Can you figure out what the story is about?

Did you start with the title? Why? Why not? AND  Did you choose the work based on how easy would it be to visualize?

I did start with the title as the first thing before starting the emoji story. I have played Pictionary quite often and whenever it was the topic of shows, movies, or books to portray in a drawing, I would typically draw something to symbolize the title first before moving on to the images that explained the main plot or an iconic symbol/scene.

I chose this particular story because I thought it would be easier to visualize and transcribe into emoji format. It is an old folktale meant for children in Korea. It is not supposed to be complicated. I chose this story because it’s a simple enough story to remember off the top of my head, I did not have to research about the story to remember it.

Did you rely more on syllables, words, ideas or a combination of all of them?

I found that I relied more on words and ideas for my emoji story. For example I used the tiger emoji for the actual tiger in the story. This is a old Korean folktale my mother told me when I was younger. It’s traditionally an oral story told to children. However, now there are many written texts and videos that portray this story. For my emoji story, you do not have to read it from left to right (like how you would in Canada). Each line of emojis represents a scene from the story. For example the second line with the “tiger, arrow, mountain” — it is supposed to symbolize that the tiger has left the mountain. The third line shows that the tiger is going to the house. I used the arrows to show which direction that character is moving, looking, or giving something.

Bolter (2001) stated that compared to printed text, visual elements have been seen as subservient, decorative or supported elements. Today, many people use images in the form of emojis and gifs to give more nuanced meaning to their text. For example a text message with “Good Job” and a message sent with “Good Job + Middle Finger Emoji” has very different connotations. However, this is generally seen in informal contexts, such as text messages to friends or social media posts. You would not see many people using emojis in professional emails in traditional corporations, textbooks, or academic essays. This is possibly because there is a desire to contextualize what is written or printed as text like a face-to-face conversation (Bolter, 2001).

After completing my story I showed my emoji story to my parents who are familiar with the story and where the ones who told this story to me when I was little. They had a difficult time trying to figure out what the story was about. Even when I told them the title of the folktale they still found it challenging trying to follow along with the story. Frankly, I was a little disappointed that my parents were unable to tell what the story was when I showed them my emoji version of the story, but they reassured me that it was because they were old. However, I saw initially saw it as a failure on my part for not being able to convey the story very well. Maybe if I showed this to younger people who are familiar with the story they would be able to see which story the emojis are portraying.

This task made me realize just how difficult it is to decipher a message or story just based off images. You need to consider if the other person who will be “reading” it knows the story and cultural contexts put in place. I am also relying on the viewer to recognize that the emojis represent actual words and know the iconic main scenes/parts of the story. I’m realizing that it was probably difficult for my parents to understand the story because of the emojis that I selected. I chose to use some emojis based on indirect connections (i.e. I was hoping they would see the orange emoji as a persimmon fruit). Kress(2005) states that the reader/viewer is the one who depicts and interprets the story with their own meaning. With this in mind, it’s important to note that what I intended the emojis to represent may not be seen the same for others. Thus emojis cannot be used as direct translations and many of the messages/story can be lost.

EXTRA:

Here is a retelling of the story in English – I found on Youtube. The version I was told orally from my mother never mentioned the thief so I didn’t include the thief part in my emoji story.

This tale has various endings (depending on who tells the story): The first ends with the tiger running away after hearing about the persimmon (this is the one I know); the second ends with the tiger running away with the thief on its back; and the third ending with the tiger running away again after trying to catch the thief.

REFERENCES:

Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. doi:10.4324/9781410600110

Kress (2005), Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learningLinks to an external site.. Computers and Composition, Vol. 2(1), 5-22.

I decided to link and examine Mel’s what’s in my bag post.   As of Feb 2021

How has your colleague’s experience differed from yours? And how do you know?

Mel decided to showcase a curated bag to represent themself. Mel shares these items which revolves around their interests and free time instead of focusing on their work. It is also a version of a daily bag that reflects the current situation with the pandemic. The items in the bag shares a minimal look at what would be carried around during this time – keeping in mind that items like laptops and notebooks would normally be present if there was no pandemic. This clearly shows me what Mel’s interests are and how they like to carry fun items around with them (i.e. a deck of cards, a book, and a camera).

What web authoring tool have they chosen to manifest their work?

