An edited collection whose contributors analyze the relationship between writing, learning, and video games/videogaming, these essays consist of academic essays from writing and rhetoric teacher-scholars, who theorize, and contextualize how computer/video games enrich writing practices within and beyond the classroom and the teaching of writing.

The Rhetoric of Videogames as Embodied Practice offers a critical reassessment of embodiment and materiality in rhetorical considerations of videogames. Holmes argues that rhetorical and philosophical conceptions of "habit" offer a critical resource for describing the interplay between thinking (writing and rhetoric) and embodiment. The book demonstrates how Aristotle's understanding of character (ethos), habit (hexis), and nature (phusis) can productively connect rhetoric to what Holmes calls "procedural habits": the ways in which rhetoric emerges from its interactions with the dynamic accumulation of conscious and nonconscious embodied experiences that consequently give rise to meaning, procedural subjectivity, control, and communicative agency both in digital game design discourse and the activity of play.

Games can act as invaluable tools for the teaching of the Middle Ages. The learning potential of physical and digital games is increasingly undeniable at every level of historical study. These games can provide a foundation of information through their stories and worlds. They can foster understanding of complex systems through their mechanics and rules. Their very nature requires the player to learn to progress. The educational power of games is particularly potent within the study of the Middle Ages. These games act as the first or most substantial introduction to the period for many students and can strongly influence their understanding of the era. Within the classroom, they can be deployed to introduce new and alien themes to students typically unfamiliar with the subject matter swiftly and effectively. They can foster an interest in and understanding of the medieval world through various innovative means and hence act as a key educational tool. This volume presents a series of essays addressing the practical use of games of all varieties as teaching tools within Medieval Studies and related fields. In doing so it provides examples of the use of games at pre-university, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels of study, and considers the application of commercial games, development of bespoke historical games, use of game design as a learning process, and use of games outside the classroom. As such, the book is a flexible and diverse pedagogical resource and its methods may be readily adapted to the teaching of different medieval themes or other periods of history.

Reinventing (with) Theory in Rhetoric and Writing Studies collects original scholarship that takes up and extends the practices of inventive theorizing that characterize Sharon Crowley’s body of work. Including sixteen chapters by established and emerging scholars and an interview with Crowley, the book shows that doing theory is a contingent and continual rhetorical process that is indispensable for understanding situations and their potential significance—and for discovering the available means of persuasion. For Crowley, theory is a basic building block of rhetoric “produced by and within specific times and locations as a means of opening other ways of believing or acting.” Doing theory, in this sense, is the practice of surveying the common sense of the community (doxa) and discovering the available means of persuasion (invention). The ultimate goal of doing theory is not to prescribe certain actions but to ascertain what options exist for rhetors to see the world differently, to discover new possibilities for thought and action, and thereby to effect change in the world. The scholarship collected in Reinventing (with) Theory in Rhetoric and Writing Studies takes Crowley’s notion of theory as an invitation to develop new avenues for believing and acting. By reinventing the understanding of theory and its role in the field, this collection makes an important contribution to scholarship in rhetorical studies and writing studies. It will be valuable to scholars, teachers, and students interested in diverse theoretical directions in rhetoric and writing studies as well as in race, gender, and disability theories, religious rhetorics, digital rhetoric, and the history of rhetoric. Publication supported in part by the Texas Tech University Humanities Center. Contributors: Jason Barrett-Fox, Geoffrey Clegg, Kirsti Cole, Joshua Daniel-Wariya, Diane Davis, Rebecca Disrud, Bre Garrett, Catherine C. Gouge, Debra Hawhee, Matthew Heard, Joshua C. Hilst, David G. Holmes, Bruce Horner, William B. Lalicker, Jennifer Lin LeMesurier, James C. McDonald, Timothy Oleksiak, Dawn Penich-Thacker, J. Blake Scott, Victor J. Vitanza, Susan Wyche

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.

Serious games provide a unique opportunity to engage students more fully than traditional teaching approaches. Understanding the best way to utilize games and play in an educational setting is imperative for effectual learning in the twenty-first century. Gamification: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications investigates the use of games in education, both inside and outside of the classroom, and how this field once thought to be detrimental to student learning can be used to augment more formal models. This four-volume reference work is a premier source for educators, administrators, software designers, and all stakeholders in all levels of education.

Understanding digital modes and practices of traditional rhetoric are essential in emphasizing information and interaction in human-to-human and human-computer contexts. These emerging technologies are essential in gauging information processes across global contexts. Digital Rhetoric and Global Literacies: Communication Modes and Digital Practices in the Networked World compiles relevant theoretical frameworks, current practical applications, and emerging practices of digital rhetoric. Highlighting the key principles and understandings of the underlying modes, practices, and literacies of communication, this book is a vital guide for professionals, scholars, researchers, and educators interested in finding clarity and enrichment in the diverse perspectives of digital rhetoric research.

lay/Write: Digital Rhetoric, Writing, Games is an edited collection of essays that examines the relationship between games and writing – examining how writing functions both within games and the networks of activity that surround games and gameplay. The collection is organized based on the primary location and function of the game-writing relationship, examining writing about games (games as objects of critique and sites of rhetorical action), ancillary and instructional writing that takes place around games, the writing that takes place within the game, using games as persuasive forms of communication (writing through games), and writing that goes into the production of games. While not every chapter focuses exclusively on pedagogy, the collection includes many selections that consider the possibilities of using computer games in writing instruction. However, it also provides a bridge between academic views of games as contexts for writing and industry approaches to the writing process in game design, as well as an examination of a variety of game-related genres that could be used in composition courses.

Video games are a complex, compelling medium in which established art forms intersect with technology to create an interactive text. Visual arts, architectural design, music, narrative and rules of play all find a place within, and are constrained by, computer systems whose purpose is to create an immersive player experience. In the relatively short life of video game studies, many authors have approached the question of how games function, some focusing on technical aspects of game design, others on rules of play. Taking a holistic view, this study explores how ludology, narratology, visual rhetoric, musical theory and player psychology work (or don't work) together to create a cohesive experience and to provide a unified framework for understanding video games.

Unlimited Players provides writing center scholars with new approaches to engaging with multimodality in the writing center through the lenses of games, play, and digital literacies. Considering how game scholarship can productively deepen existing writing center conversations regarding the role of creativity, play, and engagement, this book helps practitioners approach a variety of practices, such as starting new writing centers, engaging tutors and writers, developing tutor education programs, developing new ways to approach multimodal and digital compositions brought to the writing center, and engaging with ongoing scholarly conversations in the field. The collection opens with theoretically driven chapters that approach writing center work through the lens of games and play. These chapters cover a range of topics, including considerations of identity, empathy, and power; productive language play during tutoring sessions; and writing center heuristics. The last section of the book includes games, written in the form of tabletop game directions, that directors can use for staff development or tutors can play with writers to help them develop their skills and practices. No other text offers a theoretical and practical approach to theorizing and using games in the writing center. Unlimited Players provides a new perspective on the long-standing challenges facing writing center scholars and offers insight into the complex questions raised in issues of multimodality, emerging technologies, tutor education, identity construction, and many more. It will be significant to writing center directors and administrators and those who teach tutor training courses.