First, and most importantly, I am still loving this topic. I love being able to turn on my PS3 for research purposes, and to be jotting notes as the characters within the game interact with one another. My God, I think I am sounding dweebier by the day.
Anyway, I think I am still molding the main argument, and may potentially find myself limiting the argument to just RPGs being incorporated into an Adolescent Lit curriculum. The only oddball games that aren't RPGs but feature teen protagonists and strong elements of narrative are Bully and entire Legend of Zelda series. I don't know that I necessarily want this restriction, but without solid narratives in other game genres to support me, why bother including other genre? Back when I wrote my initial thesis proposal, I didn't have any mention of adolescence whatsoever, but instead wanted to include video games as a whole to the literary canon. Obviously, that was a huge argument to make, one that English scholars could tear apart, as video games simply have not hit the level of storytelling quality that films or novels contain at this point. So, I limited myself to the genre of books/video games that, for the most part, are not included in our traditional literary canon, but speak to teens in ways that Shakespeare can never. This limitation has made a world of difference, so maybe one more could help as well?
Next, for some behind the scenes action, I have been playing through both Bully and Final Fantasy X, creating save files that I hope to use for a video that will accompany the final project. I hope to show elements of the narratives of these games, as well as the actual gameplay, to show how a player immerses themselves within the identity of the protagonist that they control. The video is going to be geared towards the non-gaming crowd, so I will most likely be doing a voiceover for explanation. I am dying to find a way to incorporate Heavy Rain, even though there are no adolescent themes present. The game has a M rating for mature, so I doubt that would ever find its way into a classroom. Maybe snippets of the game could be shown to demonstrate the storytelling ability of games in general, as opposed to utilizing it for a class?
Another book I have been reading is What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee, and I am really excited to start posting about his ideas starting next month. This man was renowned for his studies in literacy and learning, and to see someone who professes that they were not a gamer once upon a time shift his focus entirely onto this medium is truly inspiring, and brings merit to the serious games movement.
That is pretty much all I have for right now-- I've found a lot of great articles throughout the month, and got to post them in the blog, but I will be sure to incorporate them in the written portion of the final project. I am pretty happy with what the blog is: A sounding board of ideas, and a way for me to post all this work so it doesn't seem like I am just playing games. I'm still not sure if I want to mass advertise this aside from annoying classmates and friends on Facebook, I don't want fanboys saying this game sucks or that game sucks, although more discussion could be helpful. I'll continue mulling this one over. And also what to go out as for halloween. All these video game posts, maybe I'll just cosplay?
On second thought, maybe not.
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