Category: Student Posts

My roommate recommended this class to me. She was taking Professor Morgen’s freshman writing class last semester, sharing all the interesting assignments like “mimicking a film scene” with me. I was a little bit jealous and so impressed by how students in the class are encouraged to do the creative works. So, without a doubt, I chose professor Morgen’s class this semester as well. It turns out that taking English 101 is one of the wisest choices I have made for my freshman class registration. I felt so engaged and appreciate the growth that this class gave me. Let me lead you to go through the amazing course and what it has taught me.

The rhetorical composition is an essential skill that we are supposed to learn from the writing class. The class, Play Make Write Think, encouraged me to compose in multiple modes: writing, speaking, videoing, painting, and so on. By all these means, I found a way to express my ideas to a broader audience with spurred wiliness and confidence. This time, we were not only asked to write a page for the professor to read but also to a much large group of audience who were total strangers. Of course, publishing the work to the public was quite hesitating at first. Imagining the work would be posted on a public platform, and to be viewed, at least, by all the classmates is uncomfortable, or a little bit embarrassing. I still remember when posting the first Avatar Sidequest, though I finished the content in advance, it took me a lot of time and courage to click on the publishing button because I was afraid of not doing good and being judged by others. But, through times of posting, the fear gradually faded away. I turned to be comfortable with publishing my work online after making my first podcast. In my first podcast, as the line producer, I was responsible for a performative voice-over part; and it was the first time I literally talked to the unknown audience, with the most shaming voice I could ever get: me intentionally pretending like a factitious high-school girl. But for the sake of the interestingness, we made the voice-over as a big part of the episode. After accepting the worst version of my voice, producing the rest—making the other two podcasts, videoing for Sidequests, posting reflections on WordPress—would not be problems for me. After transiting to the remotely studying mode, people rely heavier on the internet to study or communicate; profit from this class, I am no longer afraid to compose via different media to a general audience and enjoy conveying my ideas to other people.

I am grateful that the class Play Make Write Think pushed me forward to talk, which makes me a more collaborative person in the group. To be honest, as I have performed in many other courses in the college, I am never the rustler in the classes, sometimes being too shy to share my idea in public or just not a fluent verbal expresser. At first, seeing the syllabus saying that participation is critical in this class, I was so apprehensive. However, getting more involved in the class, I found out that participating actually required the least effort. Game is such a relaxing topic to talk about that I felt much more confident and willing to share my experiences with others, to voice my ideas out, and to feel engaged in the discussions. Contributing to the class discussion is no longer as a demand but a genuine urge to communicate with classmates. As the class moving on, more and more opportunities came forth: playing multiplayer games like Mansions of Madness and Fiasco, producing the podcasts, posting the Hometasking challenge on the public website, and so on. Opening myself, I became accustomed to communicate with the classmates, or sometimes the other players too. The communicating skills helped me to have a great time exchanging ideas and to generate new one from another.

