Fairy Tale Reimagined

Students will recreate a fairy tale inside of Minecraft
Students will demonstrate an understanding of digital storytelling and guiding the viewer through a complete story experience
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the narrative tools in Minecraft: Education Edition (slate, poster, board, signs, NPCs)
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the world builder tools including the fill and clone tools
Students will publish their completed work to be shared with a global audience
Students will collaborate on the creation of their project and share responsibilities among a group
Students will utilize redstone and other elements in game to combine coding / engineering skills with storytelling (optional)

Guiding Ideas

How can we use a tool like minecraft to create an immersive story experience for the reader?

Can coding skills / concepts be combined to create a more immersive interactive experience?

Student Activities

Teacher demo:

Teacher will provide a short demonstration of the use of the world builder and narrative tools in Minecraft: Education Edition:

/op (op all partners in a group) - /op @a
/ability (provide all players with world builder ability) - /ability @a worldbuilder true
narrative tools: find and place in inventory - slate, poster, board, sign, NPC
short demo of placing and using these tools to develop story within Minecraft

Students will form groups and re-create their favorite fairy tale or children's story in Minecraft. Students will build the world and incorporate narrative. As an extension activity, students can add elements using redstone and other tools to create a more interactive experience for the reader.

Notes:

It is ok for students to modify the story. As a teacher, I tend to allow students to alter the general assignment as long as the general learning objectives are reached. When students ask to create their own story, I suggest that they stay with a story they know as it allows them to get right into the project, but if they are determined to write an original story that is fine as well. It is advisable for them to follow the guidelines of a well known story first and write and create a world based on their own story as a follow up activity. My students ultimately write a design document and create their own game, so this serves as a good warm up activity in terms of understanding the importance of narrative.

Performance Expectations

All students will submit a completed story as a .mcworld file. Expectations include the following:

Story is complete and a player can travel through the entire story
Directions for the player are clear - it should be clear where to go, what to do, etc. so a player doesn't get lost in the world
A variety of narrative / story telling tools should be used throughout including:
- slate
- poster
- board
- sign
- NPCs
Students should use the fill and/or clone tool to make building more efficient
Optional: add interactive elements with redstone