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Locked-In Learning: Honorlock And Surveillance Capitalism In The First Year Writing Department, Tehyah Carver

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This paper explores the impact of implementing the proctoring software Honorlock in the collegiate writing classroom. Through a framework inspired by Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, the investigation analyzes the efficacy of Honorlock’s attempts to reduce plagiarism and student test-taking anxiety when applied to preliminary writing assessments in Seton Hall University’s First Year Writing program. With professor interviews, surveys, and observations, the paper exposes the flaws of Honorlock’s promise of student empowerment and honesty by dissecting the punitive language used in their marketing material to potential and current consumers, administrators and professors. …

Challenging Dominant Ideologies In Order To Center Marginalized Voices And Enrich Learning: Theorizing Social Justice In English Studies Teaching, Heather Holliger

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio explores the reproduction of and challenges to dominant ideologies in popular culture and scholarly contexts and examines pedagogies for advancing social justice in the field of English studies through three distinct but interconnected projects. The first project considers pedagogy in the public sphere, examining the power of the meme genre to serve as “critical public pedagogy” within movements for social change. The second project focuses on the role of dominant norms in reproducing social injustices through classroom writing assessment, offering insights from antiracist, queer, feminist, decolonial, translingual, and disability justice scholars. The paper also reviews composition scholars’ strategies …

The Key Role Of Social Media In Students’ Understanding Of The Rhetorical Situation, Olivia Montine

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Gen-Z students have been chastised repeatedly for their lack of attention span, addiction to social media, and inability to complete tasks in school in the manner of generations past (Richtel). It would not be productive to attempt to reform the way current college students process information, as their upbringing has largely altered their attention span and methods of content consumption. Older modes of understanding on how to write in a college composition class do not take this into account. What if the method of instruction professors utilized shifted to better meet the capabilities of college students in 2023? To answer …

Esl To Composition Transitions: Investigating The Differences In Disciplinary Values Among Two-Year College Faculty, Amy M. Flessert

English Theses & Dissertations

In this qualitative methods study, I draw on Paul Kei Matsuda’s 1999 article “Composition Studies and ESL Writing: A Disciplinary Division of Labor” to examine if, more than 20 years after its publication, there is still a significant disciplinary division between ESL writing and first-year college composition. I surveyed writing instructors from both ESL and ENG at Mid-Atlantic Community College (MACC) regarding what they value as “good” writing. I also worked with three faculty members – one in ENG, one in ESL, and a third who teaches in both departments, serving, in this study and the department, as a “bridge” …

Inclusive Pedagogy: Connecting Disability And Race In Higher Education, Meredith Persin

All Theses

Higher education was never made for marginalized people. The academy was created based on the privileged white, able-bodied, males who preoccupied higher education for the longest time. While that has certainly changed over the years, the institution itself is still in the past resulting in BIPOC students and disabled students continuing to struggle within higher education. While instructors have begun to take interest in the need for inclusive pedagogy within the last decade, it still has a far way to come in order to help the marginalized students with intersecting identities and students who may not benefit from a one …

An Analysis Of Class In Composition From 1970-2010, Holland R. Cutrell

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Class and socioeconomic status in composition and rhetoric remains a topic that is felt, yet not often discussed. The language students use is highly indicative of their class background, and everyone has a slightly altered form of discourse they prefer (Zebroski, 2006). My thesis examines the issues working-class students have faced with literacy acquisition and discourse assimilation from 1970s–mid 2000s. My analysis illustrates how composition and rhetoric has evolved from the error-centered and hyper-correct culture of the 1970s to the technologically dominated, media driven production powerhouse that affects every aspect of college and beyond. To most effectively address how working-class …

Hazy Team Composition Processes: Shared Team Leadership, A Strategy To Team Excellence In Higher Education, Pervaiz Masih

