GuidesWebinarsCase studiesWhite PapersBlogOther ResourcesFrançais

Middle school short fiction lesson plan — July’s Quest of the Month

Adrien DussaultJuly 31, 2018

2018 July QotM Tyler Chambers

Introducing Classcraft’s fourth Quest of the Month! Each month at Classcraft, we’ll be choosing one awesome quest to promote. Our pick for the month of July is Tyler Chambers, the creator of the quest “Journey to the Top of Plot Mountain,” a lesson plan for his module on short fiction in his middle school English class. You can import his quest here.

If you use Classcraft, you can submit quests you’ve created to be the next Quest of the Month on our submission page. Quests are personalized, self-paced, choose-your-own-adventure lessons for students. Our goal is to spotlight the amazing educators who inspire us and share creative, teacher-made content with our global community of forward-thinking educators.

2018 July QotM Classcraft Gamemaster Tyler Chambers
Classcraft Gamemaster Tyler Chambers

Take it away, Tyler!

What grades and subjects do you teach?

Tyler Chambers: Grade 8 English Language Arts

How long have you been teaching?

Chambers: Three Years

Where do you teach?

Chambers: North Ridge Middle School, North Richland Hills, Texas

What made you decide to use Classcraft?

Chambers: I had been interested in gamification in the classroom for awhile, and our campus’ Technology Specialist finally convinced me to give Classcraft a try.

What kinds of things are you passionate about?

Chambers: I am passionate about teaching and reading, as well as gaming and sports.

Why do you love the quest you created? What makes it special?

Chambers: “Journey to the Center of Plot Mountain” was my second attempt at a Classcraft Quest. The quest was created for a unit on short stories and the Hero’s Journey, which also served as an introduction into our end-of-the-year Mythology Unit. The quest has some different paths students may travel, based on how they perform on quizzes tied to the short stories. I would recommend it to another teacher if they were entering a unit on short fiction, and needed a way to engage students while they read through several different texts. Most texts were taken from CommonLit.org.

2018 July QotM Tyler Chambers map
Journey to the Top of Plot Mountain

What did your students think of your quest? How did they react?

Chambers: Students had just finished a quest over poetry, and were stoked to see that they were going to continue to use Classcraft. They really enjoyed the different paths, and the assignments over the Hero’s Journey, and the Create Your Own Adventure Side-Quest, really engaged them towards the end of the school year.

What’s one of your favorite things about Classcraft?

Chambers: One of my favorite things about Classcraft is the ability for students to track their progress in a more concrete way. Some students won’t react to a 50 on a quiz, but if they lose XP, fall in battle, or are forced to spend GP in order to buy an in-class item to help them out, they want to do whatever they can to improve. We preach about Continuous Improvement a lot on my campus, and what better way of practicing that than by leveling up a character to unlock new gear and abilities.

News and Updates