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Virtual Learning: The Benefits of Teaching Video Game

Narrative in High School

Nicholas Holley
TECM 4700
November 11, 2014

Summary
The video game industry has evolved to a point where developers create games
with strong narrative and literary elements. The narratives written for video
games contain enough literary elements that could be studied in a high school
English class. Video game narrative contains important literary elements that
would help teach important storytelling concerning character growth, thematic
significance, and the impact of moral decisions. By creating a textbook
accompanied with a lesson plan, teachers would have a guide on how to teach
video game narrative.
Today more Americans play video games compared to going to the movies,
placing the industry as an important role in entertainment (Przybylski 2010).
Video games continue to gain popularity and significance as an important form
of debatable art. Education must adapt to the progression of technology and
the new outlets for literature.
Furthermore, video games have the potential to do a lot of good as tools for
education. In fact, a meta-analysis concluded that games can make important
advances in the educational reform necessary to deal with the learning
challenges of the next century (Granic 74), signifying the importance of
implementing video games into educational environments. Video games are at
the forefront of future education.
Prior attempts at teaching high school English classes with the use of video
games have achieved successful results. The use of video game narrative is
similar to using narrative from other forms of literature (Beavis 2014), which
means it is just as important to teach as is a class focused on novels or comic
books. However, it is not a common way to teach due to a lack of knowledge on
how to teach video games as literature by teachers. Teachers would rather use
lesson plans based on material they are familiar with, as opposed to using
video games which that they might have little knowledge of.
The solution is to create a textbook with an accompanying lesson plan that
details how to teach the subject effectively. This would help give teachers all
the information on how to teach narrative in video games. The lesson plan
would also help set a standard for teaching video games across the country,
giving the same benefits to students in different high schools. Creating a
textbook with a lesson plan would ensure that video games would be used
effectively in a high school setting across the country.

Background
Video games have a history of being unfairly labeled as a negative form of
entertainment that teaches violence and hurts the psychology of adolescence
(Granic 2014). In addition, many debate if video games are even a form of art
with no clear answer as of now. It was not until 2011 when video games were
officially protected by the first amendment (Wallace 2014), showing how far the
industry has come since its initial start. Even with positive advancements, the
negative response damages the reputation of the industry and overshadows the
literary elements of video games.
The negative image causes people, especially parents, to dismiss the
educational value of video games. With the creation of a textbook and lesson
plan for high schools, video games would have an official structure that would
show the educational benefits video games could give to children.
The biggest problem is that parents believe video games do not have a
connection to learning and have no place in the classroom. Parents negative
view on video games is theorized to come from a social pressure to dismiss
video games as being anything other than entertainment (Bourgonjon 2011).
The social pressure stems from the stereotype of video games only being played
by anti-social individuals who live in their parents basement. In addition,
successful attempts of implementing video games into the classroom come from
teachers who teach the subject based on their own experience. These teachers
do not use any official text to supplement lessons. Parents might tend to view
the use of teacher-created lesson plans as a weak form of education for their
children.
Parents want the best for their children. While parents do not have direct
authority over what material is taught in a classroom, they still have the power
to shape school decisions by vocalizing their concerns. Parent dismissal of
video games causes schools to also dismiss it in an educational environment.
Parent dismissal could change with an official textbook and lesson plan on
video game narrative. The inclusion of official texts on the subject would create
a sense of structure for the material, helping parents feel safer about allowing
their children to take such a class.
Several high schools have already implemented video games in an English
classroom that have yielded positive effects on student learning. Lesson plans
have been created with the main focus on video games, similar to a novelcentric lesson plan. Students are required to play certain video games and
discuss what they have played, focusing on literary elements such as thematic
devices and story structure (Mifsud 2013). While all of these instances had
positive effects on student education, the lesson plans were all created from
each teachers personal experiences with the material. There was no common
structure between the classes taught.

