Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Ballot Readability And Plain Language, Roger Poole

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

The goal of this study was to examine the effect that readability and plain language had on voters' responses to Georgia's five legislatively-referred constitutional amendments (LRCA) in the November 2018 election. This study sought to answer the following questions regarding ballot readability and plain language:

1. Do voters distinguish the difference between traditionally composed ballots and plain language ballots?
2. Do voters have a preference between conventional worded ballots and reworded ballot language that improved readability?

Given that partisan lawyers and lobbyists write many state ballot questions, there may be tendencies to compose legislatively-referred constitutional amendments in confusing and unclear language designed …

Teaching The Sun As Simile: Bringing Nature Into Language Arts Middle School Classrooms, Stormy Kage

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Teaching the Sun as Simile is an essay that explores an interdisciplinary approach to teaching middle school English Language Arts (ELA) by infusing nature and environmental studies. This essay defines emerging concepts of new literacy studies and eco-criticism, literacy, and composition as it relates to ELA pedagogy. Also, it provides an explanation for the importance and relevance of using nature to develop an ecosystem of better readers, writers and communicators in middle school general ed and special ed classrooms.

I Sh*T You Not, Jordan Dollar

Graduate Scholarly Works

"I Sh*t You Not" is an exercise in "edutainment" intended to instill feelings of skepticism and curiosity in its players when confronted with attention-grabbing headlines. Developed as an amusing answer to the fake news epidemic, this game can be played with up to four players in a head-to-head assessment of each other's evaluation skills.

Making The Case For The Use Of The Ksu Archives And Special Collections Through Interpretive Videos, Helen Thomas

Graduate Scholarly Works

One of the challenges faced by Kennesaw State University’s Museums, Archives and Rare Books Department is a lack of awareness of both the existence of our collections and the many potential research applications that archives and rare books provide. This series of short videos makes the case to potential users as to why we collect these materials and how they are useful and relevant to a variety of research interests. Each video pairs an item or collection from the KSU Archives and Special Collections (including the Bentley Rare Book Museum) with expert interpretation provided by a KSU faculty member in …

The Divine Double Voice: How Female Christian Rhetors Found Rhetorical Agency Through The Voice Of God, Cara Ryfun

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This piece discusses the ways in which three specific Christian female rhetors--Teresa de Avila, Frances Willard, and Maria W. Stewart--utilized the voice of God through biblical scriptures and divine revelations in order to empower themselves. Through the voice of God, these women found agency for their own beliefs and messages, and utilized a variety of rhetorical maneuvers in order to share their messages and quietly subvert patriarchal constructs within the church. These women found agency for their feminist messages within their Christian patriarchal constructs, and they set precedents for Christian feminist rhetors to follow.

Protest Movements Of The 1960s - 1970s In Latin America And The United States, Jean Potter

Master of Arts in American Studies Capstones

Music is an integral part of a complex transcultural and political connection that exists between Latin America and the United States. Exploring the transnational culture of music in the Americas, this project considers the historical and socio-political issues which contribute to this transcultural relationship. The long history of colonization and exploitation by Spain, Britain, and the United States has left an indelible mark on Latin American economic, social and cultural environments. Looking at the continuing effects of the Western Industrial revolution, including its effects on class struggle, national independence movements and cultural developments, this project begins by summarizing and engaging …

Text By Mus, Mustafa Abubaker

Graduate Scholarly Works

This is why I have created a Twitter bot to generate interactive thread-based creative writing in the form of short stories called Text By Mus as my interactive media project in the graduate level course Web Content Development: Writing for Interactive Media PRWR 6850 instructed by Dr. Sergio Figueiredo. The account features “choose your own adventure” stories written in the literary fiction style. I would like to use the Twitter bot to combat the mass-market production of what is called literature in lieu of digital fiction being just as good as classical, all-time great fiction. This project presents a software …

Rosa: Interactive Active Graphic Narrative As A Tool For Teaching About Human Trafficking, Jennifer Jackson

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Rosa is a Choose Your Own Adventure graphic novel-style story on the topic of human trafficking for young adults to interact with on the web. I chose to create this project in an attempt to help fill the gap in youth education in the area of human trafficking.

The Support Needed For Spouses Of Traumatic Brain Injury (Tbi) Survivors: An Exploration Into Resources And Reference Materials, Brigitte Espinet

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is, indeed, an equal opportunity perpetrator. Of the millions of Americans who sustain a TBI each year, at least 230,000 people are hospitalized and survive, and more than 80,000 to 90,000 people experience the onset of long-term disability (“Report to Congress”). However, it would appear that the reference materials and resources available to those needing life guidance post-TBI are not at all commensurate with the incidence of its occurrence. More specifically, it seems the population most overlooked within the world of those affected by TBI is the partners of adult TBI victims.