Though English 101 Play Make Write Think came to me as a writing class, I would like to say that for the most of the time, students are creating rather than writing. The compositions in the class is not bounded by media, which gives us a chance to express our ideas through the most appropriate way we would like. Meanwhile, writing became a process, best reflected in the podcast producing. For the three podcasts we produced, we gradually improved. For the first podcast Doki Doki Literature Club, there was not a clear structure at first. When recording the contents, the words just freely flowed out, saying the first thing came to our mind as analyzing the game. The lack of a general structure makes the post-edition much more time-consuming than we thought it would be. Learning from that, we figured out that even the aural composing includes writing as a process. Taking composition step by step is the most efficient way to form an intact piece of work. Keeping this idea in mind, we changed our working process for the works later: coming out with an outline with bullet points we summarized from meetings with Professor Morgen, adding details separately on the aspects that we were interested in, going through each other’s points to give suggestions and to come up with transitions, and coming up with a final draft to record accordingly. Even though we were physically separated due to the quarantine, we still complete the other two podcasts about Plague Inc. and Undertale enthusiastically and productively. The final conclusion is also a crucial step in completing the podcast. Based on the reflection of the previous podcasts, we accumulate the experience and apply the lectures to the next one. It might be cliché, but I could really feel that the error of the past is the wisdom of the future.
Critical thinking is another valuable learning outcome for this course. Just as we have come up within our Plague Inc. podcast, “sometimes a game is more than a game.” We analyzed how an entertaining game also carries the mission of educating, mentally consoling, and promoting introspection. When I play a game now, I try to stand in the developer’s shoes, probing the purpose of why and how they produce the game, which is also suitable to be applied in other fields. Learning from the book SuperBetter, I now try to apply McGonigal’s thoughts of how games are made for a purpose: to view our life with a gamely sight. Also, by analyzing the games, I begin to think critically. As I have mentioned in my podcast reflection, I found out that there is a common characteristic shared by the three great games we focused on: breaking the fourth wall. It is not hard to broaden this conclusion that the audience nowadays enjoys the blurry boundary between the virtual world and reality. The practical and critical thinking ability I have prepared for this class is leading me to become a better analyst, which is apparently helpful on my future journey studying in the college.

Overall, English 101 Play Make Write Think, different than a traditional writing class, is more adaptive in the modern world where people take their digital citizenship an inseparable part of themselves. Taking this class, I am not only introduced to various practical technologies like WordPress, Audacity, even Procreative, the application I sometimes use to draw for the Sidequests; but I am also encouraged to grow: to composed through various modes, to step out of my comfort zone communicating and collaborating, and to be capable of thinking critically and independently. From English 101 Play Make Write Think, I have learned a lot of skills that I will definitely apply to the future classes. Thanks to such a great lesson that it overall makes me a better person in writing, studying, and self-expressing.

Seventy-nine to eighty-one percent of published statistics are incorrect, made-up, or found to be unsubstantiated after a deeper numerical analysis or secondary study (French Connerie Journal).

I originally had decided on a number closer to ninety, yet ultimately decided against anything above eighty-two. The suspension of disbelief couldn’t support such a number starting with a nine. I’d argue the citation to the French Journal might have helped support a few extra percentage points but I didn’t want to push it. 

From self-proclaimed health gurus to presidential candidates, people lie and perpetuate the spread of misinformation. Often, this is nothing more than a defense mechanism that people have developed to protect their own beliefs. When confronted with evidence or logic which contradicts a value held, rather than admitting a belief might be wrong or needing revision, false statistics are utilized. Oftentimes, the choice to lie or miscite information is not a conscious decision. Rather, a vulnerable opinion with no defenses left creates an escape plan and blurts out what seems like a white lie. It’s happened to me and I’ve even “won” arguments due to a faulty statistic or white lie, convincing myself that they could be accurate. Small fibs like “Yeah mom, I brushed my teeth” seem innocent to both the toddler and the parent who knowingly asks to smell the toddler’s breath (just me?).  

However, those porkies might not be so harmless. In SuperBetter, Jane McGonigal argues that “the more you repeat a thought pattern, the stronger the neural networks that drive it become … and the more likely you are to repeat that thought pattern in the future” (89). This argument results in two conclusions: people’s actions are direct products of their habits and those habits are hardwired into the brain. Therefore, a person’s sentience might not necessarily control the response to certain stimuli or events. For example, a student who typically procrastinates might create plans for a drawn-out and lengthy writing process for an assignment. Despite all their good intentions and effort to change, their habits, aided by YouTube tutorials on sleight-of-hand-card-tricks, betray the plan and last-ditch caffeine-induced all-nighter occurs. 

The college years are some of the most formative times for youth; in addition to our academic habits, we students construct our identity and set goals for who we want to become. Through a nontraditional course structure, I was forced to approach the course’s learning outcomes and build healthy habits for future academic endeavors and the game of life. 

