Digital Commons Network^™

The Use Of Project-Based Learning To Scaffold Student Social And Emotional Learning Skill Development, Science Identity, And Science Self-Efficacy, Michelle Sutton Spigner

Theses and Dissertations

Project-based learning (PBL) offers an ideal approach for cultivating a robust STEM workforce, empowering students to actively construct their knowledge. This process has the potential to enhance science identity and self-efficacy. Furthermore, because PBL is inherently collaborative, it fosters the development of 21st-century skills, many of which align with social and emotional learning (SEL). While past studies have explored the relationship between PBL, SEL, science identity, and self-efficacy, there is a research gap in examining all three variables collectively within a high school context. Thus, this mixed-methods action research study aimed to determine if the implementation of a PBL unit, …

Correlates Of Immunization Timeliness In Three South Asian Countries: Secondary Analysis Of Demographic And Health Surveys, Tanzir Ahmed Shuvo

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the availability of effective vaccines, 1.5 million children under the age of 5 years die every year because of vaccine preventable diseases. Improvements in vaccine delivery infrastructure have resulted in relatively high coverage of vaccines, but many children are not receiving their vaccines on a timely basis. Timely administration of routine vaccines recommended by the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) ensures maximum efficacy. It is vital to explore rates of vaccination timeliness and the correlates of timely vaccination among children to design targeted interventions for improving both coverage and timeliness. We conducted a secondary data analysis of the Demographic …

Critical Literacy And Student Engagement: Disrupting The Canon In The Secondary English Classroom, Katherine Burdick Ramp

Theses and Dissertations

Canonical literature is typically featured on the required texts list of secondary English classes while culturally relevant literature is frequently eschewed. Students struggle to understand and connect with the canonical literature as there are limited cultural connections that are relevant to their lives. As a result of this lack of culturally relevant literature in modern English curriculums, there has been a decrease in student engagement. The purpose of this study was to determine whether students’ engagement and their academic performance increased through the inclusion of these culturally relevant texts. Two research questions guided this study: (1) What effect does the …

Contemporary Vocal Pedagogy In The Choral Ensemble Rehearsal: A Guide For Secondary Educators, Luke Lee Browder

Theses and Dissertations

The field of contemporary commercial vocal pedagogy is relatively new, with serious academic study primarily taking place over the last twenty-five years. In that time, however, a growing body of research has shown that the function of the vocal mechanism operates in essentially the same manner across classical and contemporary commercial music (CCM) genres, but the application of vocal function is what differentiates classical and CCM singing. Since secondary music educators often represent the only vocal training their students will ever receive, it is helpful for them to know the differences in vocal techniques and how to effectively train singers …

Real-Time Edge Computing For Autonomous Systems, Junlin Ou

Theses and Dissertations

This research presents systematic studies and algorithmic and hardware development to enable real-time edge computing for autonomous systems, in particular, for robot path planning and localization applications. First, a low-cost, indoor, multi-camera positioning system is proposed to localize ground robots using the ArUco marker. In this system, the normalized coordinates of the marker processed by OpenCV are utilized to calculate the camera coordinates. Data-driven models are developed to establish a mapping relationship between the camera coordinates and the world coordinates of the marker. Fifty data pairs of the camera and world coordinate systems within one camera view (150 pairs in …

Bad Blood: Octavia E. Butler Takes A Bite Out Of Gender And Racial Stereotypes In Fledgling, Abigail Cole

Senior Theses

For contemporary audiences the word “vampire” typically conjures two figures: a Damon Salvatore-esque[1] man with devil may care eyes, dark hair and an equally dark past. Dripping with sex and charm, he struggles with an internal dilemma, his animalistic urge to kill constantly at war with his human morality. On the other hand, we have the sexy, scantily clad white female vampire who uses her feminine wiles and socially “perfect” body to prey upon poor, unsuspecting men, until she is eventually corralled into domestic submission, or killed. While this description fits the broader scale of what the vampiric figure …

The Devil And Tom Robot: The Use Of Robotics To Impact Empathy In Secondary Students Of American Literature, Susan K. Porter-Voss

