Tracing Chronotopic Laminations around “Troublemaking” Through a Reflective Roleplaying Activity for Pre/In-Service Teachers

• In Event: Games as Dialogues Between Pasts and Futures: Playing Toward Educational Reimagination

Abstract

Purpose: Drama activities can spark pre-/in-service teachers’ ideological shifts around schooling (Edmiston, 2016), promoting reconceptualization of schooling through critical speculative imaginaries (Coopilton, 2022). We explore how pre-/in-service teachers used a tabletop role-playing game to complicate archetypes of “troublemaker” students (Shalaby, 2017; Authors, 2024).

Framework: Drawing on Bakhtin’s (1981) concept of the chronotope (timespace), we view time and space as inseparable. Literary chronotopes offer aesthetic distance from lived experiences. We use this distance to understand, through collaborative storytelling, how prior schooling experiences can be reinterpreted to shape new futures. We draw from Marjanovic-Shane’s (2011) three chronotopes of play in improvisational storytelling: Reality, Imaginary, and Community of Players.

Methods: This presentation shares cases of a TTRPG implemented in two sites: (1) an online synchronous format with in-service teachers in a graduate program across New York State, and (2) an in-person session with pre-service teachers in the residency phase of their preparation program in Rhode Island. At both sites, participants played the game and engaged in postgame reflections. Site one players were observed in real time by classmates responding in the chat; site two players played in an informal setting with researchers present.

Data: Data includes: 1) character creation correspondence; 2) video/audio recordings of two 90-minute sessions; 3) site one’s chat logs; and 4) surveys and individual interviews with four focal players on their prior gaming experience and reflections on the game (see Table 1).

Analysis: Drawing from Marjanovic-Shane’s (2011) a priori chronotopes, we trace chronotopic laminations to mark “trajectories of activity …that stretch across official cultural boundaries” (Prior & Shipka, 2003, p. 208). We followed (re)conceptualizations of “troublemakers” across character creation, storytelling, and reflection. We traced how teachers developed characters throughout the game, laminating “troublemaker” students as “complex and capable” (Authors, 2024)—a stated goal of the game.

Findings: We share one tracing focused on how participants made sense of lying in the imaginary and reality. Within a game, a “Loudmouth” archetype named Tad started a rumor about a teacher. Multiple players and observers were struck by this. Teachers shared past experiences of being lied to by students and described different interpretations of those moments. Tad’s player, a special educator, explained his character choice to the class: “Basically, my character sees the school system and larger community as a joke... he doesn’t take it seriously and just wanted some entertainment because he didn’t want to be at school anyway.”
Here, Tad’s lie was not framed as a character flaw, but as a response to systemic issues in schooling—laminated through play as critique rather than misbehavior.

Implications: “Imaginary” play chronotopes can be juxtaposed with “reality” chronotopes to help teachers reflect on past experiences with/of students labeled “troublemakers.” Through this game, they dialogue to explore possibilities for justice and empathy in schools. As they hear others’ stories, their own positions shift. Chronotopes illuminate how views of “troublemaking” are shaped by time and space, and reflection enables teachers to confront and revise those views toward more empathetic practice.

Authors

• Karis Michelle Jones, Baylor University

• Zia Pochkhanawala, Baylor University

• Virginia Killian Lund, University of Rhode Island