Participation

This component measures your degree of involvement in the course – attending class and being willing to discuss the readings, and –during the game play sessions– being prompt in providing updates and strategic decisions to your classmates, being an active participant in class both as a student and gameplayer. As a student, you are expected to have read and assimilated the material for discussion each week. You will be called upon to recall the nuance of the readings and discuss its content, potential biases and implications for your understanding of Merovingian society. Attendance is mandatory. As a player, you are expected to have read the player’s manual, and used your knowledge to act in a historically appropriate fashion.

At the end of term, students will assign themselves (and have to justify in writing based on a template provided) a grade for participation based on conditions to be distributed. Your participation mark will also be somewhat determined by your teammates – they will have a chance to honour the active participants and shame the passive ones.

Assessment: self-assessed based on provided criteria, 25% of final grade

You will be asked to evaluate your own participation for this class. The following is a rough guide for thinking about our expectations:

Exceptional: Attended all of the time. Participated verbally in class and online frequently. Participation almost always addressed pertinent issues, and demonstrated a clear understanding of the dynamics of the game. Participation frequently or always integrated readings into the arguments made by the character, demonstrated a clear sense of the student’s “character” and the way that character would have reacted to game events. In general, convincingly demonstrated thorough understanding of the game, the readings and the history.

Satisfactory range: Attended most or all of the time. Participated frequently. Participation usually addressed pertinent issues regarding the game. Readings not always integrated into the arguments made during the games, or didn’t always demonstrate complete understandings of the readings.

Unsatisfactory: Attended most of the time, but seldom participated. Participation indicated little understanding of the game or of the readings upon which the game was based.