Technolandy

Day 59 (of 2025/26) Wizards of the West Coast – Dungeons and Dragons as an English Language Arts Unit

Gamification of learning in a very real sense. Raise your avatar right and graduate early!?! Okay, maybe a tad ambitious – but there is a lot of thinking, creating, communicating, critical thinking, story building, immersion, oral language skills, etc that happens in a campaign. Once banned because it was feared it was leading kids to non-preferred religions, now it is embraced as an engaging format for students to find entertainment. Now, much as the novel was once a disruptive new ‘feature’ of literacy, I am proposing a broader acceptance of D&D as a unit for literature. At a minimum as a key unit for New Media, and potentially as a disruptive unit for “Literary Studies” (though people aren’t always thrilled when I add in comic books [graphic novels if that’s easier on the eyes] and video games as studies in literacy/literature…

But today, D&D (but really any RPG – get ready for more acronyms – Role Playing Games that typically use dice, maps, and imagination! And as my students in todays hybrid D&D session proved – both critical AND creative thinking skills while they work out how best to communicate with each other, and with the DM (Dungeon Master) as I thwart some of their more obvious attempts to solve a puzzle or fight an opponent. Honestly I’m just thrilled how much support games like D&D are getting in schools, unlike the cloak of secrecy it felt we needed to have when playing in the late 20th century…

ELA New Media Big Ideas: (these are the curricular ‘big ideas’ that frame English Language Arts New Media 11 & 12 and how D&D ‘fits’)

The Exploration of text and story deepens our understanding of diverse, complex ideas about identity, others, and the world.

Story and diversity is what D&D is all about – both in terms of race and class and so much more (alignment, abilities, skills…) and allows some ‘curiosity’ to be sated – anybody can try being a female dwarf magic user, but not everyone can pull it off… but gender exploration; challenging your own nature – exploring what it might be to play as a ‘chaotic evil’ character or even worse, ‘chaotic good’ <— trust me, one of these is much worse than the other… much worse.

People understand text differently depending on their worldviews and perspectives

The need to understand story as an audio text is key – it takes both words, visuals, clues, sometimes maps, and a lot of work to figure things out – and depending on your schema, some dungeons and adventures are much easier than others. The diversity of an adventuring party allows for much better individual and group success!

Texts are socially, culturally, geographically, and historically constructs.

Waterdeep is an entity onto itself when thinking about these – the whole expanded universe of RPGs is immersive and as real as learning about mythical places such as Norway, and why some don’t believe Australia is even a real place. The oral/aural texts in D&D are amazing and challenge both immediate and long term recall and force executive functioning to be on high alert in a very engaging way.

Language shapes ideas and influences others.

Try asking a genie for a wish. Trust me, D&D makes ‘language matter’ more than any grammar-focused teacher could prepare you for.

In terms of reading words on pages – the game leads you into exploring the players handbook, the fan fiction, the compendiums (of which there are many)

Now, I’ll also admit that I have a bit of disappointment in the “New Media” curriculum because the curricular competencies and content remain vaguely… traditional… references to ‘interactivity’ are met with ‘citation techniques’… still some ‘areas of growth’.

Dungeons and Dragons—and other RPGs—offer a uniquely participatory model of literacy that goes far beyond reading static text. Students don’t simply consume story; they generate it collaboratively. In BC’s Language Arts framework, we emphasize authentic communication, perspective-taking, and engagement with story as a vehicle for understanding ourselves and others. Sitting around a table (or virtual map) with character sheets, shared narrative stakes, and a compelling world forces students to use language intentionally: to negotiate meaning, persuade allies, communicate strategic thinking, and adapt tone and vocabulary depending on audience and role.

In fact, D&D is a living example of multimodal literacy. Students interpret rulesets, charts, and reference materials (text). They analyze spatial information and implied relationships (visual). They converse, perform, and co-create narrative threads (oral language). They respond to descriptive language by constructing imagery internally (aural and imaginative). And—perhaps most critically—they engage in narrative decision-making: what should my character say? How could this go differently? What consequences emerge from this choice of verb, tone, or posture?

And much like a lot of literature that gets transformed into productions that are watched (on stage and screen) D&D has an audience that finds amazing adventures to follow along – yes, I am that guy who has a podcast and tv series I’m following (thanks Dropout!) that is amazing and while I don’t like being the DM, the shares of Brennin Lee Mulligan – arguably the greatest DM I have seen – have made me better when working with my adventuring groups! And yes, I use a powerpoint (keynote) share to help show my students who are onsite and those on teams what is going on and where we are going (today we faced off with some lobstrosities!)

This is deep language work.

Additionally, D&D explicitly supports identity exploration and empathy. A student who role-plays as a taciturn barbarian, a trickster bard, or a lawful-neutral cleric is engaging in a kind of narrative anthropology—examining how worldview shapes expression and interpretation. When students start debating whether asking a genie for “a wish” requires precise wording, or whether a chaotic-good rogue’s moral justification holds water, they are practicing rhetorical reasoning and semantic nuance at a level most essays never reach.

In short: D&D isn’t a distraction from literacy. It is literacy in action. Maybe this should shift more into the more ‘graduation friendly/required element’ of English Studies… I’ll save that for the expansion pack for now!