10 Ways to Gamify Your ELA Class

Let's admit it. Getting students to engage in learning since COVID has been a bit of a struggle. It just seems like some of those tried and true methods aren't working for as many of our students as usual. There's no need to get discouraged though. We simply need to do what teachers do best - use our creativity to adapt. 

 I've found that incorporating more game-style interactions into my lessons and assignments has not only increased engagement, but also learning. As a result, I've developed a lot of ELA games that my students love to play. If you'd like to do the same, check out these 10 tips on ELA gamification.

Make it a Competition

The easiest way to gamify anything is to simply make it a competition. Who will find the literary device first? Which group can find the most evidence? Which pair can find and fix the most errors? You get the idea.  

This strategy may seem overused, but it truly works! In fact, when I proposed a competition between my classes to see who could achieve the highest average grade by the end of the semester, they improved their class percentages by a whopping 15%-20% in just 2 weeks. 

Keep this in mind though. If you have high achievers who seem to win everything, it's important to have runner-up winners or alternative paths to winning (like the most creative answer in addition to the right answer). For example, I also told my classes that if every student in the class were to pass, they would automatically win the prize. This kept them motivated even when they were behind.

Offer Incentives

As you read the last section, you were probably wondering what prize was offered to the students, and you would be on the right track. Incentives can be very valuable not just to the students, but to us as teachers as well.  For the class competition, I offered a party day to the winning class. To my students, this means a movie and snacks. Yes, this still works in high school. 

However, you don't have to spend money on an entire party every time you need to motivate your students. In fact, you don't need to spend any money at all. My students actually helped me come up with some free rewards that were right there in my classroom.  For example, for individual rewards, they asked for things like sitting in the bean bag chair corner, sitting in the extra teacher's chair, and taking a 3-minute break outside. For class rewards, they asked for a few minutes of "free time" and games. It was a good negotiation.

When I do have a little extra money at the store, of course, I'll buy some candy to toss around the room, but I've found that using these cheap raffle tickets can greatly reduce the use of candy, and they work just as well.  The student or the group with the most tickets at the end of class gets to choose to turn the tickets in for candy or extra credit.

Use a Bit of Luck

Another fun way to gamify something is to add a little bit of luck.  This is great for differentiation. By adding an element of chance to something, you give every student equal footing and opportunities to recover, which can keep them motivated throughout the activity. I like to use dice and cards for this type of gamification. 

There are many exciting ways to use dice in writing games, but my favorite is Author's Choice or Chance. It asks students to use literary devices while depending on the luck of the dice to find out which ones are worth the most points. The dice reveal is always a room full of yells, groans, and pounding on tables!

Card games are a little more complex to make, as they require a lot of prep and planning, but they automatically put students in game mode, no matter how much content is connected. My favorite ELA card game is QUATRO. This review game plays like UNO, so it's familiar for most students, but the card attacks involve reviewing whatever content you're teaching. It's perfect for ELA test prep!

Allow for Movement

You may have noticed that your students seem a little extra hyper and social these days, and it's no wonder with them being locked up in their homes for so long. That's why it's so important to allow them to move and interact as much as possible.

Many teachers use stations in their room for exactly this reason, and you can use that same strategy in your games. Perhaps they have to visit each station to be the first group to complete a content puzzle, or maybe they have to talk to various station representatives to reveal the clues to a hidden answer.

If you're one of the unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on how you look at it) few who are coming back after break to remote learning, don't worry - there are options for you too. They may not be able to move around each other, but they can move manipulatives on the screen, which can be just as engaging. You can add manipulatives to your live Google slideshow with the Pear Deck add-on. It allows you to add multiple choice questions, drawing, dragging, and more. My favorite game using this tool is Literary Chairs. It's like Musical Chairs for literary devices! There's a Jamboard version too if you don't want to spring for the Pear Deck add-on, but I highly recommend the add-on if you want increase engagement in your lessons.

Introduce Some Mystery

Mystery is on trend right now, and I'm seeing lots of great stuff being shared as a result.  The most popular idea out there is the book-specific crime scene. This creates a fun investigative approach to see which student group can solve the murder based on the details you've left around the room - a very relatable hook for those Shakespearean tragedies!

Another mysterious game for those super social students is the Among Us speaking game. This game allows the students to create the mystery themselves as they try to guess who the Imposter is. It's a great community builder for midway through the year, and the students love the references to the video game.

Give Them Suspense

A little trick for making any game more exciting is to give them a little bit of suspense. When you take an exaggerated amount of time to reveal who's in the lead, what the next gameshow question is, or simply even to say go before releasing them to compete, you are taking advantage of the excitement and energy building in the room. It's a small trick, but you know as a teacher that presentation is everything!

Add a Few Levels

You're probably a pro at scaffolding curriculum, so it should be easy enough for you to incorporate this same process into your ELA game.  By adding levels, you're giving students checkpoints in their learning as well as in the game and rewarding them for more work and/or more complex thinking. For example, in level one, teams just have to identify the literary device. In level two, they have to interpret it's meaning, and in level 3, they have to analyze author's purpose. Just make sure your incentives reflect the difficulty of the level, or you won't have buy-in!

If you need something in a pinch, there are always online ELA games that have levels attached to achievement.

Invite Fantasy

When we allow students to fantasize, we offer them a break from reality and the opportunity to be a little silly. This is great for community building and for getting students to invest in your class. As English teachers, we usually offer opportunities for acting out dramas and writing creative stories of course, but what would happen if we took those to the next level with gamification?

For drama, you could challenge teams to guess which book character their teammate is, or for journal time, challenge them to a first-line competition. As for me, I love to use the speaking game Story Ball to get my students to be creative on the fly, and I recently started using Journal Games to get them reengaged in creative and reflective writing. 

Give Them a Choice

If you want to compete with the games students are playing these days, you need to give them some form of control over the parameters. This may mean they get to choose their character, choose their own adventure, or even choose the game of the day - as long as it's a learning game of course! There are even online platforms that allow your students to play an RPG (Role Playing Game for you noobs) as they complete lessons for your class.

Tackle the Tough Stuff

Choosing what to gamify can be difficult, but I don't recommend going with the easy stuff. Although that will often be a less time-consuming process than something more difficult, you need to consider if it's even needed.  If the kids are learning the content the traditional way no problem, there's no need to overcomplicate it. However, if there's something that they really struggle with, whether in terms of engagement or achievement, then that's something you should tackle.

My students struggled the most with grammar, and they hated all the traditional methods, so I wanted to try something new. I took the most simple game I knew, Bingo, and I adapted it into a Sentence Error Bingo Game that engaged them in proofreading their own writing! Later, I was even able to make a digital version for the distance learning period. It worked like a charm, and now they regularly ask to play, not realizing that they're actually asking to work on editing! This result really inspired my initial love for gamification.

It's not the only solution out there, but gamification, as discussed in my previous blog, has been proven to increase engagement and learning across the grade levels. Because of this, more and more learning games are being used in ELA classrooms.

If you have an ELA or ELL game your students love to play, please share it in the comments! I'm always looking for new ways to engage.