Clickety Clack - Students at work

All I hear right now is the sound of fingers on computer keys. My students are busily writing away like mad. Even the students who struggle to write anything are busy pounding out word after word.

The period before we just had the students participate in the next event in our minecraft story. The princess had been captured by bandits and they had to assault a castle to rescue her.

The Princess in her jail cell

Even before this event students have been writing far more than in any of my previous years of teaching how to write short stories.

An announcement that a short story would have to be a minimum of 750 words would be met with groans and complaints. Even before we began today's writing session the average length of story was over 1100 words.

Of course, the bigger question will be is the quality any better?

Watch this space for more details in the future.

The Death of Paper

"Wow! A hand-crafted thank you card arrived from a client for some art photography & web services I provided. Very thoughtful and I am so appreciative!"

This was one of my friends Facebook updates. I'm fascinated by the unintended impact of technology. Hand-written notes and letters have gained so much value due to the ease of digital versions.

Consider comparing one of those digital birthday cards with a real one.

Notice even the language I use, "a real one".

The death of paper has been predicted for years now, and it's wrong. The way we use the tools will change, but they will continue to exist.

Then of course there's the ad my wife shared with me on Facebook:

Short Stories - Minecraft Edition

So we've been hard at working learning about short stories in our Minecraft project. (For those of you who are members of the OACS I've been using the "Teaching Short Stories" section of the newly updated Choices and Decisions unit. I quite like what they've done with this part of the unit.)

We've been studying the structure of short stories using a plot graph like this one:

The first assignment asked them to create their character description and apply the lessons we learned in class.

This first assignment was to tie in with the introduction that I wrote and placed within the Minecraft world for them to find.

What I found most interesting is that despite the King's repeated warnings within the game and outside of the game, the students neglected to build the wall to defend the town.

Here you can see the tower I built to start the wall and the unfinished wall beside it.

The students were so busy building their own things that they ignored the story.

Which creates interesting consequences, because we are now arriving at the first crisis of the story, often called the Inciting Action.

The town is about to be attacked. Since the townsfolk neglected to build the wall their construction work will be damaged and the attackers will swarm throughout the town. If they had built the wall their buildings would be left intact and it would have been a battle to hold the attackers off of the wall.

I've taken the server off-line temporarily in order to prepare the next section of the story. Which includes building new elements in the game world, but also destroying some of what the students have done.

Here's a few pictures of some of the damage done:

The students were somewhat dismayed by the discovery that their work was under attack. I hope to have them share with you some of their thoughts on this discovery.

In the meantime the students are completing the second assignment. Tomorrow, those that have completed the second assignment will get the chance to participate in the defense of what's left of the town, as well as discover what the Inciting Event that reveals the main plot of the story is.

Those that haven't finished the assignment? They get to work on the assignment.

A view of the town with it's lights extinguished as the attackers sweep through the town and the villagers scramble to defend it in the chaos. The only light in the darkness is the King's Castle.