Play Like a PIRATE

Engage Students With Toys, Games, and Comics

Quinn Rollins

• Publisher: Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9780986155550
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

Serious learning can be seriously FUN! For some, school feels like a chore: boring, monotonous, necessary. But what if school were fun - for you and your students? What would life be like if you felt excited about your lessons? Better yet, what if your students actually looked forward to your class every day?

Yes! School can be simultaneously fun and educational. In fact, as Quinn Rollins explains in Play Like a PIRATE, when your class is engaging and entertaining, students are more likely to remember what they've learned.Invite kids to use their imaginations and help them create meaningful connections with your content by making play part of the learning experience. Play Like a Pirate shows you how!

You'll learn:

• Why bringing passion to the classroom works - even if it isn't related to your subject.
• Why action figures, Hot Wheels, LEGO, and other toys belong in your classroom.
• Why comic books and graphic novels aren't "just for fun"
• How to use or create games that make content memorable all year long.

In addition to insights that will help you remember why you became an educator in the first place, Play Like a Pirate includes practical strategies and QR code links to resources and templates that make it easy to integrate fun into your curriculum. Regardless of the grade level you teach, you'll find inspiration and ideas that will help you engage your students in unforgettable ways.

SECTION 1:
TOYS

“Kids don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.” 

— Jim Henson

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” 

— Maya Angelou

“Everything is awesome.” 

— The LEGO Movie

“Without freedom of choice, there is no creativity. Without creativity, there is no life.” 

— Captain James T. Kirk, Star Trek

“Try not to have a good time… this is supposed to be educational.” 

— Charles Schulz

CHAPTER 1:
ACTION FIGURES

HISTORY OF ACTION FIGURES

The history of action figures goes back to 1964, when Hasbro® created G.I. JOE “action figures” in a move to capitalize on the success of the Mattel® Barbie by having its own line of dolls for boys. Hasbro and Mego dominated this market through the 1970s, when the oil crisis necessitated a move from the 12” dolls to smaller figures. When Kenner introduced its Star Wars action figures in 1978, they were in a 3¾” scale, leading G.I. JOE to smaller-scale action figures. From that point on, most action figures have been made in a similar 3” to 5” size — easier to blow up with firecrackers (not that I ever did that) or strap them to bottle rockets. Holy moly! I’m that neighbor kid from Toy Story.

When the first Star Wars movie came out, I was just a pup — the perfect age for the toys, and while I didn’t have all of them, between my neighbors and me, we had most of the main characters. In those days — before streaming, Blu-ray, DVD, or even VHS — playing with the action figures was one of the only ways we could relive the movie. I only saw it once in theaters and then waited for three years until THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK came out, filling the gap with action figures and my imagination. Since then, I’ve collected various lines of action figures, including newer Star Wars toys and toys from Star Trek, The Muppets, Justice League, and Batman.

When I was in high school, I started “customizing” my own action figures — taking existing characters and switching out limbs, sculpting new heads, and painting them to be new characters. A little bit Frankensteiny, but it doesn’t usually hurt anyone (except for the fumes). In college, I had the good fortune to help consult with Palisades Toys on action figures for The Muppet Show, The X-Files, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Examining fictional characters’ biographies, skills, and possessions led me to create the strategy of using action figures in the classroom.

ACTION FIGURES IN THE CLASSROOM

Kids don’t play with action figures quite as much as they did in the 1980s, but there are still multiple aisles of them in every toy store. If you watch kids as they look at an action figure, whether it’s Captain America, Darth Vader, or a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, they all do the same thing. They pull it off the shelf, examine the front of the package, and look at the figure’s details and the accessories it comes with. Then, they turn it over and scrutinize the back of the package. They read the short biography of the character and see images of playsets, vehicles, allies, and enemies — items they could buy (i.e., con their parents into buying) to complement that character. All of these elements are incorporated into my action-figure strategy.

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

— Thorin Oakenshield, The Hobbit

As a teacher, my goal is for students to do research, evaluate the research, and share it with an audience. When they write biographies, I want them to summarize the life and accomplishments of a historic character into a few short paragraphs and make some connections to other characters and their own lives. I also want them to have fun. And it’s a bonus for me as teacher to be able to see, at a glance, whether the kid found and understood the essence of the person. If I can do that with one page instead of five pages of writing, I’m all for it. Even better, with this strategy, students design products they want to share with other students (and friends, parents, and siblings), instead of shoving them back into their folders or tossing them in the recycling bin. They also want to look at what other students have created. I don’t know how often that happens with a traditional assignment, but I’ve seen it happen every time I’ve used the action-figure strategy. The strategy is relatively simple because kids get it. Students create the “cardback” for an action figure — the piece of cardboard the action figure and its accessories are mounted on. Those key elements (biography, enemies, allies, etc.) are part of each cardback, and they’re similar for each action figure. I want students to use this model to summarize their research on historical characters to prove to me that they understand the most pertinent things about their lives. To design an action figure well, they need a more comprehensive understanding of the character than they may get from a traditional biography.

Action Figure Templates

USING THE TEMPLATE

Front

Main box. Students draw their character in full-body form, avoiding stick figures whenever possible. Younger students may need a dotted-line outline of a person to which they can add details. If the action figures represent real people, they should be as close as possible to the actual likeness, including things like facial features, hairstyle, and clothing. You could also think outside the box and have students design an action figure representing a more abstract idea — an element from the periodic table, a process, or one of the amendments to the Constitution.