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research study was to evaluate the effect of a robotics-based intervention on empathy for students enrolled in secondary English and literature courses. Empathy, as a concept, is an integral component of reading comprehension and student motivation. A decline in reported individual levels of empathy among young adults can negatively influence longitudinal academic and career success. Robotics present a promising method in which to impact student learning in K-12 environments. Student manipulation of Wonder Workshop Cue robots in designed challenges was integrated within literature content standards for English III. The outlined study measured the impact of …

Babylon Is Fallen, Is Fallen: Southern Morality In Go Set A Watchman, Anna G. Dowling

Senior Theses

A crucial theme throughout Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee is the struggle between individual morality and collective consciousness, as exemplified by black and white relations in the American South. In this thesis, I explore the biblical concept of a “watchman” as referenced in the novel’s title and what conclusions can be drawn from delving into the literary and biblical contexts of this allusion. I utilize this as a framework to explore how and why the characters of Watchman exist in such fragmented, defensive states as opposed to their Mockingbird counterparts, and what these differences imply regarding the importance …

Los Milagros De Santiago Como Sustrato Ideológico En La Formación De Una Identidad Protonacional Castellana, Francisco David Mesa Muñoz

Theses and Dissertations

Saint James Apostle has been historically associated with his predications in the Iberian Peninsula. His cult started in the medieval times and has prolonged until the present, where he is considered the patron Saint of Spain. The construction and promotion of this symbol has been possible thanks to a combined set of efforts, whether premeditated or not, coming from the political and ecclesiastical groups in power. These groups made use of one of the most extended and influential literary genres to lecture and indoctrinate the vast majority of illiterate people during medieval times: the miracles.

In this study, I delve …

Visiting Jane: Jane Austen, Fan Culture, And Literary Tourism, Brianna Surratt

Senior Theses

People have been visiting sites associated with Jane Austen for two centuries now, and there have been fans of her work for even longer. Austen inspires unique devotion among her fans for an author about whose life we know very little. Furthermore, these fans have been fighting among themselves for as long as fans have existed over who loves her the right way – the academics or the amateurs? This work explores that unique fan culture in detail through the lens of literary tourism, going into detail about two sites in particular – Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, England, and …

An Index Of Choral Music Performed During The National Conventions Of The American Choral Directors Association (1991-2019), Jonathan Randall Hall

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to index and examine the repertoire of choirs selected to perform at the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) National Conventions/Conferences between the years of 1991-2019. This is a replicated study of William Jones’s dissertation, An Index of Choral Music Performed during National Conventions of the American Choral Directors Association (1960-1987). The researcher accumulated and examined National Convention/Conference programs with the following objectives in mind: to investigate literature trends reflected in National Conventions/Conferences, and to provide choral conductors a guide through which they may gain an overview of literature performed on National Convention/Conference programs. The …

Children See Race; Teachers Should Too: Challenging Bias, Stereotypes, And Prejudice Through Children's Literature, Alexandra J. Jenkins

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the impacts of antibias culturally responsive literature on kindergarten children and teachers through qualitative action research conducted in one classroom over the course of twelve weeks. It examines how young children in this kindergarten classroom use what they have learned from and about antibias culturally responsive literature in their daily play, writing, conversations, and interactions. I clarify the process through which kindergarteners transform in relation to the understanding of their and others' cultures. In the research, two types of strategies were used: (1) critical research and (2) narrative inquiry. Data was collected from whole group discussions set …

Women’S Writing And The Poetics Of Scientific Knowledge, 1620-1740, Rachel Mann

Theses and Dissertations

Women’s Writing and the Poetics of Scientific Knowledge, 1620-1740 probes the porous boundary between science and literature, revealing that the methodologies undergirding scientific experimentation were developed communally and through a confluence of interdisciplinary and cultural concerns. Ultimately, it shows that our contemporary understanding of the natural world and the scientific method have a history that is largely one of fragments. Secondly, and more importantly, it demonstrates the value of reading imaginative writing alongside scientific developments of the day.

