NarrativeNarrative

• A story

• Action that unfolds over time

• Causality: “This happened, then this happened, then this happened.” Or, A > B > C

• Hayden White: “Far from being one code among many that a culture may utilize for endowing experience with meaning, narrative is a meta-code, a human universal on the basis of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality can be transmitted”

The Narrative Arc (Freytag’s Triangle)The Narrative Arc (Freytag’s Triangle)

Story Progression

Ten

sion

Exposition

Complication

Climax

Resolution

Simulation vs. NarrativeSimulation vs. Narrative

• Narrative = Representation, or, “I’M telling you like it is.”

• Simulation: “…to simulate is to model a (source) system through a different system which maintains (for somebody) some of the behaviors of the original system.” (Gonzalo Frasca)

• the sequence of events in a simulation is not fixed

• Reader-response criticism: The reader creates the meaning of the work

• Readerly (the text is static—you’re just there to read and receive the author’s original meaning) vs. Writerly (the reader helps to construct meaning) texts

• “simauthors” vs. “narrauthors” (Frasca):

• Simauthors: they give away part of the control of their work to the user

• Narrauthors: have “executive power” over the narrative

Simulation vs. NarrativeSimulation vs. Narrative

From Fable

Ergodic LiteratureErgodic Literature

• “In ergodic literature, nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text. If ergodic literature is to make sense as a concept, there must also be nonergodic literature, where the effort to traverse the text is trivial, with no extranoematic responsibilities placed on the reader except (for example) eye movement and the periodic or arbitrary turning of pages.” (Espen Aarseth)• cybertext: texts that involve calculation in their production of scriptons.” (Aarseth)• ELIZA and Adventure are examples of a cybertext

You are in a twisty maze of passageways, all alike…

Game Design as Narrative ArchitectureGame Design as Narrative Architecture

From Henry Jenkins’ article of the same name, here: http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/games&narrative.html

• Games as “spatial stories”

• “Games…may more fully realize the spatiality of…stories, giving a much more immersive and compelling representation of their narrative worlds.”

• “Environmental storytelling creates the preconditions for an immersive narrative experience in at least one of four ways: spatial stories can evoke pre-existing narrative associations; they can provide a staging ground where narrative events are enacted; they may embed narrative information within their mise-en-scene; or they provide resources for emergent narratives.”

• Games as “evocative spaces”

• Embedded and emergent narratives

Game Design as Narrative ArchitectureGame Design as Narrative Architecture

From Civilization 4

Aristotle, Brecht, and Video GamesAristotle, Brecht, and Video Games• In classical Aristotelian drama, we have catharsis, or “emotional cleansing”

• Brech countered with the “epic theater,” or “theater of alienation”:

• Epic theater assumes that the purpose of a play, more than entertainment or the imitation of reality, is to present ideas and invite the audience to make judgments on them. Characters are not intended to mimic real people, but to represent opposing sides of an argument, archetypes, or stereotypes. The audience should always be aware that it is watching a play, and should remain at an emotional distance from the action. It is the opposite of the suspension of disbelief. (from Wikipedia)

• “Simulations are laboratories for experimentation where user action is not only allowed but also required.” (Frasca, again)

• A connection to cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger) and Piagetian equilibriation?

Narrative & Educational Video GamesNarrative & Educational Video Games• Goal-based Scenarios: Schank & Cleary

• Learners play a role in the pursuit of objectives; learners acquire skills (just-in-time learning) as they pursue their goals

• Anchored Instruction (CTGV)

• Project-based learning/inquiry-oriented learning

• Motivation theorists: Malone

• games provide learners with challenge, control, fantasy, and curiosity

• Dickey—

• Narrative provides learners with the opportunity for reflection and evaluation

• narrative space provides a compelling infrastructure

Narrative & Educational Video GamesNarrative & Educational Video Games

From The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis

Education-related QuestionsEducation-related Questions1. Do we need narrative in order to provide learners with scaffolding

for higher-order thinking skills (think Bloom’s taxonomy here)?

2. If we loosely define education as “learning with objectives,” is it then possible to learn without the imposition of narrative and are there implications for constructivist-oriented learning?

3. If games are simulations, should we be concerned about learners “taking things at interface value”? (borrowing from Sherry Turkle)

4. Is there a “hidden curriculum” (Philip Jackson’s, among others, assertion that schooling is about socialization) in educational video games?

5. What are the implications for education if we reach a point where games in the classroom (assuming they ever get there) give students authorial control? Can games even accomplish such a feat?

Resources (in no particular order):Resources (in no particular order):• The Video Game Theory Reader, Mark J.P. Wolf & Bernard Perron

• First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan

• Video Games of the Oppressed, Gonzalo Frasca

• Engines for Education, Roger Schank and Chip Cleary

• Hamlet on the Holodeck, Janet Murray

• Computers as Theater, Brenda Laurel

• ScreenPlay: cinema/videogames/interfaces, Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska

• Engaging by Design: How engagement strategies in popular computer and video games can inform instructional design, Michelle Dickey(article in Educational Technology Research and Development)

• Zoombinis and the Art of Mathematical Play, Chris Hancock and Scott Osterweil (http://www2.terc.edu/handson/s96/zoom.html)

• Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences, Donald Polkinghorne

• Cybertext—Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, Espen Aarseth