“Game Terakoya class 1” walkthrough: Directing students’ post-game discussions, academic work and participatory work through goals, curriculum, materials and interactions

Abstract

I designed a curriculum called the “Game Terakoya” (named for the Japanese Edo Period private schools that taught reading and writing) that connects games with language and literacy work. This paper is a walkthrough of my first concerted attempt to implement my combination of games and the pedagogy of multiliteracies in a typical class setting. I describe my mediation work, namely, setting specific goals, developing a curriculum and sequence of activities that targeted those goals, developing a grading rubric based on those goals, and developing materials and project work and being deliberate about my interactions with students around academic work and participatory project work. The class and I were successful in many ways, one of the most notable being most groups’ clear connections of gameplay to game discussions to intellectual work to participatory work. The class and I stumbled in some ways as well, such as one large group failing to collaborate and complete project work, and many students not providing enough reasons and details in their L2 project work worksheets. I suggest implications for other teachers’ classes and outline my numerous next steps to refine my continued explorations of games and multiliteracies pedagogy with my curriculum, materials and interactions with students.