Activities for R 10/29

The goal today is to work with the collaborative document to extract shared claims, to cluster the shared claims, to organize the shared claims, and to discover the binding logic of the shared claims.

Work in groups to edit the shared document. If you're not editing, please work on revising your document. After about 40 minutes, we will work as a class on the shared document.

Here is the shared document.

Group 1: Alexander, Balnionis, Berardi, Bergamo, Castillo, Caughie, Center, Ehrlich, Reedy, Spencer

Group 2: Graff, Lewis, Miller, Garland, Simmons, Skomorucha, Alonso, Suder, Yoder, Zarkades

Activities for T 10/27

Blog response > Today we'll work on your essay drafts. You should have a blog post linking to the draft. Go to and edit the post, adding a brief reflection on the following: What is most successful in your draft? What still needs work?

Also, please make sure your blog has your name on it, so that readers arriving at the blog know the author's name...

Read and respond to drafts > Start with the person after you on your group list below. Read and respond. Repeat with the next in the list. If you reach the end, go back to the beginning of your group. Each draft gets at least three readings. Write your response in the comments to the writer's blog post.

Groups:

1. Alexander, Bergamo, Graff, Lewis, Ehrlich
2. Balnionis, Berardi, Miller, Reedy, Garland
3. Alonso, Castillo, Simmons, Skomorucha, Yoder
4. Caughie, Center, Spencer, Suder, Zarkades

First reading: Read the essay once for an initial response. Write about the following:

• Your overall impression
• What did you like? What didn't you like?

Second Reading: Read the essay a second time again for an in-depth response. Write about the following:

• What is the main idea / claim expressed in the essay? What are the sub-ideas or claims? Are the claims related to the main idea?
• Is there evidence supporting the ideas/claims? Name particular places where the essay could use more evidence and how.
• Does the writer use ideas and sources from the directed lectures/theories presented in class (theories of authorship, narratology, remix culture, social media, gaming, etc.)? Suggest how one or more of these concepts could be incorporated into the essay.
  
• Are the parts of the essay connected in a logical, convincing manner, with supporting evidence? Name particular places where the logic and transitions could be improved and how.
  
• Name particular places where the language of the essay is confusing or unclear. How could it be improved?
  
• Finally, what should the writer focus on to improve the essay? What should she do next?

Activities for R 10/22

Finish group critique from Tuesday and Work on drafting your essay. Remember: the essay is 1500 words minimum, due 11/10. It can be written in Google Docs or in another format and uploaded to Google Docs, and then linked to your blog; or (optionally) you can write it directly into your blog.

1. Focus on links and connections at the paragraph level. Every paragraph ends with an idea that links to the next paragraph. Every paragraph begins with an idea that carries from the previous paragraph
   
2. Focus on incorporating your materials, annotated bibliography. Work on summarizing each primary material/source, then describing ideas emerging from this, then making links.
   

Work on shared document.

Group 1: Alexander, Balnionis, Berardi, Bergamo, Castillo, Caughie, Center, Ehrlich, Reedy, Spencer

Group 2: Graff, Lewis, Miller, Garland, Simmons, Skomorucha, Alonso, Suder, Yoder, Zarkades

Activities for T 10/20

Make sure you have blog post for today

Logical mapping > structuring your project.

1. Create a diagram
2. Write your single sentence research topic
   
3. Write your content areas (what do you need to talk about to make the explore the research topic? what websites etc. but also what texts, essays, etc.)
4. Write your assertions/claims coming out of the topic
5. Order and organize the claims in relation to the content areas
6. Link to blog post for today
   

Work in groups of 3-4 > Present blog post, theory, logical map, annotated bibliography. Present the organization and structure of your essay. What parts does it include? What does it need? What part should you write first?

Activities for R 10/15

The essay > Remember: 1500 words minimum. We'll work on this over the next several weeks, due Nov 10.

Annotated bibliographies / literature reviews >

1. Add annotations to your Diigo links. Annotations should at least include the following three parts: a) a brief summary of the resource, b) a brief evaluation of the resources; and c) a brief explanation of why the resource is important to your project.
2. You should have a minimum of two resources from either Project Muse or JSTOR. Also, check out Google Scholar.
   
