Like i do for most school projects, I incorporate Minecraft into them. For my final English project we had to write about anyone we wanted explaining how they changed America. So I choose Markus Persson (for those who dont know he created minecraft) So here's my essay for those who want to read it! Feed back is appreciated! Being born in Stockholm, Sweden in June of the year 1979, Markus had already started learning and using code at a young age. Growing up in Edsbyn, which was surrounded by trees for miles would greatly impact Markus’s later invention of “Minecraft”. Before Markus had been introduced into the world of coding, He was obsessed over playing with legos, Not enjoying school that much, Markus would more often than not fake being sick so he could stay home and develop code. His first game being coded, and fully playable by the age of 8. He ended up not finishing High School, but since Markus had been practicing coding practically his whole life he had gotten so good he decided to apply for a programming job. Eventually Markus had landed a job at “Midasplayer” Which according to Biography.com “At Midasplayer, Persson befriended Jakob Porsér, a developer, and the friendship would redefine Persson’s life path.” ( “Markus Persson” 1) “It wasn’t long before Persson and Porsér were writing their own games, but their Midasplayer bosses didn’t like the attention these games were garnering the duo.” (“Markus Persson” 1) And due to this, Markus left the company and joined “jAlbum” and had used all his free time there to create “Minecraft”. Markus has been awarded for several times for his games he created, the most awarded one being Minecraft. At the “Independent games festival” that took place in 2011 Markus’s game Minecraft had received 2 awards, the “Audience Award” as well as the “Seumas McNally Grand Prize”. But those were not the only awards Markus received that year, when he attended the “Game Developers Choice Awards” he received an additional 3 awards “Best Debut Game Award”, “Innovation Award”, and lastly the “Best Downloadable Game Award”. He continued to be awarded in 2012 with yet another “Best Downloadable Game” which had been given to him at the Golden Joystick Awards. Besides all the awards he had received Markus had many outstanding achievements, such as breaking the monotony in the video game industry by creating Minecraft. They released a version of minecraft on nearly every platform, except for Nintendo’s handheld devices. Minecraft being a hit on all platforms had sold over 60 million copies, 12 million on Xbox 360 and 17 million on computers by October 2014. On November of 2014 Markus Persson had sold his game “Minecraft” to Microsoft for 2.5 billion dollars. Although his game Minecraft was arguably one of his most popular games he made many more games that caught the attention of his fans. “He has been a consistent participant at the Ludum Dare 48-hour game making contests. Some of his creations are Breaking the Tower, Metagun, Prelude of the Chambered, and Minicraft.”(“Markus Persson” 1) In 2012 he also created MMORPG called Wurm Online with his friend Rolf Jansson. In 2014 Markus Persson along with his old friend JakocPorser released a game called Scrolls, it's a strategy collectible card game playable over many platforms due to it being made on the Unity game engine. Although all these achievements are fascinating his most important achievement would be, being listed in the “100 Most Influential People” which had been published under the Time Magazine. Though Markus had rushed the making of Minecraft it started getting multiple downloads a day. People were hooked, because of the lego aspect of the game and all of the blocks, creatures, and items. Soon enough Minecraft was a year old, and with that already 20,000 people had downloaded the game. The game had attracted a wide variety of ages, and different people all around the world. One of these types of people Minecraft had attracted was players with Autism. One example of Persson’s invention of Minecraft changing America by helping players with autism, These kids went crazy over Minecraft, they were hooked. But other players had been bullying them.” So Stuart Duncan who had Autism as well as his son set up a server specifically for players who always had autism. “He thought the invite-only server would attract 10 or 20 people. To his surprise, hundreds requested to join in the first few days. (Rutkin 1) For autistic children, teenagers, and adults it can be hard to do everyday social situations such as ; Social cues, Interacting in a large or small group of people, expressing emotion, etc. Not all Minecraft servers are specific to a group of people, but “AutCraft” is a white-listed (Invite Only) server designed in every aspect just for people who have Autism. She saw people build friendships and have fun together. She also saw kids expressing their feelings – joy over a good time in the game, and anxiety or sadness about problems in the real world. “There’s a lot of reflection going on,” she says. “Minecraft is supporting a lot of these social behaviours.” (Rutkin 1) While AutCraft does have hundreds of players, not everyone that has autism plays on that server some prefer to play with friends on single player, on a realm world, or one of the many multi-player servers that are run on the PC Version of Minecraft. Everyone has their own reasons for liking Minecraft. Some of the reasons that people with autism like to play Minecraft are ; You have the ability to build anything you want, there are no set rules you can do what you want such as go hunting for mobs or brew some potions, exploring dungeons, the possibilities are endless. The fact that there is a variety ofmodes you could play on is also what attracts players with autism, even though you can die while playing in Survival Mode or Hardcore Mode you can still choose to play in Creative Mode which means you have limitless items and can’t die. On top of having the ability to build anything, do anything, and the variety of modes to choose from a lot of players with autism love the fact that people can’t touch your