rgMOOC 2, or "Rhetoric and Composition: The Persuasive Power of Video Games as Paratexts," is a type of gMOOC that applies the principles of connectivism and game-based learning to rhetoric and composition studies. Participants will be playing and writing about video games from various game genres for 10 weeks, and develop rigorous academic research and writing skills through game studies.
rgMOOC 2, or "Rhetoric and Composition: The Persuasive Power of Video Games as Paratexts", is the second version of a pilot and an experimental rhetoric and game-based massive open online course that will run 10-weeks between September 2, 2013 - November 10, 2013. This course is co-created by Sherry Jones and Kate Guthrie Caruso, and is completely free and open for anyone to take (we welcome gamers, non-gamers, writers, educators, or enthusiastic learners to join us!). Given the title of the course, your immediate questions may be: 1) what is a paratext?; 2) how are video games persuasive? Throughout this course, we will go over theories in rhetoric, such as "procedural rhetoric," to help you understand why digital games are socio-political texts that actually make claims about the physical world. We will go over writing composition and textual strategies with which to participate in collaborative writing exercises. Essentially, we will learn to play, analyze, and write about digital games together. rgMOOC 2 will be organized based on the theories of connectivism and game-based learning, so do expect to use a variety of social media tools to complete co-writing exercises that will help improve your writing skills through gaming. We will also be exploring the world of Minecraft in the coming weeks!
