ENG 225 Week 8: Conducting Primary Research

Posted on March 2, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Reviewing Week 7 Methodologies
  • Developing and Testing Week 8 Methodologies
  • Williams and Bizup, Characters and Actions (Time Permitting)
  • For Next Class

Reviewing Week 7 Methodologies

I’m going to spend X minutes per team reviewing their corpus collection methodology and checking in on progress. Each group was emailed instructions either last week or this weekend.

Race Team
Here’s a link to the workspace.As of 9:30 Tuesday morning, two people have inputted their data.

Let’s review/discuss the analytical paths I laid out in your document. I have created a placeholder Google Form. [Marc: Go back through and review genre checkboxes]

Gender Team
Their collection research methodology is probably the simplest; in the workspace I lay out two paths forward for the rest of the research (I think I’m leaning toward the latter).

LGBTQ Team
We need to talk–I think there might only be one person in the Tuesday group on this team?

I emailed out a question to the team but have only heard back from Rae and Kam.

Let’s Test Out Some Potential Methodologies

Depending on time, I’d like to spend 10 minutes per team. I’ve got some mock handouts.

Williams and Bizup

Depending on how long our conversations take, I expect we might have some time left near the end of class today. I want to go back over the Characters and Actions syntax I introduced earlier in the course.

For Next Class

Tuesday folk: depending on how our conversation went today, this is going to be fluid. As with last week, I will email out an update on exactly what is due next week after I meet with the Thursday folks.

Once I do, there will be a Week 8: X assignment in Canvas (similar to the two week 7 assignments).

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ENG 319 8.M: Ore/Kendi/Coates Write Ups, Paper Responses, Analyzing Articles

Posted on March 1, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Double Back to Pew Center
  • Responses
  • Analyzing Articles

Double Back to Pew Center

On Friday, I shared a link to the PEW Center, and I mentioned that the final results of one of the polls “was complicated,” and left it at that. Leaving it that way gnawed on me a bit after class, and so I wanted to come back to it today.

DuBois, 1897, “Double Consciousness,” “his striving to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture.”

How black people can internalize and judge themselves accordign to a dominant (white) ideological narrative.

Responses

I reviewed Write Up #5 and began reading the Miller papers Sunday. I wanted to share some highlights.

In Write Up #5, Soren wrote:

Interestingly, Coates doesn’t seem to be arguing in favor of reparations because of economic motivations (though those are certainly prevalent and welcome). Coates writes, “the crime with which reparation activists charge the country implicates more than just a few towns or corporations. The crime indicts the American people themselves… a crime that implicates the entire American people deserves its hearing in the legislative body that represents them.” Here, Coates seems more interested in having the “hearing” than the resulting reparations that would result from that hearing. Coates continues, “I believe that wrestling publicly with these questions matters as much as–if not more than–the specific answers that might be produced.” I’m a little bit on the fence about this argument. It seems to be arguing that merely having the discussion or the “hearing” is enough, but I think this is fraught. Having the discussion doesn’t immediately better America and its citizens. Earlier, Coates draws a comparison between America and post-World War II West Germany. I think there’s one big difference between America and West Germany that is that the worst perpetrators of the Holocaust were tried for cirmes against humanity. What happened to the Confederate traitors? Worse than nothing, the Vice President of the Confederacy became a senator and governor. It’s a lot easier to deal with these issues when the worst perpetrators have been dealt with, but America let them have power and let them continue their racist ideology.

I understand why the lack of consequences for the South, and the general lack of oversight, might make one hesitant to believe that a hearing might be productive. I wrote in a few places, however, that I think Coates’ goal is quite different from Kendi’s. Coates advocates more to incite white critical self/historic reflection than he does to advocate for reparations as a policy. In this, Coates really resonates with Blankenship and Corder–the idea that true change begins with the self, and only after one “does the work” can one be ready to work with others. There are, of course, many who don’t see the need to do any work. And that might give us cause to pause.

With Kendi–what I like about this book is how it problematizes most white positions of “well, I’m not a part of the problem because I’m certainly not racist.” Or its cousin “I don’t think racist thoughts.”

