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Introduction
Like so many subjects, teaching students to use JIFFEE requires that topics be
covered in a logical progression. This outline suggests one such ordering which
has been proven in practice, and it also gives you an idea of how much material
can be covered based on experience with real students.
(For more general helpful ideas, see
Tips and Techniques for Teaching Interactive Fiction.)
Bear in mind that the pacing of this outline is based on the following assumptions:
- Students are from middle schools (around age 12-14).
- The school serves an area where English is a second language for many students.
- Class meetings are about 60 minutes long.
- The curriculum requires a presentation at the end, so time has to be reserved for
practicing public speaking skills.
- The student:teacher ratio was very low, generally between 3:1 and 6:1.
The classes weren't always that small, but we had multiple instructors.
The additional instructors do not have to be professional teachers;
none of ours were.
Expect to make adjustments depending on your students' backgrounds and your
educational goals. For example, if you have more time but want to put even more
focus on language skills, you might use the extra time for adding more locations
(thus providing more writing practice) rather than adding technical depth.
For Citizen Teachers doing a Citizen Schools apprenticeship:
I try hard to test JIFFEE and keep it as reliable as I can, but if
you run into a situation where you think you've found a bug in JIFFEE,
please email the relevant game file to me at
mike@jiffeegames.com.
If it's a real bug I'll do my best to fix it, and if it isn't perhaps
I can improve the documentation to help the next teacher.
General Advice
If your students have any exposure to theater, you can apply a number of those
concepts to explaining how JIFFEE games work:
- Hiding things backstage until you need them is like setting the location of a prop
to "backstage".
- Each JIFFEE "place" is like a different stage set.
- The props in JIFFEE are things that come and go and move around, just like theater props.
- Place descriptions are like the painted-on scenery in theater — they never change.
If you have more than one instructor, alternate who is talking. Anything that
introduces a bit of variety reduces the chance of boredom, plus it can be really
valuable for the students to hear
a second perspective or a second way of explaining something.
Week 1
Before students can hope to create an Interactive Fiction game, they must have
a basic understanding of the genre. The best way to do this is for them to
play an IF game, and this is also a good way to get them engaged in the class
in the first 10-15 minutes.
The sample game at http://jiffeegames.com/games/sunny-day/sunny-day-en.html is a good tool for this.
This isn't a test, so the time will be more productive if you
give the students a few hints and encourage them trade ideas on how to solve
the puzzles.
The day before class:
- Upgrade the OS and Firefox on each laptop to the latest version. (Kids will be
kids, and this will plug any known security holes.)
If you are administering your own machines (as opposed to using a supported
computer lab), it's not a bad idea to do this periodically (every couple of weeks)
so that you won't be annoyed by automatic OS updates during class time.
- Turn off all screen-savers and power-management. (This is only really necessary
if the machines have passwords that the students are not supposed to have.)
- Make a local copy of Sunny-Day and make it be the Firefox home page. (This is optional,
but is useful if you have occasional network problems.)
- If you're using laptops, fully charge all the batteries.
- Make up a large paper graphic showing the weekly topics, making it interesting
by showing it as something like a ladder or staircase. You'll check this off each
week to give a visual indication of progress to the class.
30 Minutes before class:
- Set up student laptops (turn on, start Firefox, start Sunny Day game).
- Set up instructor laptop and projector.
- Write today's activity outline on the board.
During class:
- Give a one-sentence bio of each teacher.
- Play the name game (your name plus one favorite thing).
If the students don't already know each other, this is a nice warm-up to get them focused.
- Overview of the class:
- What is Interactive Fiction? Be really clear that these are not video games.
- Spend 2 weeks playing to get used to IF.
- Spend 8 weeks writing your own game.
- Show the progress graphic.
- Have the students read the description of the kitchen (the first screen of the Sunny Day
game), and then take turns coming to the board and writing down one thing they can see in
the kitchen.
Continue until everything is listed, which is a rather long list.
