Twitter Account for "brown girl dreaming"

https://twitter.com/JackieDreamsOf

I decided to create a Twitter account for Jackie for this week's response. Besides Facebook, Twitter is probably the most widely-used social media account that uses writing and words as its main mode of expression. I thought this fit Jackie perfectly since she herself using writing as her mode of expression and wants to become a writer when she is older.

I created her twitter handle, @JackieDreamsOf, as sort of a spin-off from the title. I wanted the handle not to be as vague as "brown girl" is in the novel's title, as Twitter is often a place where people aren't afraid to name themselves and share their thoughts. I also wanted to include the aspect of "dreaming" and the hope that comes with dreams in general. Moreover, her tweets are the sharing of her dreams, beliefs, thoughts, and hopes, just as each poetic chapter in the novel was. I chose to have her name be Jacqueline Woodson instead of Jackie Woodson to show that she does accept both names as part of her identity. In the last chapter "each world", she is sharing all the things we could be and all the things she believes and accepts herself as. She calls herself a "listener and writer / Jackie and Jacqueline". This also inspired the many tweets focused on listening and writing itself, as both are ideas that Jackie is constantly referring to in the novel. The butterflies appear on the both the avatar and header, with the pinned tweet-- an actual verse from the text-- explaining their relevance. The bio is another verse from the text that I believed summed up what Jackie was doing throughout the novel at the most simplistic level, as well as what she was asking others to do. I included her date of birth and location because they are both markings in the timeline of her life that she finds to be essential in her own development.




        
Above you can see examples of tweets that were posted (not all of them, as I posted 11 tweets). I used verses from her actual text that I not only found relevant, but also could actually see being posted on twitter as status update. The first tweet again echoes the imagery of a butterfly, which ties the avatar, header, and pinned tweet all together. I decided to include #blizzard2017 in the next tweet because I thought it was extremely relevant and fitting to this verse. This third tweet encapsulates the hopeful vision Jackie often shares throughout the text while also using a mode-- hashtagging (if that's a word) one's own handle, often to gain more publicity-- that is seen on social media to brand one's account and messages.






I had her retweet these two tweets, both of which support groups and people -- Black Panther Party and Angela Davis-- whom Jackie expresses admiration for in the text. I especially liked the first tweet that included the #InternationalWomensDay hashtag because it connected past movements and groups, like the Black Panther Party, to more contemporary movements and events, like International Women's Day.





These were the accounts I had her follow. I believe they encapsulate the mix of people, movements, places, thoughts, and dreams she mentions throughout the text and others that I thought seemed fitting as well.

All in all, I tried to keep this account as honest and true as to how I read Jackie in brown girl dreaming. I made an effort to add a more contemporary twist by using hashtags, gifs, and making connections between thoughts expressed by Jackie in a past time to current events that are happening now.