Pedagogies: An International Journal
Vol. 6, No. 2, April–June 2011, 130–143
FOCUS ARTICLES
Literacy into action: digital games as action and text in the English
and literacy classroom
Thomas Apperleya∗ and Catherine Beavisb
a
School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, VIC, Australia; b School of
Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University, QLD, Australia
(Received 7 December 2009; final version received 31 May 2010)
Using data gathered from a three-year research project exploring digital literacy and
pedagogy with respect to video games, including classroom games-based pedagogy
and curriculum and ethnographic research on students’ digital game playing, this article
locates and explores a key conceptual problem facing the incorporation of digital games
into English and literacy classroom activities. This challenge is defined as “action”
and refers to the non-visual and non-textual elements of gameplay. This challenge
is explored both theoretically and through a practical discussion of various strategies
developed by teachers in the project to approach this issue. The article draws on contemporary game studies in order to map out and highlight several key areas where
action-based projects lead to critical reflection.
Keywords: computer game and literacy; game literacy; digital literacy and pedagogy;
game studies
Literacy into action
Writing and research around new literacies and Web 2.0 have presented well theorized
understandings and examples of how the English and literacy curriculum can be reconceptualized to encompass multimedia and digital forms (Alverman, 2002; Corio, Knobel,
Lanshear, & Leu, 2008; Willet, Robinson, & Marsh, 2009). The richness and complexity of
video, computer or digital games, and what they have to tell us about literacy and learning,
is compellingly argued by a number of theorists, in particular James Gee (2003), while others (Beavis, 2001; Buckingham & Burn, 2007; Carr, Buckingham, Burn, & Schott, 2006)
explore how digital games might be incorporated into classroom teaching. While many
theoretical advances have been made, the practical implications of using digital games in
the classroom are still playing out in schools. At one level the challenges presented for
curriculum are obvious: literacy researchers, policymakers, schools and teachers need to
identify which texts and literacies to attend to, and how. However, just how assessment,
curriculum and pedagogy might respond to addressing digital knowledges, literacies and
texts is less clear.
This paper focuses on a central challenge that emerged in the course of a three-year
project exploring issues and possibilities for literacy and English pedagogy and curriculum
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
ISSN 1554-480X print/ISSN 1554-4818 online
© 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/1554480X.2011.554620
http://www.informaworld.com
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offered by young people’s interest in digital games and the culture of gaming. The project
was built on the proposition that studying digital games and young people’s engagement
with digital culture might provide the basis for understanding more about our students and
their lifeworlds, in order to both strengthen existing literacies and identify new forms of
literacy and literacy practice. It had three strands with different concerns: the first focused
on digital games as cultural forms; the second on the place of digital games in students’ outof-school worlds; and the third on issues surrounding the incorporation of digital games by
teachers within the English/literacy classroom.
From the start of the project, the challenge that emerged across all strands was how to
conceptualize digital games. Could digital games be conceived of as “texts” in the English
curriculum in the same manner as traditional texts? In what sense could they be understood
as literate forms entailing (multi)modal elements, multiliteracies and literacy practices?
Did such a view acknowledge the active, changing, situated nature of gameplay? Did it
account for the interconnections between games, players and online contexts and the globalized connections entailed? Clearly, digital games sat uncomfortably in traditional and
even new literacy parameters for several reasons: most notably because digital gameplay is
active, in the sense that digital games require actions from the player in order to be played
(Galloway, 2006).
How to conceive games – as text and/or action – characterized every juncture of the
research and emerged through the units developed by the teachers involved as part of
their action research. While the tension between game as text and action is “old news”
in the gaming world (Frasca, 2003), little has been done to address the implications of the
multi-dimensional nature of digital games for teachers working with games in the English
classroom. This article focuses on the question of digital games as text and action by examining how the issue emerged and played out across the units and activities undertaken by
teachers and students. It presents perspectives on digital games drawn from a new literacies
framework and from a game studies framework (see Apperley, 2010), using the concept of
“paratexts”, which spans both literacy and game studies fields, as a way of organizing how
the text/action question might be addressed – if not resolved – in a school context.
