Play Make Write Think

This is the reflection post of my player narrative essay. I spent a couple of hours on this one. And I corrected some mistakes that I made in my literacy narrative essay. I paid attention to develop a clear thesis and find some different points to support it. So instead of just laying it all out there, I first had a clearer overview of I was about to write for this essay. I think that helped me a lot during the writing process. And I hope the points can support the main thesis as I planned. Some possible room for improvements may include repetition of words and expressions, lack of clarification on some terms, etc.

In my player narrative, I sought to explain how games served as a starting point for my creative aspirations. There is a nod to how I believe games allowed me to forge my own sources of engagement with other people, and how that focus helped me become self-reliant.

I think I had the same results in terms of the success of the free-writing exercise, but I do think the activity itself was easier to complete because I had more concrete memories of playing games. I think the structure of my player narrative was entirely different from my literacy narrative. Instead of feeling a wariness and back & forth about my identity like I did when I wrote my literacy narrative, I felt motivated by my previous experiences with games. Each paragraph tried to build off this increased sense of creativity and fulfillment.

I learned it was alright to delete writing that draws away from the point of the essay. There was a paragraph, that I felt was really well written, about my limited but favorite experiences playing games with my family. Ultimately, it didn’t add anything to my thesis and created more confusion in my essay. Deleting the section was a difficult decision, but once I did, I felt that my essay flowed much more effectively.

The controlling idea of my narrative is that games are similar to our lifes, and learning how to play games are a way to improve our perspective. Through this narrative, I further understood my point of view toward games, and I shared my way of living in a medium that I can better organize my thoughts. Different from my literary narrative, I incorporated more description of my experience. Those are the pictures when I free-wrote about games or hockey. My structure starts with an introduction to “my game”, and then I described one experience out and reasoned another point with logic, followed with a conclusion. There isn’t many new ideas. All of the ideas came from the free-writing exercise, I simply rearranged into my essay.

I approached this assignment similar to the first one, but the difference was that this time I had a clear idea of what I wanted to write from the beginning. I have a very personal history with games, so it was not very hard to write about my experiences as a gamer. In my narrative I contrast the time in my life before and after I played my first videogame. Remembering my life before I was able to play games was tough, as a lot of it was pretty bleak. I worked a lot and had little to no fun. My only real escape was reading, and as I explained, it was not really enough. I distinctly remembered my first game because it really was an important time in my life. I honestly have mostly good memories from my time with cancer, mostly because that was the time games came into my life, and I grew a greater attraction with books. Being in a hospital bed for weeks really helps you focus on building on yourself, and that’s what I did. My first game, Super Scribblenauts, was the perfect first game for me. It allowed me to use my experiences with reading to help other characters by typing in words and making them come to life. In doing this I was able to grow as a person. In writing this narrative, I learned more about how games can help people grow by calling on my past experiences. 

My main idea in the writer narrative involves my two most important experiences in my life being a player of games.

I found this exercise quite difficult at first. I didn’t know what to write about. I decided to start off broad, saying that games are everywhere in our lives. We can call any unconventional task a game if we want them to be. I then moved on write about the so-called games that are important to me, those that helped shape my identity as a player.

Through writing the player narrative, I learned that there are so many benefits to playing games. I also reflected on my experiences on a deeper level. I have always been playing games but rarely I took the time to think hard about it.