Well, thus far, The Literature Workshop offers some of the most practical and insightful tips on teaching literature that I have ever read. Already, I have bookmarked workshops and made plans to incorporate some of his ideas into my lesson plans. The truly interesting part? Most of the ideas I am most excited about are not ideas I am considering for my 8th graders…but for my 5th and 6th grade language arts class. Perhaps because they are my language gurus. They were actually asking me today what Middle English was, and why our English is so different from theirs, and how come we don’t speak Middle English anymore? The most common question I get from my 8th graders is “What time does this class end?” But I digress.

I have often wondered the best course for teaching interpretation. Teaching comprehension is fairly straightforward. Getting students to ask the right questions about literature isn’t always. How do I get them to move from comprehension to interpretation? Blau’s chapter on “correct” interpretations was interesting, as I have often found that to be a contentious debate in literary circles. It was the most common complaint I heard in undergrad from English students: “The professor didn’t like my interpretation, so I didn’t get a great grade on the paper.” It was also a common complaint from those outside the English major: “English majors have it easy. They just have to give their opinion, and it’s always right, because how can a professor argue their interpretation is incorrect?” Blau combats this by pointing out that the object is not whether or not you have an opinion, but whether or not you can prove your opinion with information found in the text. Two people can view the same text and walk away with entirely different interpretations, and still both hold valid views if their opinions are supported by elements found directly in the text itself. This must be why law schools value English lit. undergrad degrees–they have the ability to interpret texts and back up their assertions with facts, regardless of the side. As Blau further makes note, this instruction is “salvational,” as so many professions make use of one’s ability to interpret texts or situations (77-78). I highlighted this sentence, as I feel it should be the creed of the English teacher. It makes English important in a world that sometimes thinks its a “frivolous” or “easy” subject.

This has truly been an eye-opening book. While some of the things he suggests are far too advanced for my middle schoolers, I do believe I can tailor most of his ideas for them, and make literature a more exciting world for them to play in. As for the title of my post, I just found the most fun activity on pg. 93– have one person explain a modern poem to Sir Phillip Sidney! What a great idea, and the kids always love role playing. I will definitely have to try that one!

I said in an earlier blog post that I came to grad school because I wanted to know what best practices were according to a community of professionals. After having completed a course on writing instruction and being a quarter of the way into a class on reading instruction—well, I’m starting to think ignorance was bliss. But not in the way one might first assume.

One point that Blau makes—and I couldn’t agree more—is that rereading is key to understanding literature. I know this to be true of myself and I’ve observed it multiple times in others as well. This is something I try to facilitate in my classroom—and it’s been a point of contention.

There’s a log book in the English department at my school, broken into 3 week increments for signing out novels. I had one signed out for my 9th grade class earlier this year, S.E. Hinton’s That was then, this is now. It’s about 150 pages, and an “at grade level” read for my students. There is only a class set, so all reading is done in class. We read the novel within the 3 weeks, but my students were writing about and discussing the themes in the novel—drug use, growing up, racism. I wanted them to be able to reread as we did these assignments, so I checked the sign out sheet and as no one was signed up, I signed it out again.

I will spare you the details of what happened, but I had a serious disagreement with a colleague who came in a week later and wanted to use the book. She interrogated me angrily in front of a few early comers to class that morning—why was it taking so long? Do you really need a month to read that book?

Incidents like this, not to mention the breadth of what we’re expected to cover, makes doing this type of careful analysis and rereading so difficult that I have questioned myself and fretted more than I care to admit. My foray into grad school has pointed me in the direction of what practices are best and confirmed some of the practices I was already employing—but what good is a tool if my hands are tied behind my back?

I acknowledge that the answer is as simple as doing the best I can, but it’s distasteful to me to have to compromise what I consider the core principles of my work. Blau said in his writing that teachers are often put in the “professionally humiliating” position of being told what and how to teach, and he could not have been more right.

Blau works nicely to fill in the gap between the theory we’ve been encountering and the reality of the classroom. Several of us have commented on it. Finally, news we can use!

I like that Blau gives us models and examples of what we can do, but I also like that he also tells us what NOT to do. Like Scholes, he warns us that we can easily slip into the role of “sage on the stage” and put our students into the position of spouting back to us our own interpretations when it comes time for assessment. This “banking model”, where information is deposited into our student’s memories and withdrawn by them when they need it is, unfortunately, what many of our students have come to expect from us. His revelation that in planning and preparing to teach a course, teachers are doing the learning while students are relegated to the role of serving as witnesses and recorders of interpretations and approaches to conceptual problems. I confess that I have occasionally presented lessons like this, usually when I am out of ideas on how to engage students or when the material is new; it sometimes is the easiest way, the path of least resistance, but it is mediocre teaching at best.