Digital games in the classroom
The project worked with five secondary schools across a three-year period from 2007 to
2009. The teachers involved worked with classes ranging from Years 7 to12. Over the
course of the larger project, teachers developed individual action-research projects, entailing the teaching of game-based units with their students. The units ranged widely in the
games used and approaches taken (see Table 1). Games chosen ranged from narrative,
quest-based epics with film and literary convergences, through sandbox games, like The
Simpsons: Hit and run (Radical Entertainment, 2003) and Grand theft auto III (DMA
Games, 2002); “serious” games; fantasy sports games; and games created by students.
Activities undertaken included comparative analysis across platforms or between games
and players, retrospective reflection on themselves as players, the viewing and analysis of
an extensive historical games exhibition, games-related writing, drama, games reviews and
the production of games.
In 2008–2009, the range of activities undertaken across classrooms in the study varied considerably. At one extreme, units were developed that worked within frameworks
exploring games as one set of digital texts amongst others, utilizing a range of texts and literacy activities to strengthen understanding and literate competence in various forms (see
Table 1, column 1). At the other extreme, a unit was developed that focused on teaching IT
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Table 1.
Game-based units developed across the five schools.
Suburban State
High School 1
Suburban State
High School 2
Suburban Catholic Rural Catholic
Suburban Private
Boy’s High School Boys’ High School
High School
Serious games
Project with
Play and analysis Game design
Project using
project focusing
project using
Nintendo DS.
of SuperCoach,
notions of
on La
Focus on “at risk”
Game Maker
a fantasy sports
archetypes to
Molleindustria’s
students
game using
software
explore
The McDonald’s
statistics from
videogame
AFL
videogame
characters
Students
Design and oral
Discussion and
Development of
Project comparing
collaborated on
presentation of
reflection upon
drama and
videogames to
producing a
videogame
students, own
creative
quest narratives
game wiki that
paratext
gaming histories performance
contained game
pieces based on
reviews and
videogames and
discussions of
games that
game genres
students have
designed
Presenting in
Analysis of
Critique of
Making games
written and oral
videogame
videogames
using PowerPoint
form of a pitch
violence,
using Freebody
slides
for a game
comparing
and Luke’s
concept
Grand theft auto
(1990) four
resources model III with The
Simpsons: Hit
and run
design skills. “Making” was extended beyond imaginative conceptualization into the physical creation of students’ own games or redesigning – “modding” – elements of existing
commercial games. Table 1 provides an overview of the digital games and software used
by the teachers during the course of the project.
A model for literacy in action
Digital games are – to a greater or lesser extent – dynamic: they are enacted through play.
For digital game players, appreciating how their actions in the game will influence future
actions by the computer, themselves and other players (both opponents and collaborators)
constitutes a key area of knowledge and expertise. The classroom units foreground questions raised when this dimension of games and gameplay intersects with notions of literacy,
particularly those relating to the extent that digital games may be conceptualized as flexible
and dynamic systems. The concept has been described in a number of ways: “algorithm”
(Galloway, 2006; Wark, 2007); “cybernetic feedback loop” (Freidman, 1995, 1999); “procedural rhetoric” (Bogost, 2007); and “systems” (Salen, 2008; Zimmerman, 2009). How
did the classroom units take account of these dimensions? How did students in our study
demonstrate their knowledge of digital games as dynamic systems that they enact? Can
knowledge like this be contextualized in terms of action as well as traditional literacies? A
central aim of the project, arising from these questions and the case studies presented here,
is to provide a framework to support games-based literacy pedagogy.
