Chapters 1-3 Class Discussion

On THursday we had our first in-class discussion on hte first three chapeters of "Not On Our Watch". At first, we talked about the authors' writing styles. The book provides both facts and statistics in Darfur as well as the authors' personal stories of how they got to be on htis project and their thoughts along the way. The class was split into two of how they thought about the writing style. One side says that theres no need for the "personal stories". Who cares about Don Cheadle giving out ipods? What does that have to do with Darfur and its atrocities? The other side said that those "personal stories" explain how the authors got to be in Darfur and what they experienced along the way. Plus, we need those accounts for the readers amusement as well, not may people would like to read 244 pages of plain statistics, right? Personaly, I think that we really do need those accounts, for many reasons. When you're reading this book, you really wonder how the authors got to be in Darfur and what made them become active. You read statistics and facts on Darfur on the internet all the time, so why do we need it in this book?
The second thing that we discussed was the actual text, not writing styes, although that didn't last long. I think that this book is amazingly written and I think that a reader who hasn't heard much about Darfur, or at all, will be drawn to this book if of course someone "forces" them to read it. It has a good balance of personalatiy, facts, and ways in which you can do to help. Well you read "Not On Our Watch" you really feel that you can make a difference. I felt that I needed to do something and stand up to take action. And this is exactly what this book was meant to do.