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teamwork is an emergent property of efficacious organizations. Team-based and result-oriented organizational structures are gaining momentum, increasing 6% each year. Over 80% of organizations globally deploy teams by putting ordinary people to work together for extraordinary performance. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center is a unique institute that teaches foreign languages in an immersive and team-based environment. This mixed-methods research study investigated (a) the teaching team composition processes, (b) the applicability of trust and diversity in team composition, and (c) the impact of shared team leadership in the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center. Data were collected from 82 …

Systemic Functional Linguistics In The Community College Composition Class: A Multimodal Approach To Teaching Composition Using The Metalanguage Of Sfl, Jennifer James

Education (PhD) Dissertations

This qualitative research study sought to understand the affordances and limitations of a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) approach to teaching composition at the community college level. The study took place over the course of a semester in two developmental college composition classes using the language of SFL to teach writing through multimodal assignments. The study was developed in response to the increasing diversity in writing skills and educational goals of students in the community college composition class. The increase in diversity is a result of legislation in California that restructures developmental class offerings and affects placement in the transfer-level composition …

Transgender College Students In The English Composition Classroom In The Rocky Mountains, Tracey Williams

Dissertations

Transgender students face challenging and unique experiences in academic classrooms on college campuses. This qualitative study, which used queer and transgender theory, sought to examine the realities of transgender students’ experiences within the English Composition classroom in the Rocky Mountains. English Composition is a class nearly every undergraduate student must take, no matter their major. It acts as a microcosm of the college population. Composition classes are generally small (20-25 students), offering a more intimate setting than other general education classes in college. Additionally, personal writing is expected, as is sharing work with classmates for peer-review sessions. Within this context …

Remaking Identities, Reworking Graduate Study : Stories From First-Generation-To-College Rhetoric And Composition Phd Students On Navigating The Doctorate., Ashanka Kumari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation responds to the decreasing number of first-generation-to-college doctorates in the humanities and the limited scholarship on graduate students in Rhetoric and Composition. Scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have long been invested in discussions of academic and/or disciplinary enculturation, yet these discussions primarily focus on undergraduate students, with few studies on graduate students and far fewer on the doctoral students training to become the next wave of a profession. In this dissertation, I argue that if we engage intersectional identities as assets in the design of doctoral programs, access to higher education and academic enculturation can become more manageable …

Unraveling Identity Signifier Literacy: A Case Study Of First-Year Composition Students' Communication Practices, Bailey Mcalister

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Identity signifier literacy is defined as one’s ability to accurately read – via personal interactions or via visual, verbal, written, or digital communication – the signifiers others display in direct and indirect ways and interpret these signifiers to gain understanding of others’ identities. In this study, 22 first-year composition students were surveyed about their communication practices in order to see how their identity signifier literacies influence and are influenced by digital environments and composition. These results are meant to improve first-year composition pedagogy by making connections between students’ informal composition practices and their academic composition courses.

Teaching College Writing To High School Students: A Mixed Methods Investigation Of Dual Enrollment Composition Students' Writing Curriculum And Writing Self-Efficacy, Erin Dena Scott-Stewart

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to use a quantitative survey to assess the relationships between the credit pathways students choose to earn first-year, first-semester (FYFS) university writing credit (i.e. dual enrollment, Advanced Placement, university courses, and ACT/SAT exemptions) and several writing experiences and outcomes, including writing curriculum, self-efficacy, self-regulatory strategy use, and course performance. The same survey was also used to explore relationships between these writing experiences and outcomes and preexisting student characteristics (i.e. race/ethnicity, gender, and parents’ education). For dual enrollment (DE) students only, the following aspects of the participants’ writing experiences were also investigated using …

Curricular Analysis Of The University Of Arkansas Composition I Pilot Course: Engl 1013, Community Ethnography, Morgan Lindsay Scholz

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes a new first-year writing course that is under consideration for implementation as the standard Composition I course at the University of Arkansas. The course utilizes an ethnographic approach to teaching critical writing skills to students. This thesis presents evaluation through a metacognitive lens and explores the course through a case study approach. This thesis also examines the expectations and concluding reflections of three stakeholder groups: students, instructors, and administrators.