In planning with teachers, analysing their reflections on the classroom units and students’ work and in our own reading and discussion about literacy and digital games, we
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draw extensively on Consalvo’s (2007) adaptation of Genette’s (1997) notion of “paratexts”. “Paratexts” refers to both texts and the surrounding materials that frame their
consumption, shape the readers’ experience of a text and give meaning to the act of reading. For Consalvo (2007), the term refers specifically to the “communication and artefacts
relating to [a game, that] spring up like mushrooms” (p. 8) around it. Paratexts is an
umbrella concept that connects the familiar notion of intertextuality – the processes of
reading texts as linked and “always already” known and the need for a diversity of texts to
be part of any literacy/English programme – to explicit industry-based practices, participation in global culture and existing practices of digital gameplay. Elsewhere we explored
the potential usefulness of paratexts in relation to digital games, identity and schooling,
with a particular focus on how use of paratexts in curriculum has the advantage of drawing
on students’ existing out-of-school literacy practices (Gutierrez & Beavis, 2010; see also
Walsh & Apperley, 2008, 2009). In this article, we explore how the concept and actuality of
digital game paratexts provides a framework for bringing together the diverse curriculum
units that teachers developed to work through the issue of digital games as both text and
action.
Literacy and action through paratexts
“Paratexts” is a useful concept for mapping units and activities developed by the teachers
and undertaken by students in the project. It is crucial for supplying distinctions that identify and examine how core features and dimensions of text and action were differentially
shared or combined. Table 2 outlines core features of paratexts as part of “real world” digital culture under the headings “Using paratexts”, “Paratextual design” and “Game design”.
In addition to identifying central elements and features of each engagement, the mapping (see Table 2) highlights two key dimensions of games and gameplay that tend to elude
constructions of digital games as merely text or action. First, playing digital games and
understanding the play of digital games is closely related to game design. While there are
fascinating parallels, one does not “appreciate” or “enjoy” a game in the same way as one
may enjoy a novel. A literal understanding of the structure of a game, and the actions this
structure permits, is required to play, rather than the implied or tacit level of understanding
Table 2.
Paratextual dimensions of game culture and gameplay.
Using paratexts
Using paratextual resources
Paratextual design
Game design
“Productive” paratextual design Game design (Game maker)
Level design (Warcraft III)
Focus on traditional literacy and Links to traditional literacy
Modding (Second life [Linden
multiliteracy
practices: writing, art, genres
Research, 2003])
A space where critical literacy Possibility of creative and
Draws information from a
spontaneous interventions
practices in relation to games
number of different “textual”
(Spore [Maxis, 2008], The
are strongly demonstrated
platforms (Internet, television,
Sims)
etc.)
Critical in the sense that the
Demonstrates and requires
Critical understanding on formal
sources must be found and
critical understanding of game game elements (e.g., why
evaluated
(and paratextual) design,
games have levels, cut scenes,
history, genres, and aesthetics etc.)
The information is used or
Critical understanding of the
enacted during gameplay
relations between structure
and visual/narrative content
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T. Apperley and C. Beavis
associated with reading. Second, paratexts reveal how digital games take on meanings and
roles in students’ lifeworlds outside of the immediate “immersive” activity of playing the
games themselves. They take the emphasis away from the – often mechanical – process
of playing the game and focus on the contemplative, creative, imaginative and productive
elements of digital gameplay, rather than the compulsive “twitch” of constant action.
Actions in digital games are not made wildly, although there is a large degree of experimentation – which necessarily involves learning from mistakes – during the course of play.
Through familiarizing themselves with the movements, patterns and rhythms of games,
players develop an understanding of how to act in games, through an understanding of how
the game acts and how it responds to their actions (see Friedman, 1995, 1999; Galloway,
2006). The structural knowledge of digital games design that is encouraged and developed through play is considered an integral part of digital game literacy (Buckingham &
Burn, 2007; Salen, 2007; Zimmerman, 2009). The categories that we suggest all involve
an understanding of digital game design, although each category enacts this understanding
in a different manner.
