Situating Rhetorical Listening as a Collaborative Pedagogical Tool

by: Julia Kiernan , November 19, 2024

Introduction

Some years ago, I engaged in a routine collegial teaching observation: my department head was sitting in on one of my first-year courses. The observation occurred about halfway through the semester. The students and I were familiar with each other, and we began the class as usual: in a circle with each of my twenty students being offered the opportunity to reflect briefly on that day’s readings (which, as you can imagine, took up about a third of a 75-minute class). Two student presentations followed this exercise. During this class (in common with most of my classes) I offered some organisational and logistical guidance, reflective comments, and questions—I probably spoke for less than twenty minutes.

In other words, my class was deeply seated in the act of listening. This is how I had been teaching for more than a decade, and it did not seem odd to me until I sat down with my then-department chair for a debrief. He was agitated and articulated various levels of concern about this rhetorical and—I would suggest—feminist approach to teaching. While I did my best to explain my practices, and while this meeting did not influence me to change my pedagogical emphasis on promoting student-centred, active learning via foregrounding my classroom listening, the inclusion of this exchange points to the fact that this observation has stayed with me. This is despite a series of follow-up conversations with the same colleague, who, after some pedagogical reflection on the deficits associated with lecturing, came around to acknowledging the merit of an approach to teaching that centres the act of listening.

I begin with this story because I want to emphasise that what may seem a normal practice to some is clearly not to others; there is a continued need to share feminist teaching practices and, in many cases, offer a research-framed explanation as to why these approaches are not only necessary but central in improving student learning. Moreover, there is a need to observe, pause, listen, and (perhaps) sit with the discomfort or unfamiliarity for a while before passing judgment. Such a move is not only rhetorical but also feminist.

I also choose to foster a collaborative learning environment by prioritising student voices. These moves actively challenge traditional hierarchical classroom structures and disrupt conventional power dynamics wherein the instructor is the primary authority. As I argue throughout this essay, listening and collaboration promote a more equitable space where students’ experiences and insights are foregrounded. Furthermore, emphasising listening and collaboration, I encourage critical thinking and self-awareness among students, key components of feminist pedagogy. This approach aligns closely with Judith Butler’s arguments in her essay, ‘For a Careful Reading,’ where she emphasises the importance of attentiveness and consideration in feminist discourse. Butler advocates for a mode of engagement that prioritises listening and understanding, a practice that resists the impulse to dominate or prescribe. In my teaching, I embody Butler’s call for careful, respectful engagement by foregrounding student voices and creating a space where student voices are central. This challenges traditional power dynamics in the classroom and fosters an environment where critical thinking and self-awareness can flourish. In aligning Butler’s philosophical stance on careful reading with rhetorical listening, I underscore the importance of a feminist approach to education that values and amplifies diverse perspectives.

For the remainder of this article, I invite you to stay awhile and ruminate on my pedagogical approaches. What I would like you to do is focus on what you see as problematic or uncomfortable and, at these moments, give pause and offer yourself the opportunity to consider not only why my approach may not be palatable, but also how your own teaching and how your own students’ experiences may change if you adopted some of the rhetorical listening mindsets and methods I offer.

Literature Review

My seminar-style game studies courses primarily focus on social and humanistic inquiry, particularly feminist and intersectional topics that are firmly grounded in tenets of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In this move to include a feminist learning mindset, my approach builds upon earlier feminist pedagogical work in STEM disciplines. For instance, Maria K. Udén’s (2017) ‘Implementing Feminist Theory in Engineering: Obstacles within the Gender Studies Tradition’ highlights the critical role of collaboration in engineering education. Udén identifies several key obstacles, such as the traditionally male-dominated culture of engineering and the resistance to feminist perspectives. She argues that integrating feminist theory into engineering requires collaborative efforts to dismantle biases and promote inclusivity. By advocating for collaborative and socially aware approaches to engineering problems, Udén demonstrates how feminist theory can lead to more equitable and reflective practices.

This perspective underscores the necessity of collaborative frameworks in STEM education, where diverse voices and experiences are not only included, but are central to rethinking and reshaping the disciplines. Similarly, Anne Fausto-Sterling’s (2003) article ‘Science Matters, Culture Matters’ underscores the importance of collaboration at the intersection of scientific practices and cultural contexts. Fausto-Sterling argues that societal values and norms deeply influence science learning and that addressing these cultural influences requires collaborative efforts. Like Fausto-Sterling, I believe that building collaborative mindsets and skill sets within learning is essential for fostering inclusive and socially responsible learning spaces. This integrative and collaborative perspective is crucial for developing educational practices that are attuned to students’ diverse backgrounds and for addressing the broader societal implications of their work. By acknowledging the cultural and social dimensions of knowledge production, Udén and Fausto-Sterling provide important insights into the need for educational practices that promote critical reflection, collaboration, and equity—all essential components of feminist pedagogy.

