Approaching a Pedagogy of Game Writing

[Music] hello uh thank you for checking out my talk my name is seth hudson i'm associate professor of game writing at george mason university in our computer game design program and today i'm going to talk to you about um well approaching the pedagogy of game writing so first off my background i've been at mason now in some capacity since 2010 but my earliest experiences as an educator were in the english composition classroom as a grad student doing literature and playwriting was sort of part of the deal as time went on i became more of a writer myself as i was teaching writing eventually went into a phd program in education to um you know become a researcher kind of odd that i've ended up now being a teaching writing

researcher with this project really the culmination of all of those different things coming together but first of all pedagogy some people say pedagogy i uh you know before every conference every six to 12 months i freak out and make sure i'm pronouncing this word correctly um you know there's no right way ironically it's really just a fancy way to say teaching or instruction and so please don't be scared off by that word because we teach and instruct in lots of different ways both in the classroom and elsewhere boom so assumptions um i'd like to get started with these um you know you're gonna meet me now for i don't know 27 more minutes but to let you know where i'm coming from uh some of these things might seem simple but basically um instructors are vital in developing effective pedagogy effective pedagogy relies on more than just personal expertise

and then finally effective well-established practices from other disciplines and in many many cases they've been around longer than computer game design as a field of study in higher ed um that we can and should lean on those um but so assumption one instructors at the center um so this might seem it's definitely self-serving you're looking at me talk while there's a picture of me and my stereotypical corduroy blazer up there on the screen but this is important to keep in mind um as the people serving the students the people in the classroom the people developing the coursework designing the curricula it really is important that we don't lose sight of the value of the instructor and the buy-in rather than constantly chasing trends in the industry or one of my least favorite things

developing courses or even whole programs that are essentially just there to market to get more students in the door really remembering that as educators with lots of experience we already have a wealth of knowledge and as the people implementing this uh this curriculum we can't forget that assumption two effective pedagogy evolves um after a while you may find yourself teaching the same class over and over again for me that's been um game 3d game 332 story design for computer games rs i've taught the course since 2010 um didn't really know what to do when i started change it up every semester still do right um but when we evolve we allow ourselves to hey keep it fresh we're people too we're not teaching robots but b um to actually you know not just be pie in the sky like if i could teach them

everything i wanted to and had access and all the time that would be terrific but um we have to be practical and we have to evolve and make choices and edit what we do um assumption three effective instructors should engage established disciplines um and again i don't know if it well it wasn't obvious to me um it took a while i was chasing this new thing right you know games are the frontier and storytelling um you know the stuff i did decades ago in graduate school was just boring it was stuff i had to do um after a while i saw the relevance and and i realized today to really think about um what got you if you if you are an educator what got you to higher ed in the first place maybe your background is in traditional art um maybe it's in programming maybe it's in something completely different um you know what what was it that helped

you learn um and there's a chance there's more to that than you realize at first but so arriving at a topic i was told that it's completely natural to take a sip of water water so at first i was overly ambitious as many researchers i wanted this 20 000 foot view of computer game design this novel field of study uh so i tried and failed many times and i want to give you a little bit of a rundown this was my immemorium list um so the first research project i wanted to do when i you know went through all the steps through irb had to recruit people sit them down i was interested in literature i was sure that um the classics and the contemporary fiction and drama um that there was something there that game design students um regardless of their specialty that they needed to know

it was great i got to have some really cool conversations with people that i recorded and spent hours transcribing nothing really came out of that nothing useful so the next uh the next step was to try and get a cross section to find out what we should really be teaching students and when i say that um you know the belief that the technology is always changing right and it's hard to keep up with but what are those core those higher order thinking skills um and what does that mean in context and so went around recruited actually got travel money to go to some conferences lots of opinions none of them very useful for students um yeah and so then uh finally it's sort of a as a result um i ended up you know wanting to find out well what do the folks in the industry think we teach students i was concerned about the value of a computer game design degree and so you know sought

