Thursday, September 15, 2011

Frankenstein

For my senior capstone class I am taking Frankenstein in Literature and Film.  It's been a good class so far.  Yesterday we screened James Whale's 1931 movie Frankenstein and received the assignment to write an analysis of one frame and on sequence from the movie.  I've decided to share a little of my writings for this class on my blog and to use this as a place to maybe think out loud about the class as we look at the many variations of Mary Shelley's famous monster. So, as introduction I think I'll share what I wrote about a frame from the opening scene of the movie.


The frame I chose is near the beginning of the movie when Frankenstein and his assistant Fritz are digging a recently interred body from the ground. This frame is an extreme long shot which takes in several grave markers, the dark sky, the grave robbers, and the skeletal statue in the back right of the shot. As Dr. Frankenstein and Fritz are bent over digging up the earth, the skeleton, dressed in dark robes and resting his hands on the pommel of an unsheathed sword looms over the men, a silent witness to the desecration of the grave and death itself.
            
The mis-en-scene in this frame does much to set the tone and expectations for the rest of the movie. The prominent feature in this shot is the skeleton watching over the cemetery as Death himself watches over the dead. Even the grave markers seem to lean towards the statue of Death drawing the eye to him. It leaves no question that Death is the one who rules in the cemetery, protecting either the dead from the living or the living from the dead with his terrible sword. Thus, with their minds on Death, the audience sees and feels the wrongness of the desecration of the grave done by Frankenstein and Fritz  Here we have men stealing a body out from under Death's nose, an analogy for the work Dr. Frankenstein intends to do.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Neil Gaiman: blogging, tweeting, possible projects and his writing process

Ok, so I'm on a bit of a Neil Gaiman kick right now.  I'm enjoying his writing and love how involved he can get online with fans.  The other day he did an interview as part of a tour celebrating and promoting the 10th anniversary of American Gods. This interview is great because he talks about how he uses the internet to promote and connect with fans and how it influences his writing.


Watch live streaming video from neilgaiman at livestream.com

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Learning Outcomes

How fast time has gone by. I almost can't believe that the semester is over, but let me tell you that I am ready for a break.  Next semester is my last semester of classes at BYU and in the winter I'll be doing my student teaching.  I think that this class has been a great preparation for using tech when I'm teaching, and I've learned a lot about writing and research.  So, as the semester ends, it's time to look at the learning objectives and see how I did.  Our learning objectives were centered around three important aspects of writing in the digital age.
1. Consume.  2. Create.   3. Connect. 

Consume:  I've learned how to use the internet in conjuction with traditional libraries and databases to find what others are saying about the work I am studying.  During the semester I've searched for information with Google, Twitter, Goodreads forums, fansites, and Diigo bookmarks just to name a few sources.  The value to this is that we can filter our information by finding people who are invested in our research and have already done some of the work on their own. They can be great sources for finding information about a topic of research.  This enhances the research we can do in the library with its databases of scholarly journals.

Create:  I've learned that creating can be part of the process of discovery, but it also gives our research a valid outlet.  Authentic projects have been the name of the game, and that is what we have done with our eBook. I've created content with my blogging and with my Diigo account that has helped me and could also be of use to other people who are trying to learn more about Douglas Adams or making eBooks or even using digital tools and media.  By creating we add our part to a massive conversation and exchange of knowledge that is the nature of both the internet and scholarly writing.  I didn't only consume information about my book either.  I spent hours consuming information and learning about InDesign in preparation for the eBook we would be making.  Blogs and youtube videos and social bookmarks were a great help with finding and consuming that information.

Connect:  I've connected with many people this semester.  First, I've never worked more closely nor been more involved with my classmates work as I have this semester.  It has been great to see their blogs and learn about Borges or Comics or pig farming as the semester has gone by.  Also, the level of collaboration that has taken place has had me emailing, chatting and pestering almost every one of my fellow students in the course as we tried to get this eBook done. It has been a great experience and I have learned a lot.  Connecting with others?  Well, as a class we have been connecting with others to share our work with them.  I had several friends on facebook tell me they were interested in the book we've written and I also sent out a recommendation to some of my friends on Goodreads. Hopefully they will read it and love it and share it with others who are interested.  This is the point of connecting.  This is the way that all of our research and writing and hard work pays off in the end.  Someone will find it useful and share it with others who will also find value in it. It's so exciting.

I think that I've done pretty well this semester.  I've worked hard at getting my writing done and writing often.  I did a lot of research and learned more than just writing skills.  I think that the things I've taken from this class with be assets in my future career.

Our eBook has arrived

Writing about Literature in the Digital Age is now online and available for download.  I wont lie, it has been a pretty stressful and at times frustrating experience, but it has been one that I will always remember with a smile.  My assignment for our eBook was to write a chapter (like everybody else) and to work on the Design Team with Ben Wagner and Annie Ostler to get our book put together in an organized eBook, preferably in the ePUB, MOBI and PDF formats.  These formats, it was decided, would make our eBook available to the most people without requiring us to make too many different versions. Sounds exciting right?  It was, but oh was it hard to do.

We decided to use Adobe's InDesign CS5 to compile and format our eBook into the ePUB and PDF formats.  From the ePUB we converted to a MOBI format for Kindle and I have to say all three formats came out quite nice.  Several different versions of our free eBook can be downloaded here.  Also, if you are on Goodreads, you can download the book here. If you like it, please remember to give us a good rating.