This semester, I have greatly improved my skills as a mediator between my initial creative thoughts and the polished product. Often, I struggle with rushing into projects without a grand-plan or sense of purpose. Despite originating from harmless excitement, my “jovial and thrill-seeking nature” (SideQuest 1) often results in uncalculated risks, unplanned activities, and extensive backtracking. For instance, my vision for a grand green bean arch resulted in myself sowing more than 120 seeds without realizing seeds grow. Nor did I consider our garden is not “grand” enough to house twelve rows and thirteen columns of green beans. The assignment reflections require an introspective analysis of the creative decisions I make and their importance. Throughout the semester, I developed a habit of making more deliberate decisions during my writing process. I even brainstormed for a few minutes before this reflection letter . . . Progress!!

The podcast series greatly tested my collaboration skills; yet resulted in more confidence regarding group work with deadlines, navigating ulterior circumstances, and not squirming while listening to my voice. As an avid podcast listener, I’ve encountered numerous episodes with audience engagement issues. With a fear of mindless droning, we incorporated “comedic breaks, an active script… and upbeat music” in our first podcast (Risky Business). During recording, I uncovered a severe speech impediment: sounding much worse than I do in my head. In the second podcast, we went into the void and embraced full snark. The tone felt more natural and I even sounded less horrible. Taking the project less seriously and making self-aware jokes helped me feel at ease and enjoy recording more. Good vibes extended into the third podcast and resulted in the most refined and engaging podcast our group created.  

Embracing sarcasm with the podcasts represented a general trend of becoming comfortable in an intellectual setting. As a hard-core STEM major, I have a natural inclination to think analytically. This logic doesn’t leave room for creativity, clear group communication, and even hinders the overall enjoyment. With weekly writing assignments, I honed in on finding a better balance of humor and rhetoric which improved my outlook on my writing process. I had plenty of fun working on Sidequests and playing with the mix of analysis and banter. I’m specifically proud of the side quest about organizing the contents of our bookbag into an aesthetically pleasing way. Bummer I couldn’t put my award-winning calves in the photo. I’m a part-time Calve model, sometimes even Knees too. The faux anecdotes about the “next opportunity to try to get by as a D3 Cheese Roller” paired with genuine remarks about my insomnia was a nice balance of sarcasm and genuinity. Genuiness? Giannis Antetokounmpo?. It was difficult to decide which items’ utility can be undermined without subverting their importance. Overall, the second side required a topical synopsis of my identity. As I wrote descriptions for items I carry around, I considered how my possessions can incur judgments on my character, and if that representation is accurate. To craft a false narrative about drugs or sarcastically admitting I’m trying to appear quirky, I realized that I wasn’t as secure in my intellect as others might think. In addition to uncovering my Imposter Syndrome, exploring a lighthearted tone paved the way for more experimental writing throughout the semester. 

This extended into the final portion of our classwork, the Hometasks. The tasks resulted in some of the goofiest moments in my academic career. Literally, I put on a cowboy hat, threw a whip over my shoulder, and am receiving genuine college credit at a top 25 university. With the heroics of Indiana Knight, the Hometasks served as a form of enjoyment and creative output during a tough and unexpected transition. Additionally, they served a case study for applying the gameful attitude to substantial issues. If the attitude I approached a problem with helped bear self-quarantining, what else could be accomplished by adopting a more gameful perspective? 

Initially, we defined games as “intense focus and labor to accomplish an optional task” (Page 3 of My notebook). Adopting a gameful approach imposes a joyous and self-aware perspective on an issue. Recognizing a task might not be necessary can remove pressure and expectations while enabling creative thought. Throughout this class, the side quests, podcasts, home-tasks, and reflections enabled me to become a more decisive creator, maintain a lighthearted approach to difficulties, and supremely, become excited when a new challenge arises. Unless the challenge is explaining to my mother how us sharing a Spotify account prohibits both of us from playing music at the same time.  

