What is Literacy-first Activity

This chapter explores pedagogical goals and classroom practices for literacy instruction with/in a digital learning environment that extends beyond the classroom. To do this, the authors developed a process for literate practices illustrated through game design. Game design is one example of a disciplinary activity that masks the complexity of writing yet provides teachers with opportunities to make visible the writing practices and genres inherent in all disciplines. Game developers are writers and game development is a ‘literacy-first' activity, a process that underscores the complex and considered choices authors or designers make in specific rhetorical contexts. Pedagogical goals and classroom practices at all levels of literacy education must encourage greater collaboration, privilege informal and situated learning, and promote decision-making, student self-monitoring, and lifelong learning. The chapter concludes by describing a project framework that can be adapted at all educational levels using game design as a model.