If playing digital games successfully requires knowledge of game design in the form
of “gaming literacy”, can this literacy be regarded as reflective or critical? The notion that
digital games consist of actions does not necessarily mean that these actions are undertaken
thoughtlessly, nor that there is no critical reflection during the course of play. Players constantly evaluate and re-evaluate the game, their own performance and the performance of
others. However, educators must be able to recognize and support these reflective moments
in order to highlight their critical elements to students. All three areas of game culture
listed in Table 2 contain ample opportunity for critical reflection. We suggest that this is an
area that requires further investigation by scholars interested in using digital games to support students in developing traditional literacies, multiliteracies and the peculiar literacies
of action involved in digital gameplay.
Paratexts in the classroom
Mapping the classroom units designed by the teachers who participated in the project
against the categories outlined in Table 2 provides insights into how the teachers conceived of digital games as text or action in relation to English curriculum and the links
they built between the two. The classroom activities have taken up paratexts and paratextual production in different ways. These activities have been incorporated into the curricula
with different concerns and planned outcomes. The significance of digital games and paratexts within the curriculum has also varied: some schools focused on developing students’
understanding of digital games, while others used digital games to support traditional literacies and forms of knowledge. For example, one school used digital games alongside the
Lord of the Rings trilogy and analyses of archetypes drawn from myths to discuss narrative
structure in both digital games and literature.
To demonstrate how paratexts are useful for fostering a critical understanding of digital
games actions and designs, and to provide a map for classroom design, the categories from
Table 2 are expanded below with reference to units undertaken in particular schools. We
take three units that fit predominately into each of the three categories. We then discuss how
each of the units sits within that category, and how their positioning along this spectrum
shaped the activities of the teachers and students. These examples consider how literacy
and critical literacy might be enhanced by the incorporation of “action” in various forms.
An important element in this work with digital games was the use of intertextuality as
a frame of reference. Some units, such as that on Lord of the Rings and archetypes, drew
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explicitly on film and literary references. Others, such as the unit on The Simpsons: Hit and
run and Grand theft auto III, drew on other forms of media to encourage critical evaluation
and analysis of representation and reading processes and to develop deeper insights into
the popularity and marketing of games (Beavis & O’Mara, 2010). Such connections are
familiar territory for English teachers and demonstrate a rich framework for approaching
print and multi-modal texts. However, in this paper, our specific concern is to pursue the
possibilities offered by the notion of paratexts, for developing students’ understanding of
games as action.
Using paratexts
The use of paratexts (see Table 2, column 1) during digital gameplay introduces crucial
moments of reflection. This is because players must remove themseves from the immediate responses that maintain the feedback between player and machine, to examine a text
outside the “immersive” game world. The motivations for using a paratext vary, although
Consalvo (2007) points out that they often relate to streamlining or customizing the player’s
experience, by circumventing irritations, advancing quickly to more interesting areas or
glossing over elements of play that do not fit with an individual player’s style of play.
The term paratext covers a wide variety of techniques, texts, technologies and practices. Comprehensive work covers the field as a whole (Consalvo, 2007; Newman, 2008),
while other scholars explore particular areas: game-inspired art, both professional (Bittanti,
2006) and fan (Schott & Burn, 2007); machinima – animated films using game engines
(Lowood, 2007); walkthroughs – step-by-step descriptions of how to play the game (Ashton
& Newman, 2010; Consalvo, 2003); modding (Postigo, 2007; Sotamaa, 2007); and game
design (Salen, 2007). Certainly all are tangible artefacts of digital gameplay (Consalvo,
2007, p. 8), but in this section our interest is focused on a particular subset of paratexts, often called walkthroughs, FAQs or strategy guides, that the players use to guide
and contextualize their actions in the digital game.