On The Same Page: Theory, Practice & The Ela Common Core State Standards, Jessica Lauer

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This research sought to examine how writing was happening in high schools. States across the country, including Michigan, began implementing the Common Core State Standards in 2010. The standards place a heavy focus on informational texts particularly as a student reaches high school. The standards also suggest that writing should be a shared responsibility among teachers, acknowledging the importance of cross-disciplinary writing skills. Using a grounded theory approach to analyze the semi-structured interviews conducted with eight English teachers in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, this research revealed a disconnect between theory and practice when it comes to how educational standards …

Transitioning To Writing About Writing: A Consideration Of The Metawriting Teaching Approach At The University Of Arkansas, Katie Michelle Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses case studies of six Teaching Assistants and Instructors to analyze the curricular and pedagogical shift from a writing-through-literature model to the Composition II course to a metawriting approach during the 2014 spring semester at the University of Arkansas. The administrative decision from the Program in Rhetoric and Composition to make this transition came in response to the 2007 article by Elizabeth Wardle and Douglas Downs in College Composition and Communication outlining a "Writing about Writing" approach to teaching composition.

Literary Know-How : Restructuring Creative Writing And Literary Studies, Jonas Casey-Williams

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The emerging field of creative writing studies has provided new conceptions of creative writing's role within the English discipline. These conceptions focus on the relation of creative writing to composition studies, and there remains a need to reconsider creative writing's relation to literary studies.

Wayfaring Strangers: A Case Study Of Rural Developmental Writers In The Missouri Ozarks, Robert Andrew Griffith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes a year-long ethnographic study of rural basic writers in the Missouri Ozarks. Using Richard Hofstadter's concept of "anti-intellectualism" as a theoretical lens, I explored the attitudes of students towards writing and academic culture. This exploration was conducted by means of questionnaires, interviews, writing samples, and several experimental courses.

Using all these data-collection mechanisms, I was able to identify three characteristics of these students. They were likely to demonstrate a dualistic ("right/wrong") epistemology. Accordingly, they expected their academic reading to make matter-of-fact truth claims. Finally, students were unlikely to understand the transformative nature of any educational enterprise, hoping …

Engaging And Enacting Writing In First-Year Composition: Re-Imagining Student Self-Efficacy In Writing, Mary L. Tripp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

According to educational theory, learning to write necessitates self-belief that one is capable of performing required tasks. This belief is called self-efficacy, a component of human agency. Students who enter First-Year Composition (FYC), are often unaware of the writing challenges that lie ahead, and many educational psychologists posit that self-efficacy beliefs are the most important factor in meeting these writing challenges. While socio-cognitive theory shapes views of self-efficacy in education literature, to date, measures of self-efficacy in writing have focused only on the individual cognitive beliefs as they influence writing performance outcomes. However, current research in writing studies as well …

The Social Construction Of Authorship: An Investigation Of Subjectivity And Rhetorical Authority In The College Writing Classroom, Johannah Rodgers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although we use the term author on a daily basis to refer to certain individuals, bodies of work, and systems of ideas, as Michel Foucault and other critics have pointed out, attempting to answer the question “What is an Author?” is by no means a simple proposition. And, starting from the position that there is no single, or definitive answer to this complex question, this dissertation seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion of the genealogy of authorship by investigating the ways in which conceptions of the author have informed models of the writing subject in the field of rhetoric …

Exploring Four Modes Of Responding To Undergraduate Writing, Mary Gruis

Culminating Projects in English

A study exploring four modes of giving feedback to student writing in a first-year composition course. The focus discusses ways the different modes impact student writing and revision. It also examines one classroom where each of these modes were implemented, how these different modes were implemented, and the outcome of each mode on student attitudes toward the writing and revision process.