I find myself reacting negatively to a lot of the articles from section two of this book, not because I don’t believe in what they are arguing for, but because of the mode of their arguments.

Johnson and Colby’s article arguing that scholars need to play more games to critically engage with them in and outside of the classroom and that game studies is under, instead of over, represented in composition studies, supports my own feelings on the subject and resonates with my motivation for studying games, but the framing as a “study” is embarrassing, and the reliance on Bogost for definitional value of games is short-sighted, limited, and defies my love for games and education/rhetoric.

Miller’s article on composition metaphors and the Legend of Zelda is charming and persuasive to me, but that is also it’s biggest weakness: it’s persuasive to me as gamer with a certain background and value for certain games (and games period). The similarities between composition and Zelda dungeons offers some valuable insight into both, and I am excited by the idea of motivating students with video game analogies, but it also makes me think about who those students are that it will motivate: probably students that are not at broad risk of failing in the first place and possess the literacy to understand what I am telling them in the first place.

Shultz Colby’s piece on female gamers in her composition class provides the best jumping-off point of all the articles in this section, for my money, because it states, in plain terms, the hardships female gamers face and the underserved nature of non-male gamers in classroom spaces. Yes, as a study it is also middling, but the case-study testimonials of the students gives great insight into the real barriers gaming puts up to certain groups of students and opens conversation to addressing them. It also gets at the real problem facing the broader acceptance of games in education: the gatekeeper nature of gaming literacy. That is the gap that needs to be bridged, and it has to do with gaming itself as much as our approach to it.