𝙴𝙽𝙶 𝟻𝟷𝟻𝟸 | 𝚁𝚎𝚏𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝙿𝚘𝚜𝚝 #𝟸

This semester has been a long one. I think my fellow classmates and even my instructors will agree with me on this. These past few months have personally been very draining for me, overall. Juggling full-time employment with three online courses + comps and the professionalization practicum course eventually took a mental and physical toll on me. My hair began to fall out and I recall writing a discussion board post for one of my classes one night, threw my hands up in frustration, and was on the verge of breaking down because I felt so defeated and overwhelmed. However, I'm surprised at myself for not giving up and continuing to pull through. (I highly thank my family and friends for giving me emotional support during this challenging time.) As I am writing this final reflective post, I am realizing, "Wow, I gained and learned SO much information about digital rhetoric this semester." While we are reaching the end of the semester, I noticed that my visual perspectives on content and text are grasped and perceived differently now. For example, I am now looking at images in further detail, and tend to analyze the message and purpose of the image; sometimes, I tend to become too over-analytical, haha! In addition, I am now almost always interpreting sounds in an aural sense, especially when I am listening to music. The semantics of song lyrics allow for comprehension and provide information through a digitalized format. In result, analyzing song lyrics while singing them in my car or in the comfort of my own room gave me better understanding of the song's meaning. What was most confusing and difficult for me in this class was, hands-down, the HTML assignment. I am aware that HTML is the basic foundation for the design and structure of a webpage. However, while reading and reviewing over the instructions worksheet numerous times, I began to doubt and question my ability to create a webpage because I had difficulty comprehending the markup language and technical jargon. I believe that this was troubling for me because I had no prior experience in developing a webpage out of scratch and was not knowledgeable about certain vocabulary term. I feel that this was where the linguistic and spatial modes began to kick in. Because I was totally unfamiliar with HTML, it was a tedious process to go through each direction step-by-step. But, I gradually became comfortable with using HTML after a few hours of terminology review and web design practice (color, font, position, spacing, format) and seeing the changes take in effect. 

The new questions that I have about digital rhetoric and literacy are 1) Does the absence of social media define being digitally illiterate? and 2) Is digital literacy ideal for peer engagement and inclusion? These questions seem both pressing and useful to me because we are living in a society where social media is very charged, engaging, and present. Opportunities to use social media can be applied in an unplanned or unintended manner. In contrast, social media platforms appear to have their own guidelines and norms when utilized by users, and is always evolving.

Lastly, as we are making the final stretch of the semester, I would like to say that I very much enjoyed this class. Digital rhetoric is a fairly new area of study, and I am fortunate enough to have learned about the fundamentals that strengthened my knowledge and understanding of this field of rhetoric. 🙏