Working Working Table of Contents

Phew! It has been so enlightening to go through everyone's posts again and get a better feel for the direction we want to go with our ebook about digiliterism... digitiliteraritism? Anyway! After combing through lots and lots of ideas that our class has come up with, I returned to our original idea, which was an ebook that outlines "how Kindle, Amazon, and Goodreads are influencing literacy and literary study today" (Dr. Burton, instructional blogpost). We have TONS of good ideas, but I think there are a lot of things we can shift and combine and cut in order to drive more toward a united purpose. So the broad idea is: how do modern methods of readership influence literacy and literary study? Specifically, we want to comment on the following platforms: Kindle, Amazon, and Goodreads. So for the purpose of helping myself to see how many of our chapters will relate to each platform, I divided up our chapters into the following four sections: How We Read: Kindle; How We Interact: Goodreads; How We Buy: Amazon; and Other (for those subjects that don't necessarily fit under just one platform). I think the division is uneven, but I don't know that we need to be concerned about that. What do you think?

A Work in Progress

Organizing my own thoughts is difficult enough, but organizing the thoughts of my entire class into a rough draft table of contents BEFORE anything has actually been written other than a few rogue thoughts seems near impossible! Even since my last post, we've actually been reassigned to write not just one, but two chapters!
So to those of you that are investigating our class' progress on our Ebook, bear with me! And to my classmates, sorry if I totally misread your thoughts or missed something! But here we go!

Section 1: The Digiliterary World

Saren - Finding a Home in the Digiliterary World
The digiliterary world is intimidating, but it's possible to feel at home in a strange new world.

Shelby- Owning the Internet
The internet creates ease for mislead ownership

Meghan- Magic Libraries
Ebook libraries are on the rise, how does this ease affect reading habits of all?

Nathan- Old vs. New
The digital world is documenting the past, but losing accurate information.

Section 2- Content

Saren- Reviewing Reviews
What does it take to make a good review on different platforms, and why does it matter?

Leah- Finding New Love in Old Titles
The availability of content on Amazon and Goodreads allows people to re-explore classic works.

Emily: New Beliefs
Amazon and Goodreads gives so much information, but there is a way to understand it all.  

Section 3- Social Reading

Meghan- Social Obedience
Learning the social "rules" of Goodreads can maximize user experience.

Lauren- Lonely Companionship
Increasing and decreasing the social sphere through electronic reading.

Lauren- Preserving Connections
With everything becoming digitally stored, personal connections deepen.

Shelby- Finding Safety
Reading socially doesn't have to be dangerous if done correctly.

Section 4- Online Identity

Nathan- The Man Behind the Mask
Internet identities allow a more honest outlook from the user when discussing literature.

Jenna- Finding Ourselves Online
Our identity online can impact our credibility.

Obviously my titles/descriptions need work, and I need more even sections, but hey, it's a start! I definitely think that there needs to be a bigger focus on the way that these things affect the academic world, as that's what we've been learning about, as well as using the Kindle itself. Granted, some of our chapters may cover the Kindle in some ways that we just don't know yet because we haven't written them yet.

Meshing of Ideas

So after brainstorming up our own ideas (click here for mine) for our e-book “Digiliteracy” based on novels and this digital era of consuming literature online we all are putting our ideas together. So in order to collaborate eight peoples’ ideas all together here is a rough draft of the table of contents that I came up with:

Reading in the Digital Age: What it Changes

Saren: “Welcome to the age of Digiliteracy” The Digital age is changing how we read, and we must find our home in this new world.

Shelby: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” There is a sense of nonacceptance to change into the more digital sense of reading on a platform such as the Kindle. 

(I think that this could also go along with Shelby's third idea, click here)

Lauren: “The Double Edged Sword of Digital Reading” We can both gain and lose experiences by only participating in the Digital world of literature.

Nathan: “Reading outside of the book” We are commonly reading books out-of-order, or maybe even skipping to the end. 

Reader Response

Jenna: “Digital Footprints” Goodreads and Amazon use the reviews or "footprints" to tailor our digital experiences.

