Pedagogy that encourages more “play” in college-level writing courses often comes coupled with an acknowledgement of technology as an increasing influence in students’ lives. It is here that various questions concerning implementation arise. Without a more thorough understanding of technology and how it is manifest in society, any incorporation is almost certainly doomed to some kind of failure. Historical inquiry of the root of technology, techne, can result in not only applicable understanding for today's post-wired reality but also achievement of a more beneficial balance between pedagogy and technology.
Drawing from Plato, Aristotle and Isocrates as well as Martin Heidegger, Walter Ong and more recent scholarship in rhetoric and composition and scientific and technical communication, this chapter endeavors to present techne as a way of understanding the current, popular technology of videogames as applicable to composition pedagogy. Primary emphasis is upon historical roots over contemporary applications, but implications for the future of teaching writing will not be disregarded.
Most often defined as art, craft, skill and/or the active application of knowledge, it is the very ambiguity of techne that many scholars find intriguing and beneficial to their ends. The pervasiveness and scope of techne also remains a point of contention. Techne is a tool used, working in tandem with knowledge/wisdom to produce an effect or event; techne is also more than a tool, often exhibiting a kind of autonomy which some embrace and others fear. Divorced from or saturated with emotion, separate or inseparable from knowledge and science, ‘mere craft’ or exalted art, various interpretations of techne illuminate freedom of opportunity.
The term’s nebulous nature regarding definition does call for tangible examples. Videogames, and how we play them, constitute an important example of how techne might now be manifest. Videogames constitute an evolving, popular medium that not only refashions earlier media but also promotes a greater degree of interactivity. Videogames are also representative of a particular style of learning, something that composition pedagogy should continue to aspire toward.
Therefore, I propose an analysis of videogames as a techno-pedagogical manifestation of techne with an eye toward implications for teaching composition. Techne provides a historical foundation and videogames provide a current literacy practice, both of which serve to improve approaches to teaching composition. To better understand techne, it is necessary to show how it functions within a current technology. To better understand videogames, it is necessary to explain in relation to contextualized, historical inquiry of an old Greek word.
If we understand techne as an aesthetic, affecting and autonomous art to be learned and practiced in context, videogames surely represent yet another arena in which we might explore epistemology and apply at least some of its approaches to composition pedagogy. Technology is an integral part of teaching writing, and it is therefore important to go beyond acknowledgement and awareness by discussing and implementing approaches that encourage and complement new ways of making meaning.
Through detailed analysis of two recently released, genre-specific videogames, this chapter will explain how techne functions within a current technology, remaining flexible and diverse in games requiring different forms of interaction in relation to particular principles and the acquisition of means to desirable and fulfilling ends. With each new in-game encounter shaping literacy practices and causing reflection and/or revision in light of new knowledge, learning becomes an ever-present possibility and reveals the acquisition of literacy as a fluid, contextual form of action. Aristotelian, Platonic and Isocratic notions of techne and other Greek concepts are surely evident in the current, popular technology of video games. There is also a certain richness to historical inquiry that makes for a worthy addition to discussions of composition pedagogy, literacy and/or videogames. This chapter endeavors to provide a degree of that richness.