ENG 225 5.M: Schedule, Project 2 Introduction

Posted on September 19, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Gaming Journals
  • Schedule Change(s)
  • Project 2
  • Homework

Gaming Journals

Scored. You can resubmit a link if you add more before the paper due date (down to the wire!).

Schedule Changes

Here’s how I see our upcoming schedule:

  • According to Canvas, the draft of the Sicart paper is due Tuesday at midnight. I’m going to keep that date in place. If you have already finished your draft, great. If not, then you have time to work on it and/or set a Writing Center appointment for this evening or tomorrow. Remember that visiting the Writing Center with a draft of this paper is one way you can earn bonus points toward an “A” this semester
  • I am cancelling Wednesday’s class so I can focus on providing feedback on the papers. My goal is to have all the papers returned before Friday’s class. This is ambitious, but I will do my best. If you can turn a paper in early, before Tuesday’s midnight deadline, I’d appreciate it!
  • There’s a homework assignment for Friday’s class, one that will get us started on Project 2. On Friday I’ll do two things–we’ll spend 25 minutes or so reviewing the Sicart drafts, and then discuss the reading for 25 minutes.

Project Two: Representations of Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Games

Our first project this semester approached games as aesthetic objects; that is, we treated them as artistic objects and analyzed them to learn/challenge how they operate. Our second project this semester will approach games as social objects. Rather than analyze how they operate on us (affect our emotions and/or shape our attitudes), our analysis will focus on how games represent marginalized groups (particularly in the gaming sphere, which has a notorious reputation for being white, male, and hostile to difference).

You will work together in groups to analyze representations of gender, race, or sexuality in a specific genre of video games. You will work as a team to design a research methodology, collect “artifacts” (which collectively form your “corpus”), and analyze those artifacts. As a group, you will construct a heuristic for that analysis (a list of yes/no or a likert-like scale of things you can see). Unlike our first project, we do not have time to actually play the games for this project. Your group will analyze something like:

  • Game covers
  • Character selection screens
  • Game trailers
  • Significant NPC’s

You will work collectively to gather objects and generate your data. Here’s a few projects from the past couple of years. This means developing a methodology to select games to analyze. Here’s an example of a past methodology I helped a group develop that focused on female protagonists in story-driven games. This produced a list of games. And then this lead to a refined methodology.

Then, you will (collaboratively or individually–your choice) develop a paper of around 2000 words. Drafts of the paper will be due the Friday before spring break. Final drafts will be due Friday, March 26th. The paper will follow the “traditional” outline for qualitative or quantitative research:

  • Outline
  • Literature Review (we will likely skip this step by incorporating it into the introduction)
  • Methodology
    • How did you find the artifacts in your corpus?
    • How did you analyze them?
  • Data
  • Discussion
    • How does your findings compare to previous studies?
    • What didn’t surprise you?
    • More importantly, what did surprise you?
    • Why do you think you found what you found? What do you think you would find in 5 years [is there a trend? a reason to think some things might change?]
  • Conclusion

Let Me Do the Literature Review for You (Sorta)

The inspiration for this project lies in the work of This will be built off of the work of two other game scholars. First, the work of Extra Credit–I want to watch an example of this (to plant the seed for a future project), but also stress that this is the kind of deep analysis we can’t do for this second project.

Second, Anita Sarkeesian, and her “Tropes in Games” project. Tropes in Games started as a kickstarter in 2013; Sarkeesian produced a series of videos examining the stereotypical portrayals of women in games. Let’s take a look.

We might need this.
And this: Hawkeye Initiative.

Sarkeesian has done considerable work in this area. I see two ways of building off her work. First, we might explore whether representations of women have progressed: are contemporary games making the same mistakes? Are there some genres where this is more of an issue than others? Can we extend her analysis of Beyond Good and Evil to find other positive representations?

