An American Story: A Literacy-Rich, Play-Based Approach to Teaching History

An American Story is a novel approach to engaging 7th and 8th grade US History students in historical moments through a multi-player, multimodal solution that interweaves audio, print, and primary source materials with game roleplaying and storytelling. Players choose different roles, who they experience through different story lines. The players must work together to piece together a historical “mystery,” – the mystery itself is a known historical event, but one they will uncover the nuance of as they learn about various participants, opponents, and tensions surrounding the event. Through great storytelling, students will be drawn into uncovering every detail. The game environment tracks progress and drives the player’s journey, and helps them visualize connections as they organize evidence by uncovering primary sources and receiving additional story details. Together, the players create a shared understanding of the myriad of cause and effect moments revealed as they play. Our work in Phase II will build upon the Phase I prototype to iterate in response to Phase I pilot feedback, build out additional features for teachers and students, and develop five additional chapters of An American Story touching on five additional eras covered in most middle school US History classes.