ENG 123 5.F: Booth Exercise / Proposal Assignment

Posted on September 23, 2022 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Booth Exercise #2
  • Proposal Assignment

Booth Exercise

I haven’t had a chance to go over the Booth exercise from Wednesday yet, but I wanted to take another crack at using the Booth reading to generate potential research questions. Booth shares what in rhetoric we call a “heuristic,” essentially a fancy name for a brainstorming exercise–a systematic process for discovering an idea.

  • Identify the Parts and How They Relate
    • What are the Parts of Your Topic? How do They Relate?
    • Is Your Topic a Part of a Larger System?
  • Trace its Own History and Its Role in a Larger History
    • How Has Your Topic Changed Over Time? When are the major events that shaped it?
    • What audiences/groups care about your topic? How have their perspectives about the topic changed?
  • Identify its Characteristics and the Categories that Include It
    • What kind of thing is your topic? What is its range of variation? What terms or names does it go by?
    • How do non-experts feel about your topic?
    • Where in popular culture do we see your topic?
  • Determine Its Value
    • What values does your topic reflect? What values does it support? Contradict?
    • How Good or Bad is Your Topic? Is it useful? Is it capable of abuse?

The next step: go through the responses above and ask yourself “so what?”

The Proposal Project

You should make a copy of this Google Document.

Homework

Your proposals will be due next Friday at midnight. I have office hours today if you have an idea about a potential project you’d like to discuss.

Reminder that we will not have class on Monday.

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ENG 301 5.R: Working on the Job Reports

Posted on September 22, 2022 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Reviewing Last Session
  • Grade Norming a Few Introductions
  • Material for the Report
  • Anyone Need Help Making or Labeling Graphs?
  • Homework

Grade Norming a Few Introductions

I have a rubric for the report and a few introductions from previous semesters (note that the assignment has changed a bit over the years).

Material

Let met try to put all the material for the report in one place:

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ENG 225 5.T: Sicart Analysis Papers

Posted on September 22, 2022 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Sicart Analysis Paper
  • In-Class Writing Time

Sicart Analysis Papers

Some bullet points:

  • You will compose a paper (likely in the 1500-2000 word range, so 5 to 8 pages double-spaced) 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, avoid or encourage instrumental play, whether/how their choices reflect Sicart’s theory of wicked problems, and whether/how the game forces you to reflect on your decisions and thereby prompt an ethical experience.
  • As we saw surveying theses statements from previous papers on Tuesday, these papers can argue a range of positions:
    • That your game epitomizes Sicart’s ideas for an ethical game
    • That your game reflects most of Sicart’s ideas, but not all [is there one thing they could change/fix]
    • That your game falls into the trap of being a moral, rather than an ethical game
    • That while you realize the designer’s intentions, you did not have an ethical experience [why not? Instrumental play? Failure to connect with characters?]

This paper is meant to expose you to how humanities scholars analyze texts and arrange papers (our next project will show you how you do this in the hard and social sciences). Generally, this involves:

  • Developing a critical lens (identifying, before you approach a text, what you will be looking for. Hence, the Sicart summary paper). So, you know going into this paper that you are looking for designer choices that amplify or diminish ethical decisions (or experiences). You know you are attempting to identify how designers try to engender player complicity. Etc. etc. I will go over this list more next week when I review your papers
  • Applying the lens to specific moments in your “text.” I use text pretty liberally here–literally anything you examine is considered a text. Depending on the game you analyze, its mechanics and narrative structure, this can look REALLY different paper to paper. For instance, is your game one linear narrative? Or is it a choose-your-own-adventure, with branching paths? Thus, do decisions have narrative consequences? Or is the impact of decisions more centered on the feelings/reactions of the player? And–as we’ve discussed–do designers do something bad (from Sicart’s perspective) and tie in game powers/abilities/gear to making (what the game decides in advance is) the “right” decision?
  • Today I want to emphasize that you do not have space in a 5-8 page paper to write about the entirety of your game. You likely have space to analyze 2-4 scenes, depending on how much detail you invest in each of them. The goal of the paper is to talk about player complicity, wicked problems (the complexity of choices–not all games will have wicked problems!), and how the game prompts reflection. I might start outlining the paper by thinking about the most important scenes and which of those three elements above are working in them.

Sicart Heuristic

Today I’d like you to get a head start on your paper by using my Sicart heuristic as a prompt.

