In my previous post (My 6 Avatar Types) I began outlining the 6 Avatar Types for my History Underground classroom. This is the fifth of my six avatar types (My Avatar Types – The Executive, Avatar Types – The Artisan, Avatars pt 1 – The Curator, My Avatar Types – The Protege). My class revolves around a central narrative in which the students become “Collectors” for an underground group of Historians in a dystopian future. The Collector’s job is to access, watch, and summarize “hidden archives” of recorded lectures. The archives are hidden by an evil totalitarian government called APOC or The Armed Protectors of the Constitution. This group has withered and starved historic teaching until it is all but dead so that the people are left without the skills to determine the corrupted history used by APOC to manipulate them. This is the narrative framework that creates an organic explanation for my “flipped” class; all students are required to complete the “collection missions” in order to gain the basic content knowledge required by the state standards.

The Rogue

Every community has people that just don’t play well with others. Rogues are the people in the Underground game that may have specialized skills – they may be artistic, tech skills, etc… – but they just don’t like to collaborate. This group of people like individual action. In some cases they may even like to show their dominance over the other people in the community.

Player Type Connection

Before Marczewski’s Player Type Hexad a game designer named Richard Bartle developed a 4 player type model (Gamasutra Explanation). Players that liked to act upon other players were known as “Killers”. This term doesn’t really fit well into the classroom, but the Rogue does have some of this desire built in to its special skill which allows the player to challenge other students to a battle. A talented Rogue will be able to assert his or her dominance over the other student. this type may also be appealing to Free Spirits that value Autonomy over Relatedness and collaboration. By stating in the description that Rogues are typically loners it gives students that want to explore in their own ways or on their own schedule the freedom to do so. The Power Bonus here may also appeal to the “Player” player type and it is a concession to the handful of students that I have every year that are fantastic test takers but have no interest in completing any of the required notes. Since the purpose of the note taking is to learn enough core content to do well on the test the Multiple Choice Mercenary Power Bonus is a completely External Reward- a way to get points to students that need them.

Power Bonus

  • “Multiple Choice Mercenary” –  If Bunker member scores above an 80% on the common assessment they may choose to replace notes average for that unit will be replaced with the test score average.

Special Skill

  • “Champion” – Once per unit a Rogue may challenge a non-Rogue to a USA test prep winner take all battle. The winner will earn a 100XP bonus.

Organization Aids

One challenge that occurs with the avatar types is keeping track of which students have which powers and skills. My solution to this is based on my “Tie Based Ranking System” (similar to a karate belt system). Each of the types has a different tie pattern. I realized that the Rogue type would refuse to wear a tie at all so they get Tie Dye. Still a “Tie” based pattern but is more individualistic and free spirited. Each student will get a Tie Dye sticker to put either on their laptops (we are a 1:1 school) or their AVID Binders. They will also get power bonus and special skill stickers. I also have a a Google Sheets grade book that keep track of all of these items for quick reference.