Analyzing Roleplaying Games as Pedagogical Tools for Disrupting Literary Whiteness

ABSTRACT This study explores the critical possibilities of using roleplaying games in literature classrooms. This participatory social design study draws from 3 years of data across five groups of undergraduate English Education students from 2019 to 2021. Each group participated in a roleplaying game aimed to engage players and help them critically engage with a paired text, the poem “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” We introduce the concept of “ pre‐storying ” to name storytelling practices when readers follow their desires in a way that allows for disorientation from dominant story trajectories before they encounter them, pre‐emptively disrupting canonical “stickiness.” Using notions of critical gaming literacies and theories of affect and orientation, this article traces how desire functioned as an orienting force as players experientially navigated the shooting of the albatross, a pivotal point in the poem and game design. We trace the complexity of ways that players oriented toward the text and Western interpretive concerns or disoriented from canonical elements and moved toward critical interpretation. We argue that roleplaying games afford possibilities for students to take up non‐dominant lines of desire outside of the scope of the text or the conversation of the discipline, opening up space for processes of critical textual estrangement. We suggest that further research continue exploring the design of pre‐storying activities to disrupt traditional ELA texts, which we anticipate could extend beyond analog roleplaying games to other improvisational and gaming activities.