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Learning To "Teacher Think": Using English Education As A Model For Writing Teacher Preparation In The Composition Practicum, Angela Celestine Lankford Dec 2013

Learning To "Teacher Think": Using English Education As A Model For Writing Teacher Preparation In The Composition Practicum, Angela Celestine Lankford

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the impact of "teacher thinking" exercises in the Composition Practicum as a means of instilling a clearer sense of professional development in graduate instructors. Teacher thinking is a teacher training method that asks the novice instructor to see from the perspective of learners within their writing classrooms. Scholarship on writing teacher preparation programs suggests that English educators regularly employ teacher thinking exercises in the training of secondary school teachers. Teacher thinking has allowed many English education majors to conceptualize and obtain teaching identities by helping them to envision the intricate layers of teaching earlier in their careers. …


Grammar In The Composition Classroom: Rewriting The Tradition, Debra Lynn Reece Dec 2013

Grammar In The Composition Classroom: Rewriting The Tradition, Debra Lynn Reece

Theses and Dissertations

In the last 50 years, the trend in the field of composition pedagogy has turned away from traditional grammar instruction, condemning pedagogical practices that focus on preventing and remediating error. In the early 1960s, Richard Braddock, Richard Lloyd-Jones, and Lowell Schoer invoked the death sentence on traditional grammar instruction: "The teaching of formal grammar has a negligible or, because it usually displaces some instruction and practice in actual composition, even a harmful effect on the improvement of writing" (37-38). Having been enlightened by this scholarship, the field refocused instruction to emphasize elements like writing process, collaboration, modeling, and prewriting, pushing …


Feminist And Non-Feminist Views On Milton's Interpretations Of Paradise Lost And Samson Agonistes: Comparing The Female Characters, Eve And Dalila, Carmen Thorley Dec 2013

Feminist And Non-Feminist Views On Milton's Interpretations Of Paradise Lost And Samson Agonistes: Comparing The Female Characters, Eve And Dalila, Carmen Thorley

Student Works

After the Bible, the most popular source for the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden would have to be Milton's Paradise Lost. The popularity of this classic epic has brought forth countless interpretations of the story as it was freshly illustrated with the fictional freedom that Milton took. It is likely---and widely believed---that Milton's own views on marriage and women have found their way into his writing, not only with Paradise Lost but with the tragedy Samson Agonistes as well. This paper will point out the effect this lens had on Milton's interpretation of his two …


A "Time-Conscious" Christmas Carol, Jack Lundquist Dec 2013

A "Time-Conscious" Christmas Carol, Jack Lundquist

Theses and Dissertations

Shortly after Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol was released in 1843, a tradition of adaptation began which has continued seemingly unabated to the present day. Consequently, the tale has become so widely known that one is arguably as likely to have first encountered the iconic miser Scrooge through any number of audio-visual adaptations as through the original work itself. Significant critical attention has been paid to the nature of Scrooge's drastic change from miser to philanthropist. Many would argue that the change, happening both literally and figuratively overnight, is not representative of a genuine psychological transformation. On Christmas day, 2010, …


Material Geography, Mountains, And A-Nationalism In Thurman's The Blacker The Berry, Stephanie Jean Burns Dec 2013

Material Geography, Mountains, And A-Nationalism In Thurman's The Blacker The Berry, Stephanie Jean Burns

Theses and Dissertations

Scholars over the last two decades or so have become increasingly interested in methods of interpreting history, society, and literature that do not rely on nationalistic paradigms. One vein of the transnational analytic trend is interested not only in the multiplicity of cultural geographies but also in the materiality of geography. Such critical work is extremely helpful in challenging myopic nationalist readings; yet the materiality of geography used as a theoretical lens has even greater potential. Using geographical formations as a basis for literary analysis can yield a theoretical base that has nothing to do with the borders of nations …


A Theory Of Text As Action:Why Delivery Through Publication Improves Student Writers And Their Writing, Lisa Kae Thomas Jul 2013

A Theory Of Text As Action:Why Delivery Through Publication Improves Student Writers And Their Writing, Lisa Kae Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

