Co-Designly Practice, (CDLY P) case study 2:

 

Diagrams, labyrinths and mazes, and game design

 

Across a term of English Comprehension, Reading, Vocabulary, and Art classes, we used CDLY P to study diagramming,

labyrinths, mazes, and board game design:

 

  “Diagrams drive the communication and the teaching of ideas, the sedimentation of epistemic norms and methods of

   analysis, and in some cases the articulation of novel concepts through pictographic variants”.

   Ezequiel Di Paolo

 

   “Diagrams simplify; they select, and they omit. What they leave out or distort is part of the narratives they help sustain”.

    Edward Tufte

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1. Diagramming: (dialogic) discussion about simple diagramming and making visual our thinking. We look at various diagrams 

    and charts, exploring how they work in visually, sorting, organising, and sequencing linear (teleological) phenomena. In

    English Comprehension, we analysed how Chokwe Sona Sand Drawings use character proxies, dots, line, and the emerging,

    geometric pattern of a live-diagrammed path to tell a narrated story, (Lusona is a singular diagrammatic tale, Sona plural).

    Using a pencil on dot grid paper, we work in pairs to make up our own Lusona story (diagram). Later, in turn, we tell our Sona

    Sand Drawing stories outside in the sandpit with a stick. Several months later at playtime, I catch G. telling a Lusona story in

    the sand to the silent, entranced infants crouching down beside him. ­

                                                                                                                                                

 2.  Labyrinths and mazes: discussion about archetypal labyrinth and maze forms and the differences between them. For example,     

    a maze has multiple entry and exit points whereas a labyrinth has a single-entry point and centre. Our discussion digresses

    to "the maze” of the London Underground and “the tangled up-ness” of roads in London. “Isn’t a diagram of a maze or lab-

    yrinth also a map?” (J., 7) We quickly look up a map of the London Underground, noticing how it loosely corresponds to a map

    of  London. For English Comprehension, we research labyrinth and maze symbolism (ontological, serpentine journeys) and

    myths: the story of King Minos, the Minotaur, Theseus, Prince of Athens, and Ariadne’s thread. In addition to Anubis at the

    portal centre of the Egyptian pyramid (labyrinth) who holds the golden scales on which the heart of the soul is weighed against

    the white feather of truth.

 

    Using a pencil and paper, we test different mazes and labyrinths and experiment diagramming our own labyrinthine shapes.

    In teams of four, we CDLY P our own, “massive and epic” (E., 5) walk-through labyrinths or mazes on the playground surface

    using brown packing tape and P.E. supplies. Live testing and group critique of each team’s efforts follows and at home time

    the rest of the school rush over en masse to excitedly try them out.

 

3. Game Design: discussion about various board games with samples. In teams, we CDLY P a simple game for one or several

    players:

 

    i. Game concept, ii. Prototype construction with game pieces, iii. Game testing, iiiv. Game revision, v. Game retesting and

    vi. Group critique. The following week we make final revisions and design a box, catchy name and logo. The rest of the school

    test them during Wet Play, Morning and After School Club.

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