Fortunately Blau’s book is full of suggestions on what we can do with a classroom full of students so they can become more competent and productive learners instead of merely containers for our ideas. I appreciate his emphasis on group work and how it is a natural part of the reading process. Yes, reading is a solitary act, but that doesn’t mean that understanding, analyzing and interpreting should also be done by the student working alone. In my composition classes, I am always pleased with the results of group discussions as a pre-writing activity. Working in groups, students rarely complain afterwards that they don’t know what to write about. Working together, without the intimidation factor of a teacher standing over them, they feel free to say things they might not say otherwise. They question each other’s ideas, suggest alternative approaches and general are more open. This is exactly what we want them to do in a literature class when we ask them to engage an author’s text.

Blau’s book is crammed with too many examples to discuss in a single blog post, but his workshop on background/prior knowledge (Chapter 4) is especially illuminating to me as an ESL reading instructor. One of the biggest issues I face is that ESL students frequently discount what they know because they don’t see the universality of it or its worth. After all, their cultural background is different from that of their peers and from their instructor, so how can it apply to a classroom discussion of a poem or passage they don’t understand?

I would modify Blau’s approach and have them bring in examples of fables indigenous to their cultures, then spend time in groups where they would “teach” each other how they construct meaning from the cultural references. I think they would soon realize that there are themes that run through many of the readings that are universal to all cultures. They would hopefully also understand that what they bring with them from their culture is just as valid as anything I or any students has to say.

I also think that Blau’s storytelling workshop (Chapter 5), where students exchange interpretations of personal stories, would be an excellent way to illustrate how each of us uses our different backgrounds and cultural references when we attempt to create meaning. As students and instructors, we are the sum total of the experiences we have had in our lives. There is not “wrong” interpretation, only different interpretations.

Let me first begin by saying that I have enjoyed reading Blau more than any of the other reading assignments thus far.  I found myself taking trips down memory lane while reading his book and revisiting my old literature classes from my undergraduate days.  What struck me most is how little I could remember from some of my classes and how vivid some of my memories from other classes are.  Not only can I not tell you what we read in Victorian Lit, but I hardly remember even attending the class (although I promise that I did).  However, I remember discussions about Madame Bovary, details about Kate Chopin, and arguments we had about Humbert Humbert.  I even remember the names and faces of some of my classmates (and this was ten years ago!).  Perhaps I remember these classes more clearly because I found the texts more interesting to read.  However, I think that the most significant difference between the classes I remember and the classes I don’t are the teaching methods used by the professors.

I attended a small, liberal arts school, and there were only four English professors.  I remember things I read in Sister Thomasita and Sister Deborah’s classes because they let us explore them for ourselves.  I felt slightly uncomfortable the first time I had to get into a small group and discuss what we read the night before because I had never been asked to do that in high school.  However, I soon realized that it was a lot more fun to talk about the book than to be lectured about it.  These two professors did give lectures providing background information about the authors or explaining the literary and historical context of a work, but they also incorporated activities similar to the ones Blau describes.  On the other hand, I cannot remember much of anything about other classes (like Victorian Lit) taught by Professor X.  I do remember that the texts were generally not easy for me to read, and so I would sometimes just not do all of the reading.  I knew that he would spend the entire class time just telling us what we should have understood from the text, so if I could take good notes then I’d be fine.  I don’t want to be a teacher that causes amnesia in her students or fosters a helplessness even among English majors.  I want my classes to provide meaningful learning experiences for students, and with some borrowed ideas from Blau and my old professors and some creativity on my part, I can hopefully achieve that when I do teach some day.

No! I was considering using “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell for my teaching presentation; however, Blau uses it in one of the workshops in Chapter 4. The point of using this poem is an example of how sometimes background knowledge is essential for interpreting a poem. Students might have more confusion of this particular poem if no one is familiar with the role of a ball turret gunner and the structure of fighter planes in World War II.

Blau even admits that he’s never conducted that workshop without at least one participant knowing about WWII bombers and ball turrets on page 84. I wonder what would happen, especially with newer generations moving farther away from that era, if no one knew. Blau mentions that he draws a picture of the WWII bomber, which is one method of introducing the background information to students.

However, in class we’ve also discussed New Criticism and how perhaps, background information can get in the way of a reading as well. A good example of how background information got in the way of interpretation is my group’s “think aloud” exercise, where we had such focus on the poet William Carlos Williams in our interpretation. However, background information would have also been useful had my group recognized the date of the poem 1934, we might’ve considered The Great Depression in our reading (especially with the broken green bottle).

