Our school has always had a "mentoring" period that ended up being, at best, a glorified home room. This year, we're having a shift in the mentoring program that's making me excited. I'm looking at the act of creativity--using imagination and skill to craft something new.
As a basis, I'm considering the way in which Blizzard Entertainment (specifically) and video games and movies (generally) use collaboration and joint-contribution to a single vision. This vision is of a world in which all the students are building it up in some way. It's the act of world building--which I've done by myself for years--writ large.
I'm excited because this is an opportunity to become more familiar with others' ideas, to have the spark of mutual ideas stirring and generating fresh concepts. Of all the parts of making a video game, that type of creative problem solving has always intrigued me. A decade ago, I took a classroom of kids up to a local video game studio and toured the premises. There, in one of the board rooms, the walls bedecked from ceiling to floor with whiteboards, was where they mapped out the concept of the level, the purpose of each component of the puzzle, and ways in which they would direct and guide the player to the correct conclusion.
I asked the designer what degree he thought would be most beneficial for a student to pursue if they wanted to get into video games. Though the answer is different now, then he said, "I need creative writers. They know how to solve problems and tell stories in exciting ways."
That's what I'm hoping to do with this new class. Because we'll be meeting weekly, and only for about 45 minutes, we won't get sick of the work (a problem I've seen in similar classes where the time is more compressed), and we'll always have something to do (I hope). If I get this to work correctly, we'll manage to create a fictional world that could never have existed otherwise. Because it's collaborative, each student will be bringing unique points of view, experience, and enthusiasm to each part. Having never been a part of that has me anxious and anticipating the class, which will start this Friday.
There are concerns, of course. I'm dealing with teenagers, and the possibility of having feelings hurt, tensions because of miscommunication, or any other high school-related drama is likely. This is part of what I'm paid to do, so it's not as if I'm going in blind on this sort of a thing, but it's still a touch worrisome. I'm willing to admit that there are a lot of things that I don't know about--blind spots that I can't anticipate--but that's part of what is so exciting: I'm blazing into new territory for myself and my students.
In the end, I'm hopeful that the students will learn as much about cooperation, compromise, and teamwork as they do about creativity, editing, and imagination. Not too bad for 45 minutes a week...
As a basis, I'm considering the way in which Blizzard Entertainment (specifically) and video games and movies (generally) use collaboration and joint-contribution to a single vision. This vision is of a world in which all the students are building it up in some way. It's the act of world building--which I've done by myself for years--writ large.
I'm excited because this is an opportunity to become more familiar with others' ideas, to have the spark of mutual ideas stirring and generating fresh concepts. Of all the parts of making a video game, that type of creative problem solving has always intrigued me. A decade ago, I took a classroom of kids up to a local video game studio and toured the premises. There, in one of the board rooms, the walls bedecked from ceiling to floor with whiteboards, was where they mapped out the concept of the level, the purpose of each component of the puzzle, and ways in which they would direct and guide the player to the correct conclusion.
I asked the designer what degree he thought would be most beneficial for a student to pursue if they wanted to get into video games. Though the answer is different now, then he said, "I need creative writers. They know how to solve problems and tell stories in exciting ways."
That's what I'm hoping to do with this new class. Because we'll be meeting weekly, and only for about 45 minutes, we won't get sick of the work (a problem I've seen in similar classes where the time is more compressed), and we'll always have something to do (I hope). If I get this to work correctly, we'll manage to create a fictional world that could never have existed otherwise. Because it's collaborative, each student will be bringing unique points of view, experience, and enthusiasm to each part. Having never been a part of that has me anxious and anticipating the class, which will start this Friday.
There are concerns, of course. I'm dealing with teenagers, and the possibility of having feelings hurt, tensions because of miscommunication, or any other high school-related drama is likely. This is part of what I'm paid to do, so it's not as if I'm going in blind on this sort of a thing, but it's still a touch worrisome. I'm willing to admit that there are a lot of things that I don't know about--blind spots that I can't anticipate--but that's part of what is so exciting: I'm blazing into new territory for myself and my students.
In the end, I'm hopeful that the students will learn as much about cooperation, compromise, and teamwork as they do about creativity, editing, and imagination. Not too bad for 45 minutes a week...