games

gaming, world building and narrative

Interested in using gaming theory to shape your classes and web 2.0 technologies in your classes?

On Thursday, April 21, Trent Hergenrader will discuss his experiences teaching English 236: Intro Topics in Creative Writing: Gaming, World Building, and Narrative this spring.

The course was divided into three roughly equal sections:

• discussing post-apocalyptic narratives across media (short stories, films, and the video game Fallout 3)
• using a wiki to collaboratively create a fictional post-apocalyptic world
• tabletop role-playing sessions where students explored this fictional world as player-characters and wrote stories about their characters’ experiences.

Trent will talk about the pedagogical theories behind this approach, the successes and challenges in using gaming theory, and exciting new narrative possibilities afforded by Web 2.0 technologies.

Feel free to take a sneak peak at the course wiki and a Google map of post-apocalyptic Milwaukee, which Trent will reference during the talk.