I feel conflicted on whether a teacher should provide background information before a reading. In some ways, this would be very helpful. As a reader, if I’m at home, I tend to research information I am not familiar with in relation to a text. On the opposite side, I think that giving background information might lead readers to one type of interpretation, which brings up what Blau points out in Chapter 3 about one of the misperceptions of reading literature being that there is only one “correct” response/interperation.

I opened Blau reluctantly. As someone who taught for years in an extremely challenging school that had high teacher turnover, I have long felt that the ideals presented by the ivory tower just don’t fly in the exhausting and thankless world of the urban school. To teachers who are struggling to read Shakespeare to a class of ninth graders who are reading on the fourth grade level…well…you get sick of being told you just need to raise the bar and believe in your students. However, I came to like Blau for his honesty regarding his preconceptions and limitations. I think sometimes a tired teacher needs to know that the person who is preaching to him or her has also experienced failure and understands the odds.

Of particular interest to me is the problem of cultural literacy. Even though diversity is creeping into the curriculum, my experience is that there is still a heavy emphasis on what we teachers were, ourselves, taught — dead white men. As Scholes went on and on about Hemingway and his universality, I thought “my ninth graders never would have picked up on these World War clues.” I found that, when I was working with them, I was constantly stumbling upon problems I never expected. They had never heard of Marilyn Monroe, for example. The administrators blamed low test scores and poor retention of our material on this “cultural illiteracy”. At one point, we actually had a mandate to teach three idioms per quarter and the specific idioms were chosen for us. A drop in the bucket.

Reading Blau and mulling over “My Papa’s Waltz”, I think one of the solutions is to try very hard to find works with universal underlying themes (such as first love in Romeo and Juliet or familial relationships in “My Papa’s Waltz.”) There will still be terms and cosmetic elements that don’t make sense, but those could be surmountable. Note to self: avoid texts that are very time-and-place-specific if an alternative exists. I’m not sure what this means about my choice of Jane Eyre…but it doesn’t sound good!

I’ve been really thrilled to read Blau’s The Literature Workshop because of the practical teaching methods that Blau gives us (not that Gee wasn’t interesting, but definitely not too practical). As someone who has never taught before, the “workshops” that Blau methodically works through in each chapter are really enlightening. I was particularly drawn to and interested by the techniques Blau introduces through his workshop on the David Ordan short story in Chapter Six. As an undergraduate English major, I was always troubled by the idea of “what’s worth saying about a literary text”? After years of lectures and writing prompts, I never felt like I was taught how to read a piece of literature and trust myself enough to know what in the piece was “worthy” of writing about. I found Chapter Six to really be helpful to me both as a future teacher and also as a reader and student of literature.

Blau emphasizes the importance of having our students read and reread through a series of silent reading and reflection and by using the “jump in” reading that the entire class participates in out loud. The last time I participated in this kind of “popcorn” reading style was probably when I was in middle school. I think that a lot of secondary school teachers and university level professors probably find this kind of activity to be a waste of time. Rather, Blau tells us that he uses versions of pedagogical strategies that elementary school teachers use (like this “jump in” reading) to help their students make sense of what they’re reading (98).  Using these sort of “elementary” reading activities first and foremost ensures that all students have read the text; more importantly, going through these reading techniques emphasizes the point that no reader is skilled enough to understand all the nuances of the text in the first read-through—not even the professor (I particularly liked Blau’s observation that teachers are more willing to fail at understanding the first time around than their students). I really liked the “pointing” activity that Blau introduces in this chapter. Allowing students to pick the lines that they saw as most important and then watching as some of the same lines are repeated again indicates that the teacher is allowing the students to dictate the interpretation of the text. The students see that what they find important in the text matters. They can also see that other students found the same lines important, giving further satisfying validation that their initial thoughts were “on track”. The writing assignment that follows is also a great way to get students thinking independently about why they were drawn to certain lines in the poem. These three steps (rereading, pointing, and the “most important line” writing assignment) seems like they could also work for any writer who wants to figure out what he thinks is “worth saying” about a literary text that he is grappling with.

So far, I would probably use most of the workshops presented in Blau’s text, except for the one in chapter five that asks students to share their own stories and have their peers interpret them. I understand the point of this exercise (to teach students that anyone can interpret), but it seems that this kind of activity wouldn’t work in all classrooms. Students must be mature enough not to take this “story-telling” time as a time for socializing, and I think a lot of students would be uneasy “interpreting” the anecdotes of their peers. In other words, I think you really have to have the “perfect classroom” to pull this one off.

