English Language and Literature Commons^™

Navigating Identity Through Education In Literature And In The Classroom, Sofia Sakzlyan

English (MA) Theses

This thesis explores the intricate relationship between education, identity formation, and oppression, drawing from psychosocial and sociocultural perspectives. I delve into how education serves as a critical arena where individuals encounter various internal psychological conflicts and external social influences that shape their sense of self. By analyzing the perspectives of writers such as Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Kate Chopin Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Erin Gruwell, the thesis seeks to answer how education impacts the self and how it intersects with systems of oppression. Furthermore, I explore the role of education in fostering critical consciousness and empowerment, particularly in the face …

Restorative Practices In English Language Arts: My Journey Towards Linguistic Justice, Ariana Skeese

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

In this final portfolio, I examine anti-racist pedagogy in English Language Arts Education.

Digitally Rural: Identifying How Technological Inequity Impacts Rural Students In First-Year Writing Courses, Jo Anna M. Nevada

English Language and Literature ETDs

To teach composition in this era means to engage students with technology; it is all but an unspoken requirement at the majority of universities. This dissertation theorizes, however, that the imbricated use of technology in first-year writing (FYW) classrooms places rural students at an inherent disadvantage, with issues of inadequate technological proficiency and inconsistent access causing a substantial learning disparity between this student population and their urban peers. Through mixed-methods data analysis of student survey responses and final FYW course portfolios, this study reveals that the expectation of technological access and presumption of digital literacy is detrimental to rural student …

The Benefits Of Using Comics In The Classroom, Caedin Brown

University Honors Theses

With more research being done on the use and effects of comics in classes, teachers and the general public are becoming more accepting of them as a teaching tool. A study in the use of comics in classrooms has found positive correlations between comics and learning in academic environments and very few possibilities of negative connotations. Comics are being proven to show an increase of motivation in students along with better retention of knowledge, especially in the field of language learning. Comic activities in language learning environments that have been developed by Stephen Cary have shown an increase of engagement, …

Banned Or Grand?: Why Graphic Novels Maus And Persepolis Belong In The Classroom, Lauren Volk

Munn Scholars Awards

My capstone essay, “Banned or Grand?: Why Graphic Novels Maus and Persepolis Belong in The Classroom,” seeks to research both the objections to oft-banned memoir graphic novels being incorporated in the secondary school curriculum and the reasons why these graphic novels should not only be incorporated into the curriculum, but also why they assist students in developing necessary skills, such as higher-level critical thinking, a deeper understanding of complicated historical events, and the analysis of form and structure in literature, rather than just content. To enhance my research, I connected my main points to the pedagogical theory of learning transfer.

James Joyce’S Prose Pedagogy: Language In Freirean Dialogue, Jack Mcdermott Wellschlager

Honors Projects

My project concerns the pedagogical nature of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Across the various styles and forms of Ulysses’ chapters, or “episodes,” I theorize the pedagogy of James Joyce’s prose by tracking the ways that the text demands readers participate in a Freirean dialogue. I will also discuss how Ulysses understands language as a practice of resistance: the novel’s characters have personal linguistic practices that help them open up the worlds that occupy them. I will appreciate the control these characters take of their world as I argue, through Paulo Freire’s work, that no true change occurs without the presence of …

Challenging The Canon; Teaching The Literary Canon In The High School Classroom, Abigail Baumgartner

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Authorial Agency: Investigating Composition Pedagogies Under A New Lens, Tyler Hurst

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This essay considers the work of three prominent composition scholars through the lens of authorial agency, which I define as a form of agency that focuses on the individual voice and self-determination of students in the writing space. Though the concept of agency has been previously considered by composition scholars, this contribution might aid in understanding various pedagogical approaches by analyzing how authorial agency is already being engaged within composition pedagogies and investigating how authorial agency aids teachers in understanding their pedagogy so that students learn to take back control of their own authoritative voice and self-determination. By re-investigating …

A Tale Of Two Sides: An Analysis Into Which Demographics The English Department Attracts And Why, Jennifer Mendez

Senior Theses and Projects

This paper aims to provide a more in-depth focus on the English Department in college/university settings, specifically at Trinity College. Additionally, it looks at the structure of its current curriculum and whether or not it attracts students of color to the department, and why?

