Agent Guided Book Tour CS, ELA

8-10 yrs old

11-13 yrs old

Computer Science

Reading and Writing

Students code their agent as a tour guide to demonstrate reading comprehension and writing skills, while learning and comparing CS Concepts.

Submitted By: Jessica Pilsner

January 19, 2019

Lesson Plan
My Notes

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Skills

Communication
Creativity
Critical Thinking

External References

Just-in-Time Documentation

Supporting Files

Onenote Pages for Project

This word Doc. contains the project description and link to Onenote pages.

Learning Objectives

ELA -Students will be able to cite evidence from the novel to support their determined theme as they design visuals to represent their ideas. -Students will be able to summarize novel, identifying key events related to theme -Students will be able to compare and contrast planning to write code to planning to write a story or essay.
CS -Students will be able to plan and carry out scripts to use the Minecraft agent as a tour guide -Student will be able to use loops and conditionals and define what they are and why they are useful. -Student will be able to explain why planning is important when programming.

Guiding Ideas

This project is all about bringing together linguistic concepts from ELA and from computer science. Planning became a natural place to start and an essential skill in writing and programming. It also has a big focus in using direct evidence from the text. I noticed among my own students using direct quotes and giving evidence of their connection was an area of struggle. This project came out of that desire to get them to really back up their ideas as they demonstrated reading comprehension.

Guiding ideas and question include

Is planning in computer science anything like planning to write an essay?
How do the events and dialogue in a novel support the them and central meaning?
How do we use language to share ideas?

Guiding idea- ELA, design, and computer science come together to create an artifact that reflects reading comprehension.

Student Activities

Project description:

Your challenge is to pick the 3-4 most pivotal scenes from your book. Consider if you were giving a summary of the most defining moments in the life of the main character(s). You will need to decide what "theme" or "Lesson" readers should glean from his/her story, show that theme in every scene. Each scene should have obvious connections back to at least 2 quotes from that section of the book. The page numbers should be cited on boards, or in NPC descriptions.

You will also code an agent as the tour guide of your world. The goal of your agent is to help teach the lesson the reader should learn from Billy-Joe's story and to point out important artifacts in each scene. Think of you agent like a museum tour guide.

The planning pages will walk you through the prep and preparing for creating this project. You will need a scene blue print and planning for the world and planning for code. Remember the importance of planning for your code before you write a program. You may need to practice with the code builder if it is newer to you. All of these components that you type will need to be documented in a final SWAY.

A big goal of this project is to practice going back to the text for detail. The more details from the text in every component the better. We are also looking for every object added to be purposeful!

(Quick version of project flow)

Comparing writing and programming page- Intro and reading article on the topic-Titled “Just in time documentation” by James Hood.
Review of theme with students and then intro project. Explain how each scene should be a pivotal moment in the book related to their selected theme.
Look over Design Planning page with students, you may adapt this to fit what your students are familiar with when planning. Emphasize how each quote and idea should support the build and design in Minecraft. Give students time to work on planning, keeping in mind the agent will be the guide to explain their connections and be the tour guide.
If coding with agent is new to students, you will need to plan a lesson to introduce code connection. If familiar review the terms loop and conditionals as you go over the planning page. Focus on how to simplify the code and also make connections back to why we plan scripts when we code.
Remind students that all components of project will be moved into a final Sway for presentation and turn in.
When students have planning pages approved, they can begin the build.
I usually have students present Sway and share world to grade.

Performance Expectations

ELA components

Sway that compiles all components of the project
Sway includes blueprint and planning for Minecraft world
Sway includes all direct quote connections within the world (should have at least 6)
Sway includes paragraph about theme and lesson learned from the out of the Dust
Minecraft world includes a series of events from the story that makes sense together and support the theme.

Media Arts

Every addition to the Minecraft world has meaning and a purpose (Ms. Pilsner will ask about the purpose of random items :) )
Thought to details and design in world. Thought to layout and colors used (avoid messy areas where you started building but did not finish and random shooting objects)
Minecraft build fits setting of Out of the Dust
Save world to desktop multiple times during build in case of Minecraft Mishap

Science

Sway includes all planning components from "Code Planning" Onenote page
Sway includes multiple drafts of the code
Document tests as you develop the code.
Include and describe changes you made in the code
Agent works and can guide a visitor around the world
Agent utilizes at least one use of looping in code.
Command phrases are clear to the visitor
Reflection on using planning before starting code and process of trouble shooting problems during programming