Mel used Genially to share what was in their bag. This was my first time seeing it used and I liked how it was interactive. Every time you hover your mouse over one of the highlighted items, there’s a little blurb about that item written by Mel. Some of the comments written for each item were small informal anecdotes, which I liked since it shows a bit of Mel’s personality.

How does their tool differ from yours in the ways in which it allows content-authouring and end-user interface?

Mel inserted the Genially interactive image directly into their WordPress blog which allows for users visiting their page to not have to go to a separate page to access it. I liked the fact that it was seamlessly included into WordPress. Mel also provided a link to Genially below the imbedded image so users can access the site directly and open up a larger image of her photo.  At the time of seeing all the “What’s in my bag” posts, I was fairly new to using WordPress and it was interesting to see how other classmates decided to use different web tools to share their personal belongings and share about themselves. I didn’t know you can imbed so many different digital tools into WordPress blogs.

What theoretical underpinnings are evident in your/your colleague’s textual architecture and how does this affect one’s experience of the work?

(As of February 15, 2021)

In the UBC Blog site, Mel  has the following organization to access this task:

• “Welcome y’all” is the main menu (home)
• With tabs at the top right of the blog:
  • “Activities” page, for activities suggested from the modules in this course.
  • “Tasks” page.

If I want to access Mel’s Task 1: What’s in my bag task, I had to click on the “tasks” tab on the menu from the Welcome page. Once on the Tasks page I had to scroll to the very bottom of the page. The posts are in chronological order with the newest posts at the top and the oldest at the bottom. Given that Task 1 was the first task done, it will always be at the bottom. I assume if Mel continues with this layout, that the Tasks page will be quite long by the end of this course. It does make it slightly harder to access more older posts Mel has created. However, it is not difficult to understand that this is how the blog is set up. The tasks posts are clearly labelled and each post has the published date at the top.

I like how the main menu is a welcome page that tells visitors about Mel. The organization of the blog is simple and well organized overall and shows that Mel understands the course expectations by clearly showing where their assignments should be.

How do the constraints of the course design manifest in your architectural choices? How have you responded to the pedagogical underpinnings of this course design in your own web space?

My UBC blog also has a Welcome page, but it is not as elaborate or welcoming as Mel’s.

The home page is just a VERY short blurb about the blog and directs users to use the menu tab buttons at the top of the site. I wanted to organize it so that my tasks had their own separate page tab and the linking assignment also had one. I do plan to add more menu options as I go through the course. I will be adding one for the Final Project later down the line.

My current menu tab options:

• Tasks (page)
  • This will take you to a page that lists and links to the individual tasks I have done thus far.
• Linking Assignment (page)
  • Currently, it’s a work in progress. I think I will set up something similar to what I did with the tasks page.
  • It is currently arranged with the most recent post at the top  (there is only 1)

My course content is on the UBC blog just like Mel, and the way my blog is set up portrays this. I’m still familiarizing myself with how to use WordPress so my blog is constantly in flux whenever I find a new format or layout I like better. It’s also interesting to see other classmates blogs evolving with them discovering new things and personalizing their own course blogs.

Mermaid Blind Date

Above is the link to my Twine story. It’s a VERY random story I came up with off the top of my head.  It’s more like a guided dating simulation story with different endings depending on your  limited choices.  If I had more time I would have added some pictures and sounds to make the story more immersive. This was my first time using Twine and I did have some difficulty with what to do initially. I started off trying to create a story using a pen and paper to organize my thoughts. My first idea had many choices at the beginning and I found that I was easily overwhelmed with having too many hypertext choices and decided to simplify it to just 1 or 2 choices each time. I decided to forgo using my pen and paper pretty early on and went to directly creating on Twine.  I find that “electronic writing is flexible and interactive [which means that] it is hypertextual” (Bolter, 2001). This helped with my organization and helped me decide to keep it as simple as possible.  I didn’t make too many forks in the story, so you’ll notice that it’s a bit more linear in the image below.

I found it interesting to see how thought out and different other classmates Twine games were. Classmate Deirdre created an interesting and immersive game with their drawings and sound effects with some added humour to make it more light hearted. They mentioned in their post about how the use of hypertexts in Twine helped make the creation process and organization of their story/game less overwhelming (Bolter, 2001). I did find that it was a lot less overwhelming and less daunting using this digital tool as well. However, the learning curve to do certain actions on Twine was a bit steep personally. If I had more time I would have definitely invested it in using more hypertexts to simplify my story and make it more interactive and flow better.