Through Critique And Beyond: Speculative Fiction As A Tool Of Critical Pedagogy, Syd Thorne

Master's Projects and Capstones

This field projects centers around the issue of hopelessness among teachers and students and examines the genre of speculative fiction as a potential tool for cultivating critical hope in the classroom and as an asset to critical pedagogy. Utopian pedagogy and critical pedagogy make up the theoretical framework of this research and project development. The research explores the use of speculative fiction in three areas: activism and identity, student engagement, and utopian performance. The review of the literature demonstrates that the use of speculative fiction in the classroom has the potential to engage students in conversations about social justice and …

Teaching Multicultural Literature In The College Classroom, Jordan K. Fleming

Selected Honors Theses

Due to a lack of research on the topic and events of 2020, this thesis aims to learn how professors teach multicultural literature to traditional undergraduate students and how students respond to these courses. I focus on pedagogical scholarship that notes the structure, challenges, and impact of teaching this genre in K-12 and higher education classrooms. My conclusions provide educators with a repertoire of teaching strategies, materials, and student feedback to help students critically respond to living in a multicultural nation and world. These conclusions also lessen a gap in research, as there is significantly less published information on teaching …

Implementing Process Pedagogy In The High School Classroom: How To Improve Student Writing While Helping Students Enjoy Writing, Laura Mahaney

English Theses

Traditionally and currently, teachers also focus on the product and not the process in their own classroom. They will assign a paper with a final due date, students turn in their papers without having anyone else look at it beforehand, and students will get a final grade on what is their first draft. This way of teaching writing does not show students how to improve their writing. With this type of assessment, the natural processes of a person’s mind while writing is ignored; students are expected to have everything in their paper in the first draft and without support. Process …

The Writing For Healing And Transformation Project, Heather Elizabeth Osborn

Education Doctorate Dissertations

As a qualitative action research study, the purpose of The Writing for Healing and Transformation Project was to facilitate more inclusive writing strategies and to promote individual and collective healing on issues of social suffering and oppression (Kleinman, Das, & Lock, 1997; Pennebaker & Smyth, 2016) for diverse students at a community college located in the northeastern United States. The 18 participants in the study included students in my English II literature and composition course. The theoretical framework encompassed Pennebaker’s (2016) “writing for healing” paradigm, advocating the use of expressivist writing and “social suffering theory,” examining how power structures affect …

Teaching Trauma In Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life, Kat Shuman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, this thesis outlines how to ethically and effectively teach literature that deals with trauma. My personal teaching philosophy as well as the current pedagogy surrounding trauma literature preface a detailed syllabus, lesson plans, assessments, and activities that would be useful in teaching a course centered around literature that deals with trauma. This thesis highlights the merits of teaching trauma fiction in the literature classroom.

Projects To Enhance And Innovate Learning In The High School English Classroom: A Final Master’S Portfolio, Kayla Welch

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

My purpose for this portfolio is for each reader to look at teaching in a new and innovative way that will guide students and educators. I have resources in each project that will push ideas for new projects or encourage readers to try a new writing mode or novel that they have never tried before. I hope my students are engaged in my variety of lessons and research and feel challenged to push themselves in their own research and writing. I encourage the reader to use the following projects to create a positive writing and reading environment in the classroom.

"And Gladly Wolde He Lerne": Facilitating Discussion Based Learning About Medieval And Regency Literature Through Interactive Technologies, Emma Vallandingham

Honors Projects

A series of reading guides for Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, and Frankenstein, that utilize interactive technologies to facilitate student engagement with and discussion of the texts. Each reading guide consists of an overview of the text, relevant historical context, and reading and discussion questions for students to answer. Some reading guides also have corresponding answer guides that provides sample answers as well as hints and tips for answering the questions.

