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Kodály Learning: A Qualitative Case Study Based On The Use Of A Blended Curriculum Using The Principles Of Zoltán Kodály In Beginning Piano Study, Megan Elizabeth Rich

Theses and Dissertations

This paper and its corresponding study were created to explore the effectiveness of the Kodály Method on traditional piano lessons and to hone a curriculum with long-term student musicianship at its core. The curriculum was written for a six-week period and intended for students ages six–eight years old. The curriculum follows the melodic and rhythmic sequences of the Kodály Method and blends these sequences with traditional approaches to beginning piano lessons. The purpose of the study is to share and evaluate this curriculum and its results as they pertain to the four study participants.

The study was conducted over a …

Demystifying The Choral Music Of Herbert Howells: A Pedagogical Approach Via Selected Works, Michael Ballard

Theses and Dissertations

The music of Herbert Howells is a mystery for many choral musicians. Howells’s popularity in England is unquestioned, but knowledge of his music has grown slowly in the United States. While the BBC Singers’ performance of Requiem in 1980 brought new enthusiasm for his music and the Requiem, he is still seldom performed in the United States outside of small circles which are generally in Anglican or Episcopalian communities. This is likely due to lack of exposure to his music and the perception that the music is inaccessible and mysterious. Some of Howells’s more complex music is inaccessible for …

My Sauce! Living In The Polyrhythm, Zakiya Harris

Theses and Dissertations

This paper contextualizes “Ghana: The Place Where the Chief Sleeps,” for which Harris served as dance captain, rehearsal director, dancer, stager and choreographer. Harris details how her work living inside the polyrhythms of performance, practices, and pedagogies can produce a holistic West African dance education for students.

"This Other Way": Photography At Black Mountain College, Kyle Canter

Theses and Dissertations

Relying on the photographic collections of the Western Regional Archives in Asheville, NC, as well as oral histories, personal correspondence, course notes, official college records, and other archival material, this thesis examines the history and pedagogy of photography at Black Mountain College.

"How Is Photography?": Robert Heinecken's Photographic Concept At The University Of California, Los Angeles, 1960–1991, Noa Wesley

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the photography program Robert Heinecken established at UCLA, highlighting his interest in teaching photography as an idea rather than a technologically inflected medium. This pedagogical model provides a lens through which I trace the work of three of his students: Maria Nordman, John Divola, and Uta Barth.

Anthropocene Composition: Teaching Terminal Generations In The Pre-Apocalyptic Classroom, John Michael Purfield

Theses and Dissertations

The Anthropocene is an era characterized by human alteration of the planet at deep geological levels and permeation of anthropogenic damage across all biomes. The primary crisis of this era is climate change, which is understood broadly as the anthropogenic disruption in weather patterns and global temperature averages caused by carbon emissions and other pollutants, as well as extractivism and terraforming (deforestation, monoculture farming, desertification and alterations of waterways, for example). Though popular media tends to frame climate change as a looming but always future problem, it is currently producing casualties, both human and nonhuman. The ongoing great extinction correlates …

An Arbitrary Aesthetic: Cultural Reproduction And Hegemonic Canonical Formations In The Western Theatrical Academy, Sim C. Rivers

Theses and Dissertations

Theatre as an artistic practice has often been celebrated as an art of and for the people, being a modality that in theory the common person has access to learn, explore and experience. In recent years I have become preoccupied with the growing rarification and privileging of this art form, particularly in how it is cognized and taught in the academic world. As such, I set out to investigate the mechanisms at work at levels structural, artistic, and personal that determine how theatre is taught and understood within the western academy.

This thesis seeks to examine and unpack the perceived …

Adapting Higher Education: Revamping Curricula For The Inclusion Of Theatre Students With Disabilities, Kevin Kemler

Theses and Dissertations

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion initiatives in higher education have been largely driven by administrators who have little to no contact with the students for whom they are working for. This top-down approach negatively impacts marginalized students and disproportionately affects the quality of experience for students with Disabilities, an often-overlooked demographic. For Disabled students enrolled in performance programs, barriers to access and inclusion don’t just exist at the institutional level, they also exist in the traditional classroom or studio as well. Through a dismantling of ableist structures inherent within higher education (i.e., American grading practices, the Western and Theatrical Canons), I …

Margaret Rowell: Pedagogical Approach And Teaching Style, Robert-Christian Sanchez

Theses and Dissertations

While there are numerous biographical details about Margaret Avery Rowell’s life, few details exist about her pedagogy. The current researcher interviewed and subsequently analyzed transcripts from eight of Rowell’s former students to reconstruct her pedagogical approach and teaching style. The researcher’s questions were: 1) How did Rowell structure individual lessons and student development? 2) What were the recurring concepts within Rowell’s principles? 3) What exercises did Rowell use to teach her principles? 4) What personal and pedagogical qualities made Rowell an effective teacher and influence on her students?