Like others, I agree that Gee is definitely stretching his defense of video games a little far and I, too, think he has simply avoided dealing with many of the negative effects of video games. For example, as our posts have exposed, we all know someone who has unfortunately replaced their effort and value in their real-world identity with obsessive dedication to some sort of a virtual one. My reading of Gee was colored by my prior knowledge, having only experienced a significant identity shift in a negative manner watching someone choose their World of Warcraft identity over their real-world identity. Investment in one’s identity obviously has the power Gee claims and so I must agree that building bridges and repairing damaged identities are a central goal for all teachers (57). How can we achieve the positive exchange of identities Gee claims, “real-world identities (some of which may have started as virtual identities in other play or school domains)…” (121), rather than the negative shifts I find more common with preferring a virtual to a real identity? Gee would find the answer within a properly established projective identity and use his students as scientists’ metaphor to prove this point. I just don’t know what a beneficial projective identity amounts to in the English classroom. Obviously, students must assume the identity of student and learner and this repair work is no easy task as being good at school carries more different meanings and values than any one teacher can possibly understand or repair. But what projective identity is available in the English class? Critic? That has too much prior baggage, even to those who are professing English, to be of actual use in the high school classroom. How does Gee actually play into the classroom? I find myself falling back on this question for most of his presented principles, identity is just bothering me the most at the moment.

To close, I will admit that I appreciate Gee’s vocabulary. Whether or not I agree with all of Gee’s positive analysis of the first-person shooter affinity group, I like the term.  Gee’s conception of triple identities really does interest me, but mainly frustrates me. I agree to his expanded view of literacy and most of his assessments about what is potentially lacking in current classrooms.  But can Gee’s learning principles practically fit into the practicing classroom? My projective identity as an English 610 student who fully appreciates the value of Gee’s book sure hopes so…

Reading Gee’s book about video games and learning left me with as many questions as I had before I started—and if the twitter stream from class is any indication, I’m not alone in that regard.

First, Gee derives learning principles from video game usage, and the 36 principles he points out all hold water for me—many of them being things I’ve heard before in education classes. Where things became more thorny was when Gee admitted that even he is not taking his work to mean that video games should necessarily be used in the classroom. I understand that Gee’s point was that the classroom should do many things that video games do well—work at the outer reaches of the individual’s development, reward effort, build identity—but there wasn’t one suggestion on how to make this so.

I know I tend to be a broken record about “well, how can we apply this in the classroom?” but it’s the entire reason I took on graduate school. After four years of undergraduate work and four years of teaching, I feel competent but I still have questions about best practices—practices being the key word. I want to challenge and reward each student individually—but with 150 students, how do I do that? I don’t mean to imply that discussing such topics isn’t worthwhile if they aren’t immediately implentable. I appreciate discussions like those in Gee’s book about what our goals will be because of the direction they give. To me, this makes a clear case for smaller class sizes and more relevant instruction practices—but that case has already been made elsewhere. What we need is a way to make it happen.

Another area of questions for me about Gee’s work centered on the demographics of those who generally play and are featured as central characters in video games—white males of middle class or better standing. While I don’t think different demographics of people learn differently, I hesitate to accept Gee’s generalizations that he has taken from video games when it comes to applying to all types of learners. He acknowledges that the world of video gaming is clearly lopsided, but I don’t think he holds that focus in mind when he generalizes about their benefits.

I think it was too easy for Gee to gloss over some major issues—for instance, how all of that social game “chat” on headsets often goes (misogynistic, homophobic) because of his group membership. Gee is only human and this wasn’t a scentific trial, but I think he lost some objectivity because of his love for video games. He gives them too much of a pass in some areas that I think are critical, especially given his assertions about learning as a social act.

I appreciated Gee’s careful deduction of what video games have to offer, but I felt I was already aware of those principles from other sources. On the whole, this leaves me feeling I did not learn a lot of new material from this book.

There is a lot of information in Gee’s book, almost too much to get your arms around in a single reading and definitely too much to critique in a blog post. At the macro level, however, it is safe to say that what Gee espouses is what every educator should consider; if students aren’t learning using present teaching concepts, then all of us (teachers, administrators, and education theorist) need to look at the way students are being taught. I think most would agree that there are many subjects and courses where students are going through the motions of learning, but that their accumulated knowledge is, as Gee notes, an inch deep and a mile wide. (I occasionally have students who are the products of European schools and have found that while their knowledge may not be as broad-based as other students, the depth of what they know is impressive.)
I like many of Gee’s concepts; I find his “learning principles” to be, in many cases, refreshing restatements of current pedagogical maxims. Speaking from the vantage point of a “reading” teacher, I found the section on identity and learning, especially the concept of learners developing a projective identity (p. 48), to be something that should be stressed more in ESL reading classes.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I am currently teaching a novel about the immigrant experience in America. While I am sure that most of my ESL students can identify with the immigrant experience, projecting themselves into the story would help them identify more with the characters and plot lines than merely the topic of immigration. Assigning students to put themselves in to role of one of the main characters or having them write into the story a completely new character, would immerse them to a much greater degree.

