PORTFOLIO SAMPLE

Game-Based Learning for English Literature

Challenge

As a high school English teacher, I wanted to help my students explain literary themes with examples drawn from personal experience, rather than just examples drawn from the books. In particular I was interested in three books on the curriculum: Call of the Wild, Lord of the Flies, and Alas, Babylon (a novel about the aftermath of a nuclear bombing in Florida).

Solution

For each book, I designed a game that illustrated the theme by simulating the characters’ choices. In my Call of the Wild game, Race to Dawson City, teams of students played sled-dog drivers competing to finish a delivery route. Along the way, they experienced the difficulties of surviving in the wild, as well as the dangers of jostling to be the leader of a pack. For example, they had to consider the risk and reward of slowing down their sleds with extra deliveries but making more money when they arrived at their destination. They also had the choice of overworking their dogs and going faster but possibly exhausting them and becoming stranded in the Arctic wilderness. They made these choices against the backdrop of random weather and wildlife events.

In my Lord of the Flies game, Salvation or Savagery, students played survivors of a plane crash on a tropical island. As they gathered food to survive, they had to choose to either preserve a civilized society or descend into cutthroat competition. Each team could either stoke the signal fire (improving the chances of being rescued and getting a few bonus points for the whole class) or attempt to steal the pig’s head totem (making their team the most powerful on the island and giving a lot of bonus points to that team only).

Each round lasted an entire class period, with teams coming up one-by-one to make their moves while the others worked on graded group activities (such as writing paragraphs in response to a prompt about the previous night’s reading). There were roughly ten rounds over the three weeks between starting the book and taking the final exam. The structure of the round ensured students remained focused on learning objectives while I gave attention to the team making their move. In addition, distributing the rounds over time took advantage of the spaced repetition effect, improving the chances that students would remember the experience.

In general, my games used the technique of procedural rhetoric described in the book Persuasive Games. Procedural rhetoric proves a point, such as “civilization is fragile,” through game mechanics instead of the traditional means of logic, story, and authority.

Result

I did not have enough data to determine the effect on test scores, but post-game surveys showed that students loved the games. For example, on Race to Dawson City, students across four classes rated their enjoyment an average of 8 out of 10, with 10 being the most frequent score. They left comments praising the competition, choices, and suspense.

From my anecdotal perspective, students appeared more engaged during game rounds than at any other point in the school year. One of my most successful moments as a high school teacher occurred during Salvation or Savagery, when all the teams had been working together nicely until one of them realized how many bonus points they could get from the pig’s head totem. That team turned on the others, and the cooperation quickly devolved into every team-for-itself, just like in the novel.