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Unleashing Creative Writing with Role Playing

Session notes, discussion

Procedure:

• Introduction to Role Playing and Emoting 
• Practice on a couple of prompts by participants
• Holodeck's scene: Diner's
• Improvisation in the environment. (15 minutes)

Summary of the outcome:

All participants entered the Diner's, Karelia and Misy sat together at a table and Cyber sat at another table. Cyber started with overhearing the two girls' conversation and considered it boring. Karelia stood up and started to harass Cyber who responded defiantly. Karelia pulled out a Knife and Cybère threatened Karelia with the toilet plunger she was holding in her hand. Other participants kept at a distance, Annette took a seat observing the fight and Misy left the bar to avoid being stabbed. Devlink approached Karelia and tried to convince her to stop. When everything quieted down, Annette invited Devlink for a beer which contained some illegal drug and he started feeling ill. Cybère suddenly got bored and sat at the counter, she tried to strike a conversation with Annette but she was too busy observing the effect of her drug on Devlink. PinkSamurai offered a strawberry icecream to Cybère to quiet her down and Cybère felt she just made a friend.

We then stopped to discuss on the outcome of the session. Cybère tapped sick Devlink on the back and offered to help him home while the others exited the bar.

The transcript can be found here  (thank you so much Misy )

The transcript looks long and cumbersome to read but very relevant to the session to understand the dynamics of Emoting. The examples given by the participants exemplify the change in patterns of the exchanges between them during the intro. The second part of the transcript is the improvisation in the holodeck scene. Remember that nothing was prepared, the action happened on the spot.

If you want to look for the transcripts of Chat (chat.txt) and IMs saved on your hard drive for assessment and feedback, here is how to look for it (at the bottom of the page) if you haven't changed the address on your preferences: http://goo.gl/IvdBY  (I believe the page resets every time you log in again, hence my losing it)

Discussion

Helen, I am embedding your comments from below on this page as they are totally relevant to this discussion page: 

 Everyone is invited to add their own impressions, ideas here etc...

I - Rationale behind using a 3d Virtual Environment over a classroom or online chat room situation:

(a) Immersive setting and the sense of belonging:  

• the affordance of visual clues that  provide a general context to the story to get participants quickly started:
• situation in time and  background (historical, contemporary, fantastic, etc...) chosen by the teacher/students to work on specific language register and cultural aspects and characters' biographies, personalities.
• participants' physical appearance (extra-dimension of the player as opposed to the avatar and the person behind the keyboard. Experienced role players insist on the notion of In-character(IC) and Out Of Character (OOC)notions: i.e what their player does and decide to do during the Role play is NOT a reflection of their common avatar/RL actions/decisions. In this instance, Cybere/Edith carrying a toilet plunger in a bar as a defensive weapon, Karelia/Helen threatening Cyber with a knife, Annette giving drugs to Devlink, etc... 
• The option of taking snapshots for ulterior reporting/summary/ story telling

• Helen's comments: the SL extra dimension ...
  - characters can add to their role by having a literal physical 'image' (clothing, body, animation override) (so, no need to describe physical characteristics) --> Visual Clues
  - characters can literally move to interact with another character (no need for simple stage directions)
  - the experience may be more engaging with a visual element, rather than just texting
  - SL offers a physical 'back drop' to stimulate action/reaction
  - SL offers physical 'objects' which can stimulate action/reaction 

• Any other comments? 

DOWNSIDE: the 3D environment could be a distraction, non-experienced users might be tempted to sit back and explore the environment rather than actively participate?

(b) The use of Text chat over Voice

• The affordance of emoting allows players to describe their actions to other players so they can quickly react.. See the page explaining Emoting. It is more elaborate than a mere conversation.
• text can be a means of 'disciplining' the sequence of a story unfolding 
• text can allow for different elements to be unfolding at the same time, and the participants can follow them all and backtrack something that happens to all: in this instance Cybere had bactracked what had happened to Devlink even if she had not been involved in the interaction between Annette and him (drugged drink).
• Although everyone's actions and interactions may be intertwined, it is easier than following several simultaneous voice chats. With voice there can only be one speaker at a time.
• text requires the language of detailed narration to give the extra dimension which voice would add (tone, manner, volume)
• Chat logs saved on the hard drive allow feedback (check your preferences to open the folder), assessment and story telling at a later stage (summarising, editing, rewriting)

DOWNSIDE: for language learning, a key advantage of SL is the opportunity to practise the speaking skills - obviously role play through text would not be 'enough' .. perhaps later perform the text (as we did in Italianiamo ..)

II- Participants' impressions

• Non-native speakers expressed their difficulty in participating in the action: they felt intimidated (?) by the speed and language to be used at the start. However after observing the interaction between Cybere and Karelia they took on the initiative to move away from the main action (fight) and led their own interaction (Annette offering a beer to DevLink with drugs in it) and PinkSamurai offering an ice cream to Cybere.
• This might demand some prior staging by the instructor
• Choice of an environment/time 
• student prepare a character profile matching the environment
• Scaffold prior knowledge of language to be used - glossary 
• Any other comments?