Regardless of whether that’s true (and it is a black hole to argue whether someone *is* a racist), Kendi’s argument is that racism isn’t a matter of what you think or say, but rather a matter of what you do. Specifically, racism becomes a matter of whether you are arguing for policies that explicitly combat racial inequalities. We can think of stases similar to Miller’s:

  • can you show an inequality?
  • can you explicity confront racist arguments for the problem’s origin?
  • argue for its persistence?
  • introduce a possible solution?
  • address how you will measure the results of the solution?

    • Violeta wrote about racial inequalities in her high school–how students were grouped and taught. That got me thinking of Kendi. With Kendi–what I like about this book is how it problematizes most white positions of “well, I’m not a part of the problem because I’m certainly not racist.” Or its cousin “I don’t think racist thoughts.”

    Regardless of whether that’s true (and it is a black hole to argue whether someone is a racist), Kendi’s argument is that racism isn’t a matter of what you think or say, but rather a matter of what you do. Specifically, racism becomes a matter of whether you are arguing for policies that explicitly combat racial inequalities. We can think of stases similar to Miller’s–can you show an inequality? argue for its persistence? introduce a possible solution? address how you will measure the results of the solution? So we’d have to ask the officials in Violeta’s school: if there’s a difference in test scores, what are you doing to redress the issue? what evidence do you have that it is working? if it isn’t working, then what will you do next?

    For Kendi, “racist” is when you just let a problem continue to exist. Also: what is important here is the “we,” especially most of us in this room. White people have to lead the charge on this. We cannot expect minorities to redress the wrongs of a system that wronged them.

    Kendi is advancing what might seem like an extremist position. But that’s because he is attempting to force white (mostly) liberals who claim “I’m not racist” to recognize that, regardless of whether they feel racist, they have an obligation to redress racial inequalities.

    No more sitting at home, saying “I’m not racist” and doing nothing. You are either doing something–anything, or you are allowing racist inequalities to sustain themselves. (Couple this with Kendi’s argument that the only way to fix past racism is with present racism–in a material world, there is no “ideal” equality; this is also relevant).

Maureen wrote:

He talks about Germany’s reckoning after the horrors of the Holocaust, where Germany had to do *something* to acknowledge their role in the massacre of 6 million Jews and 5 million Roma, Queer, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Disabled, Black, Soviets, Poles, and those challenged Nazi rule. There was no way they could pretend these people were not murdered. But how do you make something like that right? How do you calculate the monetary cost of lives lost? Do you stop at just the monetary value? There is no simple way forward.

The problem, Coates points out, is that not everybody believed they were responsible. Not everyone believed the Jews were owed anything. The horror was over, right? Things were *different* now. They didn’t hate the Jews, so why should they pay anything? They hadn’t been a member of the Nazis, hadn’t agreed with the policies that made the murders and horrors legal. It wasn’t their fault. I see a very clear parallel to the way well-meaning White people talk about inequity between themselves and Black people, LatinX people, & Native people. They’re not advocating for the old days, where Whites owned Blacks, where segregation existed, where you could murder someone from a minority and nobody blinked an eye. Everyone is Equal now, with the same opportunities. If a White child succeeds where the Black child fails, clearly the White child tried harder, their parents were clearly more involved than the Black child’s, even if there is a monetary advantage. They’re not racist, But-

Never mind that segregation only “ended” 57 years ago. My dad is 62.

To return to where this started: I’m left thinking of Coates’ hope for a hearing, an airing, an accounting of past atrocities. That such a hearing might provoke critical reflection. That such reflection might provoke those well-meaning white people to feel a form of guilt that translates into Kendi’s accounting. Not a paying back, but a moving forward.

Related, comment from a Miller paper: “The danger of demagoguery is that never can see when the “other side” does it, but rarely do we notice that we are doing it too.

That’s why, if we are going to overcome it, we need to get better at critical self-reflection. We have to demand our side provide the same level of evidence as we demand from others. And we have to be willing to admit we were wrong about something, we have to be willing to actually consider evidence that challenges what we thought was right.” I think there’s a potential overlap with Blankenship here, a way to tie them tighter together.

Analyzing Articles

I went through some of the Canvas submissions–y’all had some interesting ideas on how to develop these projects.

I’m thinking of a “multi-faceted” approach. Let’s examine and discuss.