So, what goes in to making  an eBook with InDesign?  It's not as simple as you think.  I'll talk a little about our process.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Works Cited page

I decided to get a jump on the work cited page, although we still haven't finished all of the regular chapters.  I put this together based on what sources where in your final drafts.  We are still waiting on a few chapters to be approved and sent back to the editing team.  Other than that, the work cited on one or two chapters didn't have enough information to cite the pic used.  If this is the case I sent you an email asking for more.  I appreciate comments and collaborations.  The work cited isn't set it stone, and if you can give it an edit, Nyssa, and help make it more uniform I would appreciate it.. 
Take a look at the work cited list for our eBook here.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

URGENT: read and respond ASAP

The design team will be working hard this weekend to try to have the eBook ready to launch on Monday by class time.  Right now we are working and designing each individual chapter for the eBook.  I believe that we have gotten past the few minor problems we were having and everything is looking good.

Now, the reason for the post is to show you all the Table of Contents I am making.  This is the annotated Table of Contents that will be at the beginning of the eBook.  It will look like this barring any changes, but the section and chapter names will have internal links to its proper place in the book.  I had to take liberties with a few thesis statements, especially if you didn't provide the "tweethis," so look this over and find your annotation.  If you don't like it or want to change it I need to know.  Just make a comment on this post and include the changes or new thesis you would like me to put in the final version.  Any other input is also appreciated.  Thanks for taking the time to look at this.

Download the PDF here

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

New chapter image

After talking with Annie Ostler and Ashley Nelson, we decided that my image probably wasn't going to work because of some small text the image contained.  So, I decided to get a new image.  I wanted something similar, but with less words or small text in it.  I couldn't find anything I loved, so I took an image I liked and changed it a little for my purposes.  I still have to figure out the right way to credit the original creator and acknolwedge that I changed it.  Anyway, I thought I would put the image out here to see what everyone thinks about it. 

The original was done by Imooty and can be found on her flickr account here. It has a creative commons license and only requires attribution.  So unless I get negative feedback this will be the picture.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Final Draft?

Alright, I think that I have my final draft ready to send to the editing team. Hopefully I didn't create too much work for them, but I sometimes forget to put in commas simply because they are there in my head and I don't realize that they aren't there.  Anyone who would like to see my chapter can read it here, although I'm sure that you are all as busy as I am trying to finish everything and make it look nice.  Good luck everyone! I'll send a Word version to the editing team in case that makes it easier for them.

As always, any pointers or other advice would be appreciated. It's not set in stone yet.

Good thing I finished. I just finished my Dr Pepper.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Draft progress.

Ok, I think I've finished writing my rough draft now.  I just need to trim the fat, tweak a few things and add the bio.  I'm just going to post the link to the google docs and you can see how it looks on that.  Tell me what you think of my picture I used and anything else you can think of.

Breaking Conventions: A Hitchhiker's Guide to Scholarly Research in a Digital Environment

Not-so-raw Rought-draft

Ok, I started adding things as I was getting close to finishing and ended up with some things to do still.  I need my picture, my bio, the last section and a closer and I need to do my references.  I'll get this done today and repost the link to the Google doc.



Breaking Conventions: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Scholarly Research in a Digital Environment
 
Introduction

On May 25, 2011, NPR did a story about PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and his controversial plan to pay twenty-four teenagers one hundred thousand dollar fellowships to drop out of college for two years and start their own companies. Thiel feels that the modern education system is too slow in reacting to change and actually stifles new, innovative thinking (Peralta). This is a sentiment that seems to be growing in regards to the American system of education. In his speech “Changing Education Paradigms,” Sir Ken Robinson, PhD, a renowned education expert, also worries about the idea of free thinking and innovation in an education system based upon old techniques and paradigms. The question that remains to be fully answered is, how do you teach students to be creative and think in new ways, but do so in a way that provides them with a legitimate education? Here at Brigham Young University, our Writing about Literature in the Digital Age class has been exploring this same question in terms of scholarly writing.

On the first day of class, many of us were shocked to learn the parameters of our new writing class. There would be no traditional papers, no secluded, private writing that only Dr. Gideon would read, instead, we would blog. Our research and our ideas were going to be cast into the web where our classmates and anybody else can read them. Our tools for this class would be the Internet itself. As a class, our focus has been on how we consume, connect, and create. Social discovery and human filters were to combine with traditional libraries to help us research our book of choice and write meaningful criticism on our blog posts. Oh yes, and we were required to document our actual research process during the semester on our blogs. Yikes! We would be breaking scholarly conventions that had been drilled into us during our time at college. This stuff wasn’t peer-reviewed. Can it be worth anything if it hasn’t been in a scholarly journal? Worst of all, my writing was going to be available for anyone to read? Needless to say, this was new grounds for all of us.

Nonconventional Examples

Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is an expert at breaking conventions. When the book that defined his career was published in 1979, it was an instant success, and its popularity spread to all parts of the world. The key to Douglas’ success is the way he was able to break the conventions of the genre he was writing in while showing an understanding and appreciation for the same unspoken rules he was breaking. The result was an unforgettable galactic comedy. Professor Shlomo Maital, a senior research fellow at the Technion Institute of Managment and author of TIMnovate a blog for innovators, praises Adam’s for his ability to break conventions and as inspiration for other innovators (par 4). Adams’ success can be measured in the fact that these stories have been adapted for radio, book, audiobook, TV, movies and even a play. Douglas skill at the craft shines through in all formats, and his fans all over the Internet agree that no one can successfully imitate the way he writes.

