After mulling over this assignment, I decided to search on YouTube.com for “digital essay”s.  After clicking through and watching several videos, I found this one, which I really enjoyed.  It made a good use of the allowances of the internet, using both words and pictures to tell a brief (and perhaps overly simplified) summary of The Kite Runner.  What I liked most though was the focus on certain words that this format allowed for.  Powerful words such as ‘betrayal,’ ‘treachery,’ and ‘war’ appeared on the screen in complete isolation, strengthening both their meaning and resonance in the mind of the viewer.  I thought it was incredible how much weight each of these words carried, especially when iconic (or just perfectly representative) pictures were shown on the next clip.  Between the pictures and the music, I really felt like this is the epitome of the case where “less is more.” I really liked this technique, and I’m contemplating attempting something like this in my own digital essay.

I also found another clip, but while I think it’s a cool idea and worth watching, I wasn’t sure it fell into the “essay” category, as it’s more of just a poem being shown (“We Real Cool”) in concurrence with clips from a movie (A Clockwork Orange).