An expert on literacy and learning, and a former middle school English Language Arts teacher, Syracuse University School of Education (SOE) Professor Alex Corbitt focuses his research on how youths and adults create and represent their identities and communities through play and co-authorship.
Corbitt builds partnerships with schools and organizations to study innovative literacy pedagogies and design justice-oriented programming. His recent scholarship, for instance, examines how gamers collaboratively build worlds and compose narratives using role-playing games (i.e., Dungeons and Dragons) and online video game platforms (i.e., Roblox).
On March 21, 2026, Corbitt and his research team will host the SOE’s inaugural Play, Interaction, and Learning Conference. The theme of conference is, “Critical Play,” and it will feature more than 22 international scholars across multiple disciplines. Sessions will explore how play can help build more equitable futures for schools, communities, and beyond.
In this interview, we ask Corbitt how he defines play, how his interest in this topic transitioned from the middle school classroom to academia, and how teachers can introduce playful learning into a structured curriculum.
Q: When a layperson learns that your discipline is “play-based literacy,” they might picture kindergarteners and wooden blocks. But your research focuses on older students and adults engaging in complex forms of play. How do you define “play” in the context of literacy learning?
A: Play can mean many things. Philosopher C. Thi Nguyen defines play as the art of agency. Playful activities, such as games, often have unique rules that shape what participants can and can’t do. Think of a game such as hopscotch. It has certain constraints because of the boxes you must jump into. Those rules make it a playful action. So, I study what happens when we add creative rules and conditions to the way we tell stories or imagine worlds with learners.
At its core, all learning is playful. Kindergartners building with blocks is a form of early learning that is playful and collaborative. Unfortunately, at some point schooling becomes more prescriptive, assessment-based, and high stakes. I’m interested in how literacy practices can be joyful and social. What if, instead of being asked to write an essay or story alone at a desk, we collaboratively told stories in the style of role-playing games?
I suspect that many schools avoid collaborative, playful writing because it is more complex—they require reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills that go beyond the requirements of a state test or multiple-choice exam.
Q: What would you say to teachers, academics, and others who might say that play is not a rigorous enough form of learning for today’s standards-driven reality?
A: When I was a middle school student, I was resistant to the rigid structures of school. I would daydream about going to the card shop after school to play Magic: The Gathering.
“The types of storytelling that takes place in game spaces are frequently more challenging, complex, and messy than structures found in traditional schooling.”
Isn’t making a Magic deck—a complex game created by a mathematician, where every card has its own rules—a form of composition? Furthermore, many role-playing game manuals, such as those for Dungeons and Dragons, are full of elaborate mechanics (i.e., interactional grammars) and rich lore. When you play D&D, you read and write in innovative ways that often stretch beyond the ambitions of boxed curricula.
The types of storytelling that takes place in game spaces are frequently more challenging, complex, and messy than structures found in traditional schooling. In a typical classroom, it’s hard to say, “let’s all get into a group and listen, collaborate, hold space, and empathize with each other as we create a story together.” Role-playing games require expansive repertoires of interpersonal, problem-solving, and narrative storytelling skills.
Q: You’ve studied everything from seventh graders playing tabletop role-playing games to thousands of people reading and writing Dracula together on Tumblr. What do these playful literacy practices reveal that traditional reading and writing might miss?
A: Sometimes traditional schooling structures can distance students from the joy and purpose of learning and inquiry. I worry that young people are less able to playfully explore their identities, communities, and cultures when our public education systems fixate on testing and accountability.
My colleague, Dr. Mariana Lima Becker, and I once studied how a group of Brazilian-American children told stories on Roblox. Although the online world of Roblox resembled a white, suburban version of 1950s America, the children recreated aspects of Brazil through their digital play. They made so many critical decisions to play beyond the constraints of the developer-created world. These moments remind me why I do my research: to witness the genius of young people.
Q: Before becoming a researcher, you taught seventh-grade English Language Arts in the Bronx, NY. How did your classroom experiences shape the way you think about play and literacy?
A: Middle schoolers are in a transitional moment of their lives. They are becoming teenagers, yet they often maintain their playful, child-like dispositions. At the same time, middle school is often a time when play gets squashed out of learning. So, a substantial part of my instruction as a middle school teacher worked to reclaim play in the classroom.
One example from my classroom was a talk show project I developed with my co-teacher, Grace Omorebokhae. We invited students dress up as characters from our readings—such as Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron”—while other students interviewed them. Methods of role-play and embodied learning were frequent strategies we used to interpret characters and themes more deeply.
You might ask, “isn’t that just a waste of time?” But, when a student empathizes with and embodies a character, that’s complex analysis. Our students had a deeper understanding of story characters after role-playing them. By playing in this way, stories come off the page and live in our hearts.
Q: Your recent scholarship examines modern digital learning spaces. What are people doing in these spaces that literacy educators should be paying attention to?
A: When kids get together to play D&D over Zoom, they draw inspiration from a breadth of texts and information sources. For example, the youth gamers in my dissertation study frequently shared new articles, book recommendations, and a variety of other resources to build and interpret their imagined worlds.
“If play is about personal and shared agency, then we must learn how to respect the identities, play styles, and stories of our peers during moments of playful interaction.”
Their online interactions were intertextual and interdisciplinary. At one point, the group decided to read the Percy Jackson book series together to gain world-building inspiration. The books weren’t assigned by me; they were the stuff of play!
Q: Your research is oriented toward justice and equity. How does attention to play connect to creating more equitable literacy learning experiences?
A: If play is about personal and shared agency, then we must learn how to respect the identities, play styles, and stories of our peers during moments of playful interaction.
We also must ask, “how do we have fun with others, without making fun of others?” Play isn’t all utopian; play can be hurtful. Monkey in the Middle is not a very kind game to the person in the middle. Some games also reify dangerous stereotypes of gender, race, and ability in ways that marginalize players. So, play spaces can be both sites of justice and injustice. There’s potential in play, but also precarity.
To address this precarity, our 2026 Play, Interaction, and Learning Conference will focus on “Critical Play.” The featured presenters will interrogate the power differentials embedded in play and consider how play can be more accessible, inclusive, and sustaining for everyone.
Q: If a teacher wants to start introducing more play into their classroom, what’s one shift in perspective or practice you would recommend?
A: We are teaching in a moment when rote, boxed curricula are proliferating in K-12 schools. But we can still teach with and beyond our curricula through play. I hope teachers and students, alike, are given more permission to play with their learning materials. When we hold space for improvisation, role-play, and moments of collaborative composing, we can make our classrooms more creative and joyful for everyone in the classroom!