Elements of Story and Narrative

In this post I would like to cover adding narrative and story to a gamified experience and then apply it the four work sheets I have been working with. I will then carry on to apply narrative to each lesson plan and produce the first unified gamified lesson plans.

Before I can add story I must understand the elements of gamified stories. Below I have distilled the relevant core information from several different resources and I am going to cover them one at a time.

First of all Alice Keeler states that “what we learn from games is that adding narrative, storyline, a theme, or fun graphics to our lessons and activities can help be more engaged.” Stories can provide context for students to base their learning on and ultimately give purpose to the knowledge they are learning. Purpose is a key aspect which I covered in earlier posts when mapping out lesson tasks. By giving purpose students are far more likely to engage with and retain subject matters being taught. “Even fantasy context can give students purpose for their learning” (Keeler, 2015)

Keeler states that we should try to start every assignment or task with a short paragraph telling a little story to frame the session. The example she gives is "You are a spy trying to break into a government building in enemy territory. Solve these 30 math problems to gain entrance through the secret gate in the back." This then frames the tasks in a hypothetical narrative which gives students a goal and purpose. She also states that teachers should create (or buy) a “mission complete” stamp to place on students work when the task has been completed successfully as a reward. This would act as a badge to give to the students in recognition of their achievements.

To help immerse a student, refer to them is context appropriate names. This could be as simple as adding “Agent” in front of their surname so Darren Williams would become Agent Williams. Immersion is key to maintaining student engagement and interest.

Activities and lessons should be modified, expanded, or reconfigured in order to make the subject more contextually appropriate and maintain student immersion. With this student should also be encouraged to role play their persona's and to deliver answers in a thematic way. For example father than just giving the answer 14, a student could say “according to the decrypted data, the next number to unlock the vault is 14”. According to Keeler this can increase student’s depth of knowledge.

Do’s and Don’ts of young story telling.

There are many things that should be considered when telling stories to younger students. The demographic for my lessons are boys and girls aged 9 – 10. With this in mind I have pulled some basic rules to remember when writing stories for this age range. A lot of these points can be applied to many different years however.

· Avoid using “Butinskis” to guide your main characters actions. If a character is a child then they should arrive at a positive/moral conclusion on their own rather than being told what to do by an authoritative figure such as a parent “Real kids get told what to do, how to do it, and what not to do all the time. Kids have to listen to adults blathering all the livelong day.” (Scarbrough, 2013)

·  Keep any and all authoritative figures at most, to the background of the story. This encourages independence in students and gives them a sense of individuality and competence.

·  You cannot have progression without conflict. When telling a story about a child or children, they should get into trouble. “To have a great story, you’ve got to get your main character into trouble. Get your character into trouble, then get that character into more trouble” (Scarbrough, 2013)

·  A character should be, where possible, the cause of their own trouble. As an example this could be a character misbehaving in class or breaking a neighbour’s window. This will reaffirm independents to the children and give them all a sense that they are in control of their own actions and consequences, thus increasing interest and engagement. They are not here just because somebody told them they had to be.

·  Don’t take it easy on your main character. Scarbrough states that it can be all too easy to become attached to your own characters in the same way you would get attached to a child you nurtured and cared for. A character that gets off lightly and doesn't suffer is a boring character. Do not take it easy on your protagonist, make them suffer.

Story Structure

When writing stories, structure is one of the most crucial considerations. In books, movies, and poems etc. there are many different successful structures, however, with gamification the story must be considerably stripped back in order to incorporate the lesson materials within the time scale. This does not mean that the story should not follow a simple structure, in fact quite the opposite. For my lesson plans I will be following the tried and tested three act structure. 

Below are distilled bullet points about the three acts along with how they can be used in a lesson plan.

Act 1: The Inciting Incident

·         All characters should be introduced with any relevant relationships

·         The main problem of the story is made apparent

·         Open with action, conflict, and excitement

·         For gamification this can also include the inciting incident (the call to action for the main character)

I suggest this be the opening paragraph to the session, giving the students context and purpose.

For example:

“It was a quiet Monday morning, very quiet, almost too. Well, you get the point. Then out of nowhere, she flew into my office like a boss who had a problem that needed to be solved. Hi, boss. I've got a problem that I need to solve. She wanted to know why team leadership was ineffective and why we weren't getting the job done. We need effective leaders, she said. Well, let me investigate and let me see what I can discover. Good. Take the new person here and go see Ivan. Ivan, the informant. I think he went to a conference on the subject. Here's where you come in. Help me figure out these clues and help me figure them out fast.” (Kapp, 2014)

Act 2: The Twist

·         Add complication, this should make the original problem more dangerous or difficult that as portrayed in the first act

·         “Your adversaries must be in motion” (Cannell, 1997), enemies do not just sit around waiting to be stopped.

·         By the close of act 2 the main character should be at their lowest and past the point of no return. A good example of this is in Kevin Henkes, Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse. At the close of act 2 lily wrestles with how to make amends for drawing a nasty picture of her teacher and hiding it in his bag, this includes a bout of woe-is-me and she struggles greatly.

I suggest that this takes place between tasks and seeing as the majority of tasks build on each other, a twist or complication can easily be worked in to give further purpose to the exercise. Remember that the down and out section of act 2 does not need to be as drastic as wrestling with one’s own conscience. Another good example would be that a character realises that there are extra variables to consider with a seemingly impossible time limit to recalculate, upon which the character or teacher can ask the students to help.

Act 3: The Conclusion

·         The problem should be fully resolved

·         Any loose ends should be tied up

·         As opposed to regular stories, gamification narratives should always end positively to encourage learning and reward the learners with the best outcome.

This is easily the shortest section the gamification experience. It should come at the end and recap all the topics that have been taught in the session. It is a good idea to incorporate Diagnostic Feedback into this act also.

With all of these points in mind I am now going proceed, in my next post, to take each mapped out lesson with its gamified elements and form them around a narrative. To help me with the narratives I am going to be using Story Cubes. 

References

Scarbrough, M.H. (2013) Common mistakes to avoid when writing a children’s book. Available at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/writing/common-mistakes-to-avoid-when-writing-a-childrens-book (Accessed: 31 March 2016).

Keeler, A. (2015) Gamification: Engaging students with narrative. Available at: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/gamification-engaging-students-with-narrative-alice-keeler (Accessed: 31 March 2016).

Kapp, K. and Learning, G. of (2014) Gamification of learning. Available at: http://www.lynda.com/Higher-Education-tutorials/Gamification-Learning/173211-2.html (Accessed: 10 November 2015).

Cannell, S.J. (no date) Stephen J Cannell lecture part IV: What is Three act structure?. Available at: http://www.writerswrite.com/screenwriting/cannell/lecture4/ (Accessed: 31 March 2016).