Digital Commons Network^™

Radical Reflection: Toward The Transformation Of Everyday Teaching And Learning In English Composition, Royal Brevvaxling

Theses and Dissertations

Education is a necessary component in the emancipatory transformation of current capitalist society, with its exploitative social relationships, to one which is based on promoting and supporting human growth and potential. A libertarian education, as Paulo Freire writes of it, "must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students" (Pedagogy of the Oppressed 59).

An additional impediment to developing education useful for this transformation is the separation of thought from action in educational theory and practice. The field of composition studies similarly operates according to …

Student And Instructor Responses To E-Feedback, Julia Reidy

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This empirical study provides further insight into how instructors decide on the methods used to respond to student writing and whether these criteria match what students want from this feedback. What are instructors' considerations when they adopt e-feedback practices? Do these considerations align or conflict with student preferences for how they receive feedback? How does the rhetorical content of these technologies (visual presentation and choices offered to users) affect the ways both teachers and students use them? To address a research gap, this study focuses on e-feedback, which is in-document feedback from instructors distributed via the Web to students (also …

Impact Of A Grade Contract Model In A College Composition Course: A Multiple Case Study, Nayelee Villanueva

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Due to the complex nature of assessment in critical pedagogy practices, continued research is necessary in order to investigate the constantly evolving nature of education and the way we come to know how people learn. To research assessment in the critical classroom requires both instructor and students. This qualitative multiple case study investigated impacts of a grading contract as a form of assessment on student writing in a Basic Writing composition course. This study examined the impacts of a grade contract on students' writing, motivation for writing, revision practices, authorship and expectations of a Basic Writing composition course. Through a …

Interactive Audience And The Internet, John R. Gallagher

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation takes up a question posed by Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford in 2009: “In a world of participatory media—of Facebook, MySpace, Wikipedia, Twitter, and Del.icio.us—what relevance does the term audience hold?” Using a case study methodology (e.g., Dyson and Genishi; Stake; Yin), I examine how three popular internet writers—all writers who engage with political issues in different venues—conceptualize their audiences and respond to audience feedback. Using established scholarship about audience, including Ede and Lunsford’s work, as well as newer digital scholarship (e.g., Arola, Carnegie, Edbauer Rice), I extend the existing conversation on audience to the context of digital …

Problem-Solving Pedagogy: A Foundation For Restructuring, Updating, And Improving Undergraduate Theory And Musicianship Curricula, Michael T. Simonelli

Masters Theses

The goal of this thesis is to provide the ideological and practical foundation for an improved approach to undergraduate theory and musicianship pedagogy. I will discuss the structure of conventional theory programs and explore problems inherent to traditional curriculum design. Problem-solving pedagogy, an approach rooted in creative composition and improvisation, will be presented as a complement to traditional theory pedagogy. Balancing problem-solving pedagogy with a more traditional pedagogical approach will provide a practical foundation for improving undergraduate theory and musicianship curricula.

A Pedagogy Of Persistence: Access Through Arrangement In The Age Of New Media, Jennifer Kontny

Theses and Dissertations

Fostering access in our writing classrooms has been a centrally important goal in the field of rhetoric and composition since the social turn in the 1980s. As a means of creating classroom spaces that help students gain access to new identities and ways of being in the world, those in our discipline have long privileged pedagogies that focus on invention. This dissertation traces the work of those in diverse areas of the field in order to show our wide-spread favoring of invention (or creativity, discovery, and the "new"). Unfortunately, I argue that the attention we have paid to invention has …

Augmentation Of Delusion, Christopher Lynn Adams

Masters Theses

Augmentation of Delusion is a single-movement piece for chamber orchestra composed by Chris L. Adams. The piece was originally written for a four-person percussion ensemble in 2013 and orchestrated in 2014. This document will analyze the major musical elements of form, harmony, melody, rhythm and meter, and genre of the piece, as well as compare and contrast these variables with other composers’ works.

Music theory terminology and figures will be applied in this document as follows:

1. Set theory functions will be expressed as:
a. Normal order indicated by brackets – [2367]
b. Prime form indicated by parentheses – (0145) …

The Wilderness For String Quartet, Samuel Moore Lewis

Masters Theses

The Wilderness is a single-movement work for string quartet with a performance time of approximately 14 minutes. This piece was completed in the spring of 2014.

