Reading Notes on Gee--Scaffolding, Progression, Grammar

In Chapter 5, "Telling and Doing," Gee describes how video games teach players how to play the game by playing through progressively more difficult scenarios. Each scenario prepares the player for the next: "earlier situations and problem are designed to to lead a player to discover and practice fruitful patterns and generalizations in regard to skills and strategies" that will in turn help the student play more challenging scenarios. Gee goes on to use this as an analogy for education: "The issue here is not starting children (or game players, for that matter) with easy cases. The issue is starting them with cases that are basic of fundamental in the sense that they lead the learner to discover and practice what are, in fact, fruitful patterns and generalizations" (138).

While reading this I couldn't help but think about the way students are taught writing, especially the "skill and drill" method used to pound grammar rules into students head, only to have them fall right back out again. The problem is that all those rules have nothing to do with what follows: writing as communication. We haven't even managed to put the cart before the horse, because that cliche assumes that they fit together if we can just get them in the right order. Instead of grammar as a prerequisite, John Bean, has the right idea when he writes in Engaging Ideas: “It may well be, in fact, that competence in editing and correctness is a late developing skill that blossoms only after students begin taking pride in their writing and seeing themselves as having ideas important enough to communicate.”