Learning to play: Video game literacy in the classroom

Abstract

In an ongoing excited public debate, video games are widely perceived as potentially harmful educational factors which endanger the mental health of their young players. Often, monocausalistic media coverage of tragic school shootings is used as an opportunity to demand stricter legal measures against video game content deemed harmful for minors. Yet, for a number of reasons, the tightening of prohibitive measures seems inappropriate for the new educational challenges posed by digital games. Instead of demanding further bans, efforts should be made to promote a specific “video game literacy," to strengthen the young players’ ability to make use of games in a self-determined way. The chapter explains the theoretical concept of video game literacy and its core aspects. It depicts an analytical framework developed and tested by the author in an extensive exemplary analysis of the (in)famous third-person shooter Max Payne 2. This multifaceted analytical toolbox tries to make use of the core questions of game studies for educational purposes. Starting from this framework, the author outlines several practical approaches for teaching video game literacy tested in his own practice as an art and language teacher with primary and comprehensive school students.