Birmingham universities to study how video games can teach Shakespeare

Two Birmingham universities are to investigate whether video games can help get young people interested in Shakespeare, in what they say will be the first large-scale study of its kind.

The Shakespeare Arcade project, run by the University of Birmingham and Aston University, has been awarded £590,000 by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It aims to understand what video games could offer the future of English teaching.

"Strange bedfellows"

Professor Erin Sullivan, of the University of Birmingham's Shakespeare Institute, said: "Shakespeare and video games might at first seem like strange bedfellows, but the truth is there is a long and rich tradition of adapting Shakespeare's plays to new media."

"The Shakespeare Arcade will introduce the public to the world of Shakespeare-inspired video games and highlight how game developers might use classic texts in the future," she said. "We are delighted that this project brings together two Birmingham universities to support the development of digital media and the creative arts in our vibrant city and region."

From microgames to indie titles

The team will start by surveying the video games that already adapt Shakespeare, from homemade microgames to commercial independent titles. It will look at which plays have been turned into games, which genres have been used to reinterpret them, and how features such as interactive mechanics and storytelling design can shed new light on the texts.

The findings will be published on a new free website, also called The Shakespeare Arcade, which will act as a gateway to Shakespeare-inspired games, with guidance on their content, scope and the technology needed to play them.

Into the classroom

The project will also look at how the games could be used in schools, and how they might fit the national curriculum and exam requirements.

Dr Sarah Olive, senior lecturer in communication and culture at Aston University, said: "Educators have always drawn on the latest technologies to engage students and facilitate learning, from cinefilm to chatbots."

"The Shakespeare Arcade is an exciting opportunity to expand existing resources and ways of teaching his works and literary classics more widely. While we focus on secondary schools, elements of our work will be applicable from primary school to higher education classrooms."

Working with the English Association and the National Association for the Teaching of English, the team will introduce the project to English teachers across the UK and recruit a group of "teaching champions" to try selected games in their lessons.

The researchers will then study how teachers and pupils respond to the games and whether they make a difference to motivation and learning. That work will feed into a series of lesson plans for Key Stages 3 and 4, the years in which most pupils in the UK study Shakespeare. The resources will be free to use.

The University of Birmingham's Shakespeare Institute is based at Mason Croft in Stratford-upon-Avon, the playwright's birthplace, and has been a centre for the study of his work since the 1950s.