Mezze: A Short Story Collection-In-Progress, Leata Thomas

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

"Mezze" is a middle-eastern custom similar to "tea" in the United Kingdom or "happy hour" in the United States. A variety of little foods for snacking at the end of the day. My Capstone offers a variety of short stories for one's reading pleasure.What I like about fiction writing is the guilt free, guileless freedom to tell a little lie and then grow it into a really big one! My sole purpose as a fiction is to entertain. the reader may smile or chuckle. I certainly hope that one's heart will be lighter and that one will feel a bit …

Transgender Digital Embodiments: Questions Of The Transgender Body In The 21st Century, Jessica Fisher

Master of Arts in American Studies Capstones

This thesis looks at an intra-community discourse in the transgender community between “transtrenders” and “transmedicalists” or “truscum.” It observes how these different sub-communities conceive of what it means to be transgender and attempts to contextualize these conceptions within transgender history. This thesis utilizes a brief ethnography of online spaces where transgender community discourse could be found, including Reddit, Twitter, and Tumblr. It discusses the idea of “transtrenders” as cultural appropriators, looks at the role of passing, and wanting to and trying to pass, in the transgender community and in conceptions of who is truly transgender and who isn’t. This thesis …

Dee: A Feature Length Drama, Laura Angelyn Mccarter

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

“DEE” is a feature length drama about a young addict who pursues a career in music in an attempt to keep her brother’s memory alive after his untimely death tears her family apart. The story explores how the characters deal with drug abuse, loss, broken families, toxic relationships, and pursuing one’s dreams. The film will feature original indie rock music for several of the characters who write and perform their own songs. It’s A Star is Born meets Beautiful Boy.

Mixed Reality’S Ability To Craft And Establish An Experience Of Space, Corey Jones

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Mixed Reality, when integrated into architecture, will enable open spaces and the perception of the built environment to change rapidly with little physical fabrication.

As architects, we design with a desired experience of space in mind and don’t typically design with a rapidly changing built environment to meet a fluctuating programmatic demand. Theater Program however, often requires such rapid changes to the perceived environment, that is the stage, and is an activator of social interaction based on a shared experience of the performances.

What would be the architectural implications if we were to integrate mixed reality as a factor of …

Reset, Victoria M. Banks

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Reset is a indie, science fiction, adventure game set in a near future where patients can choose to have an optional and controversial procedure called a “reset surgery.” The operation wipes patients’ memories, so they can forget their past and become a new person with a fresh start in life. However, when the protagonist, Rana, experiences headaches accompanied by flashbacks of her pasts, she becomes obsessed with finding out who she was and why she decided to erase her history. The player must help Rana recover her memories, piece them together to solve the mystery, and make choices that will …

Exploring My Unique Literacy Experiences As A Ukrainian American Emerging Scholar Through Autoethnography, Diana Prokopiev

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This capstone project depicts myself as the research subject as I explore why I make meaning the way that I do in my life. The autoethnography itself—full of reflection, epiphany, reflexive writing, and rich descriptions—provides a preview into my life as a Ukrainian American woman as I participate in three different discourse communities: the domestic community, the academic community, and the religious community. By sharing my literacy experiences, I hope this autoethnography has a transformative impact on all audience members, but especially those who were raised by parents who emigrated to the United States.

The Rhetoric Of Substance Use Disorder, Morgan Carter

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

A critical discourse analysis of the marginalizing language present in the field of rhetoric and composition and cultural studies around those with substance use disorder.

Recovering Grace: How One Man's Religious Movement Turned Into A Homeschool Cult, Kathryn Knight Harper

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

It turned out that the rules about Cabbage Patch kids and Troll dolls weren’t the only things that would leave lasting impressions on ATI students. This curriculum, as I was finding out, was more than just restrictions on toys and media consumption. ATI was the homeschooling program, but IBLP had rules and principles that touched absolutely every area of life. The homeschooling and seminar materials, all written by Gothard and honed over fifty years, were treated as the law by people in both of his organizations. There wasn’t room for debate, and there wasn’t room for dissention. Those who did …

Thinking Outside The Toolbox: A Teaching Resource For Vocational Writing, Dustin Ledford

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This capstone project combines elements of contextualization, professional writing, and process pedagogy to create a course design for teaching writing in the technical college/vocational school setting. With this course design, students are asked to complete a variety of scenario-driven, workplace-related writing tasks that teach fundamentals of college composition including research, critical thinking, and process-based writing. With this sample curriculum, students write from realistic scenarios from the healthcare industry, especially tasks from the medical office environment. The goal of this course design is to model and promote new practices for teaching writing in vocational settings to better engage students in these …

The Talus, Carol Roddenberry

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Falling from a high place into an unknown abyss of strange characters and even stranger events takes readers far further than Humpty Dumpty and into a cats-cradle of mystery and humor. Jonah Tinderwunkel, the protagonist, mistakenly cast a curse upon himself at the age of fourteen. Now, twenty-eight years later he is a high-tech loner and loser who finds himself seeking help after a great fall. With a cracked cranium and smashed ankle (talus), he stumbles into a small Florida town off the beaten track—home to a mix of retired circus workers. As he recedes into a coma, his fate …

Taxonomy And The History Of Science: A Critical Analysis Of Four Historic Publications, Christopher M. Rogers

KSU Journey Honors College Capstones and Theses

The history of taxonomy is not usually taught in modern biology classes, but it is necessary to understand the history of classification and science as a whole in order to better understand the processes of classification and thinking that are commonly taught at the college level. Through the exploration of the difficulties of publishing, Linnaeus' Species Plantarum, and three pre-Linnaean works from Pliny the Elder, Nehemiah Grew, and Rembert Dodoens, I have found that the history of the sciences has been largely distorted. The distortion appears to be of many factors, including the replacement of ideas, censorship from scholarly …