Dr. Sam should call me one of her success stories. In today’s activity where we “played” Neverwinter, Ashley V. had several questions about using games in the classroom and how this specific D&D like game could be used in her L2 class. I suppose that the last few Maymesters with Dr. Sam have sunk into my think skull. One answer that I am particularly proud of providing was in response to a question about how the game could be used to teach research practices. And behold! My suggestion to teach students secondary research practices through the staggered personalization menu (As a way to search deeply instead of broadly) in contrast with keyword lists and internet/library search engines was a success. We also discussed a series of assignments that could develop from a single game such as Neverwinter. It definitely wasn’t the worst thing in the world. However, we did discuss that video games, or any other technology/topic/content brought into the course required a comfort level that could only develop from patience and understanding. Or like Ashley said — “I like them to struggle. The struggle is real.” I have struggled for a few semesters to make sense of all this stuff and today was the first day that I felt like something made sense. Dr. Sam should buy me coffee in appreciation for my efforts.

Well said, Ashley. Well said.

Those of you who are friends with me on FB know that I recently posted about a Vanderbilt University study that presented information on the expectation for Black professors, equally male and female, to entertain their students by “telling more jokes” and “loosening up.”  After laughing for a bit about showboating and the ignorance of Katt Williams with my fellow Black colleagues at various institutions, I determined that the results of the study (very small participant data, n=33)  did not surprise me. In just the seven years I have been teaching (of course, laughable in comparison with Dr. Sam) I find students expecting more and more from their classes while giving less and less in many cases.

Now, just hear me out. I know that every student, class, and institution is different. However, the kids I taught in AZ were different in many wonderful ways. I miss those kids who were just excited to be learning something new and who found joy in being able to discuss something more than books in an English class. I miss the majority of my students working hard and rarely giving up. For anyone who has taught at a small(ish) regional land grant university, you know what I am talking about here. The Purdue student, generally doesn’t have these traits.

The activities we have been discussing in class and so far in the articles, are great. Exciting for the time even. Haas and Garder’s MOO and Derrick’s Dosequis can be adapted for the 2015 classroom relatively easily, therefore proving the strength in their ingenuity. I have conversations with my students about collaboration and ownership in ways that are similar to Kolko; it is an important conversation to have with students who are consumed by their grades and performance. But then the articles entered this weird realm for me.

Gamification of courses and games in courses feels like a cheat for me. Now, just hear me out. I fully respect the awesome stuff happening in games studies (especially the critical movements we should all be familiar with ATM) and I also enjoy many people/things/stuffs about the gaming culture. I also understand the richness games can offer to composition and rhetoric, especially for novice and expert writers.

Many, many, many scholars and scholarship do gaming right. I’ve seen it (shout out to Tony and Patrick!). However, I am not here to entertain my students. I crack jokes, I smile, we try to have a good time, but life as a young Black instructor at a STEM focused PWI is hard enough without playing games and fighting the good fight to justify their use in an English class. More power to you for figuring this out, game folks. Maybe when I am a grown up professor with some clout, like Dr. Sam, I would be willing to give it a try. Until then, concepts from game studies can find ways into my class, but not games themselves.

Ironically, I hoped this entertained you.

I use computers to discover alternative examples of genres. For example, my students are writing a narrative and I want them to identify uncommon examples of narratives such as commercials and advertisements that can help them to incorporate innovative techniques into their writing style. I also use the computer classroom as a collaborative space where students share their documents and create new documents (mostly in Google Drive) as a way to perform peer review and topic ideation.