thegamefulguru

[thegamefulguru]

Being a Steven Universe fan has been an amazing experience every step of the way. This show changed my life. I will always be so, so incredibly grateful to all the talented people who poured their hearts into something so special. I cant wait to see the finale tomorrow!!💎❤️

[thegamefulguru]

Avatar: The Legacy Of Steel - Chapter 3: In Hot Pursuit (on Wattpad) https://my.w.tt/5NNuTUzii5 Jingcha Bei Fong has just learned that her twin brother is the next Avatar, and she is far from overjoyed. After spending half her childhood defending Jin from bullies, Jingcha is at a loss for what to do now, what role she is to play--and how she is to handle her own inner weaknesses. Can she set aside her ego and help to protect her brother? Or will she become his most fearsome, final assailant?

#air #avatar #beifong #bender #earth #fire #korra #legacy #steel #toph #water #f #fanfiction #books #wattpad #amreading

[thegamefulguru]

Legacy of Steel Chapter 3 is on its way! Until then, enjoy this fan art of Legacy OTP, Iluq and Katsu. (i am the fan)

#legacy of steel #fanfic #avatarOCs #avatar #legend of korra #iluq #katsu

[thegamefulguru]

Pandemic Pedagogy: Taking Up The “Mentor” Mantle Once More

It’s really hit the fan, hasn’t it?

Novel coronavirus (COVID19) has impacted all of us in a variety of ways, from the advent of “social distancing” to the mass closure of businesses, educational institutions and public amenities the world over. For me, I have had to start reimagining the last quarter of my year through the lens of ‘pandemic pedagogy;’ envisioning what it means for me to be teaching students during an era characterized by frustration, confusion and institutional madness.

I want to continue in the path I’ve been on, but I’ve decided that I (and my students) need to feel license to care about our health a little more than usual. The way I want to do this is by returning to the root of my Year of Teaching Adventurously: the resilience principles of SuperBetter.

On this “Resilience Guide” there are several lines drawn to give students (and teachers) space to plan their ways of engaging in the 5 areas of health that I encourage all of us to engage in: physical, mental, social, emotional and holistic health.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B97RxZeAaD5/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

The vocabulary that is key to understand are Power Ups, Quests, Bad Guys and Allies. I’ve covered each of these terms at length in my previous blog project, The Gameful Guru, but some of them bear clarification.

I want to focus on Power Ups and Quests, because they comprise the greater portion of this document. Power Ups are categories of adaptive and supportive activities, tasks or items of consumption that can help you get stronger, more focused, happier and/or more connected with your social circle. They fall into four main categories, each relating to the four forms of resilience.

I want to provide examples that you can share with your students (or your fellow teachers):

Physical: Drink a Glass of Water (self explanatory) Sit Up, Stand Up (Get out of your seat at least once every hour and do 10 sit ups) Sing At The Top of Your Lungs (improve respiratory control and mood by singing a favorite song at full voice) Mental: Read a Book, Undistracted (Set a timer for X minutes and read a book without stopping; turn off your phone and read until the time is up) Snap to It (Snap your fingers exactly 50 times) Countdown (Count backwards from 100 by a number other than 5) Emotional: Cute Animal Overload (For five minutes, look at pictures of baby animals) Good Vibes Only (Listen to an upbeat song that you like; shoot for a positive mood) Do Something Fun (Set a timer for X minutes and do any leisure activity you enjoy! Give yourself permission to enjoy yourself) Social: Giving Gratitude (Send a text to three different friends thanking them for some aspect of their friendship with you) Future Boost (Make plans to communicate or see two people sometime in the near future; use this to give yourself something to look forward to) Mutual Aid (Make an Ally by sharing your Quest with another person; Offer to be an Ally for them in their goals)

Power Ups are important for all aspects of life, but they’re especially important when you have a specific Quest you are pursuing, or an Epic Win you are working toward. Sometimes Quests are things other people write for you, and other times, they are tasks you take on for yourself. Quests can be just another way of framing your daily to-dos, but if you add a fun factor, an unnecessary obstacle to overcome, or a social element, suddenly Quests become something gameful to behold!

A Physical Quest would be Hydrate or Die-Drate! (Drink 5 glasses of water in 3 hours; maintain healthy habits of hydration and exercise!) A Mental Quest would be Be Your Own Taskmaster! (Choose three items on your To Do List and set 25 minute Pomodoro estimates for how long it would take to complete them in their entirety; test your estimates by taking on one item and racing against the clock to complete them faster than your estimated time!)

An Emotional Quest would be 1:1, One On One (Improve your Positive to Negative emotion ratio by spending one on one time with a trusted friend; choose two emotional power ups each to activate with each other’s help!)