Revise one of your journal entries using the heuristic as a frame. At this inventive stage of the project, you should be working to identify what is interesting about your game.

How to organize this paper

There’s two different ways to think about how to organize this paper–first, you can do something like this [NOTE that page counts are mere estimates, not rules]:

  • Introduction (probably doesn’t need to be more than 1/2 to 2/3 of a page
  • Sicart’s Theory of Ethical Gaming (lay out all three concepts here in 2 pages. You will have to condense your summary papers, revising sentences and identifying the central ideas a reader needs)
  • Analyzing Scene 1 ( 2 pages)
  • Analyzing Scene 2 (2 pages)
  • Analyzing Scene 3 (2 pages)
  • Conclusion (1/2 a page)

OR

  • Introduction (stretches out to a page but gives a more thorough overview of Sicart’s core concepts)
  • Player Complicity in Scene 1 and Scene 3
  • Why Problems Aren’t Wicked in Scene 2 and Scene 3
  • Unfortunately the game didn’t make me reflect
  • Conclusion (1/2 a page)

OR

  • Introduction (stretches out to a page but gives a more thorough overview of Sicart’s core concepts). Thesis: choices in this game are terrible.
  • Player Complicity and whether this game has it
  • Choice #1 is not wicked because
  • Choice #2 is even less wicked
  • Choice #3 made me lose my mind
  • Conclusion

FAQ:

  • Yes, there’s a lot more ways to organize/argue this paper beyond what I’ve laid out above. Those are just suggestions. You have 5-8 pages to show me that you understand Sicart’s ideas and have something smart to say about your game.
  • Yes, you can insert screenshots of your gameplay (or other images) into your paper. APA has rules for labeling figures. You do not have to create a table of figures (like a table of contents).
  • Rules for APA format can be found via the Purdue OWL. This paper requires a running head, a reference list (including citations for any video games mentioned in the paper), and spacing/formatting rules.

Homework

It is time to write your paper. Drafts of the Sicart Analysis paper are due on Friday midnight. HOWEVER, I need you to bring a paper copy of your draft to class on Tuesday–we are going to do some quick self-assessment and then some APA formatting checks.

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ENG 123 5.W: Research Methods; Research Questions

Posted on September 21, 2022 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Brief Review of Research Methods
  • Reading from Wayne Booth’s The Craft of Research
  • Taking a Swing at Booth’s Questions
  • Reminder: No class on Monday, September 26th

Next week I will share a proposal project, asking you to use the research you’ve conducted this semester to develop a formal proposal. You’ll “ontologize” (categorize) your research, revising (or rethinking) the material you presented last Friday. You will identify a set of research articles that you have to read. You will pitch a primary research project. And you will identify a *purpose* and an *audience* for your research. Today is about planting a seed for that upcoming assignment, to get you thinking about thinking.

Primary Research Methods

Secondary research is when you read already existing research. Primary research is when you roll up your sleeves and create some new knowledge. There’s a wide range of qualitative methods for making new research. Here’s a list of options that are likely to work in this class:

  • Surveys: requires you develop questions, usually using a Likert scale. Crafting good survey questions can be much more challenging than you think. Maybe one or two open-ended questions. Requires you to identify a distribution plan–where can you post/share this thing to gain responses
  • Interviews: requires you identify and gain consent of an expert in a field. Writing and conducting interviews are art forms.
  • Focus Groups: focus groups are like group interviews. Often, it can be productive to assign the group a task (which of these four things are most troublesome/problematic/valuable). Leading a focus group requires good groups management skills (and Dungeon Masters out there?)
  • Corpus Analysis: This is collecting and analyzing texts based on a “coding scheme” or “critical lens.” I am currently analyzing a collection of job advertisements, looking for pre-determined technologies, competencies, and personal characteristics. Two years ago, my Rhetorical Theory class analyzed a large collection of news reports on the George Floyd murder, looking specifically for mentions of Trump or Obama, how the reports framed protestors/looters (etc), and making an assessment of whether the article focused on factual reporting or political commentary (using a Likert Scale).

