View Content #24940

By Logan Matz, CASLS Fellow

This activity improves intermediate learners’ interpretive and interpersonal digital literacy skills, and, through the use of a thinking routine (Experience, Process, Extend), has the potential to help them develop those skills when outside of the classroom. In this activity, learners will use microblogging to “inhabit” a character from the game Papers, Please while creating and analyzing interactions among characters. After playing a portion of the game, learners will analyze different character perspectives and select one to embody using the microblogging platform Twitter, and “translate” their chosen character’s perspective into tweets using the target language. This will allow learners to reflect on their abilities to describe characters and situations succinctly and with appropriate details.

Objectives: Learners will be able to:

• Use the RAFT strategy (Role of writer, Audience, Format, Topic) to demonstrate understanding of and analyze different character perspectives in Papers, Please
• Summarize in-game events via tweeting/microblogging

Modes: Interpretive, Presentational

Resources: Intermediate Activity Microblogging Notes Handout, Papers, Please Mobile App (more information about this game here)

1. Prepare: Introduce learners to the RAFT writing strategy (http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/raft). You can use a previously-read text to practice getting students comfortable with using RAFT for character perspective exploration, or you can introduce learners to the characters in Papers, Please by having them complete written RAFTs as a predictive, pre-game activity.
   1. An example RAFT would be:
      1. Role - Immigrant/border crosser who was turned away
      2. Audience - An appropriate government body to direct a complaint at (Ministry of Immigration, Papers, Please’s Ministry of Admission, etc.)
      3. Format - A formal letter
      4. Topic - You feel like you were unfairly turned away
2. Experience: Have learners play Papers, Please for about 20 minutes (which should allow them to complete the game through Day 4) while taking notes on the plot as they play on the Intermediate Activity Microblogging Notes Handout.
3. Process: The learners will use the Microblogging Notes Handout to draft “translations” of their plot notes into 1-3 tweets per in-game play from the perspective of one of the game’s characters. They will then post these to Twitter.
4. Extend: Learners will complete another RAFT activity by interacting with each other on Twitter “as” their chosen character, sticking to the plot through Day 4 with the potential to extend the plot using their imagination beyond Day 4. For this RAFT, their role is the character they choose, the audience is their Twitter followers, the format is a tweet, and the topic is up to them based on their notes taken in Step 2.

Notes

• Educators may wish to have learners engage in a peer review process in Step 3.
• A possible activity extension would be to have learners play through the rest of the game, continuing to tweet as their characters, and then imagine what tweets might be include after the game’s big finale.