A Social Quest would be Allies, Assemble! (Practice social connectivity by choosing two friends of yours to share in your resilience-based Questing; exchange Power Up ideas and help each other take on at least 1 Bad Guy)

I came up with all of these quests in less than 10 minutes, and you can too!

Here is your first Quest from me: Come up with two ways for you to engage with each of the four forms of resilience (Power Ups) that does not require you to endanger yourself medically. Message me with what you come up with! Until next time, Life Will Pass Through, Keep Being You!

Sincerely, MM

#gameful #education #pandemic #pedagogy #pandemic pedagogy #mindfulmentor #gamefulguru

[thegamefulguru]

The 5 Boys, the 3 Classes, the 2 Worlds: In A Normal World is a dystopian alternate history tale that concerns queerness and its opponents throughout history. It focuses on 5 young men and boys, pictured here, and it explores their relationships, their lives, their struggles and their unique capabilities as members of an “Evolved Nation.” The three classes are descriptive but also very eugenic in execution: “Normal” people use “race science” to marginalize, demonize and create the threat of the “Abnormal”. However these classes and their associations underly the experiences and self concepts of each character. Fischer and Willis have special powers and are the target of violence because of it. Dennis and Elie can blend in and assimilate within Normal society. Melbourne is a victim of the pursuit of power, both within and without, and does what he can to further the causes and protect the people that are important to him—even if it makes them hate him. IANW is a story I wrote in high school to put into words the feelings and experiences I had as a marginalized young person, whose marginalization was a result of the intersection of my Judaism, my sexual orientation and my cognitive and emotional differences. It is a story very personal to me and very political in nature. Ask me about it. #ianw #inanormalworld #drawing #characters #gay #queer #queerart https://www.instagram.com/p/B9NAAoeg1EH/?igshid=1cfzd5yc4k585

#ianw #inanormalworld #drawing #characters #gay #queer #queerart

[thegamefulguru]

The 5 Boys, the 3 Classes, the 2 Worlds: In A Normal World is a dystopian alternate history tale that concerns queerness and its opponents throughout history. It focuses on 5 young men and boys, pictured here, and it explores their relationships, their lives, their struggles and their unique capabilities as members of an “Evolved Nation.” The three classes are descriptive but also very eugenic in execution: “Normal” people use “race science” to marginalize, demonize and create the threat of the “Abnormal”. However these classes and their associations underly the experiences and self concepts of each character. Fischer and Willis have special powers and are the target of violence because of it. Dennis and Elie can blend in and assimilate within Normal society. Melbourne is a victim of the pursuit of power, both within and without, and does what he can to further the causes and protect the people that are important to him—even if it makes them hate him. IANW is a story I wrote in high school to put into words the feelings and experiences I had as a marginalized young person, whose marginalization was a result of the intersection of my Judaism, my sexual orientation and my cognitive and emotional differences. It is a story very personal to me and very political in nature. Ask me about it. #ianw #inanormalworld #drawing #characters #gay #queer #queerart https://www.instagram.com/p/B9NAAoeg1EH/?igshid=16pc3i90gopjc

#ianw #inanormalworld #drawing #characters #gay #queer #queerart

[thegamefulguru]

Kyle Ojai was my original self-insert protagonist. He was a hero but he was not The Hero. In the world of Amateur Heroes, no one is too cowardly to be brave. No one is too weak to be strong. Death transforms a person. It reveals them to be much more than the sum of their parts. It adds them into a greater calculation. #amateurheroes #fantasyart #kyle #ahkyle #comics #art #juvenalia https://www.instagram.com/p/B9FA76Tgnrh/?igshid=1kn1pgrfy4wbe

#amateurheroes #fantasyart #kyle #ahkyle #comics #art #juvenalia

[thegamefulguru]

I am very reasonably excited for this film. I wholeheartedly love Scooby Doo.

Scoob! (2020) dir. Tony Cervone

[thegamefulguru]

Thinking of you, wherever you are. #love #poetry #visualpoetry #art #drawing #gay #ianw #inanormalworld https://www.instagram.com/p/B9EOukBAO8-/?igshid=1x26zcle4a2vk

#love #poetry #visualpoetry #art #drawing #gay #ianw #inanormalworld

[thegamefulguru]

I wanted to let you know that I thought you were lovely #fischer #ianw #inanormalworld #art #poetry #visualpoetry https://www.instagram.com/p/B9EHaV1A9Iy/?igshid=s5azge8196rz

#fischer #ianw #inanormalworld #art #poetry #visualpoetry

[thegamefulguru]

Feeling like a GMILF #comedy #sketch #sketchcomedy #thirdcoast #selfie https://www.instagram.com/p/B8pbNd1gWis/?igshid=1anewzeono53

#comedy #sketch #sketchcomedy #thirdcoast #selfie

[thegamefulguru]

Avatar: The Legacy Of Steel - Chapter 2: Hands Into The Water (on Wattpad) https://my.w.tt/EB3lJVbVP3 Jin Hua Beifong struggles to fit in in school. He is bullied, his twin sister thinks he's a weakling and worst of all, she might be right. Born into a lesser known branch of the sprawling and prominent Beifong family, Jin cannot bend a single element, and has difficulty trusting others. Only his mother seems to be able to soothe him, but when a gift of heirloom armor awakens a fearsome power within him, nothing seems to be set in stone. Can Jin handle the destiny he has inherited?

