LAUSR

Abstract Teaching narrative sense of place to student writers can be difficult with traditional texts. Virtual reality (VR) games can help students realize the importance of this by illustrating it. This article outlines a VR exercise for students to experience immersion as a parallel to how written works transport readers to their environments. The exercise offers a visual example of narrative sense of place and serves as a guide for the students’ writing. As personal narratives often suffer from a lack of sensory details, a visual reminder can help these writers reflect on how to immerse their readers. For students to fully grasp the purpose of the exercise, metacognitive practices are used to prepare them. Meta-strategic knowledge (MSK) makes students aware of what to look for in the VR game before they play it. I present an argument for the transfer of the skill of identifying the importance of sense of place to student writing through the familiar practice of playing games and the use of MSK. Wearable technologies serve as new frontiers for learning, and I believe exercises like this one using VR can reach more students, specifically visual learners and video game players.