Nathan: “Digitally Accounatable” Our opinion can be readily shared due to social medias such as Goodreads and Amazon.

Meghan: “The Social Norm” While writing and rating on Goodreads we can be influenced by what is socially accepted instead of voicing our opinions.

Emily:“Goodbye Innocence” We can encounter many spoilers or even fail to read a book because of poor reviews published on Goodreads and Amazon.

Saren: “Watch how you review” The way we review books is different on Goodreads and Amazon.

The Authors  

Jenna: “Who wrote it?” Self-publishing has become increasingly popular, but will this distract us from the rawness of the original work?

Shelby: “Piracy” With the sense of entitlement readers can search to illegally download an author’s work.

Emily: “Readers becoming the Author” Authors are able to communicate with readers, and readers with authors through blog discussions and other mediums. Could the readers voice take away the Authors’ creativity?

Literature Availability 

Meghan: “Book Ownership” There are diverse ways in which we can read books. There is now the option of renting books.

Leah: “Re-consumption” Novels are more accessible on Amazon’s Kindle and therefore allowing us to reread many of the classics.

Meghan: “Piracy Epidemic” Instantaneous gratification is more prevalent and the consumer is becoming entitled and may even believe that they should receive books immediately and free of any cost. 

So there is A LOT of really great ideas in there and even more if you continue reading on the blog! 

Another chapter could be based on reading on the Kindle specifically; like a feature review. For example, there is a vocabulary builder based on words that you looked up in the dictionary. There is also a way to highlight and take notes. So it would be helpful to have one chapter about that. 

Delving into the Digital Age

And here it is!  My working table of contents for our e-book on reading in the digital age.  I hope my

fellow students don't mind that I elaborated a bit on their topics.  I am so excited to actually start writing and producing a product--who knows, we might actually make a difference somewhere down the line.  I am actually glad that we were assigned to do this particular assignment because I feel as if I have a better understanding of everyone's ideas and angles.  As always, comments are certainly welcome.

Time to Buckle Down

I have been having a blast starting to really dig into the project that this blog is coordinating. This ebook that we are working to  pull together on digital reading or “Digiliteracy” as we have been calling it, is quite the undertaking but I really think we have some great ideas starting to form! I have put together a rough Table of Contents with a few ideas about how we could possibly organize everyone’s wonderful ideas. I also tried to put together some creative ways to tie in the works of literature we will be using as our filter for our different subjects.

The Book Recipe-Book

A recipe book for putting together a book. An interesting and difficult task if ever I've heard one. There are many ideas at work here, and it can be easy to end up with some weird book layouts. So let's first try to digest the larger issues being discussed by each of the titles we've been working with, and then we can try to order them up.

Leah Smartt, Removing Prejudice to Classic Literature: Reconsumption on Goodreads and Amazon
The new accessibility to literary classics within social reading networks like Goodreads influences readers to reread and reconsider titles they'd disliked. 

(Goodreads, Accessibility, Reading, Social-Networking, Rediscovery.)

Nathan Scovill, Callous and Kind with Books Online
Online anonymity and alternate identities allow readers to become more callous or more kind as they review and discuss literary texts.

(Anonymity, Behavior, Social interaction)

Nathan Scovill, "So it Goes": Disconnecting Readers and Books on Online Platforms
The lack of a physical relationship with books read electronically changes readers' relationships with literature.

(Technology, Accessibility, Change) 

Nathan Scovill, "Slaughterhouse Mind": Reading Out of Order in the Digital Age
Digital media cause us to experience stories from literature out of order, and that's okay.

(Technology, Change, Time)

Lauren Sullivan, Reconstructing Society through the Long Tail of Digital Books
The broadened availability of literary works through ebook platforms makes possible a revitalizing of society.

(Technology, Change, Social interaction)

Lauren Sullivan, Reading Laid Bare: The Intimacy of ebooks
The rise of ebooks exposes the need for human connection even as it closes off true connection among people.

