Multiliteracies in ELA Classrooms

In Gee’s article “Good Video Games and Good Learning”, he talks about the motivating factors behind student learning and achievement. He begins with the premise that what makes good video games “motivating and entertaining” is the “challenge and learning” these games provide and that “Humans actually enjoy learning” (34).

This article was interesting to me, as while I read the article, the thought that kept coming back to me was that “yes, these characteristics/reasons he’s giving why games can teach students to learn are valid. However, these are characteristics which are prevalent in all forms of effective learning” and that “if learning were to engage learners in such a manner without being in the form of video games, it’d be equally effective.” It turns out that such an idea is actually presented in Gee’s conclusion, as he says, “so the question that I leave you with is not about the use of games in school – though using them is a good idea – but this: How can we make learning in and out of school, with or without using games, more game-like in the sense of using the sorts of learning principles that young people see in good games every day, when and if they are playing these games reflectively and strategically?” (37).

It is interesting, because reflecting back on my own experiences and to my own practicum, games were rarely used in the standard English classroom if at all. The only time I was able to incorporate any semblance of a game into the practicum was when teaching concrete poetry, where I had students “draw”/write concrete poetry and played Pictionary with it. The class really bought into the idea, and it was interesting to find that the group that won the game of Pictionary was actually a group comprised of some of the lower-achieving students in the classroom.

It is also interesting to note that the classes where games are played the most are in ELL classrooms, where games would commonly be used as a form of motivation, as a “carrot” to drive student learning in English. Games such as Jeopardy or Charades would often be used for review before unit tests to review what students have learned. Thinking back, games were also used in French class to encourage studying before a test.

It leads me to wonder, why are games used more often and viewed acceptable in certain contexts (as motivation to students who are learning a language) but not in others (a “regular” English classroom)? There appears to be an underlying principle that students in ELL/second-language classes require more motivation to work hard in these classes, which also at the same time suggests that students in “regular” English classrooms do not require such “motivation tricks”. In my experiences (both as a student and as a teacher), I have observed that students love games or anything competitive for that matter. I wonder if this is because of the challenge and desire to succeed/win or if this is because of the novelty that games bring to the classroom.

~Jackson Leung

Works Cited

Gee, James Paul. “Good Video Games and Good Learning.” Phi Kappa Phi Forum 85.2 (2005): 33-37. Web. 14 July 2014.