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ENG 319 7.F: Coates & Kendi Write-Up; Building Our Corpus

Posted on February 26, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Write Up #5
  • Building Up Our Corpus
  • For Next Class

Coates and Kendi Write-Up

Two things that I will likely want to highlight:

Building Our Corpous

Sometimes I am a victim of my own ambition. This week was one of those times. Now I need your help.

I spent approximately 4 hours working on this document this week.

A portion of that time was spent hammering out the methodology to collect articles, which was trickier (and more time consuming) than I anticipated. Some time was lost to getting sucked into news stories (always a danger). All told, I catalogued 18 sources and 54 news articles. Good start, but we need more.

This weekend I would like to spend 4 hours reading and responding to your Analysis papers, so I will task you with completing this corpus collecting.

Here is what you will do:

  1. Consult the Project 2 document and review the entries that are already there
  2. Consult the Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart and identify a news outlet that is not already included in the document. You can look up the Reliability and Bias numbers for that outlet on the Ad Fontes website
  3. Google the news outlet and copy the outlet’s URL (we want to make sure we have the exact URL)
  4. We want to set up a site specific search. So type site:nameofsite-without-www.com and press enter. Example site:nytimes.com
  5. You will be conducting three site specific searches. The first two require we set date parameters. With the site specific search in the search bar, press Tools > Time > Custom Range
  6. For your first search, set the “from” to 5/25/2020 and the “to” to 5/27/2020. Check your results. If there are no results, change the “to” to 5/28/2020. Repeat increasing the day until you get a top result. NOTE: Make sure your result covers the George Floyd shooting and not the Amy Cooper incident in Central Park.
  7. For your second search, change the “to” date to 7/1/2020. Select the top result for this search. If it is the same as your first search, select the second result.
  8. For your third search, clear the time requirements. Change the search to George Floyd Protests.

Make sure to enter the complete title of your article and the URL as I have in the document. Attention to details (getting the date correct etc. is important.

You might be working with articles behind a paywall.. Perhaps a box opens up requiring you to log into the site or purchase a subscription. In such case, it is useful to know how to grab a “cached” version of the article. It is rare, but some websites, such as the NYTimes, pay Google to disable caching.

For Next Class

I would like everyone to follow the methodology above add one news source to the corpus.

I also need help with another part of the project: developing the heuristic for things we could examine as we read articles. When I do qualitative research of this kind (examining a body of texts for particular features), it tends to be a recursive process. That is, I read 15 or so of them, and then start to see new things in #15 that I wasn’t looking for in #1. So I have to go back and re-read.

I am hoping we can collectively accelerate this process. After you have added an article to the corpus, I would like you to read two articles from different outlets. One article should have a positive bias score, the other a negative bias score. Don’t worry about annotating the articles yet. Rather–try and determine an element of the article upon which everyone could focus attention on every other article (that is not a great sentence, but I have to run to class). Let’s look at the heuristic section of the workspace. INCLUDE YOUR CRITERIA/QUESTION/IDEA IN THE CANVAS TURN-IN.

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ENG 225 Week 7: Developing a Research Methodology

Posted on February 23, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Annotation Turn in Activated in Canvas
  • Methodology as Recipe
  • Reviewing the Homework
  • Team Sign Up
  • Methodology Brain Storm
  • Team Sign-Up and Methodology Development
  • The Chaos of Team Collaboration and One-Day a Week Groups
  • For Next Class

Annotation Turn-In Activated in Canvas

I got a message this morning asking where to turn in the annotations of the articles I asked you to read last week. I forgot to press the “publish” assignment button-whoops-but you should see the assignment in Canvas now. I copy/pasted the instructions from last week’s course notes into Canvas for your convenience.

Methodology as Recipe

Speaking of those annotations, we’ll be reviewing them in a bit. Our focus will be on their methodologies. As I mentioned last week, when it comes to developing a research methodology, you need to think of two different tasks:

  • Explaining to the reader how they put together their sample of texts (in a way that can be replicated–this has to be clear enough that you could replicate their study, which, *wink, wink* might be useful later today/this week)
  • Explaining to the reader how they analyzed their sample of texts. This, too, has to be detailed enough that another scholar could attempt to replicate their study (to test its reliability)

To open class, I want us to quickly read this article. We want to break it down into step-by-step recipies. How do I bake a Moyer cake?

