ENGL 215: Writing about Games
Credit Hours: (3)
Examination of the history, culture, and aesthetic expression of video games, tabletop
(board) games, and other ludic experiences, including the critical methods that inform
the way writers write about games. Students will analyze and evaluate leisure and
serious games, describe and compare game traditions, explore how games often neglect
to represent diverse identities, discuss the business of writing about games, and
create a number of written and multimedia genres related to game studies.
Detailed Description of Content of Course
Much like a culture’s writing practice in general, games as artistic expressions provide
insight into the people by whom they are produced and consumed. Just as ancient board
games like Mancala are key artifacts for humanistic inquiry in order to understand
past societies, today’s games articulate much about who we are and what we value.
Games both influence and are influenced by other elements of culture, as we see game
adaptations of books and movies as often as games themselves are depicted through
other media. This course asks students to explore the rhetorical dimensions of writing
within and about games, considering both how games are a form of writing and how writing
hybridizes genre conventions. While both games and writing have long been important
expressions of what a society values, students in this class will come to better understanding
how the two are mutually informative. Students will consider how games inform writing,
how writing informs games, and how both games and writing compose the world at large.
Course topics and activities will include
- History of game studies, including its evolution from its ancient past as one of the
oldest forms of human interaction to a codified field that operates in multiple cultural,
educational, and economic contexts.
- The main outcomes of game studies; some of those outcomes include empathy, collaboration
and professionalism, clarity of communication, the ability to determine and understand
the component parts of a problem, social justice advocacy (in the case of serious
games), and effective approaches to learning.
- The definition of genre and how a game’s form and content contribute to an understanding
of genre from the perspectives of game players.
- The rhetorical dimensions of games, such as how they use simulated processes to make
arguments about the way real world processes operate through visual and procedural
rhetoric.
- The study of gaming discourse communities, including common public goals, methods
of intercommunication, use of feedback, use of multiple genres, development of vocabulary,
and cultivation of expertise.
- The ways that serious games argue for social justice and “real-life” change.
- The extent to which games reflect, remake, and mobilize notions of race, ability,
gender, class, sexuality, etc., and their intersections.
- Controversies surrounding the production, consumption, and critique of games.
- The use of creative writing strategies and genres in game studies.
- The use of professional writing strategies and genres in game studies.
Detailed Description of Conduct of Course
Depending on instructor preference, the course may incorporate the following instructional
strategies:
- Peer-to-peer and peer-to-instructor conferences
- Lecture
- “Flipped” lectures facilitated by D2L
- Small- and large-group discussions
- Experiential learning activities
- Peer-led learning
- Guest lectures
- Field visits
- Computer-assisted instruction
- Collaborative learning
Student Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, a student will be able to successfully:
- Define the concerns of game studies as a field of study.
- Define game, play, and interactivity.
- Analyze writing models and the frameworks contemporary writers use to investigate
games.
- Explain the purpose of games for various groups, including leisure players, educators,
and business professionals.
- Analyze tropes, themes, and metaphors used in game play and compare their emergence
across genres, styles, and historical periods.
- Analyze the ways in which gender, ability, race, class, sexuality, etc., are implicated
in games.
- Produce analytical, argumentative, and/or reflective writing about gaming for academic
and non-academic audiences.
- Identify what they know about game studies and how this knowledge contributes to their
professional goals.
Additionally, this course meets the following goal and outcomes for the E REAL designation:
Learning Goal: To explore humanistic or artistic expression through inquiry or creativity.
Learning Outcomes:
- Students demonstrate understanding of diverse ideas, languages, products, or processes
of humanistic inquiry or artistic expression.
- Students critically evaluate, synthesize, or create forms of human expression or inquiry.
Assessment Measures
Depending on instructor preference, students may be assessed via
- Quizzes and homework
- Informal, in-class writing exercises
- Informal, targeted writing activities completed outside of class, such as reading
responses, journals, or logs
- Formal composition activities, such as traditional academic essays but also reflective,
professional, digital, and multimodal writing assignments
- Outlines, drafts, and revision work of major assignments
- Peer-to-peer writing workshops
- Creative projects, including game prototypes
- Essay exams
- Oral exams
- Collaborative/individual projects or presentations
- Class discussion
Other Course Information
Not Applicable
Review and Approval
March 29, 2024