These feminist moves align with Krista Ratcliffe’s rhetorical listening, which is fundamentally feminist in recognising the ‘privileges and non-privileges’ (2006: 32) of all classroom members. At the heart of rhetorical listening—particularly in the context of this article and game disciplines broadly—is the goal of shifting perspectives and reimagining curriculum to support underrepresented minority learners. As game programs continue to emerge and develop across post-secondary education, so does our catalogue of shared pedagogical strategies. My suggested integration of rhetorical listening as a pedagogical tool within games disciplines builds upon the earlier works of game education scholars. For instance, Shira Chess (2022) emphasises the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to foster inclusivity and innovation in game design.

Similarly, Anne Sullivan and Gillian Smith (2011) discuss the pedagogical strategies for teaching game design, emphasising creativity, collaboration, and hands-on learning. They explain that successful game design education involves fostering teamwork among students, where they can share diverse perspectives and skills. The authors advocate for project-based learning environments where students work in groups to design, develop, and iterate on game projects. This collaborative approach helps students build technical and artistic competencies and develop communication and problem-solving skills essential for the game industry; moreover, as I will show, this focus on collaboration could be strengthened if it incorporated a rhetorical listening mindset. Other educational researchers, such as Anastasia Salter and Bridget Blodgett (2017), advocate for community engagement to combat harassment and promote diversity in gaming spaces; inherently, this focus on community engagement to promote inclusion can also be addressed through a rhetorical listening approach. Salter and Blodgett call for collaborative strategies to combat harassment, promote diversity in gaming communities, and elaborate on the importance of community engagement and interdisciplinary efforts to create safer and more inclusive spaces. In many ways, this article’s suggestion of incorporating rhetorical listening into games classrooms is a direct response to Salter and Blodgett’s call; through offering the approach of rhetorical listening to support and promote student collaboration, I attempt to mitigate some pedagogical gaps in game studies by offering a pedagogical approach that emphasises the ways in which we can listen socio-culturally to marginalised groups across educational contexts and research (Cui 2019). As a teacher, I endeavour to cultivate classroom experiences that emphasise the many systemic injustices inherent within higher education and the broader gaming industry. In my efforts to interrogate and dismantle these injustices, I have adopted a rhetorical listening approach to teaching.

Coined by rhetorician Krista Ratcliffe in her 1999 essay ‘Rhetorical Listening: A Trope for Interpretive Invention and a ‘Code of Cross-Cultural Conduct’’, rhetorical listening sits at the intersection of rhetoric, feminist theory, and critical race studies. While born from the discipline of Rhetoric and Composition it has many pedagogical uses and implications in other academic settings like games classrooms, particularly those that align games studies with critical media studies, as is the case in my institution’s game studies program. As a pedagogical strategy, rhetorical listening positions education as a tool for empowerment and invites students to develop knowledge and skillsets that move against oppressive structures to achieve liberation (Freire 2000). In contextualising this approach, Ratcliffe and Jensen (2022) explain that ‘[a]ll audiences are invited to reflect on their own situated local conditions and imagine how a rhetorical listening education might fit their needs’ (11). However, rhetorical listening, while introduced by Ratcliffe, did not emerge from the ether: it builds upon the work of feminist and Black scholars in my discipline. For instance, Jacqueline Jones Royster, in her 1996 essay ‘When the Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own,’ discusses the potential harms of white oblivion:

[W]hen do we listen? How do we listen? How do we demonstrate that we honour and respect the person talking and what that person is saying, or what the person might say if we valued someone other than ourselves having a turn to speak? How do we translate listening into language and action into the creation of an appropriate response? How do we really ‘talk back’ rather than talk also? (620)

While listening has always been assumed in academia, Royster’s work points to the ways that it has been both racialised and gendered. She urges readers—teachers and colleagues—to reflect upon their own dialogical practices in the classroom and in meetings, hallway conversations, community settings, etc. Essentially, Ratcliffe’s concept is a response to Royster’s questions and is established as a ‘trope for interpretive invention’ and as ‘a code of cross-cultural conduct’ (Royster 1996: 196) that ‘signifies a stance of openness that a person may choose to assume in cross-cultural exchanges (Ratcliffe 2006: 1).