Finally, as my work for English 101-7 comes to a head in this reflection letter, I welcome you to my classwork blog. Ignore the frequently terrible attempts at comedy, and I hope you enjoy it. Information about the course can be found at the course site. I’m going to go tell my mom that Spotify has a record player for each account and can only spin one song at a time. Wish me luck. 

The experience of taking ENG 101 section 9 has been a wonderful journey for me. As a student with English as my second language, I developed an averse and fearful attitude towards writing classes throughout high school due to the difficulty for me to process and come up with a piece of writing in a comparatively unfamiliar language. I was even more nervous for a college-level writing class, worrying that it might be the most stressful and intense course in my schedule. Going through this semester, my experience was the exact opposite of what I expected: I no longer felt stress and anxiety toward writing. I noticed that writing in this course was much easier for me, not caused by lower standards or the sudden appearance of personal interest, instead, we “write” differently. Our writing assignments were derived from various activities and tasks we completed; based on my main takeaways from each of the tasks, I categorize our course outcomes into four categories: writing process, rhetorical thinking, collaboration, and creativity, which all contribute to our big theme of the course–gamefulness. Although gaming has been an activity widely discouraged by parents due to academic purposes, our motive is to discover and analyze what can we learn from games and how can we apply them, not just to writing, but our life as a whole. 

Most of the assignments we completed require students to develop different stages to complete the task and follow the steps to generate the final piece.  For example, one of the biggest projects we had to complete in this course was producing our own podcasts, where we had to thoroughly experience and analyze a game of our own choice, and express it in a form of a podcast episode. I did my podcast episode on the game League of Legends, where I briefly introduce the setting of the game and analyze the strategies, skills, and real-life applications involved in the game in depth. The first step of producing the podcast was communicating with my teammates to come up with an outline of different categories, such as probing, telescoping, and synchronization, and what to be included in each topic. Next, we brainstormed specific examples of major aspects to help with audiences’ comprehension. After writing the outline, I met with my assistant producer and recorded the episode by carrying out a natural conversation discussing the game. In the end, we edited our recording to make the conversation more smooth and the main argument more clear. Though the production process does not sound like traditional writing assignments where we have to submit a fifteen-page essay, the experience and goal have minimal deviations from traditional writing. Similar to writing an essay, producing a podcast requires students to create an outline of the work, generate their own thoughts and opinions, and think about what will be the best way to communicate them to the audience. In addition, editing the recording at the end is the same as revising an essay after finishing it to correct grammatical errors, sentence structures, and strengthen the central idea that is done in traditional writing,

            The rhetorical situations we learned during our second class meeting has been an important element in completing different assignments. Rhetorical situation is an important area in writing for both the author and the readers to consider the context, intention, and genre of the text. We were able to apply the skill of rhetorical analysis through playing Fiasco. Fiasco is a story-telling game, each student was a unique character and had to “write” stories in a form of creating a scene with other characters in response to the dynamic storyline and conditions. Playing this game requires a great amount of critical thinking, as there is no fixed plot–everything happens as you go. The most important part of playing Fiasco is to analyze other characters’ stories–what are their secret motives, what are the tones of their dialogues, what can I do in response–in order to reach an ideal ending, which is a great practice of rhetorical thinking where students actively analyze the perspective and purpose of the narrators and their texts. In addition, after each assignment, we are required to write a reflection about our experiences completing each task and main takeaways on the class website, which is a good way to look at other students’ work to stimulate fresh perspectives and ideas through analyzing their ways of approaching the assignment and developing the work.