We suggest that using paratextual materials to guide themselves through digital games
constitutes a form of research for players. This operates as critical literacy on three levels. First, students have to find paratexts, using a variety of different sources. While many
large-budget releases will be accompanied by official strategy guides (that may cost up to
50% of the price of the game in Australia), players will also, for various reasons, often also
access similar unofficial materials through the Internet. Second, players have to evaluate the
reliability of their sources. This is of particular importance in developing critical literacy,
often involving the evaluation of official industry-based communications against similar
content produced unofficially, either by experts or by peers in the community of players.
Players using paratexts in this context are confronted by dozens of possible guides. Finally,
players must enact and experiment with paratexts. This is both an important part of assessing their usefulness and a return to the original purpose of playing the game. As players
work through the game with the aid of the guide, they may return to searching the Internet
for better guides or for ones with more expansive coverage of a particular issue they have
with the game. This supports critical literacy because players are constantly reassessing
how they play the game and evaluating their own experience in light of the paratexts they
are using. It also supports a knowledge of design because it provides a comprehensive
overview of the whole space of the game, through which the player may take only one path
or use a particular strategy.
The unit on SuperCoach (Herald Sun, 2007) in the Suburban Catholic Boys High
School, for example, exemplifies the use of paratexts in promoting critical reading and
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detached evaluation (Gutierrez & Beavis, 2010). SuperCoach is a fantasy sports game
based on the Australia Football League (AFL), which plays Australian-rules football. In
SuperCoach, players create teams based on the performance of “real” players and compete
against each other on a weekly basis. The online game is run by a group of major daily
newspapers, owned by News Corporation, with over 300,000 active accounts in the 2009
season. The already existing interest in the game among the student body of the school led
one teacher involved in the project, Joel, to develop curriculum examining the game. Joel
was interested to see how serious students were about the game and the lengths to which
they would go to do background research into their choices.
As is the case with many more conventional digital games, playing the fantasy sports
game SuperCoach involved traversal and integration of both online and traditional texts
of many kinds. To play SuperCoach well, players need to draw on a repertoire of constantly changing information presented in diverse media forms and to analyse, evaluate
and synthesize this information to succeed. The media forms used include: print texts,
such as newspaper reports of the AFL games; commentaries on particular players’ abilities; visual texts, often with verbal captions or commentary; replays from AFL games;
statistical information about individual players’ performance; radio commentaries and discussions; television football shows that include interviews with players (serious comments,
satire, buffoonery and parody); and the “informed opinions” of any number of classmates,
relatives and other experts. As Lemke (2007) notes in relation to reading online:
You can’t really get at the meaning of various forms piecemeal: you have to integrate the text
with its fellow travellers, cross-contextualizing them by one another, to get at the kinds of
meanings being made and stored. (as cited in Alverman, 2008, p. 15)
To play the game effectively – to win – players rely on paratextual information, but
also, crucially, distance themselves from their own passions and emotions as supporters
of individual teams, in order to evaluate the information presented by paratexts in a cool,
considered manner.
Paratextual design
In the context of critical literacy, paratextual design is a crucial activity that allows students
to become involved in multi-modal production (see Table 2, column 2). Paratextual production engages similar critical faculties to those required for the reading and analysis of
existing paratexts, but requires that the skills be enacted in a variety of modes, supporting
both multi-modal (e.g., after-action reports, machinima) and traditional text-based literacies (e.g., FAQs, walkthroughs, wikis). Paratextual production ranges on a spectrum from
highly creative to strongly generic. Examples of creative paratextual production include
videogame-inspired artworks, music and narratives, while player-produced walkthroughs
follow narrowly formulated genre conventions.
Within this spectrum are a variety of practices that also engage Web 2.0 technologies,
using peer-to-peer platforms like YouTube to share player-designed and player-created tutorials on aspects of gameplay. Paratextual production is not necessarily game-centred, unlike
other paratextual use. It is not about making actions within the game world, but rather about
producing material that supplements the experience of the game world or even using the
game world as a platform of production. The latter activity involves using either an ingame function – for example, the photo taking function in The Sims (Maxis, 2000) and
Grand theft auto: Vice city (Rockstar Vienna, 2003); the simple music creation tools in
Electroplankton (Indies Zero, 2006); the movie-making functions in Driv3r (Reflections
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Interactive, 2004) and The movies (Lionhead Studios, 2005) – or another piece of screen,
sound or motion capture software combined with simple editing tools, to create content.
