Tag Archives: Writing in STEM

Game Design – The Amazing Maze Game

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In this lesson series where we create a maze game in CS First for Google, what more appropriate warm up than to give students a traditional maze to work through. I began too easy, then the next day, a more difficult one, the last day, what I considered a difficult 3-D maze. Timed the students and watched them fly! This gave them an opportunity to explore the challenges and emotions of mazes before we explored their place in literature.

Then, in an ESLified version of unplugged to plugged, ELs are intentionally given opportunities to grow in the four language domains, listening, speaking, reading, and writing, to advance their English. I find poems to be extremely accessible for English learners. They’re succinct and gripping. Because much of academic, elevated language has cognates in Spanish, poems are more accessible than one might think. We began with “Joy” by the celebrated Harlem Renaissance author Clarissa Scott Delaney.

Reading Poem 1 – “Joy“

Student sketchnotes the poem. We underline adjectives and point them to the nouns they describe. We define the literary device. And illustrate “bewildered” with symbol ??.

“Joy” is accessible on Newsela.com. We began with a sticky note warmup and attached it to the image below. Using the sentence frame _______ bring me joy because ________. students thought and shared with the class their answer to the prompt: What brings you joy?

We read the poem in a choral read a few times over the course of the lesson series. We sketchnoted the phrases. We explored the literary devices. Then we separated the poem into two parts–the first 8 then then last 3 lines. We explored the flexibility of the last 3 lines and moved that emotion of being scared and lost to the front of the poem-a more chronological approach.

My students rewrote sections of the poem adding what brings them joy. Made their own comparisons. Explored synonyms for “bewildered” like “confused,” “unsure,” and “uncertain.”

Reading Poem 2 – “El Laberinto/ The Laberinth”

One of my deep desires for my students is that one day they will have access to a heritage Spanish class so they enjoy the beautiful authors of Latin America. And they all have the ability to interact with grade level (above grade level!) content with the appropriate supports. Watch this in action.

Jorge Luis Borges is a Argentinian author who had a degenerative eye disease which progressively left him blind giving his poem El laberinto (Spanish for maze) a different significance. I placed the translation side by side and we made bilingual connections about all the ways he refered to the maze. I told my students to hunt for and underline 6 phrases. They’d bring the poem back to me until they found them all. Then they wrote them in a list below.

Student notes on El Laberinto by Borges

Write to the End

Using elements from both poems, I created sentence stems for my students to complete. Students used the maze phrases from El laberinto to complete the sentences then selected their synonym of choice to replace “bewildered.” They wrote their final drafts on a maze they completed earlier and the joy of having written something so complete and inspired by such greats.

Student draft of their poem inspired by “Joy” and “El Laberinto.”

Now code your own maze!

With a firm exploration of mazes’ place in literature and culture, we opened up our last Game Design set of modules, “The Maze Game.”

At this point, we had completed both the character story and the racing game, so students had some base familiarity with coding. That is the beautiful thing about coding- when integrated with even some regularity, students build on the same skill and further their competency. Nearing the end of our school year, they were ready.

We made connections to ELA story elements and learned about equivalency across disciplines. In English language arts, a setting is where the story takes place and in computer science backdrop is where the story takes place. With this, we reviewed and discussed the utility of phrases like “in other words” and “that is” which can cue us in to an alternative explanation. This is a key comprehension strategy for ELs as they may understand one explanation over another because of cognates and vocabulary knowledge.

Students, with the support of the guide sheets when needed and video tutorials, created their own maze games. They customized them by selecting different add-ons. Then, to cap it off, with our final part of the project, we had a speed dating structured presentation where the students got to show off their games to their peers and try to pitch them to the game company. Knowing that they would present to their peers helped motivate some. After this speaking activity, I had a couple students tell me it was the best project we have done all year. Amazed.

Student proudly presenting her maze game to a classmate in our speed dating style presentations.

Game Design – The Gaming Story

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Game Design presents opportunity to explore story elements. To lead into this unit, we built up our vocabulary, background knowledge, and made social/emotional connections with two Scholastic Action Magazine* articles: The History of Video Games and The Problem with Fortnite.

Afterwards… questions. Interest. –What are the basics of game design? How is it done? Do I have the ability to enter this world of programming and game design? YES, you do!

The unit begins with logging students in and exploring the platform. I introduced categories in the menu on the left hand side, discussed common computer science terminology, and we labeled the parts of the screen: menu, blocks, workspace, tabs, etc.

In Nearpod, students then label the parts of the screen.

Also prior to coding our character to talk, we wrote in our problem solving journals. I modeled how we were entering into the problem solving process (define, prepare, try, reflect) that we learned in our prior unit inspired by Code.org here. Together we wrote down the first two items, define and prepare. Then later returned to try and reflect.

Define: Create a gaming story.

Prepare: 1) Pause & rewatch tutorial videos or 2) refer to the CS First’s Game Design Guide (printed for each student to reference).

Try: Design my character. Move the “say” blocks and change the word.

Reflect: I felt _________ because ___________.

Student- created journals for writing & reflection
Page 1 was their copied guide to their journal entries on the problem solving process using the resource from Code.org.
This first journal entry, we did together as a class to support them in my expectations.

Gaming Story

CS First in Google begins with the concept of the story behind the game. Every good game has a compelling story. I asked the class, what are your favorite games to play? What are their stories?

The CS First introductory video begins with a thought provoker–should students play more or fewer video games. To prepare to answer, we read Scholastic Action Magazine’s “Are Video Games Good for You?” I polled the students’ opinions. Beginner/ intermediate students stated an opinion. Advanced students explained their rationales. They all answered comprehension questions after the end of the article.

