Immersive Programming
Bring thought-provoking, story-based experiences to your school or community center
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Humans are made of stories. The stories we tell ourselves and others. Stories can create bridges, connecting people and subjects across time and space. They can create opportunities for indispensable conversations. They connect us to ourselves, our learning, and to the world around us. Stories allow us to see, and become better versions of ourselves. And stories are joy, which is the most important thing of all. What is the story you tell you, about you?
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Offering 1: Build a world and play in it:
Inspired in part by Microscope RPG, in this experience, we create characters and go on an adventure in a world we build together. We begin by creating a fictional timeline, and a shared history, and from there, we improvise scenes and stories. As a storytelling team, we will decide our genre, choose our setting, and then put our characters (which we make individually) to the test to see how they transform through the conflicts or hidden motivations that arise. Together we’ll create a story that has never been created before, build new friendships and nemeses, and understand our characters–and hopefully ourselves too–along the way. We will spend time at the beginning and end of each session debriefing about how our characters’ decisions have impacted our characters and the worlds they live in, how the characters are thinking about what has happened, and what hopes they have for the future. All vital parts of becoming writers of stories, and the worlds we live in! If you’ve already got a character you want to play, great! If you need help creating one, we can get you set up!
Offering 2: Enter the world of a novel!
an immersive, interdisciplinary experience
The benevolent and bountiful corporation, Squapple, has hired a team of experts to find and harvest resources for their new technology. The team has been tasked to explore an unknown region of the Atlantic Ocean. Little does Squapple know the history that has been growing and blossoming beneath the waves. Or perhaps they do… |
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Part Sci-Fi adventure, part Alt-history, part thriller, the world of this program is inspired by the novella “The Deep” by Rivers Solomon, (purchase here.) and the song of the same name by Daveed Diggs and company's hip hop group, clipping. which premiered on This American Life episode, “We Are In The Future.” Listen to the song here.
This role-playing adventure uses collaborative storytelling and exploration for character development that goes far beyond the page. Become a character in the novel, and see how this world challenges you to new depths.
This role-playing adventure uses collaborative storytelling and exploration for character development that goes far beyond the page. Become a character in the novel, and see how this world challenges you to new depths.
Our Strategy
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Gets students what they need, from an expert in each field, while also upping engagement with rigorous play-based lessons that build neural pathways & schema to yield life-long learning.
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PROGRAM THEMES:
CharacterAfter setting our community expectations, participants create characters using our moral and ethical alignments framework. We talk about their character's core motivations and needs, and then we consider the intersections of their identities that led their character to those alignments, using another framework based on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s “Intersectional Theory.”
Adventurers write their character's backstories, decide upon occupations, and think through their character's behavior, decision making processes, and how they react when under stress. They work on this development throughout the program in their post-adventure reflections. |
NavigationWe begin each session with an out of character discussion on the day's themes.
Back in character, adventurers arrive at their first destination, and learn how to move in this fictional world, how to role play, and they embark on an adventure where in small groups, using geometry, algebra, and puzzle solving, they circumnavigate across the ocean and then into the depths to find a location to mine resources for their benevolent company. They will encounter obstacles along the way, and have to work together to solve these puzzles, and interact with what or whomsoever they find. |
InheritancePlayers explore the habitat and uncover evidence of civilizations past and present. The more they engage in what they read, the more fruitful the experience will be. They have to wrangle with uncomfortable realities and figure out the best course of action. Some may choose to fight, some may choose other tactics.
Ruins will be uncovered, shipwrecks discovered, voices will stream from objects, and perhaps even some ghosts will appear. It all depends on how the explorers proceed, and what decisions (or mistakes) they make. |
ResponsibilityWith any luck, the explorers will embark upon a scientific experiment, as well as some improvisational logic puzzles, and deductive and inductive reasoning. Depending on the results of their experiments, and their collaborative decision making (requiring listening skills we will be building upon along the way), this will unlock other narrative elements.
Depending on where they look, and with whom they speak, they may uncover a devious plot or two, find ancient texts curiously preserved, learn about how sound travels underwater, or have to de-escalate tensions between sea creatures. They also learn of three separate factions within an underwater community that each are vying for power. |
Legacy
On the final day, the valiant adventurers will have to integrate all of their skills and research to decide what they believe, and then persuade non-player-characters to follow their lead. All of the actions they've taken in the deep will determine what happens next. They will deal with any of the consequences or rewards, and then they will have to navigate back to the surface, and face whatever is waiting for them.
Each session ends with a meta-discussion that helps tie learning together, reflect on the experience, and process the outcomes.
Each session ends with a meta-discussion that helps tie learning together, reflect on the experience, and process the outcomes.
Into the Deep Includes Excerpts from:
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Non-Fiction"Genetics shed light on symbiosis of anglerfish and glowing bacteria” By Krishna Ramanujan | July 16, 2018
“Eight-Armed Underwater Bullies: Watch Octopuses Punch Fish” By Elizabeth Preston | Dec. 24, 2020 “Way before Columbus, ancient Malians sailed to the Americas in 1311” by Bridget Boakye |Dec 5, 2018 Silent Spring by Rachel Carson | 1962 River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom by Walter Johnson | 2013 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup | 1841 |
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+ applied Pythagorean theorem practice, pH lessons, AND MORE!
- Students often have difficulty seeing the relevance of classroom learning to their lives.
- Students often do not see themselves in the subjects being taught, and therefore the education system curtails their ability to see themselves as contributors to, rather than consumers of history and culture and science.
- Students therefore have trouble making and retaining new neural pathways, in part due to subjects being taught in a disconnected way.
- Educators do not have sufficient time to co-plan horizontally across subject lines.
- Educators are overworked, and often are too overwhelmed with all of the other demands on their time and emotional capacities to make big changes to their syllabi. So, even with the best intentions, we end up reinforcing euro-centrism, and systemic inequities.
- School systems are facing pressures from state and national testing, which trickles down to less creativity and holistic approaches to learning, even as they are hoping to provide more opportunities (college acceptances) for their students.
These problems can stem from:
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Which tends to manifest in:
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- Cross-curricular integration to change the isolated way we Teach and learn.
- A collaborative model that empowers students to Write their own part of the narrative: to develop their voices, and allow them to create and take ownership of their learning.
- Anchored by mentor texts written by writers working Now for a more nuanced, relevant, and robust learning atmosphere for students.
Both of these experiences can be tailored to your needs
We can offer this online or in person during a residency in a classroom setting, spring or summer break programs, after school programs, or credit recovery. We can place a greater emphasis on any of the specific subjects involved, depending on your context, and also stretch or condense the length, depending on your needs.
Because of our interactive approach, the experience will vary each time.
Because of our interactive approach, the experience will vary each time.