An example of the production of paratexts as critical literacy grew out of work in
the “Serious games” unit in one of the metropolitan schools. Serious games are a new
genre or category of digital games that both emerged from and demonstrate the growing
importance of gaming in educational and pedagogical contexts. As a genre it is difficult
to clearly define, because it is applied to games that have been developed in a number
of different contexts, for example, advertising, education, journalism and public relations.
While diverse, the genre is united by a sense of didactic purpose. Serious games propose
purposeful play with meaningful outcomes; they aim to bring an issue, or issues, to the
players’ attention through play (see Michael & Chen, 2005).
In the unit, the students were asked to play, and answer questions about, a number of serious games – games designed explicitly to teach, including La Molleindustria’s
(2006) McDonald’s videogame – with the final part of the six-week unit focused on applying their knowledge of serious games to entertainment games. Majida,1 a student with a
Middle Eastern background, designed a new character for an existing game as a part of the
final assessment task. Majida added a new character to the PC role-playing game Sacred
(Ascaron, 2004), one of the games that she was currently playing. The new character was a
female who used magic powers focused on the control over the element of earth and evoked
magic through dance. She both drew and wrote a description of her character, providing
information about her powers, history and back-story, and an account of how her character
worked in relation to the mechanics of the game. The character’s appearance and aesthetic
was Middle Eastern. Majida’s character was a way of writing back to the game – a critical
take on two noticeable absences. As she commented, while the setting and appearance of
the game was strongly Middle Eastern, with deserts, palm trees and so on, there were no
Arab characters. Her avatar was both Arabic and sexy, evoking particular ways of being
and femininity, connecting to her own sense of identity and self in the “outside” world. In
addition to building stronger connections between Majida and Sacred’s gameplay, the introduction of her avatar addressed the almost total absence of female characters in the game.
Majida’s character, while a critique of Sacred at some levels, was described in the technical language of the play and dynamics of the game world. The character was defined
by game mechanics – elemental magic, powers, skills – as much as it was defined by its
ethnicity or gender. So while demonstrating a form of critical literacy about the game,
Majida’s project also shows her knowledge of Sacred’s design. Her project illustrates that
the benefit of analysing digital games in class need not be limited to critique, because critique often involves also engaging with the game on the level of design. The ways in which
Majida’s design works also as critique supports the multi-modal approaches to literacy that
are advocated in many curriculum guidelines. By reacting to digital games in this manner,
students like Majida develop new skills or have their existing skills contextualized within
the curriculum. This analysis of Majida’s project demonstrates the two key utilities of paratexts in the English and literacy classroom: first, they bridge traditional and “new” forms of
literacy; and, second, they draw upon contemporary culture and often upon students’ own
out-of-school literacy practices.
Game design
The various practices of game design (see Table 2, column 3) sustain a reflective space for
critical literacy. Again, this refers to a spectrum of activities, ranging from producing new
objects within a particular game, to using simple game design software like Game Maker
(YoYo Games, 1999), as was the case with the unit in the Rural Catholic Boys High School
(see Table 1).
