“Speculative World Building and Professional Development in Secondary School Contexts”

A pilot workshop series designed as part of a study focusing on professional development with teachers, this study draws from previous research on science fiction, world building, and digital storytelling at the secondary level, and explores how teachers can best be supported in running world building projects with their own classes. World building, or the process science fiction writers/creators use to ‘build’ the fictional worlds in which their stories take place, can be used with students to engage with a range of curricular areas: creative writing; development of literacy skills; research; political and social issues; history; and science, technology, and innovation. Using digital storytelling tools like wikimedia and digital mapping, world building projects also foster collaboration amongst students and can be adapted to a range of in-person and virtual contexts.

A deep dive into science fiction as a genre (how it works, how science fiction writers approach fiction writing) and ways to use it in different teaching contexts/subjects. Explores speculative fiction and sub-genres of science fiction. Includes examples and an overview of resources.

Breaking down how science fiction creators construct the worlds in which their stories occur, approaches to reading/exploring worlds through world building, and approaches to writing/creating worlds with students. Includes an in-school example and an opportunity for teachers to collaboratively try out world building with other participants.

An overview of digital storytelling and tools, an in-school example of digital storytelling, an adapted wiki tutorial using Google Docs, and an approach to collaborative storytelling.