The purpose of this paper is to place the composition within the context of concert music by analyzing its form, melody, harmony, rhythm, and meter and comparing those elements with those in similar examples by 20^th and 21^st century composers, in particular the post-Romantic string quartet literature.

The Writing Is The Wall: Expanding The Means Of Communication With Multimodal Approaches To Teaching Composition, Matthew Williams Schering

All Student Theses

As the paradigm of communication shifts into the digital realm, it seems only logical that instructors’ pedagogical approaches to teaching writing should shift as well. Though there is still much merit to teaching tradition approaches to composition, are there more modern methods that could be employed to teach communication in a contemporary setting? This thesis shall examine the role that new media can play in a multimodal composition course, as new media seems to be the most effective way to teach rhetorical communication skills in a modern setting. By looking at new media elements, such as podcasts, wikis, and images, …

With So Little Time, Where Do We Start? Targeted Teaching Through Analyzing Error Egregiousness And Error Frequency, Katie Fredrickson

Theses and Dissertations

Why do so many students confuse good writing with simply error-free writing, and what can writing instructors do about it? In order to answer this question, the present study first undertakes an exploration of the different meanings associated with grammar and how those definitions have influenced composition instruction. These influences range from an over-emphasis on grammar in the first half of the twentieth century to allowing it to disappear almost completely from the composition curriculum in the second half of the century. However, because research demonstrates that students over this same time period make errors in writing at a fairly …

Seattle, Rhetorical Velocity, Identity Shift, Transnational Politics, And Materiality: Watching Rhetoric Bleed, Brian J. Bailie

Dissertations - ALL

Seattle, Rhetorical Velocity, Identity Shift, Transnational Politics, and Materiality: Watching Rhetoric Bleed examines how the writings of Zapatista spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos shaped the philosophical underpinnings of the overall 1999 WTO protests, and more specifically, the philosophical underpinnings and the physical experience of one protest group in particular: the Mechistas of Washington State.

Alexander Glazunov And His Violin Concerto: History, Biography, And Performance Perspective, Gregory Glessner

Honors Projects and Presentations: Undergraduate

Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov, who was born on August 10, 1865, was a highly influential musician and composer in the early 20th century. Despite living well into the 20th century, he adhered to the compositional techniques and ideals of the 19th century. Glazunov generally wrote in a highly romantic style throughout his life, and never gave in to the stylistic pressures of the early 20th century. He worked prolifically in many genres, including symphonies, concertos, tone poems, string quartets, and ballets; however, he wrote relatively little vocal music, and no opera. Glazunov was also a proficient conductor and an excellent pianist. …

You Are That: An Upanishadic Approach To Empathic Writing Instruction In A High School Social Science Course, Andrew Otto Davis

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reports the results of a qualitative research project investigating an approach to composition instruction in a high school social studies course that is based on the Upanishadic concept of tat tvam asi (you are that). Research for this study was conducted while I taught a section of Non-West History to high school juniors and seniors. This dissertation addresses the issues involved in the teaching of writing in a high school social science course. Specifically it focuses on the issues involved when a teacher attempts to construct a class that engages students to read and write in ways that …

Concerto Suite: For Viola Da Gamba And String Soloists, Matthew W. Tozer

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Concerto Suite explores a unique hybridization of aspects from the baroque dance suites of the 17th and 18th centuries and from the classical concerto of the 18th and 19th centuries. In addition it also showcases some noteworthy differences in the performance technique and timbre of the viola da gamba in contrast to today's modern string instruments: the violin, viola, cello and double bass. ­

Concerto Suite is made up of three movements that are based on the form, rhythmic patterns, and meters of typical dance suites of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue. Concerto Suite combines …

Let Me Tell You About Homestuck: The Online Production Of Place, Jennifer Short

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the potential for the online production of place, specifically as it applies to the host site for the Homestuck web comic, MS Paint Adventures, and its attendant fandom. The proliferation of digital environments such as video games, web sites, and chat rooms has led to numerous opportunities for the study of online spaces and the numerous practices that take place within them. The lack of physical location in online spaces can, however, make it difficult to conceptualize of a web site as real, a problem that has often led researchers to develop new theories of space that …

