Andrew Duval

I was going say something like “Tackling the real issues”, intending to be funny and supportive, but then I wondered, “Is death a gendered choice? Why not birth?”

Which wizard? Gandalf or Mickey in Fantasia? (genuine question lol)

Telemachus is cooking!

Yes, adorable *and* functional!

A human biomass system diagram reminiscent of Roger Hargreaves, like Mr. Biomass

I love the arms and legs

One of my favourite Frankenstories games was a Macbeth prompt, “Am I to blame?” and the first round winner opened with, “AITA for killing the king? I (30M) was told I would one day be Thane of Cawdor…” And the students continue with AITA conventions, eg R3: “UPDATE: So I literally got decapitated…”😂

Aging gracefully is realising young people in the group chat won't understand "zohran staffers watched that live and gasped like they'd seen the monolith from 2001" and changing it to "gasped like they'd found a 10-year old bitcoin wallet key" before hitting send

…has bought noble and popular support, and Hamlet doesn’t have the numbers to take him down. So Hamlet is much more about the risks and costs of insurgency as opposed to Macbeth’s mythic good vs evil conflict. (Macbeth is Star Wars and Hamlet is Andor.)

Also: Macbeth is really interesting in comparison to Hamlet. Both are about deposing illegitimate kings. In Macbeth, it’s straightforward: Macbeth has no supporters except hired thugs and murderers while Malcolm is backed by the King of England. But Claudius is Mr Partytime…

we but players, puppets, ants, making preordained moves and enjoying or suffering through life in preordained ways? Either option sucks.

go about their business declaring wars and curing scrofula and everything is rosy. But Macbeth’s great expression of disappointment, “Tomorrow…” cuts both ways: his crimes have failed to bring the desired transcendence, but the natural order is also disappointing, because then what are…

A4: Disappointment. The Macbeths get what they wanted but it turns out to suck. And it goes deeper than taking the crown. The play revolves around ideas of nature and natural order: Macbeth usurps the natural order and causes misery; Duncan, Malcolm, and the unnamed English king breezily…

One of the best. Probably the highest density of memorable images on stage. Highlights all the strange contradictions in Shakespeare: fervently Christian society but plays are all pagan; glazing the divine monarchy but all the best lines go to critics and malcontents. (Supposedly an abridged text?)

I see this one thing differently: he’s not enslaved to the final fight; he’s finally liberated. He returns at last to what he does best: fighting. I always imagine Macbeth as happy at the start and happy at the very end.

Recently spent 2 weeks in the US, teaching Frankenstories writing classes at 6 schools across 3 states. Feeling super buoyant; the students and teachers were so enthusiastic, and we learned a lot from each other. Here’s a video that captures a small slice of the classroom energy.

I should really search for Frankenstories mentions more often otherwise I miss posts like this. 🧡

A fab tool that we loved trying today. The kids engagement with this was through the roof and they used a success criteria which we made together to select the best answer! Interactive, meaningful, educational and engaging. We will be using “Frankenstories” again! ✨

Also, your logins will work on Writelike.org as well, which is great for short-form mentor text modelling activities!

Incidentally, each player has access to a My Version tab after the game, where they can make revisions to the final story. (Although in my classes, I assign each student their own Google Doc and use Copy>My Replies after each game to create a rolling portfolio of writing through the unit).

Oh hello! I didn't see this post until just now! I'm one of the creators of Frankenstories—it's so great to see footage of students playing the game! The eyeball prompt is one of my favourites! So squishy! And yes, the concentration during writing rounds and the babble during voting is 💚🧟😊

(PS If this sounds like a LinkedIn parody, it kind of is, except everything here is true.

This really is a killer One Simple Trick, and if more LinkedIn posts were this useful, then the world would be a better place.)

So that's my advice.

Come back in 3-6 months and lmk how you go!

And that was it: I started thinking of flossing as a morning thing, and I declared brushing a reward for flossing.

Haven't missed a day since, and while my dentist didn't actually weep, she remains impressed.

The point is, I *really want to brush my teeth in the morning*, and I thought, "If I simply say to myself, in the morning, 'You can brush after you floss', then it might be easier to floss consistently."

In the evening, I brush my teeth because that's just what you do, but it actually sucks because it's like erasing fun food memories.

But in the *morning*, I brush my teeth to purge the steaming hellscape that is my fermented mouth, like I'm scouring a necromancer's tomb.

My complaint about flossing was that there was *no* feedback, but I wondered if I could play with toothpaste & timing.

The epiphany was this: I value morning toothpaste way more highly than evening toothpaste.

I said I would study some industrial chemistry, but finding that was more difficult than anticipated, I began to think about this feedback issue.

In theory, if you want to shape a behaviour, whack some intense positive feedback on the action *as close as possible to the action itself*.

I said, "What we really need is some kind of Pop Rocks-style coating on dental floss so it fizzes as you use it. Next time you're at a dental conference, grab someone from P&G and pitch the idea."

My dentist said, "That sounds great, but *in the meantime*, could you floss more?"

Toothpaste and shampoo have foaming agents (plus mint flavour and citric acid for that spicy bite in toothpaste) that are only there to give you the impression that they are "working", that something is happening while you use this product.

18 months ago, my dentist was politely suggesting for the millionth time that my flossing could be more conscientious.

I politely pointed out that the issue with flossing is there's no immediate feedback.