I almost hand-wrote this in HTML, but this handy WordPress UI does such a good job of visualizing what my text will look like as I read it, i thought, “why bother?”

In all seriousness, though, the coding vs writing tension still resonates with me because I see code languages as writing languages, but I now, nearly 15 years after this debate was in full swing, wonder if that’s enough. Yes, people write with them, but how much of the learning to write with them is the equivalent of learning proper grammar so the machine will properly interpret your code, for instance? If what we’re teaching is communication and “critical thinking,” does knowing the proper syntax for HTML contribute to that directly? Probably as much as grammar does to English, which is to say a lot, but in ways that are imperceptible to the reader unless it’s wrong, and modern FYC tends to only cover grammar when absolutely necessary. So the question I’m left with is, why would we do that so much for markup languages like HTML, for instance?

I think the answer lies in the fact that significantly fewer students come to FYC knowing HTML than English, as it represents a weakness in their functional literacy in the 21st century which, we keep telling ourselves, will ultimately draw up lines of power between those who can “code” and those who can’t (like us). Ergo, teaching coding and web markup can be seen as part of our charge to prepare students for writing in their lives henceforth.

If I seem super cynical on this point, it’s probably because I want to keep myself invested in the argument by questioning myself. I particularly sympathize with the Mauriello, Pagnucci, and Winner piece and it’s lamentation of class time lost to technical instruction in search of expanding the domain of composition, and the need to create research networks to work on the problem. When I teach my Minecraft narrative remediation assignment, I routinely lose 2-3 class periods overall to technical problems, either with firewall, backup, or networking issues, and I have to constantly remind myself that it’s in service of the students’ enhanced literacy that views language, narrative, and code together and not separated, not just for their good but for the (STEM) disciplines they will go into. At a time when people are worried for the future of the humanities in the face of STEM dominance and corporatization of the University (and if you’re not than you should be), I think teaching with digital composition mediums, particularly game design, is one of the better defensive moves composition can make to not only a) show relevance of humanities to STEM but b) keep humanities values, like critical thinking, argumentation, ethics, emotion, and logic, alive in STEM, which is what we really want, at the end of the day. Instead of retreating back to text-and-text writing, purposeful integration of technology into humanities will achieve integration of humanities into tech via the students that join the STEM workforces. In that paradigm, we are “contributing” on par with technical instruction. If we treat our own field as a “service” that provides “value added” to STEM fields by teaching writing divorced from “weird” composition mediums, there will be nothing to stop administration from fully transforming humanities professors and adjuncts into contingent labor, replaceable with the drop of a hat.

After chatting with Alisha, Bianca, Sam, & Sherri on Tuesday, my mind is pretty much on overload with the all of the possibilities gaming brings to the ESL classroom. Obvs it’s not new research (CALL does a lot with gaming these days), but I’ve always felt on the outside of that conversation because I don’t self-identify as a “Gamer” and could never really figure out how something my parents fought over could have educational benefits beyond building thumb dexterity. Thankfully, that’s starting to shift.

I’m highly interested in the endless possibilities gaming brings to SLA and what exactly that looks like: Learning vocabulary, interacting in a new social discourse, building audience awareness, analyzing rhetorical devices, negotiating meaning, etc. I’d like to see what having an ESL composition classroom with a certain genre of games or a game as a theme for an entire semester does for their writing and language skills. Since I didn’t know Dungeons and Dragons was a originally a paper game (don’t judge me too harshly), I especially favor the idea of scaffolding from a paper/board version to a system version of a game for a semester – but I’m not opposed to just tossing them in (that’s literally how I learned to swim) and seeing where the struggle takes us (I didn’t die). Since I am new to this gaming world, and am trying my hand at playing some myself, I can certainly see the possible frustrations that ESL students are likely to experience when trying to navigate a world that doesn’t bend quite as easily to our rule of thumb; I can also imagine the lively conversations, descriptive pieces of writings, and the leaps in learning that are possible from stepping out of one’s comfort zone.

The biggest worry I have, honestly, would be transfer and finding clear-cut objectives that demonstrate the benefits of such a class to my students.

Once again, I feel like I’ve overlooked articles that articulated significant questions about digital technologies, which I’ve been asking or discussed, that are still ongoing today. In particular, the question of whether to teach students to code HTML, use WYSIWYG, use templates, or some combination of the above, is no less controversial these days (and there are staunch proponents for each option). And as usual, some people still question whether such work should count as “writing” at all, or whether it falls under the domain of Composition, Computer Science, or someplace else. Personally, I think it counts as Composition and writing. But I’m also biased having been an undergrad TA for a web design course that I helped revise. Part of me would have liked to have read these articles 6 years ago, but part of me is also glad to have encountered questions of how to teach web design through experience.