Giving them the freedom to have their “projected” selves act in ways that are not prescribed by anything other than basic plot points, would give them an insight into what writers must consider as they construct the world inside their novels. What are the relationships between characters? How are these relationships manifested? What restrictions are placed on their actions by the plot, character development and various story lines?
Forcing students to consider all the potential ramifications of the actions of their projected identities would be a revelation for many into the craft of writing and story telling. Hopefully it would also give them a greater appreciation for what they read and some tools to help them interpret what they author is trying to say.
Gee has other ideas that I think I can use in my classroom, but his theories, like others we have read this semester, bump into the realities of teaching. We all know, as Gee emphasizes, that students learn from their mistakes. In a classroom, however, mistakes often go into the grade book because of the realities of our education system. We don’t have the luxury of allowing students to repeatedly fail at a task until they get it right.

As I read What Video Have Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, I started to imagine what I would say to Gee if I were to sit down to tea with him one snowy afternoon. I jotted down a list throughout my reading that would help me to remember the points of contention I wished to discuss with him. (Some of them have already been mentioned by other blog posts, so I feel as if I am part of an “affinity group” of doubters.) 

Here is my list of points of contention, each followed by my post-reading reflection:

1) Gender? Sexualized females?

Just because Gee makes a disclaimer in the beginning of his book does not mean that we can toss aside the damage that such factors might cause in a learning environment.

2) Multiple intelligences?

I have to wonder whether Gee has taken into account the multiple ways that people learn. He does not seem to ever point out that while certain other teaching strategies work for some students, video games may also only work for some students. Students who are skilled in either visual-spacial intelligence or bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (two of Gardener’s list of multiple intelligences) may excel at video games, but what about the students who just flounder repeatedly with this kind of activity. I think adding video game-style learning to any curriculum can be useful, but I want to iterate that certain students would not reap the same benefits. Differentiating learning is very important, and I concur with Gee that we need to be more cognizant of gamers’ learning styles, but I can’t be sure that all, or even most, students would learn better with gaming-type curriculum.

3) Childhood obesity?

This may seem random, but one of today’s headlines explains that Michelle Obama is working to prevent childhood obesity so it was on my mind.  As I was thinking about my students sitting at home over these snow days, playing video games, I got to thinking about their lack of exericese.  We all know that chidlhood obesity stems, in large part, from the inactivity involved in many video games (as well as in TV-watching). I know that games like those played on the Wii might be the exception to the rule, but as Todd pointed out, don’t we also see people who suffer because of gaming? Sure, they may be learning and becoming better thinkers, but what are they doing to their health?

4) Addiction? Gambling?

Next on my list was the idea of addiction. I think I had, at this point, started skimming other people’s blogs, and after reading Todd’s I realized that I, too, attribute gaming to addictive behavior because, in certain cases, the game becomes life. This thought led me to yet another: sure, gambling is fun in the classroom, too. It certainly makes for a more interesting lesson, I’m sure, but it promotes something that many consider immoral and dangerous. While a lesson that incorporated gambling might really inspire students to learn, it also might inspire them to a life of addiction. Gambling certainly can indicate a high level of intelligence (as is clear in the movie 21 in which MIT students count cards and make lots of $), but it can also lead to a life of desperation.

5) Active learning? Technology?

In a sense, I think what I got most out of this book, aside from a higher appreciation of some video games, is the notion that we as teachers need to incorporate as much active learning and technology as we can into our classrooms. These days, our students’ lives are immersed in technology, and whether we old-schoolers want to admit or not, they learn better (in ways we may not even grasp) when lessons can be tied to some kind of active learning, particularly when that active learning involves technology.

For example, when I have students play group games in which they review vocabulary words or literary terms that are projected for them Jeopardy-style on the classroom TV or white-board, they get so into it that they forget they are learning. In essence, I have “tricked them into learning,” a phrase a mentor of mine shared with me and I continue to try to incorporate into my classroom. In essence, this is what Gee is talking about when he suggests we incorporate what he has learned about learning into our teaching.

In conclusion, I blame the snow for why I spent so much time on this post, but Gee certainly had me thinking, and while I won’t say I disagree with all he says, or concur for that matter, I do feel like I’ve been forced to think about learning in new and intriguing ways. That said, I’d like to get back to playing Grand Theft Auto IV now.

As I read Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, I connected many of the ideas he had on applying learning strategies to gaming with those we have read previously with Salvatori and Donahue, Shulman, Scholes, and especially Linkon. Gee discusses active and critical learning, which relates to Linkon’s article on cultural critical reading. There is an emphasis on making students active learners instead of passive learners as Scholes would describe moving from reading to interpretation to criticism. This is also shown with Linkon’s example of the inquiry project, where students engaged in real inquiry and took on a new identity as researchers and critical thinkers.

