Abstract
In the writing classroom, collaborative learning often takes the form of co-authoring, peer workshops or critique sessions. While useful, what other active learning approaches might be effective, particularly in light of the range of media with which students are increasingly familiar? World-building—creation of an alternative/speculative or futuristic land, world or universe—offers an approach to fiction writing amenable to both creative collaboration and digital modalities. This article examines how a team-based world-building project in an advanced writing course engenders creative-making through active learning and collaboration; builds upon the multi-modalities and genres through which many students already engage with fiction (video, online and/or fantasy role-playing games, horror, speculative and science fiction); and leverages both physical and virtual space as creative collaborative environments. With this approach, students in a seated class team up to create original alternative worlds in an online environment--including production of both digital and physical artifacts--within which their own (individual) stories are set. The result is movement between real and virtual space, as well as between shared creative acts and personal imaginative writing.
Highlights
In the physical classroom, courses on writing commonly promote collaborative learning through peer workshops or critique sessions
In the writing classroom, collaborative learning often takes the form of coauthoring, peer workshops, or critique sessions
What other active-learning approaches might be effective, in light of the range of media with which students are increasingly familiar? World building—creation of an alternative/speculative or futuristic land, world, or universe—offers an approach to fiction writing amenable to both creative collaboration and digital modalities
Summary
For many students who are studying writing, collaboration as a creative strategy is not without unique tensions. The scope of the project creates room for multiple voices, facilitating collaborative use of physical classroom space along with shared virtual space This happens when, for example, teams draw maps on whiteboards or cluster together at tables to argue about social structure or act out how a character walks or fights and bring their creative decisions to life within a shared website, using images, sound, and written text. It is the idea of the communal experience in Rettberg’s list that is of relevance to the collaborative, physical–digital navigation of world building as a learning activity At this point, it is useful to consider the term individualized collaboration, used by Ward & Sonneborn (2009) to designate how players in virtual worlds create individualistic experiences for themselves within a shared online environment. Even if a student does not approach the contribution with that deliberately in mind, the give-and-take process of discussion may sow the seed for that student’s own project, as is suggested by the case study that follows
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