Today, I also wonder how contested issues of teaching HTML or not in a Composition class are. I wonder this because I’ve tried to keep up with front-end web technologies since I was in high school, but I’ve fallen a little behind since HTML 5 and CSS 3 released and mobile devices changed the web. Given the proliferation of social media and the increasing complexity of web development, I wonder how much longer students outside of dedicated web design/UX design programs will feel a need or desire to learn HTML and front-end web technologies. Even with what I know of web design, for most things I would be likely to publish online, it’s faster these days to modify a WordPress site than to code one from scratch, or to just modify a template. Unless I really needed to develop a custom site for a very specific reason, it probably wouldn’t be worth the level of complexity and time it takes to put together a good web site. But, that knowledge of the underlying code comes in handy when things break, or need to be strategically broken. But I might just be getting old and bitter, and a little cynical about people who don’t believe in web writing as important to Composition and writing studies?

After Tuesday’s conversation with Ashley, Alisha, Sherri, and Dr. Blackmon, during which we considered the example of Neverwinter and the manner in which such a game might be used in the classroom, I am struck by all the different pedagogical applications for such a game. Whether it’s using the game to discuss research practices, or thinking about it as a site of communication and language, or using the game as the catalyst for conversations about things like audience, discourse community, representation, historical/cultural context, etc., it’s fascinating to think about how a video game can be so pedagogically generative. This actually brings to mind a comment made in “Reading between the Code: The Teaching of HTML and the Displacement of Writing Instruction” in which Mauriello, Pagnucci, and Winner point out that their various uses of technology in their classrooms led them to realize that “no one method is, as yet, the best approach” (416).

I’ve also been thinking about—as Sherri brings up in her post as well—the ideas of struggling and comfort levels in relation to the use of games with students. It seems to me that the conversations around the struggling seem to be helpful as well, for they may allow us to think about why it is that we struggle as well as what sort of implications our struggles might have for the way we think about our interactions with video games. Perhaps this speaks to something Rea and White highlight in “The Changing Nature of Writing: Prose or Code in the Classroom”: “To work effectively within the medium, both instructors and students need to understand the medium itself, because it is not only changing culture, but also the means through which people communicate and share information” (423). And maybe the various methods of engaging with Neverwinter that we all talked about together in our group are all different ways we might begin to “work effectively within the medium” in an effort to think about how we communicate and share information and how video games might mediate such communication.

I was a little surprised at first when I was assigned to the game group on Tuesday, but quickly realized that while I could see easy applications for both Second Life and MOOs, I couldn’t really come up with anything for a game like Neverwinter. Lesson: never doubt Sam, I guess. Someday I’ll learn that one.

This week I’ve been confronted with a lot of interesting ways to think about games in the classroom. Though I’m obviously very interested in games, it’s always been a little difficult for me to see beyond the most basic applications of games in class — narrative structures, for instance, characterization, presentation, design, but after someone else got me thinking about how games can teach failure (and thus revision), I was in a really good place to open up to all kinds of angles Tuesday during class. Listening to Sherri talk about different uses for Neverwinter, and to Ashley talk about SLS students and language acquisition got me doing some new thinking about how we approach games, how quickly we pick up the language unique to it (or create our own), about how we learn and begin navigating what can be a completely foreign space, and how that correlates to class. And wow, this all feels so basic, like obviously I should have been thinking about this, what an idiot am I, but I have to keep reminding myself that I’m new to this. That these connections aren’t always obvious, that they do require thinking and study.

I guess what I’m saying is I’m grateful to be here. Oh, and Sam is pretty much always right, mostly, usually.

UPDATE: because my post posted without everything, somehow, I guess (sigh):

Today in my 106 class, we were having some conversations about this, about how we use language and how that language shifts between groups/classes/contexts, and as I was trying to get them to think about purpose in a rhetorical sense, I noticed that my co-instructor in Tech 120 had left a template on a board on the other end of the classroom: [USER] needs to [USER’S NEED] because [INSIGHT/BENEFIT] or something similar, and despite possible missing words, I turned their attention to this simple template. Consider that, I said, for your papers. What do YOU need to do and for what reason? What do you want? What do I need you to do, and for what reason? If you’re writing a resume, why are you doing it? What reason does that document have for existing in the world? I raise all this because these repetitive questions reminded me of repetitive actions, too, in games, in code, in so many forms of creation/interaction. All the crossover we’re pushing in 106E is bleeding into other modes of my life and I am learning as well.

