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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Writing For Social Action: Affect, Activism, And The Composition Classroom, Sarah Finn
Writing For Social Action: Affect, Activism, And The Composition Classroom, Sarah Finn
Open Access Dissertations
Due to the public turn in Composition and Rhetoric, many teachers look beyond the academy in order to give students a "real" writing experience for social change purposes. However, as Bruce Horner notes, this denigrates the real work that is done within the classroom. In this dissertation, then, I argue that we can find ingredients for writing for social action in our courses, and we can do so by studying activist students who are already writing for just change. Using a case study methodology, I learn from activist students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I find that these students' …
A New Field Of Dreams: A Study Of The Writing Major, T J Geiger
A New Field Of Dreams: A Study Of The Writing Major, T J Geiger
Writing Program – Dissertations
Within Writing Studies, the tension between pedagogy and theory, between teaching and disciplinary status receives much commentary. This dissertation explores that tension within the context of the undergraduate Writing major. I begin by reviewing scholarship about advanced composition, advanced Writing, and the Writing major. I read this literature in light of concerns about student subjectivity, authorship, and disciplinary participation. Through that reading, I explore the conflicted status of the student subject imagined within this literature. The subject I discern contains elements of what Susan Miller describes as the normative subject of composition as well as elements of a revised and …
The Apprenticeship Of Laurell K. Hamilton: How Aspiring Writers Learn To Write, Chelsea Ann Pierce
The Apprenticeship Of Laurell K. Hamilton: How Aspiring Writers Learn To Write, Chelsea Ann Pierce
Boise State University Theses and Dissertations
How do aspiring writers learn to write? Laurell K. Hamilton’s blog records and presents her thorough apprenticeship to readers. This thesis is a case study of the writing process that she documents on her blog. The results reflect aspects of composition theory including formula deviation, character persona construction, audience function and awareness, diverse research possibilities, revision and motivation strategies, digital literacy and technology acquisition, and the blog as a genre. Hamilton also develops and contributes her own writing process theories. The study reveals that both aspiring and professional writers both adhere to common established composition theories and create their own …
Contentious Conversations, Missing Voices: The Ongoing Debate About Style, Megan Yates Grizzle
Contentious Conversations, Missing Voices: The Ongoing Debate About Style, Megan Yates Grizzle
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
As I began to investigate the concept of style in Composition curriculums, I quickly realized two things: style is difficult to define, and student input about style is virtually absent from the previous scholarship on style theory and pedagogy. This project, therefore, does not seek to end the debate about style. It seeks to do exactly the opposite. I want to extend the ongoing conversation about style even further, this time to include student voices. My project seeks to triangulate discussions about style to include voices from scholars, practitioners, and students. Students are too often an afterthought, receiving instruction based …
I Think I Can, I Think I Can: Positive Education In The Writing Classroom, Olivia Marie Hoff
I Think I Can, I Think I Can: Positive Education In The Writing Classroom, Olivia Marie Hoff
Culminating Projects in English
Self-efficacy research shows students who have strong beliefs about their abilities experience higher achievement and one of the most significant sources of these beliefs is the feedback people receive about their performances. Composition research indicates teachers provide feedback for various reasons, but the most significant motivation is to help students improve as writers. Although research suggests the best way to help students improve is by providing positive feedback and encouragement, many teachers continue to focus their responses on correction and errors. Because the field of positive psychology is mainly concerned with what goes right in life, research in this field …
Emissaries Of Literacy: Refugee Studies And Transnational Composition, Michael T. Macdonald
Emissaries Of Literacy: Refugee Studies And Transnational Composition, Michael T. Macdonald
Theses and Dissertations
"Emissaries of Literacy: Refugee Studies and Transnational Composition" uses qualitative research in refugee communities and textual analysis of stories written by and about refugees to argue that the experiences of resettled refugees, as well as the experiences of the volunteers, aid workers, tutors, and teachers who work with them, do not fit neatly within composition's current paradigms for studying literacy in global contexts. Refugee identity and experience shows a complex link between literacy and citizenship which is complicated by the economic and geographic histories of linguistic imperialism. Refugee perspectives, and more precisely the challenges they pose, can help composition scholars …
Seven Strangers, Rhetorical Devices For Hospitality, Epiphany, And Repentance In The Media Flood, Jimmy Butts
Seven Strangers, Rhetorical Devices For Hospitality, Epiphany, And Repentance In The Media Flood, Jimmy Butts
All Dissertations
Beginning with the foundation that rhetorical devices are often inherently defamiliarizing, often to productive ends, this study explores the theories, ethics, and praxis behind defamiliarizing rhetorical tactics. Because of the cultural shift toward increasing novelty within 21st century media production, it is progressively difficult for the contemporary writer to speak into the boisterous public sphere, which in turn creates a growing need for uniquely unfamiliar modes of rhetorical intervention. Strangeness offers a lens for seeing deliberate stylistic choices within the information flood; additionally, it asks us to consider how we can compose for potentially disinterested audiences. The examination also suggests …
Reading And Religion: Reconciling Diverse Reading Patterns And The First Year Composition Classroom, Evelyn Baldwin
Reading And Religion: Reconciling Diverse Reading Patterns And The First Year Composition Classroom, Evelyn Baldwin
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
While tolerance is the supposed standard of the first-year composition classroom, the writing patterns and argumentation skills of self-identified Christian students often frustrate teachers and create classroom dissonance and interpersonal divergence. This work looks at what apologetic and devotional texts these students are reading before they enter the classroom and then analyzes these works to see how well their content aligns with Composition I reading and writing requirements. To do this, the study takes information from two very distinct groups: religious leaders of young adults and Composition I instructors. The study begins by surveying religious workers to identify the top …
Theoretical Communities Of Praxis: The University Writing Center A Cultural Contact Zone, Randall William Monty
Theoretical Communities Of Praxis: The University Writing Center A Cultural Contact Zone, Randall William Monty
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
The fundamental purpose of Theoretical Communities of Praxis: The University Writing Center as Cultural Contact Zone is to investigate the situatedness of Writing Center Studies, defining it as an autonomous (sub)discipline and interdisciplinary contact zone within the larger discipline of Rhetoric and Composition. In order to meet this objective, a "Communities of Praxis" methodological and theoretical framework, based on scholarship of Critical Discourse Analysis, ecocomposition, and Contextualist Research Paradigm, is applied in the analysis of a variety of WCS discourses. In doing so, WCS is repositioned as a series of interrelated, triangulated contact zones that are based on collaborative interactions …
Mapping Dissertation Genre Ecology, Kate Lisbeth Pantelides
Mapping Dissertation Genre Ecology, Kate Lisbeth Pantelides
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Though the pervasive rumor that the “traditional” dissertation persists because of the “I suffered, so they too should suffer” mentality — the professor revenge theory — students are often the ones eager to pin down writing genres so that they can master them. However, hopes to stabilize and thus capture the secret or equation of the dissertation genre are futile, since genres, like language, are alive: rhetorical, evolving, and flexible. Thus, to demonstrate the contemporary context of the dissertation genre, the conflicting perspectives of university stakeholders, the forces working on the genre to enact change, and the process by which …