Writing for Fun: Using Play in the College Writing Classroom

Abstract

In order to better understand how play can be used as a learning tool to teach students in college writing courses, this dissertation examines how play is used in the undergraduate college writing classroom. Using a qualitative case study and narrative inquiry, instructors and students in the University of Minnesota’s (UMN) Writing Studies department active between fall of 2021 and spring of 2023 were surveyed and interviewed to gain perspectives on what play is and how play has been used in the UMN college writing classrooms. Those surveys and interviews were then analyzed through modified grounded theory that focused on participants’ narrative voice and storytelling elements. The results of this study found that play is too contextual to have a single answer to how play is used in the undergraduate college writing classroom. However, participants recognized six specific dimensions that help describe classroom play. Those dimensions help define play in writing as: enjoyable, creative, generative, embodied, flexible, and social. Results of my study also found that, within the UMN writing classroom, play is being used to increase engagement, innovation, and agency. Participants noted more understanding of the writing process and rhetorical context as well. Overall, participants in this study agreed that play is a useful pedagogical tool and should be used more in the college writing classroom. While this study is limited to the context of the UMN Writing Studies classrooms, it identifies ways that play can be used to teach students in a college writing course. By connecting the findings to scholarship, this study offers recommendations on how play can be implemented into college-level writing curriculum. Further research could expand in other contextual directions to find other ways that play could be used to teach in the undergraduate writing classroom.