Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Hot Wheeler's Heaven Or Hell? A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Hot Wheels Red Line Club Online Forums And How They Compare To Other Online Mediums, Samuel Richens

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

This research project aims to shed light on the unique phenomenon of the Hot Wheels Red Line Club online forums and how the rhetorical interactions that take place there compare to other mainstream forums. To the uninitiated, Hot Wheels by Mattel, introduced in 1968, is the best-selling toy, even outperforming Barbie, who debuted a decade earlier. To begin, a rhetorical analysis of conversations on the online discussion forum was conducted. In addition, a survey was distributed to students asking about their online forum experiences, and an interview was conducted with an expert on online forums to gain their knowledge and …

These Are The Droids You're Looking For: Tagging And Content In Fanfiction, Virginia Beikmann

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

What do fanfiction readers look for when given the ability to specifically seek certain content through tagging? Fanfiction is often broadly defined by a variety of definitions, but the easiest way to understand it is simply by the name: It is fiction of existing works/media of any sort, expounded upon by fans of the content to create something original, while still using characters, plots, themes and so on of the original work. For instance, a fanfiction may take characters and write them out in new scenarios but having the original content having still happened in that character’s background, or fanfiction …

The Power Of Booktok: An Analysis Of The Influence Of Tiktok On College Students' Leisurely Reading, Mya Bethers

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Social media is an ever-growing and present tool in the lives of college students. One of the most popular social media apps among young adults is TikTok. Its short video gratification keeps viewers scrolling well beyond their expected app use, and in consequence, exposes them to a variety of brands, commercials, and products (purposefully marketed or not). Over the pandemic, thousands of TikTok users have shared their book recommendations on the app, which created the side of TikTok known as BookTok. This study analyzes the power and influence BookTok has had on college students’ leisurely reading choices. The methods used …

Working With Your Brain: A Case Study Of The Writing Processes Of Women Writers With Adhd, Claire Atwood

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Adult women with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are diagnosed at a significantly lower rate than adult men and children. As children, ADHD presents itself in classroom behaviors, like a difficulty in concentrating, staying on task, and interrupting the lesson. For girls and especially adult women, these symptoms are not as obvious as they are in men, which results in a significant lack of research about women with ADHD. In Women with ADHD, Roberta Sanders notes that “there is a tendency for girls to be diagnosed with [the ADHD Inattentive type] more than boys and it prevails in older children …

Beloved: Born Of Sethe's Slavery And Trauma, Sariah Dutkiewicz

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Toni Morrison’s Beloved introduces many characters who exhibit clear signs of trauma due to their past as African American slaves, however, one character in particular stands out: Sethe. Sethe’s life as a slave led her to experience and do horrendous things. The worst being the difficult and violent decision to murder her own child, Beloved, in an effort to prevent her child from being forced into slavery. Though Sethe survived her life as a slave, she was unable to focus on her future because of her past that consistently haunts her. Her trauma is portrayed in many different forms throughout …

Results Of Lexile Level Reading Practices On Rural Middle School Students, Tiffany Sanderson

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Many students have experienced, and remember, reading comprehension exams from their time in grade school. These tests examined student ability to comprehend different levels of reading so that educators could ensure a student was reading within grade level targets. ATOS and A-Z along with the Fountas and Pinnell reading programs are all previous methods used in ELA classrooms across the nation. Some of these are still used widely today. ATOS is a program which closely resembles Lexile as it also determines book and student scores with a method that correlates back to grade level. For example, sixth-grade would be 6.0. …

The Language Of Classroom Design: How Aesthetic Impacts Learning, Josie Rivera

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Secondary classrooms are the settings where crucial learning experiences occur, yet much of the existing research on classroom design pertains to elementary schools. The general lack of importance placed on the physical layout of secondary classrooms insinuates that while younger students benefit from an attractive, visually pleasing classroom, teenage students do not. Despite this, educators seek to make their classrooms places of refuge and learning. For example, Utah’s 2020 Teacher of the Year, Lauren Merkley, decorates her room with thrifted lamps which emit a warm glow in her classroom. Martin Reeder of Sky View High School curated a ‘book nook’ …

Known And Unknown: Women's Voices Of The Hole-In-The-Rock Expedition, Bonnie Swenson

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

In 2020, Utah focused on a significant benchmark in voting rights: the celebration of 150 years of Utah women voting, the first in the modern nation to do so. Over the course of the celebration stories about women were uncovered, recovered, and publicized. Too often, women’s stories in history have been overlooked. This project seeks to recover some of those women’s voices. The Hole-in-the-Rock expedition was an arduous trek in 1879-80 across an uncharted, barren landscape in southeastern Utah by novice pioneers. History has focused primarily on the extraordinary feat building of the 290-mile road. The clever engineering allowed wagons …

Book Worms? A Profile Of The Reading Lives Of English Majors, Ryan Collins, Claire Atwood, Virginia Beikmann, Josephine Rivera, Mya Bethers, Kerrin Mountcastle, Sam Richens, Cayla Cappel

