Third Assignment

Choose one of the options below and write an essay in response. Your essay should be at least three and a half pages in length and should not exceed six pages. Use double-space lineation, a 12-point serif font, and one-inch margins on all sides. Your writing is expected to be error-free and up to university standards.

Essay should be argumentative essays: there should be one main thesis that the essay attempts to support/prove. The thesis represents your own original insight into the topic.

The assignment is due on February 6th, but may be handed in up to one week late without penalty. Consult the course outline for further information about late assignments.

Option 1: Text Visualization

Examine the following two text visualization tools:
      • A Text Explorer
      • TextArc
Write an essay that compares the functionality and usefulness of the two text visualization tools. What can these tools reveal about texts through visualization? What can they not reveal? How useful are these for the study of texts (for literary studies, history studies, etc.)? What constitutes their visual appeal?

Option 2: Science and Human Visualization

Examine the following two digital videos:
      • Mitochondria: Powering the Cell
      • 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes
Write an essay that compares the use of visualization in the two videos. Focus your discussion on how the data from sciences and social sciences are being visualized to say something about humanity. Analyze the appeal of these videos from the perspective of at least two of the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities.

Option 3: Digital Pedagogy

Find two articles or essays about the use of technology in classrooms (at the primary, secondary, or tertiary/university level). The articles or essays should appear in respectable news magazines (such as Macleans, Time, and Newsweek), or in magazines about pedagogy. Write an essay focussing on the rhetoric of the essays. What are the assumptions behind what is being said? How are the authors able to persuade us of their points? How is digital technology being treated and portrayed? The essays/articles can focus on negative or positive aspects of digital pedagogy, can focus on the use of tools for teaching, and can focus on the use of digital gadgets by students in a classroom or school setting.

Option 4: Gaming

Write an analysis of a computer game. Note that you are analyzing the game from the perspective of humanistic enquiry (not from a psychological, marketing, computer/graphic design, or sociological perspective). You may follow the guidelines presented in class, and you are certainly free to deviate from these if you feel you can produce a better essay by doing so. You may choose any computer game (though you should probably choose wisely). Unless I am very familiar with the game, you must include with your essay a one- to two-page appendix (that does not count towards the page count of the essay) that briefly summarizes the game: its goals, method of play, and anything else you think needs to be said as background. Keep separate from your essay an explanation of how to play the game and how it works: the essay itself must focus on an analysis of the game.