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Many contemporary games now include some element of design, although the flexibility that is available is often quite limited compared to that offered by specific game design
software like Game maker. Within games, the design element is often relatively superficial, for example, the detailed custom design of players’ avatars in role-playing games like
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks, 2008) and Mass effect 2 (BioWare, 2010). However, some
games include features allowing players to generate new objects for use in the game, which
have an impact on the actions taken in the game world. For example, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts
and bolts (Rare, 2008) allows players to design different vehicles for the protagonist, which
subsequently determine how the player moves through and acts in the game space. Features
that allow players to create new levels for games have become increasingly common, leading to the longevity of classic games like Counter-strike (Valve Software, 2000), Warcraft
III: Reign of chaos (Blizzard Entertainment, 2002) and StarCraft (Blizzard Entertainment,
1998). Other games like Sid Meier’s civilization IV (Firaxis Games, 2004) are almost completely customizable, but some forms of customization require the player to edit the source
code of the game using a software development kit that is packaged with the game. Level
design has become a feature that is incorporated even in high-profile digital games aimed at
casual audiences like LittleBig planet (Media Molecule, 2008), Mod racer nations (United
Front Games, 2010) and WarioWare: DIY (Nintendo SPD, 2010).
The various kinds of design activities, however, engage students with the notion of
game action on a critical level, because they are implicitly conducting a form of critique
during the process of design. Designing a game, or using an in-game tool to design content,
also allows for critical reflection on how possible designs and actions are established – and
constrained – by digital game genres. Furthermore, the process of design also allows the
students to experience the negotiation between their desired performance for the game and
the technical affordances available to them.
Understanding what the affordances of the genre enable and constrain is an important element in developing sophisticated and critical perspectives on both texts and design.
One of the project schools, the Rural Catholic Boys High School (see Table 1), explicitly
taught game design using the Game maker software, where John, the English teacher concerned, was also the students’ teacher for IT (Beavis & O’Mara, 2010). Other schools also
encouraged students to make games, using software more readily available in the English
classroom. Sam, a 12-year-old boy described as having “learning difficulties” and certainly
a reluctant writer and class participant, created the game Wizardry using the tools and affordances of Microsoft PowerPoint as part of the Gamorama wiki, at Suburban High School
1 (see Table 1).
Wizardry (see Figure 1) is a puzzle game framed by two screens of text outlining the
narrative concerning an ancient battle between two wizards – Astaroth, who “seized power
from the other wizards in a bloody coup”, and Seth, the one wizard who survived. In
the game, your character, played by the cursor, has to move quickly to hide and escape
from Astaroth, levelling up through screens filled with simple but effective images and
quite a high level of difficulty, until at last Astaroth is beaten: “And so Seth ruled the land
justly and fairly to the end of his days”. Sam’s game is an imaginative, creative endeavour
that demonstrates his knowledge of related games and the capacity of the software, which
enables creativity, pleasure and design. As in the example of Majida, Sam’s engagement
with game design demonstrates how students’ work with paratexts serves the purpose of
engagement with both design and critique and allows them to explore their own multimodal literacy and design practice by creating texts that bring together both traditional and
new modes of expression.
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Figure 1. The first slide from Wizardy.
Digital games, English, literacy – working in the English classroom
Table 3 maps these examples against the three categories of paratextual dimensions of
gameplay to demonstrate how each is characterized. SuperCoach and the “Using paratexts” are the closest to familiar uses and understandings of text and literacy; Wizardry and
“Game design” the closest to “action”. In this sense, reading from left to right and designing curriculum along these lines, indicates a vector for conceptualizing digital games as
action and as text that transcends traditional forms of text and literacy. Moving from left
to right entails shifting from literary and literacy-based conceptions of digital games as
primarily texts to be read and nested amongst other print and visual multi-modal texts,
towards an understanding also grounded in production and design. In a different sense,
however, all three columns and examples show the intimate relationship of text and action,
critical and literary forms of reading, response, creativity and literacy practices to those of
situated games play and design.