There are certain unspoken rules in any genre that all readers pick up on implicitly which, without conscious thought, they use to compare a work with others and therefore determine its value. So, when Adam’s takes an unexpected turn right before satisfying the unspoken conventions his readers are waiting to find, we find it funny because we are pleasantly surprised. Douglas tips his hat to the same convention he laughs at, and we are in on the joke.

One character that meets conventions while breaking them is Marvin the Paranoid Android. Reading blogs and fansites online, I’ve seen that he is a favorite of many Adams fans. A chronically depressed robot who can’t stand humans or other robots, and is constantly complaining, “Life, don’t talk to me about life” (Adams 63). Who wouldn’t laugh? We find value in Marvin as a comical character because he meets one important convention of the Science Fiction genre. Most science fiction include androids in some way in their stories. Quite often these androids are super intelligent and are dealing in some sense with the ability to act and feel emotionally like a human. Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation is one popular example of this. Classic examples in literature are Asmiov’s Robot series, beginning with I Robot and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? All of these address the issue of combining robot intelligence with human characteristics such as emotion. We love Marvin because he fits this category. Marvin has the largest “brain” in the galaxy and calculates complicated problems lightning-fast--when he feels up to it. Douglas breaks conventions by parodying this idea and showing what the most pathetic of human emotions would look like in a robot. We, the readers, like this because we see ourselves and recognize the irony of a super-intelligent yet emotionally unstable robot in Science Fiction. Carl R. Kropf says that Adams’ reversal of conventions comments “on the bankruptcy of the genre’s paradigms and rais[es] questions about the nature and the function of the genre” (62). Our writing class, by breaking conventions of scholarly writing, is also raising questions about the nature and function of the genre and how it should evolve in the digital age.

The Big Question

Breaking conventions can be a risky business if someone wants their work to be taken seriously, especially when dealing with long-standing traditions like the Science Fiction genre or even scholarly research and writing. It is, if I may be permitted to mix metaphors, like walking a tightrope standing over thin ice. One misstep and you fall through. If writers move too far away from the conventions of their genre, they run the risk of not being taken seriously or appearing to be careless in their craft. On the other hand, those who play it too safe compromise their initial purpose to create something fresh and new. To successfully break conventions, it is necessary to show a mastery of those same rules you are breaking. Douglas did this perfectly in his writing. There is no doubt his jokes are carefully crafted to address convention and turn it on its head. By meeting the requirements his readers expected he was able to break them with greater impunity. Nevertheless, Adam’s books are not often seen as literature worth studying and writing about in schools or scholarly works. The question remains, How do you break conventions while creating something that can be taken seriously in scholarly research and writing?

The Process

Consume:

Douglas Adams broke the conventions of the consumption of information when he wrote Hitchhiker in 1978. The idea of an electronic book that stored millions of book’s worth of information in a small, hand-held device was something new. “The reason why it was published in the form of a micro sub meson electronic compenent is. . . [it] would require several inconveniently large buildings to carry it around in” (20). With monumental amounts of information literary at Arthur Dent’s fingertips, the Guide was a prophetic vision of e-books and online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia.

Writing and reading in the digital age involves new methods of consumption as well. This involves both the consumption of books and the consumption of information as we research. In our class we were encouraged to experience at least one of our readings in a format other than the printed book, just to see what the benefits and drawbacks of each medium is. Matt Harrison has been looking at comic book version of Ender’s Game, considering the role of comic books as literature. Carlie Wallentine and I have been experiencing our books in many formats including text, audio, movie and others. This has been beneficial to me as I have been looking at Adams’ humor and experiencing it in different ways led me to consider how humor works in different mediums and how Adams has created humor by the way he breaks the conventions of his genre.

Our consumption of research information has also changed with this class. In her research on Where the Red Fern Grows, Amy Whitaker has used art to explore people’s interpretations and how art can enhance the study of literature, as has Rachael Schiel while studying Borges. Ben Wagner has used twitter to research and find what people are saying about The Great Gatsby. Scholarly Journals are not the only places where people are writing about literature. The digital world offers many ways to consume literature and information. It can be surprising to see how many people care and write meaningful things about the books we have chosen to study.

Connect:
Adams also knew the value of breaking conventions in order to connect poor Arthur Dent with other characters and the information he needed. Imagine how much more lost he would have been without his Babel Fish. The Babel Fish is essentially a plot device that allowed Arthur to understand any alien language that was being spoken to him. The fact that translation was done by a small, telepathic parasitic fish breaks the convention of Science Fiction by downplaying the role of science in this aspect and giving an important role to nature. We, as a class, did not have access to any Babel Fish, but we were able to find tools online that allowed us to connect to people and information otherwise impossible to find in a traditional library.

In general, connecting as a class in the digital world as well as the physical, has enriched our research. Social bookmarking (diigo, in our case) has been one tool that we have been using to share our discoveries with our classmates. As we come across resources or ideas that deal with our topics of study, we have been able to easily share these with our classmates. This has worked for our general topic of study as well as to share information about each other’s specific texts. Also, social networks have served as a great tool for connecting with people who care about our novels. Goodreads, for example, has allowed several of us to post questions and topics of conversation to forums about the books we are studying. The benefit of this is we are getting opinions and ideas of people who are invested in our book of choice and have spent time reading and thinking about it. It isn’t always a golden nugget of information, but has often proved enlightening.

