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The Potential Educational Value of Shakespeare Adaptation Video Games in the High School English Literature Classroom – A Case Study of To Be or Not To Be

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Video Games in the High School English Literature Classroom –

A Case Study of To Be or Not To Be

MA Thesis in Literary Studies: Literature and Education

Graduate School for Humanities

University of Amsterdam

Eliza Wildman

11763906

Supervisor: Dr. Goggin

June, 2018

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Contents

1. Introduction... 4

2. Background... 7

2.1. The Purpose of Literature...7

2.1.1. Identification...8

2.1.2. Empathy... 11

3. Literature Review...14

3.1. Video games in the High School English Literature classroom...14

3.1.1. Video Games in the High School English Literature Classroom...14

3.1.2. Video Games as a Means of Developing Writing Skills...15

3.1.3. Video Games and Intertextuality...17

3.2. Interactive New Media Shakespeare Adaptations...17

3.2.1. New Media Shakespeare Adaptations...18

3.2.2. New Media Shakespeare Adaptations in the High School English Literature Classroom...19

3.2.3. Implications for Shakespeare Adaptation Video Games...21

3.3. Video Games in the High School Humanities Classrooms...21

3.3.1. Commercial Off-the-Shelf Video Games in the High School Humanities Classrooms... 22

3.3.2. Serious Video Games in the High School Humanities Classrooms...25

3.4. Why are Video Games in High School Education Not Commonplace?...29

3.4.1. Stigma – An Ideological Limitation...29

3.4.2. Resources – A Practical Limitation...30

3.4.3. A Lack of Guidance...31

4. Method... 33

4.1. The Need for Practical Guidance...33

4.2. Target Groups and Context...33

4.3. What is a Good Literature Adaptation Video Game?...34

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5.1. ‘The Excellent and Most Lamentable Text Adventure of Hamlet, Prince of

Denmark’... 38

5.2. ‘’Speare – The Literary Arcade Game’...40

5.3. ‘The Typing of the Dead: Overkill – Shakespeare DLC’...42

5.4. ‘Play the Knave’...43

5.5. ‘Elsinore’... 45

6. ‘To Be or Not To Be’ – A Case Study...46

6.1. Practical Considerations...46

6.2. Engagement features...47

6.3. Potential Pedagogical Content...48

6.4. Facilitating Student Identification and Empathy...50

6.4.1. Narrative Techniques...50

6.4.2. Character depth...52

6.4.3. Student Projective Identity...54

6.5. Discussion... 56

7. Conclusion... 57

Works Cited... 58

8. Appendix... 65

1. Introduction

As a celebrated British playwright, Shakespeare has long held a cornerstone position in the curriculum of English Literary studies, becoming “an

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inevitable and necessary part of school activity” [CITATION Newbolt \p 312 \l 1033 ]. This foundational position has spread worldwide, making Shakespeare a required read for any student of English Literature. Despite this, many high school students feel disinclined to read Shakespeare’s plays, with a 2008 study finding that “62% of [138 British high school English] teachers who completed the questionnaire classify the typical student response to studying Shakespeare as ‘ambivalent or mixed’”[CITATION Martindale \p 20 \l 1033 ]. These lacklustre responses often stem from preconceived notions that Shakespeare’s plays will be boring, old-fashioned and irrelevant to the students’ lives – and, as Alsup (2015) argues, “identification seems to be at the very heart of reading narrative fiction. It must occur if the reader is to engage with the text, be motivated to read it, and get anything real or significant out of it”[CITATION Alsup \p 23 \n \t \l 1033 ]. In the absence of these initial points of identification and connection, students may fail to truly engage with Shakespeare’s works, instead turning to online summaries and other condensed versions of the texts to ‘bluff’ their way through class discussions and assessments.

In an effort to establish these initial points of connection to create a foundation for reading Shakespeare, teachers frequently turn to old media adaptations of the plays to either garner or reward student interest. The most common response is the use of film adaptations of Shakespeare in the classroom, with 98.5% of interviewed high school English teachers agreeing that these films “can play some role in teaching his [Shakespeare’s] works” [CITATION Martindale \p 19 \l 1033 ]. And as predicted, the study found that many students, once introduced to “the narratives, themes, and rude content of the plays” through film adaptations, become far more enthusiastic about the works, making them an instrumental pedagogical tool in many high school English classrooms [CITATION Martindale \p 20 \l 1033 ]. Other old media adaptation genres have also carved out places in the classroom, including television series [ CITATION Bul84 \l 1033 ], graphic novels [ CITATION Sab14 \l 1033 ], and novels and historical fiction [ CITATION Roz95 \l 1033 ].

However, despite their increasing prominence since the 1980’s, new media adaptations, including blogs and vlogs, social media adaptations, virtual resources, and fanfiction, have largely been overlooked [CITATION LanBard \m Lan10 \m Gar16 \m Iye171 \y \t \l 1033 ]. In particular, literary video game

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adaptations1 have received little focus despite ongoing research into the use of video games in the classroom. Teachers and researchers alike have shown interest in the potential educational applications of video games since the boom of arcade gaming in the 1980s [ CITATION Bow82 \l 1033 \m Mal81] – as Gee succinctly states

When I played the game I was quite surprised to find out it was fairly long and pretty challenging, even for an adult. Yet a four-year-old was willing to put in this time and face this challenge – and enjoy it, to boot. I thought, as someone who has worked in the second half of his career in education, “Wouldn’t it be great if kids were willing to put in this much time on task on such challenging material in school and enjoy it so much?” [CITATION Gee03 \p 5 \n \t \l 1033 ]

Despite this interest, outside of mathematics and the hard sciences, pedagogical applications of video games have, until recently, received relatively little academic focus. Only within the past decade have researchers truly started to consider the use of video games educational resources in the humanities and social sciences classroom, with topics ranging from modern and ancient history [ CITATION Wat11 \l 1033 \m Hui09] to ethics [ CITATION Sch15 \l 1033 ] to urban planning and city government [ CITATION Pah91 \l 1033 ]

In light of this diversity of studies into the pedagogical applications of video games, the potential value of video game adaptations of literature in the high school literature classroom seems rather a significant oversight. In particular, given the acclaimed universality of Shakespeare’s plots and themes, his plays seem well-suited for adaptation to video games, a genre that values “the pervasiveness of narrative” [CITATION Ken07 \p 186 \l 1033 ]; and yet relatively few Shakespeare adaptation video games have been created. Only two serious game2 adaptations have been made despite the appeal of the “readymade market” of schools [CITATION Lan10 \p 105 \l 1033 ]; though the commercial video game market has filled this gap to some extent, producing first person shooters with tenuous links to Shakespeare, or text-based adventure 1 Though there are slight differences in meaning, for the purposes of this thesis ‘computer games’, ‘digital games’, and ‘video games’ will be consider synonyms. ‘Video games’ will primarily be used for consistency

2 ‘Serious games’ refer to video games designed with primary focus on educational goals, and can be contrasted with commercial-off-the-shelf games, which are designed with primary focus on entertainment goals

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games that utilise the plots, settings, and characters of Shakespeare plays to “provide participatory, immersive experiences and new modes of characterological surrogacy and identification” [CITATION LanBard \p 405 \l 1033 ]. However, these commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) games can vary significantly in their fidelity to the original plays, with risk of impeding, rather than aiding, student engagement and understand of Shakespeare’s texts.