State of Science
Several high schools have used teacher-created lesson plans centered on video
games. Each instance proved to be an effective way to teaching literary
elements to students. These examples show the effectiveness of using video
games as a form of education. The successful examples also provide a better
image for video games as being a form of education to consider. Combining
elements from these successful lesson plans into one standard would create a
structured formula of teaching the material that would be more acceptable to
parents.
One approach to teaching video games in an English classroom comes from Dr.
Jonathan Ostenson, a current professor at Brigham Young University. He has
ten years of experience teaching high school English classes, and has used
video games as a primary focus. His purpose was not to bring video games into
a high school classroom because it would be favored among the adolescent
demographic, but because he believed video games are some of the most
important storytelling in the 21st century (Ostenson 71). The idea of using
video games is built upon the idea that other forms of media have been used in
English classes such as film and comic books, so video games should also be
welcomed into the fold.
A problem that Ostenson outlines is how some video games, particularly older
ones, only possess a superficial narrative that provides a framework for
gameplay elements (Ostenson 2013). Not all games have superficial narratives,
but a problem arises if a teacher uses video games based solely on what is
popular with their adolescent audience. This might cause a lesson plan to
contain superficial narratives. Schools that adopt video games into their
English program will have to put teachers who have knowledge of the industry
in charge of the English classes. A failure to understand which video games
would work or not work in an English class would result in a poorly
constructed class that would do more harm for a students education.
Teachers who do not know a lot about video games would cause a problem in
implementing it into a high school English class. There has been a push by
previous researchers that general technologies require different learning
theories, including video games. However, the problem arises with the teacher
if he or she does not feel comfortable using video games in a classroom setting.
The problem is a personal one, but if a teacher does not feel comfortable then a
high school might let the teacher have the deciding factor over the content used
in a lesson plan (Turkay 2014).
Giving teachers the choice to opt out of using video games is one many might
take since video games are still a new form of literature. This would cause video
games to become ignored in a high school setting. The less video games are
commonly used in a high school English class causes less interest in the

methods of teaching new forms of literature. This hurts the advancement of


education. Without an advancement of education, students will suffer the
consequences of not being able to study video games as literature and fall
behind on understanding important storytelling.
The largest roadblock in implementing video games in a high school English
classroom is the difficulties English teachers face with choosing effective video
games to teach from and how to connect an interactive story to study in
literature. The solution to this is to create a textbook accompanied with a
lesson plan that could be implemented in all high school English classes across
the country. The text would give teachers all the information needed in order to
effectively teach literary elements using video games. In turn, the textbook and
lesson plan would help establish a solid framework for all teachers across the
country.

Future Research Needs


Creating a textbook and a lesson plan centered on video game narrative would
help alleviate the time high schools would have to train teachers on the
subject. This would ensure that the video games with strong narratives would
be focused on in class and create a concentration on how to effectively teach
video games.
A textbook on video game narrative could be modeled after previous successful
attempts like Ostensen, but should extend beyond the simple framework of
exploring how narrative is told in a video game. Lesson plans should focus
around three aspects of literary elements:
Character growth
Thematic significance
Moral decisions
Character Growth
Video games are all about characters and how they evolve from the beginning
to the end of the narrative. What kind of decisions change their identity and
values and what is the significance of those changes? Teaching character
growth of video game is important because of player input and how that might
affect how a character grows over time based on decisions made by the player.
Player input is unique to video games and is worth teaching the connection
between narrative and how the narrative changes based on real decisions made
by players.
Thematic Significance
Video game narratives have themes just like any other form of narrative.
Teaching a class about the themes is important by connecting ideas from the
narrative to a greater significance of what it relates to in a larger real-world
scope. Studying the arguments that the theme makes will help students
discover how to critically think about storytelling and its connections to real
world topics.
Moral Decisions
Certain video games have a unique system of moral decisions a player must
choose in order to progress the narrative. These moral decisions are important
to study in class because they are specific to the student making them. The
narrative shapes itself around these decisions, effecting the overall storyline
and sometimes even altering the theme. Class discussion about the
comparison of moral decisions would open up interpretation of how the theme
and characters change depending on player input.
The three main literary elements would help structure the class into three
sections that would play off one another.