(Social interaction, Behavior, Technology, Change)

Lauren Sullivan, The Isolated Reader
Electronic reading deepens the joys and the isolation of readers

(Social interaction, Behavior, Technology, Change)

Saren Bennett, Readers at Home in a New Land of Literary Study
It's hard to make our presence of worth in online reading platforms, but it's possible to feel at home in a new world.

(Social interaction, Behavior, Technology, Change)

Saren Bennett, Reader Reviews and a Multitude of Views
Reader reviews function differently on different ebook platforms.

(Technology, Social interaction, Criticism)

This might be a bit crude, since I don't know what each person is meaning, but I am seeing that a few different things stand out as explicit and recurring themes. Personal behavior changes due to technology, and Societal changes due to technology. Perhaps you could even divide it into changes of behaviors that are Personal, Interactive, and Societal. 

Technology is changing the ways that we, as individuals, behave.

Thus it is changing the way that we communicate and interact with other individuals.

As our interactions change, our societies change with them.

We could easily have sections divided into those three categories, and possibly a fourth.

I think one of the things that hasn't been addressed is the connection to scholarly works, as well as the conflict between the old guard and the rising technology. We discuss the change and its effects both negative and positive, but we have yet to focus on the actual people involved in the frontlines of that conflict. 

We'll Get There. Someday.

Ok!  That was harder than I thought it would be.  Here are a few of my ideas on how we could group the chapters...and they are rough.  But this was a really good chance for me to carefully go through what everyone has come up with and put it together in a working format.  I think that a lot of the ideas relate to each other well, and we definitely have enough content to fill an eBook.

Our “Limitless” Society

Jenna:  Publish Yourself, Not Myself: 

 With more opportunities to self-publish and promote, the temptation to steal the ideas of others is easily within reach.

Shelby: What’s Mine is Mine…or Yours Too? 

  The increased conflict between what is and is not defined as public domain.

Leah:  It’s Not Old, It’s Vintage: 

Creative Commons crosses the generation gap, giving modern readers access to the classics and instilling an appreciation that can withstand time.

Lauren:  Knowledge is Power:

  The possible benefits and effects of unlimited access to information on society.

A World Where Opinion is Everything

Meghan: eBook Etiquette:  

What is and is not acceptable to do, say, like, think, share, or bash on online platforms

Saren:  The Reviews We View:

  By using the review feature on Amazon and Goodreads, we are able to see different opinions and learn more about the perspectives of others by their takes on literature.

Emily:  What Happens When Everyone’s a Critic: 

  How the reader reviews on Amazon and Goodreads influence public opinion, even before the work has a chance to be read by the masses.

The Online Relationship

Lauren:  Are We Allowed to be Friends Offline?  

There’s a certain aspect of friendship that is only available through face-to-face communication.  Does that matter in the digital age?

Saren:  Getting our Bearings in the Digital World:

  There are definite tricks and tips to having a meaningful online presence.  Now, people must not only grow up in the real world, but develop their social, online identities as well.

Jenna:  Becoming Internet Nobility:  Learning the Tricks of the Trade to Become Who You’d Like Online:

  Posting a thought online can damage a person’s credibility as a reviewer and tarnish a person’s online identity.

Nathan: “So It Goes,” But Should It Stop?

  At what point is the disconnection between a book and its readers a harmful thing?

The Change Caused by the Digital Era

Emily:  Made-To-Order Novels:  

With open relationships between authors and their readers, consumers have more influence with what goes into their favorite books.

Nathan:  What Came First, the Novel or the Trailer?

  With literature expanding to all types of media, we can be exposed to the whole story of a work before even turning (or swiping) a page.

Shelby:  Once Wasted Time, Now the Most Valuable Resource: 

  How the rising generation is taking a new look at the possibilities of digital resources

Jenna:  They Know Where You Go:

  What are cookies, and how do online algorithms follow them to suggest what we’ll like best? (Echo Chamber?)

Meghan: We Want It and We Want It Now:  

Is the instant gratification of online literary platforms negatively affecting society, or simply continuing the trend?

I agree with Jenna, we should discuss how or if these online platforms will affect academia, as well as what we, as the "authorities" on them, can do to make the best use of them.  I think that a book like this, that discusses a topic is such detail, should have a "call to action" or something like that at the end.  Are we encouraging this, or is it simply a presentation of facts and opinions that doesn't really swing one way or another?

