Our ENGL 885
class recently learned the mechanisms, work, and thought put into a Wikipedia
article and the demands an article and its content must meet in order to remain
active, live on the Internet. Guest lecture Trish Fancher prepared a wonderful
presentation to our class—it was one I felt enjoyable even as a student who
will not be teaching ENGL 103 next year. Intrigued and burning with desire to uncover
more than available from this week’s short article, I opened my browser and
navigated to Wikipedia in search for information on Stuart Moulthrop and his
piece “After the Last Generation: Rethinking Scholarship in the Days of Serious
Play.”
The Wikipedia
article on Moulthrop deems him “an innovator of electronic literature and
hypertext fiction, both as a theoretician and as a writer” (“Stuart Moulthrop”)—a
description I concur with after having read this week’s article. From the
opening lines, I gathered Moulthrop as a futurist, one very ahead of his time, or
is he? Is he talking about the way things will
be or reflecting on the way they already are? I found the series of
rhetorical questions scattered throughout the text a great way to incorporate
readers, prompt us to rethink the concepts he addresses, and pose additional
inquiry.
I enjoyed the
inserted thoughts and quotations that Moulthrop includes from “linguist,
literary theorist, and born-again video gamer” James Paul Gee. (208). Gee’s
words triggered me to reflect on my own education both in and outside of
classroom. For example, I must credit Treasure
Mountain! for my superb mathematics skills that quickly advanced me to
levels higher than my peers during my elementary years. The game, which
Wikipedia cites as “an educational computer game published by The Learning
Company in 1990” teaches children basic math and logic skills through an
adventure taking in place Treasureland on a mountain called Treasure Island (“Treasure
Mountain”). I became enthralled with this game at the young age of four. Users
were greeted with various math problems upon completing tasks within the game
(e.g., finding hidden treasures, capturing elves, etc.). Although Moulthrop
would find this game and the interface dated, he might take fancy to this idea
of computer games as educational and entertaining being witnessed by myself in
the early 90s. Treasure Mountain! was
the extent to my computer and/or video game playing days (with the exception of
Mario Kart on Nintendo 64); however,
even as a non-gamer, I cannot disagree with Moulthrop’s claims. I, too—although
not to the same degree—see the trends he writes of and shares with readers; I
see his concern for future academia if these trends are not taken into
consideration.
In the following
lines, Gee makes a claim similar to those Jody Shipka defends in Toward A Composition Made Whole. Gee
states: “…the theory of learning in good video games fits better with the
modern, high-tech, global world today’s children and teenagers live in than do
the theories (and practices) of learning that they see in school…” (Moulthrop,
208). Similarly, Shipka makes claims regarding composition and writing and what
constitutes as a “paper.” Shipka handles the changing dynamic of incoming
college students by modifying her assignments; she distributes them to her
students with the intention of inviting creativity, personal touch, and additional
reflection. Her work further credits what Moulthrop writes in his work—the idea
of evolution, change, and creative modification is already taking place today.
If this change continues to push forward (and according to both authors it
will), are students and faculty to be left in the dust? Moulthrop foreshadows
the demise of education, as we know it, and he delves into the future of
academia with an idea of video gaming at its core.
Here are some
questions I have: What are the differences between video and mind and/or
computer games in terms of their implementation in academia? In my educational
experiences, mind games (e.g., brain teasers, variations of IQ tests, etc.)
have been encouraged and often implemented into course curricula. In many
classes I have partaken in various online, interactive activities that could
very well have been video games. If these games are accepted, embraced in
academia, why the lack of incorporating video games in today’s modern classroom?
Furthermore, if students can watch educational videos such as School House Rock, laugh at the
teachings and corky lessons of Bill Nye the Science Guy, and play interactive
computer games testing English and Language Arts skills, why can they not
engage in a different medium, like video games? Some of my fondest memories of
elementary, middle and high school education were the result of these interactive
elements. I was excited about learning and engaged in the multiple facets of
schoolwork; I retained more information and entered the realm of higher
education with an appetite for learning in an advanced, “multimodal” environment.
Although I am
not knowledgeable in the video game
literacy that Moulthrop discusses, I do acknowledge, appreciate and agree
with the claims it brings forth. As Moulthrop writes: “Separating play from
culture, or games from writing, would create a situation reminiscent of that ‘dissociation
of sensibility’” (211). This particular line takes me back to our class
discussion of rhetoric vs. composition and the dissonance between the two
apparently dissimilar fields. Moulthrop addresses this abruptly with a clear
statement: “Writing is still writing, even with funkier friends” (211). Perhaps
this is the lesson readers, critics and all those in current and future
academia should remember. After all, “the
end of the world is…just a language game, and the show must go on” (Moulthrop,
209).