Students in required writing courses often fail to see the purpose of their writing and invest themselves in their writing. Many composition pedagogues have noticed that one solution to this problem is to help students publish their writing, and have reported the positive outcomes of their publication-focused courses. However, this practice has not been grounded in theory. My project connects the practice of publishing student writing to theory. I draw on Kenneth Burke's and other's ideas of text as action and show how the ancient cannon of delivery is a necessary means of experiencing and understanding text as action with …


George Canning, Liberal Toryism, And Counterrevolutionary Satire In The Anti-Jacobin, Martha Thompson Jul 2013

George Canning, Liberal Toryism, And Counterrevolutionary Satire In The Anti-Jacobin, Martha Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

One of the most defining moments in the histories of British satire and the public sphere took place in the late 1790s in an abandoned house in Piccadilly. Here George Canning and several fellow conservatives began writing and circulating their weekly newspaper the Anti-Jacobin. Although the periodical has been critically neglected, it is a valuable model for exploring how literary (partisan) politicians attempted to form a rational and critical public sphere through their satiric poetry. Founded by George Canning and edited by William Gifford, the Anti-Jacobin seems to reflect a reactionary conservative's ideology and has been summarily dismissed because of …


Reconceiving A Necessary Evil: Teaching A Transferable Fyc Research Paper, Samuel James Dunn Jun 2013

Reconceiving A Necessary Evil: Teaching A Transferable Fyc Research Paper, Samuel James Dunn

Theses and Dissertations

The place of the research paper in first-year composition (FYC) courses is often debated in composition forums. Many argue that the a-disciplinary nature of FYC doesn't allow instructors to teach the research paper in a way that will be transferable to disciplinary writing tasks, while others say that it is possible, as long as we have a thorough understanding of the kinds of writing tasks students will face in the disciplines and specifically teach writing skills that will be transferable. To identify these more generalizable writing skills to be emphasized, I interviewed 14 professors at Brigham Young University from different …


Looking Outside The Canon: Owen Vincent Dodson'sboy At The Window, Sarah Anne Campbell Jun 2013

Looking Outside The Canon: Owen Vincent Dodson'sboy At The Window, Sarah Anne Campbell

Theses and Dissertations

Scholars have viewed African American texts written in the years between 1950 and 1960 as espousing confrontation, protest, and resistance. Although fruitful in identifying large writing trends, much of that scholarship narrowly defines what writing during that time accomplished, leaving out important writers whose writing does not fit the mold. One such writer is Owen Vincent Dodson (1914-1983), who published Boy at the Window in 1951. The novel uses modes of drama including song and call-and-response to invite reader sympathy and identification with characters, and eventually provides reader the opportunity to participate in creating meaning. Dodson's novel subtly combats racism …


Nailing Down Truths: Evental Historiography In Fors Clavigera, Sari Lynn Carter Jun 2013

Nailing Down Truths: Evental Historiography In Fors Clavigera, Sari Lynn Carter

Theses and Dissertations

The theoretical framework of this study is intended to explore the potential Alain Badiou's theory of event, truth, and faithful subject may provide for understanding literature. This study applies this framework to John Ruskin's late and lesser-known work Fors Clavigera: Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain (1871-1884). Both Ruskin's fragmented style in Fors Clavigera and his notion of historical truth developed therein have been read as madness and as reactionary romanticism. I examine key metanarrative moments in Fors Clavigera where Ruskin reflects on his historiographical choices and methods. Through my analysis, I show how Badiou's theory provides …


From Plato To Ipads: Dialogical Opportunities In Twenty-First Century Secondary English Classrooms, Emily Ensign Jun 2013

From Plato To Ipads: Dialogical Opportunities In Twenty-First Century Secondary English Classrooms, Emily Ensign

Theses and Dissertations

Technology offers students and educators an uncharted digital landscape of possibilities. Some educators feel strongly that technology enhances the classroom; others feel that it doesn't necessarily improve traditional teaching methods, and some even feel that it is detrimental to students' ability to focus or engage in face-to-face conversations. My project focuses on critical dialogue as defined by various theorists, and explores whether or not secondary English classrooms that use iPads continue to use the dialogical methods as outlined by these theorists (most of which could not have foreseen today's technological advancements). By relying on these theorists and scholars to provide …


Kenneth Burke As Educator: What His Theories Of Aesthetic Form And (Non-Symbolic) Motion/(Symbolic) Action Suggest For Teachers In The Literature Classroom, Tara Brock Boyce Jun 2013

