundreds of millions of dollars?

Like the Romans 1500 years ago, Americans are awed by decadent spectacle. It is not always enough to tell a good story or to portray epic events, such as the Battle of Thermoplyae, as they really occurred. Americans are bombarded with media everyday of their lives and thus become desensitized to it. Those daily lives are hectically busy, making any time investment in television, film, or literature a cramped luxury. Yet in spite of their busy lives, Americans often go to the movie theater or video store, and they have a virtually limitless selection available. Therefore, film producers must work very hard to make sure their movie compels people to spend their precious time and money on tickets, rentals, and DVDs. Sex and violence are two common methods of gaining and keeping people's attention, but Americans are so inoculated against violence and sexual suggestion that movies must continually up the ante, so to speak. "300" may seem tame compared to films thirty years from now.

Sex, violence, and good old-fashioned American values are the ingredients of a sure-fire recipe for a large audience and huge economic success. The eroticism of "300" attracts viewers based on a fundamental, undeniable human appeal. Its violence fascinates an equally basic aspect of human nature and experience. Any movie that can present either or both of these appeals will find an audience in America. The audience will be larger if these appeals are presented with any artfulness, such as striking cinematography or visual effects. And the audience will be enormous if the movie also offers core American values in a fairly uncomplicated manner. The stunning success of "300" reveals as much about Americans as it does about how to make a blockbuster.

Multimodal Assignment: American Values in "300"

The image to the right can be downloaded for free from the movie and dvd's official website at http://www.300ondvd.com/300.html.

First things first, there is no doubt that the spectacle of "300" is sexual and violent. As Travers points out, "the soldiers from the Greek city-state of Sparta look gym-ready for battle in crotch-squeezing ensembles that expose as much flesh as an R rating will allow." There is an erotic dance number performed by the drugged-up, half-topless girl whose ramblings are interpreted by the Oracles. And the battle scenes are nothing if not gory and, at times, disturbingly violent (view screen shots). I will not deny the film's overt appeals to testerone-driven males and their reluctant, but eye-candy rewarded, girlfriends.

Nonetheless, a New Historicist analysis of "300" reveals numerous explicit and implicit American values in addition to its sex, violence, and artistic cinematography. Some of the explicit values include freedom, duty, sacrifice, honor, defiance, and integrity. The implicit values include meritocracy, justice, and family values such as loyalty, devotion, and love. Thus, it makes perfect sense that "300" was a smash hit with its American audience.

Integrity is an important American value explictly present in the movie. The Oracles do not grant permission for Leonidas' war-plan, which prevents him from taking the entire Spartan army to Thermoplyae. The viewers see a Persian messenger bribing these Oracles, who are like half-man, half-animal mutants. A key legislator speaks against sending the Spartan army to Leonidas' aid, and it turns out that he was also bribed with Persian gold. He is later stabbed in the gut. Due to his physical deformities, the traitor who betrays the 300 Spartans is hardly recognizable as a human. Anyone in the movie who lacks integrity is portrayed as detestable.

Meritocracy is an implicit American value used to partially justify many of our beliefs, including capitalism, plagiarism punishments, and numerous others. "300" implicitly expresses the value of meritocracy through the Spartans. Each Spartan is the equivalent of the absolute best Special Forces soldier today.

See the Spartans' discipline here:

This video was posted on YouTube by diab0lik5 on May 31, 2007. It can be found with the search, "spartans what is your profession."

The Spartans have trained harder than the Persians or any other Greek. Simply put, they are so good at fighting that it is hard (as an American who believes in meritocracy so thoroughly that this belief is mostly unconscious) not to admire the Spartans.

Early in the battle of Thermoplyae, Xerxes offers Leonidas a tempting deal. If the Spartans swear allegiance to him, he will give them wealth and an honored place at the head of the Persian army, from which they will conquer their Athenian rivals en route to the heart of Europe. However, Leonidas refuses the bargain that would have cost Sparta its independence. The glory of being Xerxes’ elite warriors, marching from conquest to conquest, was outweighed by the loss of freedom that would have accompanied it. This is very similar to Americans' sense of independence as liberty from the tyrrany of others. Leonidas' reason for turning down Xerxes' deal is the same as the Founding Fathers' motivation for revolting against King George.

This scene also features a distinctly American style of defiance and flippancy. Xerxes is trying to have a serious diplomatic conversation with Leonidas, whose every reply drips with sarcasm, disdain, and defiance. To listen to an audio clip in which Leonidas sarcastically reminds Xerxes of the Spartan slaugher of his infantry, click here and scroll down to "Culture.wav."

Furthermore, the Spartans consider it their duty to prevent the Persian Empire from swallowing their homeland, even if it costs their lives. In fact, they are very glad to sacrifice their lives because this is considered the only moral, honorable thing to do in the face of an invading force. They are willing to fight and die for freedom and for the loyalty, devotion, and love they feel for their families, who will be killed or enslaved if the Persian invasion succeeds. In the Spartan worldview, this is implicitly and intrinsically just, good, and noble. When Leonidas screams, "Spartans! Prepare for Glory!" he does not mean that the Spartans will gain glory through a defiant death; rather, they will gain it through a worthy, noble sacrifice. Americans are, and always have been, great admirers of worthy sacrifice. Americans have valorized soldiers since the American Revolution, especially those who knowingly and willingly sacrificed themselves for the greater good.

Of course, Leonidas is not entirely certain of Xerxes' chances of conquering Sparta, as shown here (scroll down to "women.wav").