Students’ Rhetorical Strategies In Translingual Encounters On Campus, Laura Moeller

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This thesis examines the ways in which linguistic minority students assert themselves as rhetorical agents when faced with the expectation of impromptu verbal responses. Based on a study that aims at identifying specific rhetorical strategies these students employ, the goal of this thesis is to theorize ways in which linguistic minorities deal with the challenges of fast-paced, high-stakes interactions. The practices that emerge from data analysis suggest that such strategies tend to be reactive rather than proactive and highly dependent on context. While they are valuable ways for linguistic minorities to navigate their ways in specific moments, the thesis argues …

Conversations We Have Had, Michael Koltosky

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Explorations In Double-Stops: Three New Pieces For Expanding The Role Of The Double Bass In The Jazz Ensemble, Ashley De Neef

Theses : Honours

This dissertation investigates the potential for using double-stops - the sounding of two or more simultaneous notes - as a means for extending the traditional role of the double bass, within compositions for a small jazz ensemble. It is the contention of this dissertation that it is possible to use double-stops to perform a more advanced function within the jazz ensemble, without compromising the double bass’ primary harmonic and rhythmic duties.

A historical overview of the history of the double bass within western classical and jazz music will be provided, as to outline and define what the double bass’ role …

Re-Imagining Invention (Post)Pedagogy From Ulmer's Electracy To Design, Ruth Elaine Clayman

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation is a historical project that traces the development of notable strands of composition pedagogy first crafted by Gregory Ulmer in his 1984 Applied Grammatology that continue to the present day, and groups them together in how they are incorporating multimodal tools in writing instruction that demand innovation in composition instruction. This will demonstrate how the work of certain contemporary composition scholars can be seen as creatively re-working the invention model that was devised and promoted by Ulmer in 1984. Through this history of invention in composition, Ulmer's invention model of writing instruction is clearly seen as both situated …

Fiesole: The Hillsides Of Tuscany, A Musical Work For The Classical Guitar And A Study Of The Compositional Process, Matthew Goodman

Music

Fiesole: The Hillsides of Tuscany

This piece of music is composed for 4 guitars, and it includes all of the right and left-hand fingerings for all notes. The individual parts are printed out so it can be distributed easily.

Symphony No. 1: On The Creation And Chromaticism And Harmony In Henry Purcell's Sacred Music, Joshua Adam Carver

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The first part of this dissertation is a musical composition for orchestra entitled Symphony No. 1: On the Creation. Each movement depicts one of the first four days of Creation as it is recorded in Genesis 1 of the Bible. The music is programmatic throughout; melodies, textures, colorations, and even forms serve this purpose. The entities and creations involved in the story each appear with a specific motive, mode, and tonal area, similar to Wagner’s leitmotifs. The movements have various forms, which often derive from the literary form of the particular day’s creation account in Genesis. The second part of …

Precarious Positions: Toward A Theory And Analysis Of Rhetorical Vulnerability, David Riche

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this project, I develop a framework for treating rhetoric as a system for managing vulnerabilities to and through discourse. I contend that, through rhetoric, we are all put into a fundamentally precarious position, an unavoidable state of exposure to material, social, institutional, and rhetorical forces that work to condition us as both agents and audiences. Rhetoric is not simply something we use; it is also something that we respond to, something to which we are continuously exposed, whether we like it or not. There is, in other words, a necessary concern for vulnerability at the heart of rhetorical theory …

You Are Set Free, Jennifer Leigh Mitchell

LSU Master's Theses

You Are Set Free is a four-movement orchestra work depicting the story of the disabled woman in Luke 13. The first movement is a picture of her inner conflict of hope and hopelessness she had as a disabled person during the time of Jesus. Her hope is represented in tonal melodies, while her hopelessness is represented in harsh harmonies. In the next movement, the woman’s inner conflict continues. Hopelessness is represented by a twelve-tone row and hope is represented by a tonal melody drawn from movement one. The third movement encompasses the meeting of Jesus and the woman. Jesus is …