In her most recent publication, Ratcliffe—publishing with Jensen—explains the usefulness of adopting the strategy of rhetorical listening in ‘difficult-to-listen-to situations’ (2022: 1), which they describe as rhetorical problems. They explain two types of rhetorical problem, the first being when the communicator (teacher, student, etc.) ‘must express their ideas, feelings, values and beliefs in ways that their audiences can actually hear them, especially across differences’ and the second when the communicator ‘must open themselves to hear ideas, feelings, values, and beliefs, even those with which they disagree’ (2022: 1). As suggested in my introduction, the expansion of the discipline of gaming has called for more attunement to minority experiences (Malowski & Russworm, 2017) as many in the industry (and classroom) have been silenced, ignored, or remain unable to speak safely (Gray & Leonard 2018); rhetorical problems are important to gaming disciplines and—as this special issue contests—are increasingly important within classrooms populated by novice game designers, software developers, game artists, game writers, etc. f we are to truly prepare students to be industry professionals, particularly in an industry that is known for manifesting a ‘crunch culture’ that supports misogyny, racism, gender discrimination, and ableism; there is a real need for students to ‘recognise the situatedness and the constructed-ness of … belief systems and cultural systems … [p]eople need to articulate for themselves and others the possibilities and the limits of these systems’ (Ratcliffe & Jensen 2022: 7). We need to give students not only the tools to succeed in the classroom but also their professional lives. Rhetorical listening is one of these tools, as it prepares students to negotiate ‘competing perspectives and cross-cultural communication, especially in the service of civil discourse and social justice’ (Ratcliffe & Jensen 2022: 10).

Rhetorical listening, in essence, ‘works by inviting listeners to reposition themselves—to move from stances of dysfunctional silence [e.g., denial, defensiveness, guilt/blame] toward stances of rhetorical listening’ (Ratcliffe & Jensen 2022: 22) or quite simply: openness. The five moves of rhetorical listening include:

• assuming an open stance;
• considering competing positions side-by-side;
• pausing to hear and understand how these positions may or may not be commonplace;
• analysing and reflecting on how considering these positions allows for a deeper understanding of different audiences and perspectives;
• engaging in situations where all sides are heard and valued (Ratcliffe 1999; 2006; Ratcliffe & Jensen 2022).

In reading this essay, you may be engaging in the process of rhetorical listening yourself; particularly if you teach in an area of gaming that is framed by technical skills rather than focused on the socio-cultural skills inherent to the types of courses I teach.

Rhetorical listening embraces many dimensions of critical pedagogy—feminism being but one—in its attempt to make space for multiple dialogues. In this article, however, I focus on the need to engage in these dialogues in the classroom. To build upon Royster’s observations, these multiple dialogues, dependent upon the act of listening, must also be taken up by game faculty. As we build and connect new programs and assess and reassess the existing ones, there is a need to intentionally scaffold and connect coursework to support student learning transfer—to be successful professionals, students must understand the importance of collaboration within the broader industry. Students need to be familiar with and practice more than just technical skills. To become successful professionals, they need to be able to engage in meaningful conversations with their colleagues. Often these dialogues take place within the contact zone, a term Pratt has used ‘to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they lived out in many parts of the world today’ (1991: 34). As noted, dialogic collaboration is not only feminist in scope (Chess 2020; Sullivan & Smith 2011), but is also an important skillset for students-come-professionals. Depending on the size of the game development studio, there is often a need to work with colleagues in other departments (e.g., designers must coordinate with artists who work with programmers; audio engineers integrate sound with visuals and gameplay, etc.). In the classroom context, a rhetorical listening approach invites an examination of the complex and difficult moments that may occur in conversations and critiques, especially moments of conflict. Thus, dwelling in the contact zone is important because it enables a self-understanding of one’s intersecting identities through safe and open dialogue.

Rhetorical Listening as Pedagogical Intervention

In this section, I offer descriptive narratives of my approaches to teaching games. My classrooms do not replicate traditional, top-down, authoritative teaching practices like lecturing. Instead, I opt for flipped classrooms that engage in participatory pedagogy and active learning. Even the lower-level courses I teach are framed within a seminar style, which places student voices and experiences at the centre. I endeavour to position myself on equal footing with my students and stress that I am also a learner in the contact zone—one who may be an expert in some areas but not in others. Thus, my class sessions are designed to be student-led but structured around the act of listening; classes are spent unpacking student written reflections, listening to low and high-stakes presentations, and engaging in various forms of oral and written peer review.

Each of my classroom spaces is unique—and no two sections are alike—because students’ individual experiences, languages/dialects, and cultures are dynamic. My approaches to active and participatory learning foreground how dialogical communication, especially the act of listening, can support student agency, which I view as fundamental to student success. Wallace and Ewald define student agency as an inherent element of transformational pedagogy that ‘extend[s] beyond simply valuing students’ contributions to including those contributions in the construction of knowledge’ (2000: 101). To these ends, I regularly invite students not only to share, but also construct knowledge in terms of coursework and lived experiences; when provided with a sense of purpose and agency within the coursework, they can better transfer classroom learning to real-world experiences (personal and professional).