Reviewing the Homework

Now that we’ve had some practice, I’d like you to go back over the articles that you read for homework and revise your take on their methodology. We’ve got 6 articles to review:

  • Shaw. 2016. Where Is the Queerness in Games? Types of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Content in Digital Games
  • Bayeck et al. 2018. Representations of Africans in Popular Video Games
  • Utsch. 2017. Queer Identities in Video Games: Data Visualization for a Quantitative Analysis of Representation
  • Burgess et al. 2007. Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers
  • Gestos et al. Representation in Video Games: A Systemic Review of Literature in Consideration of Adult Female Well-Being [note–meta analysis, keyword method–focus on findings]
  • Burgess et al. 2011. Playing with Prejudice: The Prevalence and Consequences of Racial Stereotypes in Video Games

Methodology Brain Storm: Where and What Might We Collect?

Let’s talk it out. I’ll try and take notes.

Team Sign-Up and Methodology Development

Below are links to three different Google Docs. These will be the workspaces in which you develop your methodology, share your data collection, work out your analysis, and, eventually, draft your report.

Also, as a part of your research methodology, I have made every team a Google Slides presentation and a Google Sheet. These can be used to store/share images and/or links or data analysis.

Say, for instance, that you want to examine video game covers. You will need a way for everyone on the research team to see those covers, and a way for them to enter their analysis (whatever that may be). You might have researchers upload images into the slide presentation, put the name of the image in the spreadsheet, and track researcher evaluations of the image in that spreadsheet.

Say, instead, you were reviewing user ratings of a game on metacritic, and wanted to pay attention to whether user reviews mentioned the presence of an LGBTQ+ character. That wouldn’t require images, but it would require links to the user reviews. Let me show you an example of a team research project I do in my ENG 301 Writing as a Job class using a Google Sheet.

However you develop your methodology, whatever tools you use, I need to be able to track individual artifact contributions so I can reward effort.

Also, as I will touch on more below, working on a team project is often a bit chaotic. That chaos is likely to be intensified with this project, since you are likely going to be on a team with folks with whom you will never meet face-to-face. It is important that we REALLY CLEARLY nail down procedures so everyone is on the same page. It is also important that you tell me right away if you don’t, for instance, know how to grab an image and upload it into a Slides presentation or embed a link in a Google Sheet. I have taught technology long enough to *not* assume that you know how to do these things, but if I get mindless head-nodding when I ask such questions I will move on. Be honest (personally, I loathed all computers and technology until I was 25 and in graduate school; I learned this stuff “later” in life).

Embrace the Chaos

I don’t have time to write this out, so I’ll talk about it in class.

For Next Class

There’s two things you need to do by next week. The first thing is time sensitive.

First you have to spend 30 minutes writing/brainstorming/revising/working in your team document, developing a potential methodology, or tweaking someone else’s.

  • If you are in the Tuesday class, then you need to finish this by Wednesday at midnight
  • If you are in the Thursday class, then you need to finish this by Friday at 1:00.

These times are non-negotiable. I will sit down on Friday at 1:00, review/refine/revise your methodologies, and send out an email with what you need to complete by your next class meeting. This will be collecting data–but what needs to be collects, and how it needs to be shared/stored will differ according to your developed methodology.

There is an assignment in Canvas that asks you to briefly (two or three sentences) summarize your contributions to the team methodology assignment: tell me what you did in your 30 minutes of contributing. Remember to do this!

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ENG 319 6.F: Project 2

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

Today’s Plan:

  • Project Two
  • Calendar

Project Two

Opening Tracks:

  • Jimi Hendrix’s “How would you feel?”
  • NWA’s “Fuck the Police”
  • Ice Cube’s “The Product”
  • Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name Of”

See the liner notes to Evil Empire (1996), sophomore year of college.

Our second project is built around Ersula J. Ore’s award winning 2019 book Lynching: Violence, Rhetoric, and American Identity. I believe the book will resonate with both Miller and with Blankenship, though probably more the latter than the former. Blankenship argues that rhetorical empathy can lead to more productive engagements with others, and that a more healthy relationship with difference begins with introspection, self-reflection. Realizing Corder’s “loving” practice starts with being aware of our “home,” (in the sense that Victor Vitanza or Emmanuel Levinas provides it–“narrative” in Corder’s sense). Working with others,then, beings with working through our selves.

