I hope to have a somewhat similar experience with this class. Maybe not with the singing, but with a newly discovered talent and lots of money in the end? I'd be down.
This class is much different than any other general I’ve
taken! I’m pretty excited that at the
end of the semester, we’ll actually have a finished product to show for
it! After thinking long and hard about
how to organize our chapters and where my book, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor, fits in, I decided
on a few potential ideas to research.
My first contribution to the project will be about how
piracy is becoming more and more prevalent due to the availability of books
online through such platforms as Amazon and Goodreads. I did a little bit of digging online and
found this one slideshow that talked about the rise in piracy since the rise in
eBook popularity. There’s definitely a
correlation there, since hackers are amazing and know how to download
everything and turn it into a PDF that’s easily available for public consumption. This causes authors and publishers to suffer
because it’s really hard for them to keep a hold on their content and digital
rights. To me, this relates to how the
Logan family, in my book, struggled to retain their lands while their white
neighbors tried to take them away. The
white neighbors felt like the land should be their own property, just as the
current internet users feel an entitlement to content online today. It’ll work together, I promise.
My other idea, definitely not as well developed, would be
how Cassie, a young girl growing up at the time, has to reconcile a collision
of worlds around her, and how that relates to students or the younger
generations using Goodreads and Amazon as study tools and reliable, trusted
sources, rather than the traditional study methods (dictionaries, solo work,
etc.) I’ll admit, I’m not quite sure how
to research this one yet. But I’ll get
there! I think there will be a lot of
papers on online research, the benefits of it, and how to reconcile/make the
most of the old and the new.
As far as putting together the actual book, my real concerns
are only making sure that everything is cohesive and supports each other. What if we have two contributors with
different viewpoints on a similar topic?
Is that allowed? Does that take
away from our book, or does it add to the validity by exploring all the
options? These are just a few things I’ve
been wondering. But our class is pretty
good at coming together and getting stuff done, so I’m not worried!
