BARRINGTON — In the kingdom of Diddorol, like many gaming worlds, adventuring leads to experience points, rewards, and the opportunity to level up.

BARRINGTON — In the kingdom of Diddorol, like many gaming worlds, adventuring leads to experience points, rewards, and the opportunity to level up.



Unlike other gaming worlds, however, the kingdom of Diddorol is not a part of the next best video game available for every gaming console; it is the fictional kingdom serving as the setting for all activities in Larry Graykin's Language Arts class at Barrington Middle School.



Graykin created the fictional world, and the groundbreaking writing curriculum going along with it, this past summer as a way to better engage his seventh- and eighth-grade students and, hopefully, raise the level of their writing success.



He was inspired, he explained after classes Monday afternoon, by a book written by a college professor teaching game design who realized he could run his class like a game. After reading the book, Graykin decided to spend two months and nearly 200 hours creating his own gaming world in which to run his class.



Diddorol, the Welsh word for interesting, has since gained the attention of students, Graykin's fellow teachers and administrators, as well as writing experts from around the area. "The charge of teachers today is to be seekers," Barrington Middle School Principal Mike Powers said Monday. "He's taking a risk, it's not really by the book ... everyone is watching closely to see how this works out." While the material being taught has not changed at all — it still follows the common core standards and teaches students the six traits of good writing — the manner in which it is presented and the way student work is done and assessed all revolves around the kingdom of Diddorol and its gaming characteristics. When students first join the class, they pick an avatar name to use on writing assignments and other activities in Diddorol. Each student also picks a role and is placed in a province of origin. Each province — Volcania, Lumina, Fastidiosa, Dolphinia, Conngorus, and Rocklor — has a designated area of the room and represents one of the six traits of good writing, organization, ideas, voice, word choice, sentence fluency and conventions. Like many role-playing games, students are given quests and sent out on adventures, which in this case take the form of writing assignments. They are often given story prompts, and depending on the assignment, their role, and their province of origin, they can write fiction, nonfiction, and other genres of writing. For each assignment, students are required to not only write an essay or story, but also fill out a worksheet, with one side completed before the writing assignment to focus on helping students think about the process of writing, and the other side completed after the assignment, used as a way for students to self-assess. With the completion of each assignment, students are then assessed by Graykin, who depending on how well students follow rubrics for the assignments, gives them a number of experience points. These points, while used to calculate a student's grade, are also used to help them level up and gain a number of virtual items, from clothing and jewelry to talisman and special powers, giving them added points or incentives later in the game. Each day, there is the chance students will be given an "inspection," which is typically a short quiz, check, or activity to test their learning. "I don't know and they don't know what they could be quizzed on that day," Graykin said. "It keeps them on their toes, they have to be ready." Unlike more traditional curriculums and grading systems, students learning in the kingdom of Diddorol are graded cumulatively. When they earn 100 experience points —making them a level 10, or seeker in the game— they receive a D- or passing grade for the course. Some students, Graykin said Monday, were passing by the third week of the class, and now have the opportunity to continue raising their grade throughout the rest of the trimester. To earn an A, students must receive 911 experience points. Graykin admits the game is complicated, but said it was designed that way. "(The students) were overwhelmed at first," he said. "It's very complex and intentionally so because I want it to run the full year as one big game."



Within the kingdom, there are often events happening, created by Graykin, including romances and conflicts between the various provinces. These complexities, he said, are what help to keep the students engaged. Many parents, however, Graykin said, have not appreciated the class's complexity. "Parents are absolutely baffled," Graykin said, laughing. "It's been horrible for me to try to figure out how to explain it to them." Graykin said while many parents are confused about how the game itself works, others are concerned with how students are assessed under the new curriculum. Graykin said finding an informative, yet simple way to let parents know how their children are doing in the class and how they can help them at home has been one of the biggest challenges. "Almost nobody has been really critical," Graykin said. "They're just trying to wrap their heads around it." And while students may have been similarly overwhelmed at the start of the school year, spending just a few minutes in Graykin's classroom makes it clear they have since jumped on board with the new program. Seventh-grader Anita Lampolsaen said that Graykin's class is her favorite one of the day. "We get to do a lot of fun stuff, like adventures and stories that we make up," she said Monday while sitting in the classroom. "It's fun and educational." Lampolsaen said she enjoys the class being run like a game. "It's more fun," she said. In fifth and sixth grade, "it's so predictable, but this is a creative way to learn writing ... I've learned things I didn't know before." Lampolsaen's classmates, Destinee Magmusson and Conrad Dundorf, both eighth-graders, said they, too, enjoy the class more than previous Language Arts classes. "It's my favorite class of the day," Conrad said. "It's a much more fun way to learn."



Destinee agreed. "I like that (Graykin) doesn't always tell you what you have to write about," she said Monday. "I like it a lot more, it's not like a regular class." This enjoyment and engagement by students so far seems to be paying off. Graykin said students are writing an average of 6.39 pages a week, and he has read 1,500 pages of student work already this school year. "I've virtually read more this first trimester than all of last year," Graykin said. Diddorol, and its impact on student work, has started gaining the attention of individuals outside of the Barrington community. Graykin has already been featured on NPR's "All Things Considered" radio show, and is gaining attention of education experts. One such expert, Fred Wolff, was in Graykin's class Monday afternoon, and said he was impressed by what he saw. "For kids to be writing six pages a week in just one class is extremely rare," he said. "When students write more, their writing improves." Wolff said he is not surprised the students have caught on so quickly. "This is the world in which they live," he said. Whether this gaming classroom actually does increase student learning in addition to student productivity has yet to be seen, but Graykin said he has kept track of student success and will track the program's success throughout this year and coming years. How Diddorol itself will continue is still uncertain, Graykin said. Because he has mixed level classes of both seventh- and eighth-graders, he cannot simply use the same game again next year, so Graykin said he is planning on either creating an entirely new kingdom in which to teach, or will simply create new storylines and characters for Diddorol next year. Whatever the future of the kingdom, Graykin hopes to help other teachers at the middle school and in other schools realize incorporating gaming does not have to be hard, and can have remarkable effects on student engagement. "It brings the best out of students and makes learning fun," he said. Graykin says though his program may be viewed as groundbreaking now, he hopes it will be something much more common in classrooms in years to come. "I think this is a game changer," he said Monday. "I think this is what's going to happen in education and I think there are many good reasons it should." For more information on Diddorol and for a full explanation of the kingdom, its provinces, and its assessment system, visit Graykin's website at http://www.wix.com/lgraykin/diddorol.



