Week 11: Let's Get Video Game Literate!

           When it comes to video games, admittedly, I am not the most video-game-savvy individual that you will meet. The extent of my experience is found in old Wii games and phone apps. However, the past several years have seen a growth of information surrounding video games and their potential advantages in the classroom. This new use of video games relies on narrative and ideology to reach out to students in a mode that they find more appealing than the average lecture, especially as video game literacy increases among students outside of the classroom.

Narrative

Gaming narratology models that of literature and film in the way that students are expected to analyze the overarching narrative of the game they are playing. In this way, students can see the structure of the game and what it reveals about the world (real and fictional), the characters of the game, and the individuals playing the game as they interact with each element. As Perron and Wolf analyze, “video games are not only a social phenomena, they are the essential crossroads of a redefinition of our relation to the narrative world in images” (9). Rather than relying on descriptions, students can focus on images, an appeal to a different type of learning that provides variety in the classroom. As a result, video games provide an outlet for visual learners to further understand the value of analysis of a narrative work.

Ideology

Behind the more applicable sense of narrative in video games is the underlying ideology that sees video games as a valuable tool in the classroom. The theory itself is a “convergence of a wide variety of approaches including film and television theory, semiotics, performance theory, game studies, literary theory,” and many other such theories (Perron and Wolf 2). This union of so many individual theories makes video game theory so unique as so many pieces of the medium are being analyzed at once. As such, the use of video games in the classroom feeds a wide variety of interests and topics where opportunities for students and educators seem to be limitless. While not exactly advocating for the use of video games like Halo and Minecraft in the classroom, there is room for more interactive video games to play a role in education, especially as more and more are being created with the intention of fostering a love of learning within students.