Contemporary Media and Fiction

This is Prompt 1 for English 230, “Contemporary Media and Fiction” (Fall 2022), at the University of Victoria. It is also available in PDF.

Prompt 1

We spent a chunk of Weeks 2 and 3 discussing how the mood and modalities of a work affect its message. How are stories and fictions like encounters? How do we feel or experience them as we make sense of them? How do those experiences shape the messages that stick with us?

This prompt asks you to consider these three questions by conducting a playthrough of one work we’ve already studied in this class: THE M00D 0F THE M0MENT, Secrets Agent, or Biidaaban (The Dawn Comes).

Aim

Please use your playthrough to show and tell your audience how the particular work you selected combines feeling with meaning. What’s the message of the work? What are its moods? How do they act together?

You should include first-person commentary about the work’s moods, modalities, and messages with examples from it. This way, your remarks converse with your primary source, like a dialogue between you and the work. A point of reference here might be the Let’s Play (LP) format.

Format

Please compose your playthrough according to one of the following LP formats:

• 500-750 words accompanied by 8-10 images (a format comparable to early LPs published in forums and blogs) or
• 4-5 minutes of video including text or audio commentary (a format comparable to more recent LPs published on YouTube and the like)

If I’m ignoring another possible LP format, then please let me know. I’m open to suggestions.

Your 8-10 images or your 4-5 minutes of video may document or “capture” your primary source; however, they may also document or “express” your experience of that source. You’re thus welcome to get creative with documentation, if you wish.

Do not publish your playthrough online. (We’ll talk more about fair dealing in class.)

Audience

Your audience is other students in English 230. You can thus assume they are familiar with the work you selected (M00D, Secrets, or Biidaaban). Your playthrough should guide them through your experience of some of that work (not all of it), meaning your playthrough will be partial. Your selection of primary source material will therefore be important as evidence of what you wish to communicate to your audience and share with them.

Your playthrough should also reference and expand upon concepts, lectures, and discussions from our English 230 class meetings. Rely on details whenever possible. Here again, your playthrough is like a dialogue: use it to converse with other people in this class about what you’re learning and thinking about. (Optional: during class I’ll ask if any of you wish to share your playthrough with the rest of us. We can always project onto the classroom screen what you cook up, if you’d like.)

All this means your playthrough will likely differ a bit from most LPs published online. You’ll address a specific audience (your peers), and your commentary will be a touch more academic given the nature of this university assignment. Thanks for your patience.

Tips

• This response is not an essay. Think of it like you might think of an LP: as an exercise in sharing your experience of a work while commenting on it.
• Pick only one work (M00D, Secrets, or Biidaaban), focus on it, and read / watch / play / listen to it multiple times. Take notes and document your experience as you go.
• Consider the modalities your selected work engages or is designed to engage: audition, vision, and touch, for instance. Also consider absences. What goes unsaid? Or what’s not shown or written? What can’t you interact with?
• Your selected work probably conveys many messages. Try identifying just one or two and then commenting (in the grammatical first person) on what you think it wants you to know, consider, believe, imagine, or do.
• Ditto with moods: your work is probably a mix of them. Try identifying just one or two and then commenting (in the grammatical first person) on what they make you feel (sadness, fear, frustration, or sympathy, for example) and when or how they make you feel it.
• Integrate your materials regardless of which format you select. Ensure they speak to each other. Avoid, for instance, writing 500-750 words in a document and then simply attaching 8-10 images. Include the images in the document itself.
• Return when necessary to the three questions at the top of this prompt: How are stories and fictions like encounters? How do we feel or experience them as we make sense of them? How do those experiences shape the messages that stick with us?
• Finally, selection is important for a playthrough like this one. You can’t share the entire work with your audience, so which parts will you pick and why? How will they demonstrate the work’s moods, modalities, and messages?

Assessment

I will assess your response to Prompt 1 based on the following criteria:

• Engagement with the prompt, class discussions, and concepts from class (25%): how well and to what degree the response follows the prompt, engages the class, and also engages the class material
• Selection of examples as evidence (25%): how effectively the response shares parts of a given work (M00D, Secrets, or Biidaaban) to demonstrate the work’s moods and messages
• Quality of commentary (25%): how effectively the response explains the relationship between mood, modality, and message in the selected work (25%)
• Potential of the playthrough (25%): the degree to which the response could be expanded into another LP, or a longer LP, to further develop its line of inquiry about moods, modalities, and messages

You will receive one mark for each of these four criteria, which will be tallied (.25 x 4) to result in your grade for Prompt 1. I will send feedback to you via Brightspace. I will use UVic’s grading system for assessment, according to this rubric: “exceeds and raises expectations” (A+), “exceeds expectations” (A, A-), “exceeds some expectations” (B+), “meets expectations” (B, B-), “meets some expectations” (C+, C), “meets few expectations” (D), and “no submission.” You will have an opportunity to revise your response to Prompt 1, 2, or 3 by Friday, December 2nd. This revision can only improve your mark.

What to Submit

Your response to Prompt 1 should be either 500-750 words accompanied by 8-10 images or 4-5 minutes of video including text or audio commentary.

You should submit it via Brightspace. Look for the “Prompt 1” assignment. Feel free to submit more than one file, if need be. If I cannot access the file or its format, then I’ll let you know.

Please include references somewhere in your submission (at the end of your video or Word document, for instance). Here are citations for the three works at hand (change the access dates, if you wish):

• Kittaka, Marina. Secrets Agent. Itch.io, 2014, https://even-kei.itch.io/secrets-agent. Accessed 6 September 2022.
• Strong, Amanda and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. Biidaaban (The Dawn Comes), CBC Arts, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWjnYKyiUB8. Accessed 6 September 2022.
• Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries. THE M00D OF THE M0MENT, 2007, https://www.yhchang.com/THE_MOOD_OF_THE_MOMENT_V.html. Accessed 6 September 2022.

Email me if you’ve any questions about making, formatting, or uploading any of these files. I don’t want you to spend much time on the technical particulars, especially if you’re just wondering what I can access or download.

When to Submit It

Please submit your response to Prompt 1 via Brightspace by Tuesday, September 27th at 1:30pm.