However, Gee says “Certainly children will be at a disadvantage if they have one or more identities that do not fit with, are opposed to, or are threatened by the identity recruited in the [science] classroom…” Similar to how Tim’s Week 3 blog post on Linkon reflected how different cultural identities influenced his student’s readings on The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears by Megestu, the student’s cultural identity affects how they learn. We already know that some students are more adept at learning and that there must be an interest in learning or else the student will have the blame “this text is too difficult,” or “it’s boring” as we learned from The Elements (and Pleasures) of Difficulty. There didn’t seem to be much resolution offered for those children who would be considered disadvantaged by Gee, but there was an expansion on identity as projective identity in his book. Projective identity “plays on two sense of ‘project,’ meaning both ‘to project one’s alues and desires onto the virtual character’ and ‘seeing the virtual character as one’s own project in the making…” (Gee p. 50) Gee later explains (in relation to science classrooms mostly although I really wish there were some English class examples) how the student needs to take on the identity of the scientist (or other expert) in order to become that type of thinker. So, for literature would this mean that a student should empathize and place his/herself in the identity of say the main character? Also, what about the disadvantaged students? How would a student even consciously know to project identity or how does the teacher get the student to project identity in the classroom? Gee goes on to discuss “repair work” for the students who cannot connect between real world identity and virtual identity: learner must be enticed to try even if he/she is afraid to try; learnermust be enticed to put in lots of effort even if there is little motivation to do so; and learner must achieve some meanigful success when he/she has expended this effort. (Gee p. 58) This all seems pretty obvious as generalities for teaching (as we’ve discussed positive reinforcement and making reading interesting in our class). In fact, these things seem more premptive or continuous than “repair work”.

On page 74 Gee says, “Of course, humans don’t just store experiences in their minds ‘as is.’ Rather, they edit them according to their interests, values, goals, and socio-cultural memberships.” This relates to the reading on experts vs. novices and how experts compartmentalize knowledge. In that same article about how experts learn and apply things, it mentions how experts recognize patterns, which Gee also discusses in the 4-step process (for children and experts) on probing, hypothesis, reprobing, and accepting the process on page 88. He also mentions how “situated meanings lead to real understanding and the ability to apply what one knows in action. Verbal meanings do not (though they do sometimes lead to the ability to pass paper and pencil tests). This is why so many school children, even ones who are good at school, can pass tests but still cannot apply their knowledge to real problem solving.” (p. 105) Linkon tried to resolve this by having students do the inquiry project. He also discusses how players learn the game by playing in a “subdomain” of the real game, or initially the first episode of a game which is a type of walkthrough of how to play. This is similar to how Linkon expresses the need for modeling and demonstration.

There is a lot in Gee’s book on how literacy applies to video games, including transference of things learned in one game applied to other similar games (like first-person shooter games), and as I try to be a good learner I shouldn’t complain (as I did above) about the lack of English classroom examples because the point is to transfer what I learned in Gee’s book on literacy and video games to English classrooms.

PS- When I worked in publishing on secondary school level math textbooks, our big competitor was trumping our market because they developed a new program enVision math, which had some pretty intense graphics on video games or technology that teaches math (my company called it “smoke and mirrors”).

As I finish up with Gee, I can’t help but be equally engrossed and critical of his argument. In Video Games, Gee’s argument was particularly strong when he was actually giving examples from the games he was playing to demonstrate what learning principles were being activated and used by the player. Gee’s use of the game Pikman to get his discussion started on semiotic domains is particularly good, because as a reader of Gee’s argument, I can see how each maneuver that the player makes in the game directly translates to a learning principle. As a reader who has very little experience playing video games (and absolutely no experience with the games he uses as examples), I was pleased with Gee’s ability to describe the action of each game in terms that a non-gamer could understand. Through his meticulous background descriptions of each game and detailed play-by-plays of certain maneuvers, Gee makes clear how exactly the action in a video game translate into a critical learning experience for the player. I found the learning principles described with Lara Croft particularly interesting; for example, the player “learns” that he must, in fact, deviate from Professor Von Croy’s strict instructions by being rewarded with golden skulls each time he disobeys. So, on Gee’s video game side of his argument, I was very much with him.

Unfortunately, I was a little skeptical when Gee began to try to translate his video game learning principles to the classroom. For instance, it is not hard to understand the separation of “real-world” and “virtual” identities in the gaming world (except, maybe when Gee overcomplicates things with his discussion about the placement of his italics in the phrase “James Paul Gee as Bead Bead”…so not necessary!), but it really seems a stretch to separate a “learner” and a “scientist” when both are physically the same person. Isn’t “scientist” just one of those “real world identities” that the “learner” may have acquired from years of science class? I just felt that Gee was really making a stretch with his discussion of real and virtual identities in the classroom.

