Workshop description

July 15 Interactive Fiction: A Tool for Building Literacy Skills

Interactive fiction is a form of computer entertainment, in which the player reads a story on their computer screen, responds to the story by typing simple natural language commands like "search cupboard" or "turn bolt with wrench", and thereby affects the outcome of the story. Educators can use interactive fiction to teach reading skills, writing skills, foreign languages, programming skills, problem-solving skills, and generally to encourage creative thinking. This workshop will introduce teachers to sources of grade-appropriate interactive fiction on-line, and its use in the classroom.

Workshop agenda

Participants should begin the workshop by logging on to one of the following links, and playing "Dreamhold" (by Andrew Plotkin, 2004).  Dreamhold is a fairly traditional work of interactive fiction (IF), made special by the inclusion of an in-game tutorial for beginners who are new to this type of game.

 dreamhold

or dreamhold

After all the workshop participants have arrived and played around with this game for a bit, we'll briefly discuss the medium of interactive fiction in general, and its specific value in the classroom.

During the second half of the workshop, we'll break into groups to play and review a set of games which are recommended for school children.  These games have also been selected to represent the variety of genres and styles of IF which are available as freeware.

Earth and Sky (a superhero game) 2001 by Paul O'Brien

Mrs Pepper's Nasty Secret (mystery) 2008 by Jim Aiken and Eric Eve

Lost Pig (comedy) 2007by Admiral Jotta

Seastalker (Adventure) 1984 Stu Galley and Jim Lawrence

City of Secrets (political intrigue) 2003 by Emily Short

Photopia (tragedy) 1998 by Adam Cadre

Additional recommended games may be announced during the workshop.

As you play your assigned game, take notes which will allow you to review it for the rest of group.  What is the theme, genre, plot and mood?  What are the strengths and weaknesses as a game?  As a story?  What age group would your recommend this for, based on the level of the vocabulary, thematic content, and puzzle difficulty?

At the conclusion of the workshop, participants will review the game they've selected for the rest of the group.

The remaining links on this page point you to other sources of IF related information:  How to find IF games or reviews, and suggestions for using them in your classroom.  The facilitator will make reference to these links during the discussion part of the workshop.

Playing interactive fiction through the web browser 

Several online applications are available for playing interactive fiction within your browser.  If you've enjoyed playing some of the games during this workshop, you may wish to explore the titles at the following sites.  Not all games linked from these sites are suitable for a school environment.  Depending on your browser settings, not all of these applications may work on your computer, and depending on the quality of your internet connection, some games may be quite slow to load.

http://www.web-adventures.org/games.html

http://ifiction.free.fr/index.php?id=ifarchive

http://parchment.toolness.com/