Students in Dr. Nicole Pfannenstiel’s summer Games and Writing class crafted blog posts exploring play theory. Over the next several weeks, we will share their theory posts in this space to offer a variety of perspectives on play, games, and writing, written by current graduate students in the MA and M.Ed. English programs.
What Play Can Teach Us About Writing
By: John Leininger
As an English teacher, I spend a lot of time talking about writing. According to the state of Pennsylvania, writing is one quarter of my focus as I instruct students in the skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. According to teachers, writing is both a critical skill and a method of assessing student knowledge. According to students, writing is ‘boring,’ ‘useless,’ ‘difficult,’ and often just, ‘good enough.’ But what else can writing be? In reading Miguel Sicart’s book, Play Matters, I came across a possible new definition. Writing can be “appropriative.”
Sicart uses this word, “appropriative” (11), to describe “play,” a concept and act he sees as central to human existence. Among many reasons he gives for this centrality is the idea that play gives the player a chance to take over, or appropriate, their environment, imposing new, personalized meanings and purposes to otherwise impersonal things. For example, during Autumn, I can see leaves as a boring nuisance, things to get rid of before the grass dies, or I can see them as the building blocks of a most excellent jumping pile. When I play, I take over. No longer is nature bombarding me with chores; I have control, and I am playing.
While reading this concept, I couldn’t help but consider that I often ‘play around’ with my writing. I ‘get creative’ and sometimes even break rules. I find new ways of using words and expressing ideas. I realized that we should learn something about writing from Sicart’s definition of play. Writing can be appropriative.
I had a student who did not like writing. In one particular unit, we were studying figurative language, and after class she would regularly, vehemently, though (mostly) politely, debate the usefulness of the concepts. Why does this matter, she would ask over and over. I went through my normal replies of individuality and creativity, but to little effect. She was unconvinced – she saw figurative language as a hardship imposed by cruel authorities. At the end of the unit however, for her final project, she used every type of figurative language she could to make fun of it. She appropriated figurative language for her own purpose, to fight against the imposition. Suddenly, figurative language was not the enemy, but the tool. She gave it new meaning, because she played with it. Writing should be appropriative. When we write, we should use the words for our own ends. We should repurpose ideas and concepts through writing, making them our own and giving them new meaning. We should use writing to take control.
As a graduate student, I see the value of this attribute. The world does not need more of the same writing. There is little value to my writing if it simply regurgitates what others have already said. Graduate writing should be about reshaping, reworking, and rethinking ideas and using language in ways unique to us. It should take control of the world through words and expression and creativity. It should be appropriative.
Works Cited
Sicart, Miguel. Play Matters. The MIT Press, 2014. EBSCOhost,
research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plinkid=a50c4849-f645-37a7-a167-9db2a0592830.