Second, we can extend her robust methodology to other representations: can we identify and develop a list of racial tropes for characters of color (for instance, “the criminal,” “the athlete,” “the minstrel,” “the black panther,” “the rapper”). Can we investigate representations of sexuality in games? Are there tropes for LBGTQ+ characters? Can we (maybe outside of the Mass Effect series) identify positive representations of non-CIS/heteronormative/binary sexuality?

Full disclosure: I originally wrote the paragraphs above in 2018, and I just copy/paste them every time I teach this class. However, I do think there is some progress that suggests we are seeing better representation (even if Sarkeesian herself has done research that leaves her underwhelmed).

Homework

To recap:

  • The draft of your Sicart paper is due Tuesday at midnight
  • Class is cancelled on Wednesday so that I can focus on getting the Sicart papers scored and back to you ASAP
  • Those folks invested in getting an “A” should make an appointment with the Writing Center. If your appointment would be after the Tuesday midnight due date: then submit whatever you have by Tuesday at midnight with a Canvas comment that you have a WC appointment planned and that you will resubmit the paper to Canvas after that. I will hold off on your paper until after the resubmission
  • For Friday’s class, read Burgess et al (2011) “Playing with Prejudice” in the files section of Canvas. There’s a writing assignment in Canvas called Writing a Research Annotation that you need to complete before class.
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ENG 328 5.M: Sketch Review, Working with InDesign

Posted on September 19, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Reviewing Sketches
  • Converting Your Sketches into an InDesign Document
  • LAST FIVE MINUTES: Homework

Reviewing Sketches

I’ll be coming around today to take a look at sketches and ask/answer questions about your design.

Converting Your Sketches into an InDesign Document

In class today, I’d like you to work on developing one of your sketches into InDesign. You are free to develop either a landscape or portrait menu, but I’d like you to include the following:

  • I want you to use all the content in the Google Doc in your menu. I think a challenge of this design is using typography and layout to fit this much content
  • I’d like you to include at least 3 pictures of food in your document
  • I’d like you to really highlight and sell some chicken wings–and remind everyone that those wings are Erin’s Secret Recipe

Homework

I’d like to take the last five minutes of class to talk about the homework / schedule. I have an idea in mind, but I’d like to see where y’all are at.

My idea is to have a draft of the menu due Wednesday. In class on Wednesday, I’d go over typography in InDesign. Then, on Friday, I’d assign the Classroom in a Book Lesson on Objects in InDesign (which you can come and do in class, and I can help, or you can do from home/computer lab later). The final menu would be due before Monday’s class. Given the amount of typographic formatting this project requires, I want to make sure that this timeline is realistic.

I’ve heard from both Michael Mayer and from Dr. Brownlee on poster projects, so our mini-project next week will be on developing a promotional poster in InDesign.

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ENG 301 4.R: Graphs, Discussion Section

Posted on September 16, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Graphs
  • Discussion Section
  • Report Overview Redux
  • Homework

Graphs

Today we are going to work with the data we produced in the last class to generate, label, and modify some graphs in Google Sheets. Learning outcomes:

  • Inputting Data to the Template
  • Generating a Graph
  • Editing the Graph’s Axis/Labels/Title
  • Modifying the Graph’s Appearance
  • Inserting the Graph in a Google Doc

Inputting Data to the Template
For convenience, here is a link to the spreadsheet with our final tallies. Remember that for your report, you should be analyzing at least 50 different codes, so choose columns that make that work.

In order to make it easier to generate graphs in Google Sheets, you are going to make a copy of this template and populate it with numbers.

Unless significant (something you want to highlight in your discussion), delete any columns that contain a zero or a really low number.

Generating a Graph
Here is a link to Google’s documentation on creating a graph in Google Sheets. Insert > Chart. Easy Peasie.

