Inform 7 and the Writing Process

General Education
1

Hello, All,

I hope you’re doing well.

In the last few years, I’ve been using Inform 7 to help students become better writers. I’d be most interested to hear from any of you who are employing Inform in similar ways. I’d also be glad to read your thoughts on what I’m doing.

Here’s a version of the assignment that I’ve been giving my students.

Before receiving this assignment, students have studied an IF story and have learned the fundamentals if Inform 7. The links that appear in the assignment lead to materials that are much more extensive than the description of the assignment itself.

Description of Process Analysis Assignment

Submit your final draft for Essay Number 3: Process Analysis. The draft should be 800 to 1200 words long. Your topic may be your own work of computer-based interactive fiction (IF).

If you choose to write a conventional (non-interactive-fiction) essay, your paper should show, step-by-step, one way in which people might communicate more effectively. Here are some possible topics.

How to Write an Essay

How to Text Clearly

How to Write a Poem

How to Compose a Photograph

If you choose the IF topic, you must include the source code for a working interactive fiction, created with the authoring system called Inform 7. You should include extensive comments, explaining how your code works. Here are some supplementary documents that may prove helpful.

Getting Started With Inform 7 (http://bdesilets.com/if/Inform7_Intro.pdf)

Inform 7 and the Writing Process (http://bdesilets.com/if/inform7_writing.pdf)

Why Inform 7? (http://bdesilets.com/if/?page_id=386)

A Sample Process Analysis Essay About an Inform 7 Project (http://bdesilets.com/if/Virtue_Process_Analysis.doc)

If you choose the interactive fiction option, you may earn as many as twenty bonus points, up to a possible maximum grade of 100 percent.

Regardless of the topic you choose, keep in mind the four qualities of good process analysis.

  1. It helps readers to perform the steps in a process or/or to understand how a process has worked in the past.

  2. It presents the important stages in a process.

  3. It explains the stages in detail, often by delineating the particular steps that make up each stage.

  4. It arranges the steps in a sensible order.

We’ll be using our usual grading rubric with this assignment. The rubric looks for unity, coherence, emphasis, development, and clarity.

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