Visual Mode

For my visual piece, I decided to compose the story of Rapunzel by the Grimm brothers using only emojis. This piece’s goal is to tell the Grimms’ story of Rapunzel through only pictures that resemble words. There are minimal words used and all of the emojis used represent important words or phrases used throughout the story. This piece allows any person to look at all the emojis used and see a story. The average person will likely be able to read it but may not understand that it is the story of Rapunzel at first. My piece may help people who learn more visually than linguistically, and also takes a lot of filler words out of the story. This makes it a quicker read than the actual fairy tale itself.

To accomplish my goal, I first read Rapunzel. Once I finished, I took big, important words from the story and found emojis to resemble each. I pretty much just wanted to create my own piece or story resembled by emojis because I thought it would be fun. I couldn’t think of any interesting stories of my own that I wanted to write out in emojis, so I chose something I already knew and knew I would be able to compose and express visually. I used the emoji keyboard on my iPhone to compose this piece because this keyboard has more emojis than the google emoji keyboard. Even though this piece is visual, it still came from something linguistic which I think is great because we were talking about transmodal writing in class.

I chose to stick with the story of Rapunzel because I liked it, and it was also what I was reading in class at the time I wrote it. Due to this, the story was fresh in my head, and I enjoyed reading it and transforming it into something new. I think the fact that I was reading it for another class really benefitted me. A lot of the Grimms’ fairy tales are not that long, but it was convenient for me. I had to choose which version I wanted to recreate because in my class we read the first version and the last version the Grimms wrote. Another reason I chose to do this was because I liked the idea of creating a story with emojis because I always liked reading the song titles made from emojis. I picked to write the first version of Rapunzel because I personally liked the first version better. After choosing, I had a lot of time to think about what emojis I really thought would resemble what I wanted them to. For example, I chose to use a yellow flower emoji for the name of Rapunzel because Rapunzel was named after a vegetable and when I was reading through the fairy tale, in my head I pictured the vegetable as a flower instead. Also, Rapunzel has long blonde hair which resembles the color of the flower.  I chose to provide a key for this piece for certain words so it was easier to read through and understand which I feel like will help people read it quicker, which is part of my goal.

In accomplishing my goal to recreate the story of Rapunzel using emojis and create a quicker read for people, I had many sources that benefitted me in this recreation. One was the feedback I received from my peers. It was suggested to take more words out of my piece, which after receiving that feedback, I found more emojis to resemble some of the words that I couldn’t find emojis for before. This was beneficial in helping me achieve my goal because what I really wanted was a visual piece and I feel like it is more visual now than it was before. Another source that really helped me was the Grimms’ story of Rapunzel. Since my piece is based off of that fully, I wouldn’t have been able to write this piece without being able to reference that story while composing my emoji story. Lastly, another big source that helped me was the article I read in class, “The Rapid Evolution of Emoji” by New York Magazine. This source really benefited and helped me because it ultimately was the reason I chose and wanted to do an emoji story. Before reading this article, doing an emoji story wasn’t really what I thought of when I thought about visual compositions. Once I read this article, I reflected on how much emojis are used currently across the world and thought this would be something really cool to incorporate into my composition.

Spatial Mode

For my spatial piece, I chose to create a map of middle schools in different areas in which I would consider teaching and color coated the schools based on their star ratings. My goal for this piece was to create something that would benefit me and something I could use in the future. Since I am going to be a teacher, I thought it would be cool to look at different middle schools from where I’m from and schools in areas I would consider teaching in after college. Not only is this helpful for me to look at, but other soon to be middle school as well. This could also be helpful for parents to look at when deciding where they may want to move to or live based on how great the schools are in different areas. This piece provides an easy, accessible and organized map to quickly look at and see which schools are great vs others that may not be so great. Future middle school teachers or parents may use this when they are looking for good schools in certain areas.

In order to create this map, I used the website, schooldigger.com. This website will rank the schools across the United States and show which schools have the highest star ratings based off of the students’ test scores and performance in comparison to the average scores of that state. I organized it by the star rating and then color coated it based on that. This makes the map easy to look at in order to see the best schools and worst schools in an area. The fact that it’s color coated is also very beneficial because if you wanted to look at just five-star schools on the map, you can hide every other star rating. It is very nice to look at. I also linked all of the school websites to their points on the map so if I ever want to go back and look at that specific school, I have it ready to go and linked right there.

I decided to pursue this plan because originally, I had done something else. I originally made a map of places that were important to me, but I decided to switch to this because that felt too easy. It also didn’t take me that long of a time at all and I felt like I could make something that was more beneficial to me or something I could use in the future. I’m happy I decided to create this map to look at because it is easily accessible and easy to compare the schools to other schools in each area. By color coating it and doing my research, I was able to create something not only useful for me but could be useful for others as well. If I had stuck with my original plan to create a map of important places to me, it would have made me feel good and happy, but I probably wouldn’t use it or look at it ever again.