Editing the Graph’s Axis/Labels/Title
This is also covered in the documentation. Let’s change the title first to Figure 1. Tools and Technologies

Editing the Graph’s Appearance
Fonts
Label angle?
Neat trick: series > data labels

Inserting a Graph in a Google Doc

Two ways:

  • Right corner of graph: Three dots. Copy. Then paste in your document [benefit: graph is linked, if you change the spreadsheet, it will auto-update the graph]
  • Convert the graph into an image [benefit: easier to email to technophobes]

Discussion Section

Now that we’ve got our data finalized and (hopefully) looking pretty sweet, it is time to generate some thoughts about it. Here’s what you can do in your discussion section:

  • How does it compare to previous research (i.e., Brumberger and Lauer?). Put your top codes in direct comparison with theirs. Any surprising differences? Or does our research corroborate theirs?
  • Anything jump out at you? Anything you are pretty sure will surprise our audience(s) (particularly high school seniors / incoming first-years but also faculty?)
  • Let’s crowd source some “action points” for our audience. Since we know what the top skills are, we can try and think of courses at UNCo that are particularly good at transferring those skills. I’ve got something with which we can work.

Report Overview Redux

Here’s a link to the document I sent you and referred to on Tuesday.

Remember that the course requires extra labor in order to secure an “A” grade. This project presents two opportunities:

  • You can bring a draft to the Writing Center before the due date
  • You can revise the paper after I have commented on them

You can bring/upload the Job Advertisement Analysis document to your WC consultation (and remember to request a receipt).

Homework

A reminder that the paper will be due Tuesday at midnight. We will review previous papers in next Tuesday’s class.

Also, a reminder to read the Jim Corder essay “Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love” in preparation for next Thursday’s class.

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ENG 328 4.W: Menus

Posted on September 15, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s plan:

  • Resumes
  • Menus
  • Golumbiski and Hagen on Mock-Ups
  • Homework

Resumes

I want to take 10 minutes (max!) to talk about the resumes.

  • Jayden, Nick, Hannah
  • Modulating leading (hierarchy and differentiation), Catherine, Kelsey, Katie, Nathan, Alyssa, (vs Tyler, Hayley–Chloe)
  • Let’s try something (Case, Lia)

Menus

For the next two weeks we will be designing a restaurant menu. This is a multiple-birds-with-one-project project, since we’ll be:

  • Learning InDesign
  • Learning Design Process and Grid Layout (developing a mock-up/sketch)
  • Practicing Typography

To get us started, I’ve asked you to grab a menu today to bring to class. Before we start examining our menu, let’s head to Google and see if we can learn any basic recommendations for menu design.

Pre-Writing a Design

Most of you are writers. As writers, you all probably have a different approach to pre-writing. Me? I read and write comments in the margins of a book. Then I write out quotes into a document with some transitions and some analysis. Pieces of stuff. Eventually I start thinking of an outline (what, in my writing classes, I call a road map: first this paper does X, then it uses X to examine A, B, and C. Or first is reviews X and Y. Then it compares X and Y to Z, stressing A and B). Whatever. I do some math and start guessing how many pages I can dedicate to each element in the outline. As a profession academic, I often work backwards a bit on this part, since virtually anything I write will be 8 pages (for a conference) or 20-30 pages (for an article).

However we approach pre-writing, I think we can think of it as developing a sketch of what our work will look like. It is an exercise in planning organization, mapping ideas. I think you can see where this is going.

When I used to design websites, I would always begin with a mock-up: a Photoshop picture of what I wanted the site to look like. This would include some basic measurements and grid work. We’re going to use a similar, but more lo-fi, approach to developing a draft for the menu project.

Homework

Remember that Friday’s class will be our first time opening and using InDesign. While I find InDesign more accessible than Premiere, I still think a lot of folks would benefit from a general introduction to and walk-around the workspace.

For Monday’s class, I’d like you to prepare two mock-ups for your menu (one portrait and one landscape). Here is the content I’ve developed for our menus. If you prefer, you can mock up your menu in Photoshop or Canva (but note that the final turn in for this will be an .indd file).

