Game Design as a Writing Course in the Liberal Arts Amber Settle School of CTI DePaul University 243 S. Wabash Avenue Chicago, IL 60604 Robin Burke School of CTI DePaul University 243 S. Wabash Avenue Chicago, IL 60604 Lucia Dettori School of CTI DePaul University 243 S. Wabash Avenue Chicago, IL 60604 Abstract - The School of Computer Science, Telecommunications, and Information Systems (CTI) is a technologically-focused college within DePaul University. While DePaul CTI has a large number of technical degree programs, DePaul University is a liberal arts institution and one that is increasingly focused on improving the writing skills of its students. It can be difficult to create courses that cover necessary technical material while requiring writing as a major part of the assessments. In this paper we discuss GAM 224: Introduction to Game Design, a required course in one of the specialized degree programs at DePaul CTI that involves writing in a significant way. Keywords: Writing in curriculum, expanding CS audience 1 Introduction The School of Computer Science, Telecommunications, and Information Systems (CTI) is a technologically-focused college within DePaul University. While DePaul CTI has a large number of technical degree programs, some of them highly specialized [9], DePaul University is a liberal arts institution and one that is increasingly focused on improving the writing skills of its students. This new emphasis on writing skills has produced a number of changes at DePaul. A new Center for Writing-Based Learning [1] has been created at DePaul to oversee the efforts to improve writing throughout the curriculum, and at the end of the 2005-2006 academic year the faculty involved in overseeing the Liberal Studies Program at DePaul produced a set of writing expectations for each course in the general education program [2]. DePaul CTI faculty participate in the oversight of the Liberal Studies Program and are interested in contributing to the development of student writing. However, it can be difficult to create courses that cover necessary technical material while requiring writing as a major part of the assessments. In this paper we discuss a course in one of the specialized degree programs at DePaul CTI that also involves writing in a significant way. GAM 224: Introduction to Game Design is a course in the Computer Games Development major that is also approved for credit in the general education program at DePaul University. GAM 224 is a course in the Arts and Literature domain of the Liberal Studies Program, and it satisfies the same requirement as courses in the departments of Art, English, Communication, Modern Languages, and Music [2]. It involves a significant amount of writing, while covering material necessary to introduce students to the concepts of game design. In the remainder of the paper we describe the structure of GAM 224 and discuss how it serves both majors and non-majors as a writing course in the liberal arts. 2 The Liberal Studies Program The Liberal Studies Program is the general education program required of almost every undergraduate at DePaul University [2]. The exact number and mix of courses taken in the program varies by college within the university [3], but the requirements are separated into two major groups: the common core and the domains. The common core includes courses that cover basic writing skills, mathematical and technical literacy, an introduction to the urban and Vincentian aspects of the university, multiculturalism, and experiential learning. It also includes a capstone that is typically taught in the students’ major field. The domain courses are the conventional breadth courses found in many general education programs. Students take courses in six learning domains, which are Arts and Literature, Philosophical Inquiry, Religious Dimensions, Scientific Inquiry, Self, Society, and the Modern World, and Understanding the Past [2]. The Arts and Literature Domain of which GAM 224 is a part requires students to expand their knowledge of the arts while developing critical and reflective abilities [4]. In Arts and Literature courses, students interpret and analyze creative works and investigate the relationship between form and meaning [4]. While courses in the domain focus on works or art or literature, the analysis process may include social and cultural issues [4]. Courses in the domain include Animation, Art, English, Digital Cinema, Modern Languages, Music, and Theater [5].3 The course GAM 224 is a required course in the Computer Games Development major, recommended as one of the first courses taken by freshman. It has no prerequisites and does no computer game development. Instead it considers the study of computer games from three angles: as examples of media that can be analyzed and critiqued for their thematic elements, formal structure, plot and interactive appreciation, as complex software artifacts subject to technological constraints and the product of a labor-intensive design and implementation process; and as a cultural artifact with behaviors and associations comparable in import to other popular art forms. Students in the course study the principles of game design and use them both to analyze existing games and to develop their own original game ideas [10]. The course uses a game design textbook that studies games using three different approaches: formal aspects (rules), experiential aspects (play) and cultural aspects (culture) [8]. Each of these approaches is exemplified by analytic schemas that can be applied to understanding games: there are 17 such schemas, far more than can be covered in a ten-week quarter. The instructor typically picks a few of these analytic ideas to cover in the three weeks allotted to each unit. Table 1 gives an example of a week-by-week schedule for the topics and readings in the GAM 224 course: Table 1 : Topics for