English

With advancing technology and resources available to game designers, video games have developed into movie-like productions. This paper will discuss how these modern video games deliver a more tightly developed narrative and how such games can be used in the English Composition classroom, much like traditional texts, to help students learn writing craft. Through the exploration of pedagogical strategies for such use, this paper can inform English professors on how they might incorporate video games into their composition courses. The stigma of video games being a waste of time can now be countered by the richness of story current games exhibit, and these games can have a place in the English classroom. The transformation mimics that of movies decades ago. Video games are ready to be treated as a viable narrative medium just like their movie counterparts and this paper aims to offer ways they can do so.
Games like The Last of Us, Heavy Rain, and The Witcher II: Wild Hunt tell concrete stories in varying degrees of linearity. Gamers experience this narrative and upon completion, they have experienced enough story to fill several books. Not only do students serve as an audience to narrative, in many games they serve as shapers of the story and this can further aid teachers trying to illustrate the craft. The English composition instructor oftentimes must struggle to unpack narrative for students, and video games like these offer a familiar medium—one many students have a strong relationship with—to illustrate the storytelling process for all forms of writing. Through an understanding of how video games form stories students can learn to do so themselves, not unlike how they do the same when reading a novel, watching a play, or analyzing a poem.
Just as the older video games I grew up playing helped develop my creative imagination—and I credit them for enabling me to become a writer—newer games engage players in narrative that spans many topics, including social commentary, popular culture, and literature traditions. Players also wield a narrative power in some games, as their choices help dictate the narrative and the writers of these stories must code such optional narratives for this purpose. This paper focuses on games with strong narrative backgrounds and delves into the benefits and problems associated with using such games in the classroom. It also discusses the history of narrative in video games, starting with text-based adventures and limited graphical games that required the player to conjure up images to our current crop of games with eye-popping visuals which can help players understand a sense of place in their writing, along with the aforementioned narrative they deliver.
James Paul Gee has argued for video games in cognitive development and literacy. This work seeks to expand this influence to the process of writing and how video games can inform students in the composition classroom on narrative. What was once considered a basement hobby now stands to serve as a viable instruction aid for writing.

Mobile devices can be used as writing tools in the English classroom. This paper offers classroom exercises and strategies to implement the use of such devices, enabling a connected learning space that offers particular benefits to low-income students.

An introduction on how to use web videos to enhance classroom discussion and illustrate argument. This example explores Raymond Chandler's views on detective fiction in his article, 'The Simple Art of Murder' by comparing formula fiction to popular music.

Teaching narrative sense of place to student writers can be difficult with traditional texts. Virtual reality (VR) games can help students realize the importance of this by illustrating it. This article outlines a VR exercise for students to experience immersion as a parallel to how written works transport readers to their environments. The exercise offers a visual example of narrative sense of place and serves as a guide for the students’ writing. As personal narratives often suffer from a lack of sensory details, a visual reminder can help these writers reflect on how to immerse their readers. For students to fully grasp the purpose of the exercise, metacognitive practices are used to prepare them. Meta-strategic knowledge (MSK) makes students aware of what to look for in the VR game before they play it. I present an argument for the transfer of the skill of identifying the importance of sense of place to student writing through the familiar practice of playing games and the use of MSK. Wearable technologies serve as new frontiers for learning, and I believe exercises like this one using VR can reach more students, specifically visual learners and video game players.

Teaching narrative sense of place to student writers can be difficult with traditional texts. Virtual reality (VR) games can help students realize the importance of this by illustrating it. This article outlines a VR exercise for students to experience immersion as a parallel to how written works transport readers to their environments. The exercise offers a visual example of narrative sense of place and serves as a guide for the students’ writing. As personal narratives often suffer from a lack of sensory details, a visual reminder can help these writers reflect on how to immerse their readers. For students to fully grasp the purpose of the exercise, metacognitive practices are used to prepare them. Meta-strategic knowledge (MSK) makes students aware of what to look for in the VR game before they play it. I present an argument for the transfer of the skill of identifying the importance of sense of place to student writing through the familiar practice of playing games and the use of MSK. Wearable technologies serve as new frontiers for learning, and I believe exercises like this one using VR can reach more students, specifically visual learners and video game players.

www.http://ive.cuny.edu/2015seminar/
Best Practices in STEM Entrepreneurship Education
Date: July 9th 2015
Location: 55 Lexington Avenue Room 14-220 - New York, NY
Time: 2:45pm -3:45pm.

Panelists:


*        Jonathan Hill, Ph.D. - Pace University

*        Kim Moorning Ed.D. - Medgar Evers College

*        Lynn Rogoff, MFA - New York Institute of Technology

*        Alex Maritz, Ph.D. - Swinburne University of Technology

Page 1. Plath Profiles 227 Sylvia Plath and Material Culture Amanda Golden, Emory University The following articles consider Sylvia Plath's poetry and prose in light of materials in her archives, the periodicals in which her poems were published, and forms of visual media. ...