You Gotta BE the Book!

I have to thank Jess (one of the only people who actually reads this blog by the way!) for lending me her copy of Jeffrey Wilhelm's You Gotta BE the Book!  What an inpsiring read-- it approaches English education in a way that I, as someone who often sees himself as a non-traditional English educator wannabe, can readily relate to.  Wilhelm tells his own personal narrative, how he evolved from a traditional English educator who, in his own words, thought he knew how to teach reading and knew how to teach writing (1).  However, that all changed when he had his first class of students who all detested English class.  While these students shook his very ideology of teaching in the English language arts, he steeled his resolve, and sought to discover what could "help reluctant readers to reconceive of reading as a creative and personally meaningful pursuit" (10).


Although Wilhelm never mentions video games explicitly, games can work in the same ways that Wilhelm's proposed alternatives do. For example, Wilhelm said that his students detested the "passive act of receiving someone else’s meaning" as opposed to making their own meaning (13).  Video games are set up in such a way that the player control the protagonist's every action.  The player moves the action at their own pace, and can work through the events of the game at his or her own pace.  The player can make their own meaning, or at least have the illusion of making their own decisions (since everything is already precoded).  This especially evident of Heavy Rain (there is a reason I keep coming back to that game in these posts!) because the narratives that players experience are decided by the player's own decisions. 


Another issue Wilhelm brings up is students' "inability to visualize the story world…to relate to characters…or to connect the literature to life" (103).  Good video games are a great stepping stone to help struggling readers envision the story world, to construct their own narrative space.  Good video games are extremely detailed, with its own denizens, atmosphere, and landscapes.  Again, by comparing good video games to literature, it can greatly assist in readers' ability to imagine the world in which story characters can exist.


I am thrilled with this book, and will have to reread it before adding it to the Final Project.