I expect most of you will simply want to use crayons/colored pencils/markers for this. The mock up doesn’t have to be detailed at this point–it is more thinking about where you will put blocks of text, colors for backgrounds and headers, images, etc.

Future Schedule

I’d like you to spend a bit more time working on the menu assignment and learning InDesign in the process. So here’s the plan:

  • Friday: Introduction to InDesign
  • Monday: Sharing Mock Ups (25 minutes); Working with Text in InDesign (25 minutes)
  • Wednesday: Share drafts of your menu for a crit
  • Friday: Complete InDesign CLIAB Lesson #4 (?????)
  • Monday, Sept 27: Final Menu Share / Promotional Poster Project

I’m waiting to hear back from Michael Mayer on the exact schedule for the promotional poster project–so that might impact this timeline. Also, I’m willing to dedicate extra time to the project if folks want to invest more in it, or if folks feel they need more time to learn InDesign. This is meant as an introductory assignment and is as much about learning how to navigate InDesign as it is producing a beautiful menu. If folks are learning, and the project feels productive, then we can stick with it.

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ENG 301 4.T: Job Ads Report

Posted on September 14, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Job Ads Report Expectations
  • What Can the ABO Book Tell Us About Reports?
  • Reviewing Methodology Sections
  • Homework

Job Ad Report Expectations

Our first major paper this semester is the Job Ad Report. Generally this report is 6-8 pages, single-spaced (including title page, table of contents, and potential appendix). It does not need a formal reference list.

Rhetorical situation: we have been hired by the UNCo Department of English to write a report that can be delivered to high school seniors, and their parents, discussing the current job market for English majors. The report will also be distributed to University Administrators and used to leverage funding for the Department. The report will be shared with faculty in the Department ahead of a round of curricular revisions.

So we have multiple audiences for this report:

  • Client: English Department
  • Primary Audience: High School Seniors
  • Secondary Audiences: Parents (who may or may not be skeptical that English is a viable career field), Administrators (who may or may not be skeptical of investing more resources in English, particularly money on technology-driven classes/computer labs), Faculty (who may or may not still see the mission of English tied to the traditional Liberal Arts education)

What Can the ABO Book Tell Us About Reports?

I expect that, for many of you, this could be your first exposure to professional, rather than academic, writing. So let’s raid the ABO book and see what we can learn about professional writing and the report genre.

The ABO book contains sections on:

  • Feasibility Reports
  • Formal Reports
  • Investigative Reports
  • Tables and Graphs (presenting data

Look at the sample proposal on 439. Sample feasibility report, 187-188. Sample formal report 202-218. Sample investigative report 291.

Reviewing the Methodology Section

I asked you to spend the weekend drafting a methodology section, addressing the 3 central concerns of a methodology section:

  • How did we collect our research objects (in this case, job ads)?
  • How did we analyze our research objects (coding)?
  • How did we ensure our analysis was reliable?

Let’s look at a few methodology sections from previous semesters.

Generating/Finalizing Your Data

Below is what we’ll work on in Thursday’s class–by the end of class on Thursday we should have 3 graphs you can use in your report (and complete the assignment for Canvas). If you want to get started early, then select 2 different job categories and total them in the blank template below.

Your report will contain three graphs–a tools and technology graph, a professional competencies graph, and a personal characteristics graph.

Here is a link to the code tallies we collaborated on in last Thursday’s class.

Here is a blank template to tabulate your data; we’ll use this on Thursday to make our graphs. This is set to view-only, you will need to make your own copy. File > Make a Copy). It has some sample numbers in there–be sure to delete those. Then go through your 20 jobs and simply count and record code frequency.

Once you have that data you can easily generate a graph. I want to show you how to generate a graph. Next week we will talk about creating ethical and useable visualizations of data (how to modify your graphs).

Here’s a link to documentation by google on making charts/graphs.
in Sheets.

