It is the end of the k-12 school year, and watching films is always a good way to spend the last couple days of class. Conveniently, the movie I chose to emojify was fresh on my mind, as I watched it 3 times over this past week.

I found the process of converting ideas and words into visual forms was quite seamless. I think this is in part because we are so entrenched in a multimodal society. As Mithchell (1994) states “… we live in a culture dominated by pictures.” Having a background in and teaching visual art and design also could have played a role in this smooth transition. I think my brain naturally thinks in pictures rather than text. I recall when taking those learning style surveys in high school, my results would always conclude that I am a “visual learner”. Although many aspects of our culture have embraced the “The Breakout of the Visual”, there is still a disconnect between academia and the visual culture we live in. During my high school career, the emphasis was primarily on conventional pedagogies, focusing on verbal and logical learning styles. Ten years later, returning to high school, this time as a teacher, I imagined that a shift had taken place. An embracing of our visual culture, the building of a strong connection between the world we live in and the schools in which we study. My optimism was held in check, when I soon realized very little had changed. Whether this is because of a lack of funding, over-worked teachers not having the time or training to adapt, or maybe a resistance of change, I’m not sure.  A recent example of this was during Covid, with the mass shift from in-person classes to online platforms. As one of the more “tech savvy” teachers at our school, I volunteered to help instructors shift their course content online. I figured this would be a great opportunity, to shift from the outdated printed textbooks and adopt a multimodal platform, presenting subjects through a more engaging, current, dynamic lens, utilizing interactive websites, online collaborative software, and multimedia resources, but to my surprise most teachers just wanted help scanning their textbooks, so students could access their printed text online on screen. I acknowledge that not all technology is an improvement, or that new technology isn’t always better than the old, but I truly believe that multimodal content has the ability to connect with students on a far more engaging level than written text, particularly in our current culture.

As in our previous assignments, my process began with written text and doodles. I noted down some of the general events and ideas mixed with a few keywords. The film is very stylized and the featured characters and imagery include a great deal of symbolism.

I decided to start my emoji story with the title of the film. I chose to do this due to the visual connotation of the title itself. In addition to this, deciphering the title may not necessarily reveal what makes the movie so identifiable.