"6th grade students loved Amun-Re in the library so much they came back on their own after school to play another game."

~Brian Mayer
Genesee Valley BOCES
Le Roy, NY

"Instead of looking at single games to align to curriculum, start with a curriculum unit in mind and find games to support it."

~Christopher Harris
Genesee Valley BOCES
LeRoy, NY

Curriculum Aligned Game Units:
A Middle School Example

Elba Central School District, Elba, NY

The School Library System of Genesee Valley BOCES is a rural library consortium that serves Genesee, Livingston, Steuben and Wyoming counties in NY, a service population of about 27,000 students.

School librarians provide resources to support the classroom curriculum. These games are another resource – like a book, magazine or database – that help connect students with the curriculum. As the Genesee Valley BOCES School Library System game library was developed, staff knew that finding modern board games on beginner’s level would be challenging. Student expectations and curricular focus are both very strong but we have found through working with talented professional teacher-librarians it can be a very successful learning experience.

You don’t have to be a hardcore gamer to see the potential for using games as a curriculum aligned instructional resource. Take the case of Christine Ferris, the K-12 librarian for Elba Central School District in Elba, New York. Working in a small district of just under 550 students, Christine is always looking for new ways to bring resources into the school.

To help support a fifth grade class studying ancient civilizations, she asked the director of the local School Library System, Christopher Harris, to think about developing collections of games to support certain units.

Fitting games to curriculum instead of arranging curriculum to incorporate specific games requires approaching games in much the same way that librarians already approach books. The search for games to support a middle school unit looking at ancient civilizations was a tumultuous search, fraught with all the danger and excitement that one might expect from a romp through the ancient days of gladiators, barbarian conquests, and Mongol assaults. In other words, not all the games selected for this unit ended up working as well as expected.

Implementing Modern Board Games into the Curriculum

When selecting modern board games for education, Brian Mayer of Genesee Valley BOCES developed four criteria:

1. The game must be an authentic game, with quality game design, not a game designed just to teach a lesson.
2. The games must meet curriculum standards, so it can be as easily justified as any other library resource.
3. The game must be playable in a standard class period. Games for use in study halls or to create casual reinforcements in a class need to be set up, learned, and played in about 40 minutes.
4. The game's return on investment is important. If a teacher is going to spend a week of class periods on a game, then it had better be the one of the best ways for students to learn a topic.

All of these games passed the first test; they are all authentic games. When we looked at the second criterion, that the game must be curriculum aligned, some didn’t do so well. An example is Roma. While it is a fun little game, the dice rolling mechanic just didn’t seem to fit well enough with the ancient Rome theme to let us recommend the game as a curriculum supporting resource.

The third test looks at time; setting up, learning, playing, and picking up a game takes time, sometimes a great deal of time. This is where we got worried about a few games. Perikles provides an incredibly in-depth look at ancient Greece, but takes two hours to play. In addition, it has a great deal of set-up and take down issues with tons of little wooden cubes. While this does not always remove a game from consideration, it makes us evaluate it more closely in the fourth step: does the game provide a strong return on investment? Again, Roma didn’t do so well; sure, there is a very low investment, but the return for learning is also pretty low. Perikles provided a decent level of learning, but the level of investment pushed it well out of the reach of our middle school audience (more of a college level game, probably).

The final selections all did well in the evaluations. They provide a nice mixture of play styles and play times while providing a high level of enrichment and learning through game mechanics and themes. These four games are all middle school appropriate, and most can be taught and played in a single class period.

Illiad (Asmodee USA) is a fast-paced card game that involves characters and other historical aspects of the Trojan War. Amun-Re (Rio Grande Games) is an auction game that has players bidding to claim territories in Ancient Egypt that they will then improve with farms and pyramids.

• Chang Cheng (Z-Man Games) immerses players in the political intrigues of ancient China as they work to build the Great Wall; completing a section wins you glory, but if your section is attacked by Mongols you fall into disfavor with the emperor.
• Tribune (Fantasy Flight Games), our Roma replacement, is a 30 minute game where players fight to control the factions of the city in order to gain favors and meet victory conditions.

Literacy Connections

One nice feature of these games is that they are all language independent. After players learn the rules, there is no additional reading required during game play. This allows students for whom reading is a challenge, or students who are English language learners, to engage in a critical thinking task without worrying about language. This makes higher order thinking and our 21st-century learning skills more accessible to all, regardless of reading level.

Impact

Assessments can be formal or informal and are at the discretion of the school librarian and classroom teachers. Again, these games are being used in the classroom as part of lessons and units. Their value is measured by their ability to help students understand and connect with the curriculum, as well as to engage the students in an enjoyable experience. The latter is easily determined through conversation and feedback, while the prior becomes evident through more formal testing.

Funding $171.89

Games were provided by the School Library System of Genesee Valley BOCES.

• Amun-Re $39.95
• Iliad $21.99
• Tribune $59.95
• Chang Cheng $50.00

Resources

For more information, please contact Christopher Harris at infomancy@gmail.com.

Amun-Re. Rio Grande Games. www.riograndegames.com/search.html. February 10, 2009.

Chang Cheng. Z-Man Games. www.zmangames.com/boardgames/chang_cheng.htm. February 10, 2009.

Iliad. Asmodee USA. www.asmodee-us.com/games/iliad/iliad.php. Feburary 10, 2009.

Tribune. Fantasy Flight Games. new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=17. February 10, 2009.

Mayer, Brian. Library Gamer. librarygamer.wordpress.com/. January 5, 2009.
Devoted to board and tabletop games in the school library, and connecting them to curriculum.

Nicholson, Scott. "Power Grid with Friedemann Freise." Board Games With Scott. May 19, 2006. www.boardgameswithscott.com/?p=35.

Genesee Valley BOCES. Swift Six. sls.gvboces.org/gaming/. January 5, 2009.
Resources for board gaming in school libraries.

Board Game Geek. www.boardgamegeek.com. January 5, 2009.
Tabletop game reviews and discussion.

Board Game News. www.boardgamenews.com. January 5, 2009.
Covers gaming news and reviews of designed board and card games.

AASL. Standards for the 21st Century Learner. AASL, 2008.
www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslproftools/
learningstandards/standards.cfm
The American Association of School Librarians document on the ability to use a range of tools and skills (technological, interpersonal, communication) to effectively participate in the workforce.