Play the Game, Live the Story: Pushing Narrative Boundaries with Young Adult Videogames

Purpose: Videogames are complex, meaningful and multimodal texts. This study aims to explore how students could learn about narratives from, and be engaged by, playing a videogame and how a teacher adapted their pedagogy to incorporate the young adult videogame (YA game) "What Remains of Edith Finch" into an English Language Arts curriculum. Design/methodology/approach: This case study examined the experiences of a classroom teacher and students in a Year 10 English class in Australia. Thematic analysis included a wide range of data, including interviews, surveys, observations and artefacts. Findings: First, students demonstrated a strong understanding of the game as a narrative text, including essential components of narrative such as plot, characterisation, themes, settings and literary techniques. Second, students experienced a consistently high level of engagement and embodiment throughout the study as a consequence of the interactive, collaborative and multimodal nature of YA games. Third, the teacher discovered that he was able to achieve key curriculum outcomes with the videogame through re-imagining pedagogy. Originality/value: A playful approach allows teachers and students to be curious about the diverse narrative pathways possible within YA games and offers new opportunities to experience embodiment within and through digital texts.