that out just sort of off the tops of your heads and again that was really just frustrating so took a step back big breath kind of like that drink of water that was so natural um i wanted to define my purpose um like why do i want to do this why do i care um it really was a concern for the students um the idea that um students at least our students in the u.s incur all kinds of debt and hardship um comes as a result of taking on a college education and i i you know i feel a solemn responsibility as i you know think or at least hope most of you do to make sure there's value there right that it's not just a piece of paper at the end if they jump through all the hoops so with that purpose um and and kind of thinking back on on what do i know well i know writing and i know writing research um so i took a step back and how can i

use those tools that people in um you know the field of writing studies how can i use those to get a better understanding of game writing and and for me in particular that's the one thing i teach um at that time i teach other things now um but so how can i um learn about that and do that better um so looking at the literature was great and they gave me a framework and the literature didn't come from the game design standpoint the literature actually came from things like rhetorical genre studies and activity theory um and just you know things from education things that don't talk about game design at all except that they actually are talking about game design they just don't they just don't realize it and so i took that and decided to engage practitioners um again rather than get a full swath and

this giant sample size said yeah i'm gonna try and find writers and just just game writers um so it went through your basic steps that you do um learned about their experiences it was kind of that simple um at first so um what i came up with were these areas of competence um so what are areas of competence so basically um this just all centers around i'll sum it up writing instruction should focus on what we want students to do not what we want them to know a lot of times if you're you know an old hand at higher ed you know about writing your student learning outcomes we know about using verbs that are active and the um you know bloom's taxonomy but really just that simple um we have the luxury really in in the writing classroom to to be creating the stuff it's not like you know there aren't many

things that are completely out of the scope out of the realm of possibility um but so these functional competencies which i just like that name better i call them fun comps um it it was an interesting discovery because i i was hoping in sort of that traditional qualitative research standpoint you know i did interviews i recorded them i transcribed them i used nvivo uh the software for coding at different points and i really was looking for keywords and phrases um other than writing skills which ironically few people defined even as i teased them out in interviews it really came down to these broad areas and just ps one side note uh relying on the uh the sort of clip art icons here um from powerpoint i love how understanding players uh gave us a shopping cart immediately we're jumping to like

marketing anyway so why why these fun comps um they they were malleable um and as as a result accurate because the game writers in my study didn't really have a typical day and i didn't think that they would right and few of us do in our jobs if we're going to be quite honest about it we might be a little precious but so having these larger categories um yes they were just the result of how do i you know get something out of all this but it really confirmed there's really no one thing like game writing because game writing has to shift and be agile um and then i also realized and as i see my typo but i'm just gonna live with that um it allows instructor uh freedom and effectiveness again relying on your experience as an instructor and understanding that you know meeting for 15 weeks for

150 minutes a week comes out to less than 40 hours which i love it's like ironically i think an hour or an hour and a half short of being a full work week that's all the time you get in the classroom um but it it lets anyone that might have a different you know slightly different background a slightly different expertise um it allows them to know that they're still serving the students in something relevant to game writing and to narrative design but doing it in an effective way with what they know how to teach rather than just prescribing something i also like it because it allows us to assess meaningfully i think it's a time for us as educators to take more seriously how how we demonstrate our effectiveness we spent a lot of time getting excited about our own work and and theorizing what um we should teach these students

because we're passionate about it many of us take the next step to how you know how do we go about teaching that that third step of how do we know it worked a lot of us don't get to and so keeping assessment in mind when you're designing these things is very helpful so now i'm going to touch up i'm going to i'm going to touch on these functional competencies these areas of competence and the first one maybe a little obvious writing and storytelling um but this is a myth that you have to dispel many times in games right and particularly with our students writing is about more than just having ideas right um you know the the ins and outs of taking something and understanding that writing is a process and many drafts and feedback workshops all of those things um you know it it doesn't come natural at first many students you know will view it as here's

the prompt what's you know what am i gonna get graded on they submit it and they they hope for a grade and if it's good they're magically a good writer um seizing the opportunities to practice elsewhere um you know not everything has to be its own special class and so if i have a student that is really passionate about writing um and they've taken all the things that we offer in our department and part of that has to do with space and you know our workforce whatever well guess what we have an excellent film program we have an excellent drama program that has playwriting we have an english department that has fiction even non-fiction poetry all of these things but identifying places where students can get what they need knowing that you know yeah it's not exactly uh you know implementing writing into a game but they're still building those skills lastly um enforcing standards and this is i don't