Homework

In Thursday’s class we will work in the 1240 computer lab on the presentation of data in the report. I will show you how to generate and edit charts in Google Sheets and insert them into your Google Doc. We will also brainstorm data discussion, working together to recommend specific UNC courses for skill development.

This paper will be due next Tuesday at midnight. We’ll spend Tuesday’s class working on sentence syntax and looking at some past papers. Remember that you can earn extra labor towards an A grade by making an appointment with the Writing Center to share a draft of your report. By Thursday I will have a clean assignment sheet for the project that you can share with them.

For next Thursday’s class, I will ask you to read Jim Corder’s essay “Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love” and complete the Canvas assignment. We will discuss Corder’s essay, and then sign up for Project 2 teams (your choice: grant writing, social media, website copy/document design).

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ENG 328: 4.M Resumes and Typography

Posted on September 13, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Introduction to Typography
  • Homework: Read WSINYE chapter on Typography (“Type”)

Introduction to Typography

So far this semester, we’ve generally worked with layouts and alignment. This week I want to shift gears to start working with typography, which I tend to find a bit more complicated. As we’ve already seen, layouts tend to follow some pretty easy to identify rules. Things are a bit more opaque when it comes to the rules for good typography. While there’s some clear no no’s, the criteria for selecting effective fonts and adjusting text size and space are more context specific and, hence, more fuzzy.

Let’s start with a few typography no no’s.

  • Epic Design Fails (contrast, cover/misread, kerning, breaking words, decorative fonts)

A few keys terms:

  • Font: style (serif (traditional, old style, modern), sans-serif (thin or slab), decorative (script, weird stuff). (see WSINYE for which fonts work best on paper and which on screen)
  • Font: thick / thin
  • Space: leading (pronounced ledding), line-spacing. If your letter has exaggerated x-height, then you might increase line-height.
  • Space: tracking and kerning, space between letters

Let’s play a quick game.

Some typography tools:

Homework

Read WSINYE chapter on typography.

We’ll work on a typography project in class on Wednesday.

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ENG 225 4.M: Analyzing a Scene

Posted on September 13, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Paper Feedback (Alex and Darius links)
  • Using the Heuristic to Analyze a Scene
  • Homework Reminder

Paper Feedback

I have commented on all of the submitted papers (save Alex and Darius–I need you to resubmit your Google links). If you submitted a Word docx, then you should be able to find an attachment in Canvas, if you submitted a Google link, then my comments should be in the doc.

Upcoming Timeline

A reminder that your focus this week is on playing your game for and writing three journal entries. I will give the exact details on the upcoming paper Wednesday. For today, I will clarify that the upcoming paper is an analytic/argumentative essay–one that uses X in order to argue Y. There’s many different ways to resolve the variables in this argumentative equation.

For instance, you might think Sicart’s theory is great and useful. Cool. Your paper might use Sicart’s theory, particularly his ideas of player complicity and forced reflection, to analyze the effectiveness of the final scene in A Wolf Among Us.

Perhaps you played a game and found that the game did a great job developing complicity, but that the choices in the game were too moralistic (that is, it is very clear which answer the game thinks is the right answer). Okay, cool. You might use Sicart’s theories of player complicity and wicked problems to articulate why Fluffy’s Big Adventure fails to maximize its potential as an ethical game. While Fluffy’s Big Adventure develops strong player complicity, its Goody Goody scoring system made it too easy for me to make instrumental, rather than ethical, decisions.

Perhaps you played a game that shows a weakness in Sicart’s theory, or a flaw. So now we flip the the variables, something like: This paper looks at the moral scoring system in Fluffy’s Big Adventure in order to challenge Sicart’s idea that moral scoring systems short circuit player’s ethical decision making.

