HuckleBerry
Center for Creative Learning
Mike Anderson
Mike Anderson is a writer, actor, comedian and Father. He received his classical acting training at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and improvisation with the Upright Citizens Brigade. Writing: Honorable Mention, Screencraft TV Pilot competition. Third place, UCLA pilot competition. Was featured in the Hollywood Reporter as a writer to watch. Plays at Red Bull Short Play Festival, published by Stage Rights. Acting: Comedy of Errors, Othello, and Three Musketeers (Alabama Shakespeare Festival), Love's Labour's Lost and Romeo and Juliet (Riverside Shakespeare Festival), The Foreigner (Pioneer Theater), Bell, Book, and Candle (Triad Stage), Fat Pig (Speakeasy Stage), The Rover (New York Classical Theater), as well as the Off-Broadway premiere of The Invested. He wrote and starred in the sketch series "Gubers" at Second City Los Angeles. Teaching: Workshops for Riverside Shakespeare Festival, Sioux City East High School, as well as Young Storytellers and Reading Partners in Los Angeles.
DND and Creative Writing
Ages 11+
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Homework: YES! Homework is required in this class. Please do not sign up if you are unwilling to do the homework which will allow us to play our game each week!
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What if there was a way to get your kid to beg to study math, probability, trigonometry, read pages of history and mythology, parse dense legalese for linguistic loopholes, write creatively, work on improvisation, team storytelling, branching immersive narrative design, puzzles, and dozens more soft skills and STEM subjects?
There is. It just takes dragons, sword fights, and lots and lots of dice. Welcome to Dungeons and Dragons, in 2025 the most popular TTRPG (Tabletop Roleplaying Game) in the world. An analog educational video game without a screen that depends on paper, pencils, imagination, and lots of face to face collaboration with your peers. It also relies on using the pythagorean theorem to calculate whether your healing spell will reach your barbarian if they’re flying 30 feet in the air and 30 feet away. Or whether your damage is better with a 2d6 greatsword or 1d12 great axe. It’s a game of studying the myth of medusa so she won’t turn your party into statues. It’s a game where the only way into the evil wizard’s lair is solving a series of logic puzzles, or negotiating and talking your way out of fighting a dragon might be the party’s only chance of survival.
But first and foremost it’s a collaborative storytelling game. Students write the backstory of their own epic hero, learning what it is to flesh out a fully developed three dimensional character with goals and flaws. They then learn how to use conflict and dramatic stakes to develop that narrative further. By the end they’ll each have all the necessary components to write their own epic fantasy adventure straight out of JRR Tolkien.
D&D is a game of infinite possibility, and while imaginative, historical/ fantasy combat is a part of the game’s structure, we make sure to structure it in a way that is sensitive to what is appropriate for the student’s age. It is more about learning to build a story with your fellow players than it is about fighting goblins.
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Please note: In the Huck usage of this game, we will not be allowing dark content.
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Shakespeare Kids