Wouldn’t it be nice to trade studying math and chemistry for playing video games in school? This seemingly impossible dream has become a reality for English teacher John Kellogg from Southern Oregon. Kellogg, also known as AnonymousCerealBowl, started a Video Games as Literature class around a year ago, allowing his students to choose games for the curriculum. Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption and its 2018 sequel emerged as the most popular picks.
After creating the class, Kellogg applied for a grant to equip the students with 30 consoles, which he successfully secured. He also wrote booklets for Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2, tasking students to analyze the games’ protagonists from a literary perspective. As part of the studies, students track their major moral choices and gameplay styles while playing, and then answer questions along their journey, discussing topics such as positive and negative actions performed by the game characters.
Kellogg commented, “I’ve won multiple grants over the 2 years my class has existed. I’ve gotten grants for Red Dead class sets, Pokemon games and gameboys, What Remains of Edith Finch, and I just got a $5,000 grant from my state’s NBA team. There are grants out there if you’re a good enough writer to get them. They did fund 24 Xbox consoles, 2 PS5s, and 4 Nintendo Switches. The class was named Video Games as Literature because we already had a class named Films as Literature.”
Furthermore, Kellogg shared the RDR booklet on Patreon, allowing anyone to access its content for a mere $5.