While most writing classes require students to complete individual assignments, collaborative writing is fairly common in this course. At the beginning of the semester, we were required to play a board game as a group, where players form teams and communicate together to come up with strategies and work together to lead to victory. Producing podcast episodes is also a form of collaborative writing since students work as a team and each team member can contribute different opinions and aspects to make the podcast more complete and diverse. The most intense collaborative writing has to be the experience of playing Fiasco since it’s what the game is intended to do: as different characters, students took turns to produce a scene with other characters through a series of dialogues, narrative, and description to push the storyline forward while brainstorming how to respond to unexpected situations and fulfill their own required conditions until reaching the end of the story. In short, Fiasco is a story generator for a group in a fun, exciting, and gameful way. I very much enjoyed the experiences of collaborative writing in this course because I always learn something new–a new idea, a new perspective, a new strategy–and everyone in the group was able to each contribute their own effort and creativity to make the piece more complete as a whole. 

This course completely changed my view of creativity. In the past, I was always an instruction-follower student, which I simply did what the professors told me to do. Generating unique ideas of my own is beyond my comfort zone, and has always been challenging for me. However, beginning from the weekly side quest, I discovered the power of creativity. The side quests that stimulates a great amount of creative thinking was the combo photo, where we had to combine pictures of two completely unrelated objects to form something new, and Sunday sketches, where we have to incorporate a physical object with our drawings on a sheet of paper to transform the object into something new. Both side quests encouraged me to look at things around me in different ways and generate fun pieces of work. For example, in the side quest Sunday Sketches, I was able to get inspiration from pickled radish during breakfast and create a painting of night sky with radish representing the moon–it all comes from paying close attention to your surroundings and thinking outside of the box. Another assignment that led us to think creatively was the 3D printing assignment. I chose to print a mask from a game character, and I learned to look at the object of my choice more than what it’s intended to be and discover what it symbolizes from deeper perspectives:

  “…it reminds me of  the Jigsaw Killer and V from V for Vendetta because all of them have a mask that represents their identity. Personally, I love how the designer incorporated the idea of ‘mask’ into this character because the mask truly brings out the shadowy, dark elements of his identity as a psychotic serial killer…”

I was able to exercise my ability to discover dynamic thoughts of my own towards a simple object and what it represents, which added more emotional components and in depth analysis that elevated my writing. 

The assignment that I appreciated the most, especially during this pandemic, is the home-tasking that our instructor came up with as a substitute for our final game design project. This assignment aims at using limited resources during the quarantine to create spectacular ideas in response to bizarre prompts such as ‘turning your bathroom into a night-out venue’ or ‘silent recreation of your favorite movie scene’. Coming up with creative ideas for each prompt was definitely challenging, not just for me, but also for most of the students in the class; however, I started to look at this assignment in a more ‘gameful’ way: as I became more competitive and ambitious in the assignments, my anxiety towards the pandemic diminished gradually and I developed passions for accepting each prompt as a challenge in my daily life. Using what I learned from Super Better by McGonigal, I looked at each home-tasking assignment as game puzzles, and as a player, I navigate through my house, finding pieces that fit into the puzzle and allies to help me along the way. This mindset is also beneficial for writing and other academic tasks in the future because when I look at a task as a challenge I accepted instead of a stressor that I am forced to face, I had more motivation in completing the task; in addition, I can turn the task from something I ‘have to complete’ into something I ‘want to master.’ All of the students in our class posted their unique ideas on the class website, which opens up a new canvas of colorful, diverse, and creative thoughts for students to learn from each other and stimulates new ways of approaching life and future challenges in different aspects such as academic or work fields. I was especially pleased to see the progress every student made towards the home-tasking assignments — everyone’s work was more serious and effortful towards the end. I believe this assignment brought the whole class together as a community, as we were facing the same challenges and grew together as a whole.   

Overall, I am genuinely grateful for what this class has taught me,  especially for I was able to gradually walk out of my shallow and turning from an instruction-follower to a creative thinker. Like what I wrote in the Fiasco reflection,

“the experiences and lessons that we learned from completing different tasks in this course cannot be easily achieved in a traditional writing class.”

Instead of getting a prompt and sitting quietly in front of the computer, trying to pull out something worth-writing from my brain, we take actions, and write from experience, from fun, from different perspectives of the world, and from gamefulness of life.   