Based on the interviews, Rowell tailored her approach to each student without …

The Apprenticeship Structure And The Applied Pedagogical Methods Of The Holy Roman Empire Imperial Trumpeters’ Guild During The 17Th And 18Th Centuries, Noa Miller

Theses and Dissertations

The Imperial Trumpeters’ Guild of the 17th and 18th centuries Holy Roman Empire implemented a remarkable and effective training program for its apprentices: an expedited two-year apprenticeship structure with a seven-year journeyman period when the training was applied. Studying the structure of the apprenticeship and how the expedited system was implemented gives a new insight into an effective and efficient teaching model. This training regimen was made possible because apprentices received the necessary musical foundation and pedagogical methods through attending the Latin school. This is evidenced through analysis and comparison of the Latin school primers (textbooks) and the trumpet treatises, …

Experiential Education In The Writing Classroom: Developing Habits For Citizenship, Anika Shumway

Theses and Dissertations

As political polarity and social divisiveness increase in the United States, more organizations and scholars are calling on institutions of higher education to rise to the occasion and incorporate into their objectives the development of competent citizenship (The National Task Force). Writing classrooms are particularly suited to these kinds of objectives as writing already proposes relationships between rhetor and audience that have ethical dimensions and require mutual honesty, accountability, and respect (Duffy, "The Good Writer"). Additionally, the Framework for Success, a document that has become central to shaping the goals of writing classrooms, articulates habits of mind, like openness and …

Southern United States English As A Rhetorical Device In The Field Of Marketing: A Study And Implications For Business Writing Pedagogy, Megan Jacklynn Busch

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation project, I examine how professionals in the South use their Southern United States English (SUSE) to communicate in business situations. My goals are to (1) understand how regional language variety rhetorically shapes writtenprofessional communication and (2) establish a pedagogical framework for business writing that attunes to the nuances of language variation in the workplace. I hypothesize that speakers of SUSE implement regional dialects to form interpersonal business connections and build ethos and that SUSE has a significant rhetorical role to place in professional communications. To test this hypothesis, I develop a hybrid method of interviewing, discourse analysis, …

The Globalgothic Vampire: Application Of And Benefits For The English Studies Model, David Lawrence Hansen

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation utilizes canonical vampire texts interlaced with pop-culture story-worlds and international cultural remediations to demonstrate the flexibility of the Globalgothic as a viable and valuable research lens to facilitate skills-based learning in undergraduate students by utilizing each of the four branches of the English Studies Model; literature, linguistics, rhetoric, and pedagogy. For this dissertation, I will be using the term Globalgothic as suggested by Glennis Byron. The focus of this literary lens is not merely to look at the conventions traditionally associated with the gothic genre, such as crumbling houses, a sense of foreboding, dark omens, and damsels in …

A Pedagogical Analysis Of Dvořák’S Poetic Tone Pictures, Op. 85, Nathan Macavoy

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to pedagogically analyze each of Antonìn Dvořák’s (1841-1904) Poetic Tone Pictures (op. 85) for both technical and artistic challenges. Historical and theoretical analysis give context but are limited so that the pedagogical value of the set can be fully explored.

Poetic Tone Pictures is a set of thirteen programmatic character pieces that were originally popular but have been overlooked in recent history. This is largely due to Dvořák scholars’ discrediting attitude toward his solo piano writing. The recent interest in recording his piano works has brought Poetic Tone Pictures positive critical reviews. This study …

Eliberative Democracy In The Writing Classroom And Beyond Author(S): Michael Reich, Michael Reich

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I explore the consequences of adopting a deliberative pedagogy, based on the study of one or two sample courses taught in 2018 at St. John’s University. The project as a whole argues that the university should be an idea place for students to develop a sense of personal and political agency, and First Year Writing courses organized around deliberation allow students to learn to listen and reason with each other as individuals and as citizens. My first chapter defends the methodology of a humanistic idea of deliberation (a pedagogy not based in classroom drills or Standard English) …

Codification Of Terminology And Procedure In Mental Practice With Applications To Piano Pedagogy, Anna Beth Rucker