"Becoming Digiliterary" - Working Table of Contents

We can't waste a moment in putting together our ebook about how Kindle, Amazon, and Goodreads are influencing literacy and literary study today. So, though our chapters are in their earliest stages, we should still put together a working table of contents. I've begun this by devising working titles based on several of my students' recent blog posts, and by adding a working "tweethis," or core shareable claim, based on these same posts. In some cases, I've drafted multiple potential chapters because students have discussed separate viable ideas.

I leave it to my students to complete this task in their own follow-up posts. Specifically, I want them to do three things:

1. Make your own working title and "tweethis" for your topics (as I did for several of you already, below). This will mean developing/focusing some of your ideas. Shoot for more than one title/tweethis, as it is likely each of us will be writing multiple chapters.
2. Review each other's recent posts, drawing on whatever state that other students' ideas are in, and make your own working table of contents. The catch: this needs to have some kind of order or rationale to it. That can be done through a short prefatory paragraph, or by using headings to group various topics. See the table of contents of Writing About Literature in the Digital Age for a model. 
3. Remark on what is missing. What are one or two key / core topics or concepts from our explorations of Kindle, Goodreads, and Amazon about which none in our group has yet proposed a possible chapter?

Catch the start of my prospective table of contents below:

My Desk Could Be So Cluttered Right Now

Brainstorming used to consist of lots of paper strewn all over my room, maybe a broken pencil or two (until I would find a pen and then the white out would surface), and a lot of going back and forth between books and more papers. Boy, am I glad for computers! I love this digital age. I was able to open up this blog to view each post made by my classmates, and open up a word document to type and edit my ideas to my heart's content. Oh, the bliss.

Without further delay, please see below for the draft of a possible Table of Contents for our class's ebook. (This is a very rough draft - eventually the language will be much more flowery.)


Table of Contents Draft

Entering the Digiliterary World

1. Saren Bennet, Finding a New Home Among Online Platforms
Getting acquainted with online platforms can be a foreign experience, but when done with an open and eager mind, readers can become their best selves and create a new home.

2. Shelby , Rotting Our Brains Has Become Broadening Our Horizons
 It is important to put aside our fears of the unknown and become digiliterary in order to enrich our literary experience.

3. Lauren Sullivan, Increased Access to Information Equals Increased Intelligence for the Individual
As readers are able to explore and utilize online platforms for literary study, they are increasing their knowledge; this increased knowledge enables individuals to shape society anew.

4. Nathan Scovill, Good Advertising vs Spoiler Alert
Online platforms introduce a story out-of-order: the pros and cons of this effect.

5. Leah Smart, Reconsuming the Classics
Amazon opens the Kindle reader to a variety of free ebook downloads; many of those free downloads are classics that readers can reread and replace old judgments.

Digitizing the World of Elizabeth and Darcy

Our English 251 class at BYU is currently studying literature in the digital age.  For our semester project, we are going to be creating a e-book that details our findings, specifically relating to the Amazon and Kindle platforms.  To help facilitate this, Dr. Burton (our professor) asked that we explain our concept in terms of a novel that we love.  My concept, thus far, is going to deal with "reconsumption of literature."  Now, "reconsumption" is a term that I completely made up, and I talk about it more in this blog post.  Hopefully, as I delve further into my topic, I will be able to find others who agree with my point of thinking.

Basically, I have noticed that platforms such as Goodreads and Amazon have allowed users to come back to literary works they had not perviously liked, cared for, or just not shown an interest in.  I would like to discuss my topic in terms of Pride and Prejudice, because I truly love that book.  I was skeptical that it would work for my topic because it is such a well-loved novel, but after looking at reviews on Goodreads, I realize quite a few users had hated it before and were posting a review because they gained a new appreciation for the novel.

I would also like to focus on Pride and Prejudice because it is a classic, and it can be accessed in many places under the Creative Common's license (I think).  I believe that the novel's accessibility adds to people's desire to "reconsume" the novel.  One can certainly access the novel by typing it into Google, but one can also download a free copy from Amazon to Kindle with additional resources included.  The same is true of many other once-hated-now-beloved novels.