While studying our primary texts, we have been encouraged to use social networking and other tools online to connect with people who have emotional stock in the books we are studying. This has led to meaningful communication with people who have insightful things to contribute. Annie Ostler has talked in class about the value she has found in fan sites or forums where blacks have talked about their responses and perspective on Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. This has been an invaluable resource to her as it offers a perspective that she could otherwise never experience, a perspective extremely valuable while studying a Toni Morrison novel.

Create:
   

I wasn't procrastinating . . . I just ran out of soda

photo by brent_nashville

I don't know about you guys, but when I am sitting down to write a paper, or anything that will be longer than a page, I really love to have a soda or something else to drink.  It isn't even the caffeine, although Dr Pepper is my drink of choice.  Right now I'm taking a break from writing, but I have an open Shasta Black Cherry soda can on my desk.  It's almost to the point that after so many minutes of writing I have to get up and get a soda or stop.  Maybe I just do it to break the monotony.

How about you guys? Do you have any strange writing habits?

E-book: images, links, and InDesign

I did some research about images over the weekend and found some pointers and guidelines for using images in e-books.  This site is a good one that gives recommendations for image size for the cover art and also images inside the book.  I think we should follow the recommendations for the kindle, as that is the device that has the most limited display of graphics. The recommended size for the cover art is 600 pixels wide and 800 pixels high, so that is something to keep in mind when designing the cover.  Interior images should be no bigger than 450 pixels wide by 550 pixels high.  Also, with the kindle it says that the maximum size of the image should be no bigger than 63 kb.  Lastly, it recommends using .jpg or .png images as they convert easiest to e-book.

Links in InDesign is not too difficult as long as we don't use a lot of them.  We can create interior links as well with a little extra work.  I found some really good tutorial videos that I bookmarked for our diigo group that gives good instructions for images, links, and other aspects of creating an e-book with InDesign.

Last of all, in my searches I came across this page from Amazon, that provides several different programs to help facilitate publishing for the Kindle.  Two on this page caught my attention.  The first is a Kindle previewer that allows you to see what your e-book would look like on an actual kindle.  We can use this to test our e-book when it is made to make sure everything flows well.  The other available download is probably the best of the two.  It is an plug-in for Adobe InDesign that will allow us to publish our e-book directly to the Kindle format instead of needing the extra step with Calibre.  That is nice because we can create our e-Pub and Kindle book with the same program.

Friday, June 3, 2011

The three C's

Consume
  • I consumed H2G2 in many formats: Audiobook, radio, book, tv
  • Carlie discusses different ways of consuming and what makes a primary text
  • Matt consumes literature in comic book format, is it legitimate?
Connect
  • Amy has had success connecting with teachers and asking them about her novel
  • Annie has connected with forums that focus on the personal relevance Toni Morrison's books have had for them
Create
  • Ashley and fanfiction
  • my blog post on dead-end research

New Title

I think the title for my chapter is going to be Breaking Conventions: A Hitchhiker's Guide to Scholarly Research in a Social Environment

What do you think?

My Raw Rough-Draft

Breaking Conventions: Scholarly Research in a Social Environment

Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is an expert at breaking conventions.  When the book that defined his career was published in 1979, it was an instant success, and its popularity spread to all parts of the world.  The key to Douglas’ success is the way he was able to break the conventions of the genre he was writing in while showing an understanding and appreciation for the same unspoken rules he was breaking.  The result was an unforgettable galactic comedy.  His success at this can be measured in the fact that these stories have been adapted for radio, book, audiobook, TV, movies and even a play.  Douglas skill at the craft shines through in all formats, and his fans all over the Internet agree that no one can successfully imitate the way he writes.

There are certain unspoken rules in any genre that all readers pick up on implicitly which, without conscious thought, they use to compare a work with others and therefore determine its value. So, when Adam’s takes an unexpected turn right before satisfying the unspoken conventions his readers are waiting to find, we find it funny because we are pleasantly surprised. Douglas tips his hat to the same convention he laughs at, and we are in on the joke.  

One character that meets conventions while breaking them is Marvin the Paranoid Android.  Reading blogs and fansites online, I’ve seen that he is a favorite of many Adams fans.  A chronically depressed robot who can’t stand humans or other robots, and is constantly complaining, “Life, don’t talk to me about life.”  Who wouldn’t laugh?  We find value in Marvin as a comical character because he meets one important convention of the Science Fiction genre.  Most science fiction include androids in some way in their stories.  Quite often these androids are super intelligent and are dealing in some sense with the ability to act and feel emotionally like a human.  Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation is one popular example of this.  Classic examples in literature are Asmiov’s Robot series, beginning with I Robot and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  All of these address the issue of combining robot intelligence with human characteristics such as emotion.  We love Marvin because he fits this category.  Marvin has the largest “brain” in the galaxy and calculates complicated problems lightning-fast--when he feels up to it.  Douglas breaks conventions by parodying this idea and showing what the most pathetic of human emotions would look like in a robot.  We, the readers, like this because we see ourselves and don’t have to worry about intelligent and emotionally stable robots.

