I Never Thought I Would Write About Halo in AP Lang

          In most video games today, the traditional narrative story arc has been replaced by a story that continues indefinitely. In this post, I will attempt something that few people probably have tried: a sophisticated analysis of the video game series Halo in the context of Douglas Rushkoff’s Present Shock. Halo is a perfect example of a story arc that has diverged from the traditional story arc. There are two reasons for this divergence. First, while the story, or 'campaign,' of Halo does have a clear beginning, its middle and end are not as clear due to the fact the story has been extended into so many sequels that an end does not appear anywhere in sight. Second, the video games have a multiplayer part of the game. This multiplayer game has no story arc that is traditional in any sense. It is an accumulation of users who play the game together for several minutes until there is a winner of each game, and then each player goes on their separate ways, so there is never truly no victory for an individual player, or a team because the teams constantly change. The story of the multiplayer game of Halo is one without a beginning, middle, or end. It is truly a collapsed narrative.

            The story of Halo begins normally enough. It starts with an inciting incident, continues with a rising action, reaches a climax in which the suspense reaches its peak, and then declines with a rising action. However, the traditional arc of the story only applies to the first of the Halo games. As more sequels were created, the games began to abandon its traditional story arc in favor of a story that allowed for the creation of more Halo games. In other words, the makers began to make games with no means to an end.

The deconstruction of the story arc may create headaches for those who want one continuous story with a definite end, it is ideal for the makers of Halo because they make more money. Rushkoff explains the role dissatisfaction, the yearning for an end, plays in consumerism, “The consumer must never feel completely at home in his present, or he will stop striving toward a more fully satisfied future” (Rushkoff 167). In other words, the consumer, or a player of the Halo games, must never reach an end to the story arc, or else the makers of the game will stop selling games and stop making millions of dollars. Perhaps the first Halo game was not anticipated to be the success it was, so when the creators realized they could be making even more money if they could keep making sequels, they started to create stories that could continue without end. Today, there are 4 sequels to the original Halo game. The story has become so convoluted, so lacking of a definite end, that the creators had the main character somehow survive on a damaged spaceship for two years from one game to the next in order to keep the story from ending. Maybe it is time for the creators to start making stories that can end with dignity.

At least the story arc of the ‘campaign’ is not so deconstructed that characters do not literally come back to life in order to keep the player entertained. However, in Halo’s multiplayer game, respawning as it is called is necessary for players in present shock. The game is similar to an infinite game described by Rushkoff: “They do not have a knowable beginning or ending, and players attempt to keep the game going for the sake of game play” (Rushkoff 59). No one can win the multiplayer part of the Halo games. A player simply goes from each collection of players until the player is bored of the playing the game, and Halo keeps the game going by respawning the player when he is shot by another player. The respawning sacrifices a continuous story line, but it allows the player to keep playing the game to keep being entertained.

 In both examples of Halo abandoning the traditional story arc, the game has increased the enjoy ability of the game, for the player can keep buying the convoluted stories contained in each sequel, and keep playing the discontinuous multiplayer game. However, we sacrifice the ability to immerse ourselves in a traditional narrative.

Work Cited

Rushkoff, Douglas. Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. New York: Penguin, 2013. Print.

A Rising Feast

A Moveable Feast describes Hemingway’s time in Paris after World War I ends; during this time, he meets several authors. In fact, Hemingway describes the conversation he had with Gertrude Stein that shaped some of his ideas for the novel, The Sun Also Rises: “’You are [all a lost generation],’ she insisted. ‘You have no respect for anything. You drink yourselves to death…” (Hemingway 61). For most of the memoir, he describes his meetings with various authors who are also in Paris, especially Ezra Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He focuses a large portion of the book describing his time with Fitzgerald. He describes a trip he went on with Fitzgerald to Lyon; the trip did not go well. Hemingway shows where he got so many of his ideas for The Sun Also Rises in which the group of friends go on a trip but that also does not turn out well. The chapters of the book appear to go in order of the time the events occurred. The purpose of the chronological order is to make the memoir seem like a novel that Hemingway has written.  

            The style he uses is also similar to his novels because he uses his short, witty sentences and dialogue, making his life seem like a story he has written himself. Also, despite the memoir being written from his own memories, Hemingway tends to describe the people he meets with great detail. Anyone looking back on his or her memories would not be able to remember so many details, indicating that some story telling is at work and not pure recollection from memory. Therefore, the form does follow the content. The content includes the people and places he sees, which is necessary to the memoir, but also The Sun Also Rises. The great form of the novel could not have been written without Hemingway’s experiences or content from A Moveable Feast.

            I believe this work is a part of the AP Language syllabus not for the content of the memoir, but its form. Hemingway is famous for his vivid descriptions, and even though he is describing people and places from his memory, he still is able to paint a clear picture in the reader’s mind. Perhaps we read the autobiography written in the style of fiction because of the work’s versatility. Despite it being an autobiography of Ernest Hemingway, it depicts the scenes he looks at with such clarity that reader feels liker he is in Paris as well. All of us AP Language students should strive to write with such clarity.

Work Cited

 Hemingway, Ernest.  A Moveable Feast. New York: Scribner, 2009. Print. 

Are Public Schools Creating 'Standardized' Students?

           Having attended public school from kindergarten to tenth grade, I can say that I have first-hand knowledge of the public that public schools try to create. From my experience, public schools do fail to create a diverse environment for students to learn in. Although public schools do try to create a sense of diversity among the students, public schools actively combat diversity in academics through a stagnant curriculum called the common core.

            In The End of Education, Neil Postman states that “sameness is the enemy of vitality and creativity” (Postman 78). Sameness was certainly part of the curriculum in public school. In high school, teachers were forced to adopt a curriculum called the Common Core, which is a national curriculum determined to make sure students learn the exact same lesson as every other student. Every single Honors English two student read 1984 and Macbeth and did the same exact assignments to go along with each book. How can a school system create a diverse learning environment, and a diverse citizenry, when every student reads the same books and does the same assignments? At times, I felt as if school was trying to create identical students, or at least a public that could provide a wonderful analysis of 1984 and Macbeth, but no other books.

            In addition to teaching the same exact material down to every individual assignment, public schools often relied heavily on textbooks and textbook reading to teach courses. Neil Postman and I agree that textbooks are not the effective way to convey information to a student: “Textbooks, to me, are enemies of education, instruments for promoting dogmatism and trivial learning” (Postman 116). Textbooks do not allow a student to question its contents, nor do they allow for active discussions about the subject matter. Textbooks simply present facts that must be memorized for quizzes and tests. In my tenth grade Biology class, I don’t remember my teacher once standing in front of the class, and discussing biology with us. Instead, we were given sections out of a collection of online videos to watch and answer questions on. Better yet, our homework was usually to read and take notes on a chapter of the textbook. Better still, the final exam was a standardized test made by the Maryland education system that tested the students on how well they memorized biology.

            Public schools create a learning environment that encourages sameness, and discourages diversity. Although, there programs in place to learn skills in diverse professions (everything from engineering to cosmetology) very few students were given the opportunity to pursue such diversity. However, more students need to be afforded the opportunity to pursue such interests in our public schools in order to create a diverse citizenry with many different educational backgrounds.

Work Cited

Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New  York: Penguin, 2006. Print.