Dear Jonathan Alexander, Is it still all about text-based writing?

I kept wanting to really like Alexander’s piece on video games and the composition classroom because the idea, for me at least, fundamentally possess what I see as a lot of potential in the process of redefining what literacy really means. And further, that redefinition seems crucial in the ongoing democratization of the classroom. So, when I read the abstract to Alexander’s work and began the essay, I was excited by the initial promise: to use video games as primary texts in composition classrooms “as a way to explore with our students transformations in what literacy means” (35, Abstract). I guess I thought that by exploring what literacy means, Alexander would also challenge how literacy is practiced. It should be no surprise, based on the sheer number of times that I have cited Gee and his What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy that I see great value in the epistemologically grounded rethinking of “literacy.” And as I have said, Gee argues that literacy could be defined as one’s ability to understand meaning and to make meaning within a certain sign system (or semiotic domain). Literacy for Gee is a two-part process. My disappointment with Alexander’s piece is that for all his progressive work looking at how video games might influence and benefit re-conceptualizations of the understanding-meaning part of literacy, he seems to fall back to far more traditional methods of the making-meaning part of literacy. He examines how video games encourage players to interact with literacy skills like reflection, collaboration, multiculturalism, trans-literacy, and critical literacy, yet in almost all recommendations for how these “literacies” can be articulated in the composition classroom are in the form of alphabetic discourse. In other words, Alexander shows how game players develop new understanding-meaning type literacies through video games, but then recommends that they discuss those new literacies in very traditional written style assignments. This seems to me to be both liberating and confining. It’s a step forward in the assertion of using “new media” in the traditional classroom, but it feels a step backwards in that there is nothing new about how to use that new media, or how to express ideas, meanings, thoughts about that new media. Table 2, which shows how to use the literacy skills practiced in video games in the composition classroom, is all about writing: making meaning is still, in the article, a highly alphabetic practice.

And this is exactly what Selfe is arguing against in both the online discussion and her response to Hesse in CCCs. She advocates a change in the idea of “writing.” Similar to Gee, who says that the making meaning part of his concept of literacy is the “written” part of literacy, Selfe supports a shift in thinking about composition moving it beyond alphabetic expression. And while Hesse, especially in the CCC’s textual discussion, seems to take up some issue with the institutional possibilities and liabilities of such a definitional change, he for the most part seems to see the benefit in moving away from an alphabetic preference to a more multimodal idea of “composing.” And that is, I think, what Alexander misses. He sees the potential for using multimodal texts for reflection, but doesn’t give any room to actual multimodal reflection. In this way traditional notions of literacy are not necessarily challenged. Alexander does good work to see the potential of non-traditional texts in the composition classroom, but fails to see how those texts, and the new literacy skills that they promote, can actually inspire new modes of composition.

Okay, a few more issues/questions with Alexander’s piece:

1. Alexander recommends using on-line games like World of Warcraft and in fact all of his information is based on that game. What about other games? Is this an argument to using mmorpgs, or video games in genera?
2. What are the logistical considerations for playing games in/for class? How much time is given to playing? Do you bring in video game systems? Do you only play computer games?
3. Are Mike and Matt really a representative sample group of which facts can be derived? Does it change things that these are two people? Educated? Males? Etc.
4. Does using the video game and the literacy skills it creates as a metaphor open up the discussion to other non-compositional focused courses?