The Win

from deviantart

image from Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian 

(C)Fox, Shawn Levy

My meeting went really well today so, starting in September, I will be teaching 

Adventure Games: Storytelling & Game Design.  

It will be a 90-minute-long enrichment class for middle schoolers grades seven and eight, taught once every other day. Yes, that's right, I WIN. I've achieved The Dream ... nerdery for fun and profit!

Of course while gaming is the "what", the "why" of the class is all about student growth.  

I look for my kids to grow in areas like these:

• critical thinking and problem solving
• written and oral expression
• sportsmanship and emotional maturity

Here's a first pass at the class outline:

Unit Zero: Risk -- Theoretical and Experimental Probability through Gaming

Key Objective: Students will become familiar with the concepts of theoretical and experimental probability and will use their understanding of probability and analysis of ratios to develop a strategy and inform rational decision-making during game-play.

Unit One: Learning the Ropes -- The Rules of Play for a Collaborative Storytelling Framework

Key Objective: Using the framework of a storytelling game, students will explore the effects of point of view in narrative.

Unit Two: Creating a Setting

Key Objective: Students will extend their knowledge of geographic tools by generating maps and map keys.

Unit Three: Managing a Game

Key Objective: Students will begin to develop proficiency as the lead narrator of a collaborative storytelling framework.

Unit Four: Game Design

Key Objective: Students will identify a setting or genre that interests them and will develop their own unique narrative structure and rules framework for managing storytelling games within that setting.

I've got a million details to work out of course -- not least of all which version of which games system(s) to use -- and I'll be hashing out many of those details right here (so stay tuned).