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##Working The work you agree to by enrolling in this section of HNRS 353 has six components: (1) in-class participation; (2) virtual participation; (3) blogging; (4) a platform studies inquiry; (5) writing a book chapter; and (6) designing your own meta-game.

Here are more details about these six activities:

(1) Participation in the days discussion is essential. To get the most out of class, you must have read and played the days assigned work, thoroughly and critically. There will be occasional in-class writing assignments and quizzes, and these will count toward your in-class participation grade. Attendance is mandatory (excepting medical emergencies or observation of religious holidays). More than four absences will lower your in-class participation grade by at least one letter grade. More than six absences will result in a zero for your in-class participation grade.

(2) A portion of your participation will take place virtually. Over the course of the semester everyone in the class will be playing Echo Bazaar, an atmospheric in-browser role-playing game. We will occasionally discuss Echo Bazaar in class or have short writing assignments about it. The other component of your virtual participation will play out on Twitter. Well begin by using Twitter passively, simply following notable figures in the field of videogame studies. Later we will use Twitter more actively, as what is called a backchannel, streaming real-time comments about the course both in and outside of the classroom. Occasionally you will have very explicit tasks to do on Twitter; I will explain those when the time comes. Falling behind in virtual participation will of course lower your virtual participation grade.

(3) Students will contribute weekly to the class blog. Early in the semester we will divide the class into five teams, each with a different role that rotates week-to-week:

  • First Readers: These students are responsible for posting initial questions and insights about the assigned reading or gaming to the class blog by Monday morning (at 8am). These initial posts should be about 250 words and strive to be thoughtful, avoiding description and summary. The best posts will connect the days material to theoretical ideas weve encountered in the semester, as well as provide the starting point for the weeks discussion.
  • In-Class Hosts: These students will kick off the class discussion every Tuesday by acting as in-class hosts to the blog. The students on this team will coordinate beforehand to highlight key developments from the most recent blog posts and Twitter updates, focusing on provocative ideas, disagreements, or whatever else strikes the team as especially noteworthy about our classs online conversations. The team will have no more than 10 minutes at the start of Tuesdays class to share their synthesis of what they see happening on the blog. They should not merely review the blog posts, but actually take a more evaluative stance.
  • Respondents: Students in this group will build upon, disagree with, or clarify the first readers posts by Wednesday night. The respondents can also incorporate elements of Tuesdays class discussion into their posts. These posts should be about 250 words.
  • Seekers: Each student in this group will find and share at least one relevant online resource with the class in time for Thursdays session. These resources might include news stories, journal articles, podcasts, online games, and so on. In addition to linking to the resource, the seekers must provide a short (no more than a paragraph) evaluation of the resource, highlighting what makes it worthwhile, unusual, or, if appropriate, problematic.
  • The fifth group will have the week off in terms of blogging.

Regardless of your role, late posts cannot be made up; if you miss your group roles deadline, then you receive no credit for that weeks blog. All blog activity will be evaluated according to the following 0-4 point scale:

RATING & CHARACTERISTICS

  • 4 - Exceptional: The blog entry is focused and coherently integrates examples with explanations or analysis. The entry demonstrates awareness of its own limitations or implications, and it considers multiple perspectives when appropriate. The entry reflects in-depth engagement with the topic.

  • 3 - Satisfactory: The blog entry is reasonably focused, and explanations or analysis are mostly based on examples or other evidence. Fewer connections are made between ideas, and though new insights are offered, they are not fully developed. The entry reflects moderate engagement with the topic.

  • 2 - Underdeveloped: The blog entry is mostly description or summary, without consideration of alternative perspectives, and few connections are made between ideas. The entry reflects passing engagement with the topic.

  • 1 - Limited: The blog entry is unfocused, or simply rehashes previous comments, and displays no evidence of student engagement with the topic.

  • 0 - No Credit: The blog entry is missing or consists of one or two disconnected sentences.

(4) Every student will conduct a platform studies inquiry, which is an in-depth consideration of the social history and technological relations of both an individual game and the specific hardware you use to play that game. This platform might be a PC, a console, a portable gaming system, a phone, or even a boardgame.

(5) One of the books were reading this semester is Ian Bogosts How to Do Things with Videogames, in which each chapter briefly explains one action or sentiment that videogames can foster. Bogost comes up with twenty things videogames can do, but surely there are more. For this project you will write a missing chapter of approximately 2,000 words from Bogosts book, following the form and style of the original, but venturing a single new thing to do with videogames.

(6) The final project for the class will be a game that you design yourself. The point of the game is very specific, for it should be a meta-game, that is, a game that itself comments upon other games. The exact content and design of such a game is up to the individual student, though it should be a self-aware game that incorporates, reflects upon, and even challenges the principles weve discussed throughout the semester. The final project is due Saturday, May 5, though beta versions of the games will be presented in the last week of class.