Games are a natural way to allow students to fail in a safe way, learn from failures and try again until they succeed. Some games, like Burnout Paradise* make failure fun. In the game, players can crash their cars – and the more spectacular the crash, the higher the points. This allows players to essentially learn from their mistakes, correct them and try again. The late video game theorist and author Jesper Juul wrote in his book, “The Art of Failure,” that losing in video games is part of what makes games so engaging. Failing in a game makes the player feel inadequate, yet the player can immediately redeem themselves and improve their skills.

The use of video games in the classroom is nothing new. Many people who went to school in the 1970s through the 1990s may recall the iconic video game The Oregon Trail, which made its debut in a classroom in 1971.

Students are able to see their own work with new eyes, to identify what they have and haven't included in their writing.

If a student has fallen short in many areas, completing that left-hand column will take more time than simply highlighting a pre-written analytic rubric.

This is where we see the main advantage of the analytic rubric: It gives students a clearer picture of why they got the score they got. It is also good for the teacher, because it gives her the ability to justify a score on paper, without having to explain everything in a later conversation.

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