Playing Canon in Class

Last updated on: August 31, 2016 at 7:03 am by James F. McGrath

Playing Canon in Class 2016-08-31T07:03:53-04:00 James F. McGrath

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Canon: The Card Game has gone from being an idea, to a clear concept, to a game with printed cards, and most recently, to a game I’ve played in two settings: my Sunday school class at church, and then with the students in my Religion and Science Fiction class. The video above incorporates video and photos from the latter.

The next stop is that, in about 8 days from today, you will be able to buy the game through The Game Crafter website! The cards I used in class are the ones I blogged about a few days ago, which were printed at Butler in our campus print shop. The cards from Game Crafter will be even better-looking as a result of things I learned in the process of making this first batch.

The game comes in two editions, related to the two main uses of the word “canon.” One is the fandom edition, and the cards relate to original series, prequels, sequels, cartoons, comics, novels, fanfic, director’s cut, and so on. The other is the Bible edition, and for now specifically a New Testament one – although I already have expansion packs in the works to include more of the NT and other works, including a whole deck focused on the Nag Hammadi texts or “Gnostic Gospels,” another that incorporates NT textual criticism, as well as a couple of decks related to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. If you click through to either of those pages on the GameCrafter website, you can find the game rules. Click through to read them in more detail, but the basic idea is that players draw and discard cards and also place them in two main play areas – a central “canon” that anyone can put cards in and remove cards from, and a personal “canon” in front of you that only you can add to and take from. The aim is to get your personal canon to match the central, collectively-defined one as closely as possible. The game mechanics are fun even just as a game. But the dynamics of collaboration and competition do catch something of the spirit of how canons are actually formed.

As I said, the game’s release for sale online will happen towards the middle or end of next week. I’m really excited – and hope that you are too!

It takes a little bit of lead time before new editions or expansion packs can be made available. Inputting them into the GameCrafter system so that they can be printed on demand is something that I think I have gotten the hang of, and so I could create a customized version of the game in response to a request fairly quickly. But GameCrafter doesn’t allow a game to be sold until its creator has purchased a copy and had time to inspect it – an eminently sensible rule, even though in this case it is arguable that it unnecessarily slows down the process. After all, making new cards and a variation on the box text and artwork isn’t really creating a new game. But since it takes a while, I thought I should mention that my plan is to release one fandom-related deck initially, and one New Testament deck. I will then follow up with other decks over the months that follow. I trust that this will sound sensible to you, but if lots of people tell me that they simply cannot wait to get their hands on the Nag Hammadi version of the game, or some other themed deck, I’m willing to release those sooner rather than later.

Each deck for the game can be used on its own to play the game. In other words, you can play with just the initial New Testament deck, or the second deck in the New Testament series, or the Nag Hammadi deck, without needing to own the others. And so for that reason, I’ve not called them “expansion packs.” Nevertheless, you can play with larger groups, or make play more interesting and different for smaller groups, by combining decks.

One other thing I’m interested in knowing is about the interest of educators in using the game in class, and about which kinds of cards would be most useful. On the New Testament deck cards, I’ve placed on each one a list of objections that could be raised to the inclusion of a work in the canon. One can play the game simply as a competitive-collaborative matching game and ignore that text. But I imagine that some professors and teachers might like to use the game, but might prefer for the cards to be mostly blank. They could then require students to write reasons for their move – to add a text to the central canon or to remove it from there – on the cards, and after game play could review the cards and evaluate their understanding. (Students would need to put their initials next to what they write if this were to be graded). If you are an educator, which would you prefer – cards with information, or cards with room to write? Or would you like both to be available, so that you have different options, or could perhaps play with one deck and then the other, either to get students to investigate for themselves before providing possible answers, or conversely, to give students information and then see what they remember when the answers are taken away? Let me know what you think you might be interested in buying and using, and I’ll make it available if I can! (Obviously I can’t make specific Star Wars, Star Trek, or Doctor Who decks because of intellectual property rights. But another reason someone might want a fandom deck that doesn’t have icons or images on it is to be able to customize the cards to focus specifically on Star Wars – mention the Clone Wars and Rebels rather than just cartoons, and the Special Edition of the original trilogy rather than simply “Director’s Cut.”)

On the following pages, there are photos from my Religion and Science Fiction class where four groups of three students played the game. I also had a group of seven of us play the game in my Sunday school class, and so I can testify that it works well in different sized groups.

Table 1 rules

Now, for photos from the class (sorry I didn’t get any from the Sunday school game, but then I was a player and so was less free to walk around taking photos!). The photo above is one of my favorites since it has the rules on the screen in the background. But there are lots of other good ones, which may give you a sense of how game play works. Take a look!

Religion and Science Fiction

science fiction

students

Previous Post

August 30, 2016

Random Churches of Rome 3: Santi Silvestro e Martino ai Monti

Next Post

August 31, 2016 Hilding Rosenberg, Symphony No.4 "Johannes uppenbarelse"

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 1 Corinthians 1 John 1 Peter 1 Samuel 1 Thessalonians 1 Timothy 2 Corinthians 2 Kings 2 Peter 2 Samuel 2 Thessalonians 2 Timothy academia Acts of the Apostles afterlife Akhaten Alcatraz American Academy of Religion Amos Anglican Arabic Aramaic archaeology art artificial intelligence astronomy atheism atonement Babylon 5 Baptists Battlestar Galactica Bible Biblical Studies Carnival biblioblogging Black Mirror Blade Runner Book of Job book review Buddhism Call for Papers China Christianity Christmas Christology Chronicles Coptic creation Daniel Deuteronomy Doctor Who Dune Easter Ecclesiastes economics education Eldad Keynan Enoch Seminar Ephesians eschatology Esther Evangelicals evolution Exodus Expanse Ezekiel Ezra fantasy Fringe fundamentalism Galatians games Ge'ez genealogy Genesis Gnosticism Gospel of Jesus' Wife Gospel of John Gospel of Judas Gospel of Luke Gospel of Mark Gospel of Matthew Gospel of Peter Gospel of Thomas Greek Harry Potter Hebrew Hebrews Hinduism historical Jesus history Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Holidays horror Hosea humor incarnation India inerrancy information literacy inspirational Intelligent Design Ireland Isaiah Islam Israel Italy James Jeremiah John the Baptist Jonah Joshua Judaism Jude Judges Judith Lamentations languages Latin Leviticus libraries literature Lord of the Rings LOST Mandaeans Mandaic memes Methodism Micah monotheism morality Mormons movies music mythicism NASSCAL Nehemiah new perspective New Testament news Numbers Orthodox paganism panentheism pantheism Patheos Paul and his letters Pentecostals Philippians Philippians 2:6-11 philosophy physics Planet of the Apes podcast politics Progressive Christianity Protestantism Proverbs Psalms pseudoscience racism religion Revelation Roman Catholicism Romania Romans Ruth scams science science fiction Secret Gospel of Mark Society of Biblical Literature Song of Songs Star Trek Star Wars Stargate Swahili Syriac Taoism technology Terminator The Handmaid's Tale The Hobbit The Matrix theodicy theology theory Timeless Titus tomb Torchwood travel TRON Uncategorized United Kingdom Westworld X-Files young-earth creationism Zechariah

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 February 2007 January 2001

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz