Designing and Creating Interactive Fiction for Learning Brett E. Shelton Department of Instructional Technology, College of Education and Human Services Utah State University, Logan, UT 84332; Tel: 435-797-2694, FAX: 435-797-2693 email: brett.shelton@usu.edu Abstract : The presentation describes a team of instructional technology graduate students in their design and partial creation of an educational game based on a classic text using interactive fiction (IF). The team experiences IF through play and critical analysis before becoming mini-content experts. The resulting game is a new media text aimed at 9th grade English students who may experience the piece in ways expected (reading comprehension, literary device) and unexpected (spatial skill, problem solving). Overview The Instructional Games class at Utah State University is composed of graduate students in Instructional Technology. The students explore the field of instructional gaming through a survey of readings, existing products, and those in development. The class considers: • What is the emerging nature of this field? • What are the elements of an effective game? • What makes for “good” instructional design within a gaming environment? A large emphasis of the class is in the examination of current research. In-class activity centers on readings and class discussion. Out-of-class activity includes exposure to and the playing of games, and the creation of students’ own game design. A list of research and readings attempts to span the spectrum of learning theory, game theory, and instructional game research that includes Aldrich, Crawford, Gee, Wolf, Kirriemuir, Koster, Miller, Squire and many others (a full list is available at http://itoutreach.ed.usu.edu/~bshelton/courses/instgames/index.htm). Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the course is choosing a viable, appropriate topic in which to build an educational game, and to implement it in an appropriate game-like medium. This year’s class chose to utilize the classic gaming genre of IF to implement high school English curriculum of studying classic poetry text. The students in this class chose the design and creation of an instructional game based on Edgar Lee Masters’ work Spoon River Anthology (1915) using the medium of IF. The students, acting as instructional game designers and developers, experience the medium of IF through play and critical analysis (Montfort (2003) and Granade works, among others) then dive into an unfamiliar computer language in order to transform a classic text into something new. The students in this class transform Spoon River Anthology into a new media text aimed at 9th grade English students (and teachers) who may experience and analyze the piece in ways expected (reading comprehension, poetry, literary devices) and unexpected (computer language, confidence and self-esteem, problem solving) (i.e., Robertson & Good, 2005). Further research involving this project will examine some of these expected and unexpected learning outcomes. Why Interactive Fiction? IF is a genre that provides players the opportunity to experience text in a way that blends entertainment and education. IF is a game format that tells a narrative or story by offering a text-based description of a series of locations, non-playing characters (NPC), and rich description. The player interacts with the narrative through a computer program that parses the player’s text responses and