Join the League of Literacy with Minecraft: The Island
11 Apr 2022
Imagine being stranded on a mysterious island. As the sun gets lower in the sky, you start to think about the kind of shelter you'll need to survive. And knowing that the landscape will soon be teeming with hostile mobs doesn't help! 🧟♂️
We're giving students the chance to immerse themselves in this exhilarating scenario as they learn about the magic of reading and writing.
League of Literacy is a new series of Minecraft: Education Edition build challenges offered in partnership with Random House with support from the National Literacy Trust. This program is designed to encourage students' love of reading, enhance comprehension, and support educators with learning content and programming.
The first League of Literacy centers on Minecraft: The Island by Max Brooks. This build challenge for learners aged 8–14 in the United States provides a set of resources for teaching, including an excerpt from the novel, standards-aligned lessons, and a build challenge. An immersive Minecraft: Education Edition world provides an in-game setting for students to build scenes from their reading.
Minecraft: The Island tells the story of a hero stranded in the world of Minecraft who must brave the harsh, unfamiliar environment to survive. The challenge for your students? Build their own unique Minecraft base in the League of Literacy arena, improving on the protagonist's construction and drawing on descriptions from the novel.
Once learners have completed their creations, they create a video showcasing their build and submit it to Random House to join the competition.
Here's what you'll need to do to join the Minecraft: The Island Build Challenge:
1. Sign up here to receive a free competition packet.
2. Read the provided excerpt from Minecraft: The Island as a class.
3. Invite your students to build a shelter in the Minecraft: Education Edition build-plate world that's guided by the prompt and the challenge video.
4. Students in the United States can then record and submit a video of their build by June 1. Random House will judge these submissions and we'll reveal the top builds in June and showcase at the annual ISTE conference in New Orleans.
Teachers around the world are encouraged to conduct the League of Literacy build challenge with their learners, while students from the United States are eligible to submit their creations for the build competition.
Whether you're new to Minecraft: Education Edition or a seasoned game-based learning leader, there are plenty of resources to help you run League of Literacy with your students.
- The Minecraft: Education Edition arena world
- The challenge guide with advice for running the Minecraft: The Island Build Challenge
- A classroom kit from Random House, including an excerpt of Minecraft: The Island
- A reading guide for Minecraft: The Island aligned to US literacy standards
- Lessons for teaching Minecraft: The Island according to UK literacy standards, created by the National Literacy Trust
- A "Teach Any Book" teaching guide for using the League of Literacy world with books or texts of your choice
Sign up for League of Literacy by April 25 to join the challenge. The first 1,000 registrants will receive a physical classroom toolkit in the mail along with a copy of Minecraft: The Island!
You can also combine League of Literacy from Minecraft: Education Edition with other reading tools like Reading Progress. This tool improves student fluency through reading practice and educator insights. Engaging students in an inclusive and safe way. Allowing all students, including those with Dyslexia, to read out loud when and where they are most comfortable doing so.
