group thoughts - Rachel R, mkarol, spleenfiend

We first discussed maybe connecting novels with graphic novels but then moved on to the idea of "themes of identity" because we thought it would easily address everyone's needs if we explored different mediums.  We could spend 1-2 week(s) on each thing depending on length of the work.  The only problem would be that it might be hard for people (or at least our group) who don't know much about graphic novels to know which ones would fit into a theme, so we thought our class could pick works, maybe?

We then considered somehow connecting a graphic novel, a movie (maybe science fiction), a contemporary novel, and a classic novel by a theme.  This would cover different mediums and time periods, and in addition to that, people could incorporate more works and genres into their online papers if they wanted to explore something else related to that theme.  We could also discuss even more works in class than just the assigned readings.

An order I think is logical is novel -> contemporary novel -> graphic novel -> movie.  Rachel R and mkarol liked novel (2 weeks) -> graphic novel (1 week) -> contemporary novel (2 weeks)-> movie (1 week) because it broke up the difficulty of the courseload.

Our ideas for themes included:
identity
advancement of culture
exchange of ideas
community
personal boundaries

We thought some of these themes could easily be linked back to blogging and the things we discussed in the first part of the class.  Identity was the one we ultimately picked.

Anne suggested perhaps not having two novels but instead making one of them a memoir.