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Wise Economies: Storytelling, Narrative Authority, And Brevity In The American Short Story, 1819-1980., Kirk Lee Curnutt Jan 1993

Wise Economies: Storytelling, Narrative Authority, And Brevity In The American Short Story, 1819-1980., Kirk Lee Curnutt

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study proposes a new way of measuring brevity in the American short story. Since Edgar Allan Poe's definition of the tale, literary criticism has looked to various structural features within the text to define the elements that distinguish the short story from other prose genres like the novel. I argue that brevity is an essential feature of storytelling and suggest that its perception is molded and shaped by several historical factors. The phrase "wise economy" offers two ways of thinking about the conciseness of the form: it evokes a history of rhetorical economy central to the formation of a …


The Literacy Characteristics Of Navajo Readers And Writers., Diane Clarite Greene Jan 1993

The Literacy Characteristics Of Navajo Readers And Writers., Diane Clarite Greene

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this ethnographic research was to begin the process of identifying the literacy characteristics of Navajo readers and writers. The study replicates aspects of the research project, Home Environmental Characteristics of Successful Navajo Readers, by Dr. David Hartle-Schutte (1988). Home and school discontinuities were investigated in a traditional Navajo environment to determine literacy development (Cazden, Courtney, 1982). Ethnographic data collection consisted of six months of participant observations in two sixth grade classrooms. Structured interviews were used to gather information from teachers, students and parents about the school and community literacy characteristics. A researcher designed instrument was used to …


Windows To Critical Thinking: Perspectives On Pedagogy In Henry James's "The Bostonians", Carson Mccullers's "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter", And Frederick Douglass's "Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave"., James Thomas Mullane Jan 1993

Windows To Critical Thinking: Perspectives On Pedagogy In Henry James's "The Bostonians", Carson Mccullers's "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter", And Frederick Douglass's "Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave"., James Thomas Mullane

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Many times teachers restrict students to viewing literature through a single "preferred" window or from a rather small set of tiny windows, thus hindering their ability to think critically and make choices for themselves. It is my contention that our pedagogy should facilitate a "school of windows" in which students are offered many different vantage points from which to "see" literature--an environment which, instead of monologically conditioning them to accept content without criticism or question, dialogically allows them their own place and importance in active discourse. This study delineates the power that literature has to enable students to acquire these …


Comparison Of Word Recognition And Story Retelling Under The Conditions Of Contextualized Versus Decontextualized Reading Events In At-Risk Poor Readers., Linda Cain Badon Jan 1993

Comparison Of Word Recognition And Story Retelling Under The Conditions Of Contextualized Versus Decontextualized Reading Events In At-Risk Poor Readers., Linda Cain Badon

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study investigated the relative effects of two instructional approaches on reading recognition and comprehension of passages read by low-SES first grade children. It was hypothesized that use of a contextualized instructional approach (i.e., Communicative Reading Strategies) (CRS) which facilitated written language processing (i.e., vocabulary acquisition, grammatical understanding, narrative structure, and passage comprehension) within the context of oral reading would result in better internalization of a written story than would decontextualized activities (i.e., Directed Reading) (DR) targeting the same behaviors immediately preceding or following the reading of a story. The efficacy of the two treatments was measured by (1) fluency …


Children Of A Lesser Education: Contemporary American Drama And Multiculturalism., Walter Holton Placzek Jan 1993

Children Of A Lesser Education: Contemporary American Drama And Multiculturalism., Walter Holton Placzek

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study explores issues of multiculturalism in contemporary American plays that deal with education. The project begins by identifying the value which the American social order places upon education. It next analyzes the shifting and multiple definitions and connotations of "culture" and "multiculturalism," probing the possible implications of multicultural education for American society. Seven contemporary American plays (all of which place a primary focus upon the educational system and/or process) are examined: Uncommon Women and Others, the one-act and full-length versions of Open Admissions, Children of a Lesser God, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, Another Antigone, and …


Factors Affecting The Time-Course Of Auditory Stream Segregation., Lawrence Lee Mendoza Iii Jan 1993