Scholastic Action Magazine’s Are Video Games Good for You? was a perfect intro to Game Design

In this coding task, students customize a character’s clothing and features, and then code it to do one simple task–say something. Students replace “hello” by typing into a “say” block, which codes their character to speak.

What would the character say for this assignment? We utilized the answers from the comprehension questions that we wrote that followed the article. A character would say them.

See a student’s work in progress below. At this point, he attached four “say” blocks and rewrote what his character would say in the first two “say blocks.”

The student is replacing Hello! so his character shares the information he wrote in response to the article.

With only one primary block to identify, drag over, and modify, creating a gaming story was a nice, accessible introduction into the world of coding. Students with prior background in computer science who finished quickly further customized their characters with add-on tutorials.

This assignment extended a writing assignment into a different format. Code a character to summarize an article.

What else could a student code a character say? Some ideas…Code a character to give a tutorial. Code a character to relay greetings. Code a character to give a report. Code a character to teach a concept. Add a second character and turn in into a dialogue. The possibilities!

*As an aside, I absolutely love the language rich, highly engaging materials of Scholastic Action. I build many of our units of study based on their nonfiction feature articles. Units have included Comic Books in the Great Depression, Real Stories of WWII, Frankenstein & Fear, and Extreme Weather. I highly recommend subscriptions to them to add content related materials for reading, writing, listening, and vocabulary integration. Their digital subscription gives you access to all back issues and accompanying plans/ materials. Articles come with 3 different lexile versions usually 500-600, 600-700, and 800-900. For my beginners/ newcomers we work hard. We frontload and scaffold the articles identifying text features, analyzing images, and building background knowledge. Check them out!

No Problem! A Problem Solving Unit

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Intro to Video Game Design. Sound fun? Dooot dooot dooot doot doot DOOOT! Look for upcoming posts on a unit that’s been brewing in my head for a year.

I was exploring Code.org’s CS Discoveries course and they recommend to begin a video game design unit with the first three lessons on problem solving in computing. In this unit, students collaborate and communicate. Through experience, students learn the 4 steps of the problem solving process: define, prepare, try, reflect. Students learn to modify and adjust based on research and experience. They write and record their answers and then extend the process to a variety of problems and puzzles. Check them out here.

Their first lesson is a challenge. Several possibilities are presented:

  1. Students work together to create the aluminum boat that can hold the most pennies.
  2. Students work together to create the tallest paper tower using only 20 sheets.
  3. Students work together to create a bridge out of spaghetti that can hold the most books.
  4. Students work together to build a newspaper table that can hold the most books.

We made paper towers. My students worked in groups of 3. Who could create the tallest paper tower using only 20 sheets in 15 minutes? Before I set the timer, they had 5 minutes to record on chart paper– Step 1: define, & Step 2: prepare. Step 1 was crucial to the project and I fielded lots of clarifying questions. Can we use pegamiento (glue)? Nope. Just paper. What about grapas (staples)? No, only paper. Then the laughing. How in the world! With step 2, there was more of a need for help. With them excited to begin, I held my rooms of 18 teenagers the best of my ability and encouraged them to draw a diagram or write some key words and phrases of what they would attempt.

Ready, set, GO! They should have trusted themselves. Within minutes they were folding paper, experimenting with 3D shapes, considering reinforcement, balance, and surface area. They were laughing, sneaking looks at what their friends were doing in other groups. “It’s okay to do that guys, you are researching designs and outcomes!”

To finish, students wrote their reflection on how it went. This provided a great opportunity for those who were a little more reserved in the process to contribute. This activity elevated creativity, technique, and design, highlighting often hidden assets of some more quiet or beginning students.

Day 2-3: Idiom Challenge & Puzzles

I introduced Problem Solving Idioms in a Quizlet set. Even though idioms are an advanced skill, my beginners and intermediate students are capable. Additionally, they need exposure and I have some who are leaping up into advanced proficiency and I wanted to challenge them. Then I challenged my 2 beginner/ intermediate classes to a competition. I also challenged my other 2 classes of advanced students to their own competion. The rules were simple. Any attempts to verbally use the idioms in their speech the most before spring break wins donuts. Let’s get back on track!

Back to problem solving! We reviewed the problem solving process with a listening activity in Edpuzzle, which embeds comprehension questions on Code.org’s video of this process in the business world. Then we attacked their puzzles. Thank you, Code.org for your engaging materials!

First, a Word Search. We made cross-linguistic connections. In Spanish, it’s called “Sopa de Letras” or “Soup of Letters.” The Spanish paints a visual for me! Familiar to all, I found that they hadn’t stopped to think about the prepare/ plan step. What strategy do they follow anyhow? There were a variety of responses. I set a stopwatch. And once again, we timed ourselves to see who finished fastest. It was exciting to see students shine.

Then we filled out the problem solving table for the Word Search.

Next, a Birthday Party Seating Chart. Ah my teenagers could identify here. All the friends are invited but some pairs are fighting and some want to be seated with their BFF or novio(a). I modeled. I “sat” the first pair and “separated” the second pair of exes, then released the students with a stopwatch to see who finished fastest. Then they filled out the problem solving chart in the back.

Day 4: Prep for Problem Solving Journal

I had the students create their own problem solving journal with a colored sheet for a cover, 3 sheets of white paper, stapled, with their first page, re-written as a guide. We will use this for our video game unit to record the application of the problem solving process, Step 4, “Reflect” to be guided by an insert Mood/ Emotions Table printed for their journal. Each page will name the challenge and the four steps will be completed, with support, by the student.

Extra!: The problem solving process has already crossed over into our other learning activities! Several occasions when reading, students have asked, how do I say this word? I refer back to the process. Step 3! Try! Then they smile and jump in with their attempt.