To align the text of the novel more closely with my ideas, I could possibly discuss Elizabeth and Darcy's initial displeasure with one another, and then their ensuing love after time had passed, which could represent my "reconsumption" idea.  Because Darcy and Elizabeth made themselves more "accessible" to one another (wink, wink), they increased their desires to be with one another.  I could also discuss other relationships in the novel that follow a similar pattern.

Pride and Prejudice was written to comment on the society of the day.  One of Austen's main points in writing the novel was to bring attention to the lack of education and representation that women had during that time.  This is more of an abstract thought, but maybe greater access to classic works online is creating a better educational atmosphere?

Anyway, these are my thoughts.  Feel free to comment.

Slaughterhouse Mind

The book I will be focusing on for our project is Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I perhaps should have chosen something else, since I'm running into a few interesting problems with finding themes to share between the digital age and a book written about WWII. However, I think I may have broached a few options.

• The Tralfamadorians have a different way of perceiving time than humans do. They see all of time at once, and consider the future to be inevitable. They can also directly observe the past. I could liken this to the way that the digital age allows us to document our past unlike any previous era. Whatever we do, a permanent digital copy can be made and easily shared. Our opinions are suddenly widely visible to any who care to look, our habits are made known, and we are accountable for ourselves in a way humanity has never been. This gives us a great deal of resources for researching new topics, but also makes it much more difficult to find sources that are respectable or accurate. 
• The protagonist of the story experiences his own life out-of-order, and so it can be related to the ways that digital media can cause us to experience a story out-of-order. It is quite common for us to read a quote from a book, or see a single scene from the film adaptation of a book, long before we ever get around to reading it. In some cases, we can even find out the ending to a book long before we ever read it. Yet this doesn't hinder most of us from seeking out those books and enjoying them.
• Whenever a person dies in the book, their death is followed by the phrase "so it goes," which can serve to minimize the impact of the death, and creates a disconnect between the reader and the action. In some ways, digital reading platforms can create a disconnect between the reader and the book. It has been shown that students who read out of a physical book have greater reading comprehension than those reading from a digital source. It would be possible to delve deeper into this subtle disconnect and see if there are ways to close the gap. It could also discuss the wall of anonymity that is created by using a web-based platform. Our statements are subtly disconnected from ourselves, allowing us to say things that we would never say in person. We can be entirely different people on the internet, more kind or more callous. We can be like the unstuck Protagonist, or we could be like the time-seeing Tralfamadorians. Enveloped in ourselves and others, or callous and indifferent. 

Giving Ideas

The Giver by Lois Lowry has been one of my favorite novels since I first read it when I was about 11 years old. I was intrigued by the idea of a distopian society, probably because politics were such a hot topic at that point among my friends, and I disagreed with many of them about the socializing of different aspects of society (...but that's a subject for a very different blog post and a very different blog). Anyway! The members of this blog are in the midst of crafting an ebook about the movement of literature into the digital age, specifically on the ereader Kindle and the power of the platforms Goodreads and Amazon. While reexamining The Giver with this in mind, I had a couple of thoughts that I will share with you in bulleted and outlined "stream of consciousness" format below. This is very rough, so let me know what you think! 

I should preface my bullet points by saying that I've already found that most of my ideas focus on relationships between people and how different social norms affect those relationships. So here we go!
I could focus on:

1. The fact that Jonas is more intelligent than the rest of the community because he has more access to information. This could be tied to the availability of books, etc. to the public (long tail idea). In the end, society is able to piece itself back together because everyone has access to the same information. Jonas is very young but has more information... interesting!

2. The Giver has experienced a lot from the "comfort" of his own home- without having to ever leave. There is something intriguing about the fact that we can consume so many books literally without having to move out of the same spot. It's incredible, but there's a sacrifice there. Sure, the Giver is a whole lot smarter than everybody else, but his life may have less satisfaction... for a number of reasons, but he doesn't get a whole lot of actual human contact and that takes a toll.

