FSU Students Find Catharsis Through Blogging
posted by Brittany Doss | November 6, 2020 | In Arts and CultureStudents enrolled in Dr. Nicole McFarlane’s English 420: Digital Rhetoric and Content Writing class had the unique opportunity to create blog posts about their views on topics surrounding social justice, equality, COVID-19 culture, and more.
Dr. McFarlane is among the various FSU faculty members who challenge the thought processes of students, ultimately fostering and developing critical thinking skills and confidence in rationale. Students were tasked with gaining an understanding of concepts and techniques used in blogging.
Prior to posting, students were exposed to blogging tools to enhance their posts. Memes, videos, and hyperlinks were among the tools that students used to showcase their creativity and individuality. The final drafts would be published onto the class blog, Capturing The Crisis.
As a student in this class, I had an outlet to write about my feelings and perspective on national events in a constructive way. It was different not having to be so formal in my writing since we were blogging. It took some getting used to, but it’s been very liberating. Our first few posts were created individually, but we’d meet as a collective to receive feedback before posting our final work. I really enjoyed our final post that we worked on together. We created a Zoom University (ZU) Manifesto.
We’ve had to make a lot of adjustments due to the ongoing pandemic. One of the adjustments has been remote learning via Zoom. Though created to be helpful, there are some hinderances to learning and interaction that have arisen on this platform. In our manifesto, we call out these problems and propose solutions as we endure this new standard of normalcy.
Some of the other topics posted on the blog discuss feelings about the emotional rollercoaster known as 2020, African Americans and code switching, police brutality, eugenics, and climate change.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.