Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric Sep 2016 Open Access

Sustainable Worlds, Sustainable Words: Using Digital Games to Develop Environmental Awareness in Writing Classrooms

Jennifer England

Abstract

This article provides a framework for using digital game spaces in college writing classrooms to help students develop environmental awareness. Drawing on a range of relevant theories, the author argues that digital game play offers simulated experiential learning opportunities that allow students to locate virtual representations of the environment that potentially mirror, critique, or even promote new ideas regarding material-world environmental concerns. By mapping critical, rhetorical, and ethical literacies onto digital gaming practices, this article advances a creative pedagogical approach to engagement with environmental rhetorics, narratives, and ideologies. Through an extended example of the popular mobile app The Sims Freeplay, the author brings together the disciplines of rhetoric and composition, environmental studies, and game studies in a productive conversation about the ways gaming can increase students’ rhetorical and ethical engagement with both writing and the environment.

Journal
Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
Published
2016-09-01
DOI
10.59236/rjv16i1pp27-45
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Open Access
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Topics
rhetorical criticism first-year composition writing pedagogy service learning literacy studies
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References (20) · 2 in this index

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