Notice how focused these theses are: I am not attempting to discuss the entirety of a game–you cannot possibly write a paper about all 8 hours of your gameplay. Rather, I am trying to whittle down to one or two key ideas. I am also, if possible, going to analyze 1-3 key moments in the game. (The roots of the 5 paragraph essay). So, let’s say I am going to argue the last point–then I want to walk through 3 different decisions, the scoring outcomes, and make an argument in each for how the scoring system didn’t impact ethical decision-making.

As you keep playing your game, you should be thinking strategically about what scenes to analyze and what kind of argument you’d want to make. Early in the process, this might be as simple as “would Sicart think this is a good ethical game?” The more you play and write in your journal, the more you want to focus on what elements of the game most reflect/challenge Sicart’s theory: the “why” or “why not” follow up questions.

Let’s Analyze a Scene

Today I’d like to analyze a scene from The Walking Dead, using the heuristic as a prompt.

Homework

Complete journal entry #2 in your gaming journal.

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ENG 301 3.R: From Codes to Data

Posted on September 9, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Check Codes
  • Tabulating Codes and Generating Data
  • Drafting a Methodology Section
  • Homework

Drafting Your Methodology Section

As an English major, I really can’t remember ever having to draft a methodology section. I didn’t do it as an undergrad, nor did I write one as an MA student. I think the first time I ever wrote one was during my PhD, in a qualitative methods research course.

Since then, I have written many of them–both for scholarly pursuits and as part of grant-research and/or assessment teams. Learning to write comprehensive yet concise methodologies is a valuable skill that will benefit you in a wide number of writing jobs. Put simply: before anyone gives you money to do anything, they are going to want detailed instructions on how you plan to spend that money: be it research, web design, grant writing.

Also, as a professional writer, it is not uncommon for you to enter into a project “mid-stream.” Projects will often have begun before you were a part of the team. You might be hired by a pharmaceutical company to write a progress report for a drug trial that started years before you were hired. Or you might be hired by a non-profit to secure a grant and expand an already existing program. In either case, you will likely be handed a pile of material and some data. You will likely have to work to create more data. So, I hope you see how this project prepares you to do that kind of work.

So, the goal for Tuesday is to draft a methodology section that comes in between 450 and 500 words.

A methodology section has a few key expectations:

  • First, it needs to detail how you collected your samples/objects/texts (whatever things you analyzed). We analyzed job ads.
  • Second, it needs to detail how you analyzed your data.
  • Third, it needs to detail how you ensured/checked the quality/integrity of your data.

The methodology section should also note how previous research was incorporated into any/all section(s) of the methodology. (Hint: Brumberger and Lauer). Also, you might have forgotten that I shared a rather long project description in the first class.

500 words might sound like a lot, but a methodology section should be detailed enough that someone could read it and be able to replicate our research.

Hint: the best way to handle codes in the report/methodology is to include them as an Appendix.

Homework

Three things for Tuesday:

  • Bring the ABO book to class on Tuesday; we will use it to explore how to organize and write a report (with an emphasis on what distinguishes a professional or technical report from an academic paper)
  • Complete Tabulating Our Codes (If We Do Not Do This in Class)
  • Draft your Methodology Section
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ENG 328 3.W: Mini-Project 2

Posted on September 8, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Next Friday: Introduction to InDesign
  • Reviewing Mini-Project 1
  • Introducing Mini-Project 2
  • Homework

Next Friday: Introduction to InDesign

I’ll ask you to attend next Friday (September 17th’s) class: we will work in InDesign, doing selections from the InDesign Classroom in a book tutorials on Getting to Know InDesign and Setting Up a Document. I’ll also be making sure you have access to the Lesson files. After next week, I’ll assign chapters from the book that you can work on in the lab during class time or on your own outside of class (virtually any UNC lab computer has InDesign on it).

If you haven’t already bought the InDesign Classroom in a Book, then you should.

Reviewing Mini-Project 1

Y’all are awesome.

