Month: October 2020

When thinking about digital editions…

Since my last post on this topic, I have written a close reading annotation for my digital edition assignment. I received great feedback from my peer group and Professor Tuttle. I think I have truly identified how exactly to dive deeper into a text and work with the specific language and authorial moves within a small piece of text. I chose to frame my annotations this way because I found that this is what makes an annotation the most helpful. I realized this when completing our first assignment of looking through an example digital edition. I also wrote my thesis statement and will begin to draft my critical introduction soon. I will definitely need more guidance on what exactly should be included in this introduction, but I know that that information can be found on the course site. I am wondering how much of the introduction should be summary versus analysis.

WHEN REFLECTING ON THE COURSE AND EPORTFOLIO…

In terms of ePortfolio, I have gone through Professor Gennaco to create a separate site for my digital edition to live. I have started to customize and edit this site to make it more suitable for what I would like for my project. I am definitely still figuring out the organization, and I think I will know more on this when I start to complete some of the parts of the project. In terms of this course, I am fascinated by the content recently, mostly when we discussed systemic racism. I am currently taking a trauma class, and it is evident that systemic racism is a cause for trauma and can have a significant impact on your brain, sometimes affecting your mental health. This is a lens that people sometimes don’t see or choose not to see.

What are you learning?

After browsing the learning outcomes defined for this course, I have found myself to be engaging with the following outcome the most: discern a text’s literal content, identify and analyze its rhetorical strategies, and extrapolate its historical and cultural implications. I think this outcome has been the basis of what we have done in class through our class discussions. I have found myself working with and proving that I am perform this outcome the most. For every text we have read so far, we devote class time to getting to the bottom of what the text is about, what it is arguing about the historical and cultural implications of the time, and the rhetorical strategies the author uses to frame his/her argument. This skill is something that I have used throughout all my courses at UNE, and even in high school. I am able to better understand a text if I know what it is literally talking about, and then I can begin to analyze it for its cultural or historical importance. Acquiring this skill has definitely made me a more critical reader and writer. Personally, I love the feeling and satisfaction of when I am able to figure out the meaning of a text and start to analyze its importance… it’s similar to the feeling of piecing all the puzzle pieces together. Once I have done this, I am able to dig deeper and get to the not-so-obvious meaning (which is the fun part)!