Positioning students as game journalists: Transforming everyday experiences into professional discourse

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present findings from a study which is part of an ongoing Design-Based Research project which explores how students can transform their everyday experiences with and attitudes towards games into game journalism within the context of Danish as a subject. Based on a theoretical framework combining domain theory with Ivanič's theory of writing as identity construction, we analysed selected student articles and student interviews from four secondary classrooms (Grades 7-9). The findings show that some students mainly positioned themselves through a personal discourse, which was highly influenced by their positive, negative or ambivalent attitudes to their chosen game journalistic topics. Other students mainly positioned themselves through a professional journalistic discourse by means of critical reflection and representation of multiple perspectives on their topics. Based on the students' high level of engagement in the writing process and the wide range of possible selves adopted by the student writers, we concluded that games and game culture represent a topic well-suited for transforming students' everyday experiences and attitudes into journalistic texts.

Videogames and (language) education

“…Progressivist views (Chouliaraki, 1995) are permeating this research, such as principles of "the personal growth model" and in terms of the educational exploitation of children's out-ofschool experiences, the questioning of the differentiation between literary canon and other art forms (Bacalja, 2020;Burn, 2016). In this line of thought, it is considered that children can engage in rich and complex literacy practices (reading, writing, sharing) surrounding game playing (e.g., paratexts, Apperley & Walsh, 2012;Hanghøj et al, 2020), using language for meaningful and multiple reasons, interconnecting traditional and new literacies (e.g., new narrative forms, new kinds of textuality in games) (Burn, 2016) and bridging in-school and out-of-school reality.…”

“…Scientific inquiry related to the use of videogames in language education enriches the discussion with issues pertaining to literacy and semiosis. The majority of relevant literature (Beavis et al, 2017;Hanghøj et al, 2020;Marlatt, 2018;Steinkuehler & King, 2009) extends this discourse of pedagogic potentials to the digital literacy perspective, arguing that using videogames in literacy education offers the possibility of enriching the language teaching curricula in terms of the new textual, interactive and multimodal reality.…”

Stardust and statistics

“…In addition to these fan spaces, game guides also have been explored in the context of structured school assignments for literacy development (Apperley & Beavis, 2011;Wash & Beavis, 2012), including writing guides and journalistic pieces in the L1 classroom (Dezuanni & O'Mara, 2017;Hanghøj, 2017;Hanghøj et al, 2020;Strømman, 2021). Strømman (2021) in particular outlined the many promises of translating these fan practices into the classroom including students' engagement and the ability to position students as experts in a particular domain.…”

“…Strømman (2021) in particular outlined the many promises of translating these fan practices into the classroom including students' engagement and the ability to position students as experts in a particular domain. These pactices are what Dezuanni & O'Mara (2017) call impassioned learning" (p.36), which looks more like students' everyday informal learning around fan cultures and digital media.However, there also are real challenges to implementing these activities in the classroom, including students' pre-existing (sometimes negative) attitudes toward videogames, expectations of genre, and translating professionalism and academic language standards into classroom assignments and writing (Hanghøj et al, 2020). Here, I will be focusing on implications for learning from these guides to Pokémon GO written by fans and shared online.…”

“…This emphasis on game-informed, rather than game-based, activities in the classroom is also an important consideration given that not all educators or students are likely to be familiar with specific games or game language. It is essential to be mindful of the limitations of using videogames and videogame-related activities in school, as there are sociocultural factors that might make this approach less useful for certain students, including gender and previous experience with and access to games (Abrams & Lammers, 2017;Hanghøj et al, 2020). As such, another important consideration is how using game guides could facilitate at-home literacy development outside of these classroom applications, as well as the potential limitations of this approach due to the accessibility of specialist language and knowledge.…”