You’ve been assigned a group and a constraint category about which to make observations. With your group, write down as many specific, concrete observations and/or interpretations about your category as you can. Write down specific page numbers whenever possible. The questions associated with each category are there to help you get started in thinking about what to look for. Assume there is more there than you can possibly hope to find in the short amount of time I am going to give you to do this activity; this means you should keep trying to find things until our time is up, even if you “run out” of questions.

Explore these online resources to help you with your task:

Katherine Hayles’s _Only Revolutions _companion site: http://howwethink.nkhayles.com/onlyrev/

VizOR: http://vizonlyrevolutions.com/

Spoiler poster: http://people.duke.edu/~abr10/onlyrev/onlyrevolutions_spoiler_poster_1of2.jpg

Historical Dictionary of American slang: http://www.alphadictionary.com/slang/

Your classmates’ reader posts may also contain specific examples that can help you

  1. Design Constraints
  • How is each page divided up and designed?
  • How many words appear on each page?
  • How many pages are there?
  • How many lines on a page?
  • What about the placement of the lines on the page?
  • What about how the page numbers appear on each page?
  • What about typography? Bold vs italics vs colors…
  • What about the large letters that begin each 8-page segment?
  • How do the two narratives intersect and interact with one another visually?
  1. Vocabulary Constraints
  • What words appear often in the novel?
  • What words do not appear in the novel?
  • What about the Concordances on the back/front flaps of the cover?
  • How do the two narratives intersect and interact with one another in terms of word choice?
  • What about misspellings?
  • What words are capitalized?
  • What about the plants and animals? How do they intersect/interact with the main narrative?
  • What is the relationship between the chronology sidebar and the vocabulary used in the main narrative?
  1. Chronology/Temporal Constraints
  • Where do Hailey and Sam’s narratives begin and end?
  • Do Hailey and Sam share any date(s) in common?
  • What is the relationship between the chronology sidebar and the main narrative?
  • What does the design of the chronology sidebar suggest?
  • What is the relationship between the chronology sidebar and the vocabulary used in the main narrative?
  • What tense is the chronology sidebar written in and why?