8-10 yrs old
11-13 yrs old
Reading and Writing
Get shipwrecked in Minecraft and make the island your home, using whatever you can scavenge to make it comfortable.
September 26, 2019
Lesson Plan
My Notes
Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson Minecraft world file
Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson world to support lessons.
Litcraft Website
LITCRAFT uses the popular Minecraft gaming platform to build accurate scale models of authorial maps from classic works of literature.
Java World
Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson Minecraft world file for Java editions of Minecraft.
Writing an Adventure Journal
Full lesson plan and additional activities.
Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson Extracts
Extracts from Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson to support activities.
This series of lessons is designed to help teach English Language Arts concepts through the study of "Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe, and "The Swiss Family Robinson" by Johann Wyss.
IN-GAME writing. Read the extracts from Robinson Crusoe’s Journal.
Feedback to class and make a list of the key features of this kind of text.
• Once the class has agreed on a list, pupils return to the extract and find evidence of
those specific features in the text. Feedback.
• Ask pupils to think about the following:
i) How else might this section of the text have been written?
ii) What different options were available to the author?
iii) Why did he choose to write in the journal form?
Conclude by discussing other texts that the pupils have read in the journal form
Start by loading the Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson Minecraft world file found in the resources section. Open the chest you find there marked Task 5: Mini-Island
In-Game Activity: Mini Island
Go to the small island off the left-hand side (the West Coast) of Swiss Family Robinson Island.
This is the base for your own island adventure.
Use the descriptions of each stage of the shipwreck story to re-enact your own castaway story.
Write up each stage of your story in the Journal also in this chest.
Copy Crusoe’s journal form to help you write convincingly. Here are some ideas.
Make the island your home, using whatever you can scavenge to make it comfortable. Why might a smaller islet be safer
FOLLOW UP TASK:
Read the short extracts relating to the narrative structure of the “Robinsonade” or shipwreck narrative.
Encourage the children to see that if they focus on each STAGE of the shipwreck they can build and sustain a longer piece of writing.
Let them use the shorter version they wrote in-game in their Journal as the basis for a fuller version of the narrative. (You can take screenshots of the book written in on screen and print these off if you need to get the writing “out” of the world.)
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