For inspiration, here’s a list of projects from the last time I taught ENG 123:

  • Men, Ughhh: The Way Men Are Raised Affects Green Behavior. A project investigating why men are more resistant to climate initiatives than women. Focus group: ranking and discussing different “every day” climate options
  • Girls Rule, Boys Drool: Gender and Environmental Action. Survey, developed in Google Forms. 78 Respondents (22 men, 56 women). Questions about using recyclable bags at the grocery store, turning off lights, using “green” light bulbs, purchasing disposable plastic water bottles vs using a reusable water bottle, biking to work. Question: Do you try to do things that are environmentally sustainable: women 89%, men 16%.
  • Flipping Officer Training; Pedagogy to Andragogy. Interviews with an active police officer and the Chief of the Colorado State Patrol.
  • Police Officer’s Stress and The Research That Can Help. Analysis of four textbooks for officer training and the way they frame stress and mental health.
  • How Police Officers Deal with Stress. Interview with a Police Sargent and a Cadet. Focus on how stress comes up in weekly life and is covered during Academy training.
  • Media Perceptions of Police Shootings. Analysis of 10 different articles on police shootings. Paying particular attention for references to “police stress” and/or the difficulty of the job. Also paying attention for mention of ways to reduce police shootings.
  • Bees are Dying at Alarming Rates: Why this is Dangerous for Human Life. Examines media coverage of the bee-tastrophe in light of research (identifies 4 different proposed solutions via academic research and sees how often those solutions are mentioned in media coverage).
  • It is Time to Figure Out How to Save the Bees. EXTENSIVE scientific literature review analyzing proposed solutions (12 scholarly articles). Survey (103 Facebook respondents in a beekeeping group) regarding public knowledge of the bee problem.
  • Special Education Students Deserve to be Included in STEM Education. Surveying special education teachers in Greeley schools (targeted 8 teachers, got 2 responses).
  • The Effects of Artificial Light on Human Health: How and Why to Avoid Light Pollution. Methods for this project are below.

Methods and Findings
A mixture of two types of primary research were conducted to support my study. A survey was shared with my peers at UNC, and an observational study was done that assessed what locations across campus used fluorescent (LED) lighting. My survey, with an experimental group of approximately 20 people will asked the following questions:

  1. Do you use your phone, laptop, or any other electronic device less than an hour before you go to bed?
  2. On average, how many hours of sleep have you gotten per night in the past week?
  3. On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being the worst, 10 being the best, how would you rate the quality of your nightly sleep?
  4. On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being the hardest and 10 being the easiest, how difficult is it for you to fall asleep at night?

Finally, I asked a short answer response for why would eliminating electronic devices before bedtime be easy or hard? While my sample size of 20 was lower than anticipated, there’s enough consistency in responses to draw some significant conclusions. The purpose of this survey was to quantify the relationship between blue light wavelengths and sleep patterns right here on campus.
Additionally, the observational study was done by me as I recorded the types of available lighting in all the campus locations I traveled across throughout the week. My guess was that most locations rely on non-traditional, fluorescent lights which are a form of blue light. Some areas were supplemented with natural lighting but since classes and study sessions are held all hours of the day, students are left to work under lights that only add to their headaches.

Homework

Remember that your goal this week is to annotate two research articles in your workspace.

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ENG 301: 4.R Job Ad Report

Posted on September 15, 2022 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • What Can the ABO Book Internet Tell Us About Reports?
  • Let’s Talk about this Report
  • Making a Graph
  • Brainstorming a Discussion Section
  • Homework

What Can the Internet 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 do some Google searches to see what we can learn about professional writing and the report genre.

Let’s look at different kinds of reports:

  • Feasibility Reports
  • Recommendation Report (sometimes called Investigative Reports)
  • Formal vs Informal Reports
  • Tables and Graphs in a business report (presenting data

Let’s look at these strategically, thinking through the canons of rhetoric: invention (ideas, content), arrangement (order of material, outline), and style & delivery (what do these things look like? how are they formatted?).

Here’s a space to put your findings.

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)

