Chapter 4-Role Playing Texts

In Chapter 4, it talks how video games can be compared to an author writing a story and how this can be used in the classroom. He compares playing a video game to hands on activity in a classroom. He compares the roles of the three main characters in a role-playing game. The roles are primary, secondary, and tertiary. Each character had a different role in the structure of the game and how the game is organized and played out. He pointed out that the steps in a hands on activity used in the classroom follows the same steps in completing a role-playing game. It is all about the task given to the students. If the students can follow a step-by-step process in order to complete the activity, then the application for the students will be to follow their original thinking or switch due to the activity. It says that authors can choose to limit agency socially by creating a “social contract” or agreement about how the game will run. He compares this to the author writing the book. The author chooses the characters and the framework and a role-playing game can follow the same strategy.

I like how it compares reading to role-playing games like hands on games. I had never really thought about a video game being a story. It points out that classroom games have an author, story line, characters, and all the parts that go into designing and writing a book. He points out that because of their collaborative nature, role-playing texts must also address authority differently from the ways a traditional text might. There are different thought processes than go into reading a book and playing a video game. I like that the video games can provide a challenge for students to follow. In most games, it takes several tries before a task is completed. I like that this promotes perseverance so that students will continue to try again until there is success. There needs to be an age limit of the video games, but using them in upper elementary and above would be great for motivation, interest, use of technology, and a practice that creates a different kind of thinking that just reading a book.