Rhetorically Literate

Becoming rhetorically literate is a continuous, never-ending job, that continues to shift, with the increasingly complicated, but visual means by which we make sense of our visible and invisible cultural texts and their contexts. By recognizing the impact of the visual on digital writing environments, students are able to critically interpret the multi-facets of texts in our digital age. It is our job as teachers, leaders, parents to teach those that are in need of learning this new age process. But it is also our job to learn and keep up with technology and the new forms of written communication. As Hocks state, "Design projects require writers to look at successful models, to think deeply about audience, to design visual and verbal arguments together, and to actively construct new knowledge. Because the process of design is fundamentally visual and multimodal, it can be challenging, but it leads students to a new understanding of how designed spaces and artifacts impact audiences . . ." Curriculums should should be properly balanced while incorporating and focusing on understanding visual rhetoric in digital writing. The web is not only a source of finding resources but it is also a source for understanding visual content that forces the brain to decipher information while it is relating pertinent information.