Breaking conventions can be a risky business if someone wants their work to be taken seriously, especially when dealing with long-standing traditions like the Science Fiction genre or even scholarly research and writing.  It is, if I may be permitted to mix metaphors, like walking a tightrope that is over thin ice.  One misstep and you fall through.  If writers move too far away from the conventions of their genre, they run the risk of not being taken seriously or appearing to be careless in their craft.  On the other hand, those who play it too safe compromise their initial purpose to create something fresh and new. To successfully break conventions, it is necessary to show a mastery of those same rules you are breaking.  Douglas did this perfectly in his writing.  There is no doubt his jokes are carefully crafted to address convention and turn it on its head.  By meeting the requirements his readers expected he was able to break them with greater impunity.  Nevertheless, Adam’s books are not often seen as literature worth studying and writing about in schools or scholarly works.  The question remains, How do you break conventions while creating something that can be taken seriously in scholarly reasearch and writing?

Consume

Connect


Create

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Can we make our e-book with InDesign?

Ok, I decided to make a screencast video to show what I did with InDesign and how I think it will work with our project.  Unfortunately, Jing's free screencasts are in the swf format and I couldn't post it to the blog or know how to convert it.  So, to see the video, follow this link.  It is kind of big, but everything I did was in the middle of the screen.

I then used calibre to convert the ePub format into mobi and I think the results looked pretty good

Here are some pictures of what these books looked like on the kindle:

Terry White's book



And the one I made with our googledoc and a random picture


Wednesday, June 1, 2011

E-book Conversions.

Ok, so I must confess that I got a little lazy over the weekend and didn't write anything, but I did look into e-book conversion programs.  Unfortunately, because I didn't bother blogging until today I got beat to the punch.  I guess I won't ever make a good reporter. That's ok though. I found two possible programs that we might be able to use to create our e-book. 

The best program I found was Calibre, which Bri has already talked about.  If you use e-books at all I would recommend this program.  I played with it over the weekend and gave it to my dad to use on his with his Kindle.  He loves it.  This is a managing program for your e-books that let's you buy from different sites online and transfer them directly to your e-reader of choice.  It has a built in reader too and is a great tool to manage you stuff.  Check out the link and watch the video. This program will convert to any type of e-book. The downside is that it can't convert a .doc or .docx file.  It has to be in either PDF or HTML or another e-book format.  That is no big deal really, Word can save documents as PDFs.  The downside to this is that, converting it to an e-book, we need to have the chapter headings and Table of Contents linked by ourselves.  After reading Nyssa's post, however this doesn't look to be that difficult.  Like I said, the advantage of Calibre is that we can make this book in several formats and post them ourselves in places like Goodreads and anywhere else without getting stuck with just Amazon.  Also, its a free program.

Next, is a program that isn't bad but I don't find quite as versatile as Calibre but it isn't bad, and its free too.  This is Mobipocket Creator. This program will convert you .doc and .docx files plus the usual PDF's and HTML's to the .mobi format used in the Kindle. It does a good job but I find it more limited than Calibre. If we just want that one format, then we could just submit the e-book to Amazon and let them do the work of formatting it.  Mobipocket does have their own e-book market that we might be able to publish on but after looking at it, I don't think that such a small market would be worth the effort. 

I like the idea of publishing in several places.  The Goodreads idea was a great one.  We can share the book with all of our friends on that site.  Amazon of course would be good too.  I looked into the iBook part of iTunes and I don't think that we will be able to distribute the book there.  From what I read, we have to charge at least $.99 for anything offered through iTunes.  Lulu might be another possibility but I'm not sure if they let you distribute it for free. I'll have to check into it. 

Friday, May 27, 2011

An e-book can be many things

I have to say that I've been at a loss when thinking about what my class can do with an ebook for our final project.  Some want to write from an LDS perspective, which is fine, and something that would be worth doing.  I just have a hard time getting on-board with the idea, partly because I don't know how I could fit the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy into a project like this.


I've been thinking more along the lines of what Bri has proposed in her post.  I think that the best way to combine our novels into one coherent book is to write about our own digital literary research and combine the process with writing about our literary work that we've been studying.  I think this will serve our authenticity requirement, as we can make it available to those interested in doing similar work, having shown processes and tools for research 2.0. 

I won't cover everything that Bri talked about, but I do think I have an answer to her question about scope and how we can do an e-book with the time that is left in the term.  An e-book can be many things.  Its only requirement is that it be digital and consisting of a theme that binds it all together.  We don't have to make fancy flash-powered animation of page turning.  It can be simple.  I think that the best way to do this is with a wiki.  The menu on the side can be the table of contents and we could even have a topical guide of sorts that gives links to all 'chapters' talking about certain topics of research.  On the wiki we can include photos, video, and other things that a kindle format would not allow.  We can also submit the link to groups and projects like teachers and the DPLA so they can see the use of multimedia and web2.0 in modern-day research.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

MLA Bibiliography and Borges

  • I've been interested in Rachel's search for things about Borges, so I decided to see what I could find in MLA International Bibliography.  
  • MLA Bibliography is a great bibliography of articles, journals, books and even chapters of books going back to the 1920's
  • I originally looked in the MLA Bibliography trying to find a great article in Spanish that I might be able to translate for Rachel, something pertaining to her search about art and Borges.  I didn't end up finding anything that looked interesting in Spanish though. I used the adnvanced search options putting in Borges name and words in Spanish and in English using the OR boolean operator.  I got back many options but using the peer reviewed tab, I found a useful article online with a PDF and found the reference to it in the BYU library.
  • Baler, Pablo. "The Subconcious of Civilization: An Interview with Lilian Porter." Sculpture (U.S.A.). 20.1 (2001). 26-41.
  • Lilian Porter talks about her art and how it has been influenced by literature, especially by the writings of Borges and Carroll.
  • I'm not positive if this will help Rachel, but it seems to fit with what she has talked about with her research on artwork and Borges and also her plans to maybe submit something to the DPLA project. It didn't help her get into a article written in Spanish, but hopefully it is something that she can use.