Kenneth Burke As Educator: What His Theories Of Aesthetic Form And (Non-Symbolic) Motion/(Symbolic) Action Suggest For Teachers In The Literature Classroom, Tara Brock Boyce

Theses and Dissertations

Burke scholars oftentimes overlook Burke's fundamental role as educator and how his work can and should be applied to the classroom. This paper explores Burke's theoretical works and centers on two concepts important to developing rhetorical skills necessary for functioning and participating in a democratic society: his theory of aesthetic form and his distinction between motion and action. Specifically, this paper (1) clarifies these concepts and explains how they relate to each other and the emotional experience of literature, and (2) demonstrates how these concepts work together to imply a new method of practicing rhetorical criticism in the literature classroom …


Red By Association: New Negro Communism And Wallace Thurman's The Blacker The Berry, Maria Elise Milligan Jun 2013

Red By Association: New Negro Communism And Wallace Thurman's The Blacker The Berry, Maria Elise Milligan

Theses and Dissertations

The decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union have seen an increased interest in uncovering the relationship between New Negro era authors and intellectuals and the radical leftism that had such a widespread influence in the twentieth century. Scholars are reanalyzing the life and works of figures like Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois and others in light of each author's interaction with and acceptance of communist and socialist ideals. These studies trace these radical connections in an effort to better understand New Negro authors and their work during a time of revolution and social upheaval. There is …


Ethical Metafiction In Dickens's Christmas Hauntings, Mark Brian Sabey Jun 2013

Ethical Metafiction In Dickens's Christmas Hauntings, Mark Brian Sabey

Theses and Dissertations

Many critics have examined metanarrative aspects of Dickens's writing, and many have studied Dickens's ethics. None, however, has yet assessed the ways in which Dickens's directly interrogates the ethics of fiction. Surprisingly philosophical treatments of the ethics of fiction take place in A Christmas Carol and A House to Let, both of which turn the ghost story of the traditional winter's tale to metafictional purposes. No one has yet dealt with Dickens's own meta-commentary on the ethics of fiction with the degree of philosophical nuance it deserves. Writings about the ethics of Dickens's fiction (and of fiction generally) often involves …


Mommy Blogs And Rhetoric: Reading Experiences That Shape Maternal Identities, Brighton Joan Capua May 2013

Mommy Blogs And Rhetoric: Reading Experiences That Shape Maternal Identities, Brighton Joan Capua

Theses and Dissertations

The transition to motherhood is difficult and jarring for many women. Not only does this transition demand life-altering changes to a woman's life, but especially in more recent times, this transition offers nothing but uncertainty. As the role and understanding of women continues to change, what motherhood means becomes increasingly difficult to define; additionally, the traditional narratives of stay-at-home mothers who are always happy to do housework and nurture their children no longer apply for many 21st-century women, leaving new mothers feeling uncertain about who they are and who they want to become. Since the turn of the century, mothers …


Linked To His Fellow Man Of Civilized Life: Washington Irving, The Transatlantic Native American, And Romantic Historiography In A History Of New York And The Sketchbook Of Geoffrey Crayon, Kara Rebecca Kemp Apr 2013

Linked To His Fellow Man Of Civilized Life: Washington Irving, The Transatlantic Native American, And Romantic Historiography In A History Of New York And The Sketchbook Of Geoffrey Crayon, Kara Rebecca Kemp

Theses and Dissertations

As representatives of "an earlier stage of civilization," Native Americans in early nineteenth-century literature were integral in conversations of race relations, cultural development, and anthropological strata. They were a baseline of humanity against which more "civilized" nations of the world marked their progress, determined the value of their own cultural advancements, and proclaimed their superiority (Flint 1). They were an object of continuing fascination for Americans and Britons seeking to reinvent themselves in the aftermath of war and revolution, but their image in these nations was used as a derogatory slur (Fulford and Hutchings 1; Flint 6--7). Suggesting that a …


Baumrind's Authoritative Parenting Style: A Model For Creating Autonomous Writers, Rachel Page Payne Mar 2013

Baumrind's Authoritative Parenting Style: A Model For Creating Autonomous Writers, Rachel Page Payne