Factors Affecting The Time-Course Of Auditory Stream Segregation., Lawrence Lee Mendoza Iii

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Auditory scene analysis refers to the process through which sounds are heard as either belonging to separate sources or as perceptually grouped together and arising from a single source. Stream segregation describes the perceptual separation of sounds, while sequential integration is a term used to describe the linking together of sounds following one another in time. This study examined the minimum duration necessary for the perception of sequentially-presented sounds to change from sequential integration to stream segregation. The experimental stimuli were sequences of alternating sounds. Auditory scene analysis was examined under conditions in which the sequential sounds differed only in …


Disclosure Decisions And Patterns After A Near-Death Experience., Regina M. Hoffman Jan 1993

Disclosure Decisions And Patterns After A Near-Death Experience., Regina M. Hoffman

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

As a dimension of privacy regulation, self-disclosure is the means through which individuals manage the psychological boundary area between the inner, private world and the outer, public world of interaction with others. In communication research, a gap has been noted between self-disclosure as defined by scientific method and self-disclosure as it is experienced by people in their daily life. This study reduces that gap by investigating disclosure decisions about a major life experience through the thick perspectives of the individuals themselves. Disclosure is examined as a context-embedded communicative process. To provide a thick description of disclosure decisions, an ethnographic methodology …


A Sixth-Grade Literature Discourse Community: Making Social Meaning With Illustrated Literature During Interactive Reading Events., Elizabeth Lee Willis Jan 1993

A Sixth-Grade Literature Discourse Community: Making Social Meaning With Illustrated Literature During Interactive Reading Events., Elizabeth Lee Willis

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The study focused on six at-risk students enrolled in the sixth grade at a large urban Southern middle school. These students, along with their classroom teacher, participated in two interactive reading events using illustrated trade books. The purpose of the study was to examine how these students used the pictures and text to create meaning for the stories. The two illustrated selections differed in story complexity, amount of world knowledge required for interpretation, and relationship of pictures to text (i.e., a close relationship indicated both picture and text communicated similar information, while a distanced relationship indicated one source provided story …


The Southern Baptist Convention Reformation, 1979-1990: A Social Drama., William Stanley Stone Jr Jan 1993

The Southern Baptist Convention Reformation, 1979-1990: A Social Drama., William Stanley Stone Jr

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

From Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis, and Aaron Wildavsky's cultural theory perspective, the authoritarian and the individualistic ways of life have coexisted in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) for more than a century. In 1979, Southern Baptist fundamentalists began a concerted movement to reform the SBC according to authoritarian beliefs and social practices. From Victor Turner's dramaturgical perspective, the 1979-1990 Southern Baptist controversy was a social drama that transferred power and reshaped Southern Baptists' perception of the past, present, and future. Rhetorical strategies facilitated each stage of the fundamentalists' reformation movement and the moderate counter movement. The present study symbolically explicates …


Romanticism Reconsidered: The Implications Of Organicism In Educational Reform., Anne Burford Griffin Jan 1993

Romanticism Reconsidered: The Implications Of Organicism In Educational Reform., Anne Burford Griffin

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to reconsider what has historically been called "Romantic" in American education. What I discovered was the ubiquity of organicism--an organicism which, when applied to education, promises to heal divisions with connection and integration. A reading of Romanticism as organicism is a traditional interpretation which fails to acknowledge the revisionist work of critics like de Man, Hartman, Bloom, and McFarland, who regard the Romantic recognition of language and self-consciousness as providing alienation, not unity. However, education continues to regard the Romantics as organicists and to provide organic remedies, such as the organic reforms proposed in …


Interactional Experience With A Voice Output Communication Aid In Augmented Interactions., Sandra Koenig Damico Jan 1993

Interactional Experience With A Voice Output Communication Aid In Augmented Interactions., Sandra Koenig Damico

