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1.             Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Mallory Towers series

I remember reading Enid Blyton books in my early childhood. I didn’t like eating very much and her stories helped whet my appetite before meals, even if the food described was completely different from the meal on the table. Famous Five and their ginger beers, cold sandwiches, potted meat, lots of cake, tinned fruit. Mallory Towers and the furtive midnight suppers with jams, tarts, and endless supplies of chocolate or tea biscuits.

2.             Red Sky in the Morning by Elizabeth Laird

This book was a gift from my mom and I set it aside thinking the cover looked boring. When I eventually got around to reading it (a few months later) I hated that I needed a box of tissue to help me get through the book. After reading it that one time I never read it again but it’s still one of the more powerful books I remember reading from my childhood.

3.             Little House on the Prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder

This was also one of my favourite series, I loved the titular character and prairie stories of churning butter, milking cows and corralling horses. I still didn’t really like food at this point. Books for me were imaginary food and I think my favourite snack while reading was lots of butter on plain biscuits or slices of bread.

4.             Ballet Shoes for Anna by Noel Streatfield

I took ballet classes when I was in primary school and this was a book I read over and over because it motivated me to keep attending my dance classes. And I remember the horrible English food cooked by the feeble aunt that I nevertheless found appealing – partly because it was all so unfamiliar and exotic to me, probably.

5.             Girl with a Pearl Earring – Tracy Chevalier

This was an accidental read which I picked up at a cousin’s house. I found it immensely depressing and ambiguous AND disliked because it didn’t have a happy ending.

If I were to list the other titles that bookmark the earlier stages of my reading journey, I would say that they are, in no particular order –

1.    Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

2.    Nancy Drew – Carolyn Keene

3.    Totto-chan by Tetsuko Kuronagi

4.    The Spirit Flyer series – John Bibee

5.    The Dragon King Trilogy – Stephen Lawhead

6.    The Princess and the Goblin – George Macdonald

7.    The early books in Joanna Campbell’s Thoroughbred series

8.    Dolphin Diaries

9.    Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osbourne

10.Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

11. Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

12.Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

I had to do some research to find the names of the series and the authors, mostly because I remembered the plot better than the other details. I’m not sure why the titles I picked have stayed with me over the years – possibly because I felt mediocre and boring as a kid and these made me feel like life was more exciting.

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http://www.gonehomegame.com/

http://www.ludiclearning.org/

The first link is a narrative exploration game that is utilized by the lesson plan in the second link to teach literature using an interactive video game. ‘Gone Home’ is an exploratory narrative where information about the characters, plot, and setting are provided through the clues of everyday items scattered throughout an abandoned house. The premise for the story is provided through a cryptic note left on the door for the main character (played by the gamer) and the player is invited to find out what has happened to the rest of the family members living in that house. Players are given the freedom to explore the house at will and pursue the story however they wish. The aim of the game is to find out what happened to the different members of the family and their backstories.

I think there’s quite a lot of potential for game-based learning in the classroom. Alternative methods of assessment in the classroom will have to be created and there’s the possibility that motivating the students to participate in the game might be an issue, but I think that such ludic learning might be beneficial to students who feel daunted and demoralized by poor performance in conventional assessments. The teacher who utilized this particular video game commented in the second link that the students who tended to underperform academically were more interested and engaged with this unit of work.    

The second link provides a series of 8 lesson plans for teaching the video game as literature. Students are expected to produce a presentation thereafter based on one of several given topics. In terms of assessment, students are expected to produce lesson deliverables by tracking the progress of the story through a particular ‘track’ or topic. In terms of formative assessment, the teacher conducting and planning the lesson commented that guiding the students through this video game involved an extensive loss of control over the ‘classroom’, making it difficult to provide timely feedback since the individual students were pursuing different topics at different paces. The final lesson deliverable that would be formally assessed was the presentation. The students needed to compile individual portfolios as well as a group portfolio of their journey through the narrative as well. In terms of assessment methods; reports, portfolios and presentations are quite conventional. Using the video game as the main source made the lesson more interesting though. However, as an ‘alternative’ type of assessment, creating and consolidating artifacts from a video game narrative gives students more freedom to explore and pursue their interests within the interactive narrative itself while encouraging them to remain actively aware of their own learning.

For further reading:

MOE article on game-based learning -

http://singteach.nie.edu.sg/issue45-research02/