The decision of what video games to teach from is important because certain
teachers might want to approach a specific narrative structure. Teachers
should also have the deciding factor in which games to teach based on their
knowledge of student interest. Using Table 1 would help narrow down specific
titles to teach from.
Table 1: Questions to Consider When Integrating Games into Instruction (Turkay
2014)

Table 1 would allow a teacher freedom in choosing games for the lesson plan.
This would ensure that each teacher could teach from content they deemed
worthy. The textbook would focus on examples from certain video games, but
the main focus would be on the video games taught by the specific teacher in
the class. This would also improve sustainability of the lesson plan, because
the freedom of choice would allow for adaptability to whats current and whats
popular. The same lesson plan could be used for a number of years without
becoming outdated.
Teachers who are not familiar with video games will benefit most from the
textbook and lesson plan. The textbook would give them an overview of
narrative elements in video games. The lesson plan would work off the textbook
with details on what materials to organize and what to look for in a video
games narrative. The textbook and lesson plan will be similar to others focused
on novels, something most English teachers are familiar with. Because of this,
teachers will pick up the material quickly based on their prior experience
teaching English.
Teachers benefit from the creation of a structured textbook and lesson plan on
video game narrative. They will be able to learn about the industry and exactly
how to teach the new form of literature. This benefits children by giving them a
new way to learn literature that is more adjusted to their interests. They will be
more interested in the lessons, ensuring they will receive a better education.
The implementation of video games in a high school will help advance the
school into the new age of education. This benefits each school by creating an
image of educational progression. Schools that teach new, current, forms of
literature will be more desirable for student enrollment.
Although teaching video game narrative is beneficial on many platforms,
limitations do exist. Many students might not have access to the equipment
necessary to play the video games assigned. Schools with computer labs can
work around this limitation, but not all schools have the funds for capable
computers. Another limitation would be the response from parents on the
violent or sexual content within a video game (Maguth 2015). Video games,
unlike books, have a visual aspect to consider when dealing with violence or
suggestive themes. Some parents might not find these elements acceptable for
their children. Choosing games without these elements might be a solution, but
many mature games have the best teachable narratives. However, certain
parents might find that mature video games in a controlled classroom would be
okay for their children, especially when considering the educational benefits it
would provide their child.

References
Beavis, C. (2014). Games as Text, Games as Action. Journal Of Adolescent &
Adult Literacy, 57(6), 433-439. doi:10.1002/jaal.275
Bourgonjon, J., Valcke, M., Soetaert, R., de Wever, B., & Schellens, T. (2011).
Parental acceptance of digital game-based learning. Computers & Education,
57(1), 1434-1444. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.12.012
Granic, I., Lobel, A., & M. E. Engels, R. C. (2014). The Benefits of Playing Video
Games. American Psychologist, 69(1), 66-78. doi:10.1037/a0034857
Maguth, B. M., List, J. S., & Wunderle, M. (2015). Teaching Social Studies with
Video Games. Social Studies, 106(1), 32-36.
doi:10.1080/00377996.2014.961996
Mifsud, C. L., Vella, R., & Camilleri, L. (2013). Attitudes towards and effects of
the use of video games in classroom learning with specific reference to
literacy attainment. Research In Education, (90), 32-52.
doi:10.7227/RIE.90.1.3
Ostenson, J. (2013). Exploring the Boundaries of Narrative: Video Games in the
English Classroom. English Journal, 102(6), 71-78.
Przybylski, A. K., Rigby, C. S., & Ryan, R. M. (2010). A motivational model of
video game engagement. Review Of General Psychology, 14(2), 154-166.
doi:10.1037/a0019440
Turkay, S., Hoffman, D., Kinzer, C. K., Chantes, P., & Vicari, C. (2014). Toward
Understanding the Potential of Games for Learning: Learning Theory, Game
Design Characteristics, and Situating Video Games in Classrooms.
Computers In The Schools, 31(1/2), 2-22.
doi:10.1080/07380569.2014.890879
Wallace, R. (2014). Modding: Amateur Authorship and How the Video Game
Industry Is Actually Getting It Right. Brigham Young University Law Review,
2014(1), 219-255.

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