Potential For a Pedagogical Level-Up: Teaching First-Year Composition Through Rhetoric of Gaming

Abstract

Instructors of First-Year Composition courses are pursuing new ways to help integrate students into collegiate writing. One approach that has been gaining more widespread use is teaching composition through a popular medium. Inspired by these pedagogical movements, I designed a first-year composition course that approached writing through looking at different rhetorical elements of video games. During the course I encouraged students to enter into an I.R.B. approved study in which I recorded certain elements of their progression, discourse, and understanding regarding composition taught through gaming in an effort to document what was pedagogically successful, and what aspects of the course I could go on to change in further renditions. This approach is not a new one, but I wanted to help validate the argument for teaching composition through something students not only had prior knowledge of, but deeply wanted to discuss. My hope is that this study will help future students of first-year composition courses by encouraging their instructors to think critically about their own pedagogy, and help meet students where they begin their collegiate writing journey.