I wanted to make my Twine as informal as possible and one of the active things I did to ensure that was to have a lack of capitals at the beginning of my sentences. According to McCulloch (2019) in The Allusionist podcast, the deliberate decision to not have capitals at the beginning of sentences can be seen as a change in tone. Language is always changing because humans who use language are always in flux, thus its important to recognize and accept that language will change and is always changing with the use of technology. I decided to keep it informal because I wanted to make it as casual of a story as possible – something that is seen as light hearted and a bit silly. I’m sure I could have added more minimalist typography to add to making it more informal.

One thing I noticed while using Twine was the lack of autocorrect or spellcheck. I didn’t have to fight against the machine to achieve the lack of capital letters. McCulloch (2019), mentioned how autocorrect can make us more conservative in our writing and thinking and how word processors have shifted the way we think about words and how they are perceived. Autocorrect is also a faster way to write and therefore most people go with the flow of it. The act of going against the machine is more effort and thus seen as something more positive in informal contexts. Would the fact that I wrote in just lower case letters be seen as writing for the future or writing for the past (McCulloch, 2019)? Maybe the way I wrote for my Twine will be seen as rude in the future. I’m curious to see how certain typography will be used to portray different tones, emphasis to symbolize meaning and emotions in the future.

References:

Bolter, Jay David. (2001). Hypertext and the remediation of print. In Writing space: computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. Routledge. (pp.26-46)

The Allusionist #102 New Rules, Helen Zaltzman interviews Gretchen McCulloch, Internet linguist (2019).

Part 1: Manual Scripts

Above is a photo of my manual script of a journal entry I wrote. I typically type more than I write. These days I only write if it’s in my physical planner – which only requires point form. I found starting this task a bit daunting at first. Knowing that I can’t easily revise my writing made me take my time to think before putting my pen to paper (only initially).

I did make a few mistakes while writing. You may notice that there are two places in my writing where I scribble out words. If I had my white out tape next to me while writing I would have used it to make everything look more neat and allows me to write on top of it. I tried to make my writing make sense by thinking of events in more chronological order. Knowing that I was writing something considered a journal entry, I didn’t feel the need to write very neatly – since it’s not something you would typically present to others. I was putting down my own thoughts into writing mainly as a mindfulness activity and help me process my own thoughts.

Halfway through writing, I found that my hand started to cramp, which was a reminder of how long it’s actually been since I’ve written by hand this much. From this small discomfort, I can sympathize to a very small degree with how those monks in Harris’s (2018) podcast felt while hunched over their scripts in the monastery. This was also another reminder that I don’t actually know how to hold my pens correctly when writing. Back in elementary school, I was never able to hold my writing utensils correctly which resulted in me getting a permanent writing callus on my ring finger and getting finger and wrist cramps often. Do schools still teach students the optimal way to hold pencils? Or have they forgone that and skipped to having students develop their typing skills instead?

The most significant difference between writing by hand and the mechanized forms of writing is the way communication has changed. Information that is conveyed now can be updated/revised when typed out and relayed through the Internet instantly for the world to know. According to Innis (2007) the change in technology innovation influenced the spread of more secular topics such as philosophy and science. The wider spread of books led to more people learning to read and being exposed to more of these secular topics as it became more accessible to those who were not of high status. I’m sure more innovations to typing will come through to make relaying information even easier in the future.

Reference:

• Podcast: How it Began: A History of the Modern World, entitled “The Printed Book: Opening the Floodgates of Knowledge”

Part 2: Radish Printing

I decided to replace the potato with an Asian radish since I didn’t have any potatoes at home. I cut the radishes in half first and let them dry to make it easier and safer to work with. Having a slippery surface isn’t ideal to draw on and can be quite dangerous. However, this drying process turned out to be useless once I started carving out the letters. HAHA.

It took me about 30 minutes to create the stamp. I chose the word IVORY since I though it wouldn’t be too difficult to reproduce. Ivory is the brand of soap I have at home and it was one of the first five letter words I thought of. Since the water content of the radish was high, it was difficult to use a marker to trace where I would cut to create the letters. Thus I decided to go freehand – which in hindsight was a mistake. The first four letters turned out well but I ended up not having enough space for my final letter and so that’s why it didn’t turn out that well.