I believe Ore’s book will challenge many of our narratives. As a white, progressive scholar, I have been working the past few years to “listen” more to other’s perspectives, and can attest to the affective and cognitive friction such listening can produce. I can’t claim to know your politics, but I imagine many of you firmly believe you aren’t racist, that you would not discriminate against any individual based on the color of their skin or the place of their birth, or perhaps that characterizations of others are based on facts. I might also anticipate that, while you might acknowledge that racism exists in America, you condemn it and are not implicated in it.

When I was planning this unit, I was deliberating between assigning Ore’s book and Kendi’s best-seller How to Be Anti-Racist. Ore’s book is more scholarly, while Kendi’s is written for a wider audience. It is more accessible–both in terms of the sophistication of its terminology and prose *and* in terms of its argument. Kendi’s argument is both eloquent and simple, and I think I mentioned it in our last class: rather than thinking about racism as something someone is (as ethos, or identity in Miller’s terms), we need to think about it as what someone does (more in terms of logos, or policy in Miller’s terms). So, being anti-racist requires (to use Miller’s stases for policy debate) that:

  • Ill: We recognize a problem. Que up *a lot* of statistics on the unequal educational, financial, penal outcomes between blacks and whites
  • Narrative of Causality: Debate why those inequalities exist (essentialism vs. contextualism). Read the Ta-Nihese Coates essay.
  • Inherency: Argue whether the problem needs intervention, will it go away. Imagine and challenge the arguments for why racism doesn’t require intervention

Miller’s stases for productive policy, for invigorating rather than suppressing democracy require that we focus on *doing* something to fix an ill. Those stases were:

  • Solvency (what do you propose?)
  • Feasability (how is it possible?)
  • Unintended Consequences (imagine and address to the best of one’s ability)

Kendi’s approach to anti-racism resonates with Miller because he argues that being anti-racist means supporting policies with measurable outcomes that actively work to redress racial inequalities (we’ll talk more about this later, after we read the Coates).

So, if Kendi’s work resonates so nicely with Miller, why didn’t I pick it? Because I do not think it will challenge many of us in the way that Ore’s book will. The premises and examples from Ore’s book aren’t meant to persuade us to a movement. Kendi wants to change how we act, and is quite rhetorical in how he operates. Yes, his argument is supported with examples, both personal and historical, that are meant to outrage. But he gives us a path down which we can challenge that outrage.

I’m not so sure with Ore. I have a longer write-up on Ore I wrote in fall 2020 for my grad class. I’ll share that Monday, after you’ve shared yours. I mentioned last class what I see as a few of the major arguments of Ore’s work:

  • Critique of Color-Blindness
  • Claim: The logic, discourse, violence of lynching has been adapted in the 21st century. Lynching is the public use of violence and/or fear to sustain white supremacy and suppress others who might challenge it (including other white people)
  • America is built on, and built by, White Supremacy and the economic inequality it produces. American capitalism cannot exist without inequality.

Much of Ore’s work is historical, rather than analytical. By this, I mean that, chapter by chapter, she documents the construction, formalization, authorization of state sanctioned violence. Her argument is that violence isn’t something just outside of the system (like say, a hate group such as the KKK). And violence isn’t necessarily physical force. We can unpack these claims as we read the chapters.

I cannot know what you have been taught about America and race. I can make some assumptions, but I know enough to tread carefully lest what I make you and mean. I feel kind of safe assuming that you *probably* have not read a book like this one.

Santos: you left off here at block #3, which lays some of the theoretical ground for this project:

  • Blankenship, Rhetorical Empathy as Self-Interrogationli>
  • Corder (“AaE:RaL”: Time, how do we build time into conflict, affect, disequilibrium?
  • Rice (“Rhetorical Ecologies”): Time #2, how do/can we trace a rhetorical object as it moves through an ecology?
  • Rice (2): How do we focus attention on something that might *not* interest us (Distant Publics)

Calendar

Below is a day-by-day calendar from now until spring break. As always, check daily class notes for updates and changes.

