Using Interactive Fiction to Stimulate Metalinguistic Talk in the English Classroom

Interactive Fiction (IF)—a digital form of non-linear narrative writing—requires readers to respond, to make choices that shape their reading experience. I argue that such choices can be put to use in the classroom, helping teachers to facilitate metalinguistic talk. In this article, I offer a clear conceptualisation of metalinguistic talk, drawing upon existing research to create a useful framework comprised of four characteristics. Using this framework, and with reference to interview data and field notes, I analyse and consider two transcripts of classroom talk in order to explore the extent to which a particular work of IF enabled me to facilitate metalinguistic talk with a class of 16–17-year-old English Literature students. The lesson in question formed part of an action research project exploring the possibilities for IF in the secondary school English classroom. I argue that the choices contained within A Great Gatsby, a work of IF which I designed via a process of critical-creative textual intervention and using Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as my source material, can help to scaffold metalinguistic talk—conversations about language.