Pissed at my English teacher, justified?

[emeraldrafael]

You should but dont be a dick about it. Just show her that videogames are now considered a form of artwork and ask for a regrading because you had in fact stayed within the parameters of the assignment.

She probably didnt know ot be honest. its not exactly a wide spread thing to those otuside the videogame/electronics world.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Yes, you should. but I wouldn't go in guns aflame trying to get your score up, but I'd go in and try to let it be known that games ARE works of art. Even write an essay or paper with some of the most beautiful and artful games. Besides, docking marks just cause you alone don't think games are works of art is kinda unfair. It's just cause she doesn't understand the idea of games being artful, so she just shrugs. Though The Madman is kinda right about the Pokemon thing.

Anyways, go with games with fantastic detail and worlds, some with crazy well done attacks and animations, beautiful orchestral soundtracks, and even ones with amazing stories. Honestly, Okami and Okamiden are great for pretty much all of those, except the orchestral music part. But it's still amazing. And the ending to Okamiden made me cry. No joke. Me, a guy, who's played MANY games since he was 5, managed to cry this time. That's saying something huge for sure.

You may or may not get your score up, but if you offer to write a paper to try and show her games are works of art, she may be willing to re-consider. Just go in to prove yourself, not justify a score increase.

Games to use for this:

Okami [everything]
Okamiden [everything]
El Shaddai [animations and details]
Lunar Silver Star Harmony [story, music, animation, both character, cutscene, as well as attack animations]
(maybe) Kingdom Hearts [some story elements, and a few other things. This isn't a top choice]
(maybe) Final Fantasy [depends which one really]
(maybe) Xenoblade [for its worlds and detail]

I know I'm missing others, but these are some decent ones to work with.

Also,

Portal
BioShock
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Shadow of the Colossus
Braid

Just adding to your list there.

 

[HotFezz8]

The prompt for my essay was "Describe how an artwork has influenced your life." So I wrote my paper about how Pokemon Red got me into video games, and how that has influenced my interest in technology. This was last month. I finally get the paper back, having scored an 85%, which ordinarily I'd be okay with but, on the grade sheet, she wrote "The paper was excellently written but video games are not works of art." She said I had not 'followed the directions properly'. I tried making my case but she would not relent. I'm thinking of going to my counselor, since it makes up like half my quarter grade and I'm kind of pissed about being docked points because she disagrees with me on what is, at best, a semantic argument. Should I?

if your being docked points, yes, if your not and your still getting 85%, no. you've already got a great grade, now your being argumentive.

 

[NightHawk21]

The prompt for my essay was "Describe how an artwork has influenced your life." So I wrote my paper about how Pokemon Red got me into video games, and how that has influenced my interest in technology. This was last month. I finally get the paper back, having scored an 85%, which ordinarily I'd be okay with but, on the grade sheet, she wrote "The paper was excellently written but video games are not works of art." She said I had not 'followed the directions properly'. I tried making my case but she would not relent. I'm thinking of going to my counselor, since it makes up like half my quarter grade and I'm kind of pissed about being docked points because she disagrees with me on what is, at best, a semantic argument. Should I?

1) Mention that games are recognized by that federal institute
2) Threaten to go over her head
3) Win argument
4) Get better grade
5) ???
6) Profit?

7) Get possibly suspended for threatening a teacher (if you even phrase your "threat" slightly wrong you could get in trouble).
8) Write next assignment and get marked without any leniency most teachers usually mark with and end up with 70%.
9) ***** and complain and watch as nothing gets down because the teacher will cover her ass with rubrics.
10) Right exam and get a 70% losing out on an easy 85% in a class because you thought that starting a feud with a teacher was a good idea.

Let me tell you a story. I went to a Catholic secondary school and in my final year I had a very no bullshit kind of teacher. There was a major assignment (about a quarter of our grade) and he said that for every day it is late you would lose 5-10% (can't remember). A kid who thought he was being clever said you can't do that and you have to accept work submissions even if they are late (up until the day of the exam) and they have to be marked without penalty (there was some weird clause that didn't allow a penalty to be applied). My teacher told the kid he was right, and he would take it up until the time it said in the clause but handing it in late would cause you to lose all of the teacher's goodwill and you would be wishing for that penalty.

So ya go for it. Knock yourself out.

 

[lacktheknack]

If you didn't expect this to happen, you're pretty dense. You should have talked to her about it BEFORE you went for it.

But you didn't, and now you're stuck with 85%.

Let's see how much sympathy I can garner. (Hint: It's pretty low.)

 

[Count Igor]

Also, happy birthday.

...Holy craaap
That is incredibly sad and deep. :|
I hope that won the case all by itself.
Excuse me while I go cry in a corner..

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

Snip

Your solution: ask her if you can write a short paper explaining why games are art to you, and if she thinks that paper is well-written and puts forth your arguments clearly, she can bump up your grade on the original one.

Think of it like extra credit. It shows your enthusiasm for writing and willingness to work hard for your grade, which English teachers love. She should go for it. If she says no, then you have a bad teacher.

