The process of writing about the last series I watched on Netflix was challenging. Articulating complex emotions and the layers of the plot with simplistic emojis takes a level of consolidation and synthesizing while also requiring that one chooses images carrying meaning. I synthesized more significant ideas and themes within the Netflix series to make my way through the task. I began by translating the title first. Although it was, seemingly, simple, perhaps that was the result of having already drawn a connection between the words and what I was trying to communicate. The challenge with using images to share, is ensuring the visual representation is translatable to others. Additionally, my instinct was to write the script in one long linear stream of consciousness. A left to right progression or direction of time. This reminds me of Lara’s Boroditsky’s (2017), Ted Talk, How the Languages we Speak Shape the Way we Think, when she shares how time is communicated differently in various languages. Between the thematic strategy of choosing emojis and the ‘scrolling’ way I instinctually wrote them, I believe, there is a required social comprehension of a chosen ‘text,’ in order for a task such as this to be successful.

Additionally, I see a lot of connection to the act of sketchnoting (something I love to do) and how it requires a deeper understanding of context in that it asks one to find connections and make meaning. On a micro level, the individual consuming the text, needs to edit and decode possible nuances of images and their relationship to the others in order to effectively comprehend the presented ideas.

Kress states (2014), that there are affordances, potentials and limitations to various modes (p. 5).I have a new appreciation for emojis, as a mode of text and the metacognition required to use them. It’s a literacy that sets tone, conveys meaning, and, at the very least, punctuates.

Boroditsky, L (June 2017). [Video]. How the languages we speak shape the way we think.

Kress (2005). Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Compositions, Vol. 2(1), 5-22.