This activity made me appreciate that we don’t have to do the mechanization of writing anymore. If I had to do this every time I wanted to write a paper, I would not want to be a scholar of any sort. I can see why books were so expensive back then before the printing press was invented. And that also makes my hurt ache thinking about the burning of the Great Alexandria Library with all those hand written books inside.

*I realize too late that I didn’t have to complete both of these tasks. But since I did them here they are!

This is me in South Korea when I travelled there solo for the first time in summer 2016 after graduating under grad. The following story is an unscripted and unedited story from back then told using voice to text via the Notes app on my Iphone.

Back in 2016 I went to travel by myself for the first Time to South Korea I decided to go travelling you know as a graduation gift and I wanted to experience solo travel and also visit family of course so this is a story that took place during my solo travel and I was in Seoul South Korea which is a capital in a particular area called Holiday. Holiday is like a pretty touristy but hip neighbourhood and I was just standing around trying to figure out what I should do for that day in that area and these two girls that looked like their university students came out to me asking me for a directions for some store and could release since I’m not from there I I said I did not know where that was because I’m not from here. So that initiated a conversation with them they were asking me all like where are you from and I said I’m from Canada RNs conversation went on for a while. They were on then to start introducing me to some kind of a “on” cultural experience that I could go to as a visitor of Korea and I said oh that sounds interesting like where is this place and is it free and they said oh it is it’s not too far from here and it’s free for sure and I said good because I don’t have any money on me so if you do ask me for money after this I don’t have anything to offer.  I decided to follow them which was very naïve of me at the time now that I think back on it and it was actually in a pretty remote area that wasn’t close to anything really and so we got to take the subway and we got to this random building that just didn’t look like much. Is it look like a culture centre which is what I was expecting it was just a rundown building and so that got my alarm sirens were rolling in my head and I stopped in front of the building asking them like is this a safe thing that I’m going to and they’re like yeah it’s of course it’s fine. So again naïvely I went inside the building and yeah they were doing some kind of cultural experience but it was more like a weird shamanistic ritual that they were doing which in all say that in Korea there is a history of shaman ism but now it’s sort of died quite a bit. They they let me watch Watch the ritual and I yeah I did watch and then afterwards they offered me food and I did not take any because I don’t know if felt weird and then they asked me for money which is what I asked him initially I asked where that was I have to pay anything and they said no. So yeah I did end up giving them one dollar and then I left and another fishy thing was that they didn’t allow me to take any photos in that building so that definitely let you know that they were doing something very fishy. I use the story quite a bit to tell my students as a story time when we have a bit ofDowntime at least I came out of that situation with all of my organs in tact and they didn’t rob me of anything.

I personally haven’t actually used speech to text before this task. I have been on the receiving end of someone using it all the time to contact me or complete assignments using it. They always came with spelling and grammar errors, which goes to show how unreliable they can be even if you’re a frequent user of it. With my first attempt at using this feature on my phone I found that I unconsciously tried to enunciate more when speaking. If I was truly talking as I normally would, there would probably be a lot more mistakes. One of the first notable mistakes was the switch to the word “Holiday” for a Korean neighbourhood called HongDae. I think that if I used more foreign words, the Voice-to-text would have misinterpreted all of them. Another notable thing I noticed was where I said “Quote on quote” to emphasize the words cultural experience. But the speech-to-text wrote it as “on”. Many English speakers listening to that part would understand that the quotations should be around “cultural experience”. I didn’t realize that saying the word quote would actually make the punctuation be written.

One major thing that the Voice-to-text did not pick up was the punctuations. There are many run-on sentences because it didn’t know how to put in periods or commas or quotations. I thought it would be able to at least put in periods or commas where I paused while talking, but that barely happened. I think that these are mistakes because it can cause discomfort for the reader when punctuation is missing. Without it, you don’t know how something should be read and wouldn’t know how to clearly interpret the message. There were also a few times when the recording would randomly stop in the middle. So when I pressed record again and started where I left off that’s where there were it would write down the same words twice.

