Literacy+Practices

= = =MINECRAFT AS A LITERACY PRACTICE? YES! =

James Gee, Literacy Practices and Gaming
Literacy practices do not merely involve the acts of reading and writing; understanding, meaning making and association are also considered [|literacy practices].

According to James Gee, literacy and thinking are primarily social and cultural achievements (5). If literacy is a social practice, not just a skill that one acquires, then it is through social interaction that one engages in literacy practices. As we've seen in our class, Minecraft can be used as a literacy practice for both the individual and the class as a whole. By learning to play the game through self-exploration and viewing tutorial videos, we are learning independently how to understand the domain of Minecraft and to become "gamers"; when we use this Wiki to explain the processes through which we learned survival skills, created shelters, etc., we share our experiences with our classmates and create an inclusive network for information about the game. Through the creation of this Wiki space, a collaborative learning community was formed as we learned the ins and outs of the game together and reflected on our decisions and progress.

Oral English, Writing and Literacy through Minecraft
As soon as the children start playing, they start talking, communicating their experiences, insights, ideas, plans. Minecraft is a very good vehicle for oral English, and it lends itself to a number of creative-writing projects. Reading for information can be practised through researching questions on the various Wikis. Students can also contribute to collaborative texts online, such as Wikis or blogs about their Minecraft projects, or by way of commenting on other people’s works. Netiquette and the merits of avoiding text speak will need to be discussed in this context.
 * Examples for creative / report writing based on Minecraft – underlying idea: “Explorers’ Journal”: []

Using Minecraft in the Classroom
Literacy practices no longer speak of writing and reading English, they also include comprehension and critical thinking that can be applied to any field like [|math], but also abstract skills that can be useful for the digital era and to teach students about different writing systems like [|reading and writing binary]. One project that think can be interesting is have students from literature classes recreate the worlds of the books they are reading on minecraft and then talk about how word pictures (seeing the world of the book) helps them understand the story and use their close reading skills.

A looming question that has evolved from the modern gaming era: "Does this game develop and inspire the kind of skills necessary to succeed in the digital age?"

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If you're not convinced on how video games or digital learning can help children build their learning skills just click on this link below and see Liam O'donnell, a 5th and 6th grade teacher in Canada gives inciteful information on how he introduced Minecraft to his classes and how the students enhance their literacy skills. []

Here is another website that gives educators ideas on how to create lesson plans for children using Minecraft: []



Games Can Help Develop Literacy Practices
Games like Minecraft are important to developing literacy practices because the skill and methods of video gaming are a part of our life and gaming is a mainstream activity. The emergence of a new constellation of literacy practices provides education with a way to augment literary texts from just books to the plethora of multimodal texts. Games have become a part of political, military, commercial and educational systems bringing with them changes in cultural practices. In order to stay abreast of the emerging digital literacies, just like gaming, it requires that people become adept at reading, understanding and creating them whether they are in the format of memes, video memes, web page creation or other digital literacy formats.

Sources:
Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Print.