The point is to get them used to reading for detail, which is an unfamiliar concept
for a lot of them.
- Have the students vote on how many doors there are leading out of the kitchen.
This is another exercise in reading for detail, and you'll be surprised how many get it
wrong. Make sure everyone sees all the doors before you continue.
- Draw a compass rose and explain it. If this is new for students, a helpful
mnemonic is "Never Enter Santa's Workshop."
- Show them some commands: "look at", "open", etc.
- Have the students try out those commands, e.g. looking at the kettle and opening the frig.
- List the basic commands: directions, "look around", "get", "put", "look at".
- Have the students try moving around a little, using "go north", "go east", etc.
Show them that they can abbreviate by just typing "n", "s", etc.
- To them started, draw a map of the first three rooms on the board. If the students
are not comfortable with mapping conventions, be very explicit about what you are
doing and why, e.g. "I put a line here pointing 'up' to show that moving 'north' from
the kitchen moves you to the dining room."
- Have a little contest to see who can do each of the following things first.
As each item is completed, have the first student to do it come to the board and
write their name next to the item:
- Play the piano.
- Find the shovel.
- Carry water into the dining room.
- Tell what time it is.
- Find two places where food is stored.
- Have them tell you where all the other rooms are as you finish mapping
(on the whiteboard) the downstairs of the house. Continue to reinforce mapping conventions.
Give some counter-examples of how not to draw a map (e.g.
lines running off in random
directions) to help them understand your message.
Also show how the map can be used to find your way from your present
location to some desired destination — this is obvious to any educated adult,
but it's not obvious at all to younger students who have never been exposed to the concepts.
- Have each apprentice make their own copy of the map for next week (on a piece of paper).
Remind them to put their names on the maps.
At the end of class:
- Have one student come to the board and update the progress graphic, e.g.
by coloring in the completed class session.
- Collect the maps for safekeeping.
Week 2
The second hour is a continuation of the first, to give them additional
practice playing IF.
Two hours seems like a lot of time to devote to this (in this example, about 20% of
the total class time), and it is, but if you cut this short the students won't
really understand what it is they're supposed to be doing.
Before class:
During class:
- Pass out their maps from the previous class meeting.
- Remind them of any end-of-class goal that you've set,
e.g. presenting their game to the class or parents.
- Today's challenges are (put the list on the board):
- Find the 3rd staircase (anecdote: I originally wrote "2nd"
and the kids found my error).
- Find the Chinese inscription.
- Find the bees.
- Read the map (the one in the game, not the ones they're making).
- As a group, map the upstairs on the whiteboard. To keep the class more engaged,
have individual students come up to the board to add rooms.
- As a group, map the backyard.
- Solve the puzzles to win the game.
- Provide hints as needed to ensure that the class finishes the game by the end
of class.
- When the kids find the treasure, have them compute how much it is
worth using the most recent BRK.A closing price.
- Have one student update the progress graphic.
- Remind the class that at the next meeting, they'll start writing their own games.
Warning: This paragraph is a spoiler.
To win the game, get the shovel from the basement, go up to the attic and read (don't pick up) the treasure map, use the pitcher from the dining room to get water from either the kitchen or bathroom, water the plant in the bedroom, when the bees go to the plant take the key from the bedroom, then go dig up the backyard, unlock the chest, open it, and read the stock certificate.
Week 3
This is where the students get to start writing their own stuff.
The focus is on technical issues this week, i.e. just getting something to
work, so don't worry about the details of the writing.
Since this is where the real "material" starts, you may be tempted to stand at the
board and lecture. Resist that temptation! It's OK to talk frequently, but don't
talk for long. Alternate short periods of a couple of minutes of instruction with
short periods of practice.
Before the class:
- Have the laptops/computers ready-to-go when the students walk into the room.
You want to capture their attention immediately, before they can get distracted.
During class:
- Put an outline of today's activities on the board.
- Pass out blank paper for maps.