Compounding the restricted number of Shakespeare adaptation video games, there is a significant scarcity of research into Shakespeare video game adaptations. This can, in part, be attributed to the relative newness of many of the games since unlike most academia, video game design is a fairly recent and very rapidly developing field. Research into serious Shakespeare adaptation video games can be classified into two main categories: decade-old research into ‘Speare (2007), an online arcade game from the Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare Project in which players resolve interplanetary conflict between the ‘Montagor’ and ‘Capulon’ planets by memorising historical and biographical Shakespeare facts; and more recent, ongoing research, predominately conducted by the game designers themselves, into Play the Knave (2018), an augmented reality game in which students use avatars and karaoke-style script prompts to act out scenes from Shakespeare’s plays. Meanwhile, COTS Shakespeare adaptation games have been generally overlooked by literary, new media, and pedagogical researchers alike.

This thesis therefore aims to study the merits and limitations of currently available Shakespeare adaptation video games in regards to their potential application in the high school English Literature classroom3, and to offer practical guidance for interested teachers. This will be done in several stages: first, background information on the purposes of studying literature and how these goals can be achieved through literature and video games will be provided; secondly, a literature review of research on interactive new media Shakespeare adaptations in the high school English literature classroom, narrative video games in the high school humanities classrooms, and the constraints of video games in institutional educational settings will be made. This research will then be applied to the analysis of Shakespeare adaptation video games, with a particular focus on To Be or Not To Be, a video game adaption of Hamlet, with 3 For the purposes of this thesis, the English Literature classroom will be considered a class of L1/highly proficient English speakers, focused on the study of English literature as literature, rather than as a means of language learning

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considerations of how these games could best be applied in institutional contexts. Finally, a conclusion on the use of Shakespeare adaptation video games in the high school English literature classroom will be provided.

2. Background

This thesis, despite its reach into game studies, is primarily a consideration of an alternative method for teaching literature and, more specifically, Shakespeare to high school English literature students. However, as many literature teachers and literary researchers argue, an understanding of why literature should be taught must be reached before focusing on how to best achieve these goals [CITATION Sho03 \p 22 \m Bea16 \p 5 \l 1033 \m Zun06]. Therefore, a brief overview of what this thesis considers the purpose of literature and how these goals can be achieved through literary works and through video games will be made.

2.1. The Purpose of Literature

A comprehensive study of all possible reasons to study literature could form a whole other thesis, and has indeed been the topic of numerous authors and researchers4. The rationale for teaching literature can sometimes be rather lacklustre: Beach et al. (2016) cite a high school teacher who teaches literature as a means to prepare students for their standardised exams and tertiary education, where they will be expected to “do at least short research papers… And they need a sound vocabulary” [CITATION Bea16 \p 8 \n \y \t \l 1033 ]. This 4 Showalter’s (2003) Teaching Literature and Zunshine’s (2006) Why We Read Fiction offer particularly interesting and informative discussions

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perspective is reflected in the authors chosen for the class – including Hawthorne, Twain, and Fitzgerald – and in the types of assignments given to the students.

While this is certainly a practical approach, it is hardly the most inspiring reason for students to show an interest in literature beyond memorising key facts to reproduce in an exam or essay, and carrying on with their lives without considering literature ever again. Functioning solely as a means to develop vocabulary and writing skills also fails to explain why literature has retained a position of interest for so many centuries, and why certain books are consistently returned to and enjoyed between readers of different cultures, backgrounds, and generations [CITATION Alsup \p 22 \l 1033 ]. Literary theorists have long held that literature has significant effects on the minds of readers: Holland (1975) describes literature as a means of learning about the self and personal identity [CITATION Hol75 \p 815 \n \y \t \l 1033 ]; while Scruton (1998) argues that studying literature creates and preserves cultural identity [CITATION Scr98 \p 2-3 \n \y \t \l 102-32-3 ]; and Nussbaum (1995) advocates for the use of literature to develop literary imagination which, in turn, leads to a more socially minded outlook that “will steer judges in their judging, legislators in their legislating, policy makers in measuring the quality of life of people near and far” [CITATION Nus95 \p 3 \l 1033 ].

This thesis takes a middle-ground stance to the purpose of literature, between the purely-practical and the society-and-culture-affecting poles described above, and approaches literature as a means to develop students’ ability to identify and empathise with others. In order to successfully analyse Shakespeare adaptation video games and case study for their inclusion in the high school English Literature classroom, an overview of how identification and empathy can be created by reading literature and by playing video games will first be made. For the sake of clarity, separate discussions of identification and empathy have been made, but it should be noted that, in a practical sense, these two reader responses are undeniably linked – the ability to identify with someone is often the first step towards empathising.

2.1.1. Identification

Identification refers to the ability to see elements of yourself in other people and their experiences. In younger people, this often requires closer, more direct points of comparison, but “as we grow older and amass more life

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experiences, our ability to ‘transform’ the resource of a narrative to parallel our own needs and interests is heightened”, allowing meaningful engagement with increasingly unfamiliar identities and experiences [CITATION Alsup \p 22 \l 1033 ]. While the ability to identify with increasingly unfamiliar contexts can develop with age, this skill can also be developed through engagement with narratives from literature and other media. In the case of literature, by reading narratives that are more distant from the students’ experiences but can be approached from a ‘common human level’ – Hamlet, for example, is often presented to students as the plight of an indecisive, depressive teen that they can potentially relate to, rather than as a deranged prince who, on the word of a ghost, if trying to kill his uncle – students can become more adept at identifying with less familiar identities and experiences [CITATION Bea16 \p 69 \l 1033 \m Cha12]. This, in turn, can have a reflexive effect on students’ identities, as their belief and behaviours could be altered in response to a narrative – to continue with the example of Hamlet, students who originally identify with Hamlet’s indecisiveness may, in discovering that it is his hamartia, strive to be more decisive in their real lives.

If we take the position, as many researchers do, that teenage students are primarily striving to find themselves in the world, reading literature and engaging with media with a focus on identification can be instrumental to this process [CITATION Bea16 \p 26-7 \m Alsup \m Cha12 \p 35 \l 1033 ].