Theme. Themes would be World War II, great astronomers or inventors, or characters from Oliver Twist. Any unit you’re currently teaching can serve as the unifying theme for a line of action figures.

Portrait. Every action figure card has an image of the character as seen in the movie, comic book, cartoon, etc., which shows the buyer what the character “really” looks like. Ideally, the students should find an image — photograph, painting, or statue — of their historic characters. Images aren’t typically available for literary characters, so students could draw their own. If you’re tackling something more abstract, like an element from the periodic table or a geologic process, students could include a molecular diagram or a cross section of the process. Could a student figure out a way to represent a geometric shape or mathematical formula as an action figure? You bet!

Accessories. Accessories are the things characters hold, wear, or use, which set them apart from other characters in the same line. For example, Luke Skywalker always comes with a lightsaber because it’s an essential part of his character. The lightsaber makes him complete. William Shakespeare might come with a quill pen, Benjamin Franklin with a kite, stove, bifocals, or almanac. (He was a busy guy.) What physical object would be essential to the character? How can these accessories help teach us about the person?

Back

Biography. Students do the most writing on this section. I used to give an assignment that required students to research and present on a “Historic Hero.” They could choose to do a traditional report, a poster, PowerPoint, or epic poem. Usually, I got twenty-three reports on Jackie Robinson — basically his Wikipedia page with a timeline. Part of that was my fault; part was the fault of the assignment itself. But I’d rather students be able to summarize the events of a person’s life than just parrot back two pages they read online, which is where this action-figure biography comes into play. If done right, the summarization ensures greater depth of knowledge and, when combined with the other elements of the action figure, gives a more well-rounded view of the character’s life.

Portrait. Another view of the character, either drawn by the student or printed from an online source, is included on the back of the card. Toys that are based on movies often use a still frame of the character from the movie — for example, Chris Evans as Captain America or Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman.

Playset. The playset is the environment the character lives in, works in, fights in, etc. It could also be a vehicle. For example, Thomas Jefferson’s playset could be Monticello, Rosa Parks’ a bus, and Sir Francis Drake’s the Golden Hind. Playsets should help complete the character’s biography. Some characters might have multiple playsets, and the more we know about the person, the better. The playset helps identify what part of the character’s life the student is representing. For example, would the most important playset for Abraham Lincoln be a log cabin, the Illinois Statehouse, the White House, Gettysburg, or Ford’s Theater? It depends on what part of his remarkable life the student has focused on. But I can tell you, if a middle school boy is reporting on Lincoln, it’s going to be Ford’s Theater.

If the assignment is to turn a mathematical formula into an action figure, students could use real-world applications of the formula, something I know I struggled with as a student. If you’re tired of hearing students whine, “When am I ever going to use this in real life?!” have them find the “settings” in which the formula would be found.

“When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our world takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity.”

— Linda Naiman

If the student is designing an action figure representing an element from the periodic table, the “playset” would be compounds or materials where the element is found. If the element they’re using is sodium, the playset could be table salt (sodium chloride) or bleach (sodium hypochlorite).

“Collect Them All.” Here, students will include the other action figures in the same line, the ones that give us a more complete understanding of the character the student is designing. Just like you can’t have Han Solo without Chewbacca, you can’t have Alexander Hamilton without George Washington. In the case of biographies, I have students choose one character for each of the following:

An ally. Students select a character from the same time period, fighting for the same cause, whether or not their character actually knew the person. For example, Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci were contemporaries and were both explorers. Even though they may not have known each other, well, I’d say they would qualify as allies.

An enemy. Students choose a character from the same time period, but one acting against the goals of their character. For example, Governor George Wallace would be a great enemy of the Civil Rights Movement or Fidel Castro an enemy of JFK.

A modern ally. Students choose a person living in the twenty-first century who is somehow carrying on the work of their character. While this may be difficult, it is also one of the most valuable pieces for helping students understand the past. When my nephew “guinea pigged” this strategy for me, he chose Galileo Galilei as his action figure and Stephen Hawking as the modern ally. Who would your students choose as a modern ally of Gandhi? Of Queen Elizabeth I? Of Ronald Reagan? Asking students to think about this opens up conversations with them and helps them make connections between their own lives and what they’re studying.

POSSIBLE APPLICATIONS

See the Big Picture. Some events in history were movements so large that you want students to understand more than just the “big names.” Every kid knows Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, but dozens of other Civil Rights Movement characters could be profiled. The same is true of leaders of the Civil War, ancient philosophers, scientists, or women’s rights leaders. Using the...

Table of contents

• PLAY LIKE A PIRATE
• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• SECTION 1: TOYS
• CHAPTER 1: ACTION FIGURES
• CHAPTER 2: TRANSFORMERS
• CHAPTER 3: HOT WHEELS
• CHAPTER 4: BARBIE
• CHAPTER 5: PLAY-DOH
• CHAPTER 6: THE SMURFS
• CHAPTER 7: LEGO
• SECTION 2: GAMES
• CHAPTER 8: GAMIFY YOUR CLASSROOM
• CHAPTER 9: BOARD GAMES
• CHAPTER 10: MINECRAFT
• CHAPTER 11: TRADING CARDS
• SECTION 3: SUPERHEROES, GRAPHIC NOVELS, AND COMIC STRIPS
• CHAPTER 12: SUPERHEROES
• CHAPTER 13: COMIC BOOKS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS
• CHAPTER 14: COMIC STRIPS
• CONCLUSION
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• More from Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• ABOUT THE DUCK