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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Advanced Placement exams. US doesn’t have a national exam like GCSE or A Levels; AP is the closest equivalent, I believe.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Haha just scrolling around I can see you’ve said this a few times in the last few hours!

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I don’t know anything about these specific claims, but I saw enough to believe that if the AP exam is able to be gamed, then this is a cohort that will game it

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I think a lot of commenters here don’t understand that Alpha’s greatest commitment is to capitalist entrepreneurship, so this is exactly how kids are coached to present themselves. They had an open day at SXSW and it was 5 hours of kids doing YC-style business and product pitches, from grades 3-12.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I mean, which one is going to pronounce the formation of his mighty duck militia? bsky.app/profile/the-...

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

It’s funny that as superhero movies became darker, grittier and more ‘mature’, the iconic Joker became Heath Ledger’s moody hipster interpretation And then in reality the Joker turned out to be much more like Cesar Romero’s camp 1960s version

Cesar Romero as The Joker in the 1960s TV show, looking strikingly familiar in hair, makeup, and expression

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Ironically, Classic Art was one of the first two image themes (along with Internet Weirdness) on Frankenstories, and teachers kept telling us that kids found the images unrelatable. So if one outcome of AI image generation is that more 8th graders demand French Impressionism, then that’s a win IMO.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Some sort of dam has burst in recent weeks and now all the kids in class are outraged by AI slop images in writing prompts. They demand “images from Wikipedia”:

William Frederick Yeames painting with a writing prompt abound expanding on objects/things/people etc.

Ferdinand Bol painting with a writing prompt about expanding actions and activities.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Though I also think it’s killing nominalisation the same way it killed the em-dash, right after I spent a term teaching kids how useful it was. Or should I say: The death of nominalisation arrives as an earned result, and honestly it’s the most striking outcome of the process.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

At first I thought the comically dense jargon, shorthand, acronyms etc was some kind of model-collapse parody of expertise. Startled to see how much is genuine compression: ask it to expand, everything makes sense, then re-read the compressed version, and you can see how it’s encoded.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Had a great chat about Frankenstories, teaching, writing, creativity, and collaboration with @dylanclassmate.bsky.social. His “Imagine This” podcast is a great blend of big ideas and practical details for creative school projects. open.spotify.com/episode/1KYy...

open.spotify.com

The Game Is Writing: How Frankenstories Is Transforming Writing Classrooms with Andrew Duval

Imagine This - Ideas & Stories for Creative, Meaningful Teaching · Episode

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

It’s like watching the internet get motor neurone disease.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Uncanny social media. Uncanny ads. Uncanny apps. Everything feels off.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

The uncanny valley has broken containment. Now it’s all uncanny world.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

@cstross.bsky.social Have you ever read Bleak House? Reading it in a teachers’ book club and was stuck by similarities to Acclerando re reality-breaking contracts

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Reposted by Andrew Duval

John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

I have had students express literal shock at how much time they've spent on a writing assignment. That shock is the thing they learned about writing and about themselves. That should be the goal as much or more than the grade we would put on that written artifact. This is so clear to me.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Haha nobody’s kneeling in the dog park anymore, I can tell you that much. Nurses were like “At least it’s not necrotising fasciitis!”

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Yeah it is. Needs Flucloxacillin. Luckily that was the first prescription (via 13SICK over Easter weekend, ty Aus health system) but I had started too late. Bizarre part of the story: picked it up kneeling on a pebble in the dog park while patting dogs for a few minutes.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Well, nitty gritty this was the second ER visit which is how I had path lab results in MHR to download. So yes I’d already been sent home once to give AB more time. But yeah, this is a literacy issue as much as anything else: high quality model, articulate case notes, local data, easy case.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Counterpoint: i was waiting for 8 hrs in emergency with a staph infection in the knee at Easter. Thought I might go home & try GP next day, but first gave Claude path lab results and case history. Bot said: Stay, you’re going to need surgery. Stayed and 12 hrs later got sent to a ward for surgery.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Funny link to Macbeth I.i: I always read “hover through fog and filthy air” as an entirely negative image (hover through yuck) and only recently realised it’s another juxtaposition: fog (clean, nature, water) and filthy air (dirty, city, soot). Witches’ ability to traverse both planes.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

I think slowly is key. In previous attempts, I’ve gone in thinking “this is 900 pages and Dickens is baggy, so let’s skim and look for set pieces”, but BH is too tightly packed. Every detail counts. Finding it better to go the other way: practically read it aloud, Shakespeare-pace.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Omg I won that as part of a Y9 English prize at school and loved it. Still tell people the bit about him speaking fluent Japanese but northerners not believing him even though they were having a conversation.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I bought my first of three Subarus not because I knew anything about cars but because I read a BOOK about an ill-fated advertising relationship between Subaru and Wieden Kennedy, and was impressed by the sincerity of the Subaru engineers.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

Hell yeah, this is as far as I ever made it

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Your cover designer clearly loves your work!

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

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?”

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

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

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Yes, adorable *and* functional!

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

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…”😂

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

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

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

…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.)

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

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…

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

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

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

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…

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

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…

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

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?)

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

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.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

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.

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

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

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

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).

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

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 💚🧟😊

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Andrew Duval @andrewduval.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

(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.)

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