Semester Overview of due_dates Category

Final participation portfolio, emphasizing your accomplishments since the previous portfolio. Follow the same format as the last two portfolios.

Emphasize especially

• your contributions to the online discussions of student-selected readings, games, and term projects
• your contributions to peer-led discussions

Post a link from here to your blog entry by 4pm.

Minimum 6 pages, not counting the works cited list. Demonstrate your ability to respond substantially to the feedback I gave you on your draft.

Your assessment of your own online article presentation, and your participation in the presentations of your peers.

About four pages, demonstrating your ability to use academic sources (not random web pages, homework posted by undergraduates, or magazine/newspaper articles) to support a non-obvious, debatable claim about your chosen games studies topic.

The page devoted to the Presubmission Report has more details about the assignment; I won't repeat all that material here.

Don't forget to include the games themselves in an MLA-style Works Cited list. (Check your Basic Comp or STW handbook for the details.)

A new participation portfolio, covering your accomplishments since the first portfolio was due.

Advance work for an academic research paper that explores some aspect of game culture and theory. (What is a college research paper?)

Your presubmission report is a single word processor file, about 2-3 pages, uploaded to Turnitin.com, that includes the following, numbered sections:

Locate three peer-reviewed academic articles or books on a gaming topic of your choice. Note that not all books are academic; and encyclopedias, fan sites, and news reports are not peer-reviewed.

Propose a research project. What specific game(s) or research question do you want to explore? What has already been published about your topic, and what do you feel remains left unsaid?

Update (answering Jessie's question):

You can post your idea here, put it on your blog (and post the URL here), or e-mail me (with a brief note reminding me to check my e-mail for your proposal).

I'll offer feedback in whatever forum you choose. And if you feel it would help, we could arrange phone call, too.

This is advanced preparation for Ex 6.

Choose two articles from the Williams and Smith textbook that are not already on the syllabus, and explain why you think the class would benefit from reading each one. I will choose four or five articles, and name students to lead an online discussion of those articles, in the empty slots that are already listed on the syllabus.

Read Consalvo (in Williams and Smith 203-222). What are the benefits and drawbacks of treating this article as an exploration of gender? Write a 500-word response that demonstrates your ability to engage with an academic text. (Upload to Turnitin.com.)

Rather than listing the benefits and drawbacks in different paragraphs, then tacking on an intro and conclusion, take and support a non-obvious, debatable claim that explores gender and Consalvo's article.

Other disciplines may have a very specific, formal way to critique an academic article. I'm asking for the kind of persuasive paper you wrote towards the end of Basic Comp or STW, in which you take a clear stand (not "There are many interesting things to say about this paper," or "Some may say this paper is X, and some may say that it is Y, but I'm going to argue that it is Z.") and back it up with specific evidence (in this case, quotations from the essay we're reading).  You've already been doing this, on a small scale, when you quote from the assigned chapters on your blog. Now I'm asking you to do so on a larger scale, so that you can get my feedback on your academic writing, before we launch into the term paper.