Let’s Talk About What *This* Report Should Look Like

  • Length: Generally this report is 6-8 pages singled-spaced (this includes a title page, a table of content, and properly sized charts/graphs)
  • Front Loaded Introduction: Does the intro summarize all significant findings and include specific, actionable recommendations?
  • Methodology: The methodology section needs to do a few things. First, how did I collect the job ads (I described this process in a blog post, condense my Brumberger and Lauer discussion)? Second, how did you select your 20 jobs from the job corpus? Third, from where did we draw our coding scheme? Fourth, what did we do to ensure that our data was reliable? Could I recreate this work based on this section?
  • Presentation of Data: Does the section contain a table or graph of data?
    Can you understand the table or graph, or is there some mystery meat?
    Does the writer make clear what the table or graph says [descriptive paragraphs after graphs]? Generally, these reports have three graphs–one on Tools and Tech, one on Professional Competencies, and one on Personal Characteristics
  • Discussion of Data: Does the writer highlight significant or unexpected elements of the data? Does the writer put the data in conversation with previous research (Brumberger and Lauer 2015; Lauer and Brumberger 2019)? Does the writer make specific recommendations based on the data?
  • Style and Grammar [commas, run-ons, fragments, tense shifts, agreement errors, etc]
    Does the paper reflect our work on style (Williams and Bizup, Characters and Actions)?
  • Does this paper reflect expectations for business formatting? (Check the ABO book)
    • Title Page
    • Page Numbers (should not include the title page)
    • Also, this is a professional report, not an academic paper. We are not using APA or MLA format for citing sources. Instead, we will rely on AP style–which uses in-line, reference citation.

Finally, you should draft and revise this paper in the same Google Doc. I will check the document history to see if it indicates that the paper was given a careful edit? (And/or, is the document relatively error free? Are there sentences in which grammatical errors lead to misunderstanding?)

Making a Graph

Assuming there’s time, let’s quickly go over making a graph in Google Sheets.

Let’s use this as a template.

Brainstorming a Discussion Section

Let’s head back to our collaborative Google Doc.

Homework

For next Tuesday’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 in class on Tuesday. For homework Tuesday night I will ask you to work on your report–to have something of a rough draft pieced together. The finished copy of the paper will be due Thursday, September 29th before class. We will start Project 2 that Thursday.

If you haven’t yet bought one of the three books from the syllabus (grant writing, visual design, social media), then please do so this weekend.

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ENG 225 4.R: Sicart Analysis Papers

Posted on September 15, 2022 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Sicart Analysis Paper
  • In-Class Writing Time

Sicart Analysis Papers

Some bullet points:

  • You will compose a paper (likely in the 1500-2000 word range, so 5 to 8 pages double-spaced) 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, avoid or encourage instrumental play, whether/how their choices reflect Sicart’s theory of wicked problems, and whether/how the game forces you to reflect on your decisions and thereby prompt an ethical experience.

This paper is meant to expose you to how humanities scholars analyze texts and arrange papers (our next project will show you how you do this in the hard and social sciences). Generally, this involves:

  • Developing a critical lens (identifying, before you approach a text, what you will be looking for. Hence, the Sicart summary paper). So, you know going into this paper that you are looking for designer choices that amplify or diminish ethical decisions (or experiences). You know you are attempting to identify how designers try to engender player complicity. Etc. etc. I will go over this list more next week when I review your papers
  • Applying the lens to specific moments in your “text.” I use text pretty liberally here–literally anything you examine is considered a text. Depending on the game you analyze, its mechanics and narrative structure, this can look REALLY different paper to paper. For instance, is your game one linear narrative? Or is it a choose-your-own-adventure, with branching paths? Thus, do decisions have narrative consequences? Or is the impact of decisions more centered on the feelings/reactions of the player? And–as we’ve discussed–do designers do something bad (from Sicart’s perspective) and tie in game powers/abilities/gear to making (what the game decides in advance is) the “right” decision?

  • Sicart Heursitic

    Today I’d like you to get a head start on your paper by using my Sicart heuristic as a prompt.

Revise one of your journal entries using the heursitic as a frame. At this inventive stage of the project, you should be working to identify what is interesting about your game.

Homework

I’d like you to clean up your journal. So far, I’ve given you two opportunities to play your game–for an hour last weekend and then for another 1 1/2 hours coming into today. That means you should have two journal entries. We need to play more, so here’s the schedule:

  • Journal Entry #1: 1 hour of play (Tuesday 13th)
  • Journal Entry #2: 1 1/2 hours of play (Thursday 15th)
  • Journal Entry #3: 2 1/2 hours of play (Tuesday 20th)
  • Journal Entry #4: 1 1/2 hours of play (Thursday 22nd)

That gets us to 6 1/2 hours of play–which I think will be the maximum I’m able to provide you. The homework next weekend (due Tuesday the 27th) will be to draft the Sicart analysis paper (pulling the critical lens description/material from the Sicart summary paper and your journals).

