ERIC Number: EJ1286853
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Mar
Pages: 24
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1086-296X
EISSN: N/A
How Feedback from an Online Video Game Teaches Argument Writing for Environmental Action
Lawrence, Anne M.; Sherry, Michael B.
Journal of Literacy Research, v53 n1 p29-52 Mar 2021
Literacy researchers have explored how video games might be used as supplementary texts in secondary English language arts (ELA) classrooms to support reading instruction. However, less attention has been focused on how video games, particularly online educational games designed to teach argumentation, might enhance secondary ELA students' "writing" development. In this article, we describe how the pedagogical feedback provided by one such game, Quandary, influenced two seventh graders' written arguments in advocacy letters addressed to the state governor regarding a local environmental disaster. We compare these two embedded cases to data from 10 focal students, as well as patterns from 114 seventh graders (in five ELA classes). Based on our analysis of screen-capture video of students' gameplay, drafts of their advocacy letters, and video-stimulated recall interviews, we conclude that game feedback rewarding or penalizing predetermined right or wrong player moves may encourage students to develop argumentation strategies that are less effective in more complex rhetorical situations and may foster a false sense of competence.
Descriptors: Feedback (Response), Game Based Learning, Educational Games, Video Games, Writing Assignments, Writing Strategies, Persuasive Discourse, Letters (Correspondence), Local Issues, Water Pollution, Advocacy, Conservation (Environment), Language Arts, English Curriculum, Middle School Students, Early Adolescents, Grade 7, Public Schools, Suburban Schools
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Junior High Schools; Middle Schools; Secondary Education; Elementary Education; Grade 7
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A