  • Friday, Feb 19: Discuss Ore 3-29. Homework: read Ore 30-85. Submit Write-Up #4 on Ore (and anything you want to say publicly about my opening bit or today’s lecture–just make sure you talk about Ore too!)
  • Monday, Feb 22: Class, your Ore Write Ups, last 15 minutes is my Ore write up. Homework: Read Ore, 101-122
  • Wednesday, Class is cancelled so you can read. I will spend this afternoon constructing the source list that will be passed out on Monday the 26. Homework: Read Coates, “A Case for Reparations”, Kendi selection from How to Be Anti-Racist (pdf coming to Canvas). Write Up #5 on Coates, Kendi, and last Ore chapter.
  • Friday, Feb 26: 25 minutes on WU#5, 25 minutes on Rhetorical Mapping assignment (dwelling). Homework: Read and annotate 2 of your news sources.
  • Monday, March 1: I want to reserve class today to talk about the Project 1 papers. This means I have to grade them by this day. Go me! Homework: read and annotate another source.
  • Wednesday, March 3: I want to reserve this day to talk about your news stories (I think). Homework: Read and annotate 2 sources.
  • Friday, March 5: By this point you should have read 5 sources. In class: Lay out the Letter assignment. Proof of completion. Read 2 more sources.
  • Monday, March 8: Lay out final reflection assignment. Homework: make sure you have read and annotated all 7 sources. The weird timed thing on Wednesday will be open note.
  • Wednesday, March 10: In class “quiz” on sources. (timed writing that should take around 30 minutes). Let me know if you need help locating a lap top.
  • Friday, March 12: Class cancelled. Submit your Final Reflection. If you so choose, submit any other materials you wouldn’t mind me using anonymously in a conference paper or academic article.
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ENG 225 Week 6: Project 2, Qualitative Research and Representations in Games

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

Today’s Plan:

  • Introduce Project Two
  • Watch Some Videos

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

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).

Project Two Calendar

Below is the calendar for this project. Three COVID related complications:

  • We are only meeting once a week, so you will be responsible for keeping up with quite a bit of work outside of class.
  • You will be collaborating with folks from the other class session (T/R). There will be collaborative workspaces (Google Docs) in which you can share materials, pose questions, etc.
  • The reason this has to be a team project is that for your research to be valid, you collectively have to analyze more material than any one person reasonably could. Say, for instance, you wanted to analyze how many video game trailers contained a woman wearing a chainmail bikini. How many trailers could you watch in a week? How many more trailers could 6 people watch? Exactly.

One more thing: there exists the possibility of shifting which day folks come to class. But I am hesitant to do this because I know a lot of people chose their day (T or R) around their work schedule and cannot easily change.

I am thinking about cancelling class week 8 so that you can meet on Zoom with your team to finalize your research findings before you write your papers. But even this doesn’t really solve the T/R commitment problem. [Frustrated “COVID-sucks-and-I-am-over-it” sigh]. One thing at a time–let’s look at the calendar.

Week 6

Project Introduction (Extra-Credit, Feminist Frequency). Introduction to Sarkeesian’s work. Thinking about methodology. Writing a research annotation.

Homework: Read and annotate 3 pieces (see homework below; turn-in via Canvas). Sign up for either gender, race, or sexuality group via Google Sheets.

Week 7
Robust review of Research Methodology / Designing a study. Read Moyer, Do Violent Video Games Trigger Aggression?

Are you using a likert scale type of device?

Nail down how each group will collect and catalogue artifacts for analysis. Share team workspaces.

Homework: Draft methodology. Collect artifacts for analysis. (Both assignments in team workspaces–the methodology has to be complete so you can collect the artifacts according to methodology).

Week 8
Revisit methodology with an emphasis on coding scheme. I/we (when does this happen?) has to turn your methodology into something that can be tracked via a spreadsheet.

Test methodologies in class (so 15 minutes on gender, 15 minutes on race, 15 minutes on sexuality). Make sure the machines are running smooth because…

Homework: Do. All. The. Coding. Make sure coding is all collected in one spreadsheet.

Week 9

Draft that paper. I will go over paper format expectations in class. I will also go over visualizing data (using Google Sheets to create simple graphs).

Week 10: Spring Break

I begrudgingly will comment on the drafts over the break.

