ENGL 390

If you didn’t complete project 1 or were considering revising it, this post is for you! Here’s what I’d like you to do: Just like I asked you to do for Project 1, I’d like you to write a post that explains how you define rhetoric. That’s really it— a shorter, blog-style post that breaks down your understanding of rhetoric based on what we’ve discussed this semester. If you’re somehow worried about your posts above, or end up skipping one for whatever reason, write a response to this post and I’ll consider it “extra credit.” Again, I’m positive nobody will need it, but nonetheless, I wanted to make sure I provide an option for folks who may have already been a bit behind to catch up. If you didn’t complete Project 1, and you complete all 6 posts, your average assessment for the blog posts will apply to Projects 1-4. If you planned to revise Project 1, responding to this post (with a note about that) will allow you to replace your Project 1 assessment with your assessment for t...

Finally, I’d like you to create a post that serves as a sort of reflection on this whole process, and brings everything we’ve been discussing together. So, I’d love to see answers to the following questions: After everything we’ve done this semester, how has your understanding of rhetoric been established and/or shifted? What have you learned from/about making digital texts? Put simply, how do you see the differences between written and digital expression/arguments? What have you learned about games and game design throughout this whole process—playing games, analyzing them, and attempting to design and/or make your own? As a reminder, when assessing your work on this post, I'll be considering the following questions: Does this post contain at least 300-500 words? Does this post respond to all questions/elements of the prompt? Does this post bring in examples (from the writer’s own experiences, outside sources, and/or games)?

A major change in this semester will be that, while I want you to try to actually make the game you plan in the third blog post a reality (and in a normal version of this class, we’d work toward that, specifically), the lack of in-class time to help you troubleshoot presents a notable challenge.  With this in mind, I’d like you to spend some time trying to actually make your game happen this semester— I only ever expected a VERY basic prototype in the first place, but I’m alleviating that concern, given everything going on. In this post, I’d like you to either link to your early prototype, or explain how the process of getting it to work went—so, if you can’t make a prototype, what did you try, and why/how did it fail you? This can essentially be a mini dev diary , where you detail progress (or the lack thereof) with your idea. Depending on how the process goes, feel free to make this into multiple entries—I’d love to see you writing periodically about how your game design ...

For this post, I’d like you to apply Schell’s Elemental Tetrad. So, like I’d asked you to do for Project 3, I want you to elaborate on how you would like to design a computer game of your choosing. Naturally, I want you to include the following: What is your theme? What aesthetics make sense for that theme? What mechanics make sense for that theme? What narrative makes sense for that theme? What technology do you think could help you accomplish the goals outlined above? As a reminder, when assessing your work on this post, I'll be considering the following questions: Does this post contain at least 300-500 words? Does this post respond to all questions/elements of the prompt? Does this post bring in examples (from the writer’s own experiences, outside sources, and/or games)?

Project 2 asked you to complete an analysis of a game of your choosing, and discuss how procedural rhetoric functioned in it. In this post, I’d mainly like you to focus on laying out the basics of our work in Project 2— analyzing how a game of your choosing uses processes to make an argument or express something. For this post, I’d like you to take one of 2 paths: First, if you already wrote this in the style of a traditional research project? Simply paste your work into a blog post—no additional work required. If you haven’t gotten too far on it, then I’d like to encourage you to write this in a more informal blog-style analysis. Think of the analytical/experience-driven work you might see on sites like Kotaku or Polygon . No MLA formatting and “proper” citations required, but feel free to hyperlink to things as it makes sense to do so. As a reminder, when assessing your work on this post, I'll be considering the following questions: Does this post contain at least 300-50...

After our readings from Bogost and Schell this semester, how has your understanding of computer games shifted?  Write a blog post that reflects on your own experience with games before this course, and how things like procedural rhetoric and the Elemental Tetrad have shifted that (if at all).  Feel free to bring in, discuss, and analyze any specific examples from the texts and/or the games we’ve played to emphasize this. As a reminder, when assessing your work on this post, I'll be considering the following questions: Does this post contain at least 300-500 words? Does this post respond to all questions/elements of the prompt? Does this post bring in examples (from the writer’s own experiences, outside sources, and/or games)?

What's Going On? It goes without saying that this semester has been… unprecedented. With that in mind, I’d like to radically rework things from here—with the time we’ve lost and the stress you must be under, there is essentially a zero percent chance that I can simply rework what we were already planning to do into something that can be done within a month or so. So, with that in mind, I’d like to completely shatter the paradigm. As someone who focuses on assessment, one of the biggest assets to designing a course is establishing a series of specific outcomes. Usually, I use these to determine what the content of our projects needs to be (e.g. measurable tests of the course’s outcomes), and then I plan class readings and activities around how to best prepare you to understand the ideas I want you to engage with. What Are We Doing? With that in mind, rather than continuing as we have, I’d like to ask you instead to create a series of posts to an online blog that focus o...