I get how video games make us think and learn in different and often challenging ways. I also understand that the wild success of video games is an indicator that the learning principles they employ should be transferred into the classroom. Where Gee loses me is when he gives little to no tangible examples of how to actually employ these learning principles in the classroom (the only practical example he gives that I’ve seen so far is about the computer game that asks students to elaborate on Galileo’s principles of motion on page 86). I appreciate that video games highlight learning principles that are conducive to how humans tend to learn best; I don’t appreciate when Gee takes pages and pages to describe the learning principle and then makes an abstract claim like “good teachers set up scientific environments that guide learners and surround them with empowering tools that extend their individual efforts” (108). As a reader, I’m left thinking, “Okay, but HOW?” If Gee devoted as much time to translating his learning principles to a classroom setting as he devotes to describing Bead Bead’s maneuvers through her virtual world (and did anyone else think it was TMI when we heard about Bead Bead’s “well-deserved night of forbidden pleasure”?), I think that this book would be a lot more worthwhile for me. It was definitely an interesting concept, though.

I really did not like this book.  I’ve read your posts and it seems like some of you liked it, and I tried to, I just could not get into it or really see the value.  I am not anti-gaming, or a luddite in anyway.  I played lots of different video games growing up from sports, to first person shooters, to RPG’s.  I’ve even recently discussed video games with my students in class, namely the best games ever (Goldeneye, Mario Kart and Chrono Trigger would be the top three).  I also still occasionally play a little Wii.  However, this book just did not do anything for me.

I did not feel that any of Gee’s ideas had any real world application for my classroom.  I agree with Nikki, he had some good ideas about science, but I did not feel that it really applied to a literature classroom.  Letting students “take the long way” and “peruse” sounds great, but I have thirty kids in my class at all times and I need to maintain some sense of coherence and control.  There were some principals he talked about that I strive for, but he did not really give me anything new to work with.  I will be the first to admit that I did not like the book almost immediately for whatever reason, and may not have given it a decent chance.  I read through it however, and even took notes (really enjoying using the index card as bookmark and note taking apparatus..thanks Abbie? I think).

I also feel the book is dishonest.  I am sorry to all the gamers reading this, but I feel that there are negative social effects of playing hours and hours of video games alone.  I do not buy the whole “affinity groups” thing.  Video games can lead to isolation.  I have seen plenty of examples.  There was a guy in college who dropped A WHOLE SEMESTER, because he was playing too much Diablo instead of going to class.  My friends and I had a Sunday ritual (Big Bowl Noodle House ya’ll) and our one friend would refuse to come with us because he had to slay a dragon every Sunday at eight with his guild.  Your online guild should not take precedence over your real life friends, standing in the room, asking you to come hang out.  This summer, one of my roommates, who had quit WOW-ing began to start playing again.  He just checked out.  He would spend hours just WOWing, and we lived a block from the beach.  You could say these are extreme examples, call me old fashioned or a “cranky pants” as I’ve been called, but I think children are better served playing outside, or maybe shovelling my sidewalk.

Oh, hi Pluto, it must be fun working at Disney Land. Although at any major theme park you live under the constant threat of terrorist attacks.

I was very surprised by how much I enjoyed Gee’s book. I particularly enjoyed his introduction and first few chapters as I felt that he became repetitive, essentially saying the same principles in a different way, as the book went on. (I also found some of his examples to be rather long-winded and, at times, redundant.) What struck me most about Gee’s points were the connections to other works we’ve read thus far in the course. I noticed some strong similarities between Gee’s work and the article on expert/novice learners that we read for our second class. I also noticed connections to Scholes’s points about textual power and “codes.”

Like Scholes, Gee speaks to the idea of expanded literacy. Gee says that “print literacy is not enough” (20). It’s not enough to be able to “read and write.” Rather, what matters is how successfully an individual can communicate in any given domain. In chapter two of Textual Power, Scholes states that “our job […] is to show [students] the codes upon which all textual production depends and to encourage their own textual practice” (24-5). Similarly, chapter two of How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School stresses the importance of learning concepts rather than facts. Really, we should be helping our students to further develop their skills so that they can read and send “signals”/codes in any situation. Yes, we love it when our students truly analyze and discuss the novel we’re studying, but we should also want them to be able to apply those skills outside of the text, observing and analyzing the world around them.