In my classrooms, students are invited to engage with ‘difficult-to-listen-to situations’ (Ratcliffe & Jensen 2022: 1) such as systemic injustice, consider their own lived experiences, and share their own perspectives. I encourage them to examine why topics such as racial inequality, sexism, and ableism are important to them, and how and why such topics are significant (or not) to their friends, families, and communities.

Most recently, I redesigned my sophomore course, Interactive Narrative Theory & Design, to respond to the enrolled demographic. It is a common practice of mine to review who is enrolled in my courses before the first meeting. This past fall, I noted that, unlike in previous years, a large demographic of the class was young Black men. As always, a large portion of coursework attends to ethical representation within interactive narrative spaces, readings, and discussions; students are invited to engage with the experiences of various marginalised populations (e.g., neurodivergent, LGBTQIA2S+, female, etc.). However, because Black youth, a historically under-represented group, populated this course, I revised the course reading list to include texts that I hoped would reverberate with these students—Kishonna Gray, André Brock, Lisa Nakamura, Jennifer Mallowski, TreAndrea Russworm, etc. While there was still a discussion of intersectionality, we more often than not focused on narrower topics like the harm and violence of racial representation within video games (Brock 2011; Gray 2022; Mallowski & Russworm 2017), especially narrative choices related to setting, character, and agency.

Another important topic we covered in this class was gaze. While most students were familiar with the sexual politics and objectification associated with the male gaze, students had not previously encountered the concept of White gaze (e.g., the predominant assumption by game designers that players/observers identify as White) or the ‘privileges and non-privileges’ (Ratcliffe 2006: 32) associated with White gaze. We used two texts to examine gaze within VR gaming, and students were encouraged to take on a ‘stance of openness’ (Ratcliffe 2006: 1). The first text was Kishonna Gray’s 2022 Humanities + Technology Lecture, ‘From #EpicWins to #TechFails: The Intersectional (In)accessibility of Gaming Technologies’; the second was Lisa Nakamura’s 2020 article, ‘Feeling Good about Feeling Bad: Virtuous Virtual Reality and the Automation of Racial Empathy.’

In Gray’s lecture, she explores the racial depiction of characters within games and games framed within the Black gaze; one example she gives is the game I Am A Man created by Derek Ham. This game offers an interactive VR experience around the events of the African American civil rights movement, particularly the events leading up to the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. As Gray notes, this VR experience is unique in that it uses a Black gaze, which prioritises an ethic-of-care around the death of Dr King that endeavours to offer an authentic embodiment of the Black lived experience. Unlike Gray’s talk, Nakamura’s essay focuses exclusively on VR, and the ways that this technology tends towards racial callousness that shows ‘black suffering’ (2020: 56) through a primarily White gaze. One specific example is the 2015 VR app One Dark Night, which documents the moments building up to Trayvon Martin’s murder by George Zimmerman.

In unpacking these two texts, my students were especially vocal in reflections (oral and written) on the problematic nature of One Dark Night and the way that they felt this app unethically offered an experience to White viewers that was ‘racially callous’ (Nakamura 2020: 56) and unnecessary. One Black student was candid in his analysis of the depiction of Black characters in many games. Referencing GTA and Resident Evil (among others), the student emphasised how many AAA games are problematic in their reliance on racial stereotypes. He further argued that One Dark Night offered an experience that White people could not grasp or fully appreciate because of their lack of lived experience with racial violence. This was a messy and uncomfortable conversation; however, the framework of rhetorical listening provided students—particularly minority students—with an empowerment strategy that invited and encouraged them to reflect upon several ‘situated local conditions’ (Ratcliffe & Jensen 2022: 11) that were not emphasised in the reading, such as microaggressions and many students’ vivid lived experience with repeated racial profiling and violence. These conversations invited all class members to listen to and consider the importance of authenticity and lived experience in character design and narrative decisions. Moreover, it was a conversation that would not have occurred had I not pre-emptively listened to the needs of the enrolled demographic.

This discussion of gaze spilt into ongoing discussions of AI generation, which was an important aspect of this class. Throughout the final project, students used AI to inform character representation when developing their own interactive narratives. AI generation, as many scholars and users have established, is inherently White and heteronormative (Stokel-Walker & Van Noorden 2023; Chander 2016; Hong & Williams 2019; Matori 2022). As a class, we regularly explored this reality. For instance, I divided the class into five groups as a classroom exercise. Four groups were assigned a different AI generator (e.g., ChatGPT 3.5, ChatGPT 4.0, Claude, Gemini, etc.) and one group was asked to create a text independently. I gave a simple prompt: ‘Describe the main character in a dance-fight video game.’ Each group input the same prompt to different generators (except the fifth group, who created their own response). All AI generations were strikingly similar, with characters embodying overwhelmingly White physical traits: tanned skin, straight hair, blue eyes, etc. Only the fifth group showed any major variation—a bipedal lion creature with various humanoid characteristics. While this outcome was not very surprising for me, it clearly shocked many of my students who had not considered the ways that the AI generation supports the White gaze.

