Games, Learning, and Life Lessons (EBIGFY)

Long Writing

Everything Bad is Good for You

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  • Duration:
  • Intended for: Individuals
  • Formality: Graded
  • Completes in: 9 steps
  • Comments: 0
  • Materials: 2
Published 14 recipes

Michelle is a writing instructor at St. Louis Community College-Forest Park where she teaches developmental writing and composition classes. She received her PhD in rhetoric…

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Assignment Overview

This paper builds on students’ abilities to summarize what they’ve read by asking them to focus on specific terminology from the reading and follow that up with reflection on their own experiences, synthesizing the two into a single, cohesive paper.

In the chapter on games in Everything Bad is Good for You, Johnson argues that games teach complex problem solving skills through two main concepts: probing and telescoping. Probing is the short-term focus of trial and error in a gaming environment while telescoping is the long-term planning required to complete nested, hierarchical tasks in order to reach the ultimate objective of the game.

In this paper, students are asked to define each of those two terms for an audience who has not read the chapter and then apply those two terms to their own life experiences by explaining how probing and telescoping play a role in problem solving outside of the gaming world.

Assignment Sheet
“This is What Candy Crush Saga Does to Your Brain”

Image: CC from Katie Mollon

Required Materials
  • Everything Bad is Good for You
  • Candy Crush Article
Skills developed
  • Reading Comprehension
  • Summary
  • Narrative
  • Synthesis
  • Organization
9 Steps to complete

1. Read "Candy Crush" Article

2. Discuss "Candy Crush" Article

3. Read "Games" Chapter

4. Discuss Chapter

5. Introduce Assignment

6. Brainstorm

7. Revision

8. Final Draft

9. Outlining (Optional)

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