Dimensionality, Literacy and Video Games
Literacy is a complex process, one that requires contextual knowledge, interpretation skills, and the ability to read the text. Despite this, many people still think of literacy as a straight forward skill. If you are capable of reading words on the page, you are literate. But to borrow the terminology of Unflattening by Nick Sousanis, that idea flattens, one dimensionalize, the multitudes of processes and knowledge that true literacy requires. And that definition flattens our interaction, understanding and thinking processes about literacy.
It also narrowly categorizes text as existing in print alone. In doing this the definer devalues the layered and unique ways literacy exists in the world, and thereby devalues the literacies of those people that use them.
To delve deeper into this idea I will first examine video games as a genre and then look at the specific game Fez.
When a first time video game player tries a video game for the first time, they are often lost. The controls are unusual, the vocabulary is foreign, and the world of the game itself does not operate in obvious ways. Developers will do what they can, by adding tutorials, but it takes a lot of practice to learn the general rules of video games. To become literate in the genre. Beyond the controls, the act of playing the game requires the ability to learn the visual and audio cues of the game, beyond the visual and audio literacies that the developers already expect the player to know. The player has to use multiple layers of literacy to understand and advance the game. And the developers are teaching the players those literacies as the player advances.
In many ways the experience of using literacy in a video game is a more authentic experience to the literacies we use in everyday life. It is a rich complex world that teaches its rules, logic and literacy not in a classroom setting but organically, through trail and error, just like in life. This type of learning feels immediate and relevant to the learner’s life. Its an important lesson to remember when teaching literacy within a classroom setting. How can you make this literacy feel relevant and meaningful to the student. And also, how can you maybe even make it fun?
The Wired looks at the literacy of learning video games by specifically examining Minecraft. James Paul Gee expands further on this idea in generally in the video below:
Now let’s look the specific video game Fez to see what it can show us the advantages of understanding and using various types of literacy.
The game begins in a two dimensional world. The player character travels through his flat village, talking with friends and neighbors. Eventually he meets a older man with a fez, who speaks of a mysterious third dimension. Above them appears a cube and the player character is transported away. He then receives a spinning three dimensional fez. At this point, the game appears to crash. After a moment, it reloads. The game runs the opening credits again, before the player character begins again in his bed room. Only this time something is different. The player character can now see three dimensionally. Not in the traditional way you and I know, but he can switch between seeing all four sides of every space in the game. This gives him the ability to reach new areas and explore the world in a rich new way. By learning of a world beyond his own flat view, the player character gains the ability to solve problems and puzzles that were otherwise unpassable.
This entire sequence speaks volumes of the moments when a person learns to view and read literacy and the world around them in a complex and layered way. When someone learns to acknowledge and engage with the multitudes. It is a kind of a rebirth, a restart that the game mirrors, the world begins again anew. It is noteworthy perhaps, that this gaining of the three dimension does not shift the game out of its two dimensional facade, instead the player character can now switch between sides. This can be seen as a metaphor not just for expansion of his views, but also for learning the empathy to see others as well. Prehaps reality as we experience it as a whole, is not infact three dimensional, but so many fractal sides as to give the appearance of three dimensionality. In either case, the ability to engage with, view, and understand these new sides allows freedom and understanding previous beyond the grasp of the player character.
This three dimension-ing of the player character’s world parallels the experience that many people have when they learn to recognize and engage with multiple literacies within life and the classroom. Often adolescents various skills and literacies are ignored because, now more then ever, their literacy skill fail to look like the traditional academic mode. While not video game related, Rosewell and Burke examine the idea of recongizing various literacy beyond academic literacy in their article “Reading by Design: Two case studies of Digital Literacy.” In it they show that despite struggling in the classroom setting both Peter and Patty excel at other non-traditional literacies and those that peak their interest.
However, by putting on our own fezs we can learn to engage with and empower students literacies. We can recognize and validate forms of literacy beyond the traditional, giving us new ways of teaching content. It also can allow us new ways of discuss and engaging with forms of literacy where a student might struggle.
References
Games and Education Scholar James Paul Gee on Video Games, Learning, and Literacy [Video file]. (2011, August 4). Retrieved September 11, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNfPdaKYOPI
Rosewell, J., & Burke, A. (2009). Reading by design: Two case studies of digital literacy. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 53(2). doi:10.1598/JAAL.53.2.2
Thompson, C. (2014, October 9). How Videogames Like Minecraft Actually Help Kids Learn to Read. Retrieved September 11, 2016, from https://www.wired.com/2014/10/video-game-literacy/
Sousanis, N. (2016). Unflattening. Boston: Harvard University Press.