Week 11: Revise Papers and Begin Final Research Projects

What it says^^^.

For Next Class

Read and annotate the following 2 of the following 6 academic articles:

  • Shaw. 2016. Where Is the Queerness in Games? Types of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Content in Digital Games
  • Bayeck et al. 2018. Representations of Africans in Popular Video Games
  • Utsch. 2017. Queer Identities in Video Games: Data Visualization for a Quantitative Analysis of Representation
  • Burgess et al. 2007. Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers
  • Gestos et al. Representation in Video Games: A Systemic Review of Literature in Consideration of Adult Female Well-Being [note–meta analysis, keyword method–focus on findings]
  • Burgess et al. 2011. Playing with Prejudice: The Prevalence and Consequences of Racial Stereotypes in Video Games

You can find these articles in the files section of Canvas. I recommend picking two articles with different foci–the purpose of this assignment is to familiarize you with different ways of developing research studies–how do you select objects to analyze? How do you analyze them? How do you build your “research machine”?

Writing annotations is a part of any research project: they are essentially a quasi-formal approach to writing reading notes. I teach annotating as a three-paragraph process:

  • Paragraph One: the first paragraph covers the purpose, findings, and recommendations of the article. What did the authors set out to prove? What are their major findings? And/Or what concrete recommendations do they make based on those findings? [You should find this material in the intro, discussion, and conclusion sections]
  • Paragraph Two: the second paragraph details the methods, including how many subjects were in the study, how subjects were found, the location of the study (if relevant), the length of the study, how data was analyzed/synthesized, and any other significant details regarding their research process. [The Methods section]
  • Paragraph Three: What you write in the third paragraph of an annotation is unique to the project at hand. Here’s where you free write, developing ideas about how this source might contribute to your project. In this case, I am asking you to design a study of video games, examining representations of race, gender, or sexuality. So–what in this study is particularly valuable to that project? What ideas do you have? How can we use this?
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ENG 319 6.M: Blankenship and Rhetorical Empathy

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

Today’s Plan:

  • Blankenship Write Ups
  • Blankenship Questions
  • For Next Class

Write Ups

Blankenship and Corder. I think I came up with something.

Blankenship Questions

  • Explicate Blankenship’s distinction between empathy and pity/sympathy (see pg. 6, also pg. 17 distinction between “seeing with” and “seeing as”
  • Examine Blankenship’s discussion of Linquist’s “surface acting” vs. “deep acting.” (pg 8-9), how can/should a professor inhabit her power? What are the opportunities and pitfalls?
  • The tricky question of when to resist and when to listen: how can we (faculty, people) negotiate that? 9pg. 14)
  • Very difficult passage to explicate on the legacy/influence of postmodern theories (pg. 17): empathy, affect:empathy::power:suspicion
  • Rhetorical empathy methods (pg. 20): how does this compare/resonate with Miller? How/can we put Miller and Blankenship in conversation?

For Next Class

Due: Rhetorical Analysis papers. Important: I will be laying out our next project (and asking for feedback). If possible, please have a laptop with you (or a device with which you are comfortable typing).

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ENG 319 5.F: Miller Time

Posted on February 12, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Some Quick Paper Feedback
  • Miller Time
  • For Next Class

Some Quick Paper Feedback

I wanted to share a few comments I’ve put on papers.

Miller Time

Today I want to spend time mining the Miller for passages that will help people with their papers. Let’s return to this heuristic document we put together earlier. Previously, the emphasis is on questions, but today, we should go and add passages (that speak to logos, ethos, and pathos).

For Monday’s Class

Remember that Write Up #3 is due on Monday. This Write Up should focus on Corder (which we’ve covered extensively in class) and Blankenship. I’ll be paying closer attention to how you handle her work, since you are left to read that on your own. You can find the .pdf of the Blankenship chapter in Canvas.

Also, your final Rhetorical Analysis papers are due Wednesday. Some of you wrote full drafts, and are somewhat close to done. Others gave me scant outlines, and have a lot more writing to do. Do not give me rough draft on this! Given the time you’ve had to work on this, I am expecting something with polish.

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ENG 319 5.W: Corder, Blankenship, Empathy

Posted on February 10, 2021 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Corder
  • Blankenship
  • For Next Class / Slight Time Line Change

Corder, “Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love”

I have a stock lecture on Corder. I’m not sure if I’m going to use it.

