Re-imagine stories

Students re-imagine the ending to one of their favorite stories in Minecraft.

Learning objectives

Play with different code interactions to make a story come to life.

Guiding ideas

Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Related Common Core ELA standards:

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.6
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.1

Student activities

This activity requires students to have the Code Connection app open and running with their Minecraft Education Edition.

This activity consists of 3 parts:

• Re-write the ending to a Book
• Build the imaginary World in Minecraft
• Make the world interactive

Re-write the ending to a book

Have students spend time re-writing the ending to a book they are reading. You can have all students do this for the same book, or have each choose their own book/story. Students should spend time imagining how the ending would be different with one major change to the final chapter.

Build the world in Minecraft

Have students draw the scene on paper first and have it approved by you. On the back of their drawing, have students write a short list of actions that happened during that scene, referring to the writing they did in the Storyline lesson.

Using either code or creating the scene by hand, have students create a scene from a book they are reading in Minecraft. For example, to make three houses in a row, you could use the following code:

player.onChat("makescene", function () {
    player.runChatCommandWithArguments("house", "3 5")
    player.runChatCommandWithArguments("house", "7 5")
    player.runChatCommandWithArguments("house", "11 5")
})

player.onChat("house", function (x, y) {
    blocks.fill(
    PLANKS_SPRUCE,
    pos(x - 3, 0, y - 5),
    pos(x, 5, y),
    FillOperation.Replace
    )
    blocks.fill(
    AIR,
    pos(x - 2, 1, y - 4),
    pos(x - 1, 4, y - 1),
    FillOperation.Replace
    )
})

Or you could make each house individually:

player.onChat("jump", function () {
    player.runChatCommand("house1")
    player.runChatCommand("house2")
    player.runChatCommand("house3")
})

player.onChat("house1", function () {
    blocks.fill(
        PLANKS_SPRUCE,
        pos(0, 0, 0),
        pos(3, 5, 5),
        FillOperation.Replace
    )
    blocks.fill(
        AIR,
        pos(1, 1, 1),
        pos(2, 4, 4),
        FillOperation.Replace
    )
})

player.onChat("house2", function () {
    blocks.fill(
        PLANKS_SPRUCE,
        pos(4, 0, 0),
        pos(7, 5, 5),
        FillOperation.Replace
    )
    blocks.fill(
        AIR,
        pos(3, 1, 1),
        pos(6, 4, 4),
        FillOperation.Replace
    )
})

player.onChat("house3", function () {
    blocks.fill(
        PLANKS_SPRUCE,
        pos(8, 0, 0),
        pos(11, 5, 5),
        FillOperation.Replace
    )
    blocks.fill(
        AIR,
        pos(9, 1, 1),
        pos(10, 4, 4),
        FillOperation.Replace
    )
})

Make sure that students spend time making the scene look like the scene from the book.

Make the world interactive

Have students come up with a list of actions that happened during the scene that they chose. For example, if students wanted to make a character represent extreme winter, then when the player walks, everything should turn to ice:

player.onTravelled(TravelMethod.Walk, () => {
    blocks.place(PACKED_ICE, pos(0, -1, 0))
})

player.onTravelled(TravelMethod.SwimLava, () => {
    blocks.fill(
        PACKED_ICE,
        pos(-1, -1, -1),
        pos(1, 0, 1),
        FillOperation.Replace
    )
})

Performance expectations

Intended outcomes:

• Understanding how to explore story ideas and translate them to interactive presentations.
• Engaging in planning, designing, and coding to re-create a story.
• Predict what would happen within a storyline given one minor change in the final chapter of a book.

Resources

Storyline