#air #avatar #beifong #bender #earth #fire #korra #legacy #steel #toph #water #f #fanfiction #books #wattpad #amreading

[thegamefulguru]

TEDxDenisonU Audition l Sam Heyman

This was my audition for TEDxDenisonU in 2016. This is something this blog addressed and helped prepare me to do. However, the talk I gave did not encompass these topics, really, at all. The talk I gave had a lot more to do with SuperBetter and with me, myself and I. That was the talk I needed to give at the time, but it was not the talk that the Denison community needed. It was not the conversation that I wanted to start with the Denison community. I will not ask or demand anyone give me a platform that they are unwilling or unable to give me. I will create my own. I hope you will listen to these words and consider the truth behind them. That is my truth.

#samheyman #gamefulguru #gamefulness #gamification #radicalplay #denison #university #denisonuniversity #denisonu

[thegamefulguru]

“I am not a stranger to the dark.”

“I used to live in the darkness.”

“When the night has come, and the land is dark, and the moon is the only light we’ll see -- No I won’t be afraid, No I won’t be afraid. Just as long as you stand, stand by me.” “I found a rainbow,”

“This is me.”

Home From The War l Sam Heyman l Spoken Word

I wrote this poem over my holiday break. It’s about my college experience. I’ve been trying to think of a way to reignite my spark with this blog. Here’s what I came up with.

[thegamefulguru]

Taking A Level In Sentence Structure: Returning to the Training Grounds

So far this week, I’ve made good on my commitments; I’ve meditated, read my book and implemented writing intensive lessons into my students’ class periods. It feels good to be reaching my goals, and I’m hoping it has a positive impact on my students.

Today, each of my students received the same basic Training Grounds lesson, putting a name to something that, for most of them, had gone unnoticed. With the exception of my Swordplay-based grammar exercises with the Relentless Wordsmith, my Training Grounds focus has been less explicit and more covertly deployed. I started by creating Lore Keeping organizers for The Advisor and The Studious Scholar, and frankly, I didn’t get enough momentum with Readstyreo to really implement Training Grounds lessons. Some weeks have gone by, with last week being abbreviated and thus lacking in the usual structure in some places, but I’ve returned to the full four-day structure of before. 

The Training Grounds lesson of the day came courtesy of The Art of Styling Sentences, a textbook used, once upon a time, by my 7th/8th grade English, Ethics II and Senior Comp teacher, Mr. Bart Allen. I used this book myself last year with my English I student, who was very interested in advanced uses of punctuation, such as the semicolon. I found it a really great way of getting at novel uses of sentence structure in an approachable, digestible way, and so I decided to bring it back to Gateway this year. Judging from how today went, I think it will be a good tool for improving my students’ writing bit by bit throughout the year.

The sentence pattern we went over connected two independent clauses with a semicolon and no conjunction. If that sounds like a lot of grammatical gobbledy-gook, fear not! It looks a lot simpler than it sounds.

My students are all writing essays this week; I anxiously await their ideas coming to fruition.

To write an outline is one thing; to write an essay is another thing entirely.

Setting sub-deadlines is a good idea; making sure students know about these deadlines is a better idea.

See? We use this kind of sentence all the time when we speak. Knowing how to properly punctuate them in our writing makes for more impactful, connected sentences. 

Anyway, I just wanted to flex my writing muscles for y’all. Tomorrow two of my students should be more than halfway done with their rough drafts, while the third has an outline and a thesis statement due.

Until then, life will pass through. Keep being you.

Sincerely, MM

#mindfulmentor #writing #sentence structure #training grounds #lessons #gameful

[thegamefulguru]

Trailer premiere for gooftastic, fully animated, fully alligated video game, Later Alligator! Coming September 5th from Emmy Award winning SmallBu with developers PillowFight! Wishlist it on steam here!

[thegamefulguru]

This is the character sheet I made (by hand!) for my Gateway students this year. We're going to use this to track growth and progress with personal goals in and out of the classroom. This is one way I'm trying to be #gameful and adventurous in my teaching practice this year! #teaching #education #gamifylearning #sufferlessgrowmore #mindfulmentor https://www.instagram.com/p/B1FJw2vgWR7/?igshid=ci1u2vpuwhcu

#gameful #teaching #education #gamifylearning #sufferlessgrowmore #mindfulmentor