Practice in Summarizing and Paraphrasing
Re-Read the following passages from Janet Murray's chapter on "Agency" or Anastasia Salter's "Playing at Empathy: Representing and Experiencing Emotional Growth through Twine Games".
Then make a new Scalar Page (by clicking the + button in the toolbar), copy and paste your assigned passage and write a deliberate and specific paraphrase. Be sure to put the concept in your own words and to accurately represent the author's idea in this passage. In-text citations are also required! See the Handout on Summarizing and Paraphrasing (linked here or on Canvas).
1. But the unsolvable maze does hold promise as an expressive structure. Walking through a rhizome one enacts a story of wandering, of being enticed in conflicting directions, of remaining always open to surprise, of feeling helpless to orient oneself or to find an exit, but the story is also oddly reassuring. In the rhizome, one is constantly threatened but also continuously enclosed. (Murray, page132)
2. These violence-hub stories do not have a single solution like the adventure maze or a refusal of resolution like the postmodern stories; instead, they combine a clear sense of story structure with a multiplicity of meaningful plots. The navigation of the labyrinth is like pacing the floor; a physical manifestation of the effort to come to terms with the trauma, it represents the mind's repeated efforts to keep returning to a shocking event in an effort to absorb it and, finally, get past it. (Murray, page 136)
3. Aarseth suggested that " . . . . Games focus on self-mastery and exploration of the external world, not exploration of interpersonal relationships (except for multiplayer games). Or when they try to, like the recent bestselling games The Sims or Black and White, it is from a godlike, Asmodean perspective.” Twine games offer an alternative to these models, and often serve dual purposes as explorations or creative outlets for the Self of the creator that then become lenses into playing through the choices (and systematic oppressions) of the Other. (Salter 6)
4. The use of restricted choices serves a pivotal role in the creation of the player’s connection with the character: this metaphor of limitations extends through games with circumstances ranging from abuse to clinical depression to suicide, and in each case the player must wrestle with the knowledge of options outside the reach of body or mind. The decisions made by the creator of the game are laid bare for the player in systemic form, and the player in turn is invited to examine and reconsider the possibilities. (Salter 7)
