Gaming Themed Course – Spring 2019
Introduction: This course builds on writing proficiencies, reading skills, and critical thinking skills developed in ENGL 1101. To facilitate this continued learning, we will explore these skills through the theme of games.
Games are an appropriate topic for our course given the recent rise of game ownership and interest over history. According to the ESRB Annual Report for 2017, two-thirds of American households owned a gaming system, and game companies made $36 billion. On top of its prevalence in our houses as sources of entertainment, it also employs 220,000 people over the geographical US. Aside from the quantitative presence that games have in our lives, they are also at the center of a lot of cultural debates. From questions regarding tech labor practices to representation of minority groups in gaming content to the role of games in education and violent behavior, games impact various points of all our lives and help us better understand significant cultural issues from different perspectives.
Using the theme of games, we will play and analyze games as well as analyze and investigate writing about games as critical objects in order to learn about subjects such as visual rhetoric, community literacy, primary and secondary research methods, academic arguments and persuasive techniques, and new media. Students will also practice writing about and through games using daily assignments as well as major assignments throughout the semester. A passing grade is C. Prerequisite: C or above in ENGL 1101.
1102Sp19 Syllabus
1102Sp19 Schedule
Journal Assignment
Journal Prompts
Visual Analysis Essay
Civic Engagement and Community Literacy Project
Annotated Bibliography
Academic Research Paper
New Media Project
The Crafty Medievalist 