3. The lack of true feeling between characters. Jonas and the Giver are the only ones who have memories of the past and past traditions, and they are the only ones who are allowed to feel in order to preserve those traditions. There are two angles that I readily see here: (1) moving into the digital age is a movement away from the same kind of feeling (2) preserving memories (more easily preserved and accessed through technology) goes against the novel and enhances our ability to feel.

Changes and Beginnings

If you aren't aware, this blog is actually a premise to prepare us (the students) to create a semester long project of a collaborative eBook about using literature in the digital age. If you'd like a basic summary of our goals, go here.

So in an earlier blog post about Harry Potter I was talking about how near and dear that series is to me, and it was my original plan to use that as my book to relate to my adventures into the digiliterary (yes, I did just create that word..) world. BUT I actually decided to take a bit of a different route, and use another book that's been highly personal to me called "The Goose Girl" by Shannon Hale.

Although I've changed directions, that doesn't mean I wouldn't love to write about dear Harry! Literally everything in my life can be compared to "Harry Potter."

Quick summary of "The Goose Girl:" There's a quiet crowned princess named Ani who's father dies and her mom decided to give her crown to one of her siblings instead and send Ani off to another kingdom to wed their prince. Oh, and she can talk to animals. Which apparently isn't normal. On her trip to the kingdom her lady in waiting overthrows her and then runs to the prince pretending to be Ani. Ani takes a job as a goose girl trying to figure out how to get back her position, and she sits back quietly until she finds out her own kingdom is going to be under attack and so she rushes in to save the day. And there's a prince disguised as a guard who falls in love with goose girl Ani thrown into the midst. 

I didn't do the plot justice at all, but I'll tell you that you need to read it!

And if this sounds like a fairy tale, it's because it's actually an adaptation of a fairy tale called, go figure, The Goose Girl. 

So what ways can I tie this book my digiliterary immersion? Well so far I just have a couple of ideas, but I'm always open for suggestions!

1: The digiliterary age is (for many) a new and strange land, sort of like Ani going to the foreign land to wed a prince. While most of us won't be using the digiliterary land to wed a prince, it is hard to find a way to feel comfortable and find our place within and how to make our presence of worth. This is like Ani finding her place in a new land and finding a way to become her best self through this. Side note, this was also Hale's debut novel, so it's like she was finding her way through a new land. As well as this became a comforting book for me that came to feel like another home.

2. The main platforms we've been working with is Goodreads and Amazon. Through my own experiences, I've been seeing the way that different reviews work between these two platforms, as well as makes a good review. As a princess, Ani has different "reviews" coming from people from all walks of life. When she's under cover as a goose girl, she ends up hearing a very different side of these reviews. I'm not sure exactly how to tie this together, but I think I'm onto something!

3. Okay, when I said a couple of idea, I literally meant a couple. So now we're here. I'm going to try to keep brainstorming, but it's a start!

So pray tell, thoughts on these ideas? Any different thoughts? 

Is the future looking Grimm, brothers (and sisters)?

Image:
http://inkmonster.net/blog/why-ash-maiden-the-original-cinderella-kicks-ass

Our English class is in the process of writing an ebook about using the Kindle, Goodreads, and Amazon. I have chosen to use the 1812 version of Cinderella by Jacob Ludwig Grimm and Wilhelm Carl Grimm to illustrate my ideas for my chapter. Please let me know what you think!

1. To expound on my last post (click here to read), I can discuss the necessity of a bridge between the isolation of the Kindle and the socialization of Goodreads. It is crucial to a reader’s online identity that they know how to review and discuss the books they read. In the Grimm version of Cinderella, the stepmother and stepsisters mock Cinderella for wanting to attend the festival because she cannot dance. Later, when she does attend the ball, she is able to dance with the Prince – three nights in a row. How was this possible? She went from being the dish-washing, floor-sweeping, bird-talking girl to the elegant woman at the festival that could dance the night away with a Prince. When readers enter the online social world without the proper training, it isn’t always charming. Posting a thought online can damage a person’s credibility as a reviewer and tarnish a person’s online identity.