These conversations around gaze were further explored by students in their final projects, which required them to use AI to generate images and descriptions of characters. Students were frustrated by the inability of AI to generate the types of characters that existed in their mind’s eye. For instance, more than one group chose to include a non-binary character; however, they found that despite multiple prompt iterations, AI could not do the work they needed. Most AI generated non-binary characters manifested as female presenting. Similarly, when students attempted to generate Black characters—regardless of multiple prompt revisions—the results were White-presenting.

AI offered characters with Caucasian physical features and only darkened the skin. The inability of AI to replicate Black hair types was also noted by students as impossible to overcome. Students encountered the same difficulties when attempting to create characters with representative body shapes—AI repeatedly generated White beauty ideals. This element of the narrative design assignment was critical in emphasising to students how the White gaze dominates not only the games they play, but also the design of these games. Moreover, this approach required students to engage in two types of rhetorical listening: expression across difference and stances of openness.
These are just two examples of the ways I revised this course to better recognise differences and lived experiences via a rhetorical listening approach. While this shift required me to do extra work, it was certainly worth it. Students engaged with the texts in unexpected ways—both for me and them. I had assumed that drawing upon the Black experience in readings would simply provide this cohort of students with examples they could relate to their daily lives; however, to my surprise, students used written work and discussions to explain the ways that these readings contextualised their lived experiences with games (both design, development, and the act of playing) in new ways, inviting them to critically reflect upon their own relationships with their communities, friends, and families. One student explained that until he engaged with these readings he could not understand why, when growing up, his parents had adamantly resisted and banned specific games. The readings helped him understand that these particular games promoted racial bias, callousness and harm.

Frankly, I had assumed such connections would be obvious to Black students. I assigned many of the readings to support discussion, expecting these students to recognise the texts’ messages easily. However, more often than not, all students—regardless of race—indicated via discussions and presentations that assigned texts opened their minds to ideas of race and identity in gaming spaces that they had not previously considered. Ultimately, a rhetorical listening approach provided students with room to explore and reflect upon lived experiences (of themselves and classmates), which supported a community of learning framed within listening, inclusion, and belonging.

Reflective Artifacts: Pedagogy in Action

While considering the critical outcomes of student reactions to course materials is a significant site of inquiry, the teacher’s self-reflection is equally important. Self-reflection is one way to enact rhetorical listening. In this section, I offer a series of written artefacts, all reflective in nature. These are followed by analysis framed by rhetorical listening. These artefacts come from various sources; for the purposes of this essay, I will triangulate three qualitative data points: peer teaching observation, student evaluation, and scholarly self-analysis.

My colleague conducted the peer teaching observation. The student evaluations take the form of requested letters of support and were solicited after the completion of both courses in order to avoid any conflict of interest. The scholarly self-analysis is excerpted from the 2024 co-authored article, ‘Levelling Up: Building Better Game Designers through Diverse Multidisciplinary Design Practice,’ and was written after other artefacts had been collected. All names have been replaced by pseudonyms.

All artefacts are framed within two game-focused courses: the sophomore-level narrative design course discussed above, which focuses on developing multimodal interactive narratives, with emphasis on ethics, representation, and DEI, and a senior-level seminar course that synergises cultural studies, writing studies, and game studies, with an emphasis on inclusive digital culture. The first course, as per the syllabus description:

[I]nvites you to explore the relationship between game design and narrative design. You will develop an understanding of narrative theory and design to critically analyse how narrative functions within video game design. In introducing the study of narrative, this course focuses on learning and applying vocabulary and concepts to understand and analyse how texts mean—not (necessarily) what texts mean. You will also work to understand how narrative choices are social and cultural practices; for instance, specific narrative choices can appeal to some audiences, while alienating others. Thus, an important part of this course is considering not only how narratives are shaped by difference (e.g. gender, sexuality, race, dis/ability, class, nationality, etc.) but also how ethical narrative design enables broader audience range and play. Throughout this course, you will be required to participate in reading, analysis, and creation of narratives. Much of this course will take the form of a workshop; however, students are also required to thoughtfully engage with readings using oral and written communication.

The second course, again, as per the syllabus description:

[F]ocuses on the relationship between cultural studies and game studies. In this course, you will be introduced to the field of cultural studies in order to expand your understanding of how games operate in popular culture and society. In introducing cultural studies, this course focuses on learning and applying vocabulary and concepts to understand and analyse how texts mean—not (necessarily) what texts mean. Accordingly, a primary purpose of this class is to do more than understand games as sites of play; readings and discussions will position games as cultural artefacts shaped by unique historical, social, and material contexts. In this seminar-style course, you will lead and engage in academic discussions that consider the socio-technical aspects of gaming, embodiment and space, spectatorship and performance, gender, race, sexuality, and representation, and economics of production processes, including co-creation and intellectual property. Both active discussion and focused writing are central expectations of this course.

