Due Date: 1/16 (by midnight)
Point Value: 10 points
Submission Guidelines: Papers will be submitted to the class blog

The purpose of these short response papers is to get you thinking about the readings, how they are related, and what most interests you about them. These papers will serve as fodder for our class discussions, and you will be expected to read through your classmates papers prior to class.

Janet Murray, Lev Manovich, and Wendy Chun are all working through various ways of defining and conceptualizing "new media." In this response paper, choose one or more of the following discussion questions and write a 500-word response paper. Be sure to address at least two of the readings in your discussion:

• How do the definitions of new media put forward by these scholars overlap and/or collide?
• How do the discussions of these authors relate to Rushkoff's arguments in Program or Be Programmed?
• How do these authors conceptualize the role of the humanities in the emerging field(s) of new media studies?

Grading Criteria:

When grading these papers, I will be asking:

• Does your paper show evidence that you have carefully read and thought about the assigned reading?
• Have you made specific claims about the readings?
• Have you used specific examples from the readings to support your claim(s)?
• Have you addressed at least two of the readings in your paper?
• Was your paper submitted on time? (I do not accept late work.)
• Is your paper 500 words long?
• Does your paper have minimal grammatical and/or structural problems?

Due Date: 1/23 (by midnight)
Point Value: 10 points
Submission Guidelines: Papers will be submitted to the class blog

The purpose of these short response papers is to get you thinking about the readings, how they are related, and what most interests you about them. These papers will serve as fodder for our class discussions, and you will be expected to read through your classmates papers prior to class.

Janet Murray, Ian Bogost, Michael Mateas, and Andrew Stern discuss procedurality and how it opens up new possibilities for expression, authorship, and argument. In this response paper, choose one or more of the following discussion questions and write a 500-word response paper. Be sure to address at least two of the readings in your discussion:

• What are the differences and/or similarities amongst these authors discussions of procedurality?
• How is procedural authorship the same as or different from other types of authorship?
• What does a focus on procedurality offer scholars, teachers, and theorists in the humanities who are attempting to imagine the future(s) of writing?

Grading Criteria:

When grading these papers, I will be asking:

• Does your paper show evidence that you have carefully read and thought about the assigned reading?
• Have you made specific claims about the readings?
• Have you used specific examples from the readings to support your claim(s)?
• Have you addressed at least two of the readings in your paper?
• Was your paper submitted on time? (I do not accept late work.)
• Is your paper 500 words long?
• Does your paper have minimal grammatical and/or structural problems?

Due Dates:

February 15
Inform7 Project 1.0; Paper, rough draft (both saved to Dropbox prior to class)

February 22
Inform7 Project 2.0; Paper, second draft (both saved to Dropbox prior to class)

March 1
Inform7 Project 3.0 and Paper Due (saved to Dropbox prior to class)

Description
We've read about procedural authorship, and this project will give you a chance to put these ideas to work. Using the Inform7 system, you will design a piece of interactive fiction. Your project will be inspired by Michael Joyce's hypertext novel afternoon: a story. The nature of this "inspiration" is up to you. You may choose to use the content of the novel as your inspiration, or you may choose to focus on the form and structure. Or you may decide to draw upon both.

In addition to designing this piece of interactive fiction, you will write a paper describing and explaining what you've created in terms of the theories of procedurality, procedural authorship, and procedural rhetoric that we've read in class. Your paper will be roughly 1000 words (four pages double-spaced) and will:

1) Explain how your project is related to Joyce's novel. What did you use as inspiration?

2) Explain how your project uses procedural authorship. How does your project make use of procedural expression? What is your project's procedural rhetoric? How would you describe the "process intensity" of your interactive fiction?

3) Explain how you incorporated feedback that you received during the testing phase. Your classmates will play the various versions of your game, and you will incorporate the feedback you receive during this "user tests." Your paper should explain what changes you made and how you addressed this feedback.

Grade Criteria
When grading these papers, I will be asking:

• Does your project show evidence that you have understood and made use of the theories of procedurality that we've read and discussed?
• Does your project use procedural expression effectively?
• Does your paper explain your project's relationship to Joyce's novel?
• Does your paper explain how your project uses procedural expression and/or rhetoric?
• Was your paper submitted on time? (I do not accept late work.)
• Is your paper 1000 words long?
• Does your paper have minimal grammatical and/or structural problems?

Short Paper Due Dates: 3/8, 3/22, 3/29, 4/5
Expanded Paper Draft Due Date: 4/12
Expanded Paper + Mashup Due Date: 4/19

The second half of our course will explore the logic of the mashup. We'll be reading rhetoricians, ancient and modern, and then figuring out what new rhetorical concepts we can build when mashing up these theorists. Each short Ancient+Modern paper will take one ancient rhetorican and one modern rhetorician and combine them to create a new term or concept.

Papers will be 750 words long and will be posted to the class blog. The papers will include a 250-word summary of each theorist and a 250-word explanation of the concept or term that you've created.

These papers will be difficult to write. I'm asking you to do a lot in only 750 words, but this is part of the assignment. When summarizing, you'll have to distill longer pieces of writing. Your task is to give us a 10,000 foot view of these writings and to point out what is most important. Summary should not include any evaluation. I'm not asking you to agree or disagree. I'm asking you to provide a 250-word summary of the author's argument.

Your mashup concept should find a hinge-point between these two authors. What point of overlap can you find? What is the significant of that overlap?

My recommended procedure for these papers is as follows:

1. Read and take notes
2. Set aside for at least one day
3. Read again (paying attention to your notes)
4. Summarize
5. Look for an overlap, a “hinge point” between the two texts
6. Make up a word, concept, phrase
7. Explain what you made up

During class, we'll be working with technologies that you might use to create mashups. You'll have the opportunity to use the concepts you develop in creating those mashups

You will write four of these short papers, and you will expand one of the four into a longer paper for your final project. That expanded paper will be 1500 words long and will be accompanied by a mashup (in whatever medium you choose) that demonstrates the rhetorical concept you've developed.

When grading these Ancient + Modern papers, I will be asking these questions:

• Have you observed the word limits?
• Are you summaries fair and concise?
• Does your concept combine these authors to create something new?
• Have you clearly articulated what your concept means?
• Is your paper written effectively and coherently with very few grammatical errors?
• Was the paper turned in on time?