I think using this feature can help when making a first draft of something where you are mainly brainstorming ideas. It’s an easy way to put down as much information as you can in written form. You would still be able to get the general idea or gist of what was transcribed. Reading through my own story, I can still get a sense of what is happening. However, whenever I read over the mistakes, it takes more time for me to read that part of the story since I’m editing it in my head and thinking about what was meant to be there.

A lot of the emotions from my oral telling of my story are definitely lost when it’s written in text. The sarcasm, tone, pausing for dramatic effect, and most of all the reactions of the listener are lost. The listener can affect how the story is told and thus each time the story is told it’s a little different. Walter Ong (1984) talks about how oral telling’s of stories came before writing was invented and how they are completely different experiences for humans. Talking is different in that it’s not as structured but writing has more structure and thought put into making things “make sense” and has caused our talking to change to be more like how we write. Knowing that what I was saying was being written down made the way I talk change during the recording. Written text to me feels more permanent and thus feels like they are more important in a sense. Oral stories are more fleeting and less formal – thus making mistakes while talking feel less daunting since you can correct your mistakes right away. There is more flexibility and leniency when it comes to speaking in comparison to written words.

If I had scripted the story, I would have added in punctuation as I was speaking by physically saying “period, comma, quote” to add them in where they were needed. I would have spoken while enunciating more to make sure the Voice-to-text was able to pick up most of the story without any mistakes. I would be able to add more details to the story that would make it more interesting. As I was telling the story I realized at the end that I had left out key points to the story that gave it more flavour and excitement for the listener(s). Having a time limit of 5 minutes to tell my story did cause me the rush through the story to get to the end.

Even though there are many different apps for this purpose, I used the Notes App on my Iphone mainly due to the convenience. I think next time, I will try to use a different speech-to-text software that is “smart” enough to put in punctuations depending on how long my pauses are when speaking. This was an interesting experience that let me see and understand how the written form of speech can lose a lot of meaning in translation. Modern technology cannot fully interpret the human emotional nuances that are included in oral speech (at least not yet).

References:

Ong, W. (1982). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London and New York: Taylor and Francis Group.

And Ong’s Youtube video.

Hello everyone!

I’m Selina Choi and welcome to my first blog post for ETEC540.

I’ll be introducing myself via a “What’s in my bag” reveal exercise.

The above photo is me back in the summer of 2019 at the Allen Gardens Conservatory in downtown Toronto. I graduated from the University of Toronto and immediately moved to Korea to teach for a bit before coming back to Toronto. Currently, I’m a high school math, science, and geography teacher in the Toronto District School Board and I do some ESL tutoring on the side as well.

The camel coloured backpack in the picture above is one of my most frequent bags I use. I decided to show my non-work bag since I’m working from home these days and it’s basically the essentials I would carry whenever I do go out. It’s also the bag I used most often when I traveled to different countries since it’s just the perfect size and still fashionable.

At first glance I don’t think people would be able to tell that I’m a high school math and science teacher. The only giveaways that I would be is from the contents of my planner where I lesson plan and the calculator in my navy bear pouch. You would be able to see that I’m very organized because I always carry my planner with me everywhere. I write everything down since I tend to forget things if I don’t. You would be able to tell that I’m bilingual in Korean and English from my planner because I write some things down in Korean. Although I’m more comfortable with English – that’s my way of putting in effort to continue practicing my Korean writing.

As for the text that I engage with I would say I use both analog and digital texts daily. Although, it’s not pictured above, I always have my phone on me. I have an iPhone and read a lot of text on it and use it for long term planning, and communicating with others. My bullet journal planner is used for more short term planning.

If someone took a peek at my bag 15 years ago they would find that they’ve invaded the bag of an elementary student. My bag didn’t have many things but I do remember that back then I still carried around and used a planner daily. It was a planner that the school would provide to all students. It’s truly become a habit for me to carry and use a planner everywhere since then. I also had an expansive Korean stationary collection in a fancy 2-3 layered pencil case which was the envy of many of my classmates. I’m still very much a stationary collector but I do not carry all of my fancy pens with me like I did back then.

Text Technologies & Other Items: 

• Bullet Journal & pens: This is my main text technology that I engage with daily and carry around with me everywhere (along with my phone).  For those of you who may not know what bullet journaling is, it’s a type of customizable planner that can be used for many things. You can: keep track of tasks, schedule appointments/events, lesson plan, journal, do art, track your habits, and practice mindfulness. According to the etymology of the word text, the way I’m thinking of my bullet journal as a text technology is more modern in the sense that text these days is considered to be written, viewable words instead of the older definitions of it such as creation and verbal words.