Let me pull up my standard Corder questions:

  • Group One: [sections 1-3]: What does Corder mean by the idea that we make narratives? Why do said narratives complicate traditional notions of argument and rhetoric?
  • Group Two: [sections 4-6]: How can we describe Rogerian method? Why is Corder skeptical that such a method can be useful to rhetoric?
  • Group Three: [section 6-7]: Looking at section 7, would your frame Corder as an optimist or pessimist? What do “we” have to learn (and who are the “we” of this section’s final paragraphs)?
  • Group Four: [Section 8]:What do we make of section 8? Why is this story here? What does it exemplify or reinforce?
  • Group Five: [Section 9]: What does it mean to be “perpetually opening and closing” (29)? How can such a position help us be better? How does it tie to the other advice offered in this section?

Blankenship

I think this might be useful (came via my social media feeds today): when Colin Ferguson wouldn’t make fun of Britney Spears.

Reviewing Papers / Revising Thoughts

I’d like to look at two strong paragraphs I’ve come across in the drafts.

For Next Class / Slight Time Line Change

As I’m reviewing the papers, I get the sense that people might need a bit of help reviewing the Miller. While I’ve reviewed a few full drafts, I’ve also reviewed some outlines and some rather rough drafts. (This morning I have 9 more drafts to read–so I’m glad to see more people have turned something in; I’ll have them all completed by tomorrow night).

The final papers will be due next Wednesday before class. But I want to slightly shift two assignments:

  • The Write Up on Corder and Blankenship will be due next Monday. We’ll talk about Blankenship in class then. You can find a .pdf of the Blankenship reading in Canvas.
  • Please bring your copy of the Miller book to class on Friday. I want to try something–to see if we can collectively scavenger hunt the quotes/terms/ideas folks need for their papers.
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ENG 225 Week 5: Revising and Formatting Your Sicart Analysis Papers

Posted on February 9, 2021 by Marc Santos

Today’s Plan:

  • Revising Your Sicart Analysis Papers
  • Formatting Your Sicart Analysis Papers
  • Papers Due Next Tuesday / Thursday Before Class

Revising Your Sicart Analysis Papers

Now that you have drafted the paper, you should be ready to revise the paper. Today I want to pay particular attention to revising the introduction. Along the way, I’ll frame two different ways for organizing the whole paper.

Let me pull up the rubric and focus on the introduction. I’m evaluating the intro on two things (one more important than the other):

  • Does the intro provide a strong, detailed, claim, or does it read like a draft (left open as a question)? [5 points]
  • Is there a roadmap that lays out the order of material in the paper? The steps in the argument? [3 points]

The first of these criteria is more important–and more difficult–than the second. The first one tells me everything important the paper is going to argue. The claim is the argument is the thesis (different teachers will call this different things). It isn’t necessarily a single sentence–especially for a longer paper like this one.

Laying out the claim this way helps you do the second paper, which I call a roadmap. This generally comes after the claim and just lays out the order of material in the paper. It often uses a structure like:

I begin by exploring three of Sicart’s concepts–player complicity, wicked problems, and forced reflection. I then demonstrate how Capcom’s game Chicken Factory 4 amplifies a player’s ethical experience by looking at three scenes. First, I look at the barn scene, noting how designers make us complicit by introducing us to Susan. Second, I look at the factory scene, noting that in addition to complicity, the designers successfully integrate a wicked problem. Third, I critique the infamous windmill scene, noting that while the designers sought to create a wicked problem, they failed because something something something.

I want to give my reader as specific, concrete a sense as possible of what is coming, and how it supports my claim. You can’t be this specific and concrete until you’ve actually written the paper.

Okay, let’s look at some introductions.

APA Formatting Workshop

For today’s exercise, I’ve got Hacker and Sommers’ A Writer’s Reference. You might also use the Purdue OWL APA guide.

Below is a workspace in which we’ll practice APA formatting.

  • Fake Kant Paper. If you are working with a laptop or tablet today, make a copy of that document

Final Papers

Your final papers are due before our next class meeting. Submit them as a Google Doc link (preferred) or as a Word Doc.

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