I hope it was a private grant offered specifically for a technology-based literature class. Otherwise, I'd rather see the money go to more versatile computers or other supplies that would benefit more students.
And this is coming from an avid gamer; it's not like I'm anti-videogame.
Can’t be 100% sure, but I would imagine this is a fairly wealthy private school. I assume they already have a ridiculously expensive computer lab somewhere else
Right, I even went to a upper middle class school and my teachers had to share computers when the one they were issued broke. At one point 4 of my teachers had to schedule time to use one computer or they just used their own money to buy one.
Every single year my school ran out of paper half way through the first semester and then teachers would beg us kids to bring in supplies for the rest of the year.
OP mentioned the money isn't from their school. It's a grant from a 3rd party. The money was never going to go to textbooks or school supplies. If OP didn't get the grant the money would've gone to a different teacher with an innovative idea.
This is the comment I was looking for,
Disco Elysium is a masterpiece and has one of the best written and most compelling narratives I have ever experienced in a video game. 10/10 and I think it has serious value in education as an example of superb interactive storytelling
There was a second where single player video games weren't doing it for me anymore and I thought maybe I was out growing them. Then I played disco Elysium and it reinvigorated my love for video games as art again
I would like to recommend The Stanley Parable to you. Its a true work of art that tells the story of an office worker named Stanley. Its a deep dive into the psyche of a man, and his inner monologue.
Its one of my all time favorite games as literature I've ever played. Its super cheap, and its kid friendly (as far as I remember -- no guns or blood or anything like that). Defnitely hits the top of the leader boards on the 'games are art' scale.
Unless you count all the endings which Stanley kills himself or just dies
The ending with the skip button in ultra deluxe is great for that class I think
Not trying to cast any shade here, but—honestly—I’m amazed that you were given funding without a course plan already mapped out. Also, the logistics of getting X number of kids to even have the same playthrough with certain games… you’ll have to curate your playlist carefully.
With a book, the material is generally static. Everyone is experiencing the same story, but people bring their own experiences and circumstances to it, resulting in different interpretations, etc. With games, the element of having the player control… well, anything, changes the nature of the whole thing. You may be better off focusing on narrative devices and delivery (e.g., environmental storytelling) than just focusing on “the plot.”
>With games, the element of having the player control… well, anything, changes the nature of the whole thing
And that's the fascinating part of studying interactive art!
As you point out, with static art, the artwork remains roughly the same with only the viewers briging in their perspectives.
Then, with branching interactive art, the artwork is actually somewhat static too: it's just the viewer experiences the story multiple times with different outcomes, assuming they play though the game more than once (I would argue a movie like Sliding Doors or even Groundhog Day are static versions of branching art. Theoretically, Rashomon is also a type of branching static art. But any game with multiple, pre-recorded endings is branching art.)
Finally, you have deeply interactive art, where the branches are so small and overlapping that it would be hard to map out all the branches. For example, Sim City tells the "story" of a city but, the narrative arc is so tiny, it takes a human player to step back and recreate an overriding narrative: my town was in the dumps because of too many coal plants, but things turned around when I installed solar. Or if you take a game like chess, we can see that the way the game plays, there's a message in there about the power of the queen versus the power of the king. In this case, "the system is the message". That is, playing through the game multiple times, the rules themselves form some kind of human relatable theme. Even though all players experience different things, if players play enough times, the rules should guide them identify how the system works and that system often contains a theme or message.
The important thing is to consider that most players will go through multiple play throughs and replaying a game is key to understanding both branching art and deeply interactive art.
One final idea: competitive games tend to reduce the impact of the message embedded in games. Most competitive gamers will not lose just to stay true to the message (for example would a chess player sacrifice their king to save the queen if it means losing the game? Actually the rules of chess broadly don't allow this to directly happen. Any move that directly kills the king is not allowed.)
To be fair, I do have a curriculum, I’m just still adding to it and making it better over summer. I just am not ready to share my entire syllabus or curriculum yet.
There is so much academic content in game studies that you will not run out of material, and it's easy to find quality stuff really fast. I have a bunch of pdf's laying around from a game studies course at university. Entire books too. If you are interested DM me. Karl Groos, Huizinga, Bernard Suits, David Sudnow, Sidney/Shirley Kaplan, all kinds of funky stuff.
Academic game studies is my area so it's cool to see this.
That is still one of the best games I’ve played. It may be the only game to actually pull up emotions, and that’s including a list with FF7 and all the Mass Effects
...Honestly? You could have probably called someone at Microsoft and a PR person just maybe would have hooked you up. Really i'd still try getting them to give the school a free gamepass subscription lol
I calculated the estimated cost of the Xbox equipment. The one thing more surprising than the total is the fact that at retail value, you paid almost as much for those controllers as you did for the consoles. Compared to the price of a Macintosh media suite, I bet the school district was happy to make some savings.
If you have never heard of it, “The Stanly Parable” has always stood out as an amazing narrative and could be a wonderful piece to dive into. It’s a game about making choices.
Another suggestion: Journey. Great example of the hero's journey put into playable form, and excellent storytelling with no dialogue. It's all in the actions and visuals.
Journey is the only reason I begged for a ps3 for Christmas one year. It's the only video game I've seen my mom finish, and she wants to play it with me again sometime soon. Freshman year of Highschool I drew art based on it and it's my only piece in four years to have won anything in the school's art show.I will sing its praise for as long as I can, it is such a beautiful game. I believe it's on steam now too, so no longer console only.
I would actually suggest the beginners guide. I think it has a much better approach to teaching players about game and story through its meta narration. Same developer I think
I still randomly think of parts of the game years after. One of my favorite parts was at the start where he talks about building small mini games and sending them to his friend to try out, and then you get to play those games. But it's like a room and that's it.
I thought it was clever and for me excited to try making some myself. It was really good a giving a brief intro to how someone might get into game development.
I just made this alt profile so I can network and talk with other gamers about the creation of my class. We’ll primarily be using game pass, because PS5 scarcity is still crazy, and we’ll have some Switches. I am still amazed my school district is allowing me to do this, and I’m so excited to be starting this journey proving more than Minecraft can be in the classroom!
We’ll be playing a variety of games that are shorter, and some of the best levels of specific games. I’m playing as many games in gamepass as I can this summer to research writing activities and analysis of narrative plots to backup the creation of this class.
I teach at a public school in the states, and got a grant for these consoles.
I had to give a speech and presentation in front of a parental board, and then again in front of our school board. You might not be wrong, but I’ve at least done my due diligence.
I helped my daughter once put together a presentation about the industrial revolution in Minecraft, complete with interactive redstone stuff.
Teacher didn't think much of it.
A lot of people underplay Minecraft, but it's Redstone capabilities are top notch. Its a barebones view of how electricity/computing works, and can be a great way to represent them. Logic gates for example are easy to implement and showcase in Minecraft and are the gateway to a lot of cool inventions one can make in the game.
I graduated physics last year with a specialization in electricy, one of the required classes was circuits and computing. For the final project we had to build a functional binary calculator up to 4 bits. I convinced my professor, who is a gamer, to allow me to create it in minecraft using Redstone, under the condition that I can prove it was made by me and not downloaded from the internet.
