Model Lesson: SobResistencia, An Indigenous Social Impact Game

An Inquiry into...connections

Planning teaching and learning for inquiry begins with a review of both transdisciplinary and disciplinary concepts bound by global contexts and experiences which add meaning to the student experience and engage learner agency.

The Statement of Inquiry: Establishing a goal for conceptual understanding is important in engaging students as learners in the the act of learning with agency.

Connections can become enriched through social constructions of reality in ritual and play as expressed through theme and point of view.

INTRODUCING THE CONCEPT AND THE GLOBAL CONTEXT:

Tapping into students’ prior knowledge and interest in this unit was done through both the urgency and immediacy of teen suicide among Indigenous/Native American youth as well as the ubiquitous experience and interest in gaming, particularly online gaming.

The following TED Talks were presented and discussed in class.

GAMING CAN MAKE A BETTER WORLD: In this TED Talk, game designer Jane McGonigal passionately describes how games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes, but these same drives could also be applied IRL as well. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems? (2.2010)

WORKING BACKWARD TO SOLVE PROBLEMS: In this talk Chess Grandmaster Maurice Ashley introduces retrograde analysis as a style of problem solving where you work backwards from the endgame you want. Applied form the lessons of chess, Ashley argues that retrograde analysis can also help solve real world problems.

GAMING TO RE-ENGAGE BOYS IN LEARNING: Ali Carr-Chellman pinpoints three reasons boys are tuning out of school in droves and lays out a bold plan to re-engage them: bringing their “culture” into the classroom. This talk was not shared with students but was used as additional teacher inquiry into gaming theory, experiences and applicability in the classroom.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT:

Moving towards assessment transparently and in an engaging way from the outset includes establishing the line of inquiry and the goals of a realistic application for the assessment activity.

How do connections become enriched through social constructions of reality in ritual and play as expressed through theme & point of view?

Here, student interest is both piqued and mobilized through the connections made between poetry and gaming. Content is driven by the Summative Assessment to address cultural and community-based priorities that are culturally, rooted, related and relational.

Here, the summative assessment is described:

Goal: To create an act of survivance through the medium of poetry to make a positive social impact on indigenous youth. Also, to design a game to introduce poetry to youth and ways indigenous youth can create and experience poetry as a pathway to healing.

Role: Game designer genius

Audience: Indigenous youth

Situation: Indigenous youth face the highest rates of suicide among youth in North America. You are a game designer collective recruited by an indigenous community to design a social impact game for youth that explores indigenous presence and create works of poetry as a pathway to healing. Your goal is to get youth to find ways to tell their stories (your stories) by promoting each other’s healing.

Product/Performance/ Purpose: The IndigeNations Survivance Game will involve poetry, strategies to understand poetry, methods to create poetry and opportunities to experience poetry. The Poetic Puzzles will guide how users advance from quest to quest.

Questing

A quest is a step in your journey, such as learning about your history.

There are quests for every phase of the journey: Tlalpixke (Earth Guardian), Tlepixke (The Firekeeper), Apixke (The Water Protector), Yehyekanohnotsa (The Wind Talker), Sitlalnehnenki (The Star Walker) and Kitlapowa Ohtli (The Wayfinder). Elders guide us along the path we call the XINACH OHTLI (Pathway of Seeds).

XINACH OHTLI (Pathway of Seeds) QUESTS:


Tlalpixke (Earth Guardian)	Tlepixke (The Firekeeper)	Apixke (The Water Protector)	Yehyekanohnotsa (The Wind Talker)	Sitlalnehnenki (The Star Walker)	Kitlapowa Ohtli (The Wayfinder)
Empowered community leaders	Bearer of Indigenous wisdom	Engaged in community, advocate and capable of direct action	Multilingual students of mother tongue and indigenous languages, stories and laws	Globally-engaged Indigenous learner-teachers	An ancestrally minded, culturally rooted, seeker of truth in community

"Injustice" by Jessa Calderon (Tongva)	A Tribe Called Red - “ALie Nation” by John Trudell	“WE” by Thunderbirds Raised Her (Lummi Nation members: Katherine Jefferson, Billie Lynn Kennedy) J and Dani Kili	"The Beauty of Resistance" by Olmeca, Featuring Joanna Mixpe Ley	“Why” by Supaman	“Starwalker” by Buffy Sainte Marie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wUvh2O_uXA	https://youtu.be/WhlKs_3Srj0	https://vimeo.com/275336355	https://youtu.be/MRuowizalTs	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiVU-W9VT7Q	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo6bf88iHHU
FIND THESE IMAGES TO DISCOVER YOUR QUEST	FIND THESE IMAGES TO DISCOVER YOUR QUEST	FIND THESE IMAGES TO DISCOVER YOUR QUEST	FIND THESE IMAGES TO DISCOVER YOUR QUEST	FIND THESE IMAGES TO DISCOVER YOUR QUEST	FIND THESE IMAGES TO DISCOVER YOUR QUEST