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

What are the reading lives of a group of upper-division English majors in terms of their autobiographies, their processes of reading, and their preferred texts? How do they manage required reading and reading for pleasure? Although university students who major in English Studies read consistently, often reading behaviors are taken for granted, particularly the long-term reading lives of these students. How did they develop as readers? What strategies have they developed to be successful? What are preferred tools and technology? How has their various cultures influenced their reading? By using an autoethnographic approach that describes and interrogates their processes and …

Not All Lawyers Read John Grisham: An Exploration Of The Reading Habits Of Pre-Law Students And Attorneys, Ryan Collins

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

This project aims to explore the reading habits of a small group of pre-law students at Utah State University and three attorneys. The first goal of this project was to understand how USU students required academic reading has influenced the way they read for pleasure. The second goal of this project was to explore the reading lives of three attorneys, including a self-evaluation of their past academic reading, their current professional reading, and how their professional reading has influenced the way they read for pleasure today. A mixed methodology consisting of online surveys and interviews was used to approach these …

Insights On The Effectiveness Of The Hamburger Method, K. Kerrin Mountcastle

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

This empirical research study examined the use and effectiveness of the Hamburger Method, a writing strategy to teach organization and development similar to the famous, or perhaps infamous, Five-Paragraph Theme. This method of writing teaches students to write an introduction that includes their thesis (the top bun); three body paragraphs containing evidence (the meat and condiments); and then a conclusion that reverses the introduction and ends the essay (the bottom bun). Notably, the approach is generally introduced during elementary school as it has obvious appeal to children. The research reveals, though, in more advanced settings, secondary school English classrooms and …

Dramaturgy For Miss Bennet: Christmas At Pemberley, Samantha Stringham

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

The aim of this dramaturgical research was to explore and understand Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon within the context of Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice, the sociohistorical and contextual norms of Regency England, and within the world of the play itself. The goal was for this research to be utilized by the cast and production team of Utah State University’s production of Miss Bennet (directed by Tarah Flanagan) as a resource to inform production, performance, and design. This was achieved through strictly textual, and performance-focused analysis of the play. The research was compiled …

The Best Children's Books Of 2021: Holiday Gift Edition, Bank Street College Of Education. Children's Book Committee

The Center for Children's Literature

Notable titles that have captured the attention of Children's Book Committee members just in time for the holidays!

The Legacy Book In America, 1664–1792, Roxanne Harde, Lindsay Yakimyshyn

Zea E-Books Collection

Legacy books in colonial America were instruments for the transmission of cultural values between generations: the dying mother (usually) instructing and advising children on the path to salvation and heavenly reunions. They were a popular and influential form of women’s discourse that distilled the ideologies of the religious establishment into practical and emotional lessons for lay persons, especially the young.

This collection draws together legacy texts written by colonial American women and girls: five mother’s legacy books and two legacies by children, organized here chronologically. These legacies were writ­ten in anticipation of dying, making awareness of death central to the …

The Google Tour Project, Colton Saylor

Assignment Prompts

Context: This assignment helps culminate our class theme, “Reading and Writing the City,” in which we explore representations of urban life from a variety of perspectives and academic disciplines. Our final unit takes on the issue of gentrification; more specifically, we explore how the issue revolves around stories of either progress or subjugation (depending on who is telling the story). After scaffolding some background on the issue and what it means, students form into groups and create these digital tours that serve as visual essays. In creating their own arguments either for or against gentrification, they take on their own …

Oer Guide For Wr 227 Instructors: Using Open Educational Resources (Oers) In Wr 227 Courses, Sarah Read, Jordana Bowen, Henry Covey

PDXOpen: Open Educational Resources

The "OER Guide for WR 227 Instructors: Using Open Educational Resources (OERs) in WR 227 Courses" aims to help instructors make sense of and sort the massively decentralized and varying content of existing OERs available to support technical and professional writing courses. This guide is intended as a resource for introductory technical writing course instructors to adapt an existing course to integrate OER resources, or, to build a new course with all-OER student resources. This guide was developed for the specific use of WR 227 instructors at Portland State University and across Oregon; however, the material in the guide or …

The Best Children's Books Of The Year [2021 Edition], Bank Street College Of Education. Children's Book Committee

The Center for Children's Literature

Includes more than 600 titles chosen by the Children’s Book Committee as the best of the best published in 2020. In choosing books for the annual list, committee members consider literary quality and excellence of presentation as well as the potential emotional impact of the books on young readers. Other criteria include credibility of characterization and plot, authenticity of time and place, age suitability, positive treatment of ethnic and religious differences, and the absence of stereotypes.

(Re)Writing Communities And Identities, Phillip Marzluf, Anna Goins, Cindy Debes, Stacia Gray, A. Abby Knoblauch, Cameron Grace Leader-Picone

NPP eBooks

(Re)Writing Communities and Identities enables college-level students to develop their ability to compose various informative and expressive genres, including analyses, reflections, summaries, syntheses, and informative reports. While students raise their consciousness about their writing process and audience-based informative strategies, they also familiarize themselves with important social and cultural issues related to the theme of "identities and communities."

