My experience anthologizing Cabeza de Vaca was an interesting and difficult one. I never thought about how anthologies were put together, I figured the most popular works of authors just happened to be compiled together simply because they were revered/popular. In my 299 class last semester we looked at Norton anthologies from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s. You could see the cultural trends and introductions of women authors and authors of color and there was social and political biases employed in the selections of stories. I remembered this when putting together the Cabeza de Vaca anthology because an anthology as a whole conveys many messages about what editors want readers to know. So what did I want my reader to know about de Vaca’s journey? What impression of him would I leave in 5-7 passages? This was the difficult part, shortening a full length story to just a few pages. I changed my mind many times but I did get a final product together.
For our Colonial Carolina Anthology project I think this has prepared me in picking out only what is important in a text. Properly condensing the work without losing the integrity of the work is key in anthologizing. Also the message and key themes that are being conveyed in our CCA project will affect how I seek out and pick information.
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