Multimodal Literacy, Digital Games and Curriculum

Abstract

Games are viewed as embodying core principles of good pedagogy and learning, however, it is essential that games are not understood simply as ‘learning machines’. Rather, good gameplay is active, socially situated and purposeful, and intimately linked with issues of ownership, commitment and identity. This chapter focuses particularly on the textual dimensions of games and gameplay, within the context of the New Media Age, Multiliteracies and literacy constructed as design, and the ways in which the capacity to read and act upon multimodal literacies enables reasoning and analysis, and the successful progress of play. It takes the example of the citizenship education mobile learning game, Statecraft X, to explore and illustrate matters such as these. It explores and illustrates some of the multimodal forms of reading, literacy and interactions required to make sense of the game, the ways in which doing so enabled students to arrive at new insights and understandings about governance and citizenship, and the kinds of investment, reasoning and assumptions required to do so.