2.1.1.1. Identification in Literature

If “whatever is said in a literary work can always be claimed to be experimental, hypothetical, cut off from referential or performative claims”, as was claimed by Hillis Miller in his seminal [CITATION Hil021 \p 2002 \n \t \l 1033 ] On Literature, then one of the most foundational student responses to literature is identification with these fictional characters, actions, and settings [CITATION Alsup \p 22 \l 1033 ]. The role of literature as a means of developing identity, especially through fictional/imaginative literature, has been of interest to literary theorists since Helson’s [CITATION Hel70 \p 1970 \n \t \l 1033 ] Fantasy and Self-Discovery and Bodem’s [CITATION Bod75 \p 1975 \n \t \l 1033 ] The Role of Fantasy in Children’s Reading. This interest has carried to more recent publications, which are increasingly focused on the pedagogical role of this fantasy, imagination, and identification, including Alsup’s [CITATION Als13 \p 2013 \n \t \l 1033 ] Teaching Literature in an Age of Text Complexity, Chadwick’s

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[CITATION Cha12 \p 2012 \n \t \l 1033 ] Making Characters Come Alive: Using Characters for Identification and Engagement, and is extensively discussed in Alsup’[CITATION Alsup \p 2015 \n \t \l 1033 ] A Case for Teaching Literature in Secondary School.

From these publications, we can form an understanding of how younger readers identify with literary works, and how student identification can best be used in the English Literature classroom. Although student identification goes beyond the “knee-jerk relatability” it is sometimes condemned as, many researchers advocate for the use of literary works with narratives and characters similar to the students and their experiences as a starting point to provide students with to tools to interpret more distant narratives through the lens of their own experiences[CITATION Alsup \p 22 \l 1033 ]. Identification is intrinsically important to reading (and, arguably, for our lives in general) as a means of facilitating empathy with other people, real or fictional, which “simulates real life emotions that might result in real life actions” and, reflexively, of shaping reader identity [CITATION Alsup \p 23 \l 1033 ]. On a biological level, identification is thought to take place as a result of mirror neurons that, when triggered by vivid narrative experiences, act to mimic the actions and feelings associated with these experiences [CITATION Als13 \l 1033 \m Gal98].

Since identification happens most easily when there is closer proximity between the reader and the narrative experiences, coming-of-age narratives and young adult fiction, therefore, are often well-used resources for high school literature teachers to encourage student engagement, and to teach students valuable perceptive skills that can later be applied to literary works that are more distant to the students’ identities and experiences [CITATION Alsup \p 23 \m Bea16 \p 26 \m Cha12 \p 35 \l 1033 ].

While identification can provide the initial point of interest for students to be engaged, perceptive readers, there is a danger that if no connection is made between the student and the narrative, “the book is often lost and the reading abandoned” [CITATION Alsup \p 24 \l 1033 ]. While a recreational reader can turn to alternatives if they fail to identify with a specific text, school curricula, national reading plans, or teacher lesson plans may require students to read specific texts regardless of their individual inclination to do so. Beach et al. find that this is most often problematic when teaching literary classics – most often written by white, heterosexual men, and set in unfamiliar socio-historical contexts – to

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diverse classes of students [CITATION Bea16 \p 67 \n \t \l 1033 ]. To address this, Beach et al. advocate for the use of young adult fiction that is thematically-linked to the literary classic, forming a link for student engagement from a more familiar narrative to something less familiar [CITATION Bea16 \p 69 \n \t \l 1033 ]. Alternatively, teachers could encourage students to focus on specific characters, their behaviours and identities, and how these identities overlap with the students’ lives. Chadwick (2012) offers the example of ‘derived identity’ as a thematic approach to The Great Gatsby as “being cool, being with it, being in the know, being one of the group – all of these beings require young people to look a certain way, wear certain clothes, tweet, text” (original emphasis) [CITATION Cha12 \p 35 \n \t \l 1033 ]. By first identifying with specific characters and their experiences, students can form a point of connection with a literary work, aiding enthusiasm and engagement.

2.1.1.2. Identification in Video Games

Although often still reliant on narrative as a means of immersion and engagement, video games can also encourage player identification through elements of the game design and gameplay5. In terms of narrative, video games differ from literary texts in one key way: they have “multiple stories with a number of different endings” [CITATION Muk15 \p 41 \l 1033 ]. Interaction is therefore crucial to establishing the narrative of video games – “whereas the reader (or viewer) of a narrative is presented with a chain of events imagined by the author (or director) of the story, the chain of events in the computer game is the result of the player’s action.” [CITATION deM15 \p 173 \t \l 1033 ]. Players are thus able to shape the narrative around their own preferences and identities, though still constrained by the contingencies of the game, pushing their identification to more unfamiliar points.

Perhaps even more instrumental to the use of video games to encourage identification is the role of characters and virtual identities. In a literal sense, players often identify as their virtual identity, compared to simply the spectator of another person’s actions (think, for example, of game players exclaiming “Yes! 5 It should be noted that there is adamant debate in Game Studies academia between the Narratological perspective – that narrative is the crucial feature of immersive gameplay – and the Ludological perspective – that the embodied experience of gameplay creates immersion. For brevity sake, this debate will not be restated here: for more, see Juul [CITATION Juu01 \p 2001 \n \t \l 1033 ] or Crawford and Gosling [CITATION Cra09 \p 2009 \n \t \l 1033 ]. The thesis will take a middle point in this debate, in which both game narrative and the mechanics of gameplay are determiners of engaging, immersive video games

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I shot down the last Space Invader!” as opposed to “Yes! They shot down the last Space Invader”) [CITATION Rob16 \p 168-9 \l 1033 ]. But beyond identifying in a physical sense with their virtual identity, players can also identify with their identities and characteristics. Many video games allow players to design their own character by selecting physical and personality traits, and this selection can sometimes affect the gameplay opportunities available later in the game – Gee (2003) gives the example of designing a female Half-Elf character in a fantasy role-playing game who, as a result her race, has a predisposition towards intelligence, beauty, and persuasion over strength and dexterity, and is therefore better suited to manipulating her enemies than simply attacking them [CITATION Gee03 \p 53-4 \n \t \l 1033 ]. Players can therefore choose to design a character whose personality traits they initially identify with, or select a more distant character for practical reasons (e.g. a preference for a certain type of gameplay) and learn to identify with them.

In games where players are assigned a pre-designed virtual identity, identification is still facilitated through gameplay. Each choice made during gameplay shapes the player’s projective identity, described as “seeing the virtual character as one’s own project in the making, a creature whom I imbue with a certain trajectory through time defined by my aspirations for what I want that character to be” [CITATION Gee03 \p 55 \l 1033 ]. As the player progresses through the game and shapes their character through their narrative choices, they increasingly identify with what could have been an initially unfamiliar virtual identity. As will be discussed, this has crucial implications for the use of video games in the literature classroom to encourage students to identify with seemingly unfamiliar literary characters.