- Do a map game:
- Have each student pick out a spot at the board (so they can all draw at the
same time). If you have more students than board space, divide them into groups.
Make sure you have enough markers or chalk for everyone.
- As the teacher calls out facts ("the mountain is north of the prairie"),
each student adds that to their own map. They are allowed to compare with other maps
and make corrections if needed. Let them use either labeled bubbles or pictures
to represent the places.
- Continue calling out facts until you're satisfied that the students understand
how maps work and how to draw them.
- Have each student design their game layout and draw a neat map of it.
Remind the students to include a compass rose on their map.
Suggest three or four locations to start with, as they can easily add more later.
- Talk a little bit about the difference between the editor window and
the browser window. Don't belabor it because experience is a better teacher,
but do give them a hint to help them along.
- Talk a little bit about the difference between a "command" (something the
user types while playing the game) and an "instruction" (something they add to
the game using the editor window). Again, don't belabor the point because it's
a bit subtle at first, but do try to help them with the concept.
- Create the first location. You can use the examples from the
Quick Start Guide.
- On the whiteboard, or better yet on a projector, show three examples of the "places.describe" instruction. The projector is much easier to read than handwriting,
especially if you increase the font size to make it easier to distinguish special
characters.
- Walk through the process of opening the editor, typing in the instruction, saving, starting the browser, and reloading the game.
- Point out the necessity of having strings all on one line.
- Walk through a syntax error and show how to use the Error Console.
- Remember to show them the single "traits.set" instruction that sets
the player's initial position.
- Allow the students a few moments to make up their descriptions and type
them in. To avoid
overwhelming them, I usually don't worry about grammar and spelling at this point.
(But don't worry, we'll cover that later.)
- Expect wide variation in computer abilities. Some students
will already be proficient
at editing a file with cut-and-paste,
others won't even know how to add a blank line. Provide any
additional instruction, either individual or group, as needed.
- Test the first location. Expect to help them with debugging.
- Add a second location, and test.
- Connect the first two locations, and test.
- Give three examples of the "places.connect" instruction.
- Collect the maps for safe keeping.
- Have one student update the progress graphic.
If some students are progressing faster than others, they can create additional
locations, or you can guide them to write richer and more detailed descriptions.
If the whole class is moving more quickly or slowly than this outline, don't
worry about it.
Stay with the suggested order-of-presentation, but be flexible with the pacing.
Week 4
This week the focus will be more on the writing.
Encourage the students to be creative and give them as much freedom as you can,
subject to whatever standards are appropriate for your situation.
The standard I use is basically: Games are not allowed to contain anything
that is illegal (e.g. illicit drugs), is obscene, looks like a weapon,
or is immoral (including harm or threat of harm to any creature that can feel pain).
During class:
- Put an outline of today's activities on the board.
- Pass out the maps.
- Create a couple more locations, connect them all together, and test.
- Review your short and long descriptions, and be sure they are detailed
and interesting. Apply whatever writing standards and guidelines
you feel are appropriate for the class. Encourage the students to spend some
time thinking about what they want to say before they start typing.
- Check every long description to make sure it mentions every exit from
that place. Failing to do this is very frustrating for a player.
- If time permits, have the students add more places and connections.
Don't forget that in addition to the 8 compass directions, you can also use
"in", "out", "up", and "down".
- Collect the maps for safe keeping.
- Have one student update the progress graphic.
Week 5
This week is for adding "props", i.e. objects that can be picked up,
moved around, and examined. (The analogy to props in a theater production
is very deliberate.)
During class:
- Put an outline of today's activities on the board.
- Pass out the maps.
- Explain what a prop is.
- Show how to add a prop.
- Explain what the three strings (present, carrying, examination) are used for.
- Show three examples of the "props.describe" instruction.
- Have everybody add one prop.
- Do a quick user-testing exercise, where pairs of students switch places,
and each one tests the other one's game against the paper map.