Peer Teaching Observation

The peer observation occurred in the senior-level course, which was taken by many students who had previously taken the sophomore-level course discussed above. The first remark made by my colleague, Dr Jones, concerned the seating arrangement of the classroom (which is replicated in all my courses). The classroom housed a number of rectangular tables (on wheels) and could sit two to three students comfortably in rows. However, as Dr Jones noted:

The class began with everyone sitting around several rectangular tables pushed together to form a square. This arrangement encouraged eye contact and students speaking to one another rather than just the instructor.

What is not mentioned is that while I usually sat in the same spot within the rectangle, this spot was not in the middle of the larger square but at one of the corners, with students flanking me on either side. While this classroom arrangement may seem inconsequential it is anything but, due to the encouragement of ‘eye contact,’ which supports ‘students speaking to one another’, it is an essential spatial support of rhetorical listening because it invites dialogic processes and exchanges.

As noted in my introduction, most of my classes are student-led; this day was no different, with two students presenting their final projects. These required students to analyse a cultural artefact and respond directly to at least three of the course learning outcomes:

• Identify and critically analyse how your artefact engages with a question/problem in the social/cultural analysis of games;
• Explore how your artefact has cultural value that is associated/connected to games—including issues of gender, race, sexuality, class, labour, and neurodiversity—and the ways by which your artefact contains, demonstrates, or encourages social action/inaction (in relation to these concepts);
• Engage in a writing/creative process that includes invention, drafting, peer review, revision, editing, and proofreading.

As my colleague notes:

Students not only explained what their projects were about (their main argument) and what sources they would use but focused specifically on what comments they received during the peer review process and how they planned to incorporate these comments into the project. I found the assignment quite innovative—I have never seen an assignment that emphasised the value of peer review so much. The overall effect on the students, it seemed, was that they felt invested in each other’s projects and regarded one another as true collaborators and fellow travellers.

Important here is the layered use of feedback via listening and attention to collaborative dialogue, which is a needed industry skill. While these presentations showcased the students’ final projects, students were also required to show how they got to these projects through readings, discussion, and—most importantly—peer review. The final project required students to provide written reflections and feedback on in-progress work, with students receiving up to eight peer reviews each, and having also to present the peer feedback to the class in efforts to explain how and why it affected their own writing process. This required students to enact, or perform, two levels of rhetorical listening: (1) ‘expressing their ideas, feelings, values and beliefs in ways that their audiences can hear them, especially across differences’ and (2) ‘open[ing] themselves to hear ideas, feelings, values, and beliefs, even those with which they disagree’ (Ratcliffe & Jensen 2022: 1).

Peer review, which occurs throughout the game development and design process, is a vulnerable place to dwell—it involves letting go of the ownership of your text (to a degree) and placing oneself in a ‘difficult-to-listen-to-situation’ (Ratcliffe & Jensen 2022: 1). This situation was even more difficult given that several students also linked their topics to their racial and gendered identities. In these ways, this assignment and exercise created a contact zone consisting of cis-het male and female students, international students, Black students, and a number of openly LGBTQIA2S+ students. However, not once did these differences result in uncivil discourse or exchanges. I believe this is not because my students were extraordinary, but because I made a point of situating the classroom as a safe space where inclusivity and diversity were valued, which is articulated in my colleague’s observation: ‘They felt invested in each other’s projects and regarded one another as true collaborators and fellow travellers.’ In these ways, the course and this assignment sequence are important examples of putting rhetorical listening into action because it emphasises the success of inviting students to reflect on situated and local conditions that are important to them. I believe this is one reason that my colleague observed that ‘this course involved every single student—some participating more than others, but all contributing with their voices and ideas.

Moreover, this ability to contribute is not simply a skill needed in the classroom but—as I have discussed throughout this article—also across all professional levels of the game industry. Collaboration via rhetorical listening is crucial in the professional world, as it supports an inclusive environment where diverse ideas and perspectives are valued and integrated. This approach enhances innovation and problem-solving by encouraging active engagement and thoughtful reflection among team members. It builds a culture of empathy and mutual respect, essential for effective communication and teamwork in any professional setting.