Introducing Mini-Project 2

For our second mini-project, you will design a sleek, engaging resume in Canva. If you would prefer, then you may design your resume in InDesign or Photoshop. I select Canva this week because, as I’ve said before, it is a useful and accessible technology. It is (mostly) free. Given that this is a quick mini-assignment, I will leave it to you whether to select a template or design your resume from scratch (I will award bonus points for the latter).

First of all: a disclaimer. You should probably not design your resume in Canva. At the very least you need to have two resumes based on the method of delivery: a clean, minimalist Word document for ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) resume-bot software, and a polished, more visually engaging resume to give/send to a human.This is less an exercise in developing a usable resume and more an exercise in getting you to practice your design skills.

Perhaps the best way to think about this project is turning yourself and your resume into an infographic.

Let’s talk inspiration:

Homework

For Friday’s class, you should make sure you have the content you will need for your resume. I have a resume template from my ENG 301 class that you can use to develop/revise your content. I know many of you have already completed that assignment and/or already have a resume lying around; use this as an opportunity to tidy that up.

You will have Friday’s class to work on your resume.

The final version of your visual resume template is due before Monday’s class.

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ENG 225 3.W: Sicart, Walking Dead, Gaming Journals

Posted on September 8, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Quick Hit: Labor Based Grading
  • Sicart Summary Papers
  • Discuss: Walking Dead
  • Homework for Friday and Beyond

Quick Hit: Labor-Based Grading

I wanted to remind you that this course uses a labor-based grading system, such that you earn an 85% for turning assignments in relatively on-time (assuming those assignments address basic requirements and suggest an authentic amount of effort). Every Sicart paper I’ve received has earned an 85%. Good!

Sicart Summary Papers

I am still missing quite a few papers. I’ve put a zero in the gradebook to fire a shot across the bow. It is not too late to turn those papers in for full credit.

I will go over the papers more on Friday–I think I’ve got enough stuff to do today.

Sicart Heuristic

I’ve mentioned the Sicart heuristic ad nauseam our first two weeks. Today I’d like to share a draft I’ve put together.

I’ll work more on this for Friday (I’m pulling some of this material from previous iterations of the heuristic and some directly from your papers).

Discuss: Walking Dead Episode #1

I want to try something.

I have a backup plan

Homework

Your homework for Friday is quite simple: you have to identify and procure the game you will play for the Sicart Analysis paper. If you want, you can get started on the gaming journal.

I will give more details about the paper on Monday. But you should already have a sense of what this paper will ask you to do:

  • You will play a game for 6-8 hours. After every two hours of gameplay, you will free write for 20 minutes, using the heuristic as a guide. I do not expect a journal entry to be polished prose, but I am expecting about 300 words per entry. And I am expecting the entries to move beyond plot and use the heuristic (so some rough analysis). Move between concrete details in the story and/or game design/mechanics/systems, Sicart’s theory, and your phenomenological response (are you invested? frustrated? bored? did you care about making decisions? why or why not? Can you identify what the developer is attempting to make you think/feel/struggle with? Was their attempt successful?)
  • You will compose a paper (likely in the 1500-2000 word range) that analyzes your game and gameplay in terms of Sicart’s theory of ethical gaming, highlighting how the developers aimed to build (or failed to build) player complicity, whether/how their choices reflect Sicart’s theory of wicked problems, and whether/how the game forces you to reflect on your decisions and have a non-instrumental experience.

Your homework for next Monday is to play your game for 2-3 hours and compose the first entry in your gaming journal. Your homework for next Wednesday is to play your game for two hours and compose the second entry in your gaming journal. Your homework for next Friday is to play your game for two hours and compose the third entry in your gaming journal. So, by next Friday (September 17th), you will have played your game for 6-8 hours and written three gaming journal entries.

Gaming journal entries should use the heuristic to guide your free-writing. Don’t feel as if you need to respond to every question on the heuristic–try and identify what is most relevant to your play experience.

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