Digital Commons Network^™

Composing A Comprehensive Music Education: Teacher And Student Experiences With The Role Of Songwriting In Elementary General Music, Tara Neeley

Master's Theses

Music education has for many years focused on the musical role of performance and teaching from the traditional canon of Western classical music. In recent years, it has been noted that just a small portion of students participate in music offerings in secondary schools. Yet, the mission of the music education profession is for all students to experience and make music. To reach more students, music education must be relevant to students’ real world, pragmatic for a lifetime of musical involvement, and must help students build their identities. Providing a comprehensive music education in which students experience all musical roles, …

The Future Is Full Of Monsters: Queer Survival One Click At A Twine, 'Aolani N. Robinson

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Spurred by a desire to explore queer rhetoric through interactive forms of media, this project analyzed the game-making program Twine to uncover how independent queer creators use the tool to explore queer survival against time, capitalism, and constrained identities. A more accessible platform than other game-making tools, Twine’s unique interactivity puts the ability to make interactive games and stories into the hands of indie marginalized creators who are often overlooked in both mainstream gaming and queer rhetorics (Anthropy, 2012). Thus, this thesis contributes to queer rhetoric, game studies, and trans rhetorics by exploring the strategies indie Twine creators use in …

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 …

Queer Rhetorical Agency In Fort Lauderdale Tourist Lgbtq+ Advertisements, Jordan I. Guido

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

The following case study focuses on the implicit and explicit rhetorical messages in LGBTQ+ focused travel advertisements following Waitt and Markwell’s (2014) observations of LGBTQ+ advertisements increasingly gaining prominence within the mainstream promotional material. The case study investigates the queer messaging within Fort Lauderdale’s national 2015-2017 Hello Sunny Campaign; heralded for its groundbreaking LGBTQ+ and Trans representation. The scholarship that informs this study are at the intersections of composition and rhetoric, queer composition, and queer tourism studies. The methodology for the case study includes a rhetorical analysis incorporating a new materialistic lens. The two promotional images were analyzed for their …

Exploring The Metaphysics Of Grief, Carolyn Garland

Dissertations - ALL

The goal of this dissertation is to develop an understanding of grief utterances: expressions of grief that in losing a loved one, the bereaved lost a part of herself. Grief utterances are commonplace, and their accompanying phenomenology suggests they are true. That gives us reason to think they are true. But if they are, what makes them true? I establish two potential answers to this question, ultimately favoring one according to which when a loved one dies we lose parts of our practical identities.

Chapter One introduces and sets up this topic it. It then focuses on the extent to …

Exploring The Metaphysics Of Grief, Carolyn Garland

Dissertations - ALL

The goal of this dissertation is to develop an understanding of grief utterances: expressions of grief that in losing a loved one, the bereaved lost a part of herself. Grief utterances are commonplace, and their accompanying phenomenology suggests they are true. That gives us reason to think they are true. But if they are, what makes them true? I establish two potential answers to this question, ultimately favoring one according to which when a loved one dies we lose parts of our practical identities.

Chapter One introduces and sets up this topic it. It then focuses on the extent to …

Composing Online: A Case Study Of Embodiment, Digitality, And Youtube, Meagan E. Malone

English Dissertations

This study examines YouTube channel, ContraPoints, by trans woman Natalie Wynn. It begins with close readings and analyses of an example video and body of comments from Wynn’s oeuvre that draw conclusions about how trans embodiment intersects with online, multimodal composing. The study finds that, in her video “Beauty,” Wynn’s bodily presentation and rhetorical attitudes towards dominant norms of gender and sexuality constantly shift. Furthermore, the study uncovers evidence that commenter attitudes about gender and sexuality in the video “Autogynephilia” likewise shift as a result of encounters with the video and with other commenters. Next, the study reads the …

Grey Areas: Songs Of Memory, Imagination, Intellect, And Death For Baritone Voice And Mixed Instrumental Octet, Scott Stephen Hansen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The central element of this thesis is Grey Areas, a newly-composed dramatic piece in four movements for baritone and chamber ensemble. The work is highly personal in both its subject matter and its musical execution; it also contains a unique movement order that changes depending on the age of the baritone. Along with the written portion of this document and full score, I completed a studio recording of the entire composition as part of the project. Composers (by necessity) are more frequently functioning as their own recording and mixing engineers for their own works. I have been able to …

Dungeons & Drafting: Using Trpgs In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Anyssa J. Gonzalez

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Roleplaying games (RPGs) are powerful tools that encourage players to form and alter identities (Bowman, 2010; Gee, 2003; Johnson, 2012), compose texts for the gaming community (Alexander, 2009; Colby & Colby, 2008), and evaluate texts in innovative ways (Glazer, 2015; Ostenson, 2013). However, there is research missing in the way of practical applications of RPGs in first-year composition (FYC) classrooms. This thesis presents a six-week tabletop roleplaying game (TRPG) module called Under Shady Terms, which uses the mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), fifth edition. My design of the TRPG takes into consideration composition scholarship on writing …

The Ideal International Student: Intersections Of Race, Gender, And Accent In International Multilingual Student Identity, Kristin Raymond

Doctoral Dissertations

Perceptions of international multilingual students from the university community have a significant impact on those students’ identities and status on campus. These perceptions construct narratives of the ideal international multilingual student, which is defined by an optimal set of student characteristics that appear to be divorced from factors of race, gender, and accent. This dissertation examines the concept of the ideal international multilingual student in intersection with factors of race, gender, and accent. This qualitative, IRB-approved study draws from the model of investment (Norton 2000, 2013; Darvin & Norton, 2015; De Costa & Norton, 2017) and the concept of racialization …