Focusing on women’s imaginative writing in particular reveals the power and limits that ostensibly liminal voices have. As such, Women’s Writing and …

"Death Stars, Death Breathes:" The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao And The Trauma Of Diaspora, Hannah Quire

Senior Theses

The following thesis aims to examine the interlocutions of diasporic trauma and genre in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. Centering the work of prominent theorists regarding diaspora, trauma, and literature, this project enacts a close reading of the novel in order to frame it as a text that is at once principally concerned with diasporic trauma while also defying thematic labels and genre categorization. This project begins by foregrounding the work of trauma and diaspora scholars to demonstrate the relationality between the two fields of study, while the second chapter examines those presences in Oscar …

Time: A Measure Of Change, Brittany A. Gentry

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the metaphysical nature of time by drawing on literature in epistemology of measurement. Using such literature, I defend an account of time as a measure of change. I use literature on measurement to critique other metaphysical accounts of time and argue that some current metaphysical accounts of time are inadequate as accounts of time. The inadequacies we find in these accounts of time along with various other demands we have of an account of time push us further towards accepting the account of time I offer. While I defend a particular account of time, adopting that account …

Sand, Water, Salt: Managing The Elements In Literature Of The American West, 1880-1925, Jada Ach

Theses and Dissertations

Sand, Water, Salt focuses on Progressive Era American literature that explores the theme of land management set in the so-called wasteland spaces of the arid deserts, semi- arid high plains, and Pacific Ocean. The rhetoric of turn-of-the-century land managers, engineers, and developers insisted that humans and their environments remained separate, thus affording humans the ability to control land from a safe distance. However, the works I examine in my project demonstrate that even thoroughly regulated environments remain lively and beyond total control. My project archive, which includes Progressive Era fiction, memoirs, irrigation maps, aerial photographs, dry farming manifestos, and other …

"This Dreadful Web": Alienation And Miscommunication In The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Debbie Clark

Senior Theses

Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame hinges on the idea of fate and characters being caught up in situations and fantasies that seem to be out of their control. Esmeralda is the fly caught in Frollo’s web, and yet her beauty and allure attracts and ensnares him in turn. Quasimodo is ensnared by Esmeralda’s beauty but also by society’s perceptions of him. The characters in Hunchback are so caught up in the webs of fantasies and perceptions spun by themselves or society that they can no longer communicate effectively with others, resulting in alienation from the very society …

Bodies In Play: Female Athleticism In Nineteenth-Century Literature, Jillian Weber

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation explores depictions of athletic female characters in nineteenth-century American literature. I argue that there is a rich literary tradition of athletic women, whose origin I date to the 1840s, that has not been explored. To date, scholars have considered athletic women in literature anomalies, a case of a gender-bending female found in a single text, but not part of a longer genealogy of this character type. By examining athletic women over a period of decades and across several genres of American literature we see how this character type has been shaped by authors and culture alike. I illustrate …

Caressing Radical Alterity: For A Queer Ethic Of Embodiment In Contemporary Films And Literature, Marc Demont

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers an analysis of the caress through the dual lens of phenomenology and psychoanalysis. I argue that the caress reveals the queerness and ambiguities of perception and that this gesture must be understood as an ethical gesture of opening toward otherness. I discuss different accounts of the caress (Levinas, Irigaray) and expose the misogynistic and/or homophobic bias at work in these theories of the caress. I suggest that Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of touch and other notions that he develops (Flesh, intertwinement, intercorporeality, encroachment, etc.) allow a redefinition of the caress that avoids Levinas and Irigaray’s pitfalls. In a reading …

After All This Time: A Study Of The Appeal Of Young Adult Fiction Series Among Young Readers, Sarah Jessica Martin

Senior Theses

What is it about young adult fiction that is so addictive? Why do teenagers return to the same characters and situations over and over again in series fiction? This study explores the significance of young adult fiction series with a scientific approach, through the surveying of teenagers on the aspects of those series that are so meaningful to them. Through this study, a greater understanding of the way readers interact with literature is achieved.

The research portion of this study is largely inspired by Reading the Romance by Janice Radway^[1], an investigation that explores the attraction of romance …

Incorporating Study Abroad Experiences Into The High School Classroom Using Practices Informed By Cognitive Research, Grace Carroll Zimmermann

Senior Theses

This senior thesis project is a Unit Plan designed for at-risk high school students that incorporates literature from places where I have studied abroad and employs classroom practices that are based upon research in the fields of cognition, motivation, and pedagogy. The accompanying paper addresses the rationale behind choices made for each lesson and the research that supports it.

