‘Chocolate-covered Broccoli’? Games and the Teaching of Literature

Abstract

Studies of the way games and gaming align themselves with the pedagogy of the humanities have left behind a key discipline: that of literary studies, as opposed to literacy studies, a far more common concern among scholars who have examined the impact of games on university and secondary teaching. This paper considers the reasons for such a lacuna of the literary and enters into a philosophical critique of the grounds on which games have been advanced as a tool for pedagogy in recent work. Interrogating recent scholars’ use of epistemological and sociological paradigms, the paper advances a more liberal and sophisticated concept of the game that better answers the needs of students and teachers in the literature classroom. It concludes with two examples of worked games that have significant potential to enhance learning.