The Ethics of Playing, Researching, and Teaching Games in the Writing Classroom

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

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2. Introduction: Playing with the Rules

   • Richard Colby, Matthew S.S Johnson, Rebekah Shultz Colby

   Pages 1-20

3. Ethics of Game-based and Gamification Writing Pedagogy

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21

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   2. Crash and Burn

      • Mark Mullen

      Pages 23-43

   3. From Actuality to Possibility: Reckoning with the Ethics of Failure in Pedagogy

      • Christopher Stuart

      Pages 45-60

   4. Waiting for Players: Rooms, Lobbies, and Hosting Experiences

      • Marshall Saenz

      Pages 61-76

   5. Playing Games with Our Lives: What Critical Pedagogy Can Teach Us About the Ethics of Games in the Writing Classroom

      • John Alberti

      Pages 77-93

4. Ethics of Play: Ethos, Design, and Player Agency

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 95-95

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   2. Procedural Ethics and a Night in the Woods

      • Elizabeth Caravella

      Pages 97-113

   3. “To See You Made Humble”: Agency and Ethos in The Stanley Parable

      • Andrew R. Canino

      Pages 115-126

   4. Dromopoeia: Teaching Ēthopoeia, Prudence (Phrōnesis), and Ethics (Well-Being) with Avatar

      • Sergio C. Figueiredo, Jeffrey D. Greene

      Pages 127-141

   5. This Isn’t Supposed to Be Fun: Using Game-Based Writing Projects as a Form of Pragmatic Ethical Inquiry in the Composition Classroom

      • Matthew Kelly

      Pages 143-157

   6. Procedural-Relational Power Analysis: A Model for Deconstructing and Intervening in Everyday Games

      • Kristopher Purzycki

      Pages 159-180

   7. Surfacing Values in Difficult Conversations: Game-Based Training to Lower the Stakes on Challenging Topics

      • Michael Arnold Mages

      Pages 181-191

5. Ethics of Scholarship: Researching Games, Gamers, and Gaming

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 193-193

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   2. The Hardcore Gamer Is Dead: Long Live Gamers

      • Victoria L. Braegger, Ryan M. Moeller

      Pages 195-211

   3. Ethos and Interaction in The Elder Scrolls Online

      • Wendi Sierra, Douglas Eyman

      Pages 213-241

   4. Writing to Gaming Audiences: A Case Study

      • Taylor Orgeron

      Pages 243-254

   5. The Ethics of Treating Online Gaming Forums as Research Data

      • Richard Colby

      Pages 255-271

   6. So, You Want to Start a Research Archive?: Ethical Issues Researching and Archiving Video Game History

      • Mary C. Karcher

      Pages 273-293

This book explores ethos and games while analyzing the ethical dimensions of playing, researching, and teaching games. Contributors, primarily from rhetoric and writing studies, connect instances of ethos and ethical practice with writing pedagogy, game studies, video games, gaming communities, gameworlds, and the gaming industry. The collection’s eighteen chapters investigate game-based writing classrooms, gamification, game design, player agency, and writing and gaming scholarship in order to illuminate how ethos is reputed, interpreted, and remembered in virtual gamespaces and in the gaming industry. Ethos is constructed, invented, and created in and for games, but inevitably spills out into other domains, affecting agency, ideology, and the cultures that surround game developers, players, and scholars.  

• writing pedagogy
• rhetoric
• gaming
• classroom instruction
• composition

​“As rhetoric and writing studies’ engagements with gaming has evolved, we are less in need of projects that argue only for the inclusion of video games as a subject matter. Instead, our field needs exactly what this book provides: substantive and persuasive scholarship that refines our conceptual starting places to chart new pathways toward where we need to go. The scope of case studies in this collection is outstanding.”—Steve Holmes, author of Procedural Habits: The Rhetoric of Videogames as Embodied Practice (2017) and Rhetoric, Technology and the Virtues (2018)

• University Writing Program, University of Denver, Denver, USA

  Richard Colby, Rebekah Shultz Colby

• English Language & Literature, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, USA

  Matthew S.S. Johnson

Richard Colby is the Assistant Director for First-Year Writing and Teaching Professor for the Writing Program at the University of Denver, USA. He co-edited the collection Rhetoric/Composition/Play through Video Games (2013) and has published several articles about video games and teaching.  

Matthew S.S. Johnson is Professor of English and Director of First-Year Writing at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, USA. He specializes in rhetoric and composition, digital literacies, and video game studies. He is Reviews Editor for the Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds. His scholarship focuses on dismantling boundaries between work and play.

Rebekah Shultz Colby is Teaching Professor at the University of Denver, USA. She examines how video games inform digital literacies and digital rhetoric. She co-edited Rhetoric/Composition/Play through Video Games (2013). 

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