Researching ideas on Humor and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in ERIC

  • I searched the ERIC database in hopes that I could find something on either The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or even just ideas about teaching humorous texts in the classroom.
  • ERIC (Education Resource Information Center) is a database of indexes and abstracts of many educational journals and reports after 1967.
  • I accessed ERIC through EBSCO on the BYU library wesite.  My intention was to see if anything has been written about using Hitchhiker in classrooms.  I didn't find anything, so I searched more generally for articles on humor in the language arts classroom and humor AND English.  This yeilded many resulsts and I was able to peruse the abstracts of the articles to find out which article might suit my needs. The article I found wasn't available but clicking the get@BYU button, I was able to find a pdf version on ProQuest.
  • Goebel, Bruce A.. "Comic Relief: Engaging Students through Humor Writing." English Journal  98.6 (2009): 38-43.
  • Goebel writes about the benefits of studying humor as a way to help students become engaged in learning and its use as a vehicle to teach grammar, language analysis, public speaking, and many other important aspects traditionally required in the study of language arts.
  • I liked this article for two reasons. First, it gave some great general ideas for teaching humor in the classroom which I could apply to Hitchhiker.  Second, it talks about several ways humor is produced which gave me some new ideas and confirmed others that I already had as correct.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Time is an illusion. Wasted time doubly so

At least, that is how I feel about the opportunities available by blogging our research process.  In the old days, with traditional methods of research and writing, if I were to research something that ultimately led to a dead end I would have been frustrated and disappointed about all of that wasted time. Not so with this blog.  I can talk about the process and my thoughts behind it and it serves a purpose and guides me to the next part of my research.  This post is about what I learned and what I think about the possible connection between Douglas Adams' Vogon poem and Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky.

The answer is a strong maybe in my mind.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Another book that inspired a movie.

Mountain ManMountain Man by Vardis Fisher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I read this book when I was in high school but had to add it to my goodreads shelf. Anybody who enjoyed the movie Jeremiah Johnson will absolutely love Fisher's novel. The amount of detail in this book really transports you into the world of the mountain man. After all of these years, I still remember the descriptions of food and everyday processes the protagonist goes through. But the book is so much more than that. It is about a man who lives in an untamed world, far from any comforts or civilization, but he is happy. That is until his Indian wife and unborn child are murdered by some warriors from another tribe. Then, he wanders the wilderness seeking vengeance against those who stole away his love and happiness. Very good stuff.



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Searching for a possible connection between Douglas Adam and Lewis Carroll in the Literature Resource Center

  1. Searching for a possible connection between Douglas Adam and Lewis Carroll in the Literature Resource Center
  2. My purpose was to see if the LRC (Literature Resource Center) had anything about Douglas Adams and a possible relationship between his work and that of Lewis Carroll.  I saw something while reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and wanted to research the perceived connection.
  3. Literature Resource Center This is a great resource for literary topics, authors, and their works, covering all genres, disciplines and time periods.  It has full-text access to articles and also biographical essays and links to other resources.
  4. I used the LRC to search any articles I could find on Douglas Adams and Lewis Carroll.  I did a simple boolean search of "Douglas Adams" AND "Lewis Carroll."  I also used combinations of these keywords with "Jabberwocky" and "Hitchhiker's Guide."  They didn't provide any useful results that were different from the first search. I found one article relevant to what I was searching.  Out of curiosity I searched "Douglas Adams" and it only returned about 21 results. This doesn't reflect on LRC necessarily, rather on the fact that not many people have felt the need to write scholarly articles on my chosen author or his works.
  5. Nediger, Will. "Lewis Carroll and Douglas Adams." Word Ways 38.1 (2005): 19-20. Literature Resource Center. Web. 24 May 2011
  6. The author talks about the relationship between certain aspects of Carroll's stories about Alice and Adam's Hitchhiker writing, saying that Adams was probably inspired by Lewis Carroll.
  7. This wasn't the best I could have hoped for but it was the best I could find.  I was hoping that someone had written about Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky" and a possible relationship with the Vogon poem read to Arthur and Ford before they are ejected into space.  This relates to my study of Adams' use of humor and a belief that I have that he was spoofing or even lampooning Carroll. 

Monday, May 23, 2011

Group Discussions about Hitchhiker's Guide

The other day I found some groups about Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on Google and Goodreads.  Part of the way I want to research Adams' skill with comedy is to connect with others who love his works and hear what they have to say about it.  So, I used the discussion sections on these groups and posted this to them.
"The first time I read Hitchhiker's Guide, I was blown away by Adams' uncanny ability to write comically. His books are so memorable largely because of Adams' skill with humor and his great one-liners.
What do you think? How does Adams do it? What is it about his writing that tickles our funny bone every time?"
I have put this question to three different Douglas Adams fan groups now (it has been a challenge to find good active fan pages. I mostly find blogs and other types of websites).  This morning I had some emails alerting me that I've received a couple of answers to my question.  Both have mentioned reasons why they find Douglas Adams so funny and have given me new insights into his writing style.  I can't wait to see what other people have to say.