Designing Arguments For Academic, Public, And Professional Audiences, Phillip Marzluf

NPP eBooks

This college-level textbook guides students through five different types of arguments: evaluations, responses, persuasive rhetorical arguments, proposals, and practical professional development arguments. Students are introduced to rhetorical concepts and strategies to enable them to more effectively appeal to different types of audiences. Students will gain practice in audience-based reasoning, basing their reasons and evidence on the assumptions, beliefs, and values of their readers.

Fake Italian: An 83% True Autobiography With Pseudonyms And Some Tall Tales, Marc Dipaolo

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

In a city torn apart by racial tension, Damien Cavalieri is an adolescent without a tribe. His mother -who pines for the 1950s Brooklyn Italian community she grew up in- fears he lacks commitment to his heritage. Damien’s fellow Staten Islanders agree, dubbing him a “fake Italian” and bullying him for being artistic. Complicating matters, his efforts to make friends and date girls outside of the Italian community are thwarted time and again by circumstances beyond his control. When a tragic accident shakes Damien to his core, he begins a journey of self-discovery that will lead him to Italy, where …

Sonder: A Poetry Journal 2021, English Dept., College Of The Holy Cross

Holy Cross Bookshelf

Susan Elisabeth Sweeney is the faculty advisor for this publication.

Sonder is a compilation of student poetry written for the course "Introduction to Creative Writing: Poetry" at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Students taking the course produced this journal as a final class project under the guidance of their instructor, Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, Monsignor Edward G. Murray Professor of Arts and Humanities

Thomas Middleton And The Plural Politics Of Jacobean Drama, Mark Kaethler

Late Tudor and Stuart Drama

Thomas Middleton and the Plural Politics of Jacobean Drama represents the first sustained study of Middleton's dramatic works as responses to James I's governance. Through examining Middleton’s poiesis in relation to the political theology of Jacobean London, Kaethler explores early forms of free speech, namely parrhēsia, and rhetorical devices, such as irony and allegory, to elucidate the ways in which Middleton’s plural art exposes the limitations of the monarch’s sovereign image. By drawing upon earlier forms of dramatic intervention, James’s writings, and popular literature that blossomed during the Jacobean period, including news pamphlets, the book surveys a selection of …

Satori 2021, Caitlyn Salinas, Jacelyn Schley, Megan Haldorson, Carly Weber, Megan Martin, Amanda Gade, Shannon Laurance, Miranda Templeton, Ryanne Mikunda, Jay Lee, Emily Venné, Cheyenne Halberg, David Som, Xandra Okori

Satori Literary Magazine

The Satori is a student literary publication that expresses the artistic spirit of the students of Winona State University. Student poetry, prose, and graphic art are published in the Satori every spring since 1970.

The Satori 2021 editors are Andrew Sitter, Cheyenne Halberg, Kaela Appicelli, Meghan Haldorson, and Xandra Okori. The Satori 2021 faculty advisor is Dr. Delta Eddy, Professor of English.

Asian American Pacific Islander Booklist, Children's Book Committee. Bank Street College Of Education

The Center for Children's Literature

For grown-ups of all races who are having conversations with children to expand inquiry and empathy among Asian and non-Asian peoples, we offer a selection of books from the Children’s Book Committee’s Best Books of the Year, organized by age with child development in mind.

2021 Greenleaf Review (No. 34), Sigma Tau Delta

Greenleaf Review

No abstract provided.

Syntax, Newsletter Of The Suffolk University English Department, Issue 7, 2021, English Department

Syntax Newsletter of the Suffolk University English Department

No abstract provided.

'Wait, Twilight Is A Thing Again?': Examining The Ways In Which Different Social Groups Navigate The Complex Cultural Issues In Twilight, Veronica Buchanan

Undergraduate Research Symposium Podium Presentations

The four books and five movies in the extremely popular Twilight series give readers and viewers a lot to unpack, in both good ways and bad, and have led to fierce debates over the place the series should have in our culture, especially in regard to gender politics. However, most of the discussions of these texts and their cultural impact have tended to lack a robust, intersectional feminist perspective, one that attends to issues not only of gender, but also race, class, and sexuality. This research draws on both fan studies and feminist media studies to examine the various ways …

A Brief And True Report Of The Newfoundland Of Virginia, Thomas Hariot

English 144 Class Projects

No abstract provided.

Legacy Spring 2021, Southern Adventist University

Legacy

The Legacy Spring 2021 edition features both poetry and short stories written by Southern Adventist University students. Short stories are written by Jamie Henderson, Allison Carbaugh, and Kelli Miller. Poetry is written by Christina Cannon, Aimee Hunt, Jamie Jansen, Missy Syvertson, Christina Coston, Blake Tousignant, and Luz Daniela Trejos.

The Neon Bible, From Page To Screen: John Kennedy Toole’S Portrait Of Small-Town Southern Life, Heather Duerre Humann

Study the South

Louisiana-born writer John Kennedy Toole (1937–1969) represents the South in such a way that stereotypes about the region are brought to bear, he also uses his novels -- his short novel, The Neon Bible (1989), and in his better-known tragicomic novel, A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) -- to question the culture of the South. In this manner, Toole offers a multifaceted portrait of the region while also raising questions about the nature of representation.