There were a few things that helped me achieve the goal of the map I created. First, the peers I worked with that gave me feedback benefitted me in figuring out what exactly I wanted to do. For example, when I brought in my draft and was showing my map of important places to me, I felt like my map wasn’t complete and upon sharing it with my partner, I felt like I didn’t have much to say and the map wasn’t really something he could relate to since he wasn’t from around me. It was difficult to share all of my important places with someone that had never been to any of those places. With this though, even if the person looking at it or using it has never been to those schools, it doesn’t matter. It could still benefit them by seeing where the great schools are throughout Illinois or what areas might be good places to teach in depending on what they’re looking for. Another source that helped through creating my map was the schooldigger website. This allowed me to look at whatever state I wanted to and easily allow me to look at schools in areas I wanted to. I could search a city and it would rank the schools for me in order. This website made it super easy to transfer the information over while creating my map. Lastly, the article “How Redlining Segregated Chicago,and America”by Whet Moser helped me create my map. This article helped me because it was all about what happened to Chicago due to the redlining of Chicago maps. While my map isn’t about redlining or have to do with segregation, this article still helped me understand that maps can be used to communicate so much more than just where things are located. Maps can be used for anything a person wants to use them for.

Aural Mode

For my aural piece, I chose to record a soundscape of the UGL and add lo-fi music over it. My goal for this piece was to create something relaxing to listen to while studying. I know many people like to listen to music while studying and with this piece you’re listening to music but also feel like you’re in a study place even if you’re not. Some people like to go to coffee shops because they like the quiet background noise. With this composition, I decided to create something for both types of people. It has the background noise of a study space, but also relaxing music people like to study to. I want anyone to be able to use it to allow them to feel like they are in a study space, even if they are realistically just inside their room. It can be used as a great tool to use while doing homework or working on a class project.

In order to accomplish my goal, I recorded a 10-minute soundscape of me studying at the UGL. This gave me the background noise I needed from a study space and then I combined it with some lo-fi music to get that relaxing music vibe. I chose to go to the UGL and record my soundscape there because I know a lot of people go there to study and that’s where I go very frequently. I chose to use lo-fi music because I know a lot of people like to listen to relaxing music while they study because it helps them focus more instead of listening to loud rock music. This music has a more lowkey vibe as well as it is relaxing to listen to, especially with the background noise against it. Again, I chose to incorporate both because I know a lot of people either like to work with some background noise or relaxing music.

I decided to pursue this plan because it was something that interested me. I really like music in general and I listen to a lot of music while I study or do homework so I thought this would be a cool thing for myself to use in the future. I also thought that it would be something fun to create. I’ve played around with mixing music before and I enjoyed it, but I haven’t mixed music or sounds in a while and it was something I wanted to try again. By incorporating relaxing music into my soundscape, it can be used by people that like to listen to relaxing music while studying. By incorporating the sounds of the UGL in my soundscape, it can be used by people who like to just go to the library or coffee shop and be surrounded by the sounds of that place. If I had not incorporated one or the other, it would not be applicable or usable for all the people I want it to be usable for.

First, my peers were again, wonderful in help me reach my goal. My friend gave me the idea to add music to the background of it. I had my soundscape, but I felt like I needed to do something else with it because I didn’t think anyone would want to listen to just a recording of the UGL. I liked the idea she gave me and decided to incorporate it. Another source that helped me with my composition was audacity. This is a software that allows anyone to put in audio files and edit them. This allowed me to edit my soundscape and add in the lo-fi music I chose to use. It was really simple to use and allowed me to create exactly what I had in mind. I was able to move the music to start when it needed to as well as lower the sound so it was more so in the background than the main aspect of the recording. I also used another website, freemusicarchive.com to find the lo-fi music I chose to incorporate in my recording. There was a wide variety of music on there and they had something similar to what I had in mind for my piece. Lastly, the article, “Listening to the Sonic Archive: Rhetoric, Representation, and Race in the Lomax Prison Recordings” by Jonathan Stone assisted me with composing this piece. This article helped me because it allowed me to see that sound can be used for different things for each person. For example, I will use this piece to study, but someone else may just use it as background noise not necessarily while they’re studying because it might be able to help them feel like they are somewhere with noise or music.

Visual Artifact

For my visual mode, a big part of my project came from the Rapunzel fairy tale by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. I chose to incorporate this reading because this is the story I based my emoji story off of. The one on the left is the first version, which is the version I used.

Spatial Artifact

This artifact shows my process of how I was looking up schools with their star ratings. I then would transfer that information over using the tools the map website offered.

Aural Artifact

This artifact shows my editing process of my soundscape. I used different music files to play over my soundscape.