Note: this site is an archive of the work produced by Winslow Wanglee over the course of the spring 2020 semester at Emory in English 101

Throughout my semester in Professor Morgen’s English 101 class, I have thoroughly developed my skills as a writer in ways I could not have foreseen. The unique structure of the class encouraged me to break boundaries in my writing, challenging the structured dogma writing that I had been taught throughout my K-12 education. No longer were we writing bland five paragraph essays. Instead, we explored alternative forms of media, such as podcasts, sidequests, and blog posts, opening new pathways for literary expression. Most importantly, I fulfilled all five of the learning outcomes for the class: rhetorical composition, critical thinking and reading resulting in writing, writing as a process, collaboration, and digital citizenship. 

I utilized the introductory texts to form a framework for my writing for the remainder of the class. In Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter, Steven Johnson talks extensively about the concept of probing, where a player figures out how to play a game through trial and error. I used this concept in my own podcast Minecraft: A Trip Back Through Time, where I say, “As I was playing, I used a bit of probing to create items,” discussing how probing was a tool I used to rediscover the game. I used Johnson’s term and applied it to my own experience playing Minecraft. Another important concept I utilized throughout the semester was the act of thinking gamefully, which Jane McGonigal described in her books SuperBetter and Reality is Broken. To be gameful is to wrestle with the game’s limitations, to play until we exhaust the challenge of the game. Because of Jane McGonigal I tried to think gamefully, exhausting the challenge for whatever game I played. In my Fiasco reflection, I write, “I tried to develop the emotional strengths and weaknesses of my character: in my first scene, I described my ethical dilemma towards my gambling addiction, and how it was fueling my worst behavior and causing me stress. I also described the anxiety of being indebted to bloodthirsty loan sharks, and how that was driving the conflict for my character.” Fiasco is a roleplaying game, which means the best gamer is the one that creates the most multi-layered, thought-provoking story. In Fiasco, I played the full extent of the game by fleshing out the story and the emotional undercurrents as best as I could, effectively incorporating gameful tactics into my writing and play.

My podcast series employed writing as a process of revision, editing, and reflection, while simultaneously supporting collaboration with my peers to work in various rhetorical compositions. I began the process for my Minecraft podcast by writing an outline for my desired theme about nostalgia in video games. Meeting with Professor Morgen helped me revise my idea into a more practical approach where I discussed how Minecraft in particular changed the way I thought as a kid, while briefly discussing the effect of nostalgia. Instead of having it mostly scripted, I also changed the structure to having more moments of discussion between me and my associate producer. I collaborated well with both of my partners when making our podcasts, managing to bounce ideas off them and facilitate discussion. We divied up the work fairly and found the time to work together. After we recorded, I edited the podcast extensively on audacity, deleting awkward pauses and adding music where needed. This process not only strengthened newfound editing skills, it also showed me how to be a good digital citizen; I only used creative commons music and images for my podcast, making sure not to steal intellectual property. After completing the episode I wrote a reflection of the process and accomplishments of the podcast, thus finishing the process of writing successfully. 

The diversity of texts I have created illustrate the new and adaptive rhetorical compositions that I’ve learned throughout English 101. From completing and reflecting on sidequests to creating podcasts using digital and audio tools, I’ve composed texts in many different ways. While previously my works could only be seen by myself and the teacher, from the beginning of the semester I published each reflection and sidequest on my website winslowwanglee.wordpress.com for all to see. Maintaining good digital citizenship, I made sure to credit all sources in my posts. I made sure I understood the purpose and constraints for each post, with some of the sidequest assignments including comedy, such as when I described the contents of my bag, saying, “1 Book (SuperBetter, for eng 101 class, duh); 1 Calculator to get me through Chem 202”. I reserved these playful, comedic moments for some of the smaller assignments while retaining a more serious, analytical approach to the larger reflections for my podcasts or fiasco, demonstrating my knowledge for the purpose of each text. In creating my podcasts with peers, I made sure to incorporate a mixture of scripted and conversational moments, to create an analytical argument that was both structured and contained the more intimate flow of a conversation. The introduction and conclusion were scripted to emphasize the thesis of the podcast in a succinct manner, while the middle of the podcast involved the conversation where the other producer and I fleshed out the podcast’s argument based off of an outline we created. This structure exhibited my recognition that the audience and purpose of a podcast is distinct from a standard analytical essay or reflection; while the podcast is still making an argument, it’s done in a more colloquial way through dialogue between two people, whereas the structure of an essay wouldn’t translate well to that form of media.

