Dale Funk

Melvin R Wininger
English W131
10 June 2014
Now that that is done, what task should I move onto next? What time is it? Its 10 p.m.
Ive still got time. Perhaps I shall expand? Or maybe take care of this pest. He is really getting on
my nerves. Hes weak, for now at least. But how long will that last? I cant see what hes doing
over there. I need someone who can go tell me, but thats time I would rather spend on more
important things. One false move at this point and it could mean the end of me. Ive been careful
up to this point making sure everything I did would pay off. So I think its about time I cause a
little mayhem and test out what Ive done so far.
Too late, he already is here just as I feared. Im well off, but Im not prepared for this yet.
Not enough at least to come out without actual loss. It doesnt seem like he spared any expense
on this maneuver either. I guess its go big or go home. I think its time he goes home; this
continent isnt big enough for both of us. I begin scanning my territory for choke points and
defensive hold ups. I need to protect my farms and mines, but mostly my cities. A loss like that
means drop in resources and income. Not to mention building and refortifying a whole new one.
I begin setting my cities to produce soldiers of various kinds. I select Swordsmen, horsemen,
trebuchets, galleons and the like. 10 turns, 20 turns, 15 turns I fear it may take too long to
create a substantial army to fend off these British invaders.
I turn to my ally, the Arabian nation, to ask for aid. It seems he is too comfortable with
his wealth to risk open war with another nation. It appears Im in for a long night; so be it. I love
a good challenge. Africa is a long enough continent to prepare strategically for battle. I will use
the lower cities I have created to produce the heavy brutes since it takes longer to make. The
upper cities will make the foot soldiers. They produce faster and can hold off the invading
cavalry and heavy artillery till back up arrives. If I fortify my men inside my forts it will grant
them a defensive bonus as well. I made sure to place these forts against mountains in the Sahara
as to form choke points and prevent attacks from multiple sides.
The British have begun their descent from the Middle East, burning roads and farms as
they move. If I dont take care of this fast enough I wont have the resources to build another
army before the next wave is sent to take up where these soldiers leave off. I cant get
comfortable; my brain wont shut off, too much to do. What time is it? They make it to the first
city since their appearance in my land. I have archers stationed there but this will only serve to
delay them. The first set of my men are complete, yet they are not close enough. It will take 3
turns for them to reach the British. Still, I set them on their path none the less. My archers are
near death; my city is at half its health. The British cannons are unforgiving.
My swordsmen arrive, Samurai if you wish to know their name. Resources spent
wisely if you ask me to upgrade my men to the highest unit type of my nation. They are excellent
at dealing area damage. I set them upon my enemy from behind, flanking them for extra damage.
I go straight for the heavy artillery. I can weather a few cavalry men and musketeers, but these
cannons tear away at me too fast. My cavalry is finished; 2 turns to reach the battle. I reset the
city to produce more soldiers. At this point I believe its time the workers take shelter in the
cities. Leaving them in the fields and the mines is too dangerous; they would be cannon fodder
soon. This will slow production, but better than stopping it completely by having no work force.
My samurai are dead. The sound of cannons falling upon my city start up again. Ill be damned if
I lose to a cocky bastard such as him.
I start tweaking my cities production rates to favor soldiers. This only speeds
things up a few turns, but that is still music to my ears. My city falls. Edo, one of my first cities,
lay in ruins. They didnt even attempt to annex the city. They just razed it to the ground. It
appears my nations wealth isnt good enough for British standards. He wants to clear this
continent and start from scratch. King Suluman is requesting aid against the Spanish. It seems he
pissed off the wrong people. Oh well. The trebuchets are almost done. I have only taken out
about a quarter of their men, and now I have lost an entire cities production. They occupy
themselves with razing the farms and mines that lay around the rubble of Edo. I roll over hoping
things will calm down. I see now that making my army should have been a higher priority than
the wealth of my cities. My turn again, and it appears my artillery is done. I begin them on the
long trek up the continent, to feed them to the war machine.
They arrive just as more soldiers from the northern city Tokyo are completed. My
trebuchets descend upon the British from a safe distance; the advantage of long range attacks.
However this doesnt last long as the British soldiers begin toward my artillery. They dont quite
make it as I ensure they meet with Tokyos men just before hand. They will probably die but it
will keep the trebuchets firing longer, and those are the ones that do the most damage. My men
fall, and the remaining British turn to the machines hurling rocks at their heads. One last rock
and its done. Im safe for now. My little men rejoice and do a victory dance. They advance in
rank and I choose an upgrade for them. What time is it? Its 4 a.m. What should I do next?
I should get some sleep if I am honest with myself. But I am already in bed. I wake in a
cold sweat. Ive been playing Civilization V for a few days now. The hours of strategic moves
has changed the thinking process of my brain. Im so worried about what my next few moves are
that Im playing through them in my sleep. Ive been tossing and turning for hours yet, in my
mind, I was certain I was at my computer for the last few hours. Or have I been there the entire
time? What time is it? Its 2 a.m. But I thought it was later than that. Have I been sleeping or
have I been awake? Maybe I woke to play a few hours and returned to bed? I cant tell. Im not
certain if I am asleep and thinking about this or awake, they both feel the same to me at this
point. I finally crash.
I wake near 10 a.m. Normally it takes me a few seconds to recall what day it is and the
events that have recently passed. I usually am in a neutral state of mind when I wake, but not
today. Im still pondering my next move in this toxic computer game. I turn my computer on and
wait for it to boot up. The familiar boot screens. The beeping to signal a normal boot operation;
the whirring of the fans kicking in. I listen for any abnormal sounds that may signal a problem
with my PC. I check the temperature gauges on the front of my case. They all appear to be in the
normal range; 36 degrees Celsius, 34 degrees Celsius, and 33 degrees Celsius. I wish I would
have made my computer with a 6 core CPU instead of a 3 core, maybe it would boot faster.
Its up and running. Im in the game, the familiar start up music. I liked Civ IVs music
better so I skip to the menu. I choose my game and load it. There are no British in my area and
Edo still stands. This game has drawn me in too much. My dreams seem real. I cant seem to
escape this virtual planet even in my sleep. This never happened playing in the dirt, or biking
with my friends. I never tossed and turned over a football game or a track meet. This computer
game takes up most of my mind. Should I just take a break from it for a few days? Or would it be
better to finish the game so there are no more moves left to dream of? I do not know which one
would be better. My game makes a noise and I see that the game was taking the A.I.s turns. I
know that noise. Its when someone uninvited enters my territory. The British are coming.