Student Evaluations

In addition to institutional course evaluations, I often solicit student evaluations in the form of letters. The excerpts below come from students who completed both games electives I teach. Like my colleague, students noted the usefulness of dialogue; for instance, Darius explained:

The student-led discussions were a main part of both [courses], and it was a way for every person in the class to get their opinions and perspective[s] out. For me, it was good hearing many differing opinions as I would have never thought of a topic like some others have thought. In many of the classes for Games & Culture, we would mix the real world with the game world. A game series that was talked about was Tomb Raider, and for good reason, I had previously looked past it. When I looked at Lara Croft as a character, I didn’t think anything past ‘she’s a cool female character’ until it was brought up by many of the other students how overly sexual the character is. That led me to look at many other female characters and seeing this is still an ongoing thing within the gaming industry. Within the class, we probably would have touched on this topic anyway, but to have it where the students are the ones leading the class, making/asking the questions, and having their own view ultimately made it stick better than having one person talk about all these topics with just input.

In this evaluation, Darius describes how the classroom discussions enacted a rhetorical listening approach that supported dialogical thinking, discussion, and cross-cultural exchange. When students (and faculty) think about speaking (or listening) across cultures, a commonplace assumption is that the discussion is about Culture with the big ‘C,’ where the focus is often on nation-state culture (e.g., Mexico compared to the United States, or Scotland compared to France); however, in his description, Darius is illustrating how cross-cultural exchanges can also be culture with the little ‘c,’ where the focus is on sub-cultures within larger culture (e.g., open world game culture compared to puzzle game culture or role-playing game culture compared to simulation game culture). Specifically, Darius is drawing attention to misogyny in video games, a culture that he was not fully aware of until the class discussion moved in this direction. What is noteworthy, however, is not just his openness to this new perspective but his recognition that ‘to have it where the students are the ones leading the class, making/asking the questions, and having their own view, ultimately made it stick better,’ which indicates that if I—as the instructor—had been the person leading this discussion, the content would not have been as impactful or meaningful.

Another student in the class, Angie, described a similar experience, emphasising the importance of classroom experiences that are connected to individual learning:

Through both [courses], Dr Kiernan has been intentional in educating the individual. By this, I mean that Dr Kiernan continues to seek individual interests as they relate to the field of study, then draws those interests into unique and thoughtful discussion and education surrounding the primary class focus … teaching is not generalised, but rather deeply personal, evolving to the unique interests and needs of the class as well as every individual student within that class … each student [has] space to explore the subject in personal ways, leading to diverse discussions and projects that engage with diverse disciplines which all function within the class context. This collaborative, multi-disciplinary focus to education gives space for critical analysis, leading to the discussion of diverse ideas and concepts.

While, like Darius, Angie leans into a description of ‘unique and thoughtful discussion,’ she also notes that, as an instructor, I have designed the classroom to support rhetorical listening by giving ‘each student space to explore the subject in personal ways.’ Again, this approach allows for two levels of rhetorical listening, one focused on outward expression and the other on embodying a dwelling perspective (Ratcliffe & Jensen 2022), both of which are necessary when course topics turn towards ideas of exclusion and prejudice, which was the topic of many readings across both these courses.

Scholarly Self-Analysis

In this final sub-section, I illustrate how I engage in rhetorical listening within my own scholarship. I place my own collaborative acts of rhetorical listening (from a recent article) alongside the examples from my colleague and past students to point to the ways that scholars can implement rhetorical listening in their own pedagogical scholarship via self-reflexive inquiry and practice. For example, when describing the redesign of the narrative design course, my own reflection points to the social justice implications of the curricular shifts:

In the first year of this ‘new’ course, students were expected to design game narratives … that were accessible and meaningful to an unknown player–to thoughtfully engage with ideas of audience awareness and representation … [t]he results were fascinating: cats wielding squirt guns, botanists with Mongolian ancestry, racoon protagonists, and dystopian teddy bears. These, however, are small victories. Not all narratives offered such diverse characters; nonetheless, the conversation had begun and students, upon being invited to design outside their lived experiences, began experimenting and playing with diversified characters and interactive narrative development in areas they had previously not considered. (Yolaç, Mallory, & Kiernan 2024: 87)

The tension between listening to, acknowledging, and privileging marginalised students’ lived experiences, and the necessity of designing games outside of students’ lived experiences, is indeed a complex and delicate balance. Feminist pedagogy and rhetorical listening prioritise giving voice to those who have been historically silenced, ensuring that their experiences are heard and valued within the educational environment. This practice is crucial for fostering inclusivity and addressing power imbalances within the classroom. However, the goal of encouraging students to design narratives beyond their own experiences also serves an essential purpose. It challenges mainstream or majority students to step outside their validated experiences and engage with diverse perspectives. This dual approach can create a richer, more empathetic understanding of different identities and cultures. It is about expanding the students’ narrative repertoire, pushing them to consider and represent experiences that differ from their own, which can lead to more nuanced and inclusive storytelling.