The process of hometasking personally helped me transition from an in-person to a virtual learning environment by assuring me that I am not, in fact, alone. Whenever I was tasked to complete a hometask, I could always look to my peers or the other thousands of people hometasking for inspiration. Although I was isolated from my peers physically, I could still gain power ups from my allies to help me complete my tasks, in the words of Jane McGonigal. I managed to defeat the bad guys, including sadness and Covid-19, to collaborate with my peers in online class by discussing our hometasking quests.

My learning inside the class translated wonderfully into my other classes here at Emory. I began to understand the importance and effect of rhetorical composition in my research. For example, in my business economics class I was instructed to describe the macroeconomics of the coronavirus recession as my final paper. During my research, I found that data charts and graphs were the best ways of rhetorically conveying my evidence, and frequently used them to supplement my writing. The graphs are often easier to understand by the reader and incorporate a more diverse rhetorical composition to my essay. Not only did I present this data, I analyzed it by emphasizing the abrupt changes in the economy between February and March 2020 in order to strengthen my argument. English 101 has improved my rhetorical skills both inside and outside the class.

Over the course of the semester, I’ve expanded my repertoire to include novel methods of writing while improving my proficiency in all the learning outcomes. One of my last tasks, entitled The English 101 Menu, illustrated how different parts of the class built off each other to accomplish my learning goals. The appetizers were mainly the early readings, which laid the foundation for the rhetoric of this class. The drinks and desserts are the collaborative games that we played which built my camaraderie and teamwork with the class. Finally, the entrees are the main projects of this class, such as the podcasts and the sidequests, which enabled me realize my full, diverse, rhetorical potential. As the semester comes to an end, I hope to use this menu of delights from Professor Morgen’s class to draw inspiration and impetus for future work.

To find more about David Morgen’s class, https://eng101s20.davidmorgen.org

I still find the existence of this English course magical. When I read the course description on Course Atlas, I could not believe there existed an English course at Emory that allows students to play video games and board games. Were we to spend the whole semester on games, instead of on sentence structures or classic books or root words? We did, and I think that turned out well. 

            For a summary of the assignments in this class, or more precisely the “quests,” please refer to the drawing below. To explicitly address the course outcomes, I assume that listing them out would be the most effective.

            One, rhetorical situation. Before taking this course, the only audience I have written for was the instructor of the course. I had to write formally: no abbreviations or vague adjectives, use long sentences with complicated grammar, and of course, Times New Roman 12-point font double-spaced. Now I realized not everyone enjoy reading formal writing all the time, and not all ideas are delivered through letters printed on paper. I still prefer formal language in reflection essays, but for other assignments in this course, I forced myself to use apostrophes and more colloquial words. For example, the video game podcast I produced with my group requires aural text, and most ideally, it faces the audience in the general public, which might not enjoy deciphering fifty-word long sentences with multiple subordinate parts. Formal writing is not unacceptable in situations as such, but it could be of lower efficiency. Still, as I mentioned in my reflection essay of the Do I Scare You? Doki Doki Literature Club podcast:

I realized a tinge of humor might help. Whether I achieved this purpose I know not, but the experience of attempting to amuse the audience is new for me.

I intend to keep the audience interested by voicing out characters in the game and creating comic relief through editing. In all podcast episodes produced by the class, we chose less formal language to communicate our ideas compared to traditional essays.

