CMS-based simulations in the writing classroom: Evoking genre through game play

The incarnation of many Internet-based courses is informed by traditional notions of classroom instruction in which course/content management systems (CMSs) like WebCT™ and Blackboard™ are used to reproduce actions undertaken in brick-and-mortar classrooms. In this article, I argue that the way in which the CMS is configured and deployed can provide students with the sense that they are immersed in a social activity other than taking a college course. Elaborating on a simulation-building methodology developed by Clark Aldrich, I show how we have created a CMS that helps communication instructors evoke and immerse students in discourse-demanding situations. This sense of immersion is especially important for communication-intensive courses in which students seek to practice disciplinary and workplace genres whose social motive may not be readily reproducible within the confines of the (computer) classroom.