2. When we search something in Google, we leave a cookie behind – a footprint. Google is then able to show us ads based on our preferences. Goodreads is similar with the recommendations feature that is based on the books readers had read and rated. It is important for a reader to be selective in their choices so that they make the best use of this feature – otherwise, books are recommended that they have no interest in. The first two nights that Cinderella runs from the ball, she leaves nothing behind to give a clue for the Prince to find her. On the third night, the Prince pours pitch on the stairs that causes Cinderella’s shoe to get stuck – thus forcing her to leave a “footprint” (Ha!) behind. The Prince is then able to find her so he can marry her. In order to fully utilize Goodreads and Amazon, users must tailor their visits to the site to better the recommendations provided. It is vital that we leave our footprint behind.

Thoughts and Brainstorms: To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird is a widely known novel that has been picked apart up and down, and it seems like everything has already been said. We as a class are creating our own e-book based on novels that have impacted us, but from a slightly different perspective. We are applying novels to challenges or the uniqueness of how we consume literature from living in the digital age.
Right now we are in the brainstorming phase and so here is a few of my ideas of applications that can be made in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird:

• Readers can follow authors blogs, and even be invited into discussions with the author, but is the consumers voice too loud? Authors could potentially be losing creativity by only writing what readers want to hear. Are prejudices of popular demand overcoming new text? This could be drawn into racism and the unfair court trial in the novel. Is there a reason to fight against what everyone wants?
• What to truly believe… the reviews on Goodreads and especially Amazon can be misleading and it can be frustrating filtering through it all. This could be a connection to Mayella getting beat by her father but Tom getting the blame, although completely innocent. What you see isn’t always what you get type of standpoint. This could also be linked to the recommendations we receive on Amazon and Goodread. This could also be related to Boo Radley in a more positive way and we could get more out of these reviews and recommendations than what we thought. 
• Also Harper Lee is coming out with a SEQUEL (Go Set a Watchman) to To Kill a Mockingbird after 55 years. The time that passed could be due to the skepticism that occurred after her success from her last novel. Will the digital age only worsen the problem and scare writers and their creativity away?
• One main theme of the novel is the loss of ignorance or innocence which could be related to spoilers we could run into accidentally while on Goodreads or Amazon. 

Let me know what you think. I had a hard time just pin pointing one theme. So I know I need help simplifying it all. I’m open to any suggestion! The book is surprisingly applicable to the rising digital literature age.

Getting the Ball Rolling and Having a Ball

As a class we are currently beginning work on a ebook about...ebooks! (mind blown, huh?) And other  delightful digital reading topics. Each of us is going to have a chapter in which we address a certain topic through the lense of a work of literature.

A few posts ago I talked about my love for the book Ella Enchanted. It's not exactly Tolstoy or Melville, but it is a well known book and could play well as a filter for different issues regarding digital literacy.

So now it's time to....duh, duh, duh, DUH! BRAINSTORM!

I have been playing around with a few different ideas. Tell me what you think of these:

• Social norms on Goodreads. I would research and discuss what  is socially acceptable and what isn't. I would tie this into Ella Enchanted by talking about how we are obedient to these rules, just as Ella is obedient through most of the book. 
• The effect of renting ebooks from a library. I would look into how available this has become, what the advantages and disadvantages of it are, how it effects readers, authors, and publishers, and how it could increase literacy generally. I could use the magic book that Ella has that has a different story in it every time she opens it as a posslbe connection to the topic. 
• I have been thinking about the idea of instant gratification.. I don't know where  I could quite take it, but it is very mucha prevelant part of the digital age. The idea reminds me of the two evil stepsisters in the novel, Olive and Hattie. Does anyone have any ideas about what direction I could take it? 

These ideas are definitely just a starting point. But I would love to hear your feedback! Share away!

Rolling Out Ideas on Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Alright, ladies and gents, fasten your seatbelts and prepare for the brain dump.  The novel, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, has a lot of possible ways that it can relate to a project about using new platforms such as Goodreads and Amazon to read and study.  I have quite a few different ways that I could go with this book, so I’ll give a brief overview of it for those of you who aren’t familiar, throw out some potential ideas for an angle, and then I am DEFINITELY open to suggestions on which are hot and which are not.