Theses and Dissertations

Mental practice has been discussed among piano pedagogues from the nineteenth century until the present. Over time, many terms have been used to describe different kinds of mental practice. This variety can make it challenging for the independent teacher to consolidate the information and effectively apply mental practice to the private lesson. For this reason, a codification of the terms associated with mental practice is presented in this thesis. Terms are classified into four groups: Visualization (kinesthetic imagery and musical imagery), Aural (aural imagery and audiation), Psychological (mental wellness and guided imagery), and Hybrid (practice away from the piano and …

Cultivating A Democratic Community In The Elementary Art Classroom, Kelly Fergus

Theses and Dissertations

Cultivating a more socially just, democratic classroom community is a best pedagogical practices qualitative case study. This study is designed to explore how three Virginia elementary art teachers define and create a democratic classroom community, inside their art rooms, through the implementation of various instructional strategies within the physical, social-cultural, and pedagogical spaces of their classrooms. Such instructional strategies may include a shift in power dynamics, student-centered art, choice-based art, and a big idea/real-world issue-orientated curriculum (ex: visual culture, social justice, democratic pedagogies). Each of the three selected participants were interviewed and asked to describe their classroom practices as well …

Class/Act Embodied Practices For Performative Pedagogy, Chauntee Irving

Theses and Dissertations

Class/Act: Embodied Practices for Performative Pedagogy is a personal and practical exploration of embodiment’s role in higher education acting pedagogy. In my thesis, I propose that embodied acting practices rooted in phenomenology and corporeal dramaturgy surpass conventional acting curricula. Embodied training is often confused with movement curricula and is regularly considered a shallow and/or unintelligent means to approaching acting work. However, I will argue the efficiency and effectiveness of embodied teaching techniques in four parts. Part One: Seeing is a retrospective of how my personal experiences outside of the classroom have drawn me toward embodied aesthetics. Part Two: Knowing unveils …

Using The Rhetoric Of Video Games To Teach The Praxis Of Critical Analysis, Jeffrey B. Doyle

Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown that video games can be successful at teaching concepts and skills to students at various grade levels. To explain how this might work, theoretical work is done to connect the concept of flow from psychology to procedural rhetoric. With the inclusion of Foucault’s theories of power, video games are shown to not be isolated experiences but connected to the power dynamics of society. In video games, these dynamics can be seen through the problematic portrayals of marginalized peoples as well as the hostile community that has developed online surrounding video games. To account for these issues, but …

Experimental Music In Higher Education: Toward A Pedagogy Of Creativity, Philip Melancthon Snyder V

Theses and Dissertations

Experimental music is rarely taught in higher education music programs but it could nevertheless be useful for providing students a methodology through which to develop creativity. This document seeks to find common ground between the seemingly disparate worlds of classical music and experimental music in pursuit of revealing the usefulness of experimental music practice for musicians trained in the classical tradition. In seeming contrast to classical music, experimental music values include process, indeterminacy, and non-subjectivity. This document shows that these aspects, despite seeming exclusive to experimental music, are in fact integral to all music. This document will also discuss writings …

Teaching Musically: Incorporating Dalcroze Pedagogy Into Flute Instruction For The Elementary-Age Student, Emily M. Stumpf

Theses and Dissertations

The current practice of flute pedagogy for the elementary-age student is often focused on skill-building: finger technique, tone development, and note-reading and rhythm skills. Often the teacher will delve into concepts of musicianship only after the student develops a high level of technical skill. I have found it is possible to include musical concepts such as expressive playing, developing an internal sense of rhythm, and improvisation at all stages of the learning process. When the flute teacher functions as the initiator of an aesthetic experience, the development of musicianship becomes just as important as skill-building.

The Dalcroze philosophy of music …

Fighting Rhetoric And Training Composition: Theory And Pedagogy Of Mixed Martial Arts Argument, Trevor C. Meyer

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the connections between martial arts training, rhetorical theory, and composition pedagogy. The central focus of this project is the common understanding of an argument as a “fight,” and by investigating the training practices of fighting arts, this project expands and complicates what an agonistic orientation can offer argument, teaching, and writing. This inquiry has two parts. Part one explores the importance and influence of ancient Greek martial arts practices in Platonic, Aristotelian, and Sophistic argumentation. By focusing on the “mixed” martial art of pankration, I challenge the pervasive binary of “open hand” and “closed fist” as a …

Translucent Voices: Creating Sound Pedagogy And Safe Spaces For Transgender Singers In The Choral Rehearsal, Gerald Dorsey Gurss

Theses and Dissertations

While transgender rights and issues are gaining an increasing amount of attention in both pop culture and, to some extent, in the education sector, little information is available for the choral conductor that provides pedagogical tools for transitioning voices. This document provides conductor-educators with both a brief look at the transgender experience and also tools to create safe learning environments, from gender-inclusive language to vocal exercises to encourage healthy vocal transitions in transgender singers

