Video game adventure writing unit – Myst Exile

Like every teacher I have struggled with engaging some of my reluctant male writers to really get their teeth into a new text. During the year that I had a boy-heavy cohort of boys that seems uninterested with fictional stories I tried something new and exciting. I planned a three week block of adventure fiction writing with a PC game called Myst Exile.

I love to hook children in with something memorable. Something that inspires curiosity, excitement and generates lots of chatter.

On day one I left a wooden globe cabinet in the room and filled it full of clues about the story we were about to start. They had no idea the lights were about to go out and screen was about to spring into action revealing the next three weeks of immersive adventure story writing.

The whiteboard has never been such a wonderful resource. The game is set up in a first person walk through and lets the children pretend they are the main character, guiding the teachers choice of direction as the story goes on. There is a wide variety of different settings, problems and resolutions to guide their own stories.

I got super excited teaching this. And so did they. My boys couldn’t stop thinking about the next parts to the mystery and would role play at break different parts of the game.

The planning follows a three week block of building up grammar and punctuation needed for each section in the story (opening, build up, problems, resolutions and ending). The planning also follows some of Pie Corbet’s adventure writing tool kits available here. Pie Corbet Writing Adventure text toolkit examples

You can download week 1 for free here.Week 1 Planning Myst. Adventure and Mystery fiction

I have also created a PowerPoint that you might find useful to guide some of your lessons. Adventure Fiction Myst Exile PP

If you want to know more about teaching creative literacy with games and animation check out Persuasive writing #strawssuck. The campaign curriculum.