Metacognition: Jane Eyre Mashup

When I first heard about the Jane Eyre mashup project, I was rather perplexed.  It was rather different from any essay, test, or blog I had ever done for English.  I had heard of mashups, but I had never been required to make one.  My curiosity allowed me to enter this project with a positive outlook and a desire to see where my work would take me.

I began by creating an outline for my mashup that listed every source I was to use. I began by figuring out the necessary sub-themes within my main theme (love). I then combined all of these ideas into a short yet to-the-point subtitle for my presentation.  Each time I found a new source, I would add it and any other required information to the outline.  I must say I had a lot of fun finding my outside sources, because I was able to take things I enjoy and use them for school, and that kind of process usually has worked out for me.  I even cited a quote from a video game! When else would I ever get to do that?

After I had found all of my sources, I began to put them all together in a PowerPoint.  I originally planned to make a video, but I grew too impatient with the video-editing software on my computer.  Luckily I was able to compromise by setting the slides to move automatically.  I spent time organizing my sources so that they would appear in the best order possible.  Putting everything in order was surprisingly easy considering how many different places I found my sources.  I was even able to have some fun with music, as three of my outside sources were songs (one for each sub-theme .  I would put my favorite lyrics from the song on a slide, and I would play the song in the background of any slides that were under the same sub-theme as the song.  This was probably my favorite part of my final product.

In total, I was quite surprised by how easy some aspects of this project came to me.  I feel that mashups are something that comes naturally to me, as I commonly make connections between different ideas every day.  Being a musician, I was able to create a good flow between the different elements of my mashup because I could figure out what two ideas sounded good next to each other.  In my opinion, the only thing that would make my mashup better is more time to work! It would also be fun to use more outside sources because they were some of my favorites.  All in all, the Jane Eyre mashup was a project that I would love to do again.