Through paratexts, students are able to engage with the dynamism of action in digital
games on a number of levels. By thinking through and approaching the issue of games
as action, or, at least, not merely as text, this article has both outlined models and examples of digital game curriculum that support critical approaches to digital games as text
and has segued into the multi-modal literacy and design practices of paratexts and game
design. The juxtaposition of game studies and literacy perspectives on digital games has
proved valuable in working towards the development of a model for games literacy for use
in English and literacy education (see Apperley, 2010; Beavis, O’Mara, & McNiece, in
press). However, this connection raises challenges in relation to the constructions of literacy and subject English. In part, the challenge relates directly to contemporary struggles
over what English (and literacy) should do and be; with how traditional priorities, forms
of organization and concerns might be reconfigured in “a curriculum built for change”
(Tweddle, 1995, p. 3); and with texts and literacies extended to include multi-modal and
A space where critical
literacy practices in
relation to games
are strongly
demonstrated
TV and radio vision
and reportage,
newspaper reports,
commentary and
photos, TV review
shows, statistics etc
Players must locate
useful sources of
information and
distinguish
between credibility
of sources
Players need to make
decisions based on
detached
evaluation of
information
Draws information
from a number of
different “textual”
platforms (Internet,
television etc.)
Critical in the sense
that the sources
must be found and
evaluated
The information is
used or enacted
during gameplay
Demonstrates and
requires critical
understanding of
game (and
paratextual) design,
history, genres and
aesthetics
Links to traditional
literacy practices:
writing, art, genres
Read and evaluate
print, oral and
visual texts, play
and compete online
Focus on traditional
literacy and
multiliteracy
The character needs
to fit into the game,
with associated
features, roles and
qualities
Player creates
character based on
knowledge of
generic and
narrative
requirements of the
game
Player relies on
familiar
representations of
Arabic female
characters and
desert iconography
The insertion of a
female character
into the game
critiques this
absence
“Productive”
paratextual design
TV and radio vision
and reportage,
newspaper reports,
commentary and
photos, TV review
shows, statistics etc
Using paratextual
resources
Sacred
Paratextual design
Supercoach
Summary of classroom units according to paratextual dimensions.
Using paratexts
Table 3.
Incorporates generic
features of games,
both narrative (e.g.,
characters, back
story, images,
language – and as
puzzle or action –
progress through
the game)
Figure 1 sets the
narrative and the
challenge.
Remaining slides
require player to
dodge, move up
levels to win
Critical
understanding on
formal game
elements (e.g., why
games have levels,
cut scenes etc.)
Critical
understanding of
the relations
between structure
and
visual/narrative
content
Uses affordances of
PowerPoint to
create new story
Uses PowerPoint –
not a game but a
technology, but
draws on related
casual games
Wizardry
Possibility of creative
and spontaneous
interventions
(Spore, The sims)
Game design (Game
maker); Level
design (Warcraft
III); Modding
(Second life)
Game design
140
T. Apperley and C. Beavis
Pedagogies: An International Journal
141
digital forms. The attendant questions range from the place of aesthetics through to issues
of pedagogy and assessment, values and identity. In part, however, the challenges presented to constructions of literacy and curriculum relate to the knowledge, orientations,
professional development, resources and skills that teachers require to move strongly in
the direction of design.
It may be that bringing together the diverse elements and directions entailed in working with both action and textual perspectives means this work is best done across, rather
than within, subject boundaries, meaning that curriculum, pedagogy and assessment must
be shaped accordingly. Whatever the case, and however it is organized, it is clear that
connecting into the world of digital games and bringing their study – both analysis and
making – into the classroom, enriches understandings of contemporary texts and literacies,
expands repertoires of practice and engages students in the lively exploration of the rich
and complex world of digital games and cultures.
Acknowledgements
The research on which this paper reports, Literacy in the digital world of the twenty-first century: Learning from computer games (Beavis, Bradford, O’Mara, & Walsh, 2007–2009) is funded
by the Australian Research Council. Industry Partners: The Australian Centre for the Moving
Image, The Victorian Association for the Teaching of English, The Department of Education and
Early Childhood Development, Victoria. Research Fellow: Thomas Apperley. Additional research
assistance: Amanda Gutierrez.
Note
1.
All names of students have been changed to protect their anonymity.
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