In my “Critical Reading and Persuasive Writing” course last semester, I included an assignment that drew on Ian Bogost’s understanding of procedural rhetoric while also aiming to complicate it. After studying communities of their choice throughout the semester, my students had to create procedural arguments about their communities using the interactive fiction software Inform7. This assignment drew on a similar one designed by Jim Brown.

For the final project in my RHE 309K: The Rhetoric of Video Games class, I had students work in groups to develop a game concept that uses procedural rhetoric to argue a thesis. The lesson plan can be found here, but the gist is they write a classical argument on a topic of their choice, and then present both why their thesis is the preferred position and how a video game arguing this position would work.