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ENG 123 4.W: Collaborative Presentations

Posted on September 14, 2022 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Add a Research Article to Your Team’s Workspace
  • Presentation Expectations

Add a Research Article to Your Team’s Workspace

I’m hoping this doesn’t take more than 5 minutes. I would simply like you to add a citation and a link to another research article to your team’s workspace. My theory is that, as you read and annotate scholarship, you are finding references to other studies. If you have one from a previous worknet (central or singificant) or annotation that isn’t in your team workspace, then please add it now.

Presentation Expectations

Let’s me think about presentations across three vectors: content, design, and performance.

Content
Today I’m going to ask you to meet with your team and begin mapping out commonplaces that come up in the research articles you read. That is, we want to identify some of the key questions, terms, ideas, problems, differences, etc that are circulating through your topic. For instance, I’m writing a paper about job advertisements for English majors and Writing minors. I’ve read about a dozen articles for my lit review. So I sat down today and started mapping articles, starting with key ideas and then listing which (other) articles share those ideas. I now have something that looks like this:

I’d like you to meet with your groups today and review the articles that you’ve read. Map out the various sub-topics that they cover. Look for overlaps and conflicts.

Presentation Logistics

When we have about 15 minutes remaining in class, I’ll ask you to change gears and start thinking about presentation logistics. I’ve asked for a 4-5 minute presentation; which is about 700 words (so about 3 and 1/2 pages double-spaced). I’d like you to generate a script for the presentation. And I’d like you to designate speakers for the different parts of the script. Create a PowerPoint or Google Slide to accompany your talk. Keep text on slides to a minimum (don’t just read slides).

Ideally, each team member would be responsible for writing about one or two commonplaces–liking them to articles, writing a few sentences that help us understand the term/idea/(dis)agreement, etc. You will submit presentation materials to Canvas and will give these presentations in class on Friday.

Note that the homework for Monday will be to annotate a third research article in your personal workspace.

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ENG 123 4.M: From Research to Questions

Posted on September 12, 2022 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • What We’ve Done and Where We Are Going
  • Second Annotation Feedback
  • Homework

What We’ve Done and Where We Are Going

So far this semester, my focus has been on introducing you to a topic. You’ve had an opportunity to explore some scholarly research on a particular problem. By this point you should have at least read:

  • One Scientific American article that either delivers an overview of a topic or a pointed opinion on one
  • A first scholarly research article (Worknet #1)
  • A second scholarly research article (Worknet #2, Annotation #1)
  • A third scholarly research article (Annotation #2, due today)

I doubt you consider yourself an expert on whatever you’ve been reading about, but my guess is that you know more about it now then you did a month ago.

Beyond the content you’ve been reading, I’ve been trying to introduce you to a few of the common moves you’ll be asked to perform as academic writers. Of course, writing looks different in every field. But the ability to read difficult material and condense it, to turn a couple dozen pages into a few short paragraphs (and, at higher levels, a few short sentences) will likely be useful whatever your major. We’ll continue to work on direct quotation and paraphrase in the coming weeks.

I’ve also tried to introduce you to the structure of academic articles. Again, articles differ greatly by discipline–most humanities papers don’t have a “methods” section, for instance–but understanding the general layout of an academic paper should also be useful. That is:

  • Introduction (lays out a problem, states findings of paper, road maps the sections of a paper)
  • Literature review (survey previous literature on a subject, tries to identify a “gap” in the literature, a hole that the current study can fill)
  • Methods section (details how subjects/texts were gathered, the method of experiment or analysis, and the measures taken to ensure findings are valid and reliable)
  • Findings / Discussion of Findings (sometimes one section, sometimes two–the discussion generally reflects back on the lit review. Does your findings line up with previous work? More importantly, what is different? Why do you think you found something different? What does that tell us?)
  • Conclusion

The research work you are doing now will (hopefully / eventualy) populate your literature review. It might also help you develop a methodology section. Say you later poll people on their views on climate change–the readings you are doing might help you craft more grounded and detailed questions.

So that’s what we’ve been doing so far. What will we do next? Here’s my plan:

  • This Wednesday, in the computer lab, I’m going to ask you and your teammates to draft up a quick 4-5 minute presentation on the research you’ve done so far. Those presentations won’t be on specific research articles–rather they will circle around a few commonalities you’ve found across your articles. I’ll explain this more on Wednesday, and then give you 30-40 minutes to work in groups on the presentation.
  • In Friday’s class, groups will give their presentations. We’ve got five groups–so I am guessing that we’ll only have about 15 minutes of class time left after the presentations. I’ll use that to introduce a reading by Wayne Booth on developing a research question. There will be an assignment in Canvas, due next Monday, on the Booth reading.
  • Next week we will return to reading research articles. After you’ve finished the Booth article, I’ll ask you to locate and read 2 more research articles that somehow line up with your developing research question (I doubt the Booth activity will yield a complete research question, but it should push you closer–this will make more sense after we discuss the Booth next Monday).
  • After you have given your presentation, done the Booth assignment, and conducted a bit more (hopefully pointed) research, you’ll draft a project proposal for the rest of the semester. This will involve doing more research annotations and developing a primary research study.