stuff. Most servers have rules against stealing and destroying other peoples builds, and if they do you can just kick them off the server. Keith Stuart’s son Zac has been struggling to get a diagnosis of autism. He’d Always been behind on language development, always had a problem in a crowded environment … He was socially awkward and withdrawn .... I didn’t know what to do for him how to make him happy, that's what you want as a parent … But then I bought the XBox version of Minecraft, and watching Zac was like a light switching on. He just got it. He knew that he had to mine for materials and chop down trees to make a home, he knew that when night fell he had to get inside to avoid zombies. Within its clearly defined rules and systems, Minecraft provided a creative structure that freed him (Stuart 1) Minecraft can help bring out amazing aspects of people who have autism. It can help them pick up more language skills, make new friends, and use their imagination to build endless amounts of things. They’ll learn to open up more and talk about stuff their are interested (such as Minecraft) Not only, do people with autism play Minecraft at home, there is a school in Australia who use Minecraft to teach lessons to kids on the autism spectrum. They focus these planned lessons on grades 3-6 and they all play together as a class. Two hours north of Sydney, the kids of 3-6 Rainbow, a class in Aspect Hunter school combining grades 3-6, are playing Minecraft. The students are bright, bubbly and talkative -- pretty much what you'd expect from any group of kids ages 8 to 11. But this class is a little different. It's run for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a diagnosis that covers a broad range of difficulties with social interactions, communication and repetitive behaviour. Yet you'd have trouble guessing that as the kids excitedly play together over a networked Minecraft session. (Cheng 1) Minecraft gives students "a much more understandable version of theactual world," says Smith, because it presents ideas in a straightforward and visual way. Seeing the game's potential, Aspect's teaching staff began designing and testing lessons that integrated Minecraft in early 2013. They learned to play the game, sat in on each other's classes, gave feedback and improved their methods. That experience, along with their expertise in autism, helped Aspect's staff create lessons around Minecraft on subjects ranging from English and science to geography and art. (Cheng 1) With Markus being a code loving high school dropout, creating Minecraft was one of his most successful accomplishments in life. Creating a safe place for people diagnosed with autism, redefining the way games are perceived and being one of the most well-known and most inspirational video game coders. With endless possibilities in a game to do whatever you want, and create friendships, releasing your imagination this is how Markus Persson changed America.
To me, it seems like the paragraphs are too long. Also, why are the sentences cut off before the end of the page, in most instances?
Not to be too critical, but the paragraphs seem like giant walls. Grammar is a little bit... off. For example, after 'playing with LEGOs' there should be a full stop, not a comma. So, something more like: "Before Markus had been introduced to the world of coding, he was obsessed over playing with LEGOs. As he didn't enjoy school very much, he would skip school to code." I may have also reworded that slightly, which brings me onto my next point: unless you're under a word limit (those things are stupid), extend sentence length to make it sound more formal. That part probably makes no sense. It's how I explain making something sound more formal in my head though, so...
Ah yes almost forgot : Cheng, Dave. Minecraft helps kids with autism build richer lives, 29 Mar. 2016, https://www.cnet.com/news/minecraft-helps-kids-with-autism-build-richer-lives/. Accessed 8 May 2017. How Minecraft is helping children with autism make new friends, Reed Business Information Ltd. , 27 Apr. 2016, https://www.newscientist.com/articl...elping-children-with-autism-make-new-friends/. Accessed 27 Apr. 2017. Kulman, Dr. Randy. 7 Reasons Kids with Autism Love Minecraft, The Gadget, 1 Apr. 2015, learningworksforkids.com/2015/04/7-reasons-kids-with-autism-love-minecraft-2/. Accessed 27 Apr. 2017. Markus Persson, A&E Television Networks, 21 Apr. 2015, www.biography.com/people/markus-persson. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017. Markus Persson, Famous-Entrepreneurs.com, www.famous-entrepreneurs.com/markus-persson. Accessed 27 Apr. 2017. Markus Persson, The famous people website, www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/markus-persson-5569.php. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017. Markus Persson Success Story, Successstory.com , https://successstory.com/people/markus-persson. Accessed 27 Apr. 2017. Stuart, Keith. Minecraft's creator will always be a hero to me, he gave my autistic son a voice, 6 Mar. 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/technol...ll-always-be-a-hero-to-me-he-gave-my-autistic -son-a-voice. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017.
May I ask, do you know if those should be in MLA or APA format? Or does your teacher not have a requirement? Also, what kind of advice are you looking for? Just in general as we notice things or are you needing more specific help (grammar/spelling, fact checking, style, etc)? One last thing, what is your due date for it? I would assume probably soon, since most people don't finish essays/papers too far ahead of time I have not read it just yet, about ready to though, so looking forward to it
Ha ha ha, I love this Takes me back to a Dutch essay I once had to write. Well, it started with a small story and you had to finish it. I took the initial story and easily turned it into a Star Wars based essay. 4 pages of (written) text, got me an easy score of 9,5 out of 10 (Dutch use scores from 1 (worst) to 10 (best)). Haven't read it yet, will do that at a later time. But it's always cool if you can combine school with hobby.