you know this rubs people the wrong way but in at least in our curriculum um there's lots of writing you know people uh write pitch documents game design docs or it might just be an analysis or review of a game or something like that if we don't have rigor um and and we we end up rewarding that what what i'll call bad behavior right mind you i understand that grammar and mechanics is a construct and that's a very complicated thing for another day but um we might teach students unwittingly that yeah just throwing down an idea is good enough and then and then writing becomes subjective um and we really know well it's not we want to be our own best critics but i digress into another drink communication and collaboration um not just buzzwords doing this with our students really comes through reflection the idea of

um you know what what does why do some people groan when you say hey we're gonna break up into groups for this one um what experiences are good which are bad um you know how can you how can you describe these things but if we get them in that reflective mindset it deepens the learning there's there's research to back that up just in general but it deepens those experiences even though they're like little microcosms of these college classes and it's you know a safe environment it gives them those tools to be able to kind of roll with those punches later collaborative writing is vastly different than some of those traditional media that we just discussed that we could possibly lean on um providing models uh again that is is very important this is where something like activity theory um for me came in to sort of use that to

present things to students to kind of visualize how all these different pieces interact but when um when it's just a buzzword it's just one of those successory posters with the picture of a bald eagle or something it's wasted right when really when we get to the core it comes down to emotional intelligence right intellectual empathy or just plain old empathy which is something good to teach our students anyway getting them to really try and understand other folks and and where they're coming from um and and so yes kumbaya that's great a more peaceful virgin society but writers need to be able to do that anyway to understand characters and to inhabit situations and think about motivations and so if we can take communication and collaboration from more than just teamwork and make it into something a little more meaningful that has to do with people

it's going to be more useful systems and dynamics when writing many folks have that idea in their head and one day i'm sure i'm going to get there where i'm gonna have like a big old puffy sweater i'm gonna be sitting on a lake someplace in new hampshire um you know writing writing my masterpiece all alone nothing else happening um it's not really gonna work that way uh having our writing students understand where systems and dynamics come into play and this gets a little tough right um you know there is uh there might be a belief that um we want to break free of these you know the the hierarchy the power structures within game development um at least at the aaa level um and that's great right i would argue the first step there is understanding how those work

rather than just um you know oh i couldn't possibly engage in that i'm gonna be an indie um but really try and isolate where individuals exist to know where we can exist um but two to to appreciate then that it's not just you in that system there are many different you's uh a flock of sheep i guess um unintentionally but looking um you know activities and things that allow um allow students a chance to realize that sometimes they may be using their skills to generate new content sometimes they may just be you know writing you know pr or box copy or something like that but understanding that that system of all the things and how they relate um and it's easier said than done but that's an absolute key to proficiency this is the last one and

i'll say um the the understanding dynamics and systems um you know both of these really i think tie more closely to folks that aren't as directly engaged in game development um you know many students that aren't necessarily game design students they they do something else they're writers they just love games um but this idea that we're not looking for students to master a particular software right um that what they need to do to be successful is to be flexible to be able to pick something up rather quickly so if we can instill that willingness to self-teach that that is um so valuable right how do we assess that i don't know um but part of it is making students deal with um a lack of i guess i guess a lack of comfort there's not always a right way

there's usually good and bad um and so you know having them do work that um they embrace is original and yes you're using this particular tool but we don't want you to just fill in a form and find a template and do that exact same thing we want you to play around with it we want you to be a tinkerer um and i just personally as an instructor it's a real um that's a real pleasure sometimes right to see what students come up with um other places to work on this besides just the the game designer game writing class anything where you have to learn a tool or you have to learn how to do your recording for your big conference um you know but thinking of of the statistics program spss or the coding software that i used in vivo those were not intuitive at all but you have to figure it out to move forward

finally understanding play and understanding players there's an assumption i didn't put it on the list at the beginning but a student is interested in pursuing game writing because they themselves are interested in games likely at some point they enjoyed a game they were passionate about one a lot of times they don't know why um or in some cases you know they'll have very strong reactions to something they don't like i always point out that that well someone does right that's that's popular for a reason it might not be a good reason um but really trying to understand what makes different kinds of players um tick and i don't even you know i misspoke i don't even like kinds of players um just why do why does anyone like particular stuff that really starts with understanding via accessing prior knowledge why do you play what you play why do you like it