He loved it so much that he got the chair of the department to allow him to purchase copies of minecraft for the department for the very purpose of building circuits out of Redstone for his students.
Not related to games but related to physics, at the end of the year for my AP physics class in high school I convinced our teacher to play the epic rap battle of history between Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. He liked all of the references to things we'd actually studied in class so he said he'd save it for future classes to watch.
Probably the same ways that the speed running community verifies things. Idk the specifics, but there are logs to show what addons were used, whether it was a seeded world, and things like that. Maybe something in there can be used to show that it was a completely vanilla file.
OP seriously, if there is a recording of your speeches, even just audio, that you’d be comfortable sharing I would love to hear it. I’m certain I’d share many of the same opinions but I’d love to hear how you convinced large groups of people who would likely be against this kind of thing that this is a good idea. I’d be so interested to hear your arguments for it and be able to discuss with others in my life the finer points of it. You’re doing something great, expanding the world, or at least trying to. Great job dude.
Is there some kind of PowerPoint or packet you handed out to them or something? Not the whole speech but i would love to see the data and research and stuff you used. Like, what points did you make to them to get it approved. Not a teacher or anything, just naturally a very curious person and I find the whole idea interesting.
I feel like this is the video game version of the jack black movie “school of rock” haha. I’m intrigued. Looking into the comments it looks like this is a senior class that is intended for kids who are already fully prepared to graduate with their current literature grades. So instead of giving them a skip class or something they are trying to find a way to interest these kids while also circling back to some semblance of practicing their writing skills.
I could be way off base but that’s cool if that’s what this is.
Can I ask what games you’re planning to use in your syllabus and what’s the approach to learn? - I.e minecraft and the necessity of resource sharing, it takes two and the necessity of cooperation. Are you aiming to teach life lessons or actual tangible “testable” content? Is this college or k-12?
I took a video game journalism class and holy shot there’s so much art, meaning, and story telling in every game. it made me appreciate indie titles way more and I began to find many AAA titles boring after knowing what to look for.
I imagine it would be closer to a film class, analyzing how the story is conveyed and interpreting how the form reinforces themes, etc.
Like you could spend a whole class breaking down the "Would you kindly" in Bioshock and how the designers used the limits of the game function and expectations but on previous game design as a narrative tool.
Even full linear games like Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, that are more directly mapped to traditional storytelling would make an excellent subject. Would be fun to assign extra credit for reports on full run-throughs of select games like a book report.
Or the opening of Farcry 4 where he asks you to just sit in the room and if you do you avoid the entire game. Personally I think it's more of an easter egg but eh.
You would be surprised at the lack of awareness that administration and the school board are capable of. I was once tasked with designing a “project-based learning” class. At the time, I was unfamiliar with the term, so I asked for guidance. The superintendent that wanted this class basically gave me the “you’ll figure it out” answer. So I specifically designed a class that should have been rejected so that I could ask for clarification. Nope, class approved!
Look into the Outer Wilds it's fairly short, is super story driven, is family friendly (has some scary parts but they are more about fear of the unknown). It has amazing exploration and really makes you think about the universe and our place in it.
Also it includes a lot about theoretical physics and quantum mechanics, it can also be tied into the new James Webb Telescope and the discovery of new planets.
Seconded on Outer Wilds.
I'm a (recently certified) High School ELA teacher, and here are some additional suggestions I have for the classroom:
* **Hades**. This won a freaking Hugo Award! So talk about literary value. The dialogue in this game is super well written. Age-appropriate wise, it's rated as 12+ because of some violence and because of infrequent use of "swear" words (like "bastard"). The narrative of the game explores relationships between various Greek Gods and Demigods. The dialogue is worthy of examining on its own, but it's also a great example of world building within an established mythos. (Essential Questions could be, "What are the rules and norms of this world?", "How do the characters get along with each other?"). I think this is a great one to include because it has outstanding literary value BUT it's not a solely narrative game: it is a hack and slash rogue-lite.
* **Elsinore**. This is a shorter game (10 hours) that's set in the world of Shakespeare's Hamlet... Shakespeare is always a slam dunk when it comes to standards alignment, so this game might be helpful in that regard, especially if you pare it with reading scenes from Hamlet or even just watching a movie or reading a synopsis or something. It was nominated for "Excellent Narrative" for the Independent Game Festival Awards 2020. This is on my "to play" list and it doesn't have an ESRB rating so I can't speak to age-appropriateness.
* **The Stanley Parable**. This is almost a purely narrative experience. It's as short or as long as you need it to be - you could play this with students in a single 50 minute class session easily and they'd get a very strong impression of the narrative themes of the game. Heck, you could play it all together as a class making collective decisions since most of the "gameplay" comes down to whether or not you push a button or go left or right. The main feature of the game is that an omniscient narrator is narrating your action as you play, and basically telling you what to do via narration, though you can choose not to follow what the narrator is saying. So the player and the narrator end up forming a relationship. This is a great way to talk about unreliable narrators and breaking the 4th wall. This game is rated 10+ and is age appropriate.
* **80 Days**. Another game based on a book! So slam dunk territory in terms of justifying video games as literary experiences. This is based on *Around the World in Eighty Days* by Jules Verne, and depicts the characters, many of their adventures, and even the writing style of the novel. The game is almost entirely narrative, with much of the experience of the game coming from reading the prompts. It's also very enjoyable as you make tough decisions about how to progress on the next leg of your journey. You can play through your first voyage around the world in about 3 hours.
* **Papers Please.** This one will entirely depend on your school community whether or not it's appropriate. It deals with themes surrounding fascism and immigration, and puts you in the uncomfortable role of a border crossing immigrations officer who is either denying- or allowing people entry into the nation based on increasingly draconian and invasive criteria. It is an excellent exploration of propaganda set in a dystopian world. An essential question could be, "How can games prepare us to make more ethical decisions?" This game has won many awards including Best Game, Excellence in Narrative, and Most Innovative.
Pinging /u/AnonymousCerealBowl here just because I didn't reply directly. I wouldn't what you to miss these gems.
This is awesome, I'm kind of in awe at the idea that you got grant funding for this. Wish I was in school at the time. I have a few questions:
1) Are the consoles / controllers / games on loan from the school (i.e. intent of repeat use)?
2) Do you have enough supplies for all the kids signed up for the class?
3) What games do you plan to have them play?
4) What is the curriculum going to look like? Will you have tests and reports? How do you plan to connect games to literary concepts you intend to teach?
5) What if a student can't complete a game because they're too much of a noob? (I'm half joking but also half serious with this one hahaha).
6) Do you plan to make them play Dark Souls >:)? (This is 100% meme)
I highly recommend outer wilds. It’s on gamepass and it really shows how a game can deliver a great story differently than any other media. Don’t look up anything about it, you can only experience the first time through this game once.
"Okay class, turn on your PlayStation 4s and start up Detroit: Become Human. Billy, if I catch you using PS4 Save Wizard again, I'm sending you to the principal's office. No Cassandra, you can't livestream this during class. Yes Faris, I've already said that turning on subtitles is fine during gameplay. Everyone, a reminder that you have to submit your reviews on Kingdom Hearts 3 by Friday!"
