Convergence is excited to announce the publication of its second volume. This issue contains a diverse spectrum of print and multimodal writing projects that students completed in the Writing and Rhetoric department at UCF that we are extremely proud to publish. In our first piece, created in professor Kevin Roozen's Reserching and Writing Literacy course, Irimar Garcia captures how secretive writing altered and shaped her identity and self-confidence, how writing fiction and journaling resituated her perspectives on family and identity. Garcia reflects on how she used writing as a tool to work through her ideas and to find ways to say what she wanted and needed to grow. Her piece meshes fiction with academic analysis and introspective reflection. Garcia explained that "Secretive writing is a writing activity that I participate in that contains rhetorical and social elements. These elements create an atmosphere for many internal and external changes that can occur within the minds of those who participate in such an activity."

ames M. Yunik offers us a look into the flexibility of American English. His piece, written for professor Esther Milu's Writing in Global Transnational Contexts course, is a response to populist complaints about adopting new words and word usages in to the American lexicon. Yunik attempted to counter the assumption that American English is stagnate. To do that, he explored how film has directly or indirectly popularized some of these new words, how hip-hop artists demonstrate considerable linguistic inventiveness, and how the internet acts as a powerful catalyst for linguistic change. In "Townie Adaptation" Victoria Thacker adapted lyrics, sound, and distortion from the song "Townie" by Mitski into a comic she created for professor Nate Holic's Rhetoric of Pop Culture course. Her multimodal adaptation implemented unique textures like construction paper, and it used camera angles that zoom in and out to control how viewers see the comic. She also employed comic panels in the music video to control the amount of time a panel is seen. "In Scent of Gender," Max Pinsky created a visual essay for professor Sonia Arelleno's Gendered Rhetorics course to explore purchasing habits. He offered a closer look at the details involved in the selling of perfumes and colognes. He contended that the products an individual buys, or potentially does not buy, are indicative of personal preferences, conceptions, beliefs and ideologies. Products that best display this significance are those developed within the beauty industry. He argued that the exigence of the beauty industry is self-image, and that out of the countless array of beauty products available in the current market, fragrances exhibit specifically targeted gender rhetoric in their marketing.

In "The Road to Literacy" Alexander Dieguez made a video game in Dustin Edwards Literacy and Technology course that functions as a multimodal allegory for literacy concepts such as social theory, primary and secondary discourse, and literacy sponsors. This original role-playing game immerses audiences in symbolic narratives that coordinate visual, verbal, and sonic rhetorics to illustrate how technology both normalizes and disrupts social injustice. In the game, players engage primary and secondary discourses to build an identity kit that optimizes game functionality. The accompanying user manual showcases professional and technical writing capabilities. In our final piece, and audio essay Marissa Kinzel created for professor Dan Martin's Multimedia Writing and Composition course, Kinzel explored the dynamic use of sound in video games. Kinzel examined the sound design in the Super Mario franchise from 1995 to present and analyzed how sound functions as a literacy that helps guide players through the game