Luna Uni - Creating a Classroom-Ready RPG

Role-playing games engage students and center their voice allowing for a transformation in classroom learning, but most RPGs aren’t designed for teaching. In this panel, we’ll describe Luna Uni, a game built to help elementary and middle school students become confident authors and collaborative communicators, leading to 35% gains in writing scores and rabid enthusiasm in two 5th grade classrooms. Along the way, we’ll explain how to deal with barriers to implementation, and how to hit academic targets, differentiate for all student needs, and make this practice yours!

Objectives:

·     Participants will analyze how RPG design influences its potential for use in the classroom for achieving academic mastery.

·     Participants will be able to explain the difference between “live” and “lore” sessions and their function in making academic practice fun.

·     Participants will appreciate how game design can foster collaboration and increase student voice and agency by creating and maintaining an "affinity space" for students.

·     Participants will understand how live sessions provide a bridge between stories and reading for struggling readers.

References:

·     Gaming, world building, and narrative: using role-playing games to teach fiction writing: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2206376.2206389

·     ROLEPLAYING GAMES IN THE ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM: http://interactivedramas.info/papers/phillipsrpgclass.pdf

·     Dungeons and Dragons and literacy: The role tabletop role-playing games can play in developing teenagers' literacy skills and reading interests: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1195&context=grp

·     Learning through role-playing games: an approach for active learning and teaching: https://www.scielo.br/j/rbem/a/Sm7kZcNXWWNvd3rnc7grsGB/abstract/?lang=en

·     Exploring The Use of Role-playing Games In Education: https://mtrj.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/mtrj/article/view/29606