Teaching with Frankenstories

Frankenstories has what we call a core game loop, which players repeat several times in every game:

1. Write
2. Read
3. Analyse
4. Adapt

(For comparison, Writelike is Read-Analyse-Write, and each activity is proportioned differently.)

Using that core loop, you can create a wide variety of writing experiences by changing settings such as:

• Stimulus images
• Text prompts
• Scaffolding instructions
• Number of rounds
• Character limits
• Writing and voting timer lengths
• Player grouping
• Approval mode

One purpose of this guide is to show you the range of learning experiences you can create by manipulating these controls.

Writing in a live, group-improvisation context presents unique challenges. The types of planning and revision skills you ordinarily teach in class might not be so helpful.

However, there are known skills that work in improvisation and are directly transferable to writing in other contexts.

So we’ll teach you writing skills that students can apply at a moment’s notice, plus concepts and principles that they can use when revising and polishing a text.

You can use Frankenstories in any subject, for any topic, with almost any grade level from middle years and up.

But this flexibility means you also need to figure out how Frankenstories works with the social dynamics of your class and school, and how it maps to your curriculum.

Social dynamics

A large part of learning to use Frankenstories is figuring out how much freedom to give players, and how to group them.

The game offers a variety of options so you can create experiences that are open-ended, heavily moderated, whole class, small group, individual—to suit the social dynamics of your classroom.

Mapping to your curriculum

The language and structure of Frankenstories will probably differ from your school curriculum.

Generally, our approach is:

• Granular—we go to a relatively low level of detail.
• Mechanical—we focus on practical concepts and skills you can use to create an effect in writing.
• Memorable—we lean towards terms that are more concrete and expressive.

With that in mind, you'll find:

• Some Frankenstories terms will have direct matches.
  • The Frankenstories term should be intuitive and map easily to the school term.
  • E.g "tilt" = "inciting incident", but it's arguably more informative.
• Other terms won’t have a direct match in the curriculum, but they should fit inside a term you already use.
  • E.g. your curriculum may not have an equivalent slot for "adaptation" or "stabilisation", but you can usually situate such terms within other concepts such as "rising action" or "falling action".