First off, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is a young adult book based in the Deep South back when all the Jim Crow laws were being enacted and racism was pretty heavy.  The story is told by Cassie, a little black girl, and all of the events are through her innocent, naïve perspective.  There is a big focus on land in the story, because her family owns their own and that is something that sets them apart from the other black families in their neighborhood.  She makes friends with a few of the white children, but is discouraged from doing so by her parents.  One of her older friends, also black, gets involved with the white teenage boys and pays a heavy price for it.  Ok, that’s a reallyyyyy brief summary.

A few ideas:

• ·         The obvious racism.  Comparing the lack of acceptance of new ways to garner information (social media, online, etc.) in favor of traditionally-held methods to the white dominance over the suppressed black culture.
• ·         Land.  It would be interesting to discuss property rights with this one, for example, comparing the dependence and love that Cassie’s family has for their land to the need that authors have to maintain ownership over their works.  Piracy and illegal downloading of material could be compared to the ease with which white people usurped the land legally owned by their black neighbors.
• ·         Cassie’s point of view.  Cassie is a child who grew up in a world where people told her that things were a certain way, but her own experiences told her otherwise.  This could be compared to our generation, who were taught as children how to use traditional methods, but automatically sort of transitioned into the digital era.  The things that we were once told would “rot our brains” are now our most powerful resource. (Compare to Cassie’s friendship with the white children)
• ·         TJ, her older friend, getting too far ahead of himself and paying the price for it.  This could go with some social media platforms getting too big too fast and becoming difficult to control. (This one is a stretch, I know, but just roll with me because it has potential in my head, sort of.)  This would probably have to be against Goodreads and Amazon, discussing the potential dangers about trusting everything to the digital and forgetting what we know to be “safe.”

Ok friends, that’s all that I have so far.  I hope that they made sense!  Things will develop more along the way, but here are a few starting points!

Words, Words, Words

Lisa Nakamura has a lot to say about the website Goodreads in her article entitled: "Words with Friends": Socially Networked Reading with Goodreads. Despite the title of this post and the image to the right, I actually found her comments to be an interesting mixture of praise for the platform and concern about very real issues that arise from its use.

Goodreads as a platform is very interesting, to me. I suppose that the easiest way to describe it is "Like Facebook, but with less Face." Goodreads still suffers from a syndrome that we see in a lot of social media, which is the "me-centric" attitude that can easily grow there. When we are teenagers, we gain a concern that the entire world is paying attention to use and is super interested in finding our faults and beauty spots. I consider it a sport to go down to the mall and watch teenagers. If you watch carefully, you'll see that each of them is trying very hard to put on a particular display, and each of them is displaying so hard that few of them ever have the time to notice the displays being put on by their compatriots.

I think that most social networking platforms eventually lead to this inevitability, but with some more mature twists. It is still possible, however, to break down Goodreads users into some standard High School Movie character types.

Be Social Enough for The Social Media

Goodreads (a social networking site based on consumption of books) demands the social networker to work, but in this process of "work" or socializing we may limit our own discoveries.
Upon creating my own Goodreads account I went through steps to create a profile, and it surpasses than the basic username, password, and name type steps we are accustomed to. Beyond these steps, I was taken back to books I had read years ago and some more recently and asked to rate them 1-5 stars, and also to decide on what genres that I have most interest in. From this process Goodreads becomes able to filter out which books they believe we would not enjoy and can also make recommendations based on what we have read or desire to read. The more books rated and posted the more Goodreads is able to facilitate specific interests. So in other words we actually have to be social on Goodreads to get anything out of it; a passive attitude will not benefit our reading lists. Just as it is said in Lisa Nakamura's article "Words with Friends": Socially Networked Reading on Goodreads, "Goodreads turns the reader into a worker, a content producer, and in this it extends the labor of reading and networking into the crowd." So yes, what you may have thought was leisurely rating and reviewing books is actually work.