Friday, February 1, 2019

Ready Player One: A Trade Book Evaluation

Another school assignment inbound. This time I was tasked with reviewing a trade book (basically any book you can pick up at a regular book store) to "learn how to relate real world, authentic reading to my own life (both personal and professional) and the lives of my students." Below is my review of Ready Player One.

Note: This post does contain affiliate links. If you use the link and make a purchase I will receive a small commision at no expense to you. The content of this post has not been influenced in any way by this.


Purpose


I chose to read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline because I felt it would tie in well with my English classes. This year I am experimenting with using gamification (application of game design principles to build student engagement) in my classroom, and I felt that a book that takes place in a virtual gaming world would align with my theme of leveling up as learners. I also thought students would likely enjoy the story since it features many pop culture references, video games are seemingly ubiquitous with teenagers, and there is a movie adaptation available.


Application and Relevance


My primary purpose in reading this book was to apply it in my classroom and with my students. In following Wade in his quest to discover Halliday’s Easter Egg hidden in the VR world of OASIS (the finder of which would inherit his fortune and ownership of OASIS), I found the elements of the challenge to be very intriguing. While there was a simple base quest of following a trail to reach the end goal, there were many other elements layered in. Finding and interpreting the various clues required the players to study history and psychology. Some tasks could only be completed alone, while others required team work. Many aspects of the challenges also targeted different skills and talents of the players.

In reading I found myself analyzing the few game mechanics I had incorporated into my classroom and seeing how much further I could push it. I plan to incorporate far more interaction between my students through small group challenges, whole group cooperative tasks, and some direct competition. I also want to push myself to incorporate other subject areas into my units, as well as multiple means of demonstrating understanding, in order to create a more comprehensive approach to literacy.


Elements of Engagement


Ready Player One was a very engaging the book – the kind that keeps you up late into the night as you read “just one more chapter.” Cline accomplishes this through numerous elements of engagement, starting first with people that we can care about. The novel’s protagonist Wade Watts is instantly sympathetic, an intelligent kid neglected by his aunt and growing up in the futuristic equivalent of a trailer park. Rather than bemoaning about his lot in life, Wade actively seeks ways to improve his life. As a result, the reader wants to support him and follow him through his journey.

Cline also does a great job creating a world the reader can visualize. From the “stacks” where Wade grew up and his virtual high school, to Archaide and Anorak's Castle, there are enough details included to create a fully realized world, but there is enough left to the reader’s imagination that we can feel comfortable and somewhat familiar in those settings. There is also a good balance of realistic settings like Aech’s Basement chatroom and fantastical places such as the zero-gravity club so that the reader’s imagination has moments to rest and reset.

Of course, a story if only as compelling as the challenges faced by its characters. Throughout the book, Wade faces danger and conflicts, and he must take risks and make difficult choices to overcome the obstacles he faces. Initially the quest to find Halliday’s Easter Egg is merely an escape for Wade from the pain and suffering of his everyday life. After becoming instantly famous for finding the first key, however, Wade’s perspective shifts. Gradually his primary drive becomes ensuring the corporation Innovative Online Industries (IOI) does not find the Easter Egg in order to prevent from them monetizing OASIS. This puts him in direct conflict with IOI. Not only does the corporation attempt to interfere with him in the virtual world, but they attempt to eliminate him in the real world. After his trailer is blown up, Wade is forced to go into hiding along with his friends Aech and Art3mis. From there he risks his life each time he logs in to OASIS, and eventually makes the decision to face IOI directly, recognizing how much it would hurt impoverished children like him if OASIS was no longer available.

There is a strong chronological structure in the novel, as there is a race against time to find the Egg before IOI. While there are no date or time stamps on chapters as other novels may use, Cline makes reference to the passing of time regularly, beginning in the prologue with a ticking off of each year after Halliday’s announcement “And another year went by. And another.” before revealing the full date when Wade’s avatar appears as the first name on the Scoreboard. As the story progresses, Wade laments how long some puzzles take to solve or the time it takes to travel or make arrangements before they can move forward. This gives the reader a clear understanding of the time that is passing.

Throughout Ready Player One there are also ample moral and ethical dilemmas. The primary debate carried through the novel is that of freedom or success of the individual versus the collective group. Wade, Aech and Art3mis directly confront the concern about if they should work to help each other in the hunt for Halliday’s egg, even though that goes against their personal interests. Readers can also discuss why we support Wade, Aech and Art3mis teaming up, but criticize IOI for doing the same with their employees.


Text Connections


This book offers many opportunities to create connections between the text and the reader, other texts, and the world. I believe students will be able to relate to Wade, and his struggle to fit in despite being different and lacking the resources of other kids his age. Many of the students in my classes also come from poor families who live in trailer parks where they are often woken by gunfire, as Wade is at the start of chapter 1.

They will also be able to connect with the characters building their relationships. While Wade may meet Aech and Art3mis in a virtual basement, we can all relate to meeting new people and developing friendships based on shared interests. Since my students are in high school, they will also likely recognize the awkward and confusing experience of exploring romantic interests.

Personally, I found myself connecting with Wade and his struggle with his health and weight. In our modern society I think many people will see themselves in this teenager who has to force himself to exercise before logging in to OASIS because the allure of that world and its comforts is so appealing. Even if students can’t directly relate in terms of their health, the can all understand the difficulty of putting down their phone or turning off the TV in order to do necessary tasks like homework and chores. 

Ready Player One is rife with references to other texts, providing ample changes to text-to-text connections. Notably, the entire quest to find the Easter Egg is based on Halliday’s life in the 80s, referring to many old arcade games, movies and TV shows of the time. Looking beyond these deliberate references, I plan to push my students to think even deeper, making comparisons across theme. It is important for students to recognize that some messages are universal, and remain true in the past, present, and future. One of the underlying themes in the novel is that of a dystopian society escaping reality through media, rather than facing their reality and trying to change it. This instantly reminded me of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In this book, the main character Montag begins to realize his wife Mildred, and much of the population, is gradually blocking out all of reality, spending most of her time with “the family” on their interactive TV wall, or wearing earbud radio receivers.

I believe my students will also be able to make connections to other media that features characters who attempt to hide their true identities in the same way that Wade hides his weight issues, and Aech hides the fact that she is not only female in a male dominated culture, but also black and a lesbian. Many of my students will make this connection with Sword Art Online, an animated series about teenagers trapped in a virtual world. Much of this series focuses on the persona these teens attempt to create, and how they reconcile them with their true natures and backgrounds. Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg also provides a great opportunity for connecting texts about concealing identities to fit in, as well as a direct connection to Aech hiding her sexuality from others.

Ready Player One also presents some amazing options for text-to-world connections. The most obvious is in the burgeoning field of virtual reality technology, with Playstation VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and VR apps becoming commonplace. I plan to read informational texts with my students about these technologies, as well as the myriad of ways they are being used - not just for entertainment, but in education, medicine, and even nation security as well. Another connection I know many of my students will enjoy exploring is to real world pro-gaming. E-Sports, which were once seen as a frivolous pastime, is now become a billion-dollar industry, with championships played in front of audiences of thousands and broadcast to millions of people on national television.

Lastly, while it is not a major plot point of the novel, Cline describe the state of the “real” world of Ready Player One as suffering from "The ongoing energy crisis. Catastrophic climate change. Widespread famine, poverty, and disease. Half a dozen wars"(p1). I would like my students to explore this description and analyze real world events and factors that could contribute to such a future. These topics would include climate change, current wars such as those in Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen, potential future conflicts including political struggles with Russia and China, the fossil fuel debate, and reacial and economic disparity both within the United States and globally.