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Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Literacy Project Reflection

 Synopsis


My project used Twitter to tweet at three different times throughout the day, 12am, 12pm, and 8pm, about topics and posts related to books, literature, authors' quotes, and just reading and literacy in general. As previously mentioned, I ended up choosing the Twitter option for this project. The purpose of this project was to get people more interested in reading in general by tweeting about reading and how it could be beneficial. The project also exhibited different quotes from authors as well as some interesting characteristics of reading and books in general. The project was run from my Twitter bot known as @subredditsbot and #reading and #literacy were used on practically every tweet that was published.


Tweets

I will now show you all of the tweets:





























Explanation

The messages that were in the tweets varied quite a lot. From the benefits of books and reading to quotes from various famous authors all the way to tweeting about the smallest book in the Library of Congress. These messages were chosen because they had some sort of connection to books, literacy, literature, statistics about books, or just reading in general. The #reading and #literacy were used for two reasons. One was so it was really easy to search through the account's tweet archive to find the tweets pertaining to this literacy project since it is a Twitter bot. Another reason that these hashtags were used because every tweet that was used for this project is connected to reading or literacy in some sort of way. The images that were used as tweets were quotes about reading from famous authors that really portrayed what they thought about reading and just added another person's voice to the project besides @subredditsbot. I had to decide what exactly I wanted to include in these tweets because there is so much out there about reading, literacy, and just books in general. Another problem was trying to fit what I wanted to say in the character limit on Twitter. I was able to get through these two problems by deciding what was the most important ideas and concepts to tweet about along with whittling down exactly what I wanted to say in the tweets and to get rid of any unnecessary garbage.

Effectiveness of the Project

All in all, I felt that the project did what it was supposed to. The account tweeted about various things regarding reading, literacy, and books and if other Twitter users liked the tweets, then those tweets would be favorited as 5 or so of my tweets were. I got the end project that I hoped would happen. Some of the challenges along the way was just getting the right material and not messing up with not including pictures in a tweet about a quote as seen in the tweet that simply says "Stephen King Quote" with NO quote. Another challenge was simply trying to get other people to simply react to what had been tweeted. The successes was having people favorite my tweets. These tweets did serve the purpose of the project to have everyone just get a better understanding of reading in general. It has been received fairly well. Besides from making sure that Mr. Davidson was not following the twitter bot anymore before it re-started its barrage of tweets from Reddit. Sorry about that. Besides that, I feel that the project was well received. I feel like the effectiveness of the project will decrease as it is already buried under thousands and thousands of tweets. The only real way to find these tweets now is to access my Twitter archive for @subredditsbot of 770 thousand + tweets or individually search for the tweets using the hashtags and key terms that were in the tweets.

Works Cited

I understand that this was required but I just wanted to post a works cited in case people wanted to learn more about the information that was discussed in the tweets. This is NOT a complete list.
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/10-benefits-reading-why-you-should-read-everyday.html
http://lifedev.net/2009/06/reading-makes-you-better/
https://nptreads.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/dr-who-quote1.jpg
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/utterly-disappointing-facts-about-books
https://sozadesigns.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/writersquotes1.jpg
http://www.statisticbrain.com/reading-statistics/
http://loc.gov/about/fascinating-facts/
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/06/61/2e/06612e6665cf7ad4de8f09acc7263dc9.jpg
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/read-a-book-day-5-book-facts-you-didnt-know
http://www.unbelievable-facts.com/2013/09/10-scientific-facts-about-reading-books.html
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/utterly-disappointing-facts-about-books#.vhYea7mvY
https://agentcarlywatters.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/s-king-quote.jpg

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Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore Reading Review (FINAL)



Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore Book Review
    Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore was written by Robin Sloan. Clay Jannon, the main character and narrator, takes a job as a clerk for Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour bookstore after walking around San Francisco and seeing that Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore was in need of a clerk to man the store during night hours. Clay basically goes into work every night and never really has anybody come in. He starts to wonder what it really going on with the bookstore when he sees that there isn’t a substantial way that the bookstore is actually making money. There are also these people who come in and “borrow” books without paying for them. The books that the people are borrowing turn out to be heavily encoded and Clay is unable to make any sense as to what they say. It is at this point in the story that Clay begins to question what the bookstore is really covering up. Is it a cult? Or is it a place that is rampant with drugs? Clay then becomes quite involved in a “secret” society that is running the bookstore. A potential for immortality keeps coming up, could this actually lead to something that Clay might need to know? This book is very interesting and suspenseful and I would recommend it to everyone to read.
    Setting was very interesting in this book and really helped to create some suspense in the book with the very vivid descriptions of the setting at different times in the novel. A part in the book where the use of setting really helped to get an overall feel for what was going on, was with the description of the Reading Room. Clay marvels at the Reading Room when he descends into it, “...Wide steps curl down into the darkness. The ceiling is crisscrossed with heavy wooden beams. ...The floor is bedrock ...smooth like glass” (Sloan 143-44). This description of the Reading Room feels like the reader is actually in the room while the story is taking place. The visual quality that comes from this description is really quite impeccable. With the description of the Reading Room being underground to with the floor made of bedrock that seems just like glass, the reader can really feel that they are actually in the Reading Room and experiencing it along with Clay. Setting adds many visual qualities to the story that really tend to immerse the reader in Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore setting especially in regard to places like the Waybacklist and the Reading Room.
            The characters were also very important in the story with each character offering a variety of different character viewpoints that really help to bring a lot of interesting viewpoints to [A1] the story and make it more enjoyable to read. There are many different types of characters from people that are really rich to people with art degrees all the way up to people that are CEOs and PMs of companies. There is a lot of variety that is attributed with these different characters. There are also characters that are in The Dragon-Song Chronicles, that have very similar viewpoints from the characters in the actual story as seen through the shade,” ‘What do you seek in this place?’ the shade asked plainly” (Sloan 263). The shade symbolizes Mr. Penumbra in The Dragon-Song Chronicles. The concept of characters with in the characters of the book is quite interesting. The Dragon-Song Chronicles represent characters that Moffat had originally interacted and came to really enjoy and respect in real life. He wanted to make them immortal so he wrote about them in the Chronicles and in a sense as long as people are reading those books, the characters are immortal.  The interconnectedness of the characters in Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and in The Dragon-Song Chronicles really shows the importance of characters and what they can do for a novel. The characters in The Dragon-Song Chronicles were able to actually help Clay solve the puzzle of The Unbroken Spin. If it wasn’t for the characters presented in the Chronicles Clay would probably not have been successful in solving the puzzle.
            There are many underlying themes that are present in the novel that make it interesting to read. There is the theme of love that Clay and exhibit quite well throughout the novel. Even though Clay and Kat’s relationship becomes rocky, the central theme of love is still present. There is also suspense which is presented in the books of the Waybacklist as well as the people of the Unbroken Spin that go and “borrow” books like the bookstore is a public library. It isn’t until Mat visits the bookstore that Clay finds out a little bit about the secrecy in the bookstore. This all starts when Mat visits Clay at ends up taking a book off of the Waybacklist and reading it, “…there aren’t words at all. The pages are just long runs of letters” (Sloan 29). This incident opens the floodgates on Clay’s curiosity for what is actually happening and makes him view the bookstore as well as Mr. Penumbra in a new light. Without themes in the novel there wouldn’t be much supporting the overall plot. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore does have a good plot, however; the plot wouldn’t have been quite as lively or flowing if there were elements in the novel, like setting that helped to “spice” up the novel.  It also wouldn’t flow very smoothly. The messages that are presented in the novel are pretty much all messages that pertain to the novel and make sense for them to be there. There is one theme that is presented in the novel that in my opinion really doesn’t belong. That theme is technology. I understand that the novel takes place in a changing world, but “new” technology is only really mentioned in the novel, like the new e-readers that Mr. Penumbra has. The novel is about books and technology and physical books really do not mesh well together. If Sloan and used the “new” technology in a different way in the novel it would have flowed better and gotten the message across. That is why technology is really the only theme in the novel that I do not like and really doesn’t make sense to be in a novel about books without having a better argument for it being there.
            Overall, I really did enjoy Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. There were a few parts in the book where I felt like they could have turned out differently and would have had a better appeal to the reader such as the ending. Besides that, I really did enjoy the book and would recommend it to other people to read it. I feel, however; that there will be only a certain type of reader that will enjoy the book as well as I did. People that enjoy “traditional” novels would probably not enjoy this book as well as I did, however; people that like to read books about a certain niche, such as books and typography, will really enjoy this book. Besides that it was an excellent read and I would really recommend it to everyone.

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Monday, September 21, 2015

Narrators

This post is in response to Narrators on his blog.

My favorite narrator is Christopher John Francis Boone in Mark Haddon's the curious incident in the dog in the night-time. He is an interesting narrator for a few reasons. Christopher knows all of the countries in the world along with their capitals and he also knows all of the prime numbers up to 7,057. However, he hates the color yellow and doesn't like to be touched. Christopher is autistic. 

 The story starts after the neighbor next door, Mrs. Shears' dog, Wellington, was stabbed with a spear. Christopher becomes a suspect and when the police decide to investigate him he ends up hitting the police officer because the officer touched Christopher. Even though he ended up receiving a police caution from hitting the police officer, Christopher, going against the better judgement of his father, decides to investigate the murder of Wellington. The novel then becomes a sort of journal for Christopher to record everything that happens during his adventure.

