Our students sometimes come from backgrounds that make them unprepared or uninterested for the topic at hand. In the past, I built curricula around tattoos and Mario Bros as extended analogies to English composition to reach students in new ways, ones that connect better to their authentic selves. I want to demo these activities as a lead in to spark a conversation around curriculum innovation, and end with a hands on workshop to build our own extended analogies, whatever our content area is.