A walk in the park. Or Castle. Or forest.

As I have been fortunate enough to have experimented with a variety of game genres, my approach to using games has evolved. Breaking free of the 'confines' of the game, and using not playing, has been central to this project.

During the first term, extending descriptions and sentences became a focus for development with my year 6 class.

The central advantage, for me, that using a digital world has over a piece of film or a picture is freedom. 

Physical freedom: To move, look, look again and change perspective on an environment. Enabling the children to simply walk, gaze at an idle detail, such as a tree or a candle on a wall. These 'experiences' and the control to examine and reexamine are similar to 'real world' observation and experience. Encouraging and developing the class to think with a writer's mind, and to extend the length of description, involved the child being able to imagine and 'see' the written experience in their mind first. The opportunity to have that in 3D computer-generated space proved to extremely valuable.

The rich and varied environmental detail available in modern computer games presents a previously unimaginable resource for exploring and creating new 'worlds' within the context of creative writing.
That leads to the second great freedom afforded by using video games.

Narrative freedom: The ability to adopt , or partially, or totally reject the narrative direction of a game. When used as a tool to inspire narrative, forcing a direction or context has proven to be challenging - particularly among higher ability writers. But there is no need. Within the context of the game, the woodland above leads to story line that takes you to fetch a set of gem stones for a priest. But it could be anywhere, and lead to anything. Using the 3D game engine as a standalone model enables children to patch this wood into and story we are reading or creating. Similarly, the house below provided and ideal environment to explore the internal lighting. What would the atmosphere inside a Tudor house be like? How can we describe walking around inside? Much better than looking at pictures, simply use the game, and walk in!

Looking out of the top floor window, on to the street below at dawn. Hearing your own creaking footsteps, the muffled conversations of passers by and the tweeting of birds led to extended descriptive writing that carried through the children's work. Leading to a happy teacher!

The game used in this instance was - long title alert - The Elder scrolls IV: Oblivion. It was released  in March 2006, when my current class were just 4. It runs perfectly well (surprisingly) on my modest dual core  work laptop, and was bought for a whole £3!

Examples of Children creating their own narrative from a shared experience in a game world:

 A tale of kidnapping and escape.

A story that turned out to be based in a boarding school - told through flashback - a device we used 'Another Code: R to look at.