The end of the semester has come and I can say that I have really enjoyed this class. The majority of my time went towards these four major projects—the play list, the character collages, the Podcast, and the video collage. After becoming familiar with the technology that we used in class, it is much easier to revise your work and see where your work should be revised. Creating a portfolio of your work is a great way to see how you have progressed, not only as a student, but as a person. I think that each and every project that I did had a little bit of truth in it, a little bit of my own personal experiences. So here they are, fully revised and open to the world.

Final Portfolio by Young Lyoo

I. Playlist Assignment
Getting started on the playlist was very hard for me. I felt like I didn't know a wide enough variety of songs that I could actually link together to form a storyline. It took me a long time to try to figure out if I wanted to decide on the storyline first and scourge the shallow selection of songs in my mind or try to write down a few songs that I liked and try to squeeze out a plot. I ended up selecting one of my favorite stories first. After that, selecting the songs were easier than I thought. I had a good time trying to fit the events to the rose's point of view so I could feel like I had contributed more to the story. I enjoyed the assignment, and it certainly made me think about how words, lyrics, and rhythm, melody contributed to creating an atmosphere.

Here is my final portfolio encompassing all the work I've done over the semester.

Project 1 - Playlist Assignment

Our first project was to create a musical playlist that tells a story. The songs we chose were supposed to complement a story that we ourselves wrote. I remember specifically Dan asking the class the question, "is it easier to write a story then choose the songs, or the other way around?" I think it was much easier to write the story and then pick the songs based off of it. My story was purely fictional and about a character named Demetrius and his battle with substance abuse. I edited the original blog and made changes to some of the storyline.

Revised Midterm Portfolio, including a link to my revised collages and the Podcast.

Video Collage Assignment
Taylor, the Latte Boy Music Video Collage
I was nervous about posting my Video Collage, especially on youtube and especially after I had scrapped my earlier decision and went in a completely new direction. However, I was pleased with the final project, and working on it was much more fun and artistic for me. I am also pleased that I am getting such a large response on youtube, I even have a comment from a stranger. I suppose that makes sense, I watch a lot of random videos on youtube, therefore random people are bound to find mine, but it is still a little weird.

PLAYLIST REVISED:

I'm going to start my final portfolio with our first big project- the playlist. Here's a link to revisions that i made on the first portfolio with added revisions for the final portfolio (disregard the blog postings, I made it with the same page that I made the revised playlist with). I also explain the changes that I made for the final portfolio at the top of the playlist.

Final Playlist

COLLAGES REVISED:

Next are my revisions to the collages. My first collage is the "Everyday Use" collage. I was pleased with the changes I made during the midterm portfolio, however I decided to tweak a few things. I continued to emphasize Dee as the central figure in the collage. I decided to lighten the opacity on the fence because the background of it made Dee's face look a little green in the midterm portfolio. I also toned down the opacity of the pair of hands that were meant to represent Dee's mother. I didn't want them to run into the face so much and take away from Dee's face. The only other thing I changed was to also lighten the opacity on the fire just a small bit, I didn't want to over-emphasize it despite it's large impact on Dee. I felt that it was taking away from Dee a little bit too much. All of these changes are very subtle and may be kind of tough to recognize however I feel they impacted the collage in a positive manner. Overall I was very pleased with the way that the collage turned out. I have attached a link to the mid-term portfolio where i've attached the new collages I've made for the final portfolio located at the bottom of the page.

Here is my portfolio which is the compilation of the final products and the revisions:

PLAYLIST- The Story Never Ends

As challenging as it was, this assignment was my favorite over the course. I wanted to write a story which had personal meaning to me, and immigration and the American Dream seemed like it would be a good topic. While I myself have lived here my whole life, I have heard numerous accounts of adjusting to life in America from many immigrants. For the songs themselves, I wanted to see if I could have a theme. Broadway songs and songs from musicals seemed to be perfect for this topic, because a lot of times they're hailed as the best theatrical indicator of American extravagance. A lot of musicals themselves discuss the journeys of those in the pursuit of American dreams.

Playlist Assignment

Once I started brainstorming what I was going to do for the playlist assignment I realized that I wanted to write about something that related to me personally. I began thinking of something that I had always wanted to do with my friends. Then I thought what would go better with music than a roadtrip? I tried to have each song relate to either the city they were in or what they were feeling at the time. I wanted the reader to feel as though they were in the car. As if they were just sitting there with their own friends with the windows down and the radio playing.

The end of my first semester of college is here, and I am compiling all the work that I have completed in this class. Here it goes:

The Playlist
Our first big assignment was to tell a story through a playlist of songs. This is actually the revision; I edited it a few days after Chris and Dan posted their comments, and did not save the original. It was tough for me to start this assignment. After a couple attempts (that I ended up discarding), I finally began a story that I liked and could continue writing. The songs I found complemented the story well, and the story flowed well. In the original playlist, I mostly had the music lyrics telling the story, but my updates buttressed the storyline with more details. I think that this was a good opening project for this class. Using songs to tell a story is both interesting and thought provoking.

The Blog for my Final Portfolio

Midterm Portfolio ( With Revisions) This is the link for my already posted Mid-term Portfolio. Several of the assignments have been revised and placed in the midterm blog for easy access and Comparison.

Video Collage A Link to my video Collage.

Final Essay The Final revision of this essay was posted underneath the rough draft. I Made several Changes such as grammatical Errors, Clearing up my thesis, and tying each paragraph into that Thesis. The Final Revision also has a title and the heading has been corrected according to our textbook. Hopefully it is more polished and clear.

Revised Playlist

This assignment was one of the most interesting assignments I have had the pleasure of doing since I have been a student here. I really enjoyed finding songs to tell a story and had never before thought of song lyrics as literature before the Playlist assignment. I'm not sure I submitted the revised copy correctly, but I did take heed of the comments made regarding the content of my story and made necessary changes to make it stronger. Hopefully, now with a little more detail and some added dialogue as well as links to the lyrics of the songs, the playlist will be easier to understnd and more interesting.