3. Once you complete your annotations, go to your Diigo Library > select the Edit and Manage View (the right hand view option) > select all your bookmarks with the check box in the upper left > select generate report from the pull-down menu.
   
4. Cut and paste your report with annotated links into a new Google Doc >save the Google Doc > name it something related to your project and link it to your blog.
5. Work down the blog list and read at least two others annotated bibliographies. Comment on their blog, suggesting improvement to the annotations, and suggesting additional resources relating to their project.
   

Collaborative Document >

The entire class will write a single document on the course topic. This allows us to see how the projects are related; to look for problems in our arguments; and to see how ideas developed in the course come together to make something larger than the individual projects. Today we will start by knocking heads together - just putting ideas into the collaborative document. Later, each of you will add to and expand your contributions.

1. Use Wordpad or something similar to: write one sentence describing your research topic; and then to write at least one, maybe more, ideas or theories emerging from your topics.
2. Paste your writing into the collaborative document. (You should have received an email invitation to edit the Doc.)
3. Be sure to include your name at the beginning. For example, Sandy says [and then add your text].
   

Note: we will all be editors of the document, but only 10 can actively edit at a time; after the limit of 10, others can only view.

Activities for T 10/13

Looking ahead in the syllabus

Final Diigo bookmarks....

Theory presentation due today!

---

Gaming as a research topic >

• Who plays games? What games do you play?
• Do games supplant narratives/writing as privileged cultural forms? (Note estimates that over 72% of all people in the US played video games last year, whereas more than 25% read no books in the last year)
• How is "playing" like "reading"?
• Is a game a narrative? Is it a kind of writing? Or are games a fundamentally different type of thing? (e.g. difference in types of events, difference in speakers, difference in temporality)
  
• Are things that we agree are games (chess? football?) also narratives? How about Tetris? Is it a narrative? Why or why not?
  
• OK, then is Zork a game? How so?
  
• Look at Nelson's "i made this. you play this. we are enemies."? What is it? (game? narrative?) How about September 12 (which declares "This is not a game.")?
  
• What is the role of narrative/writing within games? How do games contain stories or comes within a story? We may narrate a game after the fact, but is this part of the game? (How?)
  
• Hybrids, e.g. Machinima ("Who's the tank?"), movies and books based on games (Resident Evil, Doom, etc.)
  

Activities for R 10/8

Emoji Dick and Kickstarter



Respond to theory> Read the "theory presentation" of the next three people on the blog list. Respond to each in the comments section of their blog.

• Is the topic clear? Does the presentation theorize the topic? (Don't summarize the topic but tell us about it - premises, assertions, claims)
  
• Is this a guide to the topic? Are there relays that take you from one assertion to the next? What could be added? How could it be re-ordered?
• Visual thinking. Are the images part of the thinking or are they just illustrations? How could the images become more central?
  
• Does the presentation incorporate concepts and arguments from the directed research lectures? How can the writer incorporate concepts from one or more of the lectures?
  
• Narratology (telling the story)
• Remix culture (read/write culture and hybrid creativity)
• Social Software (public display and performance of self)
• Social Media (tactics)

Activites for T 10/6

Diigo bookmarks > arguments and assertions about multimedia authorship (only three more weeks of links)



Theory Presentations > look at three presentations

• Is the topic clear?
• Is this a guide to the topic? Are there relays that take you from one assertion to the next? What could be added? How could it be re-ordered?
• Visual thinking. Are the images part of the thinking or are they just illustrations? How could the images become more central?

Activities for R 10/1

Diigo bookmarks

Remix Culture >



Read and comment on two other "theory presentations" >

• Look down the blog list. Choose the blog after yours.
• Read their "theory presentation" draft in Google Docs and write comments on their blog, following the general guidelines set out for Tuesdays class and previous class.
• Once you finish, comment on the next person in the list. Do at least two. If you reach the bottom of the list, go to the top.