Gee argues that “a great deal more is at stake than ‘content’” when it comes to video games (38). The same applies to literature studies, too. While our students may think English is just about reading and analyzing certain texts, we need to be teaching our students to think critically about the texts and the world around them. (Hopefully we’re already doing this and the students just don’t realize it—like the gamer who told Gee he never thought of playing video games as learning.) Gee repeatedly references science and math classrooms, and his book truly lacks significant references and direct application to English classrooms. I’d like to think this “lack” is because we, as English teachers, are already applying many of the principles Gee mentions. Gee’s point seems to be (if I really simplify his arguments and principles) that learning needs to be meaningful and relevant. In order to really learn, the learner must really care. We (naturally?) work to make literature studies meaningful and relevant by making connections between the texts we study and the world around us. We’re making “bridges” between identities (57). This being said, though, it’s important to reflect on our practices. I’m sure we could be doing more to apply Gee’s principles.

Although I understand and agree with Gee’s principles, I am concerned about the “fun and games” mentality. Gee states that if “learning is not compelling to the learner, at some level, then little deep learning is liable to occur” (59). In terms of our classrooms, then, is Gee suggesting that we need to do “tricks” to make everything compelling?? Doesn’t it, at some point/level, come back to the individual and his/her motivation? Gee also states that “children must be motivated to engage in a good deal of practice if they are to master what is to be learned. However, if this practice is boring, they will resist it” (65). Gee acknowledges that we can’t guarantee or make students think actively and critically, but we can set up learning in such a way to encourage deep learning. We can plan lessons and activities in such a way that they are meaningful and relevant. On the flip side, though, life isn’t all fun and games, and I don’t believe that learning is, or needs to be, either, at least not at all times.

Gee somewhat acknowledges that, at some level, it does come back to the individual students’ motivation and learning style.  He points out that students with an identity as someone who dislikes school are at a disadvantage when it comes to meaningful learning (45), acknowledging that some students simply dislike school. (We all know what a challenge it is to try to “entice” that student!) Gee also acknowledges that “video games are particularly good […], at least for some types of learners” (58). Some students may be engaged with a video game, or a novel of study, and some may not. Yes, we should strive to make our lessons meaningful and engaging, striving to make literature studies relevant and meaningful, but I believe there is something to be said for personal motivation and dedication on the part of the student.

(I really don’t mean to sound negative as I end this post. I really believe in the principles Gee shares, and I believe they can be applied effectively in our English classrooms. I guess I’m just commenting on some of the realities I see, too, and I’m always concerned when student accountability is potentially downplayed in some way. One more thing—sorry for such a long post! I always have so much to say about our readings!)

Gee’s What Video Games have to Teach Us… contains a lot of interesting and helpful ideas about thinking and learning, but since I have to focus on something for this post, I’m picking the end of Chapter 6. It stood out to me because of the connections to Salvatori and Donahue re: difficulty in learning.

On pages 172-3, Gee talks about how moving “straightforwardly and efficiently toward the goal” was not the way to win (or succeed in/do well in) a video game. He uses words like “delay,” “sneak,” and “linger” to suggest that the best way to play (and win) is to be slow and patient about it, to be thorough. He suggests that “side trips” are often rewarding, and sometimes essential. If we read “player” as “student,” which of course Gee wants us to do, we see Gee suggesting that the students who look for the easiest path to an “A” grade (often our honors, AP, and gifted students) are missing out on a lot of the real learning. In actuality, the student who struggles, and perseveres, with information or new tasks learns more, and learns better.

Gee also talks about video games having “multiple solutions,” read: ambiguity. As most of our other readings have suggested, ambiguity is a huge part of reading literature, and it is one of the major concepts with which students struggle. Gee suggests that in an ideal classroom, students would explore texts like the virtual world of a video game, going down interesting side paths, lingering over confusing or contradictory sections, considering multiple answers to posed questions, and delaying resolution about meaning. Not only that, but students would fail, try again, fail again, and try once more. “How quickly you proceed,” he says on page 174, “is not a big value”; that is, reading a text once through and coming to a definite conclusion about meaning is not the goal of learning. “Hard is not bad, and easy is not good” (175).

Gee makes it quite clear that students (children, people, humans) do not necessarily shy away from difficulty. But I think the problem circles back to interest: Players of video games may embrace games’ difficulty because they value their accomplishments in that world. Video games are a social activity — for younger kids in particular. They provide common ground for kids, a way for them to judge and compete with each other, to feel proud, to feel challenged. Students may not embrace the difficulty of Jane Eyre because they don’t value knowledge of it — it does nothing for them (they think) other than make them seem “nerdy” or uncool. (I could start talking about peer pressure and its effects on student learning, but I see that I’m already at 451 words, and I’m trying not to get carried away this week!)

The bottom line is that I enjoyed reading Gee, even though I’m not a “gamer,” and even though his endless, endless parentheticals drove me up the WALL. I think he made some really good points, and the way he tied them to the act of playing video games was pretty fascinating to me as an outsider to that world.