we have to be able to do that if we want to try and emulate you know isolate those different techniques those different qualities and make them our own in some way sort of just going from being a consumer to well maybe like a connoisseur in the middle to eventually a creator so to kind of sum it up that was a lot about those five areas the writing and storytelling anything you can give students where they practice craft um where they have to write um you know things in a short amount of time or they have to go through multiple drafts and really appreciate that process communication and collaboration for game writers um you know it it anything that complicates authorship right um you know students that work on a piece that they didn't start and they're not going to finish right or um you know switching up teams and roles something like that in the middle um having them reflect on that

process you know um was that hard sure why was it hard um you know what can that tell you about yourself and your process understanding systems and dynamics uh genre knowledge and when i say genre there i mean very um you know very specifically rhetorical genre a concept from composition and writing studies that i rely heavily on tool proficiency any writing they do outside of word processing is important and remember not every text is alphabetical that's a different talk for a different day and then understanding play um you know i i i don't need to talk about game studies to this crowd so valuable right really breaking things down to their essence looking at the culture that surrounds games um there's a wealth of knowledge out there these are all things that the game writer needs they must have um

okay essential roles this is the the sort of the next piece that allows me to tie these things together but we're looking at the the wordsmith sensemaker and advocate these are the different roles at different times where these these beautiful um you know our five areas of competence are fun comps these are the the ways that those are all deployed this can be very useful when we're not just thinking about courses in game writing but when uh we're thinking about the larger curriculum but so tying it all together or at least attempt attempting to um you know looking at these functional competencies but then you know what different coursework or um you know sequence of courses or even workshops and things not everything has to be a course but what can we do to allow students a way to practice and refine

um those different functional competencies as these different things as that sense maker who's trying to make something fit that doesn't really fit um or that wordsmith that just has to crank out you know 20 pages of barks for arg he shot me um or that advocate the person who has to has to make decisions and has to really help incorporate the knowledge and understanding of their their team and their project in order to um you know know know what ideas need to be um you know and i hate you know the fighting for right choosing your battles i hate that i'll say i'll say choosing your meals um you don't you don't want to fill up right sometimes you want to wait until the next day because you know tacos are on the menu um i'll have to play around with that one a little bit but you can fill in these particulars um you know i was really focused on game

writing specifically i engaged game writers in the industry but ended up you know i came up with this framework so that allows me it allows you to you know really rather than try and nail down specific things and we end up with these five courses students have to take and maybe we realize that well they can't actually take them because of their schedules or maybe they're a transfer student and they're gonna have to add time to their degree um if we can be flexible and we can see where these different things can happen that's really going to help um i'll say two just another just to touch on this rigor thing we should assess student learning um we can fall in love with our own ideas um we can rely on our charisma in the classroom our students just being in awe that they get to be in college studying um something like game design or you know writing stories for games we we have to keep in mind that at the

end of the day we need to be able to assess are they learning what we hope they're learning there's we kind of have to get over ourselves a little bit in order to do that um and so when we don't have that rigor for ourselves and our students we get in trouble so one more note you know i i came up with wordsmith um you know that idea someone that might have to do anything with words at any time um but then you know thinking about within curriculum development um and these are our older numbers from the hebga survey back in 20 i guess it was 2015. we you know and i imagine this is still the case you don't have a lot of uniformity across um our various programs and that's okay right um but if we're you know we take that smith thing and we take out word right um i start to feel like this can this framework can apply to lots of different things that if we can consider our courses and our curricula um this

idea of these different roles that can can rotate and we're kind of doing our individual little skills our smithing to different degrees um that can really help us so why just approaching pedagogy um well my assumptions i i believe we must continue to evolve um by leveraging past experiences engaging other disciplines and holding ourselves accountable we can continue to improve instruction um and as a result we'll sophisticate the the field of study and ultimately the medium oh that was my time this was fun so thank you my name is seth hudson um please send me an email if you'd like to know more about some of the things that i only sort of talked about but didn't and have a great day [Music]

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