Rhenny
Adventurer
I just did something in my 9th grade high school English classes that I have never done in my 22 years of teaching. I actually taught 4 classes of students (over 2 days) how to play D&D and ran them through a homemade, Literary adventure.
I wanted to show them how D&D encouraged and developed the following skills:
Listening
Visualization
Thinking Skills (Problem solving, logical reasoning, analytical thinking)
Vocabulary acquisition
Team work
Deeper understanding of character, conflict, and overall story development
I put them into random groups of 3-5 (depending on the class size) which gave us 6 groups. Then each group controlled 1 PC (pre-gens from the starter kit).
I took about 10 minutes to let them read their character sheets paying most attention to just the written parts but also having them look at the attributes, proficiencies, equipment.
Then I dropped them into a dungeon, described the situation and asked each group to decide what action and/or movement they would attempt. I only explained attributes and modifiers as needed, and encouraged them to just think like their characters without paying too much attention to the numbers. I rolled all the die rolls on my desk for each player to keep the game moving (and save dice).
I had to keep jumping back and forth to different groups and narrate loudly to all the others to keep them focused, but after a little while, many of the classes were really starting to pick up on it. (Some of the kids had played before, but not many - at least they didn't admit it. lol).
It was really great for me to see how the students I teach daily interacted and played the game. Some of their ideas were very interesting, and I really had to improvise to startle and entertain them and keep the story moving if they got bogged down.
In different areas I designed rooms (a couple of trap rooms, one activating mini-gargoyles that tried to push PCs into a pit that had a ladder that went to the next room) and used poems that they had to read to help them figure out how to overcome a challenge, ultimately trying to escape a dungeon they were trapped in.
With two poems, I told them to read and discuss and try to figure out who or what the narrator was. Then use that knowledge and the clues in the poem to make decisions. In another area, the read a poem that they had to discuss the theme and use that to make a decision which would end the quest successfully or in utter disaster.
Here are the poems without titles so the narrator would remain hidden (the Ibsen one is only a short excerpt)
1)
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful ‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
- Sylvia Plath
(With this poem, they had to realize that the narrator is a mirror...and in the room among other things was a mirror that they need to interact with read runes around it - or smash - to find a door out)
2)
BEETLING rock, with roar and smoke
Break before my hammer-stroke!
Deeper I must thrust and lower
Till I hear the ring of ore.
From the mountain's unplumbed night,
Deep amid the gold-veins bright,
Diamonds lure me, rubies beckon,
Treasure-hoard that none may reckon.
There is peace within the deep--
Peace and immemorial sleep;
Heavy hammer, burst as bidden,
To the heart-nook of the hidden!
- Henrik Ibsen
(With this one, they were in a cave and they saw an area of the cave that had more gold flecks than in other areas, and they also saw a pick leaning against the rock wall...they had to realize the narrator is a miner, and use the pick to pick away at the gold area to find a hidden shelf with an item in it (I changed the item for each class).
3)
First Traveller: What's that lying in the dust?
Second Traveller: A crooked stick.
First Traveller: What's it worth, if you can trust to arithmetic?
Second Traveller: Isn't this a riddle?
First Traveller: No, a trick.
Second Traveller:It's worthless, leave it where it lies.
First Traveller: Wait; count ten;
Rub a little dust upon your eyes;
Now, look again.
Second Traveller: Well, and what the devil is it, then?
First Traveller: It's the sort of crooked stick that shepherds know.
Second Traveller: Someone's loss!
First Traveller: Bend it, and you make of it a bow.
Break it, a cross.
Second Traveller: But it's all grown over with moss!
- Elinor Wylie
(For this one, they were presented with three doors - one of gold, one of silver and one of lead - After they read it, I had them use their understanding of the theme of the poem to pick which door each PC wanted to go into - The gold door led to "the void", The silver door lead to disintegration, The lead door led to freedom in the great outdoors -- Out of 24 PCs only 2 went into the void and 2 were disintegrated...the others survived).
