Abstract
This chapter traces the development of a multimedia workshop that took place at a Spanish pu-blic school and the work of twenty-one third-year girls and boys (aged 8–9) who wrote narratives based on their use of video games in the classroom. The analysis scrutinizes the role of video games as educational tools and examines how these, supported by classroom discussions, can contribute to the development of narrative thought as present in written compositions available in different contexts. The findings indicate that the children manage to write their own stories based on their interactions with the video games and that their reconstructions of computer games sto-ries are dependent on specific contexts. Moreover, the video game plays an important role in the development of narrative thought because it serves as a vehicle of symbolic contents that enables the child to sequence and specify his or her own experience.
Introduction
Commercial video games are instruments designed originally for entertainment that allow players to share their experiences, both real and virtual, in interactive contexts (Ito, 2010). However, considering these media as educational tools can be controversial due to their content, the values they transmit and the interaction with the players.
The bitterest detractors claim that video game contents have the potential to neg-atively influence the players’ attitude and behaviour. Studies have targeted possible links to addiction, aggression, violence, social development, and a variety of stereo-typing and sexual morality issues (Dziewanski, 2011; Bickham, 2004; Horton, 2011).
The results of these studies do not always coincide. For example, within the realm of aggression studies, some analysts have found that exposure to violent video games correlates with at least a temporary increase in aggression and a decrease in pro-social behaviour (Anderson & Bushman, 2001), whereas other authors have concluded that video game violence is not related to engaging in aggressive behaviour (Ferguson &
Kilburn, 2009). However, some experts have based their work on the potential positive effects of video games (Kushner 2007; Kenyota, 2010), which is a view that we share.
In this article, we treat video games as “cultural emergent forms” in the global context that affect the leisure time of children between the ages of 8 and 18.
It is true that the use of commercial video games in the school context is not easy. Video games do not educate by themselves, nor does television or other
media; it is the audience’s interaction with those media and the role of a “media-tor” that transforms them into educational tools. In this case, the role played by adults becomes essential in the transformation process of the game as an educa-tional resource to create constructive and meaningful learning situations related to the acquisition of new literacies. (Berger, 2002; Lacasa, 2013)
Following this approach, we focus on how video games, supported by conver-sations in the classroom, contribute to the development of narrative thought as pre-sent in written compositions, available in different contexts. This paper analyzes the evolution of children’s narratives, working in small-group and large-group situations after playing commercial video games in the classroom. Adopting an ethnographic and action research perspective, we anticipate our results will inspire specific practices of using commercial video games as educational tools when children learn to elaborate and build stories in specific multimedia contexts in which the educational use of video games is combined with watching movies and acting out a theatrical play.
Gamers and game interaction: signs and meaning
Video games play a meaningful and natural role in the everyday life of children and young people and provide them with new experiences, interesting stories, social events, fun, challenges, excitement and many moments of learning. They make it possible for players to participate in valued communities of practice and, as a result, to develop the ways of thinking that organize those practices by cre-ating meaningful experiences for the players (Lacasa, 2013; Cortés, 2011). The games become cultural objects that have value in specific contexts when the user faces problems and challenges before making decisions (Gee, 2008).
Focusing on the concept of game, Salen and Zimmerman (2006) consider the presence of rules as a fundamental aspect in its definition:
“A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules that results in a quantifiable outcome.” (Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman, 2006. p. 96)
The value of the rules and the presence of an imaginary world or playful creation are fundamental to the concept of the game (Steinkuhler, 2012). The interaction with video games allows the players to live meaningful experiences, face continuous challenges, learn by doing in worlds of rules and feel part of them thanks to the char-acters. This aspect is closely related to the presence of “virtual” contexts and spaces.
However, the objects are not valuable in themselves, it is the activities and practices that emerge from the interaction which make them meaningful. For this
reason, we must observe the players and their interaction with the game to be able to determine how they generate new knowledge and forms of expression.
Moreover, we must not forget an important element in the game world that connects the player directly with the game – the character or hero (Popper, 2013).
Recent studies on the narrative of games have highlighted the character function, which allows the narrative to go forward. This is important, since the player adopts an identity and the possibilities for action, spatial relationships and connecting with other characters multiply. From this perspective, Egenfeldt et al. (2008) con-sider the character as the necessary link between the player and the narrator, i.e.
the junction between the interactive options chosen by the player and the narra-tor’s response. The player needs the character, but he/she has the ability to become the author of his/her own adventures, which will be reflected in the narratives.
