Thursday, April 11, 2024

Social Justice Posters @PS4 3rd - 5th grade










To make a poster about an issue we believe in, first we must answer these questions:

1. What do humans need to live a happy, healthy, full life?

2. What kinds of things can we think of, that we see gets in the way of being able to live that happy, full life?

3. As a class, what kind of message would we like to send - in the form of a poster - about what is important and why we should protect it?


Day 1 - Come up with a subject and a plan
Day 2 - Decide who is in charge of making which parts + make them!
Day 3 - Finish our pieces + put them together into one final poster design

Sunday, March 31, 2024

Game Design 2/4 @APR World Building

Day 2: Intersections + Map Making

Look at different kinds of Board Game play styles, pathways









Some basic gameplay structures:

1. 4 pathways heading to the same destination - different worlds heading to the same outcome

2. Interwoven pathways/maze with 4 distinct world components

3. Shutes and ladders style, ascending through various terrain - portals or doorways are important

4. ?


Get into groups + draft initial components

Core rule requirements to be considered:

1. How do players move/pass between worlds/escape obstacles

2. How does this game incorporate cards with personal experiences from everyone on the team into gameplay?

3. What needs to happen for the game to be concluded? What is the goal of the game and how is it achieved?


Present a rough sketch/map of your groups intended game by the end of class - like the first drawing below:





Game Design 1/4 @APR Brainstorm

Day 1: Life Journey/Personal Reflection/Brainstorm

Main goal for today is to have notes that respond to each of these 3 main questions/concepts for a board game that might be an exploration of your life. Don't worry about whether things are good or important enough - just write everything down, so you have more resources to play with later.


1. Environment Design

+ What environments describe our life? Are there multiple? 

+ Do you want to build a game based on your life out of real/literal things? Or are there symbolic landscapes that feel more evocative?

+ What are some possible landscapes we could us to describe our experiences? (An airplane taking us to different countries, a treasure map, a moon landing, a river?)


2. Obstacles - things in our lives that slow us down or force us to deviate in our path

+ What is an obstacle? What are some ways they might manifest in someone's life?

+ What obstacles have we faced, or expect we might have to come up against at some point?  

+ What could we use to represent those obstacles? (Anxiety Monsters, Walls, Sisyphus etc)


3. Pathways through Life

+ What does your path look like? Smooth? Rocky? Like a maze, a garden, a golden brick road, a stairway to heaven? What are some different kinds of pathways?

+ What support structures exist in your life? (Family, friends, religion, sports, time/coming of age/future plans?)

+ What could we use to represent them? (bridges, helping hands, ladders, time warps?)

+ What are your goals? (To get through High School, to become an adult, to pass regents, to know yourself?) 











Sunday, March 10, 2024

Call to Action @PS4

Hero Questions:

1. Why would someone or something need a hero? Who do heroes protect and why?
+ protection
+ things are out of balance, lacking justice
+ people, places, environments
+ who are real life bad guys? - War, Corporations
+ ?

2. What does someone need to have to be a hero? 
+ bravery/courage
+ leadership
+ strength
+ honesty
+ conviction
+ perseverance 
+ tools or skills to support them
+ ?

3. What calls a Hero to action? How does that specific call define the way the Hero expresses themselves?
+ a transformation (spiderman)
+ a loss or heartbreak (batman)
+ a discovery
+ ?

4. Who are some real life Heroes? What makes them heroic?
+ MLK
+ Malala
+ ?

5. What kind of Hero would be important in your life? 
+ What do they look like? 
+ How are they heroic?
+ Are there aspects of people you know that could inspire your design?
+ What happens to change things for them, that calls them to be a Hero?



Step 1:
Cut out your Hero shape, only cutting on the pencil outlines so your Hero still opens like a book.





Step 2:
Design what your Hero looks like (outside) and what characteristics your Hero has (inside). The first day will be cutting and sketching, so we can still make changes if we need to. Day 2 will be very thoughtfully and carefully outlining all of our pencil lines with a fine-tipped sharpie.





Step 3:
Final fotos will be added next week, of colored pencil added inside of all of the lines and shapes we have created. Playing with interesting color combinations and dynamic blending to make different part pop forward or sink back.





'The term "hero" comes from the ancient Greeks. For them, a hero was a mortal who had done something so far beyond the normal scope of human experience that he left an immortal memory behind him when he died, and thus received worship like that due the gods. Many of these first heroes were great benefactors of humankind: Hercules, the monster killer; Asclepius, the first doctor; Dionysus, the creator of Greek fraternities. But people who had committed unthinkable crimes were also called heroes; Oedipus and Medea, for example, received divine worship after their deaths as well. Originally, heroes were not necessarily good, but they were always extraordinary; to be a hero was to expand people's sense of what was possible for a human being.

Today, it is much harder to detach the concept of heroism from morality; we only call heroes those whom we admire and wish to emulate. But still the concept retains that original link to possibility. We need heroes first and foremost because our heroes help define the limits of our aspirations. We largely define our ideals by the heroes we choose, and our ideals -- things like courage, honor, and justice -- largely define us. Our heroes are symbols for us of all the qualities we would like to possess and all the ambitions we would like to satisfy. A person who chooses Martin Luther King or Susan B. Anthony as a hero is going to have a very different sense of what human excellence involves than someone who chooses, say, Paris Hilton, or the rapper 50 Cent. And because the ideals to which we aspire do so much to determine the ways in which we behave, we all have a vested interest in each person having heroes, and in the choice of heroes each of us makes.'