Metaphorically Mapping Literature Onto Music: An Analytical Guide, Aubrey Elizabeth Leaman

Senior Theses

Music and literature are both inherently narrative structures. Because of this, when the paraphrase of a musical aspect is similar to the paraphrase of a literary aspect, that literary aspect, whether it is a character or action, can be metaphorically mapped onto the music at that point. Like any mode of interpretation the theorist must be careful to remain true to the music, but conscientious metaphorical mappings provide a creatively stimulating approach to both literature and music that can engender an even deeper understanding of the music itself. There are many precedents to this approach. Renowned theorists including Lawrence Kramer, …

The Trialectics Of Transnational Migrant Women’S Literature In The Writing Of Edwidge Danticat And Julia Alvarez, Jennifer Lynn Karash-Eastman

Theses and Dissertations

While a considerable critical field has developed around US Latino writing, due to the historical, cultural and sociolinguistic barriers between the two nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, critical investigations of these migrant literatures are often not bridged, but rather isolated into respective Haitian-American and Dominican-American designations. My comparative, critical framework defines the interactions between gender, culture and the diverse spatial coordinates from the island of Hispaniola, the Atlantic and the United States. The carefully differentiated objects of study that I articulate in each chapter offer a desirable interdisciplinary orientation inclusive of gender theory as well as cultural studies. …

'Precious Objects': Strange 'Things' In James And Wharton, John Kinard

Theses and Dissertations

In this work, I attempt to examine the importance of things, the strange agency of objects, which emerges in the literature of the late nineteenth century. To this end, I examine the economy of things in both Henry James and Edith Wharton. I attempt to connect this object agency with the emergent discourses and technologies of the time, and to link these both with media and queer theory.

Going Hard, Going Easy, Going Home: Death And Dying In 20th Century African American Literature, Chayah Amayala Stoneberg-Cooper

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation answers the question: How can art represent the essential human experience of death, particularly when the creative context is one of extreme violence? And, what can be learned about the risks and rewards of the living's relationship with the dead by way of these artistic representations? Further, how do these aesthetic renderings of death construct the ethics of life for survivors? In the case of African America, discussion of, and responses to, these questions have been primarily explored in novelist and creative writing. This dissertation examines these novelistic treatments of death-tropes, or thanatropes in eight novels written by …

Recuperando La Memoria De La Guerra Civil Española En Luna Lunera Y La Higuera, Whitney Anne Waites

Theses and Dissertations

Desde el comienzo de la Guerra Civil española en 1936 hasta la Transición a

democracia en los años 1980, España ha sufrido un proceso de "historical and social amnesia" (Cardus i Ros 18). Como resultado surgió una cultura de silencio: no había que hablar de la Guerra Civil española o los años de miedo y de violencia durante la dictadura. Con eso, hoy en día, varios autores españoles intentan combatir dicha amnesia y la cultura del silencio en la forma de la novel de la memoria. Esta investigación analizará como dos novelas de la memoria, Luna Lunera y La higuera, …

Red, Yellow, Blue, Lauren Elizabeth Eyler

Theses and Dissertations

Red, Yellow, Blue is a hybrid, metafictional novel/autobiography. The work explores the life of Ellis, Lotte, Diana John-John and Lauren as they wander through a variety of circumstances, which center on loss and grief. As the novel develops, the author loses control over her intentionality; the character's she claims to know fuse together, leaving the reader to wonder if Lauren is synonymous with Ellis or if Diana is actually Lotte disguised by a signifier. Red, Yellow, Blue questions the author's as well as the reader's ability to understand the transformation that occurs in an individual during long periods of grief …

William, Allison Marie Mcnutt

Theses and Dissertations

William is a novel that examines the lives of a pair of protagonists who are separated by approximately three hundred years of history. Liam is a modern history PhD who studies the colonial south, specializing in the years immediately following the pioneering period of Carolana rice cultivation around the turn of the eighteenth century; this is the middle ground after survival in the colony was largely secured, but when social hierarchies and racial allegiances were still in flux as the cash crop best suited to the coastal settlements had only just been discovered. Will is Liam's historical counterpart and lives …