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Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities has 50 remote-ready activities, which work for either your classroom or remote teaching.
city and play introductions
I think asking students to write a personal essay early on is a great idea. Maybe it takes off from their own experience of city/ies, but maybe the assignment also wants to allow them to share senses of themselves as players...but maybe that comes later.
I also note that some of your story is in my fuller story, the sense of excitement that comes from having been excused from the unitary identity you are cast into in your town/family/landscape of origin.