Theses and Dissertations

Though Quintilian introduced the term in loco parentis in his Institutio Oratoria by suggesting that teachers think of themselves as parents of a student's mind, composition scholars have let parenting as a metaphor for teaching fall by the wayside in recent discussions of classroom authority. Podis and Podis have recently revived the term, though, and investigated the ways writing teachers enact Lakoff's "Strict Father" and "Nurturing Mother" authority models. Unfortunately, their treatment of these two opposite authority styles reduces classroom authority styles to a mutually exclusive binary of two less than satisfactory options. I propose clinical and developmental psychologist Diana …


Windows And Mirrors: Selecting Multiethnic Young Adult Fiction To Increase Adolescent Engagement With Academic And Cultural Literacy, Caryn Joan Lefaga Lesuma Mar 2013

Windows And Mirrors: Selecting Multiethnic Young Adult Fiction To Increase Adolescent Engagement With Academic And Cultural Literacy, Caryn Joan Lefaga Lesuma

Theses and Dissertations

Current scholarship in literacy education underscores the inefficacy of standardized education in public schools, particularly for minority students. At the same time, a longstanding lack of understanding between the various culture groups that live in the United States often results in minority groups that are either stereotyped, misunderstood, or viewed as Other. Both of these issues can be traced to the literature that students read in school, which focuses on "classic" literature—often synonymous with "white" literature—that excludes minority narratives. While minorities struggle more with "academic literacy" (the ability to read and write in an active, reflective manner), there is also …


Nostalgia: Movement And Stasis In Contemporary American Poetry, Rebecca Cecilia Hay Mar 2013

Nostalgia: Movement And Stasis In Contemporary American Poetry, Rebecca Cecilia Hay

Theses and Dissertations

A remarkable amount of award-winning contemporary American poetry incorporates nostalgia as a prominent idea discussed. This poetry appears to use nostalgia as means to a greater end. In other words, nostalgia, while a dominant theme within different works, is more a way to treat concepts such as representation and memory, more so than the work being an actual commentary on nostalgia itself. Given the poetry's predominant concept, it seems poets such as Carl Dennis, Natasha Trethewey and Ted Kooser could be representative of a literary historical moment. This moment is one which comments heavily on the past's presence within the …


70'S "Miscegenation" And Blaxploitation: Fran Ross's Interracial Oreo, And The Super Bad Blaxploitation Hero, Corrine Esther Collins Mar 2013

70'S "Miscegenation" And Blaxploitation: Fran Ross's Interracial Oreo, And The Super Bad Blaxploitation Hero, Corrine Esther Collins

Theses and Dissertations

Fran Ross's only novel, Oreo, explores the nature of multiethnic American identities through an empowered female character that embarks on a Theseus-like journey. Ross devotes significant portions of the novel to the introduction of Oreo's family and individual character, in order to carefully outline her interracial and multiethnic upbringing as an African-Jewish American girl. In order to understand Oreo's political and aesthetic sensibilities, this thesis explores the cinematic representations of interracial relationships during the time that Oreo was written, and argues that Fran Ross's main character is in direct conversation with the predominant 70s black movie and political culture of …


Towards A Consummated Life: Kenneth Burke's Concept Of Consummation As Critical Conversation And Catharsis, Cherise Marie Bacalski Mar 2013

Towards A Consummated Life: Kenneth Burke's Concept Of Consummation As Critical Conversation And Catharsis, Cherise Marie Bacalski

Theses and Dissertations

Consummation was the one term about which Kenneth Burke wasn't particularly long-winded - odd considering his claim that it was the apex of his theory of form. Perhaps Burke never explained exactly what consummation was because he himself was never clear on the subject, as he told John Woodcock in an interview toward the end of his career. Burke began conceptualizing his theory of form early on - in his 20s - and published it in his first critical book, Counter-Statement, in 1931. At that time, Burke's theory of form had already taken one evolutionary step - from self-expression, with …


We Know Better And It's Time To Act Like It: Ending Written Feedback, Jacob S. Rees Mar 2013

We Know Better And It's Time To Act Like It: Ending Written Feedback, Jacob S. Rees

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers have tried to demonstrate the effectiveness of written teacher feedback over the course of the last sixty years, and the results are inconclusive. Many studies point to improvement on subsequent drafts as evidence of student improvement; however, this only indicates students' abilities to follow directions. It is not an indication of autonomous writing ability. This study demonstrates that with proper curriculum support high school students can develop intentional transferability (the autonomous, intentional transferring of writing skills to varied rhetorical situations) throughout the course of one academic year without receiving any teacher written feedback.