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The primary purpose of this investigation was to study the effects of a Speaking Partner's experience with a voice output communication aid on the interactional strategies used in Nonspeaking Partner (NSP)/Speaking Partner (SP) dyads. A single-subject experimental design was employed, incorporating four interactional dyads of college-level students majoring in Speech-Language Pathology and school-aged adolescents (2 disabled and 2 able-bodied). Each dyad engaged in an information transfer barrier task, consisting of 10-12 maps with a number of referential conflicts. Interactional transcripts were analyzed for quantitative and qualitative differences in turn taking, message formulation, and nine types of Insertion Sequences. Results indicated …


Depressive Symptoms In Prepubertal Children., Lesley Stabinsky Compton Jan 1993

Depressive Symptoms In Prepubertal Children., Lesley Stabinsky Compton

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study was designed: (1) to explore interinformant reliability between preadolescent students, their teachers, and their parents; (2) to investigate the use of standardized and non-standardized academic variables as predictors of depression; and (3) to assess differences in depression between black and white students. One hundred and twenty, fourth and fifth grade students and teachers participated. Sixty-eight parents also volunteered for this study. The Child Depression Inventory and the modified Bellevue Index of Depression were administered to students, teachers, and parents. Significant but moderate interinformant reliability was found between teachers and students and between teachers and parents on both assessment …


An Examination Of The Spontaneously Generated And Retold Narratives Produced By Gifted/Learning-Disabled Adolescents From An Integrated Perspective Of Language Development., Phebe Archon Hayes Jan 1993

An Examination Of The Spontaneously Generated And Retold Narratives Produced By Gifted/Learning-Disabled Adolescents From An Integrated Perspective Of Language Development., Phebe Archon Hayes

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Few studies have examined the narrative abilities of gifted children with learning disabilities. This study investigated the ability of eighth-grade gifted children with learning disabilities (gifted/LD) to produce oral and written narratives by comparing their stories to those produced by gifted peers with no learning deficits (nonLD/gifted). It was hypothesized that evidence of difficulty generating the stories relative to the macrostructure (organization of ideas across sentences) and the microstructure (organization of ideas within sentences) would be exhibited by the gifted/LD population. Twenty, 13-year-old eighth-graders served as subjects in the present investigation. All were identified as gifted by their local school …


Mechanisms Of Crater Formation While Drilling A Well., Luiz Alberto Santos Rocha Jan 1993

Mechanisms Of Crater Formation While Drilling A Well., Luiz Alberto Santos Rocha

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Current well control practice for land or bottom-supported marine rigs usually calls for shutting-in the well when a kick is detected if sufficient casing has been set to keep any flow underground. In addition, the working pressure of the casing and surface equipment is maintained high enough to insure that formation fracture occurs before a failure of these items. Even if high shut-in pressures are seen, an underground blowout is preferred over a surface blowout. On the other hand, an operator will put the well on a diverter if he believes that the casing is not set deep enough to …


Effects Of Subtitled Video During Transactional Task Practice On Oral Communicative Performance Of Fifth Semester College Students Of French Learning With Multimedia Courseware., Isabel Borras Jan 1993

Effects Of Subtitled Video During Transactional Task Practice On Oral Communicative Performance Of Fifth Semester College Students Of French Learning With Multimedia Courseware., Isabel Borras

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of subtitled video during transactional task practice on oral communicative performance of fifth semester college students of French learning with multimedia courseware. Task practice was provided by the multimedia package, "Practicing Spoken French" (PSF) specifically designed by the researcher for this study. The package, which integrates HyperCard and videodisc technologies, allows for individually customized practice of two video-based oral tasks, description and narration. Drawing on Salomon's theories about the effects of media coding elements and perception of task on cognition and learning, the study used a 2 x 2 factorial …


Woven Words: A Semiology Of Clothing In Medieval Texts., Fernando Luis Figueroa Jan 1993