What if Shakespeare's characters all shared the same world?

Kill Shakespeare Vol.1 (Kill Shakespeare, #1)Kill Shakespeare Vol.1 by Conor McCreery

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The idea for this story is such a good one that I couldn't resist buying the book to check it out. I like the story and enjoyed the art, but I found the dialogue to be average. The psuedo-shakespearean language was used incorrectly and distracted from the story. That said, I enjoyed everything else and thought it was a fun take on the well-known creations of the Bard. I will probably buy the second part when it's available.



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Towel Day: May 25th


It can be argued, I think, that a book's importance can, in part, be measured by the type of impression it leaves upon society after it has been written.  There is, of course, the immediate effects while people are still excited about a given work, but there are also longer lasting impacts that truly show how important a book has been to our culture.  Granted, these influences are not always profound or important, but they do exist and they are important for some people.  I'm talking about something more than Twilight fame.  Twilight has had its moment, but I don't think it will last, or ever have a following like the Lord of the Rings or other stories.  Part of my exploration of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is going to be on the way it has influenced our culture and how it has remained relevant and popular even after more than 30 years.

For this post I want to talk about Towel Day.  Towel Day began May 25 2001, a mere two weeks after Douglas Adams' untimely death.  It has since been a tradition for fans everywhere to carry their towels with them every May 25 to celebrate Adams' life and his genius and creativity as a writer. 

For those who aren't familiar with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, towels were named in the stories as being one of the most valuable possessions a interstellar traveler could have.  This is what the Hitchhiker's Guide says:
"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough . . . any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with."
In honor of Douglas Adams, I am going to carry my towel with me and of course tell everyone who asks about one of the most entertaining authors that I have read.  I also wanted to write this post to share with everyone who comes across it so that they too can share the love of humor, Science Fiction, and hitchhiking.

Here is a short video talking about Towel Day


This is a Google Doodle done by Vinesh, a student at Lincoln Praire School, where they will be reading Vogon poetry to celebrate Towel Day.  Google Towel Day Logo.

Desktop backgrounds by Travis Avery to celebrate Towel Day 2011

Lastly, Towel Day will also be celebrated in Second Life at Milliways, the restaurant at the end of the universe

If any of this made absolutely no sense to you, please, do yourself the favor and go down to your nearest library or bookstore or get onto Amazon or iTunes and buy this book.  You'll laugh your way through it and have a more light-hearted look at Life, the Universe and Everything.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Modern take on the Hitchhiker's Guide

Here is a funny video a fan made. It's what the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has to say about coffee. I like how he made the Guide to look like an ipad screen.


Thursday, May 19, 2011

Great Book

American GodsAmerican Gods by Neil Gaiman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I really loved this story. Gaiman blends the mythology of multiple cultures into a melting pot of gods and magic appropriate for the demographics of the United States. The old guard vs. the new guard of gods and fairy-tale creatures are on the verge of a mythological battle which represents a paradigm shift of belief and worship in the United States, and Shadow, a regular, unassuming man, gets caught in the middle.

This novel is a very fun and quick-paced read. Gaiman keeps his story balanced between good action and mystery, which keeps you on your toes, and character development which shows the humanity of even the most barbaric of gods, which lets you really feel for the characters and enjoy their triumphs.

This is a novel for adults, with some harsh language, but the sex and violence isn't too explicit. I'd recommend this book to anybody who enjoys fantasy or mythology.



p.s. I listened to the audio version of this book. The narrator is perfect for this novel. Very well done.



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Curse You Amazon!!

I got my books I bought on Amazon today.  It was, as always, an exciting experience until I realized that they sent me the wrong book.  Having read and loved Neil Gaiman's American Gods, I decided I wanted to read two other books of his.  Stardust and Don't Panic, a companion guide to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  To my dismay, Don't Panic wasn't in the box.  Instead, I had a regular paperback copy of the actual Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Aaarrrgghhh! The incompetence!  The invoice, of course proves that the error had not been made on my end of the transaction.

My plan is to read Neil Gaiman's companion guide and to write him after and hopefully asking him some questions about his thoughts on the novel, based on what I read from his book.  I still have to call the people at Amazon, but I hope they can get me another copy of that book fast so I can see what Mr. Gaiman has to say.  Until then, Amazon, you're on my list.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

"I love deadlines. . .

. . . I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
                                             ---Douglas Adams

I'm having trouble deciding how I want to approach The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  I'm trying to blog my processes of research and what I am learning, and tangle with the text in a literary way.  The problem is, I'm not sure how I want to approach this.  One idea is to look at the humor of the book and Douglas Adams, and analyze how he creates humor and why it works.  This idea appeals to me because it is something new for me, and I think I could learn quite a bit about the craft of comedy.  Another approach that I am considering is to look at the ways the book has influenced pop culture and how the book has stayed alive in the hearts of the general public.  This will be fun because I can look at how people consume the book and create their own content in order to celebrate Adams and his Galaxy.  Lastly, I could study how this book has remained relevant in our digital and scientific culture, even 32 years after it was published.  This is a rare thing for a Science Fiction novel and even more surprising when you think of more serious Science Fiction novels that are terribly outdated merely because they failed at predicting the future of technology and science. 

I am sure I would enjoy any of these options, but I'm not sure which would be most profitable for me to study.  I know that in a way these ideas are interconnected, but to talk about all three would be too general of a topic. 