• Pouch (with a bear on it): Has various things inside such as a calculator, hand sanitizer, hand cream, lip balm, mints, and pens.
  • My calculator is a scientific calculator that I use for teaching and calculating equations. It indicates that I’m involved in some form of STEM and/or that I work with numbers quite often. Numbers are considered a form of text and thus the calculator is a text technology that creates new text by computing inputted numbers for you so you don’t have to.
  • My hand sanitizer, hand cream, lip balm, breathe mints, and mask are all self-care/personal protective equipment (PPE) that I always keep in my pouch bag. Before I was forced to teach fully online I would be in the classroom teaching face-to-face with a mask on and using the hand sanitizer every 20minutes. This caused me to have really dry lips and hands. I ate breathe mints often as well since I’m a coffee drinker and I would have to wear a mask after drinking my coffee and I didn’t want to smell my own coffee breathe haha. According to the Latin period, these items are all considered text technologies because they were needed in order for me to communicate verbally with my students and colleagues.

• iPhone + Phone Charger: I use my phone often and get anxious if it dies while I’m still out, so I carry a charger too. One word I find interesting that’s used often for technology is the use of the word “died”. When you say “my phone died” everyone understands that it ran out of battery instead of a living being dying. “Died” is definitely one of those words where the meaning has changes with the growing use of technology. I would say that the phone is the most modern text technology that the majority of people own.
  • Many of us communicate our thoughts and feelings by sending texts, images, emojis, voice call, links, videos, gifs, etc. Most phones are used to access the Internet and post on social media. A lot of what we type on the internet can be permanent where there is digital history, but there is still a lot of times where you can edit or delete what was posted. There is this sense of malleability with digital text compared to written analog text.
  • Also, similar to a wallet, you can find out a lot about a person based on their phone. How they organize their apps, what apps they have, which apps they spend the most time on. The apps can reveal a persons level of literacy or what types of literacy they are competent in. For example, their phone my not be in English, they may have many language apps because they are learning a new language, they may have science literature apps, etc. Their browsing history and who they follow on social media can reveal their political views, religious views, views on global issues, and social justice issues. The background photos used for lock screens and home screens can also be very telling about the type of person you are. The phone settings and accessibility setting can also let you know about someone’s health. If they had all the texts larger than normal, you would know that they may have bad eyesight, or they may need other specific accessibility options from a disability they have. Even if we have nothing to hide on our phone, most of us would feel vulnerable revealing everything on our phone to others – at least that’s how I feel.

• Snacks: in the picture I have some chocolate that I was gifted from Christmas. I generally always keep some kind of snack on me when I go out since I have low energy. Although this is not really a text technology, it’s something archeologists may see and think that I was someone who needed mid-day snacks to keep myself going for the rest of the day.

• Bluetooth earbuds: You might find it gross that I found these earbuds on the ground. BUT when I looked it up I found that these are over $200 earbuds! I sanitized them and kept them since there was no way of finding the owner. Earbuds are a text technology. According to the etymology of the word text, it can simply be something that was created. Someone had to have created the music, lyrics, or podcasts that we listen to. And according to the Latin period, text is seen as a verbal (oral or written) construct. Thus earbuds are a text technology that relays these forms of text to our brains.

• Sunglasses: these are my 5th sunglasses (in about the span of 2 years) – I always break my sunglasses. So I don’t ever buy expensive ones. These were about $10. This isn’t considered a text technology, but I did want to note that they protect my eyes which are crucial for communicating via text technologies.

• Keys: 1 key with about 6 keychains attached. Each keychain holds some sentimental value. Many of the keychains are from my trips around the world and from when I went to anime/comic conventions. This is a text technology that I’m quite fond of since it can communicate my interests to others and can provoke a conversation.

• Wallet: A wallet can tell you a lot about someone such as where they like to shop and where they have been. My wallet is quite small and so I only mainly keep cards. I have quite a few points/loyalty cards from different stores and always keep receipts. All these things are texts that prove and communicate my past actions and purchases. Theses particular texts portray the more modern iteration of what a text is, in that it’s permanent in its written form and viewable text.