Once you've explained what you'll be doing, let everyone redraw their own
map neatly so they won't be embarrassed by it. (Once they have a new map,
they should throw the old ones away to avoid confusion.)
Students will finish at different times, and as they do they can move directly
to the next item.
- Use the rest of the class to keep adding props. This is another opportunity for
the students to stretch their imaginations.
Keep on top of what the kids are doing, though, and be ready to quickly steer them back
on-track if they lose focus. This week can be very loosely organized if you have
motivated students, but be prepared to adapt the amount of structure you provide to the
mood and needs of your specific students.
- If some students want to add more places, that's fine too. Just keep them
thinking and writing.
- Collect the maps for safe keeping.
- Have one student update the progress graphic.
If you haven't already been doing this, start reading all the code that the students
are writing. Make sure you read the stuff written by the all the kids,
even the quiet ones that never have to ask for help.
If a student is having emotional problems it sometimes comes out in their writing,
and this is an opportunity to get them the help (e.g. from a school counselor) they might
need.
(Citizen School CTs: You are not expected to do such counseling yourself,
but you can notify your school liaison of anything you think they should be aware of.)
Week 6
The topic for this week is customization.
If you're running behind schedule, you can skip this entire lesson and
move directly to Week 7.
During class:
- Put an outline of today's activities on the board.
- Pass out the maps.
- Briefly review what has already been covered: places, connections, and props.
- Give an overview of what customization is all about.
- Show how to use an override to block an exit with a specific message.
- Show three examples of the "traits.set" instruction on the board or projector.
- Have all the students add at least one blocked exit to their game.
- Show how to use an override to block picking up ("get")
or putting down ("put") a prop with a specific message.
- Show three examples of the "traits.set" instruction on the board or projector.
- Have all the students add at least one to their game which cannot be picked up.
- Show how to create a one-way passage between places.
- Show three examples of the "traits.set" instruction on the board or projector.
- Show how a one-way passage can logically be combined with a blocked exit at the other end.
- Have all the students add at least one one-way passage to their game.
- Collect the maps for safe keeping.
- Have one student update the progress graphic.
Week 7
This week we introduce verbs, which allow the player to do more than just move
around and pick stuff up.
In addition to teaching the technical aspects of how verbs work,
as a teacher you will have another job this week:
guiding and moderating the students' ambitions, since once they catch on to
the flexibility of defining their own verbs they will come up with ideas far beyond
what can reasonably be accomplished in the time available.
You'll need to help them select a subset of their initial ideas and
guide them to setting reachable goals.
Expect progress to be noticeably slower this week, because verbs are inherently more
complex than the nouns we've been working with up to now.
I've tried different approaches and have concluded that it isn't just a matter
of more complex syntax; verbs are just plain harder because they involve a lot
of interaction between different things and a lot of conditional action.
There is a level of abstraction involved here which adults can usually handle but
which is still quite a challenge for kids who haven't even hit high school yet.
You'll have to strike a balance unique to your students to challenge without frustrating.
If you can avoid sounding like you're on a soapbox, you can use this as
as an example of how things worth doing often are
harder but that that shouldn't stop you from learning to do them.
One specific topic that may be helpful to talk about is the distinction
between "the description of a place" (which is constant) and "the location
of a prop" (which varies). Sometimes students will include something like
"there is a big ugly monster in the corner of the room" and then get confused
when they try to make the monster move around.
During class:
- Put an outline of today's activities on the board.
- Pass out the maps.
- Do a little grammar lesson about the difference between transitive and intransitive
verbs. Some of the students may not have seen this, and others who have seen it may be
pretty shaky on the concept. To add verbs in JIFFEE, they need to understand the
basic difference. For some groups, you may even have to review the basic structure
of a sentence (subject-verb-object).
- Introduce intransitive verbs to move the player or display a simple message.
- Introduce functions to do multiple actions in response to a verb.
- Collect the maps for safe keeping.
- Have one student update the progress graphic.
