Dr. Roger Davis, Head of English at Red Deer Polytechnic, and zombie apocalypse expert. (RDP)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

creating bigger brains

RDP prof earns innovation award for ‘zombie apocalypse’ course modification

May 28, 2022 | 9:59 AM

Dr. Roger Davis, Head of English at Red Deer Polytechnic, is the brains behind a new ‘zombie apocalypse’ experience for students taking English 220.

An instructor at RDP since 2011, Davis’s outside the box approach recently earned him an Innovation in Teaching award from Alberta Colleges and Institutes Faculties Association. The honour is given to one instructor in the province annually.

Here’s the course’s premise: students wake up in class with a zombie apocalypse underway, and they must survive. Each student develops a character for themselves, with parameters for their gender, age, occupation and beliefs determined by a random game of chance. Then, they establish geographical location and political structure before embarking on their major project – a group task where they must establish infrastructure that will contribute significantly to society, according to RDP.

“The unique approach Dr. Davis has thoughtfully integrated into his English 220 course demonstrates interdisciplinary, applied learning that can resonate with students in powerful and memorable ways,” says Kylie Thomas, Vice President Academic and Provost.

“Roger has incorporated a cultural scenario that allows students to investigate science, politics and communications in ways that are not commonly found in more traditional literary studies. It is an exciting approach that provides an innovative way for students to engage with literature and culture.”

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The idea, Davis admits, came from his own research and interests in ‘monstrosity and zombies,’ along with the thematic presence of zombies in pop culture.

While at an international teaching seminar in Portland, Oregon, Davis was inspired to gamify the course. This would allow students to immerse themselves in a simulated environment, thereby transforming conventional learning activities through a game-style approach.

“Studying literature can involve many aspects beyond the capital ‘L’ literature of traditional texts. Reading and watching films is also a consumption of cultural products, beyond mere entertainment, and it can help us to understand the society in which we live in a deeper and more meaningful way,” explains Davis.

“The point, in many ways, is to get students to inhabit someone other than themselves to give them abetter understanding of difference and diversity. This becomes a larger social experiment, where students have the opportunity to determine what kind of community they want to imagine and build.”

Zombies, in particular, are unique across literature and culture, Davis continues, because of the unusual level of violence enacted upon them.

“As a metaphor, this violence is often about eliminating the ‘otherness’ that we don’t like in society, and so we explore this negative perspective as a class,” he says. “But, on the positive side, the gamified zombie world that students experience is also about reinventing ourselves, so students gain a deeper understanding about the complexity of society.”

Davis has been teaching the course this way for two academic years. His award comes with $1,500, plus $500 for the faculty association.