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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Wrestling Windmills, Christopher Girman May 2010

Wrestling Windmills, Christopher Girman

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This manuscript explores the teaching process by following the protagonist‟s four year journey at a middle school in Edinburg, Texas. The narrator passes through four distinct phases: first-year angst, pedagogic subversion, converting the natives, and, ultimately, personal and professional acceptance. Daily interaction disrupts the narrator‟s worldview, complicating his relationships with peers, colleagues, family, and the local community. In a series of moves designed to make himself more accessible to students, the narrator encounters sexual, racial, and gender bias—much of it his own. Finally, after a serious accident in Central Mexico during Spring Break, the protagonist relies on his students to …


Maintaining An Immigrant Heritage Language Other Than Spanish Or English In The Bilingual Culture Of The Rio Grande Valley Of South Texas, Sonia A. Shepherd Dec 2006

Maintaining An Immigrant Heritage Language Other Than Spanish Or English In The Bilingual Culture Of The Rio Grande Valley Of South Texas, Sonia A. Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

A 2005 study in the bilingual Spanish/English Rio Grande Valley of South Texas investigates the language strategies used by immigrant families from China, Greece, Hungary, Japan, the Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, and the Ukraine to preserve their heritage languages and pass them on to their children. Personal interviews determine that all the parents are well-educated and from an above average socio-economic level. This investigation categorizes the various strategies used by the parents. All the immigrant parents emphasize that the main reason they want to preserve the heritage language with their children is to insure that the children can continue to communicate …


The Importance Of Continuity In First Language Education For Learning A Second Language, Stephen M. Shepherd Dec 2006

The Importance Of Continuity In First Language Education For Learning A Second Language, Stephen M. Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Scores from the Texas Reading Proficiency Tests in English (RPTE) for ninety-four Newcomer ESL students were analyzed to understand the differences between students who had attended school continuously and those who had discontinuity in their first language (LI) education in their home country. This research was performed in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, a few miles from the border with Mexico. The hypothesis is that students who have gaps in their L1 education will not learn to read as quickly in English as those who had none since the former are lacking cognitive skills which the latter already …


Attitudes Of Mexican Nationals Toward The Use Of Code Switching In The Rio Grande Valley, Jennifer M. Vojtko May 2004

Attitudes Of Mexican Nationals Toward The Use Of Code Switching In The Rio Grande Valley, Jennifer M. Vojtko

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The purpose of this study is to establish the beliefs and attitudes of Mexican Nationals living in the Rio Grande Valley toward the use of code switching, or the use of two or more languages during a speech act. Because of the high influence of the Spanish language in the Rio Grande Valley, code switching is more commonly referred to as Spanglish. Researchers have been studying code switching since the early fifties; however, limited research has been conducted on attitudes toward code switching. The goal of this study is to offer a comprehensive look at the attitudes demonstrated by Mexican …


An Investigation Of Pre-Nursing And Second-Year Baccalaureate Nursing Students' Perception Of Spirituality, Jacquelyn Kay R. Williams May 2003

An Investigation Of Pre-Nursing And Second-Year Baccalaureate Nursing Students' Perception Of Spirituality, Jacquelyn Kay R. Williams

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This pilot study investigated whether spiritual care education is a part of the baccalaureate nursing curriculum at a south Texas university. This study used two standardized scales to compare the pre-nursing students' and senior baccalaureate nursing students' attitude about spirituality at different levels in the nursing program. Two quantitative questionnaires were used to investigate the nursing students' personal spiritual involvement and beliefs and their opinions about the spiritual role of the nurse in meeting patient spiritual needs. No statistically significant differences in the two group's personal spiritual involvement and beliefs were found. Statistically significant differences were found in the opinions …


Herstory, Rita Kathryn Roney May 2002

Herstory, Rita Kathryn Roney

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The purpose of this paper is to examine the history of Theatre at the University of Texas - Pan American in the 20th Century, from its inception in the Fall of 1934 through the Summer of 2001. It is written as a series of oral interviews with two women whose tenure at The University of Texas - Pan American covers that period. Mrs. Ruth Owings Blalock founded Theatre at the then Edinburg Junior College in 1934. Dr. Marian F. Monta was hired as her replacement in 1971 and continues to serve as area head of Theatre.


Poems As Mnemonic Devices To Aid Grammar Recall, Carolin A. Metzger May 2000

Poems As Mnemonic Devices To Aid Grammar Recall, Carolin A. Metzger

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This study was implemented to explore the extent to which students' performance on grammar editing exams might be affected by exposure to poems used as mnemonic devices intended to aid recall of grammar rules. The poems were used as mnemonic tools to assist subjects memory of specific grammar points. The place of grammar in writing instruction, the use of mnemonics, and the use of rhyme and rhythm are reviewed. The subjects for this study came from developmental level classes at the university level and from advanced level English as Second Language classes. The results emphasize the need for teacher-student interaction …


A Content Validity Analysis Of The University Of Texas-Pan American English 1320 Grammar And Usage Exam, Cynthia Eilene Elder Aug 1992

A Content Validity Analysis Of The University Of Texas-Pan American English 1320 Grammar And Usage Exam, Cynthia Eilene Elder

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This study examines the degree of content validity of the grammar and usage exam administered to The University of Texas-Pan American's developmental writing classes (English 1320). Final exam essays from the freshman composition course (English 1301) were divided into groups according to their scores and examined for the occurrence of adjective agreement, apostrophe, pronoun usage, punctuation of clause, sentence structure, subject-verb agreement, and tense usage errors, which are tested on the exam. An Analysis of Variance was then calculated for each error type; none of the error types proved statistically significant at the.05 level. The students within each group did …


Some Important Texas Attractions, Norman G. Kittrell, William Doherty Jan 1906

Some Important Texas Attractions, Norman G. Kittrell, William Doherty

Gulf Coast Line Magazine

Discusses weather, schools, and the advantage of the "homestead law." Includes image of produce on display in a wagon surrounded by men, ducks on a lake - photo by Wheelus.


Some Important Texas Attractions, Norman G. Kittrell, William Doherty, Wheelus Jan 1906

Some Important Texas Attractions, Norman G. Kittrell, William Doherty, Wheelus

Gulf Coast Line Magazine

Discusses weather, schools, and the advantage of the "homestead law." Includes image of produce on display in a wagon surrounded by men, ducks on a lake - photo by Wheelus.


Agriculture In Our Public Schools, William Doherty, Edwin Jackson Kyle Jan 1906

Agriculture In Our Public Schools, William Doherty, Edwin Jackson Kyle

Gulf Coast Line Magazine

Article on agricultural education in Texas. Includes photographs of a sugar cane field with farm workers in the Rio Grande Valley, a cotton field with farm workers in West Texas.