 I really enjoyed this novel mostly because before that I had never really read a novel about an autistic kid before. I did have to read this for Mr. Davidson's English I class back in Freshmen year and if it wasn't for him making me read it I would probably not have read it. I am happy that he made me read it since it was really enjoyable and very interesting from an autistic person's perspective. Others might appreciate it as well because it give readers a perspective from an autistic person's viewpoint that other readers might have not necessarily encountered before. 
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Sunday, September 13, 2015

Literacy Program Project Propoal **UPDATED**

Previously I had done a proposal for this literacy project on following the video theme, however; due to some circumstances that came up I would be unable to film the video properly and put in the time and effort into editing that would make the video what I imagined it to be. In short, if I had done the video it would have been a meek representation of what I had really wanted to do with the video given the various circumstances that had arisen. This is why I would like to change my project from a Video Commercial to a Twitter Campaign.

I have chosen this option for a few reasons. First of all I run a Twitter bot that keeps track of everything that happens in the most popular subreddits on Reddit. Through the use of this bot I have amasses about 750 followers. With follower base I will be able to get the literacy part about this campaign out to the Twitter bot's followers so that they can interact with the tweets.

It is a good way to reach people and students because Twitter is allowed at school so there are always a few people throughout the day that would be on Twitter and would be able to interact with the tweets that are posted.

Starting with Monday (9/14) I will be scheduling 3 tweets everyday at midnight, noon, and 8pm everyday until the project is complete. I will be using TweetDeck to schedule these tweets. These tweets are going around the peak times of the followers where there is the most interaction through out the day.

The tweets will have insight into the benefits of reading there may also be some quotes and points that famous authors have said.

There will be two hash tags for every tweet that is posted. #reading and #literacy. The reason for these two is that these hash tags are summing up what this entire project is about and will easily tag the tweets for future reference at the end of the project.

There may potentially be links to websites and videos pertaining to the topic. It all depends on what exactly I am able to find regarding reading in those types of mediums. There will definitely be pictures of quotes and info graphics that I find that are able to expand what reading and literacy are and the benefits of reading.

These different mediums will be posted so that there are other ways to view the material in a passive way instead of just viewing the material in an active way through reading.

As previously states, the tweets will be posted at midnight, noon, and 8pm starting on Monday (9/14) until the project is over.

FOT @subredditsbot This is an experiment in itself to see if actively posting from a bot account instead of just having the bot post will result in any activity on the tweets that are posted.
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Tuesday, September 8, 2015

This is my proposal for the Literacy Project that we are assigned to do for Contemporary Literature.

I am choosing to do the Video Commercial for this part of the project. I have chosen to do this type of medium for this project do to the fact that I am fairly do with videography and like to use a video camera. I also believe that it will be quite effective in getting the message across to the U of D Jesuit students about how important it is too read, along with the benefits of reading and why they should read.

It is a good way to reach the students for a number of reasons. First of all it is a video so they do not have to actively pursue to understand what is being said through the video they can simply passively sit and watch the video and be completely fine with receiving what the video is about in the way. Another reason that this medium will really work is because of the Cub News. When the Cub News goes on most people do not play attention to the Cub News and they only do when there is a video or a special such as Sports With... If/When (Possibly??) my video makes it on the Cub News it will grab people's attention since they will actually pay attention to the Cub News because it is a video and people only pay attention to the Cub News when there is a video.

The video will be of the benefits of reading. It will also exhibit some of the problems that boys face involving reading and why so many of them do not read. Secondly, there will also be a little bit of humor implemented in the video to make it enjoyable and not some droning on about why a person should read.

Similar to the last point it will include the positives of reading, why a person should read, and the added benefits of reading, including but not limited to, better comprehension, faster reading speed, and a greater undersanding of the world around them.

The basic premise of the video is that there is one person who could identify as a complete bookworm and is always reading and basically always has their nose in a book. On the other hand there is this person's "friend" who never reads and is completely baffled as to why there are people like his friend who simply spend all of their free time buried in a book. By the end of the video basically there will the bookworm will get his "friend" interested in reading and he starts to really enjoy reading and wishes that he had found out about reading and had succumbed to his friend's constant wishes earlier since there are so many benefits from reading.

The video will look like a basic video with editing and graphics where needed.

The information that will be included will be from credible sources such as the packet that Mr. Davidson gave us about reading.

As previously stated there will be the bookworm and his "friend." It is possible that if the plot doesn't run smoothly enough there may be another character who will play as the "friend's" "friend" however, this is probably not going to happen.

There will only be text as an introduction to the overall video.

There will be basic colors with the possibility of filters and color editing if needed.

There will be the sounds that would be in the video. If wind or background noise is a problem these will all be dealt with accordingly. Music may be added if I can find appropriate royalty music.

The overall edits will be done through Windows Movie Maker. The possibility of Photoshop is not completely out of the overall equation yet.

This video will be posted online to at least YouTube and possibly to Vimeo. Depending on how it turns out it may also air on the Cub News (will probably need to get the overall approval of the class for this to happen).


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