Hello, friends of CMich Press and The Blue Way!
We are fast approaching the launch date for The Blue Way, and we are so excited! One of the coolest things that we are looking forward to sharing with you is the new Curriculum Guide, authored by Dr. Jonathan Truitt and Dr. Ray Kimball. While a curriculum guide for a game may sound strange — and it may sound even stranger to be excited about it — we have good reason! We’ll explain…
You may (or may not) be surprised to hear that the games in CMich Press’ Scholarship & Lore series, like The Blue Way, actually go through peer review before they go to crowdfunding. That means that the games are sent out to experts in the game’s content area AND experts in game mechanics for edits. Our goal with these games is that if you are an educator who uses games in the classroom, they will perform well in that space as a teaching tool. At the same time, we want to ensure that any game we put forth will play well in a recreational space for folks who are seeking something rewarding and different. And so — voila! CMich Press games are unique labors of love that do both.
Now to the Curriculum Guide. The curriculum guides we publish for games in the Scholarship & Lore series are aimed at people who wish to use the games in an educational space. However, The Blue Way Curriculum Guide will be different. Part of the teaching tools included in the guide are new cards to use with the core version of The Blue Way. With this addition, we hope that even non-educators will be interested in taking the new deck for a whirl!
Today, we want to share a Q&A with Dr. Jon Truitt, one of the authors of The Blue Way Curriculum Guide and primary designer of the expansion cards, to give you a glimpse of the cool things in store with this project. Enjoy!
Q: What is your background/connection to education and games?
JT: I am a professor of Latin American History, a co-designer of the Reacting to the Past Game Mexico in Revolution, and I have been the director or co-director of the CLGS [Central Michigan University Center for Learning through Games and Simulations] since it started.
Q: What did your process look like for creating the Curriculum Guide?
JT: I am creating expansions for the game that professors can use in new settings. My process has been going through lecture notes or back through books that I use in my scholarly research on colonial Mexico. My aim is to muddy the waters on colonialism a bit. It used to be that people praised colonialism, now they proclaim its evils (as we should), but if we focus solely on the bad we miss a lot of the other human experiences that happened in that space. As I have researched Mexico I have fallen in love with that culture. I mourn the loss of indigenous cultures but I also love the Mexico that we have and the people who make it. I want players and students to understand the human experience that made up the colonial era and I want them to be able to see some of the good alongside all of the bad of the moment.
Q: What element was the most challenging to develop?
JT: Getting the balance right so that it doesn’t seem like praise for the colonial period is something that really concerns me. I am not trying to praise colonialism. I am trying to insert some more mundane human interaction into some of the expansions. I am also trying to give more indigenous agency to the game in some of the models that I am trying to build. I haven’t finished them yet, thus the difficult part, but I am hoping to give some power back to some indigenous voices that are overlooked in the current historical understanding of the period.
Q: What from The Blue Way and its Curriculum Guide would you be most excited to use in your own teaching space?
JT: I am excited to use all of it. I am using it to teach the early contact period of colonial Mexico.
Q: Do you have any advice for educators who are considering using games in their classrooms but haven’t made the leap yet?
JT: Replace your worst lecture with a game. If it is already your worst, it isn’t going to get even weaker! You will get more buy in from the students. Let them know you are experimenting and want their feedback.
Q: Do you have anything else you’d like to share?
JT: The game is still a work of fiction. It is an amalgamation of experiences from various colonial spaces. We are just trying to make it something that creates an opening for conversation about the period.
Thanks, Jon!
We are so excited to share the new cards and curriculum guide for The Blue Way with you soon! Make sure to follow the prelaunch page for The Blue Way to jump on the Backer Train on June 16th when it launches!