Advisor to the King

National and international reading standards stress how important it is for students to be able to carefully read and evaluate argumentative texts. Following principles of effective serious game design, M.A. Britt and I designed this game to help learners understand how to evaluate such texts.

In the game, the player acts as a new hire in the King's bureaucracy, charged with filtering out petitions coming in from the King's subjects. The player must develop skills that discourse psychologists have shown are necessary for effective text analysis, starting from identifying the main point, then finding the key verb, to determining if it's an action request or just trying to change the King's mind abot something.

• Can a game effectively teach these skills?
• Is learning with the game more enjoyable than with traditional methods?
• Is learning with the game more efficient than with traditional methods?

The game was previously published as an iphone app and there is an online version. These have gone dormant, but are currently being restored to life.

See Serious Games

• M. Anne Britt (NIU)
• Peter Hastings
• Kris Kopp