2.1.2. Empathy

One of the most frequently and vehemently cited reasons for the study of literature is the development of empathy – as stated by Alsup (2015) “living in and through a “narrative world” is one of the ways human beings become more human” [CITATION Alsup \p 34 \n \l 1033 ]. Empathy can be defined as “an affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another’s emotional state or condition, and that is identical or very similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel” [CITATION Eis00 \p 677 \l 1033 ]. The affective response of empathy can be divided into four notable levels: emotional contagion, the physical emotional response that occurs in

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response to someone else’s (e.g. flinching when someone else is injured); sympathetic, affective concern, where some small cognitive attempts are made to understand the emotional contagion; perspective taking, a cognitively-driven attempt to adopt someone else’s point of view and imagine living their life; and narrative empathy, in which the ability to understand the emotion and actions of others is furthered through narrative fiction [CITATION deW08 \m Eis00 \p 677 \l 1033 ]. Literature, with its vivid characters and rich plots, can ostensibly be used to guide students through these stages of empathy to a more empathetic, socially-minded end state [CITATION Zun06 \m Hol75 \l 1033 \m Nus95].

2.1.2.1. Empathy in Literature

From a pedagogical perspective, sympathetic, affective concern and perspective taking have marked similarities with identification: research into empathy in primates has shown that these stages of empathy take place with greater ease between primates – including humans – who are more “like them” [CITATION deW14 \l 1033 ]; and that an initial point of connection must be established before youths can “stretch their empathy muscles” to more unfamiliar situations [CITATION Alsup \p 39 \l 1033 ]. Literature can therefore be used to ‘stretch’ students’ empathetic abilities to increasingly distant emotions and scenarios by functioning as “models or simulations of the social world via abstraction, simplification, and compression” [CITATION Mar08 \p 173 \l 1033 ]. Indeed, the role of literature in developing empathy goes further than simply providing characters for students to identify with and opportunities for them to simulate unfamiliar experiences. Specific narrative structures and literary and stylistic devices can have significant effects on readers’ empathetic responses: for example, the use of monologues to represent internal thought or of first person narration can provide readers with detailed insight into the emotions and experiences of characters [CITATION Alsup \p 41 \l 1033 ].

What remains somewhat more unclear is how literature can have a lasting impact on the empathy and actions of readers in the real world. There are clearly imitative responses of emotional contagion, especially with youths: it is not uncommon for younger readers to dress up as their favourite characters (typically characters from YA fiction), learn skills and hobbies that correspond with these books, and/or write fanfiction from the first person perspective of favoured characters; though this is seen comparatively rarely with adult readers of adult fiction [CITATION Alsup \p 40 \l 1033 ]. But if the aim of literature is to

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guide readers though the stages of empathy to a more socially-minded outlook6, student response must go further than emotional contagion and imitation. Research into the effects of mirror neurons7 suggests that seeing actions can create a neurological response in the viewer that mimics the actual experience of the action; and literary theorists suggest that narrative empathy, in which the reader internally imagines characters and events, can have a similar cognitive effect on readers[CITATION Alsup \p 44 \l 1033 ]. Empirical studies into the connection between reading and empathy have found that reading literature, especially fiction, can “lead to a gradual chance of oneself towards a better understanding of others” [CITATION Dji09 \p 28 \l 1033 ]; and that novels with a lot of “causal connections” were particularly useful in teaching students to take on character perspectives and account for their motives and thinking processes [CITATION Bou93 \p 117 \l 1033 ].

However, literature is by no means a guarantee that student empathy will develop through the reading process, especially in cases where the students (and, sometimes, even the teacher) are not in control of which literary works are read. YA fiction and characters that younger readers can more easily identify with are better facilitators for the development of empathetic skills, but many of the literary classics, although thematically familiar, feature plots and situations that are distant to modern readers: unlike Odysseus, they are unlikely to sail to war for 20 years; and unlike Hamlet, most students rarely find themselves tasked by a ghost to kill their relatives. From a pedagogical perspective, the difficulty arises when the leap between students’ own experiences and the experiences of literary characters is too large, leaving readers distanced and disinterested [CITATION Alsup \p 39 \l 1033 ] – to borrow Krashen’s (1977) model of comprehensible input for language learning, if we consider i the currently empathetic ability of students, literature at a level of i+1 can increase a student’s empathetic reach without alienating them from too unfamiliar situations [CITATION Van08 \p 27 \l 1033 ].

2.1.2.2. Empathy in Video Games

Video games can elicit empathetic responses from players on several different levels. Players are afforded the opportunity to both see events taking place – and therefore trigger mirror neurons – and imagine themselves 6 As is argued by Nussbaum [CITATION Nus95 \p 1997 \n \t \l 1033 ], Bloom[CITATION Blo00 \p 2000 \n \t \l 1033 ], and Zunshine [CITATION Zun06 \p 2006 \n \t \l 1033 ] 7 Though their existence is still debated by some biologists: see, for instance, Dinstein et al. [CITATION Din08 \p 2008 \n \t \l 1033 ]

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experiencing the actions – like a reader imagining a story or a child playing make-believe does [CITATION Rob16 \p 167 \m Alsup \p 44 \l 1033 ]. Furthermore, the importance of clear causal connections in developing empathy – seen by Golden and Guthrie [CITATION Gol86 \p 1986 \n \t \l 1033 ], Phillips [CITATION Phi88 \p 1988 \n \t \l 1033 ], Bourg et al. [CITATION Bou93 \p 1993 \n \t \l 1033 ], and Dijkstra et al. [CITATION Dij94 \p 1994 \n \t \l 1033 ] – is particularly well-suited to video games, a genre that often foregrounds the causal relationships that link events as immediate, meaningful feedback to player choices. By seeing the overarching effects that series of more minor choices can ultimately have, students may better understand their motivations and, in turn, emotional processes behind character actions.

The player’s projective identity in gameplay is a combination of their real-world identity and their virtual identity, as they engage with gameplay while “worry[ing] about what sort of “person” I want her [the virtual identity] to be, what type of history I want her to have had by the time I am done playing the game” [CITATION Gee03 \p 56 \l 1033 ]. This, in turn, weakens the boundary between the player’s real-world and virtual identity as the player both is and is not their virtual identity, forcing them to stretch their empathetic abilities to make allowances for their virtual identity – Gee cites the example that his “former Catholic inhibitions, very real in the real world, did not, in fact, deny Bead Beard [his virtual identity] a well-deserved night of forbidden pleasure [in a brothel]” [CITATION Gee03 \p 57 \n \t \l 1033 ].

While much of the news media and some researchers suggest that the ability of video games to suspend player’s usual moral inhibitions8 (like not committing murder and other crimes and refraining from promiscuous sexual relations) and stretch their empathetic capabilities to more distant, unfamiliar circumstances will lead to the moral corruption of the younger generations, there is nothing to prevent this tight causal relationship from being used to develop more positive behaviours and empathetic connections that can allow students to “stretch their empathy muscles”[CITATION Alsup \p 39 \l 1033 ]. However, if video games can have such a significant effect, it is clear that teachers must be careful in their selection and use of video games in the classroom, and that the desirable aspects of video games must be foregrounded to truly benefit students

8 See, for instance, Robson and Meskin’s (2016) discussion of sexual violence and the murder of prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto V [CITATION Rob16 \p 170 \n \t \l 1033 ]

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in their literary studies, as will be discussed in the analysis of Typing of the Dead in section 5.3.

