Designing an Interest-Based Integrated Curriculum Around Esports

Abstract

A crisis of literacy has emerged among high school students in the United States. In order to encourage students’ engagement with literacy education, there is a need for an integrated curriculum of English Language Arts (ELA). An integrated language arts curriculum would allow students to learn literacy and reading skills while engaging with a motivating context. Meanwhile, esports has grown as a worldwide culture, expanding to more than just players and spectators to include a whole ecosystem of stakeholders. As esports grow in popularity and acceptance, educators have looked to connect the skills developed in esports with academic and career opportunities. We found esports to be a viable content area for the integrated curriculum because esports is favored among many students and involves reading activity as an essential part of participation.