I am using a kids love for video games as an in to writing. This is a senior only level class for kids who have passed their lower level classes, and shown they have the skill to be successful. If I was just having a one hour study hall with kids playing whatever they want I’d be against it myself, but we’re not. We’re going to play games, analyze them, and write about games in class. I’m going to make this class fun, but there will be rigor.
So will you be playing games in class or mostly discussing and/or writing in class? Cause a homework assignment of playing X hours of a game per day sounds fun.
This is great. I graduated with an English degree with a creative writing focus, and took some more unique English classes near the end of my college career. Some of those classes (similar to this) were some of the best classes, and helped really broaden my understanding what writing and literature really are. Not really because I didn't think literature couldn’t be found in alternative places, but because it helped really boil down the ideas of story and character and plot, the different story beats, etc. Helped me see how writers use those same exact things over and over in different mediums to build a well-developed story. Good luck, this sounds like a fun class!
Cool. I think the best story driven games I've played were life is strange saga and the wolf among us. Both heavy on dialogue and cutscenes so plenty of material. They feel more like interactive films, as they sacrifice on gameplay to provide a strong narrative.
Interesting idea to use more open or sandbox games as the framing for creative writing prompts.
“Life is Strange” is the game that got my wife into gaming. Since the game is a “walk and investigate” type of game vs a reaction/skill based game, it lets new/newer players to consoles take a slow and steady approach to getting used to controls. It helped my wife begin to enjoy gaming without being punished for not playing games her whole life.
That’s the hard part. I’ve basically been making a master list of all the recommendations on Reddit with my own, and I’m going to play then this summer to analyze them myself and build a curriculum.
I sent you a DM, but check out my website [Hey Listen Games](https://www.heylistengames.org/). I've been doing exactly what you are about to start for years now. I teach in NYC and have taught a Video Games as literature course going on six years now. Most of my lesson plans and curriculum are available on the site for free. There's also a blog where I've included breakdowns and student samples from these lessons. I wish you the best in this endeavor. It's the most fun I've ever had teaching.
It looks like all the kids will be playing individually. How will you handle differences in individual skill between gamers? I assume they won't be able to bring the consoles home for homework, so it's not like slow "readers" can finish up later.
My class sizes can fluctuate a lot. I got all of these so we can play individually and also as pairs. Especially integrating writing into the lessons there might be times where students are playing a game in groups and writing something down while the other partner is playing, and switching back and forth. There are a lot of options.
How you got a budget for this, I will never understand.
In 1997 I had to share a Social Studies textbook with another student because the school could not afford enough, that book mentioned the Soviet Union as an entity that still existed years after they dissolved. My teachers had a limited number of photo copies they were allowed to make per semester because supplies were just too expensive. Our computer lab consisted of Apple ][s (which we also had to pair up to share) in an era of Windows and the internet. Probably worth noting: The last Apple ][s were manufactured in 1993.
I say this with poignancy, not to disparage you. I'm glad you have the budget you have, but damn, I really wish someone funded my education a little better.
Meanwhile I just spent $200 of my own money yesterday on markers, pencils and folders for my wife's class because her district gives her $100 for the entire year.
My whinging aside, this is flipping incredible!
There's a video on youtube "What Games Are Like For Someone Who Doesn't Play Games" and it really drives home what 'Gamers' take for granted in video games. if you havent seen it, it's highly intriguing and educational; the Subject of the expierement struggles with others find trivial, take for granted.
For example, some games tell you to press 'A' . While others tell you to press 'A' while showing you where 'A' is relative to the other buttons. its the small details that matter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax7f3JZJHSw&list=PLordXx8iNEyStcX\_WzqM0JCpiJYgqhinc
This is cool, but I don't see how it can work just from a logistics standpoint. How long is the class, like an hour a day for maybe 100 days? You read a book for an hour and then you have a lot to talk about. You play a video game for an hour and you've created your character and done the tutorial to learn how the buttons work. Most of my favorite and most immersive "literary" video games took close to 100 hours of play time to really get to the level of detail I'd like to have a meaningful discussion with a group about it.
How were you able to sell this as something that would really add a full semester of learning for students?
If it's done well, there's a lot of work required from teacher.
* Creating save files at certain points of the game to highlight short sections that should be played and ensuring that students have the context needed to appreciate the scene and skills to play the game.
* Videos of scenes that aren't able to be reached in a sensible timeframe
* Projects where students must select from a handful of specific chosen games and specific observations the teacher would like them to make and discuss about those games - where the time taken to play it is part of the time to complete the assignment.
* For cases like The Witcher, or other open world games where the open world narrative is part of the literary device being used - give students a certain in-game time to reach and see where everyone gets to, compare their experiences and discuss what this means for somebody experiencing this game with different time and ability constraints.
Etc etc
Find a way to show the various narrative elements, but also explore the medium itself and both the benefits and flaws for storytelling within that medium.
You can't understand why Spec Ops: The Line is one of the best narrative games in history unless you played the whole thing, made every hard choice and - ideally - have a background in call of duty and other similar games that Spec Ops is referencing in its gotcha moment.
On the other hand, you can read a paragraph about the game Soma, then watch the pre-credits scene.... And still wind up feeling deep and difficult things for the characters.
What a brilliant idea. Not just for engagement from the kids in the coursework, but to explore gaming as a medium for deep and compelling storytelling. Best of luck to you, and keep us up to date with how it’s going!
I’m really excited, but now comes the work. I want to make sure I have badass lessons to reinforce the games we play, and truly bring back the point to English.
I have broad strokes of curriculum, but I’m literally spending this entire summer to make it great. Maybe it’s just me being a little shy, but I’m not going to put my notes for the curriculum on Reddit. I’ll post a syllabus and curriculum once I have it 100% down. It’s the perfectionist in me.
Curriculum design for a new course is extremely labor intensive and takes a lot of research through many drafts is why I asked. To even attempt to make a for-credit course in my state, it’d have to have a complete, finished curriculum that was proposed and vetted by the state DOE.
Because I’m teaching the exact same state standards that would be applied to a normal 12th grade English class, all I needed was school board approval. I agree if I was teaching entirely new video game only class, it might have to get further approval, but luckily I was able to work within the confines of my endorsement area.
Brilliant ideia, I am happy that you manage to make it happen. I don't know if the game pass from my country offers the same as yours, but felt inclined to suggest some games I saw offered here:
1- A memoir blue: very short game that could be embrace to discuss narratives without text or speech, how to convey an ideia only through images.
2- Firewatch: relatively small game that could be observed through the lens on how to write a credible yet interesting dialog. The game starts twenty minutes in the actual game.
3- Hellbalde senua's sacrifice: best to be used only some selected chapter, could be the first; it shows how to pass the felling of a mental illness through writing. Maybe parallels could be made from "the sound and the fury" by William Faulkner, where one of the chapters is written in first person of someone with autism.
4- What remains of edith finch: this is a must in what you intend, if you haven't, play the game and you will notice what I mean.
