Teaching IF

Interactive fiction is increasingly being used in junior high and high school classrooms to encourage reading and teach problem-solving skills; it is also approached critically in college and graduate courses on digital and new media studies, and used as an example project in courses on computer programming and game design.

What follows is just a short list of the courses I know about; there may be more out there.

New Media and Programming courses

• Digital Composing, University of Vermont, 2009.
• Virtual Worlds for Education, a course for practicing K-12 teachers taught by Anthony Hursh, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009
• English 401: Viking Studies, Gettysburg College (here IF seems to be used as a pedagogical support tool)
• Archeologies of Story, University of Florida, 2008
• “Digital Writing in the Genres”, George Mason University, 2008
• “Interactive Narrative”, UCSC, 2007
• “Textual Media”, George Mason University, 2007
• “Introduction to New Media”, Stockton, 2007
• “Instructional Games”, Utah State University, 2007
• “AI”, Rochester Institute of Technology, 2006
• “Computer Game Design and Implementation”, University of Michigan at Dearborn, 2006
• “Computer Game Design and Development”, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, 2006
• “Computer Game Studies”, UCSD, 2006
• “Digital Studies”, University of Maryland, 2006
• “Game Concept and Design”, University of Baltimore, 2006
• “Game Design”, University of Technology, Sydney, 2006
• “New Media Studies”, Stockton, 2006
• “New Media Projects”, Seton Hill, 2006
• “Writing for the Internet”, Seton Hill, 2006
• “History of Computer Game Design”, Stanford, 2005 (mostly historical rather than current IF)
• “Introduction to Literary Study: The Literature and Culture of Information”, UCSB, 2005
• “Textual Media”, George Mason University, 2005
• “Computer and Text”, University of Maryland, 2004
• “From Scroll to Screen”, UCSB, 2004
• “Media Aesthetics”, Seton Hill, 2004
• “Net Art Seminar”, Columbia University School of the Arts, 2004
• “Workshop in Interactive Fiction”, University at Buffalo, 2004
• “Writing the Labyrinth”, University of Florida, 2003
• “Textual Media”, George Mason University, 2002
• “Narrative and Interactivity”, University of Florida, 2002
• “Electronic Game Programming”, Georgia Tech, 1998

Also of interest: Eastgate’s compendium of academic resources.

IF in secondary education

• Workshop on IF for teachers, David English
• Interactive Fiction: “New literacy” learning opportunities for children (an article cited by David English)
• Interactive fiction and the reluctant reader (article cited by David English; this is the first page of an article on JSTOR, so reading the whole article will require either payment or access through a JSTOR-enabled library)
• IF used for historical simulations in a high school environment
• “Exploratory Learning Through Educational Simulation & Games”, San Diego State University, 2006
• Voices of Spoon River, an IF game designed to instruct students in literature
• “The Pause that Distresses”, Brendan Desilets on using IF to teach literacy

Other IF games written to be educational

• List of educational IF at Baf’s Guide
• My list of good educational IF at IFDB (some overlaps with the above)