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.

we are teaching in a different world. our obligations and our circumstances are changing still, in new contexts where web writing is not so new or scary or strange or complicated. not many of us feel obligated to teach coding–there are plenty of other arenas where students probably have learned it by now. but some things are still true for us, it seems.

like what Rae and White notice about evaluating web content: “accessing information on the Web is not as much of a problem as distinguishing between valuable information and eye candy” (427).

and this: “more people have the potential to express their ideas and to influence others. Instead of the select few having access to the mechanisms for book publishing, broadcast television, or radio, people can take part in the new communication possibilities available through the computer” (423). we don’t need to make many claims about this anymore. we know. and yet– there are plenty of populations who don’t have this access. and plenty of people also have their access controlled or limited or tracked in sketchy, colonial-ish ways, too. there are lots of big hairy conversations and arguments to be had about access, even if some things can be somewhat taken for granted in 2015.

and perhaps this bit is still true too, from Maurellio, on how “research has not yet determined how much this use of code must be incorporated into composition courses” (411). I sort of chuckled at this. will research ever determine, unequivocably, exactly how anything should/must be done in any writing classroom? I mean, research is good and useful and all, but I have my doubts about how many “musts” it will ever be able to fully support.

I really love the concept of a metamedium–a medium that can reflect on itself. the web is not the only such medium, I don’t think. maybe most are, in some fashion.

When authors focus on bringing games and playfulness into the classroom, I more often than not put on my Mr. Skeptical Hat. Bringing play into the classroom can be a really difficult endeavor, especially when we’re dealing with play mediated by technology. It’s difficult enough to get students to engage with new and shiny technologies, but if they see the activity as frivolous, they seem to be even less likely to engage. So while we may have the best of intentions with bringing the fun via new tech, it’s a really risky move. We see this in the Haas and Gardner piece, where they had to spend TWO WEEKS to essentially teach their students how to play a text adventure game. One class? Maybe two? I can totally see that being worthwhile, but two weeks eats up about half of one unit for me. I don’t have time for that, and neither do my students—especially considering the fact that they likely won’t have to interface with something like that ever again.

If we want to bring playful tech into the classroom, it needs to super accessible in terms of learning how to interface with it or there needs to be some legitimate transfer between learning the fun tech and learning useful tech.

While reading for today, I kept flashing back to when I was a child and the ways I would attempt to play with language – mainly through poetry and my little 8 year old rants in my journal. I then considered the ways I began intertwining Spanish and English, trying to find my place in both. Reflecting back, I think I was attempting to develop some sort of power role that I could exert in my monolingual classrooms (I wonder how that would have come across in any of the “games” mentioned in the readings for today). I never considered any of that play. I did, however, recall the many Saturday mornings I’d wake up early just to play Donkey Kong and Mario Bros on our new Nintendo, and while that was certainly play, I, again, didn’t consider the role of language and negotiation when playing with my adoptive father who’d speak primarily in Spanish to me during two player games and perhaps the impact that had on my language development – oral and literate. Jumping forward 20 years, my interests in the role of “play” in second language development is certainly budding. I wonder how ESL/multilingual students would respond to a task such as the one Daisley discusses: what personas would they take, would they continue to focus on form or venture over to meaning? how would negotiation play out if this occurred between a NS and NNS versus two NNS? Would a different identity emerge than the one they hold to in their L1? would they feel empowered at all? would ownership of a language that isn’t their Mother Tongue take root?

Alisha’s post has one of my same reactions as I was reading through the articles…which is that play and games didn’t really seem to be the theme (other than the MOO), yet the language was still there…and I actually find that reassuring. Too often we end up arguing about games being worthwhile learning experiences in spite of being fun–as if there is an invisible line at the classroom door where pleasurable experiences must stop and wait until the period is up. It ties in, too, with the difficulty of defining games and how much fun is required before they move from play to…something else. People get angry during games. They fight. They are hurt by loss. And, as Daisley points out, there are always people who take it too far or who end up cruel in their need to win. Fun isn’t always the essential component. That’s too simple.

As Patrick pointed out, games tend to have structures where the learning mechanisms are easy to find. They work well in classrooms because its easy to dissect the process and get students to see how they are learning, what they are learning, and why they should be learning it. The curtain is down and Oz is revealed. The perks and downfalls are exaggerated and clearly outlined because that’s what makes a game easy to learn, fun to play, and worth engaging with.

“Games” aren’t the only form of learning that use this, though, and I kept thinking of the way I use blogs in my class. I don’t use blogs in the strict classroom sense (not in the way I had to do them as a student, anyway). Instead, I have my students take the reigns and write blogs as…well…blogs. Open. Personal. Sometimes inappropriate. There is a lot of discussion about audience, purpose, and how I am not the person they are talking to. Every time I do this, I watch them groan….then I watch them start to write these fascinating little blurbs, and, sometimes, I watch them go too far.

Maybe that’s a better argument for having games in the classroom than I’d thought of before…because when my students push the limits in their blogs–when they say hurtful things, or cross the line into trolling–it’s a chance to talk about limits and purpose and why ethical behavior matters. And if games were the medium being used, that same conversation could happen. Right now, most people learn to play on their own. Video and computer games, especially, are solitary, even when they are digitally social, because a lot of people don’t necessarily learn to play from someone more responsible or knowledgeable who can tell them when they cross a line into trolling. The habits get ingrained before the discussion can take place, and that always makes things harder.