Week Ahead: 2

2	8/30	Sign up for your domain and install and configure WordPress.
	9/1	Bogost HTDTWV “Media Microecology” (1-8).Also, create subdomain for this class, install and configure WordPress.
	9/2	First sidequest due: Create an Avatar

If you haven’t already, register a domain and install WordPress in it — in the terms of your Homestead assignment, purchase your land and build a small house. (More detailed instructions are included on the Homestead assignment page and there are links from there to even more detailed instructions.) Definitely have that completed before class on Thursday (if you run into troubles, email me).

If you can, also go ahead and create a subdomain for this course and install WordPress in it — in gaming terms, add your Main Hall. (Note: the second time you install WordPress, choose the subdomain you created from the location menu, and make certain you delete the /blog/ subdirectory that Installatron suggests.) Follow the instructions on the Homestead assignment page to configure some of the basic settings for your subdomain (static front page, create a menu and add custom links to your primary domain and to the class page, and add the Meta widget to your site). I’d like you to have this done by class on Thursday, but if it takes you a day or two later than that, it’s okay.

Before class on Thursday, also read the introductory chapter of Bogost’s How to Do Things with Videogames (PDF of those first few pages below). Think about the rhetorical situation for this chapter:

• What are Bogost’s primary goals? What does he want to persuade his readers to believe or what behavior(s) does he hope to foster in his readers?
• What is the context for this book? Based on what you know of discussions about videogames, and especially based on the ways in which Bogost characterizes that discourse within the chapter itself, how does this book respond to already ongoing conversations?
• What audience(s) is Bogost writing for?

I’ve shared two folders in Google Drive with each of you — one folder that includes the entire class and one folder for each student that is shared only by that student and me. Make certain you can access both of those folders. Starting on Thursday, we can begin to take notes together and work in documents together in class.

We’ll also spend a bit of time in class on Thursday going over the first sidequest assignment.

Download Bogost “Media Microecology”