Adopting this approach, we consider that video games allow gamers to learn and think differently than they are used to and provide very suitable material to create constructive and meaningful learning situations related to the acquisition of new literacies. When combined with other media, video games contribute to the development of digital literacy, a necessary competence to engage young people in society through different means of communication. By literacy, we understand the process by which people become aware of the discourses they use and, in do-ing so, gain control of the communication situations usdo-ing a reflective and critical manner in order to achieve a certain goal. It is a process that allows people to control the languages they use and thus transform them into more complex mod-els to enable new and more elaborate activities in communicative and interactive contexts (Mitchell, 2002; John-Steiner, 1994; Olson & Torrance, 1991). Currently, research is being conducted in the same direction (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009), which takes into account new communication tools that generate different forms of literacy and thinking. Thus, new media in digital environments allow users to become creators of information and knowledge builders able to control the dis-courses they use to convey their messages to remote audiences – something that was limited to the mass media professionals until very recently. By controlling their discourses, users’ experiences in the game become personalized and speci-fied, both individually and collectively.
As mentioned above, at the time of playing the player discovers the logic of the game (rules) while experiencing a story based on his/her actions. Henry Jen-kins (2003, 2004) understands the relationship between video games and narra-tive from a spatial perspecnarra-tive, in which space is the key element for narranarra-tive possibilities. The construction of complex plots and characters is not as crucial as the space to be explored, controlled and mapped. This is how stories and multiple endings can be invented. In computer games, the players must interact with the
story, which is opposed to the linear structure of narrations (Carlquist, 2002). Both the game and the narrative situation move in a world that only comes to life as long as there is someone to interpret the signs that appear in those contexts. By invit-ing the player to become involved in the sequence selection process, the narrator opens a transitional space that allows the reader/player to participate in narrative creation. For example, the player becomes a narrator who chooses paths, and the game plot becomes a detached and almost unique experience. The decisions made by each player are different stories. Space generates narrative in video games and, by making these choices, the reader “moves the focus away” from him/herself and feels “as if” he/she is the one creating the story. This way, narratives in video games generate an affective, cognitive involvement that gives way to an immer-sion process in the plot, and we can understand the concentration and interest generated by the game (among other skills) and reject the argument of a lack of concentration of the users. Xavier Berenguer defines the connection between the player and the choice of history as an interactive dilemma between “the author’s need to control history and the freedom of the interaction to change” (Berenguer, 1998). Video games and, more specifically, the adventure game analyzed in this chapter, are built around this dilemma. The game designer creates a storyline and a set of rules that should allow the story to progress but, in turn, offers a certain degree of freedom and motivates the player to act in the game. These games in which the player must advance through predetermined sequences are known as
“progression games” (Juul, 2009).
We have chosen to address these ideas because, by introducing video games in the classroom as a game element, we offer students moments of interaction and decision-making, turning them into the “authors/writers” of their own adventures.
As we will see later on, the data obtained in the research have allowed us to ana-lyze how students develop their creative skills, especially related to the way in which they build stories based on the video games’ contents.
Narratives and adventure video games
Some game theorists who have approached the question of games and narrative from various perspectives have also inspired this work. Gee (2006) and Jenkins (2004) both discussed the creation of narrative via spatial exploration and episodic play in video games. Murray (2000) describes games and narrative in relation to the concept of ‘procedural authorship’, while Pearce (2004) develops the notion of ‘emergent narrative’ to describe narrative-like event sequences that emerge dur-ing play. Alternatively, Zagalo et al. (2005) incorporate embodiment, emotion and
cognition into their analysis of narrative in games. Our idea of narrative coincides with that of classical authors such as David Olson (1990: 99 and 101):
“In the classical tradition, dominant in our literate society, narrative is taken as antithesis of thought (…) There is nothing natural about narrative (…), narrative form, when ap-plied to experienced or imagined events, create a story. These stories are constructed and interpretative in nature, memorable, functional and entertaining. Narratives, then (…) can be seen as forms of thought-devices for interpreting experience and informing action.”
These ideas come from an old book, but we can find similar concepts in many other sources, for example, Bruner (2002):
“Narrative is organized around the dialectic of expectations supporting norms and the pos-sibility of evoking transgression. It requires a cast of characters who are free agents with minds of their own; they are recognizable by expectations about the ordinary state of the World, even if it is somewhat enigmatic.” (Bruner, 2002)
We are interested in narratives relating to the use of technologies in educational settings. Looking for new models of interpreting school settings, we focus on some authors such as Ferraro (1994), who believes that “the narrative form constitutes a basic tool for meaning construction and event interpretation. It could be said that, more than language, narrative should be considered the primary modelling system.” In this case, the narrative is a tool that interprets and constructs one pro-cess. Based on this idea, we can consider narrative not just as a formal discourse issue, but also as “a cognitive construct, or mental image, built by the interpreter in response to the text” (Ryan, 2004). Focusing on our connection between the narrative and the video game world, we can say that the reader (or player, in this case) moves to the world of the writer (game designer) when living the adventures that take place in the virtual world of the game (the experience).
