Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Redefining The Mfa: Artistic Pragmatism For The Twenty-First Century, Cristina Ann Correa

Theses and Dissertations

The twenty-first century economy demands a culturally-adaptable and technologically-innovative workforce. Despite the expansion of creative industry, at least half of academically-trained artists will work in fields unrelated to their studies. Statistics reflecting employment changes every three years parallel twenty-first century, pragmatic realities. Job seekers must consistently adapt and add to acquired skill sets to remain marketable.

Visual artists constantly engage in research and experimentation to move their practice beyond comfort zones. While many artistic processes can be learned through the internet, books, and observational study, the road to a career in academia must begin with a Master of Fine Art …

Investigating Faculty Across The Disciplines Perceptions And Practices Of Reflective Writing In Community Engaged Courses: A Comparative Study, Marcela Hebbard

Theses and Dissertations

Recently, research in composition studies and Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) has focused on understanding better how student reflective practices assist on their transfer of writing knowledge across contexts (Yancey et al., 2014; Taczak & Robertson, 2017, Lindenman et al., 2018). However, not much research has been done that investigates faculty beliefs and practices about reflective writing, how they use it to measure student outcomes and achievement in community engaged courses and the implications this might have for the transfer of knowledge and practice of writing. This study draws primarily on activity theory to better understand whether there is a …

Using The Rhetoric Of Video Games To Teach The Praxis Of Critical Analysis, Jeffrey B. Doyle

Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown that video games can be successful at teaching concepts and skills to students at various grade levels. To explain how this might work, theoretical work is done to connect the concept of flow from psychology to procedural rhetoric. With the inclusion of Foucault’s theories of power, video games are shown to not be isolated experiences but connected to the power dynamics of society. In video games, these dynamics can be seen through the problematic portrayals of marginalized peoples as well as the hostile community that has developed online surrounding video games. To account for these issues, but …

Linguistics In Secondary Education: Teachers' Perceptions Of Linguistics In The Classroom, Ayla Aizza Galvan

Theses and Dissertations

Theoretical linguistics is an area of English study focusing on the abstract components of language: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. By 11th and 12th grade, students in the United States have been tested on linguistic concepts, as per state examination standards. English Language Arts teachers can introduce theoretical linguistic investigation and terms to their students, but this is not happening. The paper reviews why theoretical linguistic analysis is not thoroughly implemented in classrooms, successful classroom linguistic investigation in other countries and some U.S., and how linguistic investigation can be part of classroom curriculum. The research incorporates survey data from …

Speech-Language Pathologist's Perspectives On The Efficacy Of Bilingual Education Programs In South Texas Public Schools For English As A Second Language Learners, Alexandra Rosas

Theses and Dissertations

Current research in regard to the assessment and treatment of ESLs is limited. Other problems found within the school setting, is that fact that SLPs have very limited resources and large caseloads. Hence, the fact that previous studies have found that SLPS working the school setting do not feel competent in serving ESL students.

The aim of this study is to investigate the efficacy of bilingual programs and explore the factors that impact English as a second language learners (ESLs), in public schools across the Rio Grande Valley. School based speech-language pathologists were surveyed for information concerning their perceptions and …

How Do We Teach All Students In Monolingual Classrooms? A Study Of Transfer And Translingualism, Norma Denae Dibrell

Theses and Dissertations

I take the work of Lorimer and Nowacek in “Transfer and Translingualism,” as a starting point to address these questions. In “Transfer and Translingualism” they argue that transfer and translingualism “both index movement among contexts, practices, or meaning” while “neither suggests a neutral carrying over of knowledge from one context or language to another” (260) and thus acknowledge prior knowledge and prior experience. Lorimer and Nowacek call for transfer researchers to look at language diversity “beyond recognition of difference to the matrices of power that regulate that difference” and to ask questions about how to measure transfer (261-262). Consequently, in …

Coding The Discourse And Translingual Strategies Of Collaborative Writing Of Secondary Education Students, Zane Lee Arredondo

Theses and Dissertations

Kenneth Bruffee used collaborative writing pedagogy to help reacculturate students’ discoursal identities to help them adhere to the expectations of the academic community. Although studies have shown that reacculturation may not exactly happen, Collaborative writing pedagogy still has maintained its presence within Composition studies since then and has been adapted into being implemented into digitally shared spaces. However, one aspect has been overlooked about physical shared spaces, the conversations themselves being studied. This study explores Kenneth Bruffee’s constructive conversations among secondary students within collaborative writing pedagogy. The collaborative sessions are recorded and viewed with a translingual lens applying Johnny Saldana’s …

Global-To-Local-To-Global: A Model For Tutoring Esl Students In The Writing Center, David Aguilar

Theses and Dissertations

Since its inception, the writing center has always focused on traditional students, and today that tradition is continued in such a way that the overwhelming amount of research dedicated to writing center theory and practice addresses the concerns of those students. However, universities with unique student populations, such as the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley with its majority of Hispanic students, require novel practices within their writing centers. Moreover, much of the linguistic, social, and cultural factors of the region are not well documented and therefore are not addressed by the mainstream theory and practices of other universities. With …

(Re)Constructing American Linguistic Identity: Disrupting The American Linguistic Standard In First Year Composition, Brittany N. Ramirez

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis is a theoretical and analytical perspective on the construction of American Linguistic Identity through a Nationalist lens. By re-theorizing the concept of the nation as a “text”, and nationalism as the “composition” of that nation, this work challenges the dominant historical American linguistic narrative. This narrative is informed by an American Linguistic memory that is based on an Anglo-Saxon linguistic hegemony throughout American history. American linguistic memory has perpetuated a tacit English-Only policy in higher education, primarily through first year college composition courses. The tacit English-Only policy has influenced educators’ perceptions of students in the composition classroom as …

My True Father, David Rice

Theses and Dissertations

My True Father is novel about a Mexican American family in South Texas going through a divorce.