Week 8
In a ten-week Citizen Schools apprenticeship, week 8 is the last week to add
anything significant to the games. Don't be surprised if the students are
disappointed that the couldn't add everything they wanted to the game, so don't
be shy about pointing out how much they have accomplished and can be proud of.
During class:
- Put an outline of today's activities on the board.
- Pass out the maps.
- A guest speaker talked about how he got into computer science and answered
questions from the students. This is obviously optional, but we wanted to maximize
the number of adult role models our students had contact with. It is also a good
opportunity for the students to practice explaining what they're doing to an
adult (in this case an adult with specialized subject-area knowledge so he could
understand what they were trying to say).
- Review the "verb" material we covered last week.
- More sophisticated verb handling, with transitive verbs and multiple conditions.
You may or may not get very far with this, and if all you get to do is review
and work on more intransitive verbs that's OK.
- Each student chooses one verb to work on, and the instructors work one-on-one with them.
Collect the maps for safe keeping.
Have one student update the progress graphic.
Week 9
This week is allocated for preparing the end-of-class presentation, if you have one.
The most talkative students in the class sometimes suddenly forget how to speak
as soon as they are in front of a group (I've seen students literally hide behind
a large visual aid), so be prepared to help them with
making an outline and working from notes.
This is also a good time to review vocabulary. If you want to, making up a
list ahead of time, handing it out in class, and going over the whole list
is not a bad idea.
During class:
- Put an outline of today's activities on the board.
- Pass out the maps.
- Plan and practice the end-of-class presentation. As an example, the 5-10 minute
"WOW" presentations for Citizen Schools apprenticeships were organized like this:
- One student talks about "What is Interactive Fiction?"
- One student describes what the apprenticeship was about.
- One student shows some actual JavaScript code and explains it.
- We have an audience volunteer try playing a little bit of a game.
- One student gives a live demo of editing a game (usually a description,
to minimize the risk of disaster).
Assigning specific pieces of the presentation to specific students helps
them to focus.
- If time permits, add more verb actions.
- Collect the maps for safe keeping.
- Have one student update the progress graphic.
Week 10
The final week is devoted to polishing the students' writing (English, not JavaScript).
Despite the fact that writing a JIFFEE game looks like an exercise in computer
programming (and it is), it is also very much intended to be a way of getting kids to
practice and improve their language skills.
The whole idea of getting something really polished may be an alien concept to
some students, so don't be surprised if they fix one little mistake and announce that
they're done. Be patient, but be persistent, and make them keep working on things
(e.g. each sentence) until they really have it right.
Point out that the world will judge them based on the words they write,
and that on the web even more than in real life you only have one chance to make a good
first impression.
During class:
- Put an outline of today's activities on the board.
- Pass out the maps.
- Each student should review their own game, looking for errors in
spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar. They can work in
teams to proof-read each other's writing if desired, but also plan
on spending a bit of one-on-one time with each student.
- For more advanced classes, you can go beyond the mechanics of writing
and get into whatever aspects of writing style you want to cover.
- Collect the maps for safe keeping.
- Have one student update the progress graphic.
Possible Variations
To increase the variety, you may want to split the material from weeks 9 and 10 and
between the two weeks, i.e. do both some presentation practice and some
language work during each week.
Better yet, you might want to start covering presentation skills much earlier and
just do a few minutes each week rather than bunching it all up at the end.
Spreading out the language "polish" work can also be an advantage, because
while you are working one-on-one with a student, others can be doing something
else (like adding more places or props).
If the final presentation is done science-fair style, with audience members
wandering through at irregular intervals, it can work better to have each student
sit at a laptop and give personalized demonstrations to 1-3 viewers at a time.
This is more flexible, and it gives each student more intense practice doing
presentation while at the same reducing the pressure and anxiety level
because they're not in front of a big group.
JIFFEE and JIFFEEgames.com copyright © 2007-2010 by Michael S. Kenniston. All rights reserved. This page was last updated on 2010-07-25.