Twenty-first century choruses are not the first institutions in the realm of Western art music that have faced visual, aural, and enigmatic conceptualizations of gender and …

Expanding Composition Pedagogies: A New Rhetoric From Social Media, Ashley Evans

Theses and Dissertations

Traditionally, the field of rhetoric and composition has valued long-form essay writing, which requires students to engage patiently and at length with revision. In contrast, students today spend much time outside of school producing fast-paced and short posts for social media. This dissertation argues that students’ social media interactions provide them nuanced, dialogic, and complex rhetorical understandings about writing—but that students need help developing discursive processes to support transfer of their social media knowledge to other writing contexts, including long-form academic writing. Drawing from two semesters of in-class study, I construct for first-year composition classrooms a pedagogy that embraces and …

Technical, Artistic, And Pedagogical Analysis Of Mark Morris' L'Allegro, Il Penseroso Ed Il Moderato, Mireille Radwan Dana

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes Mark Morris' choreography for pedagogical purposes. It explores Morris' technique and style by investigating one of his most acclaimed works: L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato. Because this evening length piece offers a large selection of sections, a total of thirty-two, it provides many possibilities to investigate Morris' musicality, creative process, and style. The musical aspect of Morris' work is examined by focusing on how he often molds the dance to the musical score involving specific rhythms, canons and counterpoints. Analysis of his creative process investigates his use of individual and group work, with the implementation of …

What Do Students Think? University Spanish Students' Experience Communicating Online With Native Spanish Speakers, Daniel K. Bates

Theses and Dissertations

Modern technology has provided foreign language teachers with several methods of connecting their classes and students to native speakers of target languages. Much of the existing research about these online conversations is focused on changes in students' proficiency or cultural sensitivity. Although valuable, the research is lacking in understanding students' experience online including positive and negative feelings, challenges, and students' overall opinion of the exchanges' usefulness. This study was conducted in an effort to better understand students' experience communicating online with native speakers. A third semester Spanish class at Brigham Young University consisting of 18 students was selected as a …

Multimodal Pedagogies, Processes And Projects: Writing Teachers Know More Than We May Think About Teaching Multimodal Composition, Jessica B. Gordon

Theses and Dissertations

Multimodal writing refers to texts that use more than one communicative mode to convey information. While there is much scholarship that examines the history of alphabetic writing instruction and the alphabetic composing processes of students, little research explores the historical origins of multimodal composition and the processes in which students engage as they compose multimodal texts. This two-part project takes a fresh approach to studying multimodal writing by exploring the multimodal pedagogies of ancient Greek and Roman rhetoric and writing teachers, analyzing the role of mental and physical images in modern writers’ composing practices, and investigating contemporary students’ processes for …

Risky Business: Case Study Pedagogy And Business Communication, Jonathan A. Maricle

Theses and Dissertations

When Harvard College built their business school curriculum around case studies and discussion-based classrooms in the early 1900s, it created a radical shift in business school pedagogy throughout the nation due to its ability to prepare students for careers in industry. As case study pedagogy spread to other fields throughout the 20th century, such as medical education and the sciences, these fields extended Harvard's approach in order to create highly effective, field-specific pedagogies. However, business communication is yet to develop their own field-specific approach to case study pedagogy that meets the unique needs of our educators and students. I argue …

Toward A Networked Feminist Pedagogy For Composition, Leah Vitello

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to offer a pedagogy that uses methods inspired by fourth-wave feminism, or what I name Networked Feminist Pedagogy, to address both the highlights and challenges we have seen in the multimodal and public turns in the field. First, I provide an overview of the ongoing relationship between feminist composition and digital and multimodal rhetorics in order to locate the spaces in which Networked Feminist Pedagogy can intervene. Then, based on work by fourth wave feminist writers and teachers, I outline what I see as central principles of a fourth wave pedagogy, including daily practices, assignment ideas, and …

Critical Affects: Laughter As Inquiry In First-Year Writing Courses, Nicholas James Learned

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

CRITICAL AFFECTS: LAUGHTER AS INQUIRY IN FIRST-YEAR WRITING COURSES

by

Nicholas J. Learned

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2015

Under the Supervision of Professor Dennis Lynch

In this dissertation, I work to rethink our current approaches to teaching critical thinking and writing in attempt to collapse the distance between the critical/rhetorical methods we teach in Rhetoric and Composition and the ways students interact rhetorically in their everyday lives. I am prompted to this line of inquiry by a problem I note in both theory and practice: the critical methods we teach in our writing courses rarely translate to real-world behaviors, …