In addition to the hidden action and resolution of problems, the video game features contents (space, time, actions and characters) that offer the perfect space for the player’s action (Gretchen Papazian, 2013). It is for this reason that adven-ture games are more related to the ability to create narratives. In this type of game, the player makes a narrative reconstruction of events planned by its creator, in some cases across platforms, by testing, achieving goals, etc. The decisions made by the player determine the path to follow in order to achieve the ultimate goal of the game. Adventure games present one method that starts out from a specific story world and inserts possibilities of user action to make it interactive. This is the approach in games such as Tomb Raider: since the plot of these games must be adapted to the possibilities of action offered by game controls, they are usu-ally fairly different from their literary or cinematic sources. Many of the games
based on a pre-existing story tend to become stereotyped shooters and quests with weak integration of the player’s actions into the storyline. These games attract players for the spatial and visual pleasure of finding themselves in a familiar fic-tional world and encountering well-known characters rather than for the temporal pleasure of enacting a specific sequence of events (Grove, 2013). In this kind of design, the story world takes precedent over the story. Let’s see how the game is introduced in the instruction manual of the video game:
Lara Croft is presumed dead and several of her colleagues and friends are holding a me-morial service in her honour. This service leads to a sort of vigil, where the gathered recall some of Lara’s past exploits. These stories make up the adventures, and there are four unrelated episodes. Each of these finds Lara searching for some mythical artefact in some mystical land, usually against some European adversary. Descriptions of the episodes sound like variations on Clue solutions: You have the Frenchman with the Philosopher’s Stone in the Roman Coliseum and the German with the Spear of Destiny in the Russian submarine. Lara will also have to hunt demons in an Irish moor and find an Egyptian artefact in a high-security skyscraper.
This description shows that, right from the beginning, the player faces two es-sential elements that define the game: on the one hand, the adventures Lara Croft is going to go through and, on the other, the problems the player will have to solve in order for the story line to advance. This combination of the problems presented and the fictional experience ended up being determining factors for what happened during the workshop, and we will see it reflected in the children’s narratives. These simple instructions embody both representational and ludic designs; they continue the narrative events, characters, unresolved conflicts and episodic trajectory, while also issuing a ludic imperative, which provides the object of the game. From this point of view, we analyse the productions written by the children on Lara Croft, where we are able to observe the use of space as the context in which the action takes place and the predominance of time as students reconstruct the actions experienced in the game as a narrative (Klaus Bredl, 2013).
Case study: Lara Croft’s world in the children’s written compositions
The methodology on which our analytical process is based consists of our own case study techniques combined with the use of some ethnography practices and an ecological approach, which explores what happens in natural situations (At-kinson, Coffey, Delamont, Lofland & Lofland, 2001; Lacasa & Martínez, 2013).
Its validity is based on a detailed description of the cases in which we can explain how people make sense of their activities in defined socio-cultural contexts (Baze-ley, 2013). A micro-ethnographic analysis of multimodal discourses is also carried out. We have presented in detail the steps followed in the generation of informa-tion and data analysis (Del Castillo, García-Varela & Lacasa, 2003).
In this case, as can be seen in the data, we are exploring the role of video games as educational tools to examine how adventure games, supported by discussions in the classroom, can contribute to the development of narrative thought as present in children’s written compositions.
Context: participants and phases Participants
The data collected and analyzed for this research were gathered at a public school in the Madrid region. We worked in a multimedia workshop and the students were in their third year of primary education (8–9 years old). In this context, we worked for a total of six one-hour sessions, in which 11 boys, 10 girls and their teacher participated, as well as the researchers themselves. We were participant observers (McNiff, 2013; Tracy, 2013).
Regarding who chose the game to be played, the children told the adults that Lara Croft was the game they played the most at home. The adults decided to take the opportunity to teach them to be critical of the violent messages of the game.
For this reason, the aim of the workshop was to develop critical and narra-tive thinking in the children by using video games as educational tools in the classroom with the goal of acting out a play. Several reasons justify the joint in-troduction of computer games, theatrical representation and the Internet as edu-cational resources. First, the workshop development demanded the combination of different resources that are not mutually exclusive but rather, complementary;
besides, the fact of introducing different symbolic codes helped to generate a critical consciousness, bearing in mind that the children needed to take into ac-count a close audience, in the case of the theatre, and a distant one when posting on the Internet.
We expected the children to approach the narrative dimension of an adven-ture game, supported by the teacher and the researchers, by working together using new technologies in the classroom. Moreover, the fact that they were playing a violent video game in this workshop created educational situations that would allow for critical reflection. The aim of the adults was to situate the
children critically in front of the screens of the game by means of consecutive reconstructions of the game and by supporting specific processes of meta-reflection.
Workshop Phases
This workshop was organized around three main phases that developed over six sessions:
Fig. 1: The workshop sessions
• First moment: Learning to co-exist with video games in the classroom. During this first meeting (first session), the participants decided what they were going
• First moment: Learning to co-exist with video games in the classroom. During this first meeting (first session), the participants decided what they were going