This paper proposes a model for analysing the ways in which teachers negotiate the tensions
between games narratives and curriculum objectives in incorporating commercial offtheshelf
computer games into formal educational practice. The paper is based on the year long
Teaching with Games project which comprised surveys of over 1,000 teachers and students,
and 10 exploratory case studies of teachers use of COTS games in four schools with over 300
children. The games used in the study were The Sims 2, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and Knights of
Honor. These were used in ‘traditional’ lessons and in diverse competency and contentbased
curricular environments. A key finding was that teachers focusing on encouraging competency
skills such as teamwork and problemsolving
were more likely to maintain the overarching
narrative of the game in lesson activities than teachers who were focusing on students’
acquisition of content knowledge.