Unlike the previous two examples, the explicit moves of rhetorical listening are not front and centre in this excerpt; however, the attention to ‘conversation’ and ‘lived experience’ points to the ways that course attention to accessibility and audience awareness not only supports narrative development as cross-cultural but also encourages students to think of the invisible player and how in order to engage with an unknown audience there was a need to develop stories that were able to accommodate both outward expression and a dwelling perspective (Ratcliffe & Jensen 2022). As noted above, various student projects also recognise the importance of the contact zone and the alienating implications of narratives that rely too heavily or exclusively ‘on highly asymmetrical relations of power’ (Pratt 1991: 34). Thus, character choices are themselves representative of rhetorical listening, particularly the ways that a rhetorical listening mindset supports both civil discourse and social justice.

My final example, again, draws upon the ways a rhetorical listening stance can support dialogical process and cross-cultural exchange, particularly a reflection of situated, local conditions:

[Socio-culturally focused game design courses can] help students make connections between the many injustices present in their daily lives that are replicated within gaming spaces (either consciously or unconsciously). Before these curricular revisions, coursework did not expect students to engage in these types of conversations, and, as a result, the previous version of the program could not help but maintain cisheteropatriarchal ideologies. These revisions have invited and guided these sometimes difficult conversations and also cultivated safe spaces for these conversations to take place—spaces that welcome the voices and experiences of Black American students, LGBTQIA+ students, female students, and international students (Yolaç, Mallory, & Kiernan 2024: 87).

It is essential to recognise that game education reflects broader societal injustices and harbours unique, deeply ingrained problems. Issues such as the pervasive ‘crunch culture,’ gender discrimination, and lack of diversity in character representation and industry workforce are rampant within the gaming industry. Addressing these specific issues within our educational framework equips students to challenge these problems and become advocates for change. By fostering critical discussions and inclusive practices, we ensure we actively work to dismantle the unique barriers within games education and the industry, rather than merely replicating societal injustices.

As further noted in the quotation, this critically reflective moment emphasises how a thoughtful curriculum that gives students room to voice their perspectives can also invite them to listen to the perspectives of others, which situates all students as agents. As noted, ‘difficult conversations’ within ‘safe spaces’ allow for pedagogical approaches that are meaningful and lasting. In these ways, rhetorical listening is an important element of reflective practice because it is an example of the real-life implications of our classroom pedagogies and how classroom spaces can invite students to ‘make connections between the many injustices present in their daily lives’ (Yolaç, Mallory, & Kiernan 2024: 87), but also their professional lives, their personal lives, and the magic circle of their gaming lives.

Conclusion

Throughout my article, I have noted the usefulness of rhetorical listening—especially the examination of ‘difficult-to-listen-to-situations’ (Ratcliffe & Jensen 2022: 1) that often arise within classroom discussions. Rhetorical listening recognises the value and juxtaposition of multiple perspectives via thoughtful, critical inquiry, and practice. It maintains that ‘all people have a stake in each other’s quality of life’ (Ratcliffe 1999: 32). At the heart of both approaches is a paradigm of shifting mindsets, which is especially beneficial in game classrooms that strive to surface the voices, perspectives, and experiences of diverse and often excluded students. Throughout this essay, I have shared pedagogical narratives and self-reflective analysis; in triangulating these experiences, I have attempted to explain how I invite students into these often-messy conversations.

I have endeavoured to foreground the ways that feminist teaching via rhetorical listening can support students’ critical engagement with the inequities and injustices faced across all aspects of their lives. At the heart of listening, specifically in the context of games disciplines, is the goal of shifting perspectives and reimagining curriculum to support underrepresented minorities. I have presented a series of artefacts to offer replicable enactments of listening as embodied across my mid- and upper-level games electives. My goal has been to share meaningful classroom practices that support discussion-based engagement with the socio-cultural dimensions of gaming so that expectations of how to teach gaming can shift away from the dominant technical mindset and emphasise how descriptive and interpretive components of listening are equally important to building not only better game designers and games but also a more inclusive games industry.

In addition to its application in humanistic courses, rhetorical listening holds significant potential for integration into ‘hard technical’ courses within game design curricula. By embedding the principles of rhetorical listening into technical instruction, we can foster a learning environment where students not only acquire technical skills but also develop an acute awareness of the social implications of their work. This approach can enhance collaborative problem-solving, ethical considerations in programming, and inclusive design practices, ensuring that a deep understanding of diverse user experiences complements technical proficiency.

As we continue to evolve our educational practices, it is imperative for future researchers to further explore the intersection of rhetorical listening and technical education. Investigating how these principles can be synergistically incorporated into all games courses will provide valuable insights into creating more holistic and inclusive game design programs. I call on educators and scholars to expand upon this research, to innovate and implement pedagogical strategies that marry technical expertise with critical, empathetic engagement. Together, we can cultivate a new generation of game designers who are not only skilled but also conscientious, driving the industry towards greater inclusivity and social responsibility.