Year 8 - Fantasy Unit with Narrative Writing/Complex Vocab development

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G'day from Australia,

 

This is a very early quest I've developed focusing on some of the key elements of my Year 8 Fantasy unit.

a) Fantasy tropes

b) Narrative storytelling development

c) Ethics development

d) Complex vocabulary development

e) Persuasive writing

 

Use and adapt as needed.

5 comments
Date Votes

This is incredible! Thank you so much for sharing. I'm just getting into creating quests, and this one is very inspiring. I love the fact that the writing prompts and assignments are so closely linked to the storyline of the quest.

I have a question about the "Fungal Friend" quest - once students have completed it, do they choose a path and only complete the assignments that are down that path, or is the expectation that they explore both paths?

Thanks, Erin. Very kind words.

My intention is to set it up so students have similar work to complete by the end of the lesson, but not necessarily the same work. I assumed that some of the boys in the class would be more likely to choose the option where they ate the mushroom so the work is slightly geared towards the 'typical' boy level in my particular class.

One thing I used was art from the Magic the Gathering card game. Google has a huge file list of art that I thought worked well as flavour pieces.

This is my second quest, the first one I did is a little more specific to our school. https://game.classcraft.com/import/quest/BSjgiYXYcJQQMSBm2 

With that one, I hid two portions of a riddle across the map and then encouraged kids to share/barter with each other to get both portions of the riddle to move on. It's the first quest I gave my kids so it would be useful as an intro lesson to Classcraft, but I'd recommend making your own riddle about some location or item in your school.

Nathan, thanks so much for taking the time to respond. I think the element of choice for students is a very important one! I think my eighth graders will really enjoy this quest - and I'm now thinking of lots of different quests. Have you ever used The Mysteries of Harris Burdick in your class? I am thinking a quest based on that story/those images would be a lot of fun, so I've put it on my list of things to do :-)

When I click on the link for your first quest, it takes me to the main page of my own Classcraft, not to the import screen for quests...

 

Sorry, Erin; this link should work.

I hadn't heard of The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, but I looked it up and it will fit quite well into a horror unit we run with the Year 9s; thanks for that! I think you can get a lot out of well-crafted images coupled with some texts, so please send through your quest when you get it finished. My guys love a good narrative run.

 

Hi Nathan, that link does work - what a great introductory quest, and start to the school year. I will definitely be borrowing *cough*stealing*cough* this for next September! I will absolutely share my Harris Burdick quest once I get it done. I've used those images in the past and students really love crafting stories around the bizarreness they see. 

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