Unlocking Literacy through Virtual Worlds:

'Storying in and

around a

Minecraft Community'

Chris Bailey

Background

• Teacher / Minecraft Club leader

• Lunchtime / after-school club

• Extra-Curricular

• Child led

• 'Virtual Community'

• Examples from last three academic years

Context

• Minecraft

• New Literacy Studies (Street, 2003)

• Multiliteracies (Cope and Kalantzis, 2000)

• Virtual Worlds

• Hybrid sites (Burnett and Bailey, 2014)

Individualised Literacy

(collaboration mapped onto this)

Meaning-making in Minecraft/h

Literacies as communal processes

Book-based, paper-based Multiple modes/media

Individualised Fluctuating ownership/patterns of

relationships

Chunked time Different timescales

Fixed outcomes Provisionality

Bounded outcomes Intertextuality/extratextuality

Objective texts Invested texts

Stuff/Bodies/Emotions written out of

process

Stuff/Bodies/Emotions part of the

process

from Burnett and Bailey, 2014

"Environmental storytelling creates the preconditions for an immersive narrative experience in at least one of four ways:

• spatial stories can evoke pre-existing narrative associations;

• they can provide a staging ground where narrative events are enacted;

• they may embed narrative information within their mise-en-scene;

• or they provide resources for emergent narratives." – (Jenkins, 2009)

Bradborough...‘… a community village in Minecraft. - Danielle

‘Bradborough, originated in late 2012, when Y6 decided to build a new and unique creation...’ - Mia

‘Bradborough is a world built in Minecraft. It is a very good community space and everyone works together.’ -Seren

‘… amazingly, we started off with just a flat land and we have produced this big community...’ – Abigail

‘Bradborough is a town which is relentlessly growing... where anyone can build.' - Joseph

‘As you look around you can see strange but epic buildings, with the luxury theatre and deluxe statues. Or perhaps you would like to cast some weaponry or armour at the forge?’ - Sam

'Bradborough, a place for a fresh start,

founded by Jebadire Aisakson in 1785 -

he slayed 500,000 spiders with a

bone...’ - Oliver

'Revenge is best served

hairy!'

Dramatic Mythologising

‘...the hotel is fabulous, it is made entirely out of gold… to get to your room you can use the roller coaster if you are afraid of the lifts.’ - George

‘There are dogs that you can get as pets, forests where you can go for a walk, and a farm to look at animals.’ - Callum

‘The community is very friendly,

kind and helpful so if you get lost

or want to know what place to

go to simply ask a person who

lives there.’ - Amy

‘Bradborough the city of

extraordinary leisure,

comfort and fun.’ -

Cameron

‘Everyone loves plays or movies but

what about starring in one, write your own play-script and

play in it! All in the new block theatre.’

- Isobel

'Mamma Mia'

'Localisedincidents' 'Micronarratives'

The horse funeral

(click for video)

The

Meaning of

the Spheres

The Tornado

(click for video)

PhD - 'Investigating the lived experience of a children's virtual world after-school

club'

• Year long ethnographic study of Minecraft Club

• Exploring themes involving

engagement, identity,

digital play, place and

space

• Blog: www.mrchrisjbailey.co.uk

References

• Burnett, C. & Bailey, C. (2014). Conceptualising collaboration in hybrid

sites: Playing minecraft together and apart in a primary classroom. . In:

Burnett, C., Davies, J., Merchant, G. & J. Rowsell (ed.). New literacies

around the globe: Policy and pedagogy. . Abingdon, Oxon, Routledge.

• COPE, Bill, KALANTZIS, Mary and New London Group

(2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social

futures. New York, Routledge.

• Dixon, K. (2011) Literacy, Power and the Schooled Body. London:

Routledge

• Jenkins, H. (2009) Game Design as Narrative Architecture. In: First

Person. 118 - 130

• Street, Brian (2003). What's "new" in new literacy studies? critical

approaches to literacy in theory and practice. Current issues in

comparative education, 5 (2), 77-91.