Story Adventurers: Writing Through Tabletop Gaming (5th-8th)

Is storytelling a passion of your student, but they are struggling to take their writing to the next level? Does your student love creating stories, but struggle to end them? Is reading the best thing on earth, but sharing their own stories is...well, scary? It may be time to explore writing through tabletop gaming, where a master storyteller guides students through the basic structure of a story, and the students get to build their own adventure!

The ability to write well is like a muscle: the more you use it, the better it becomes. We have found that many students struggle to write beginnings or endings to their stories are more likely to complete a story if someone models the story structure for them. Even advanced writers benefit from practicing their story arc development and improv skills. Tabletop gaming provides a creative writing format that encourages students to try their hand at refining their storytelling skills and learning to write dialog while still offering the safety blanket of narrative storytelling…and helps everyone avoid writer’s block!

In this workshop, students create their own main character, but work together to build a story. Their characters arrive at a large mansion that seems a little too perfect (and a little too empty!) and begin exploring, eventually falling into a fantasy world that needs their help. Each choice the students’ make changes the outline of the story, and the students get to decide how their characters interact with and solve problems. The group will get to practice dialoging as their characters and discuss what makes a good rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement as they navigate each respective section. Each session’s take-home assignment is to write the corresponding “chapter” of their adventure.

This workshop balances instruction and adventure, as each 45 minute meeting includes elements of both. Although we bill this as a creative writing workshop (and it is!) this is a great place for students to learn how to think critically, take risks, work as a team, and maybe practice a teensy bit of math (just adding and subtracting, we promise!). For structure's sake, we use a modified version of the Daggerheart TTRPG system to guide the story-creation side of each session. This workshop works best for students who are interested in creating or performing stories and are able to write at least a paragraph independently.

Calendar of events:

Session 1: Introducing Your Character: Each student will build their main character, including discussing their strengths, weaknesses, background, and connections to the main story and other members in their adventuring party (the other students’ characters!). Students learn the basics of how to play tabletop gaming and the five basic parts of a story. Assignment: write a short character biography.

Session 2: Welcome…Home?: The adventure begins! The characters arrive at a large mansion that seems a little too perfect (and a little too empty!) and begin exploring, eventually falling into a fantasy world that needs their help. Each choice the students’ make changes the outline of the story, and the take-home assignment is to write the first “chapter” of their adventure from their character’s perspective. Everyone gets to be the main character of their story!

Session 3, 4, & 5: The Plot Thickens, Part I, II, and III: I can’t tell you what happens here, because it hasn’t happened yet! The students get to decide how their characters interact with the problem and how they want to solve it. The group will discuss what makes a good rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement as they navigate each respective section. Each session’s take-home assignment is to write the corresponding “chapter” of their adventure.

Session 6: And They All Lived Happily Ever After (Or Not): This session will wrap up any loose ends left over from session 5 and then discuss strategies about how to edit and share their stories. Students are encouraged to explore multimedia options to present their story, and additional resources will be available for parents to moderate (as different families have different polices about internet use!).

A minimum of 3 students is needed for this workshop to run, and the workshop is capped at 6 students.

Submitting this form holds a spot for your student, but does not automatically bill you! A staff member will follow up with you, so please keep an eye on your email. Students are not enrolled until payment or a voucher/PO is recieved. For more information, please refer to the funding section of the Student and Family Handbook.