What do you think I should do?  Leave comments and tell me which idea sounds the most interesting?  Any input will be appreciated.  I can't promise to follow your suggestion, but I will promise to take it into consideration.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Do you make soundtracks for your books?

photo by dalydose
Yesterday I set up a feed into my Google reader through Google's blog search for any posts with the words "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".  It paid off immediately as one of the first things I got was a link to this post.  I love this because these people have created "mixed tapes" to accompany the first three books of the Hitchhiker's series.  The author has asked for people to make suggestions to improve the mix, offering a reward for the best suggestion.  What a great example of someone remixing to create something new and consume media in a different way.

At the bottom of that post are links to listen to all of the songs they have chosen for each book.  So, I listened to this mixed-tape soundtrack for Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  The songs they chose are either songs that were written about the story itself or something that fits with a certain scene in the book.  They placed the music in the same order as the book.  Also, and this is my favorite part, the author gives a small explanation for many of the songs and why they were chosen.  This is beneficial to anyone reading the book because it considers characters, themes, and tone and explains how the songs match enhance these elements.

I think this will enhance my reading of Adam's master work.  Using music and art to interpret literature is nothing new.  Music can help form an emotional connection on a deeper level than just reading can.  Experiencing something in many mediums makes a deeper impression on your mind.   This is a good way to connect people to what they are reading.  It's fun for students to experience their readings on multiple levels.  If listening to this mixed-tape soundtrack causes someone to form a permanent connection between Coldplay and Douglas Adams, I would consider it a good thing.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Collaboration: A 21st century necessity and reality

Collaboration.  That is something that has been on my mind quite often after reading both Rainbows End and Crowdsourcing.  Rainbows End has the importance of collaborative work spread throughout the novel.  As both plots unfold, the level of collaboration employed by characters is increasingly more complex and more important to the success of their endeavors.  Even Robert Gu has to learn that he can be more successful in life by working with others instead of constantly pushing them away.  In Crowdsourcing, Jeff Howe shows that, time and again, the amateurs working in the crowd are often willing to collaborate and share their knowledge to the benefit of the entire collaborative community.  This is a key component in crowdsourcing.

I'm trying to look at this course in light of my future career as an English teacher, and I've been thinking about collaboration mostly in context of a high school or junior high context. Why is collaboration so important for kids in school, and how can I best employ it?

My short review of Jeff Howe's Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of BusinessCrowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business by Jeff Howe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I don't often read books like Crowdsourcing, but I found Jeff Howe to be an engaging writer who knows how to tell engaging stories to explain his theories on how to use the crowd in business. There are a few places that feel a little repetitious and dull, but Howe mostly delivers a solid message in an way that I found entertaining. My recommendation: Don't read this book word for word. Skim it, browse it, read it like a manual of sorts and you'll pick up the message without getting bogged down it similar stories or parts you don't find interesting.



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Saturday, May 14, 2011

Review of Rainbows End

Rainbows EndRainbows End by Vernor Vinge

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Vinge's Rainbows End is a good book that he just didn't seem to be able to tie up completely at the end. I really enjoyed this book. I thought that some of the themes he addresses and the futuristic world that he creates were quite good. The idea of people who wear their computers and are always connected, experiencing an augmented view of reality is one that is exciting and exotic, yet not too far-fetched. The issues with this book are the ways he connects the two plot lines. I thought that both plot lines were good but so different from each other that you almost have to change mindset when switching to the other story. Vinge doesn't give enough closure for my taste on the secondary plot line and this left me feeling a little dissatisfied. I want to know more. That said, I thought this was a good book and one that I would recommend to friends and family who enjoy SciFi. Vinge has a few misses but when he gets it right in this book I really enjoyed it.



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Favorite Movie Adaptations

I'm so excited for June to come fast.  No, it's not because we finish Spring term.  It is because Cinemark will be showing, for one night each, the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and I got my tickets to see The Fellowship of the Rings.

Having talked in class about different ways to consume books, I began thinking about other movie adaptations and which ones have been good and which have been disgustingly bad.  Here is a list of some of my favorite movie adaptations from books that I have read.

The Princess Bride

This iconic '80's movie starring Cary Elwes and Robin Wright is an adaptation from William Goldman's book by the same name.  What I love about this book adaptation is that although the movie doesn't contain every scene from the book, what it does contain is surprisingly accurate.  Even the grandfather reading the story to his grandson reflects how Goldman tells his story.  This is refreshing in an industry that often takes liberties with the story lines they are adapting, resulting in a final product that resembles the original in name alone.

The Godfather

I think that many people don't realize that this move starring Marlon Brando as Don Corleone was originally a book by Mario Puzo.  Although Puzo's book details much more than you see in the first movie, The Godfather tells the essential story of the Corleone family and their workings in the dark, yet honor bound world of the Italian-American mafia.  This movie has become Hollywood's ultimate example of the mafia and is constantly alluded to in movies and TV programs.  This is one of the must-see's in the world of cinema.

Shogun

Richard Chamberlain stars in this mini-series that successfully takes James Clavell's Shogun to a new audience via TV.  This mini-series lasts about 9 hours but is well worth the time for anyone interested in the exploration period, feudal Japan or simply a great story.  The story told here is one of love, politics, isolation, religion and betrayal.  It is very compelling, with excellent actors (including a surprising tie-in for this post).  The Portuguese pilot is played by non other than John Rhys-Davies, also known as Gimli, the dwarf, in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.