After we played, I asked the students to talk more about examples of how they used and developed the key skills of the lesson and they were able to explain pretty well what was happening in their brains as we played.
All in all, a good few days of education.
I wanted to show them how D&D encouraged and developed the following skills:
Listening
Visualization
Thinking Skills (Problem solving, logical reasoning, analytical thinking)
Vocabulary acquisition
Team work
Deeper understanding of character, conflict, and overall story development
I put them into random groups of 3-5 (depending on the class size) which gave us 6 groups. Then each group controlled 1 PC (pre-gens from the starter kit).
I took about 10 minutes to let them read their character sheets paying most attention to just the written parts but also having them look at the attributes, proficiencies, equipment.
Then I dropped them into a dungeon, described the situation and asked each group to decide what action and/or movement they would attempt. I only explained attributes and modifiers as needed, and encouraged them to just think like their characters without paying too much attention to the numbers. I rolled all the die rolls on my desk for each player to keep the game moving (and save dice).
I had to keep jumping back and forth to different groups and narrate loudly to all the others to keep them focused, but after a little while, many of the classes were really starting to pick up on it. (Some of the kids had played before, but not many - at least they didn't admit it. lol).
It was really great for me to see how the students I teach daily interacted and played the game. Some of their ideas were very interesting, and I really had to improvise to startle and entertain them and keep the story moving if they got bogged down.
In different areas I designed rooms (a couple of trap rooms, one activating mini-gargoyles that tried to push PCs into a pit that had a ladder that went to the next room) and used poems that they had to read to help them figure out how to overcome a challenge, ultimately trying to escape a dungeon they were trapped in.
With two poems, I told them to read and discuss and try to figure out who or what the narrator was. Then use that knowledge and the clues in the poem to make decisions. In another area, the read a poem that they had to discuss the theme and use that to make a decision which would end the quest successfully or in utter disaster.
Here are the poems without titles so the narrator would remain hidden (the Ibsen one is only a short excerpt)
1)
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful ‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
- Sylvia Plath
(With this poem, they had to realize that the narrator is a mirror...and in the room among other things was a mirror that they need to interact with read runes around it - or smash - to find a door out)
2)
BEETLING rock, with roar and smoke
Break before my hammer-stroke!
Deeper I must thrust and lower
Till I hear the ring of ore.
From the mountain's unplumbed night,
Deep amid the gold-veins bright,
Diamonds lure me, rubies beckon,
Treasure-hoard that none may reckon.
There is peace within the deep--
Peace and immemorial sleep;
Heavy hammer, burst as bidden,
To the heart-nook of the hidden!
- Henrik Ibsen
(With this one, they were in a cave and they saw an area of the cave that had more gold flecks than in other areas, and they also saw a pick leaning against the rock wall...they had to realize the narrator is a miner, and use the pick to pick away at the gold area to find a hidden shelf with an item in it (I changed the item for each class).
3)
First Traveller: What's that lying in the dust?
Second Traveller: A crooked stick.
First Traveller: What's it worth, if you can trust to arithmetic?
Second Traveller: Isn't this a riddle?
First Traveller: No, a trick.
Second Traveller:It's worthless, leave it where it lies.
First Traveller: Wait; count ten;
Rub a little dust upon your eyes;
Now, look again.
Second Traveller: Well, and what the devil is it, then?
First Traveller: It's the sort of crooked stick that shepherds know.
Second Traveller: Someone's loss!
First Traveller: Bend it, and you make of it a bow.
Break it, a cross.
Second Traveller: But it's all grown over with moss!
- Elinor Wylie
(For this one, they were presented with three doors - one of gold, one of silver and one of lead - After they read it, I had them use their understanding of the theme of the poem to pick which door each PC wanted to go into - The gold door led to "the void", The silver door lead to disintegration, The lead door led to freedom in the great outdoors -- Out of 24 PCs only 2 went into the void and 2 were disintegrated...the others survived).
After we played, I asked the students to talk more about examples of how they used and developed the key skills of the lesson and they were able to explain pretty well what was happening in their brains as we played.
All in all, a good few days of education.