3. Literature Review

The following literature review provides an overview of the current research salient for the use of Shakespeare adaptation video game in the high school English literature classroom. First, the current applications of video games in the high school English literature classroom are discussed. This is followed by a consideration of interactive new media Shakespeare adaptations, and their applications in educational contexts. Then, the use of narrative video games in educational contexts for the humanities, especially socio-cultural history, will be considered in order to draw a parallel between the English literature and other humanities classrooms. Finally, considerations of the limitations faced by video games that inhibit their use in the high school English literature classroom will be made.

3.1. Video games in the High School English Literature classroom

Relatively few studies have been made into the potential uses of video games in high school English literature classrooms. The studies that do exist can be broadly divided into two main focuses: video games as a form of media to be analysed ‘literarily’, and video games as a means of developing critical or creative writing skills.

3.1.1. Video Games in the High School English Literature Classroom

Recent decades have seen a shift in the boundaries of what is considered as a literary text: Eagleton (1983) argues that “anything can be literature, and anything which is regarded as unalterably and unquestioningly literature – Shakespeare, for example – can cease to be literature” [CITATION Eag83 \p 10 \n \y \t \l 1033 ]; and Hillis Miller (2002) similarly finds that while the ‘death’ of institutional literature is imminent, ‘literature’ now encompasses radio, cinema, television, and the internet – anything that “is the creation or discovery of a new, supplementary world, a metaworld, a hyper-reality” [CITATION Hil02 \p 18 \n \y \t \l 1033 ].

With this broadening definition, educational researchers have started to consider the use of video games as a form of literature for use in the classroom. Rettburg (2004) frames video games as a type of literature that can be interpreted by students of literary studies as tools of ideology and showcases of

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cultural beliefs9 [CITATION Ret04 \p 32 \n \y \t \l 1033 ]. Indeed, given that video games have surpassed films in popularity, Rettburg argues that they hold a crucial position in cultural studies, and new media classrooms, and should be read through a literary lens of critical theory. He cites the myriad video games that emerged after 9/11 and required the player to kill Osama Bin Laden as clear examples of ideologically driven video games [CITATION Ret04 \p 34 \n \y \t \l 1033 ]. Similarly, Rockwell (2002) finds that “computer games are the most popular form of fiction consumed through the computer” [CITATION Roc02 \p 345 \n \y \t \l 1033 ], and as such, should be treated seriously through a literary lens. Indeed, he argues that the analysis of video games through literary theories, especially with Bakhtin’s theory of the novel as is presented in The Dialogic Imagination, can provide gamers with a means of critically discuss video games [CITATION Roc02 \p 353 \l 1033 ].

If video games are considered a form of literature, their use in the classroom demands students develop a new kind of literacy to engage meaningfully with them. A number of different models of video game literacy have been designed. Steinkuehler (2010) concludes that a bifocal model of video game literacy is necessary, in which “gaming is a narrative, hewn out of the ‘verbs’ made available with a game design”, but is also reflective of the individual player and their place within a vast network of consumers and fans [CITATION Ste10 \p 61 \n \t \l 1033 ]. Beavis [CITATION Bea14 \p 2014 \n \t \l 1033 ] concludes that using “games as text” requires four foci – “Knowledge About Games”, “The World Around the Game”, “Me as Games Player”, and “Learning Through Games” [CITATION Bea14 \p 438 \n \t \l 1033 ] – to successfully implement video games in the classroom. The most well-known study of video game literacy, however, is Gee’s (2003) What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, where 36 principles of video game literacy were established. These principles ranged from considering how students engage with video games to what video games can teach players about themselves, to how video games encode and reflect society [CITATION Gee03 \p 207-212 \l 1033 ]. While the overall focus of Gee (2003) is slightly tangential to the focus of this thesis, his insight into player identities and the engagement features of gameplay are crucial for the analysis of Shakespeare adaptation video games in section 5.

9 For more of literature as a tool of ideology, see Moriarty [CITATION Mor06 \p 2006 \n \y \t \l 1033 ]

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3.1.2. Video Games as a Means of Developing Writing Skills

The second application of video games that has been considered by researchers for use in the high school literature classroom is in the context of a creative writing syllabus, as a means of developing imaginative and critical writing skills that can be applied to writing and literary analysis tasks in the literature classroom. This draws from what Gee (2003) describes as the probing and multiple routes principles: the idea that through gameplay, students can experience learning through experimentation and response, and have the opportunity to use many different ways to progress through the game [CITATION Gee03 \p 107-8 \l 1033 ]. The aim of educational researchers in this field, therefore, is to establish if these in-game experiences of probing and multiple routes can be transferred to creative thinking and writing tasks, to encourage students to more thoroughly explore what is possible (probe) and to consider multiple narrative options (multiple routes).

Rettburg (2004) found that if the creative writing task that immediately followed a priming video games was styled after a similarly gameplay-like style10, the video games could have significant positive effects on student confidence and creativity. The video game primer was especially beneficial for students who had initially been unsure of their creative writing skills, many of whom “turned out to be quite good fiction writers when the activity of writing fiction was framed as a role-playing game” [CITATION Ret04 \p 33-4 \n \t \l 1033 ]. However, Rettburg also finds that the efficacy of the video games is dependent on the instructions students are given for gameplay, suggesting that students should be directed to “develop particular goals – e.g. to become knowledgeable about one particular character of one particular cluster of plot events” [CITATION Ret04 \p 33 \n \t \l 1033 ] in order to form an understanding of how to creatively develop characters and narratives.

Video games may also be effective in reducing student self-consciousness during creative tasks. In line with Gee’s (2003) psychosocial moratorium principle, the risk of real-world consequences is greatly reduced when students are acting in their virtual identities rather than their real identities [CITATION Gee03 \p 54-5 \n \t \l 1033 ]. Through the use of video game avatars, Rettburg argues that these games can be used to reduce student self-consciousness when 10 For example, a ‘game’ in which student pull different character traits out of a hat and connect them through character development and narrative [CITATION Ret04 \p 34 \n \t \l 1033 ]

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writing by teaching them methods of character embodiment and narrative design [CITATION Ret04 \p 35 \n \t \l 1033 ]. This is echoed by Bloom (2015), who found that simulation and karaoke-style video games were valuable resources for reducing self-consciousness for students of literary and theatre studies. Although they were still required to voice scripts and physically act out the scenes to have the motion-tracking camera map their movements onto the avatars, students were less constrained when their motions were projected onto the avatar character [CITATION Blo15 \p 121 \n \t \l 1033 ]. For productive competency, video games in the high school literature classroom have significant potential as a means of encouraging student creativity and inspiration through the use of avatars, which can drive students to more creative points through the pull of safety net of their virtual identity and the push of the need to honour their projective identity [CITATION Gee03 \p 54-5 \l 1033 ].