Rae, Baby, Whitney Marissa Call Mar 2013

Rae, Baby, Whitney Marissa Call

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a young adult fictional novel from the perspective of Rachel Jackson, or Rae, a seventeen year-old girl with Williams Syndrome, a rare developmental disorder caused by missing genes on chromosome 7 that causes those with it to lack logical connections, yet possess very gregarious, social, and musical personalities. Think of it as an inverted form of autism. At the genesis of the novel, Rae becomes pregnant. Upon misunderstanding her mother's sugar-coated reasoning for giving the baby up for adoption, Rae spends the novel trying to find a man to marry so that, in her understanding, she may …


Translation As Katabasis And Nekyia In Seamus Heaney's "The Riverbank Field", Gerrit Van Dyk Mar 2013

Translation As Katabasis And Nekyia In Seamus Heaney's "The Riverbank Field", Gerrit Van Dyk

Theses and Dissertations

Translation has been at the heart of Seamus Heaney's career. In his poem, "The Riverbank Field," from his latest collection, Human Chain, Heaney engages in metatranslation, "Ask me to translate what Loeb gives as / 'In a retired vale...a sequestered grove' / And I'll confound the Lethe in Moyola." Curiously, with a broad spectrum of classical works at his disposal, the poet chooses a particular moment in Virgil's Aeneid as an image for translation. What is it about this conversation between Aeneas and his dead father, Anchises, at the banks of the Lethe which makes it uniquely fitting for …


Saints In Gilead: Robinson's Revisionist Calvinism And John Ames As A Reconciliatory Figure In American Congregationalist History, Makayla Camille Steiner Mar 2013

Saints In Gilead: Robinson's Revisionist Calvinism And John Ames As A Reconciliatory Figure In American Congregationalist History, Makayla Camille Steiner

Theses and Dissertations

A Congregationalist by choice and a Calvinist by tradition, Marilynne Robinson has a theological background that significantly influences the development of her fictional characters, especially in her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Gilead. Much has been written about Robinson's particular brand of Calvinism—by both Robinson herself and other literary critics—which tends to be far more hopeful about grace, agency, and the beauties of the natural world than traditional interpretations allow. Little, however, has been written about how the trajectory of Congregationalism as an organizational force in the national narrative influences the decisions of and relationships between her fictional characters. Gilead depicts …


"Sealing Their Two Fates With A Fracture": Ted Hughes's "Pyramus And Thisbe" As An Emblem Of The Paradox Of Translation, Carolyn Carter Feb 2013

"Sealing Their Two Fates With A Fracture": Ted Hughes's "Pyramus And Thisbe" As An Emblem Of The Paradox Of Translation, Carolyn Carter

Theses and Dissertations

This work explores how the 20th century English poet Ted Hughes translates one episode from Ovid's Metamorphoses (the "Pyramus and Thisbe" myth included in Hughes's Tales from Ovid) to make it an emblem for his notions about translation. In translating "Pyramus and Thisbe," Hughes removed many of the formal Ovidian elements and amplified the themes of violence and mingling latent in the myth. In doing so, he highlights the concept that communication sometimes necessitates breaking, symbolized primarily by the chink in the wall through which Pyramus and Thisbe whisper to one another. This metaphor for translation corroborates Hughes's discursive …


Editors' Note, Brice Peterson, Joseph Post Jan 2013

Editors' Note, Brice Peterson, Joseph Post

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.


Wittgenstein, Language, And Mathematics In Paul Auster's City Of Glass, Nichole Eck Jan 2013

Wittgenstein, Language, And Mathematics In Paul Auster's City Of Glass, Nichole Eck

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.


Contributors, Criterion: A Journal For Literary Criticism Jan 2013

Contributors, Criterion: A Journal For Literary Criticism

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.


“The Most Fatal Thing A Man Can Do Is Try To Stand Alone”: Collective Individualism In Carson Mccullers’S The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, Rebecca Peterson Jan 2013

“The Most Fatal Thing A Man Can Do Is Try To Stand Alone”: Collective Individualism In Carson Mccullers’S The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, Rebecca Peterson

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.