Play the Knave Research Study
We are currently conducting a research study into how digital gaming technology helps students understand Shakespeare and make connections between his plays and social justice concerns. In collaboration with Cape Town theater artist and high school teacher Lauren Bates of Educasions, we have created a highly engaging program that uses Play the Knave and physical theater games to teach Shakespeare’s tragedies. The lesson plans focus on connecting the tragedies to recent historical events and issues today’s students care about. We offer options for lessons on:
Detailed lesson plans can be viewed and downloaded from the appendix to Experimenting with Shakespeare: Games and Play in the Laboratory (2024).
Through this research project, we are able to make equipment and material available to teachers at no cost.
- Romeo and Juliet
- Macbeth
- Othello
- Hamlet
Detailed lesson plans can be viewed and downloaded from the appendix to Experimenting with Shakespeare: Games and Play in the Laboratory (2024).
Through this research project, we are able to make equipment and material available to teachers at no cost.
- Teachers in or near Davis, CA should fill out our Knave Kit Loan form and indicate interest in the research study.
- Teachers in or near Cape Town should contact Lauren Bates at [email protected] to schedule a visit.
- Teachers in Johannesburg should contact [email protected] to discuss options.
Research in Action
The presentation below describes some of our research in South African schools:
Past Publications
Play the Knave is informed by extensive research in the fields of game studies, education, theater, and performance. The publications on this page have informed Play the Knave’s development and/or explore the game’s educational and cultural impact.
Play the Knave
2024
2021
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2024
- Gina Bloom, Evan Buswell, Colin Milburn, and Nicholas Toothman. Experimenting with Shakespeare: Games and Play in the Laboratory (EMC Imprint, University of California, Santa Barbara).
2021
- Gina Bloom and Lauren Bates, “Play to Learn: Shakespeare as Decolonial Praxis in South African Schools.” Shakespeare in Southern Africa 34 (2021): 7-22. (link downloads a PDF)
- Gina Bloom, Nicholas Toothman, and Evan Buswell, “Playful Pedagogy and Social Justice: Digital Embodiment in the Shakespeare Classroom.” Shakespeare Survey, 74, special issue on Shakespeare and Education. (link downloads a PDF)
2019
- Gina Bloom, “Play the Knave.” In Learning, Education, and Games, Volume 3: 100 Games to Use in the Classroom and Beyond. Ed. Karen Schrier. ETC Press, Carnegie Mellon University. (link downloads a PDF)
2018
- Gina Bloom, Gaming the Stage: Playable Media and the Rise of English Commercial Theater, Theater: History/Text/Performance series (University of Michigan Press).
2017
- Sarah Asnaashari, Gina Bloom, and Amanda Shores. “Teaching Shakespeare through Performance in the 21st Century: Play the Knave in the English Language Arts Classroom.” (link downloads a PDF)
2016
- Gina Bloom, Sawyer Kemp, Nicholas Toothman, and Evan Buswell, “‘A Whole Theatre of Others’: Amateur Acting and Immersive Spectatorship in the Digital Shakespeare Game Play the Knave.” Shakespeare Quarterly, special issue on “#Bard,” ed. Douglas Lanier, 67.4, 408-430. (link downloads a PDF)
2015
- Gina Bloom. “Videogame Shakespeare: Enskilling Audiences through Theater-Making Games,” Shakespeare Studies 43, special forum on “Skill,” ed. Evelyn Tribble. (link downloads a PDF)
Related Publications by our Research Team
2024
2019
2018
2015
2014
2013
2012
2010
2008
2024
- Gina Bloom, “Classroom Play: Strategies for Teaching Shakespeare with Games.” In Shakespeare/ Play, ed. Emma Whipday (The Arden Shakespeare, 2023), 365-374.
2019
- Gina Bloom,“Theater History in 3D: The Digital Early Modern in the Age of the Interface.” English Literary Renaissance, special issue on “The State of Renaissance Studies II,” 50.1 (2019): 8-16. (link downloads a PDF)
2018
- Colin Milburn, Respawn: Gamers, Hackers, and Technogenic Life, Experimental Futures (Duke University Press).
2015
- Colin Milburn, Mondo Nano: Fun and Games in the World of Digital Matter (Duke University Press).
2014
- Michael Neff, “Lessons from the Arts: What the Performing Arts Literature Can Teach Us about Creating Expressive Character Movement,” in Nonverbal Communication in Virtual Worlds (ETC Press).
2013
- Gina Bloom, “Games,” in Early Modern Theatricality, Oxford Twenty-First Century Approaches to Literature, Henry S. Turner, ed. (Oxford University Press).
2012
- Gina Bloom, “‘My Feet See Better Than My Eyes’: Spatial Mastery and the Game of Masculinity in Arden of Faversham’s Amphitheater,” in Theatre Survey 53.1. (link downloads a PDF)
2010
- Gina Bloom, “‘Boy Eternal’: Aging, Games, and Masculinity in The Winter’s Tale,” in English Literary Renaissance 40.3. (link downloads a PDF)
- Gina Bloom, “Manly Drunkenness: Binge Drinking as Disciplined Play,” in Masculinity and the Metropolis of Vice, 1550-1650, Amanda Bailey and Roze Hentschell, eds. (Palgrave). (link downloads a PDF)
- Colin Milburn,“Digital Matters: Video Games and the Cultural Transcoding of Nanotechnology,” in Governing Future Technologies: Nanotechnology and the Rise of an Assessment Regime, eds. Mario Kaiser, Monika Kurath, Sabine Maasen, and Christoph Rehmann-Stuuer (Springer).
2008
- Colin Milburn, “Atoms and Avatars: Virtual Worlds as Massively Multiplayer Laboratories,” Spontaneous Generations 2.
UC Davis Undergraduate Research in California Schools
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Elementary School
Middle School
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Presentations about ResearchOur teaching interns have brought Play the Knave to K-12 schools across Northern California and studied its effectiveness for student learning. Watch these presentations about the game’s impact.
Overview of 2017-18 Research Program
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High School
High School
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Learn more:
Curriculum Review: An assessment of a lesson plan using Play the Knave that was developed to fit the California Common Core Curriculum and taught in a ninth grade classroom.
| curriculum_review_of_play_the_knave.pdf |
Play the Knave is included in the book Learning, Education and Games: 100 Games to Use in the Classroom and Beyond. Access the entire book or download below the chapter about Play the Knave.
| learning_education_and_games_play_the_knave.pdf |