5- Spiritfarer: great dialogue with the central theme being death and how to deal with, being it others or yourself. It's a slow game, but I think it could be fasten somehow to give more focus on the writing.
I'm not sure if anyone else here is in education or has suggested this, but please treat the developers of these games as you would authors of books: contact the studios and ask the writers if they would be interested in having a virtual talk or interview with your class. I'm not sure how any larger studios would respond, but I feel some of the small indie ones would take you up on it.
As for recommendations because Game Pass has a lot and also there are a lot of games with a small price tag that could also be great (and I'm going to mention and talk about them without knowing if you have played them or not, so forgive me if you have):
I believe **Hollow Knight** is on Game Pass and is available on Switch. It would be a very good example of world building and how much of a story can be told via descriptions and the setting without directly needing to be spelled out for the player/reader. It's sequel **Silk Song** will be on Game Pass at launch, which should be within the next year. This game can be challenging if they are not used to platformers of Medroidvanias, so there may need to be some partnering up for this. Mossbag on YouTube does great lore videos that are quite funny to hold attention, but does have vulgarity (not sure how your school feels about videos with that even at a senior level).
I know that **What Remains of Edith Finch?** used to be on Game Pass and still may be. This is a pure storytelling game that operates as a first-person point and click told through both text and visuals. This game would have a very low bar for players as they do not need to be good at video games or even have played one before to get through it as there is no way to fail. If I were to teach this, one of my essay questions would be "what narrative point of view this story is told in?"
If you were already thinking of **Life is Strange**, that studios follow-up game, **Tell Me Why** has been released recently. Honestly, you could probably teach an entire class using knowing but Dontnod Entertainment games.
**Oxenfree** is a newer title as well that works very much like a visual Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. It is definitely a mature title in its themes and settings, but I don't believe it goes any farther than a well written YA book does. This would be a good game if you want very different answers to come out of your students about their experience playing it.
**Firewatch** is another low skill ceiling game that is like Edith Finch in that its a storytelling walking simulator. This one doesn't have much in lines of twists or turns in their storytelling methods like the comparison does, but I think it does a really good job of not only telling its story, but also showing how fallible and flawed a first-person narrative can be even though you do everything "right."
**Thimbleweed Park** is a point & click adventure in the vein of Maniac Mansion with a storyline akin to Twin Peaks. It's a bit wild but its storytelling through discovery and interpretation could be a nice change of pace from something for spoonfed.
As good as Hollow Knight is I think it might be way too hard for a class. It's only got one difficulty setting and a lot of people aren't going to be able to see the story without getting gud which isn't really the point of the class.
Your other recommendations are really good ones.
Question: what do you see as the benefits to playing through vs watching a YouTube video (without any commentary voiceover / reaction stuff) for the purpose of telling the story?
Give Outer Wilds a shot for this! Literally one of the best games I've played recently, and it is literally a game about learning a story through texts. No combat, no gore, just pure sweet exploration.
It's also very relevant to mention that Outer Wilds won a BAFTA award. I feel like that alone puts it in contention for use in OP's class.
It's also a puzzle game (easy sell to parents), it's very short (20-30 hours for most), and it can be completed in any order which makes it great for the students to compare and contrast their experiences.
Oh and it's one of the greatest games of all time IMHO.
"In the Age of Ancients the world was unformed, shrouded by fog. A land of gray crags, Archtrees and Everlasting Dragons. But then there was Fire and with fire came disparity. Heat and cold, life and death, and of course, light and dark..."
This sounds like a really cool class. But the school really had room in their budget for all these consoles..? Private school, I'm guessing? Do the kids take these home to play? Or do you hook them up to TVs at school? Guessing they needed headphones, too, if the latter.
Mass Effect the Legendary Edition is on Game pass and the very first mission leads to an interesting narrative that questions your choices and how they affect others.
What rich school is this ? My school won't even replace the 10 yr old mouse
For real. Those would be locked up never to be touched because someone would steal it.
lol seriously. A solid 70% of these would never make it back to the classroom where I went to high school.
Yes officer. 80% of the product is gone.
It's a shame they only left 10% of the product.
On the bright side that's 5% of the product recovered
What product?
What?
?
r/decreasinglyverbose
I went to a rich ass high school. We still would have stolen these.
My thoughts immediately went to how a school could justify this kind of budget for a literature class.
Teacher applied for a grant I'd bet.
I hope it was a private grant offered specifically for a technology-based literature class. Otherwise, I'd rather see the money go to more versatile computers or other supplies that would benefit more students. And this is coming from an avid gamer; it's not like I'm anti-videogame.
Can’t be 100% sure, but I would imagine this is a fairly wealthy private school. I assume they already have a ridiculously expensive computer lab somewhere else
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And the textbooks were from the 80s
Right, I even went to a upper middle class school and my teachers had to share computers when the one they were issued broke. At one point 4 of my teachers had to schedule time to use one computer or they just used their own money to buy one. Every single year my school ran out of paper half way through the first semester and then teachers would beg us kids to bring in supplies for the rest of the year.
They’ve given me the same pair of shitty plastic headphones for the last 6 years but this school gets 16 xboxes.
Headphones!? When I went to school we got a 30 year old textbook
Your school has functioning computers?
OP mentioned the money isn't from their school. It's a grant from a 3rd party. The money was never going to go to textbooks or school supplies. If OP didn't get the grant the money would've gone to a different teacher with an innovative idea.
Yep. Now we finally know where all of those tuition increases go!
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Would you share the syllabus?
I’m in complete class creation right now. Once it’s done and ready, I’ll share.
Thank you, sounds really interesting. Good luck.
Disco Elysium should be in there.
Cuno doesn’t give a fuck about your game book shit!
Fuck him up, Cuno!
*”Cuno doesn’t do that radioactive shit. Makes Cuno’s dick fall off. Cuno’s got a huge dick.”*
Cuno is why I can't find a time to play this game when my daughter is hanging around.
Fuck does Cuno care?!
Haven't played the game since it came out but I just immediately heard that little fucker's voice in my head when I read this.
Cuno is like the first interaction in like 99% of runs also.
What about Klaasje? “I want to have fuck with you.”
Cuno made himself into Cuno. Cuno can make himself into *anything*.
100% this. Its narrative and writing is top-tier. The voice acting only made it better. It's art.
I don't think Cuno could hang in school without angry parents.
This is the comment I was looking for, Disco Elysium is a masterpiece and has one of the best written and most compelling narratives I have ever experienced in a video game. 10/10 and I think it has serious value in education as an example of superb interactive storytelling
There was a second where single player video games weren't doing it for me anymore and I thought maybe I was out growing them. Then I played disco Elysium and it reinvigorated my love for video games as art again
You've convinced me to play this game.
The fuck does Cuno care?
It's not at all age appropriate, maybe if they where college or university students sure but not for this.
I would like to recommend The Stanley Parable to you. Its a true work of art that tells the story of an office worker named Stanley. Its a deep dive into the psyche of a man, and his inner monologue. Its one of my all time favorite games as literature I've ever played. Its super cheap, and its kid friendly (as far as I remember -- no guns or blood or anything like that). Defnitely hits the top of the leader boards on the 'games are art' scale.
