Comments on "Procedural Literacy"

A nice, meaty chapter which provides more of the theoretical underpinning that (as readers of this blog know) I've been looking for. Let me do three things:

> Make an observation about the argumentation and organization of Bogost's book.

> Summarize his thoughts about "procedural literacy" and share some of my own.

> Highlight another resource that Bogost cites, namely Gee's paper "Learning about Learning from a Video Game: Rise of Nations" which you can download by clicking here.

An Observation about Organization

We learn on page 258 that "Procedural rhetoric is a type of procedural literacy . . ." Aha! Thus procedural rhetoric is a subset of procedural literacy. This revelation causes me to think a bit more charitably about Bogost's proposal regarding "procedural rhetoric." (Yes, I'm still using the scare quotes until I'm convinced of his thesis.)

Why more charitable? The notion of procedural literacy has some provenance in the literature as far back (according to Bogost's citations) as 1980. (Further, media literacy and "electracy" are related concepts which have found some acceptance among scholars.) Thus Bogost is within an established body of literature and legitimately positioning himself to extend the work on procedural literacy in ways appropriate to changing conditions and understandings.

That being the case, I think Bogost would have been more effective in his argumentation if, rather than declaring "procedural rhetoric" an entirely new domain of rhetoric, he had argued for his concept of procedural rhetoric as a logical extension of (or corrollary to) evolving notions of procedural literacy.

In other words, instead of claiming discovery of a new domain of rhetoric (one not recognized in the literature of visual or digital rhetoric), Bogost could have been more effective by positioning his thesis of "procedural rhetoric" within the existing paradigm of procedural literacy.

Those of you who are taking Steve's class on the rhetoric of science know what I'm talking about. Rather than coming on as a "convention-buster" with a completely novel concept, Bogost would do better by arguing within--and then extending--an existing convention.

If that's the case, the Bogost should have started his book with procedural literacy and then demonstrated how "procedural rhetoric" is its logical extension, rather than starting with "procedural rhetoric" and then burying procedural literacy in Chapter 8. For if "procedural rhetoric" is a subset of procedural literacy, it doesn't make argumentative sense to privilege the former, bury the latter, and separate the two by 250 pages.

Summary and Thoughts

> We begin with a comparsion of behaviorist and constructivist theories of learning. A fairly garden-variety summation but useful in setting the ground.

> Now Bogost applies the two theories to videogames. Good! Applying a behaviorist framework leaves us with a deterministic view of gaming. Applying a constructivist framework leaves us, according to Bogost, with videogames that only teach general skills and values.

> We need to go further, he says, and see that videogames can teach specific skills. I'm having trouble understanding his argument here. Why does Bogost think that constructivist theories of learning assume only general skills and values can be learned? For example, I wrote an article a few years ago on how a constructivist approach could be used for teaching healthy food choices to schoolkids.

> Procedural literacy is a "new trend" (p. 244), though it's hard to see it as new or trendy since it's been around for nearly 30 years. Actually, though, I like the fact that a body of literature has developed over time about procedural literacy and (as stated above) wish Bogost would make more use of it.

> The excursus on Sayers is something I really don't get. Bogost could do a better job, in my view, of closing the circle and demonstrating how "The Lost Tools of Learning" offers a guide for teaching procedural literacy (or for tapping the educational power of videogames; I'm not sure what's being advocated here).

> Bogost writers, "Procedurality offers a possible bridge between the abstraction-poor behaviorist approach and the subject-poor constructivist approach, focusing on the way processes come together to create meaning." A creative thought. But I've got a problem with the terminology.

As we know, different fields may use the same word for different things. In cognitive psychology, procedural memory is the type of memory we employ for tasks such as riding a bicycle, typing on a keyboard, or shuffling a deck of cards. Is Bogost saying that videogames, because they teach such tasks, can bridge behaviorism and constructivism? I don't think that's what he means, but (as author) it's his job to clarify.

> The section on Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel as an example of teaching history from a procedural perspective is interesting (and, at the time Bogost was writing, the book was quite trendy). But Diamond's environmental determinism certainly had its critics. For example, Victor Davis Hanson wrote a book titled Carnage and Culture specifically to rebut Diamond and demonstrate that ideas do matter.

Both books are good reads, both are valuable, and I found myself thinking the answer lies in a combination of the two. In any event, I would suggest that history taught from a "procedural" perspective would, though valuable, be incomplete--and no a "bridge" between behaviorism and constructivism.

> To end the chapter Bogost writes, "Videogames teach biased perspectives about how things work. And the way they teach such perspectives is through procedural rhetorics, which players 'read' through direct engagement and criticism." This is a very good thought, which leaves me wanting more.

Why? Because it provides the opening to (as I mentioned above) describe "procedural rhetoric" as an extension of procedural literacy. I hope Bogost will take up this line, which I believe would be a more effective way of arguing than to claim "procedural rhetoric" is a totally new rhetorical domain.

Reading Gee's Article

Again, you can download the Gee article cited by Bogost if you click here. My recommendation is skip to the conclusion (starting on page 29) first and Gee's summation of 25 principles gleaned from learning theory.

Gee says these 25 principles are active in Rise of Nations, the game he reviews. It might be interesting to compare this list against the two games we're studying, World of Warcraft and Second Life. How do they stack up?