            Two, critical thinking, reading and writing. We read plenty of analysis of games in this class, including the book SuperBetter by Jane McGonigal. The insights of these readings and other videos were discussed in class. Games are frequently related with negative descriptions, especially after WHO classified video game addiction as a disorder. However, SuperBetter brings insight to the design of games, and how games could improve a person’s mental state, instead of leading to deterioration. We closely analyzed every game we played in class. I knew that games, including video games, were not simply for fun, but I never viewed them as a form of writing. Some games might not even use words to communicate; they deliver ideas indirectly —through a story, a feeling or even an opinion—and sometimes this could be more convincing than traditional writing. In addition, I find it interesting how this course encourages us to propose opinions against any of the readings and other possible mainstream beliefs. When I drafted our Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC) podcast, I was uncertain if it were appropriate to express disapproval of some existing dating simulators. My professor told me that it would not be a problem. We can express our opinions, so long as relevant and founded.

            Three, writing as a process. At the beginning of the semester, as I mentioned above, I worried whether informal writing was acceptable. For different quests, I used different writing styles. Later into the semester, I found it easier to analyze a game or talk about a quest I completed, for I knew what to look for and my audience. Here I would again mention the podcasts my group produced as a process of writing. We had limited experience from making podcasts, so listening to examples was the first step. There we learned about the use of music and effects of changing tones. Similar to writing traditional essays, after we decided on a specific game, we played through and researched for it. The draft of a podcast includes brainstorming. During the production of the DDLC podcast, I composed the first, raw draft with the main ideas for my group members and our professor to modify. Besides the recording, we still used plenty of typing. The bullet points were for ideas, while a complete script was for recording. In the beginning, I considered talking without a script, which turned out to be extremely inefficient, for my accent forbade me to speak fluently. Eventually we read from a script written in conversational style. Also due to the lack of a script at the beginning, the time we spent editing the raw recording took much longer than most. I had to edit for not only the stuttered words and silences, but to create comic relief as well. Our group learned from experience, which allowed the production time of two other podcasts to decrease significantly.

           Four, collaboration. The quests of the course are open for comments for everyone on the website, which allows receiving constructive criticism. The podcast episodes also depend on collaboration. From brainstorming to recording and to editing, every step requires group members to work together.

           Five, digital identity and citizenship. This course is largely based on the use of technology. Video games themselves are digital, and I have gained a better understanding of the role of video games in contemporary life. Moreover, the podcasts and the WordPress website we created require use of technology and applications such as Audacity.

           And two additional points I would like to mention in this reflection letter.

           Six, how this course influenced me outside the classroom. The technological skill will certainly come of use some day, but there is one more thing. As I produced the Plague Inc. podcast as assistant producer, I realized how my two interests—one in film ad media studies and one in science—might be able to overlap. Within a field of the science community communication is simple, as everyone understands the vocabulary. However, educating or spreading the information to the general public would be more complicated. In this rhetorical situation, less traditional means of writing, such as video games, might become effective.

           Seven, HomeTasking. The final project of a Kickstarter empathy game proposal was replaced by five HomeTasking quests due to the pandemic. Those quests were derived from the popular Taskmaster online tasks. The threat from the virus turned into a series of challenges, and we posted videos of ourselves completing the gameful tasks. Instead of escaping from the stress from the change to remote learning, we embraced a new way to learn as a community. We supported each other as allies. Nobody would be judged for a video s/he made, and we recognized the effort in well-made videos by voting. At first, I was afraid to act out in my videos, but after watching my peers’ bold choices, I decided to follow them. I made it my goal to gain slightly more votes, and I did. It was interesting to see how everyone’s HomeTasking videos grew more creative along the way.

Overall, this has been the most extraordinary class I have taken in my life. Many of the things I learned I did not expect. Most importantly, it taught me to pay attention to my audience.