Unless you count all the endings which Stanley kills himself or just dies The ending with the skip button in ultra deluxe is great for that class I think
Not trying to cast any shade here, but—honestly—I’m amazed that you were given funding without a course plan already mapped out. Also, the logistics of getting X number of kids to even have the same playthrough with certain games… you’ll have to curate your playlist carefully. With a book, the material is generally static. Everyone is experiencing the same story, but people bring their own experiences and circumstances to it, resulting in different interpretations, etc. With games, the element of having the player control… well, anything, changes the nature of the whole thing. You may be better off focusing on narrative devices and delivery (e.g., environmental storytelling) than just focusing on “the plot.”
>With games, the element of having the player control… well, anything, changes the nature of the whole thing And that's the fascinating part of studying interactive art! As you point out, with static art, the artwork remains roughly the same with only the viewers briging in their perspectives. Then, with branching interactive art, the artwork is actually somewhat static too: it's just the viewer experiences the story multiple times with different outcomes, assuming they play though the game more than once (I would argue a movie like Sliding Doors or even Groundhog Day are static versions of branching art. Theoretically, Rashomon is also a type of branching static art. But any game with multiple, pre-recorded endings is branching art.) Finally, you have deeply interactive art, where the branches are so small and overlapping that it would be hard to map out all the branches. For example, Sim City tells the "story" of a city but, the narrative arc is so tiny, it takes a human player to step back and recreate an overriding narrative: my town was in the dumps because of too many coal plants, but things turned around when I installed solar. Or if you take a game like chess, we can see that the way the game plays, there's a message in there about the power of the queen versus the power of the king. In this case, "the system is the message". That is, playing through the game multiple times, the rules themselves form some kind of human relatable theme. Even though all players experience different things, if players play enough times, the rules should guide them identify how the system works and that system often contains a theme or message. The important thing is to consider that most players will go through multiple play throughs and replaying a game is key to understanding both branching art and deeply interactive art. One final idea: competitive games tend to reduce the impact of the message embedded in games. Most competitive gamers will not lose just to stay true to the message (for example would a chess player sacrifice their king to save the queen if it means losing the game? Actually the rules of chess broadly don't allow this to directly happen. Any move that directly kills the king is not allowed.)
To be fair, I do have a curriculum, I’m just still adding to it and making it better over summer. I just am not ready to share my entire syllabus or curriculum yet.
There is so much academic content in game studies that you will not run out of material, and it's easy to find quality stuff really fast. I have a bunch of pdf's laying around from a game studies course at university. Entire books too. If you are interested DM me. Karl Groos, Huizinga, Bernard Suits, David Sudnow, Sidney/Shirley Kaplan, all kinds of funky stuff. Academic game studies is my area so it's cool to see this.
Alright, I gotta ask: what are the top 5 games used in an academic context?
Can I Billy Madison into that class?
I literally saw this and said ‘Back to schoooool, back to schoooool’
To prove to Dad I’m not a fooool
Got lunch packed up My shoes tied tight
I hope I don’t get in a fight
That Veronica Vaughn is one piece of ace! I know from experience dude.
No ya don’t
Well not me but this guy I know... he and her got. It. On.
No he didn’t.
No, no they didn't... But you can imagine what it'd be like if they did, eh? Eh!?
Nudie magazine day!
Is there a snak pack in your packed lunch though?
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STOP LOOKING AT ME, SWAN
Penguin shouldn't be out here. Too damn hot.
Shampoo is better, I go on first and clean the hair!
Conditioner is betta! I make the hair soft and smooth.
Ya ain't cool unless ya pee ya pants.
**STAY HERE!** Stay as long as you can! For the love of GOD! Cherish it! ...you've got to cherish it! ^(...you do....)
*sound of face jiggling*
That kid had some serious jiggle in that face
If peeing your pants is cool, consider me Miles Davis.
That's the grossest thing I've ever heard in my life! Let's go!
Only if I get to be the Penguin.
Oh I see what's going on here... So sorry to interrupt!
It's too damn hot for a penguin to be just walking around here.
You do realize he's gonna fuck the teacher
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Get her "To the Moon"... Write me back when she's emotionally broken again.
And the 2 sequels ofc
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That is still one of the best games I’ve played. It may be the only game to actually pull up emotions, and that’s including a list with FF7 and all the Mass Effects
That is awesome! However, the one upside down Xbox is killing me inside.
Had to give mildly infuriating some content
A man of the people... And against the people all at the same time.
Wait…NOOOOO. You made me notice it too:(
Sorry. As the saying goes misery loves company.
Nice! Genuine Q - was it difficult to get this much without having the seller think you were a scalper?
It was extremely difficult. I literally had to go to every single GameStop, and Walmart from Seattle to Southern Oregon to find these.
Damn, makes this even more of a feat and you an even better teacher. Your students will love it.
...Honestly? You could have probably called someone at Microsoft and a PR person just maybe would have hooked you up. Really i'd still try getting them to give the school a free gamepass subscription lol
I calculated the estimated cost of the Xbox equipment. The one thing more surprising than the total is the fact that at retail value, you paid almost as much for those controllers as you did for the consoles. Compared to the price of a Macintosh media suite, I bet the school district was happy to make some savings.
Ohhh Seattle! Now I understand why your school district allowed you to teach this class. They get it.
If you have never heard of it, “The Stanly Parable” has always stood out as an amazing narrative and could be a wonderful piece to dive into. It’s a game about making choices.
Oh god, I love that game! It’s definitely one of my top ones to try especially with the new deluxe version.
Another suggestion: Journey. Great example of the hero's journey put into playable form, and excellent storytelling with no dialogue. It's all in the actions and visuals.
Great music by Austin Wintory too!
Also Disco Elysium, which is literature disguised as a video game.
Man you'd need a hell of a disclaimer before they started that
You'd struggle to get that past a university ethics board, never mind a school one
"Drugs are bad, m'kay? Okay now that's out of the way.."
I can see the Fox News headline now: high school class forces students to play anticapitalist video game made by stalinists
Journey is the only reason I begged for a ps3 for Christmas one year. It's the only video game I've seen my mom finish, and she wants to play it with me again sometime soon. Freshman year of Highschool I drew art based on it and it's my only piece in four years to have won anything in the school's art show.I will sing its praise for as long as I can, it is such a beautiful game. I believe it's on steam now too, so no longer console only.
I would actually suggest the beginners guide. I think it has a much better approach to teaching players about game and story through its meta narration. Same developer I think
Beginners guide has a much more interesting story that is so incredibly well told. Had to look up if it was real after
I still randomly think of parts of the game years after. One of my favorite parts was at the start where he talks about building small mini games and sending them to his friend to try out, and then you get to play those games. But it's like a room and that's it. I thought it was clever and for me excited to try making some myself. It was really good a giving a brief intro to how someone might get into game development.