Beyond creative tasks, video games can also have significant positive effects on students’ critical thinking skills. This is hardly a novel concept in regards to ethics: numerous researchers considered the efficacy of COTS video games in encouraging students to critically consider ethics and moral dilemmas, including Secret Agent: Mission One [ CITATION Bea14 \l 1033 ], Mission US: Crown or Colony [ CITATION Sch10 \l 1033 ], and Portal [ CITATION Pla15 \l 1033 ]. However, Dickey (2011) found that video games could also aid student critical thinking in the high school literature classroom with her case study of Murder on Grimm Isle™, a serious adventure game based on an ambiguous murder-mystery plotline, and intentionally designed to develop student argumentation and persuasion skills. Dickey found that although initially disinterested and resistant towards writing argumentative papers, the majority of students found the game “an enjoyable experience for framing argumentation writing” (465). Here, the video game is not just a capsule that delivers educational material to the students in an entertaining and accessible format; instead, the structure of the game and the demands made by gameplay teach the students skills that can be applied in the high school literature classroom (Dickey 458).

3.1.3. Video Games and Intertextuality

This thesis posits a third use of video games in the literature classroom where, as opposed to functioning as independent resources, the games work alongside more traditional literary genres to encourage student understanding,

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engagement, and empathy. There are numerous video games that either draw elements from or more directly adapt literary classics like Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Dante’s Inferno, and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness11, but there is a considerable lack of research into their potential educational applications as intertexts to the literary works themselves. This could be, in part, due to a persistent fear that such games are “mutilations” of literary classics for “those who could not take the trouble to understand [them]” [CITATION Blo05 \p 10 \l 1033 ]; and the perception of video games as competitors for student attention, inherently opposed to the literary classics they are adapted from [CITATION Bau04 \p 37 \l 1033 ]. However, similar opposition has traditionally been posed against old media resources that are now generally considered classroom staples, and other forms of new media adaptations are becoming increasingly popular in educational contexts. This is therefore a relevant topic of research in regards to current debates in educational spheres.

3.2. Interactive New Media Shakespeare Adaptations

New media refers to media that emerged during and after the 1980’s internet boom, encompassing social networking sites, image/video sharing sites (like YouTube), blogs and vlogs, and mobile communication tools [CITATION Koc16 \p 834-5 \l 1033 ]. These genres, in comparison to old media sources like film, television, and radio, allow for (or even demand) interaction between the content producers and the audience/consumers, garnering interest from teachers who intuitively expect that the need for participation will deepen student engagement [CITATION Koc16 \p 835 \l 1033 ].

While new media incorporates many genres, two in particular have been popular for the adaptation of literary classics and have salient implications for the pedagogical use of video games – transmedia vlogs, and fanfiction. The links between fanfiction, blogs, and video games have been well established since Jenkins’ [CITATION Jen06 \p 2006 \n \t \l 1033 ] Fan, Bloggers, and Gamers: they are forms of participatory culture that feed from immense fan bases, with members producing creative, diverse content, and with varying degrees of support and resistance from the original content producers[CITATION Jen06 \p 2 \n \t \l 1033 ]. However, with the increasing popularity of vlogs (short, diary-like videos that record the personal lives of vloggers for public consumption), 11 For more video games adapted from literary classics, see Meyer [CITATION Mey15 \p 2015 \n \t \l 1033 ] or https://www.buzzfeed.com/kevinsmokler /video-games-based-on-classic-literature?utm_term=.ccG9qPD1N#.nbOAl8wDn

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blogs have been replaced with literary transmedia vlogs – vlogs that feature characters from popular (classic) literary texts as they report their ‘real life’ experiences, modernised and expanded from the original texts, to an online audience, while incorporating various form of social media to create a more ‘realistic’ viewing experience.

In addition to this, video games, transmedia vlogs, and fanfiction have shared features that make them well-suited to Shakespeare adaptations and for encouraging students to identify and empathise with Shakespearian characters. They are predominately based on narrative structures, allowing for the transfer of plotlines and character personalities and motivations. This is further aided by the melding of the public and private lives of characters, allowing for insight into the ‘backstage lives’ of characters to encourage understanding and empathy. Furthermore, by decentring common models of cultural authority, may make classic literary texts less daunting to youths and therefore facilitate connections between students and literary characters [CITATION LanBard \p 401 \m Jen06 \l 1033 ]. However, despite their similarities, these three media types also have crucial differences that alter their educational applications. The following section of literature review therefore offers a brief overview of trends in new media Shakespeare adaptations, and a more in-depth consideration of how transmedia vlogs and fanfiction have been successfully used in the high school English literature classroom, followed by the implications of their use for the potential use of Shakespeare adaptation video games in the classroom.

3.2.1. New Media Shakespeare Adaptations

As literary new media adaptation has grown over recent decades, increasingly disparate literary texts are becoming fonts for adaptions. However, Shakespeare has long been a popular source for adaptation to draw from. This lies, in part, with the continued popularity of his archetypal stories, which continue to provide readers (or viewers, or even players) with insight into core human themes and conflicts [ CITATION Hur02 \l 1033 \m Dom12]. But beyond this, Shakespearean adaptations are common to novel forms of media for their value in providing cultural capital[CITATION Hut06 \p 91 \l 1033 ]. Lanier (2010) describes this relationship as rhizomatic, in which Shakespeare is brought into mass culture through new media, while new media is validated and given cultural capital through affiliation with Shakespeare’s plays [CITATION Lan10 \p 105 \n \t \l 1033 ].

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As Shakespeare is brought into mass culture, overarching trends can be seen in how his plays are adapted into new media resources. The temporal and cultural divide between Elizabethan England and contemporary, globalised society means that “for young people today, the lives depicted by Shakespeare… are as ‘other’ as life in a country on the other side of the globe”[CITATION Daw07 \p 33 \l 1033 ]. In order to bridge the divide between these two ‘cultures’, new media adaptations “involve processes of representation and institutionalisation” [CITATION Sai83 \p 226 \l 1033 ] that make Shakespeare’s plays more accessible and relevant to mass youth culture.

For both transmedia vlogs and fanfiction, the most common means of adapting Shakespeare for current audiences is through narrative modernisation. Transmedia vlogs, as a genre, require at least some text modernisation, as ‘characters’ use vlogs and online social media to adapt the narrative. Beyond this, the settings, characters, and plots of Shakespeare’s plays are typically recast in narratives more accessible to modern audiences: Jules and Monty, a popular vlog adaptation of Romeo and Juliet features the romantic plight of university students affiliated with opposing fraternities rather than feuding families[ CITATION Jul18 \l 1033 ]; and Bright Summer Night, an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, takes place over the course of a teenage house party, with fairies replaced by fancy dress and drugs in place of magic [ CITATION Bar162 \l 1033 ].

