This week I really thought a lot about how to format the website more than anything. I really do not want to it come across as a boring fact based listing of events. Last semester I did a paper on the Battle of Trafalgar and one of the secondary sources I used was The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson by Roger Knight. The way it was written was in a an narrative, almost as if it was itself a work of fiction. Of course it wasn’t and it included primary sources within the text, but it just made the whole 900 pages easier to digest and made me want to read the next section. So I am looking to set up our website in kinda the same way, Nelson’s life really set it self up to be this narrative (spoiler: he dies at Trafalgar to save the English from the threat of Napoleon, after becoming an English war hero) but I feel so does are rebellion in a way. Something I will continue to look over and discussing it with Anthony.
The other thing I did was starting to go over word press with a tech friend I have. I know we have a tech department at our schools, but one of my best friends does this thing as a living so I’m much more comfortable having him show me the ropes. He also knows me well enough to articulate instructions in a manner I’ll actually understand. This also leaves me the option to text him at 3 in the morning when something inevitably goes wrong.
I like the idea of using a book that really resonated with you as a model for how you want to structure your own narrative of the rebellion; playing around with different narrative structures and seeing what works on a website vs. what works on a page could be a really interesting and instructive exercise. Looking forward to seeing the results!