Propose a Game Assignment
For this three part, 6-9 page assignment, students will incorporate what they learned throughout the semester about the games industry, its products’ representations, and its consumer culture to “design” a game from the ground up. Part one will be devoted to describing the game’s story, setting, and major themes. Part two should cover the game’s mechanics and discuss how those mechanics align with the game’s story and themes. Finally, part three should be a 2-3 page analysis of the creative process. This final section should reference at least two scholarly articles or books.
Online Community Report Assignment
This assignment requires students to visit an online gamer community of their choice and write a short paper documenting the following: the community’s online location (e.g. YouTube, a subreddit, a Twitch stream, a private forum, Playstation Network/XBox Live, etc.), the community’s membership size, the community’s level of activity, the community’s common values (if any become apparent), and what, if anything, the community seems to care about outside of gaming (e.g. pop culture or politics unrelated to the medium or art form of choice). The purpose of the assignment is to introduce students to basic digital ethnographic methods so that they learn to critically position themselves in relationship to what may otherwise seem unremarkable and quotidian on the surface.
Media Literacy Activity
This in-class activity combines individual/paired and group contributions to give students a greater appreciation for how the news media plays a significant role in shaping public consensus, often with the goal of effecting social change, for both good and ill. First, as a class, the students brainstorm online news sources that I write on the board. Once a list of 10-20 news sources have been crowd sourced and then listed on the board, students will individually use a smartphone or laptop to find two stories from two different sources of their choice about a controversial current event I assign that is related to the course content. After reading and briefly analyzing their chosen stories, students will join small groups and combine their stories together. From that pool of stories, students will mutually decide on two for the group to give closer inspection. Once students have selected the two stories, they will analyze them with some of the following questions in mind: Is there any language in the article(s) that would indicate possible bias (e.g. thug, criminal, illegal immigrant, terrorist, and so on)? What sorts of arguments and counterarguments does the story include (e.g. does the story include testimony only from those who identify as conservative? Those who identify as liberal?)? Are there links in the story to other sources? If so, to where do they lead? Finally, the students will reconvene as a class and answer general questions about the assignment.
Living WordPress (a semester-length project)
This assignment requires students to purchase cheap webspace (such as BlueHost, Hostinger, or SiteGround); design their own WordPress websites using free templates in the database; and create a professional look, persona, and academic writing portfolio. This assignment, which is both practical and deeply personal, teaches the following:
- How to use WordPress, a prerequisite for many job postings.
- How to create a unified public image for prospective employers.
- How to design an academic biography and writing portfolio for a public audience.
Students will spend the first few weeks of the semester designing a research agenda they wish to pursue. In order to do this, students will first express their research interests in vague keywords (e.g. feminism, media industries, video games, film, literature) in order to gradually narrow their focus. They will then write reflection pieces describing their interests in greater detail. Periodically throughout the semester, students will write a series of academic blog posts related to their interests, thereby designing a unified research and writing portfolio. By making their work public, students must reflect on how their writing in industry or academia may reach public audiences.