In contrast, fanfiction is comprised primarily of written texts and artwork – two of the oldest forms of media – and neither demands nor precludes the modernisation of source texts [ CITATION Jen92 \l 1033 ]. However, the common use of certain tropes, genres, and norms across fandoms drive the modernisation of Shakespeare’s plays in fanfiction. A survey12 of archiveofourown.org, a popular fanfiction hosting site, shows that of 504 Hamlet fanfiction works, 102 are ‘alternative universe’ (AU) fics, in which characters and plots are retold in a variety of settings. Of these 102 AU fics, nearly half are listed as “Alternative Universe-Modern Setting”, while the remaining AU fics are divided between common fanfiction tropes like “Coffee shop AU”, “High School AU”, and even “Hogwarts AU”13. While these tropes may not necessarily require the modernisation of Hamlet, they do often refer to modern settings, and contain diversified adaptations of characters. In terms of sexuality, twice as many fanfics 12 Performed 30th of May, 2018 through the use of archiveofourown.org’s search filters 13 Based on the setting of JK Rowling’s popular Harry Potter series

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feature romantic/sexual relationship between Hamlet and Horatio as feature Hamlet and Ophelia; and fanfiction has long striven for increased racial, sexual, and gender equality “against white patriarchal epistemologies that have historically defined which texts have cultural value” [CITATION Fin16 \p 32 \l 1033 ].

Both transmedia vlogs and fanfiction, in their adaptation of Shakespeare’s plays, are blurring the lines between the high and mass culture. This requires some loss of fidelity, as the norms of Elizabethan England are adapted for diverse modern audiences, but also creates a more engaging, accessible product for youth consumers to consume, with significant potential value for new media’s pedagogical applications.

3.2.2. New Media Shakespeare Adaptations in the High School English Literature Classroom

Although neither literary transmedia vlogs nor fanfiction have been as thoroughly adopted in institutional settings as old media resources like film and television, there are interesting patterns of successful classroom use with salient repercussion for the potential use of video games in the classroom. From a practical viewpoint, both forms of media are available online with no cost and with immense archives of content, so teachers and student can select the content that suits their specific class or interests – though as the sheer quantity of content available may be initially overwhelming to student, some researchers advocate providing classes with a more refined ‘reader’ or ‘sampler’ of content that they can use as a cornerstone to extend their interest [CITATION Fin16 \p 28 \m Tep14 \p 57 \l 1033 ]. Within this selection, individual vlog episodes and fanfics can vary drastically in length14, making it a flexible classroom resource compared to 90-120 minute long films and 45 minute TV episodes.

In terms of student engagement, the strength of these new media adaptations lies in their emphasis on discourse between the creators and consumers. Transmedia vlog videos are available on video sharing sites (usually YouTube) where viewers can post comments with feedback, their emotional reactions to the video, and questions that can then be addressed either directly by the producers, either in- or out- of character. Alongside this, characters can be contacted through their transmedia social media presences, allowing viewers to directly engage with the ‘vlog producers’ or, at a meta-level, with the literary 14 Fanfics, for example, can vary from 100 word ‘drabbles’ to series of full length novels

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transmedia vlog creators[CITATION Tep14 \p 56 \l 1033 \m SuB13] . Similarly, almost all fanfiction sites allow readers to comment on fanfics, and many allow writers to directly reply to these comments [ CITATION Mir14 \l 1033 ]. Many writers also offer links from fanfiction stories to tumblr.com, where readers can more easily converse with the fanfiction authors and form an affinity space [CITATION Fat17 \p 45 \l 1033 ]. For students, this creates a more immersive experience where they can engage with the media creators directly and, in doing so, ‘participate’ in the ongoing product that is formed.

The content of new media Shakespeare adaptations can vary drastically from a pedagogical perspective. The modernised and diversified content may appeal to students who feel alienated by traditional media or are intimidated by Shakespeare’s high cultural capital, but this reduces fidelity to the source text, potentially clouding the pedagogical content transferred through the adaptations [CITATION Lan10 \p 104 \m Fin16 \p 29 \l 1033 ]. This, in turn, may see new media adaptations lose interest from more academically-inclined students, who may feel that their knowledge of the source texts is not being valued. However, many new media adaptation creators have attempted to address this through ‘Easter egg’ references to the source text that reward knowledge of the original plays; while educational researchers encourage teachers to carefully select the amount and style of new media adaptation content their provide to the students to avoid losing academic enthusiasm [CITATION Tep14 \p 56 \l 1033 \m Gar16].

3.2.3. Implications for Shakespeare Adaptation Video Games

Given the shared features between video games and transmedia vlogs and fanfiction, features that ensure the successful use of other new media in the classroom may also be salient to the use of video games. Like transmedia vlogs, as a relatively modern form of media, video game content is often modernised to suit the media style; but video game narratives are also often modernised to suit the game genre15, which are comparable to fanfiction tropes. Furthermore, it is increasingly common for video games to feature more diverse characters and plotlines – for example, Elsinore, a video game adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is centred around the mixed-raced Ophelia, and has options for both heterosexual and LGBTQIA+ romance plots (as is discussed further in section 15 For example first person shooter games frequently feature the ahistorical use of guns, while elements of science fiction are often cornerstone to video game narratives.

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5.5.)[ CITATION Chi15 \l 1033 ] – which may appeal to minority students in a similar way as what transmedia vlogs and fanfiction have seen. ‘Easter egg’ references are also popular in many video games, balancing the accessibility of more modern, diverse elements with links to the source texts.

Like transmedia vlogs and fanfiction, video games can provide an immense amount of content for players to engage with and, while appealing, this may initially overwhelm students (especially those who are less familiar with video games). In place of a reader or sampler, teachers may be able to overcome this for video games by providing students with optional paths to pursue in-game, offering guidance on how to proceed through longer video games. These implications will be considered further in the case study of To Be or Not To Be (see section 6).

3.3. Video Games in the High School Humanities Classrooms

The use of video games in the high school English literature classroom as means of developing identification and empathy through character embodiment and narrative has not yet been thoroughly studied, and while parallels can be drawn with other uses of video games and with the use of other forms of new media within the literature classroom, salient comparisons can also be made with the use of video games in other disciplines.