Writers Statement

1. What feature of your writing would you say shows the major strength of your
draft? What do you believe you have done well as an academic writer? Identify a
passage or paragraph that you are happy with, that you would not be likely to
change even if you had the chance to change it. Tell why you chose that passage.

2. What feature of your writing would you say shows the major shortcoming of your
draft? What do you believe you have not done well as an academic writer? Identify
a passage or paragraph that you are not happy with, that you would definitely like
to change when you get the chance to change it. Tell why you chose that passage.

3. What pattern for organization and development did you choose and use to
present your thinking/ideas? Identify that pattern by telling where the major
transitions appearyou can use paragraph numbers to do that.

4. What other concerns you would like readers (both classmates and Wininger) to
comment on? These may be listed in the form of questions for readers to address.
Provide at least two, but no more than five.

Guide for Peer Response
This next part is to be used by your readersto make responses to the draft.
To the peer readers: Before you address the ideas and questions in the Writers
Statement, does some critical, but friendly reading of the draft. The purpose of
your response is to help the writer see how the language, arrangement, and
information in the draft enables or limits the communication of the writers ideas
(thoughts, reasoning). Especially as someone who has worked within the same
assignment, speak for yourself from your experience as a thinker/reader/writer.
That is, it is not your responsibility to solve the writers problems with language,
arrangement, and information as a final authority; it is your responsibility to alert
the writer about what works for you, what does not work,what you think they might
do next in response to your observations, andto some extentwhy.
Step 1:Save a copy of the paper to which you are responding on your own
computer. If you were Huck Finn reading Charlie Browns paper, the file would be
named this:
Finn response to Brown Assignment 4 essay draft.docx
DO NOT USE THE REVIEW FEATURE IN WORD; USE THIS FORM TO
WRITE ALL YOUR RESPONSES.
DO NOT MAKE CHANGES TO THE DRAFT.
DO NOT INSERT COMMENTS OR CORRECT SPELLING AND/OR GRAMMAR
IN THE WRITERS PAPER.
TO CLARIFY YOUR COMMENTS, INCLUDE EVERYTHING IN BOLD ITALICS
BELOW WITH YOUR COMMENTS.
TO REDUCE THE LENGTH OF THE RESPONSE AND TO CLARIFY WHAT IS
YOURS, YOU MAY REMOVE ANY WORDS ON THIS FORM THAT ARE NOT
IN BOLD ITALIC.
ALL OF YOUR COMMENTS SHOULD BE IN 12 PT. TIMES NEW ROMAN.
Step 2:If you like, print out a copy of the paper to read and to write on. You dont
have to do this, but some of us prefer a paper copy for reading. Read the whole
paper to get a sense of the gist of the ideas and the approach the writer has
taken.After that reading, write a note to the writer telling what you think is the best
feature of the piece. A sentence or two will do. This is an initial summary of what
works for you, or enables the writing as a piece of communication.
Best Feature Summary
The writing was not robust enough to select a best feature.
Step 3:Reread the paper carefully to analyze specific features that either enable or
limit the communication of the writers ideas. This section draws on the Elements
of Reasoning chart from the opening of the Notes and Ideas section. You must
respond on the basis of 4 of the elements, and you should choose 1 more from the
remaining ones and comment on it. Each comment should be a nicely developed
paragraphand each comment should refer to a specific section, paragraph,
sentence, phrase, or word(s) of the draft. You should quote or cite enough of that
to make it clear what you are referring to.
BTW: to do this well, you might take notes on all the questions in the description of
the element of reasoning, but you may not need to or have enough space to include
all that in the comment you actually write and submit to the writer for
consideration. What I mean is, you need to be thorough and thoughtful, but you
can do that with a focus in mind as you address the elements of reasoning in the
writers draft. Any of these can be used as a way to tell the writer something about
the focus of the writing and/or the development/details of the writing. In your
comments, if it helps, you can use words like focus and development to say what
you think about the writing.

