If you love role-playing games, you’ll love this course! Made in the image of God, our Creator, we love creating our own worlds. In this course, we will learn what makes a fictional world like J.R.R. Tolkien's so powerful and what makes otherwise mythical places feel like real locations in the minds of readers. Join Mr. Chenet and your fellow students to explore the subjects of geology, sociology, and history – through artistic perspective – to build a believable, yet fictional, world.
Special notes: Course materials provided free. Includes a writing component. This is Part One of a 2-Part course. Students are expected to also sign up for Part Two in the spring.
Total classes: 12
Duration: 55 minutes per class
Prerequisite: None
Suggested grade level: 9th to 12th grade, interested 8th-grade students also welcome
Suggested credit: One full semester of Art, Social Studies, Creative Writing, or Sociology
Instructor: Inshal Chenet
Course description: Whether you are writing a fantasy or sci-fi story, creating a video game, designing an RPG, or just making a world for fun, this course is a guide for making believable worlds. We will be merging good storytelling, good science, and good sociology to help students develop their worlds.
Course outline:
Week 1: Why create worlds?
Week 2: The Planet: Landmasses
Week 3: Designing realistic Climates
Week 4: Rivers, Oceans, and Currents
Week 5: Worlds unlike our own
Week 6: Biology and Life
Week 7: Fantasy Ecosystems
Week 8: Intelligent Races
Week 9: Ecosystems unlike our own
Week 10: History of the world
Week 11: Conflicts from the outside
Week 12: Empires Rise and Fall
Course materials: Readings will be provided FREE by the instructor as PDF files. Students need to be able to scan and upload work teacher grading.
Homework: Each week, students will be required to read a text, and then write / draw a few pages about their world and upload into Moodle for Mr. Chenet to grade.
- Teacher: Inshal Chenet