 

[Thespian]

I would now. I didn't when I was a kid still in school, and my self-righteousness ended up costing me greatly and I've regretted it ever since. I don't want someone to end up making the same sort of mistake I did and getting into fights with their peers, especially not over something this stupid and trivial.

I'm kinda annoyed by all these people egging on the 'games are art' debate when they're not the ones who might have to deal with the long term consequences of it.

Fair enough. I personally think that calling this stupid and trivial is greatly misguided. Yes, it is miles away from qualifying as an injustice, but it is a chance to combat a flawed and biased perception of "art", even if it is just in a minute way. I would consider that of significant value. Maybe I'm too innocent at this young stage in my life. I suppose that as much as you are annoyed by people (such as me >_>) masquerading against you claiming that their favorite franchise du jour qualifies as "art", I am annoyed by people who hold the word "art" high above their heads like some blesses honorific to be bestowed only to creations deemed worthy by convention. I wish the pretension could be dropped and we could all realize that art is not a measure of quality, but a term of categorization.

 

[Radelaide]

Flame me all you will but Pokemon is not art, nor will it ever be.

I love Pokemon. I grew up on it. I set up Pokemon trading centres at school where you could bring in your gameboy and battle/trade with each other based on your poke-levels. It's interesting, wonderful and I adore it, but I could NEVER call it art.

I am aware the term "art" is suggestive, but I find some of the shots in Assassin's Creed and Batman to be more artful than Pokemon ever will be.

So Pokemon red is not pretty enough to be art, is that what your saying? Would you say that a picture carved into a rock by a ancient human is less of a art than a painting? Sure,the rock carving more primitive and has less detail than the Mona Lisa, but that's due to the limitations of the time. Pokemon red was made on the original game boy. Assassins creed was made for a modern computer. Pokemon red has a unique world, interesting game mechanics and a simple story that ties everything together perfectly. The limitations prevented it form having a long and detailed story like Assassins creed, but it makes up for that by having fun gameplay and many places to explore (AC has that too, just for the record).

You might be saying that everything based on Pokemon is not art, but
Batman [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_%281986_video_game%29] is? That's a weird game to use for your argument, but I would still consider it art.

The thing I see about Pokemon is that it wasn't intended to be thought about. There's no heavy subtext, there's nothing to engage you past "Holy crap, a rare candy!" (Which really weren't that rare.) Batman/Assassin's Creed are meant to engage you. There's stuff there to think about. That's what real art is, it's made to leave you thinking. The visuals of Pokemon are something to consider, but I prefer to think of the storyline and background information to be more substantial than the visuals. Think about Mona Lisa, it's a pretty picture, but the closer examinations of it show many smiles. That makes me think about perfection and imperfection and going on from there.

I think art is meant to be more than what Pokemon is. (Again, I loved it.)

Batman is literally just a game about batman collecting parts to a hovercraft as you can see by clicking this link [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDK5nkHrczc].

Anyway, what about the strategy in the game? Like having a fire Pokemon to beat a grass Pokemon and knowing what moves to teach the Pokemon. That's something to think about for me at least.

Okay, you all seem to be misinterpreting me. For there to be art, there needs to be boundaries and standards set so you can figure out what is and what isn't art. If you don't have those, anything and everything can be called art and that takes away the category and that makes it plain. Art is meant to inspire you, move you and make you think. Set a bar for art before calling it so. Also, from that NEA thing, pokemon *still* isn't art since it wasn't eligible for the grant if you really want to be technical about it.

 

[thequixoticman]

I think getting into the thorny question of whether or not video-games are art here is unnecessary. Granted, this is a hard matter to parse without seeing the exact details of the assignment, but part of your job as a student is not just read the basic subject for the assignment but understand what is being asked of you. The problem sounds more like your teacher didn't like the fact that your essay came down to "a video game got me interested in video games" than anything else. I would be doubtful that her real problem with it was that you wrote about a game and would expect that what she was looking for in a paper was your discussion of how something ephemeral had a tangible impact on your life. My guess is that your teacher would also have been uncharitable with a paper that boiled down to "this play got me interested in theater" or "this painting made me want to paint."

Granted, all of this is assumption on my part, I could be completely wrong. I'm trying to assume the best of your teacher and suss what could have been her desired goal from a paper like that. My guess is if you had taken say - the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for your artwork, you would have gotten an 85 for saying it made you want to paint and a higher grade for saying it made you comfortable with criticizing religion. Or, on the gaming side, if you had taken something like Grim Fandango and explained how it had given you an interest in exploring folk lore and finding ways to use the tropes from it in everyday life, that sort of thing, made a strong argument for how it had gotten you interested in something OUTSIDE of the world it emerged from, I imagine you would have gotten a higher grade or at the very least, had a better argument for why your grade should be higher.

Once again, I don't know your teacher, I don't know you, I don't know your paper and I don't know how the assignment was phrased. That said, I have been a teacher and I know that when you make an assignment you want the student to think in a certain way, and it sounds like your teacher didn't get what she wanted from your paper.