Required(To earn full credit for Assignment 3, you must do all 4 of these)
Question at Issue:Here explain the problem or the thinking that the writer has
placed under consideration. And explain how you know that. If it is unclear, explain
why you think it is unclear. Offer at least one suggestion for how the writer can
clarify whats at stake or in disagreement and in need of this writers thoughts.
The writer should try and communicate the essence of the time-wastage playing an addictive
game to the issue being discussed here.
Point of view:Explain the way you think this writer sees things, especially things
related to the issue and the other viewpoints that could be taken on it. If the point
of view is unclear or uneven, explain why you think so. Offer at least one
suggestion for how the writer can clarify his/her point of view.
The writer thinks that people playing games are more focused on it than other pressing real-life
issues.
Information:Explain how the writer is using, and perhaps misusing, information.
You know or have access to the information the writer has usedeven if you
havent read the same exact sources as this writer, your own reading in the
assigned materials should make you familiar enough to consider the writers uses of
relevant sources and information. It is often best to raise a doubt or a question
than to say the writer is just plain wrong. And it is helpful to supply suggestions.
So offer one suggestion for how the writer can use information differently (i.e.
better).
Absolutely no use of information, no citation, no references.
Purpose of the thinking: Tell the writer what you think the ideas of the draft all
add up to. What do you see as the writers goal? What parts of the draft make that
goal most apparent? What parts obscure it or leave you in doubt about the writers
purpose?
That people should learn to be disciplined when playing games and time-conscious.
Optional(Choose TWO or MORE; you must respond to at least TWO.)
Concepts:Does the writer draw on ideas larger than his/her purpose, information,
etc.? How does that work? Should she/he consider framing the ideas in the paper
with more conceptual workthings like culture, politics, aesthetics, etc.? These are
the kinds of big ideas that shape understanding of academic disciplines and forms
of human experience. How do you see this draft in relation to one or more of those?
The writer does not draw on external ideas or information. The writer should learn to dig deep and
source for external information to enhance his writing.
Implications:Does the writer recognize the implications of her/his purpose,
information, etc. beyond this piece of communication? How does that work? Should
she/he consider including an analysis of the consequences of accepting or rejecting
his/her purposes/information or the purposes/ information he/she cites beyond this
writing?
The writer seems to be less connecting with his arguments, and does not recognize the implications of
his writings.
Assumptions:Does the writer presume that the reader shares specific experiences
or beliefs with him/her? Does the writer assume that the reader does not share
specific experiences or beliefs with her/him? What difference do those assumptions
make to what the writer is responsible for saying or accomplishing in presenting
information and taking responsibility for his/her purpose(s)?
The writer assumes everyone is in the same context with him.
Interpretations/Inferences:Does the writer clarify the significance of the ideas,
information, and/or purposes he/she presents in the writing? Does the writer
explain judgments/conclusionnot just state them? Does the writer guide readers
to logical understanding? Does the writer draw on others reasoning and
interpretations to explain her/his own? What is the result of that/those on the drafts
meaning and purpose?
The writing makes no attempt at logical reasoning or understanding.
Step 4: On the basis of Steps 1 and 2, identify the single main feature that does
not work for you. What feature of the writing limits communication? Choose only
one thing for this sectionyouve pointed out quite a few things for the writer to
consider in Step 2. Go further into how working on that will make a significant
improvement in the way the essay could communicate with you in a revision.
Primary Limitation
Lack of critical thinking and inability to communicate.
Step 5:Sum up in a paragraph. What would you most like to see in a revision of this
essay? What should be preserved? What should change? This is a good place to
address the questions in the Writers Statement, even if you have sort of done
that in Steps 1-4.
Summary Comment
The writer does not seem to try and draw the reader into his point of view, and is less engaging to the
reader.