Second Annotation Feedback

I’ve seen some general improvement in the quality of your annotations, but I also see a need for people to invest a bit more time and provide more concrete details.

I realized I didn’t indicate where to put these annotations. Most of you haven’t done them [stern look]. Those who did them put them in their own personal workspaces (that’s where I figured you’d put them). A few put them in your collaborative team workspaces (fine with me, that’s where they will eventually go).

If I submitted a score to Canvas, and you do or redo something, please just resubmit the link to your workspace to Canvas. Canvas will alert me that you’ve submitted something new.

At some point, we are going to discuss this article.

Recap

  • There’s no homework due on Wednesday (but I will be closing all previous reading / annotation assignments, so if you are missing something, then this is your last chance to get it in–many of you owe me a second research annotation)
  • 4-5 minute class presentation on Friday
  • Booth reading and post due next Monday
  • Two more article annotations (#3 and #4) due next Friday
  • No class on Monday September 26th
  • Proposal assignment due Wednesday September 28th
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ENG 301: Writing a Methodology Section / Job Advertisements Report Data

Posted on September 8, 2022 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Revisiting Tuesday’s Discussion
  • Writing a Methodology Section

Discussion

I think there are a few questions lingering from Tuesday’s discussion:

  • To what extent is an education in literature, or writing, an education in values?
  • Can you think of a time in which your values came into conflict with your education?
  • Why are you here? [And, if memory serves, I asked you all to think about an answer to this question]

Writing a Methodology Section

Generally, a methodology section requires you to cover three basic things:

  • How did they collect samples? Identify research participants? Develop a corpus of texts? [How did they collect research stuff?]
  • What did they do to their research stuff?
    • If they made a survey, how did they generate questions?
    • If a drug trial, did they use a control group?
    • If they collected texts, how did they analyze them?
    • [How did they turn stuff into data]?
  • How did they ensure their data / analysis was reliable?

Let’s look at the quantitative and qualitative sections of this page.


So, how do we apply this to the Job Report Project. This link might help, (since I described how I collected the ads (and some other stuff), i.e., [condense my Brumberger and Lauer discussion]?

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ENG 225 3.R: Summary Paper; Sicart Gaming Journal

Posted on September 8, 2022 by insignificantwrangler@gmail.com

Today’s Plan:

  • Homework
  • Sicart Summary Papers
  • Sicart Gaming Journals

Homework

Two Things:

  • First, the Sicart Summary paper is due Friday at midnight. I said in class that you can take until Sunday at midnight if you need it. I will start grading these papers Monday morning, so make sure yours is there by then.
  • Second, as a class we voted on whether to continue playing Walking Dead or move onto to playing a game from the recommended list I shared last class. The class voted to move on. So I’d like you to play your game for 1-2 hours over the weekend and then write for 15-30 minutes, using the Sicart Heuristic to guide your reflection [see below].

Sicart Summary Papers

I’ve written a thorough description of this project in a previous post. There’s also a rubric for the paper in Canvas.

Additionally remember to check the quality of your thesis statement against the guidelines I provide in this post.

Sicart Gaming Journals

We created Google Docs in class on Thursday and submitted an editable link to Canvas. You will put your gaming journal entries in that Google Doc. Simply label them with a date and time played. Open the entry with a very brief description of the content you played (some plot summary).

Over the next week and a half, you will play a video game for about 8 hours. After every hour of gameplay, you will free write for 15 minutes, using the heuristic as a guide. I do not expect a journal entry to be polished prose, but I am expecting about 250 words per entry. And I am expecting the entries to move beyond plot [details about what happened] and use the heuristic (so some rough analysis, thinking about what the developers are trying to accomplish, how they are trying to make you feel, act, or think). 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?).

These journals are rough draft for our second paper–the Sicart Analysis paper–which will condense and revise the summary paper and the journal material together.

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