 

[Pearwood]

I'll be the first to admit that little big planet looks better than Pokemon Red. However the ability of the Gameboy to render images and process user input in comparison to the PS3 is like comparing the Lotus to the model T and saying that one looks infinitely better and is thus more of a car.

It's not just about looking better, it's about putting real effort into having a unique aesthetic. I understand that's difficult to do with Game Boy games but to me at least that would mean you can't make a Game Boy game artistic and not that I should change my definition to allow for obsolete hardware. Pokemon Red looks essentially the same as any other game like that and I don't think you can pass that off as a hardware issue since Pokemon White looks just as generic.

 

[Radelaide]

And another thing...

Can the people screaming about the teacher being wrong act like less entitled shits? Yes, video gaming is our hobby, but when someone tells us something we don't like about it, everyone spits the dummy and acts like children. If you want someone to take something seriously, grow up and act mature.

/rant.

 

[rosac]

You only got 85%? Oh no. I say suck it up, move on and don't ***** about it. It'll probably screw you over in the long run, and for what? I doubt you would get a higher grade, and 85% is damn high anyway.

 

[Thaius]

Point out to her that there's a Smithsonian exhibit about it and the United States has declared video games art in two ways now (with that one big organization deciding to fund interactive projects and the Supreme Court declared them creative freedom under the first amendment). That ought to shut her up.

Because yeah, that's outright ignorance on her part, and while you shouldn't say that to her, it should be dealt with.

 

[Stu35]

Then I will admit that I was wrong. I rarely associate with sports fans in general, to be honest.
And I'd say that XFactor isn't art to me. I've never met someone engaged enough in XFactor to be emotionally affected by it, but perhaps such a person exists. I've been proved wrong once on such assumptions, perhaps someone will prove me wrong a second time as well (although perhaps not on these forums, but you never know, I guess)?

Whilst I don't personally know anyone emotionally invested in XFactor, I have glanced at enough news articles to see the kind of effect it does have on some of the... shall we say... shallower, end of our gene pool.


And the truth is I don't consider Sport an art (although I would say there is artistry involved in some of the more skillful player). It all depends how broad you want to be with definitions - I wouldn't even consider modern art to be 'art', for instance - This demotivational poster sums it up for me I think [http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/small/1003/modern-art-art-modern-shit-canvas-talent-talentless-demotivational-poster-1268968201.jpg].

Meh, I just like to argue for the sake of arguing really, generally I've no strong opinions on this whole subject.

 

[MorganL4]

I'll be the first to admit that little big planet looks better than Pokemon Red. However the ability of the Gameboy to render images and process user input in comparison to the PS3 is like comparing the Lotus to the model T and saying that one looks infinitely better and is thus more of a car.

It's not just about looking better, it's about putting real effort into having a unique aesthetic. I understand that's difficult to do with Game Boy games but to me at least that would mean you can't make a Game Boy game artistic and not that I should change my definition to allow for obsolete hardware. Pokemon Red looks essentially the same as any other game like that and I don't think you can pass that off as a hardware issue since Pokemon White looks just as generic.

I'm sorry but that confuses me...

are you saying that if I decide to copy the mona lisa then that invalidates the work of da Vinci? I mean we are talking about the FIRST gen of the game. Sure you could justifiably argue that for black and white or pearl or Soul Silver.... the list goes on. But Pokemon Gen 1 was the first of the franchise. (hence Gen 1) it was one of the first game boy games to require saving.... and it actually could only hold the one save file. They literally packed as much into that cartridge as modern day tech would allow (modern day being the 1990's). And as far as being unique goes? Can you name another game that had 150 different creatures to capture each with a unique set of abilities, multiple cities a plethora of items and the ability to trade and compete with friends that came before 1996? Because I can't... Though many have copied the concept in games since I can't think of one that came before.

I mean when we talk about games as art we are not JUST talking about their physical appearance we are discussing the WHOLE package design,music,interface,story etc....

Yes today's Pokemon games seem like the same old thing rehashed over and over, but with more monsters and slightly better graphics.... But the originals were just that original.

 

[MurderousToaster]

Yeah, you have every right to be pissed off at them, but you probably should have checked before you picked that sort of subject. I've always felt like it's a good idea to try and test the waters with teachers like that. I've been blessed with an English teacher that seems to be fine with the concept of games as art, but it's probably a good idea just to make sure that they won't penalize you for it.

 

[Deus Flux]

Video games are works of art in more ways than one regardless of your teacher's personal opinion of them. I think she's letting that influence her judgement. I say she's wrong for acting in that manner. Aside from the visual artwork in video games and going further in, there's another work of art going on in video games that you never see visually in a finished game: the game script itself.

This is written text, or code, that basically tells all of the visual objects in a game what to do and how to interact with one another. This takes a ton of work and I personally consider this to be a form of art. Art is subjective to be sure, but that's my point. I feel that our teacher is denying you of your right to opinion of what art can be and what you feel it is.

For example I am not a fan of Pokemon or the games but that doesn't give me the right to claim it isn't art. In fact it's full of art(work). It takes skilled people to draw and animate the characters and many hours of work to do so. Just because I don't like the style I can't say it isn't art.