As I read my posts from the semester, I was pleased to see how much I’ve learned. As we learned different terms and themes in class, I tried my best to apply that to my blog posts. Most of all, this class taught me to look at literature in a different lens and introduced me to a new genre.
Most of my posts related the day’s reading back to our CYOA project. For example, in my second post I argued that CYOA books were complex interactive fiction. I explained the similarities I saw between the CYOA books and the characteristics of interactive fiction. In my third post, I compared digital poetics to CYOA books and the various limitations that each genre had. Lastly, in my fourth post, I compared the quick decisions made in Bury Me My Love to the decisions made in CYOA books. Mapping my CYOA book at the beginning of the semester really helped me understand the significance of structure in storytelling and was a great basis to keep referring to throughout the semester. Not only that, understanding CYOA books was a great introduction to the rest of the course’s themes.
I also noticed how I always tried to incorporate my own experience with the work in my blog post. After learning about interactivity and the affordances of it within electronic literature, I was hyperaware of the various ways I was engaging with the work. By explaining my own experience with the works, I was able to point out details that I thought were integral to the game. This is seen in my fourth post about Her Story and how my experience playing this game informed the players role.
As I compare my last blog post to my first blog post, it is clear how I’ve applied the themes of our course as the semester has progressed. My first post was a simple summary of the day’s assigned works whereas my last post was a combination of topics, themes and vocabulary from class.