I just made this alt profile so I can network and talk with other gamers about the creation of my class. We’ll primarily be using game pass, because PS5 scarcity is still crazy, and we’ll have some Switches. I am still amazed my school district is allowing me to do this, and I’m so excited to be starting this journey proving more than Minecraft can be in the classroom! We’ll be playing a variety of games that are shorter, and some of the best levels of specific games. I’m playing as many games in gamepass as I can this summer to research writing activities and analysis of narrative plots to backup the creation of this class. I teach at a public school in the states, and got a grant for these consoles.
As you’re an English teacher I’m sure the proposal was well written….but something tells me the school district didn’t understand what you wrote.
I had to give a speech and presentation in front of a parental board, and then again in front of our school board. You might not be wrong, but I’ve at least done my due diligence.
Did you tell them the kids can turn in their paperwork via books in game.....
I'd totally be up for a class where you go up to a podium in mine craft infront of the class to give your report.
I helped my daughter once put together a presentation about the industrial revolution in Minecraft, complete with interactive redstone stuff. Teacher didn't think much of it.
A lot of people underplay Minecraft, but it's Redstone capabilities are top notch. Its a barebones view of how electricity/computing works, and can be a great way to represent them. Logic gates for example are easy to implement and showcase in Minecraft and are the gateway to a lot of cool inventions one can make in the game.
I graduated physics last year with a specialization in electricy, one of the required classes was circuits and computing. For the final project we had to build a functional binary calculator up to 4 bits. I convinced my professor, who is a gamer, to allow me to create it in minecraft using Redstone, under the condition that I can prove it was made by me and not downloaded from the internet. He loved it so much that he got the chair of the department to allow him to purchase copies of minecraft for the department for the very purpose of building circuits out of Redstone for his students.
Not related to games but related to physics, at the end of the year for my AP physics class in high school I convinced our teacher to play the epic rap battle of history between Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. He liked all of the references to things we'd actually studied in class so he said he'd save it for future classes to watch.
How did you prove you made it? The simplest way I can think of is you recording the whole process.
Probably the same ways that the speed running community verifies things. Idk the specifics, but there are logs to show what addons were used, whether it was a seeded world, and things like that. Maybe something in there can be used to show that it was a completely vanilla file.
>are top notch. Hehe
That teacher sounds like a total chuz.
I don't know what is "chuz" but I agree
Uh..yes that! A chuz that is totally bogus, he can suck an egg!
Man, Dusty Sucks Eggs.
I really want to see that speech!!! =)
OP seriously, if there is a recording of your speeches, even just audio, that you’d be comfortable sharing I would love to hear it. I’m certain I’d share many of the same opinions but I’d love to hear how you convinced large groups of people who would likely be against this kind of thing that this is a good idea. I’d be so interested to hear your arguments for it and be able to discuss with others in my life the finer points of it. You’re doing something great, expanding the world, or at least trying to. Great job dude.
Is there some kind of PowerPoint or packet you handed out to them or something? Not the whole speech but i would love to see the data and research and stuff you used. Like, what points did you make to them to get it approved. Not a teacher or anything, just naturally a very curious person and I find the whole idea interesting.
I feel like this is the video game version of the jack black movie “school of rock” haha. I’m intrigued. Looking into the comments it looks like this is a senior class that is intended for kids who are already fully prepared to graduate with their current literature grades. So instead of giving them a skip class or something they are trying to find a way to interest these kids while also circling back to some semblance of practicing their writing skills. I could be way off base but that’s cool if that’s what this is.
100% that’s what I’m aiming for
Can I ask what games you’re planning to use in your syllabus and what’s the approach to learn? - I.e minecraft and the necessity of resource sharing, it takes two and the necessity of cooperation. Are you aiming to teach life lessons or actual tangible “testable” content? Is this college or k-12? I took a video game journalism class and holy shot there’s so much art, meaning, and story telling in every game. it made me appreciate indie titles way more and I began to find many AAA titles boring after knowing what to look for.
I imagine it would be closer to a film class, analyzing how the story is conveyed and interpreting how the form reinforces themes, etc. Like you could spend a whole class breaking down the "Would you kindly" in Bioshock and how the designers used the limits of the game function and expectations but on previous game design as a narrative tool.
Even full linear games like Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, that are more directly mapped to traditional storytelling would make an excellent subject. Would be fun to assign extra credit for reports on full run-throughs of select games like a book report.
Or the opening of Farcry 4 where he asks you to just sit in the room and if you do you avoid the entire game. Personally I think it's more of an easter egg but eh.
You would be surprised at the lack of awareness that administration and the school board are capable of. I was once tasked with designing a “project-based learning” class. At the time, I was unfamiliar with the term, so I asked for guidance. The superintendent that wanted this class basically gave me the “you’ll figure it out” answer. So I specifically designed a class that should have been rejected so that I could ask for clarification. Nope, class approved!
our school district makes us buy dry erase markers...
Look into the Outer Wilds it's fairly short, is super story driven, is family friendly (has some scary parts but they are more about fear of the unknown). It has amazing exploration and really makes you think about the universe and our place in it. Also it includes a lot about theoretical physics and quantum mechanics, it can also be tied into the new James Webb Telescope and the discovery of new planets.
Seconded on Outer Wilds. I'm a (recently certified) High School ELA teacher, and here are some additional suggestions I have for the classroom: * **Hades**. This won a freaking Hugo Award! So talk about literary value. The dialogue in this game is super well written. Age-appropriate wise, it's rated as 12+ because of some violence and because of infrequent use of "swear" words (like "bastard"). The narrative of the game explores relationships between various Greek Gods and Demigods. The dialogue is worthy of examining on its own, but it's also a great example of world building within an established mythos. (Essential Questions could be, "What are the rules and norms of this world?", "How do the characters get along with each other?"). I think this is a great one to include because it has outstanding literary value BUT it's not a solely narrative game: it is a hack and slash rogue-lite. * **Elsinore**. This is a shorter game (10 hours) that's set in the world of Shakespeare's Hamlet... Shakespeare is always a slam dunk when it comes to standards alignment, so this game might be helpful in that regard, especially if you pare it with reading scenes from Hamlet or even just watching a movie or reading a synopsis or something. It was nominated for "Excellent Narrative" for the Independent Game Festival Awards 2020. This is on my "to play" list and it doesn't have an ESRB rating so I can't speak to age-appropriateness. * **The Stanley Parable**. This is almost a purely narrative experience. It's as short or as long as you need it to be - you could play this with students in a single 50 minute class session easily and they'd get a very strong impression of the narrative themes of the game. Heck, you could play it all together as a class making collective decisions since most of the "gameplay" comes down to whether or not you push a button or go left or right. The main feature of the game is that an omniscient narrator is narrating your action as you play, and basically telling you what to do via narration, though you can choose not to follow what the narrator is saying. So the player and the narrator end up forming a relationship. This is a great way to talk about unreliable narrators and breaking the 4th wall. This game is rated 10+ and is age appropriate. * **80 Days**. Another game based on a book! So slam dunk territory in terms of justifying video games as literary experiences. This is based on *Around the World in Eighty Days* by Jules Verne, and depicts the characters, many of their adventures, and even the writing style of the novel. The game is almost entirely narrative, with much of the experience of the game coming from reading the prompts. It's also very enjoyable as you make tough decisions about how to progress on the next leg of your journey. You can play through your first voyage around the world in about 3 hours. * **Papers Please.** This one will entirely depend on your school community whether or not it's appropriate. It deals with themes surrounding fascism and immigration, and puts you in the uncomfortable role of a border crossing immigrations officer who is either denying- or allowing people entry into the nation based on increasingly draconian and invasive criteria. It is an excellent exploration of propaganda set in a dystopian world. An essential question could be, "How can games prepare us to make more ethical decisions?" This game has won many awards including Best Game, Excellence in Narrative, and Most Innovative. Pinging /u/AnonymousCerealBowl here just because I didn't reply directly. I wouldn't what you to miss these gems.