Given that literature and language classrooms are often merged, it may intuitively be expected that the two fields would be able to use video games in similar ways, but this is not the case. Video games for language learning, whether serious or COTS games, generally fall into two categories: either ‘drill and kill’ games16 that require students to answer a series of questions or perform a set of translations to progress with the game; or through online multiplayer simulation COTS games17 that create immersive language learning environments [CITATION Pet10 \p 76 \l 1033 ]. However, neither of these styles have been well-suited to video games in the literature classroom when focused on connecting to and understanding characters. Attempts to make ‘drill and kill’ Shakespeare games (for example, the Romeo and Juliet Jeopardy Game) have not been well received by teachers or students, and are criticised for asking banal questions with little attention to entertainment, player emotional responses, or even to the subtleties of literary analysis [CITATION Bes08 \p 29 \l 1033 ]. A similar lack of 16 VocabularySpellingCity, WordWhile, or SentenceSensibility are common examples, and are reviewed by teachers at https://www.commonsense.org/

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success was seen with an attempt to make an online multiplayer Shakespeare simulation game, Arden: The World of William Shakespeare, in which players could explore an Elizabethan city and interact with characters from Shakespeare plays. However, the absence of an overall plotline or quest meant that the game lacked meaningful feedback and motivating rewards for effort and, as the lead game designer found, “it’s no fun… we failed to design a gripping experience” [CITATION Bes08 \p 37 \l 1033 \m Nao07].

Better parallels can instead be drawn between the use of video games in the literature and the culture/history classrooms. Though simulation video games are valuable resources for teaching the humanities (as will be discussed), game designers and educational researchers are increasingly using action and adventure video games as “narratives embedded in historical content allow history games unique affordances for re-enacting, replaying, and gaining first person experiences” [CITATION You12 \p 78 \l 1033 ]. In the same way that narratively-structured historical video games can encourage students to identify and empathise with people and experiences they cannot actually share, narrative literary video games may be able to provide students with the opportunity to temporarily ‘inhabit’ fictional worlds and take on the roles and relationships of characters.

The following sections of this thesis therefore offer an overview of research into the potential educational applications of video games in the context of the humanities. This research has been divided into two subcategories: research into the use of COTS video games, and into serious video games.

3.3.1. Commercial Off-the-Shelf Video Games in the High School Humanities Classrooms

As video games started to gain popularity in the 1970s, academic interest across disciplines has been primarily focused on developing student engagement and motivation. Before the emergence of serious video games in the 1990s, this focus was centred on COTS games in gaming arcades – as Bowman’s 1982 study of arcade games stated, “teachers… began to wonder aloud if perhaps the magic of ‘Pac-Man’ cannot be bottled and unleashed in the classroom to enhance students involvement, enjoyment, and commitment” [CITATION Bow82 \p 14 \n \t \l 1033 ]. Early studies into potential educational applications of video games were largely focused on how the structures and engagement techniques used by video games could be replicated in high school classrooms: Bowman

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(1982) advocated for a “Pac-Man Theory of Motivation” in which “skills and challenges are progressively balanced, goals are clear, feedback is immediate and unambiguous, and the relevant stimuli can be differentiated from irrelevant stimuli”[CITATION Bow82 \p 15 \n \y \t \l 1033 ]; while Malone (1981) similarly found that interaction, clear goals and feedback, and high variety of tasks were crucial factors for student engagement that could be mapped into the classroom. These studies are somewhat tangential to the focus of this thesis, which is more centred on the use of the games themselves in the classroom rather than as tools for studying and mapping student interest. However, this research does provide interesting insights into the core motivational and engagement features used in even the most simplistic video games, which form the foundation for later research.

As increasingly sophisticated COTS video games have developed, academic interest has grown to consider video games as more than just models for how to structure classroom resource, instead studying them as resources to be used in the classroom themselves. Pahl (1991) considers the value of the COTS game SimCity – an open-ended game in which players design, build, and manage a city – for teaching high-school students about urban planning, government, and city management. He argues that, in comparison to a traditional textbook, the value of SimCity lies in its ability to encapsulate myriad aspects of a complex system like city management, such as the balance between industrial development, residential development, tax rates, and crime [CITATION Pah91 \p 165 \l 1033 ]. But the efficacy of SimCity went further than simply being a more interesting textbook. Students formed an emotional understanding of their virtual characters’ experiences and having seen “families move into their residential sites, work in their factories, and drive on their roads”, students felt obliged to build a functional city for them to live in and yet “recognize[d] that city dwellers can be irate at high tax rates” [CITATION Pah91 \p 165 \l 1033 ]. As a result playing SimCity, Pahl found that students were more engaged in the lesson, with debates on how their ‘taxes’ should be spent, and with greater recognition of the interlinked facets of city management [CITATION Pah91 \p 166-7 \n \y \t \l 1033 ].

However, video games, especially as they increase in complexity, are far from an education panacea. Squire’s (2005) research into the use of Civilization III™ for teaching history found that the game had mixed effects for both student

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motivation and student learning. The game is a simulation that requires students to consider historical, geographical, and political contexts of past conflicts to lead ‘their’ nation to victory. Somewhat counterintuitively, Squire found that when introduced to the game, “students were anything but immediately motivated. They frequently asked ““What’s the purpose of this?””, and about 25% of students who played the game found it too difficult and, lacking interest, opted to follow a more traditional, reading-based programme instead [CITATION Squ05 \p 2 \n \y \t \l 1033 ]. In addition to this, many of the students who continued with the game struggled for a variety of reasons. Some students who self-identified as ‘gamers’ struggled with issues of face, not wanting to do poorly in front of their peers, or were resistant to compulsory video games. Others found that, after 25+ hours of gameplay, failure was insurmountably frustrating, leading to disinterest, and some of the more academic students felt that “their more traditional school-based expertise was not honoured in this classroom, and they were not convinced that success in a game-based unit would help them on college entrance exams” [CITATION Squ05 \p 5 \l 1033 ]. At the other end of the spectrum, Squire found that around 25% of students were very enthusiastic about learning through Civilisation III, and “considered the experience a highlight of their school year” [CITATION Squ05 \p 2 \n \y \t \l 1033 ]. Many of these students were those who felt alienated from school, and did not prescribe to the traditional, mainstream views of history. As such, they were engaged by a game that allowed them to consider history from ‘alternative’ perspectives18, identify with traditional minority groups, and to potentially re-write the outcomes [CITATION Squ05 \p 2 \l 1033 ]. Furthermore, in contrast to the students who struggled with issues of failure in the game, some students thrived for having ‘failed’, as it required “identifying problems, developing causal interpretations of events, brainstorming possible solutions, implementing solutions, and examining results” [CITATION Squ05 \p 4 \y \t \l 1033 ]. The difficulty with more complicated COTS games, therefore, is in the variety of student responses to the implementation of video games and the demands of gameplay. Where Malone’s (1981) survey of computer game preferences saw a fairly homogeneous student response to the games available at the time19[CITATION Mal811 \p 342 \n \t \l 1033 ], as video games become more narratively and ideologically driven, and as 18 For example, the European colonisation of the Americas from the perspective of a Native American tribe

19 Including Petball, a computer simulated version of pinball, Breakout, an arcade-style game in which a ball is bounced off a paddle to break a wall, and Star Wars, a simple shooter game in which players attack Darth Vader

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