Hitting Restart

Altura, Gerard J.; Curwood, Jen Scott

doi:10.1002/jaal.438

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Fortunately, games must always generate, by design, an environment separate from the real world that has its own internal systems of value (Schell, , 43–47). There, having forged an “inherent investment” in the internal value system of the game (Altura & Curwood, , 25; Bork, , 49–50), a learner has opportunity to safely, provisionally, suspend the external, real‐world, historically‐conditioned systems of value that may be invisible to her or seem to her to be universal. (“When you put on someone else's identity, you are false to your own self” in a way that creates new possibilities for “put [ting one's] own perspective and expectations on the shelf”: on the role‐immersion games Reacting to the Past , Carnes [, 115, 117]).…”

Section: Designing Learning For Gamesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What IF? Building interactive fiction for teaching and learning religious studies

Lester

2018

Teaching Theology & Religion

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Games offer unique possibilities for learning, and text-based interactive fiction ("IF") in particular lends itself as a low barrier to entry for instructors and students wishing to build interactive narrative games. Understanding by Design provides a framework by which to determine the best possible places for instructor-and learner-built IF in any given course, whether face-to-face or online. A thick description of how an instructor conceived and developed two IF games follows, explicitly tied to course-design considerations like learning goals and assessment performances.The value of IF as a student project is explored, and finally an appendix provides resources for instructors and students to begin building their own interactive fiction.

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Section: Designing Learning For Gamesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What IF? Building interactive fiction for teaching and learning religious studies

Lester

2018

Teaching Theology & Religion

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“…For teachers such as Mr Perry new to integrating games into the English curriculum, they can find it useful to capitalise on their rich knowledge of narratives and their prior experiences teaching films in order to explore how the ludonarration of YA games can push the boundaries of narrative through their unique interactive and multimodal features. Although other research has addressed the potential for engagement that videogames have in an educational setting (Altura and Curwood, 2015;Barab and Dede, 2007), this study attests to how the interactive, social and multimodal aspects of the ludonarrative experience are what can make YA games uniquely engaging. Despite these qualities, games confer unique demands upon teachers.…”

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…In one Australian study, Applerley and Beavis (2013) highlighted the potential of critically responding to games as texts by using students’ written responses to a game-based unit of study in a Year 10 English classroom, including an essay by a student, who was able to “undertake a sophisticated analysis” of the narrative of Assassin’s Creed II (). In another, Altura and Curwood (2015) shared how a student’s analysis and critique of a videogame pushed “his understanding of the game narrative and mechanics to new levels” and allowed him to find “a novel way of playing videogames after learning about them as literary and cultural texts” (p. 26).…”

Section: Relevant Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Play the game, live the story: pushing narrative boundaries with young adult videogames

Theodoulou

Curwood

2023

ETPC

Self Cite

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Purpose Videogames are complex, meaningful and multimodal texts. This study aims to explore how students could learn about narratives from, and be engaged by, playing a videogame and how a teacher adapted their pedagogy to incorporate the young adult videogame (YA game) What Remains of Edith Finch into an English Language Arts curriculum. Design/methodology/approach This case study examined the experiences of a classroom teacher and students in a Year 10 English class in Australia. Thematic analysis included a wide range of data, including interviews, surveys, observations and artefacts. Findings First, students demonstrated a strong understanding of the game as a narrative text, including essential components of narrative such as plot, characterisation, themes, settings and literary techniques. Second, students experienced a consistently high level of engagement and embodiment throughout the study as a consequence of the interactive, collaborative and multimodal nature of YA games. Third, the teacher discovered that he was able to achieve key curriculum outcomes with the videogame through re-imagining pedagogy. Originality/value A playful approach allows teachers and students to be curious about the diverse narrative pathways possible within YA games and offers new opportunities to experience embodiment within and through digital texts.

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“…Some studies described multiple cases of different classrooms and units, and so may appear in this section, despite appearing elsewhere in this review. In these studies, researchers detailed students exploring gaming literacies in the broader world (Pelletier, 2005), gaming-themed paratexts such as novelizations of video games or game reviews (Altura and Curwood, 2015; Jolley, 2008) or dramatic enactments of game narratives (Beavis et al , 2015). The inclusion of broader discussions of gaming literacies is perhaps not surprising in light of scholarship highlighting the rich literate sociocultural worlds and communities surrounding gaming (Garcia, 2018).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Playful literacies and pedagogical priorities: digital games in the English classroom

Bacalja,

Nash

2023

ETPC

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Purpose This paper aims to explore the characteristics of playful literacies in case study research examining digital games in secondary English classrooms. It analyzes how educators use play as a resource for meaning-making and the impacts of play on student learning. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a keyword search in relevant academic databases to identify articles within specified search parameters. This was followed by bibliographic branching to identify additional articles. Following the identification of 30 articles, two rounds of open coding were used to identify themes for analysis. Findings The literature revealed five types of playful pedagogical practices: single-player gameplay, turn-taking gameplay, multiplayer play, play-as-design and little or no gameplay. Discussion of these findings suggests that classroom play was a highly social activity across case studies. Furthermore, boundaries between types of play and their contributions to learning were blurred and often disrupted normative approaches to curriculum and teaching. Originality/value Given the novelty of replacing traditional texts with digital games in English classrooms, this study represents an important moment to pause and review the literature to date on a particular, understudied aspect of digital games in English curricula: their playfulness. This is especially important given the innovative ways in which digital play can shift thinking about meaning-making and narrative, two historically dominant concerns within the discipline of English.

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Hitting Restart

Cited by 12 publications

References 11 publications

What IF? Building interactive fiction for teaching and learning religious studies

What IF? Building interactive fiction for teaching and learning religious studies

Play the game, live the story: pushing narrative boundaries with young adult videogames

Playful literacies and pedagogical priorities: digital games in the English classroom

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