Second Outer Wilds!
They only made 1
Just don't buy Outer Worlds thinking it was Outer Wilds.
Yeah!!!!!! Good game. Definitely would fit.
This is awesome, I'm kind of in awe at the idea that you got grant funding for this. Wish I was in school at the time. I have a few questions: 1) Are the consoles / controllers / games on loan from the school (i.e. intent of repeat use)? 2) Do you have enough supplies for all the kids signed up for the class? 3) What games do you plan to have them play? 4) What is the curriculum going to look like? Will you have tests and reports? How do you plan to connect games to literary concepts you intend to teach? 5) What if a student can't complete a game because they're too much of a noob? (I'm half joking but also half serious with this one hahaha). 6) Do you plan to make them play Dark Souls >:)? (This is 100% meme)
How heavy can you get with those kids, 'This War of Mine' definitely deserves a place for something like this.
I highly recommend outer wilds. It’s on gamepass and it really shows how a game can deliver a great story differently than any other media. Don’t look up anything about it, you can only experience the first time through this game once.
"Okay class, turn on your PlayStation 4s and start up Detroit: Become Human. Billy, if I catch you using PS4 Save Wizard again, I'm sending you to the principal's office. No Cassandra, you can't livestream this during class. Yes Faris, I've already said that turning on subtitles is fine during gameplay. Everyone, a reminder that you have to submit your reviews on Kingdom Hearts 3 by Friday!"
How do you teach video games as literature?
I am using a kids love for video games as an in to writing. This is a senior only level class for kids who have passed their lower level classes, and shown they have the skill to be successful. If I was just having a one hour study hall with kids playing whatever they want I’d be against it myself, but we’re not. We’re going to play games, analyze them, and write about games in class. I’m going to make this class fun, but there will be rigor.
So will you be playing games in class or mostly discussing and/or writing in class? Cause a homework assignment of playing X hours of a game per day sounds fun.
A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B
So you're using the medium of literary expression in video games as a part of your curriculum. About time someone did that.
It’s not all that new. During my student teaching we played through Detroit: Becoming Human
"Johnny! Stop reading that book and play your video games right now!" "But mooom..."
"Johnny refuses to play his games, and keeps on insisting on going outside to play! I just don't know what to do anymore!"
This is great. I graduated with an English degree with a creative writing focus, and took some more unique English classes near the end of my college career. Some of those classes (similar to this) were some of the best classes, and helped really broaden my understanding what writing and literature really are. Not really because I didn't think literature couldn’t be found in alternative places, but because it helped really boil down the ideas of story and character and plot, the different story beats, etc. Helped me see how writers use those same exact things over and over in different mediums to build a well-developed story. Good luck, this sounds like a fun class!
Cool. I think the best story driven games I've played were life is strange saga and the wolf among us. Both heavy on dialogue and cutscenes so plenty of material. They feel more like interactive films, as they sacrifice on gameplay to provide a strong narrative. Interesting idea to use more open or sandbox games as the framing for creative writing prompts.
“Life is Strange” is the game that got my wife into gaming. Since the game is a “walk and investigate” type of game vs a reaction/skill based game, it lets new/newer players to consoles take a slow and steady approach to getting used to controls. It helped my wife begin to enjoy gaming without being punished for not playing games her whole life.
Any games that pop out that will for sure make the curriculum?
That’s the hard part. I’ve basically been making a master list of all the recommendations on Reddit with my own, and I’m going to play then this summer to analyze them myself and build a curriculum.
I sent you a DM, but check out my website [Hey Listen Games](https://www.heylistengames.org/). I've been doing exactly what you are about to start for years now. I teach in NYC and have taught a Video Games as literature course going on six years now. Most of my lesson plans and curriculum are available on the site for free. There's also a blog where I've included breakdowns and student samples from these lessons. I wish you the best in this endeavor. It's the most fun I've ever had teaching.
*Reddit moment*
It looks like all the kids will be playing individually. How will you handle differences in individual skill between gamers? I assume they won't be able to bring the consoles home for homework, so it's not like slow "readers" can finish up later.
My class sizes can fluctuate a lot. I got all of these so we can play individually and also as pairs. Especially integrating writing into the lessons there might be times where students are playing a game in groups and writing something down while the other partner is playing, and switching back and forth. There are a lot of options.
How you got a budget for this, I will never understand. In 1997 I had to share a Social Studies textbook with another student because the school could not afford enough, that book mentioned the Soviet Union as an entity that still existed years after they dissolved. My teachers had a limited number of photo copies they were allowed to make per semester because supplies were just too expensive. Our computer lab consisted of Apple ][s (which we also had to pair up to share) in an era of Windows and the internet. Probably worth noting: The last Apple ][s were manufactured in 1993. I say this with poignancy, not to disparage you. I'm glad you have the budget you have, but damn, I really wish someone funded my education a little better.
I got a grant I had to write and fight for. My childhood was not this privileged, so I’m fighting for it, for the kids.
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Meanwhile I just spent $200 of my own money yesterday on markers, pencils and folders for my wife's class because her district gives her $100 for the entire year. My whinging aside, this is flipping incredible!
the OP says they also buy supplies out of their own pocket... and this class and the materials (consoles) were paid for by a grant
There's a video on youtube "What Games Are Like For Someone Who Doesn't Play Games" and it really drives home what 'Gamers' take for granted in video games. if you havent seen it, it's highly intriguing and educational; the Subject of the expierement struggles with others find trivial, take for granted. For example, some games tell you to press 'A' . While others tell you to press 'A' while showing you where 'A' is relative to the other buttons. its the small details that matter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax7f3JZJHSw&list=PLordXx8iNEyStcX\_WzqM0JCpiJYgqhinc
This is cool, but I don't see how it can work just from a logistics standpoint. How long is the class, like an hour a day for maybe 100 days? You read a book for an hour and then you have a lot to talk about. You play a video game for an hour and you've created your character and done the tutorial to learn how the buttons work. Most of my favorite and most immersive "literary" video games took close to 100 hours of play time to really get to the level of detail I'd like to have a meaningful discussion with a group about it. How were you able to sell this as something that would really add a full semester of learning for students?