Woven Words: A Semiology Of Clothing In Medieval Texts., Fernando Luis Figueroa

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Much criticism in medieval studies has focused on Chrisitan allegory and its dissemination through Middle English poetry. Using recent insights into the nature of allegory in its medieval context, this study offers a new means of understanding allegory as it appears in the work of Chaucer and the Pearl-poet. Which ideas of figurality actually informed the works of these poets? The investigation into the influence of medieval "textuality" on Chaucer and the Pearl-poet has overlooked the image of the "veil" in the Middle Ages. This study asserts that instead of being a "flat" image, the veil provides us with a …


Learning Styles And Selected Demographic Characteristics Of Dislocated Workers., Samuel Lewis Harvill Sr Jan 1993

Learning Styles And Selected Demographic Characteristics Of Dislocated Workers., Samuel Lewis Harvill Sr

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to: (1) describe dislocated workers in Louisiana by learning styles and demographics; (2) compare learning style by demographics; and, (3) determine if learning style is independent of occupational area. A simple random sample of 235 dislocated worker participants was drawn from participants served in the Louisiana Job Link Center at Louisiana State University during FY89 through FY91. Data were collected using two instruments. The researcher designed recording form was used to enter the demographic variables gender, ethnicity, age, educational level, and occupational areas (DOT) codes. The Gregorc Style Delineator identified the preferred learning style …


A Performance-Centered Approach To Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony"., Randall Thomas Hill Jan 1993

A Performance-Centered Approach To Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony"., Randall Thomas Hill

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study argues that in Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko rehearses her Laguna-Keres culture and her culture's interactions with others. She accomplishes this rehearsal by employing representations of performances from the Laguna people as well as other cultures. To establish the context of my argument, first I offer a brief exploration of the current critical interest in Native American arts and cultures, review questions involved in defining the parameters for a study of Native American novels, examine the significance of Native novels for performance scholarship, and review performance studies scholars' responses to Native texts. Second, I review methodologies from a variety …


The Death Of A Dialect: Brule Spanish In Ascension Parish, Louisiana., Charles Edward Holloway Jan 1993

The Death Of A Dialect: Brule Spanish In Ascension Parish, Louisiana., Charles Edward Holloway

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The goals of this dissertation are: (1) to describe the Brule dialect, (2) to investigate aspects of language death, and (3) to provide important information to the area of Hispanic dialectology. The vestigial Spanish dialect spoken by the Brule dwellers of Ascension Parish, Louisiana is at the brink of linguistic extinction. The "Brule dwellers" have remained isolated from other Spanish-speaking groups since they arrived in Louisiana from the Canary Islands in the late 1700's. The specific phonological, morphological and syntactic characteristics of this unique variety of Spanish are documented here. Although the close relationship of Brule Spanish to the dialects …


Toward Understanding Post-Structuralism And Curriculum., Wen-Song Hwu Jan 1993

Toward Understanding Post-Structuralism And Curriculum., Wen-Song Hwu

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation describes extensions of post-structuralism in contemporary curriculum discourses. Post-structuralist thought is mainly associated with the seminal work of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and Michel Serres. Post-structural criticism and analysis challenge prevailing structuralist approaches and question the fundamental assumptions upon which these approaches rest. A key assumption of structural approaches is that all phenomena are constituted by an underlying structure. In curriculum, these structural assumptions (often scientific) remain unacknowledged and thus are immunized against criticism; rather, they are incorporated into the preferred structural analyses, interpretations, and organizations promoted by the promise of order and rationality. …


Recognition And Production Of Facial Emotion By Autistic Children., Steven R. Love Jan 1993

Recognition And Production Of Facial Emotion By Autistic Children., Steven R. Love

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Autistic males ages 8 to 16 made significantly more errors than did chronologically and intellectually age-matched nonautistic normal and mentally retarded males on emotion recognition tasks using audiotaped and videotaped emotion sequences. The audiotape and videotape included "happy" "sad," "scared," "angry," and "no emotion" sequences. Emotional sequences included emotionally relevant verbal content and the length of verbalized material in the emotional sequences was limited to between 4 and 10 words. Videotaped sequences showed actors portraying facial expressions and verbal content consistent with the five emotion states. Both tapes were rated by normal adults and children as containing "socially valid" representations …