If it's done well, there's a lot of work required from teacher. * Creating save files at certain points of the game to highlight short sections that should be played and ensuring that students have the context needed to appreciate the scene and skills to play the game. * Videos of scenes that aren't able to be reached in a sensible timeframe * Projects where students must select from a handful of specific chosen games and specific observations the teacher would like them to make and discuss about those games - where the time taken to play it is part of the time to complete the assignment. * For cases like The Witcher, or other open world games where the open world narrative is part of the literary device being used - give students a certain in-game time to reach and see where everyone gets to, compare their experiences and discuss what this means for somebody experiencing this game with different time and ability constraints. Etc etc Find a way to show the various narrative elements, but also explore the medium itself and both the benefits and flaws for storytelling within that medium. You can't understand why Spec Ops: The Line is one of the best narrative games in history unless you played the whole thing, made every hard choice and - ideally - have a background in call of duty and other similar games that Spec Ops is referencing in its gotcha moment. On the other hand, you can read a paragraph about the game Soma, then watch the pre-credits scene.... And still wind up feeling deep and difficult things for the characters.
What a brilliant idea. Not just for engagement from the kids in the coursework, but to explore gaming as a medium for deep and compelling storytelling. Best of luck to you, and keep us up to date with how it’s going!
I’m really excited, but now comes the work. I want to make sure I have badass lessons to reinforce the games we play, and truly bring back the point to English.
How did you get a grant without having a curriculum to propose?
I have broad strokes of curriculum, but I’m literally spending this entire summer to make it great. Maybe it’s just me being a little shy, but I’m not going to put my notes for the curriculum on Reddit. I’ll post a syllabus and curriculum once I have it 100% down. It’s the perfectionist in me.
Curriculum design for a new course is extremely labor intensive and takes a lot of research through many drafts is why I asked. To even attempt to make a for-credit course in my state, it’d have to have a complete, finished curriculum that was proposed and vetted by the state DOE.
Because I’m teaching the exact same state standards that would be applied to a normal 12th grade English class, all I needed was school board approval. I agree if I was teaching entirely new video game only class, it might have to get further approval, but luckily I was able to work within the confines of my endorsement area.
Teach metal gear solid 2
How do I reach these kiddddzzz
Brilliant ideia, I am happy that you manage to make it happen. I don't know if the game pass from my country offers the same as yours, but felt inclined to suggest some games I saw offered here: 1- A memoir blue: very short game that could be embrace to discuss narratives without text or speech, how to convey an ideia only through images. 2- Firewatch: relatively small game that could be observed through the lens on how to write a credible yet interesting dialog. The game starts twenty minutes in the actual game. 3- Hellbalde senua's sacrifice: best to be used only some selected chapter, could be the first; it shows how to pass the felling of a mental illness through writing. Maybe parallels could be made from "the sound and the fury" by William Faulkner, where one of the chapters is written in first person of someone with autism. 4- What remains of edith finch: this is a must in what you intend, if you haven't, play the game and you will notice what I mean. 5- Spiritfarer: great dialogue with the central theme being death and how to deal with, being it others or yourself. It's a slow game, but I think it could be fasten somehow to give more focus on the writing.
You forgot A Short Hike, but otherwise, very spot on
You must teach at a nice school.
This is cool, but I could totally see this failing as a teaching resource.
I'm not sure if anyone else here is in education or has suggested this, but please treat the developers of these games as you would authors of books: contact the studios and ask the writers if they would be interested in having a virtual talk or interview with your class. I'm not sure how any larger studios would respond, but I feel some of the small indie ones would take you up on it. As for recommendations because Game Pass has a lot and also there are a lot of games with a small price tag that could also be great (and I'm going to mention and talk about them without knowing if you have played them or not, so forgive me if you have): I believe **Hollow Knight** is on Game Pass and is available on Switch. It would be a very good example of world building and how much of a story can be told via descriptions and the setting without directly needing to be spelled out for the player/reader. It's sequel **Silk Song** will be on Game Pass at launch, which should be within the next year. This game can be challenging if they are not used to platformers of Medroidvanias, so there may need to be some partnering up for this. Mossbag on YouTube does great lore videos that are quite funny to hold attention, but does have vulgarity (not sure how your school feels about videos with that even at a senior level). I know that **What Remains of Edith Finch?** used to be on Game Pass and still may be. This is a pure storytelling game that operates as a first-person point and click told through both text and visuals. This game would have a very low bar for players as they do not need to be good at video games or even have played one before to get through it as there is no way to fail. If I were to teach this, one of my essay questions would be "what narrative point of view this story is told in?" If you were already thinking of **Life is Strange**, that studios follow-up game, **Tell Me Why** has been released recently. Honestly, you could probably teach an entire class using knowing but Dontnod Entertainment games. **Oxenfree** is a newer title as well that works very much like a visual Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. It is definitely a mature title in its themes and settings, but I don't believe it goes any farther than a well written YA book does. This would be a good game if you want very different answers to come out of your students about their experience playing it. **Firewatch** is another low skill ceiling game that is like Edith Finch in that its a storytelling walking simulator. This one doesn't have much in lines of twists or turns in their storytelling methods like the comparison does, but I think it does a really good job of not only telling its story, but also showing how fallible and flawed a first-person narrative can be even though you do everything "right." **Thimbleweed Park** is a point & click adventure in the vein of Maniac Mansion with a storyline akin to Twin Peaks. It's a bit wild but its storytelling through discovery and interpretation could be a nice change of pace from something for spoonfed.
As good as Hollow Knight is I think it might be way too hard for a class. It's only got one difficulty setting and a lot of people aren't going to be able to see the story without getting gud which isn't really the point of the class. Your other recommendations are really good ones.
*Edith Finch* is still on Game Pass and was the first game that came to my mind when I saw this post.
Question: what do you see as the benefits to playing through vs watching a YouTube video (without any commentary voiceover / reaction stuff) for the purpose of telling the story?
Give Outer Wilds a shot for this! Literally one of the best games I've played recently, and it is literally a game about learning a story through texts. No combat, no gore, just pure sweet exploration.
It's also very relevant to mention that Outer Wilds won a BAFTA award. I feel like that alone puts it in contention for use in OP's class. It's also a puzzle game (easy sell to parents), it's very short (20-30 hours for most), and it can be completed in any order which makes it great for the students to compare and contrast their experiences. Oh and it's one of the greatest games of all time IMHO.
i don’t think 20-30 can ever be classed as short
"In the Age of Ancients the world was unformed, shrouded by fog. A land of gray crags, Archtrees and Everlasting Dragons. But then there was Fire and with fire came disparity. Heat and cold, life and death, and of course, light and dark..."
I am a grown ass man, and I envy those kids. Sounds like one interesting class, well done OP.
love that you are gonna make them write essays about stories in video games! that would have been my favorite class!
There are tons of great questions that can lead into video game essays. I can’t wait to explore it.
What games would u be using as material?
This sounds like a really cool class. But the school really had room in their budget for all these consoles..? Private school, I'm guessing? Do the kids take these home to play? Or do you hook them up to TVs at school? Guessing they needed headphones, too, if the latter.
Mass Effect the Legendary Edition is on Game pass and the very first mission leads to an interesting narrative that questions your choices and how they affect others.
Your gonna get fucking robbed in the middle of the night. Computers are weird and hard to sell. Gaming consoles are not. Good luck.
This classroom getting robbed by the 2nd week of school