How To Get A Job In Book Publishing, Grecia Medina

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

There are many different doorways into the world of book publishing and it can be challenging, but there are choices that can make it easier. Aspiring publishers often have a hard time breaking into this world because they have no guide. This thesis will be a guide to traversing the different avenues into the world of publishing. Prospective publishers, editors, and writers will be provided with a landscape of what it’s like to work in book publishing. It will also cover the two different ways that people become publishers, an overview of the basic requirements that publishing houses look for …

Beyond The Words: Paratextual And Bibliographic Traces Of The Other Reader In British Literature, 1760-1897, Jeffrey Duane Rients

Theses and Dissertations

Over the course of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, compounding technological improvements and expanding education result in unprecedented growth of the reading audience in Britain. This expansion creates a new relationship with the author, opening the horizon of the authorial imagination beyond the discourse community from which the author and the text originate. The relational gap between the author and this new audience manifests as the Other Reader, an anxiety formation that the author reacts to and attempts to preempt. This dissertation tracks these reactions via several authorial strategies that address the alienation of the Other Reader, including …

Philosophy And Actions For Authentic, Meaningful, And Lifelong Learning, Anthony Klever

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio explores several major areas of education related to English teaching. A major research essay, “Incomplete Instructions: Building the Future of Technical Writing in Ohio Education”, explores the current situation and prospective future of technical writing in the state of Ohio’s education system. Also, a reflective essay, “Reflective Narrative: My Journey as a Student and My Map for Teaching”, explores the many elements of teaching philosophy with particular attention to English teaching. Another research essay, “Meaningful Revision: Revise for a Day, Teach Revision for a Lifetime”, explores the function of revision and offers suggestions for increasing the meaningfulness …

Teaching English Language Arts: Implementing A Project-Based Learning Approach, Nashwa Elkoshairi

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

Teaching English Language Arts: Implementing a Project-Based Learning Approach

Abstract

This portfolio includes four projects that are woven together to explore topics in teaching literature and composition using a project-based learning pedagogy. The first project, “Literature & Social Cognition: Why Read Fiction?” sets the groundwork for the importance of literature in academia through a brief analysis of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. The second project, “Grappling with Consumerism by Tapping into Freud’s Uncanny: Using Coraline for a PBL Approach” explores Coraline through the critical lenses of the uncanny and Marxism to guide students through a variety of texts including …

Wounds And Writing : Building Trauma-Informed Approaches To Writing Pedagogy., Michelle L. Day

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation builds a trauma-informed approach to writing pedagogy informed by writing studies scholarship about trauma and inclusive pedagogy, clinical social work literature on trauma-informed care, and interviews with nine current University of Louisville writing faculty about their experiences academically supporting distressed students. I identify three central touchstones—“students are coddled,” “teacher’s aren’t therapists,” and “institutions don’t support trauma-informed teaching”—in scholarly and public debates regarding what to do about student trauma/distress in higher education. After exploring the valid concerns and misconceptions underpinning these touchstones, I illustrate how clinical research offers a way forward to help writing instructors develop more complex understandings …

Promoting English Fluency Through Peer Feedback And Dialogue Journals In An Esl College Classroom, Sarah L. Stone

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This study investigated research methodologies which were proven to be successful in promoting English fluency among ESL students in the college level classroom. The history of second language learning was tied to popular teaching practices, such as journal writing, dialogue journals, peer feedback, and teacher feedback. Due to a lack of cohesion between the above methods and a rising gap in related literature, an experiment was formed to determine whether dialogue journals could be combined with peer feedback to facilitate an accelerated comprehension of English as an L2 language. Over a three-month period, 19 ESL students at Gavilan College were …

Mutual Vulnerability And Intergenerational Healing: Black Women Hbcu Students Writing Memoir, Zelda Lockhart

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

This qualitative phenomenological study sought to gain insight into the unique experiences of Black women students who were writing memoir toward the goal of self-definition in a Black feminist learning environment at a Historically Black College/University (HBCU). Two teaching methods included personal plot (an extension of expressive writing that offers writing prompts for emotional closure), and biblio-fusion (a combination of expressive writing and bibliotherapy) (Lockhart, 2017a; 2017b). Interviews were conducted with six Black women participants and triangulated against their personal essays and online journal responses. Personal plot, a form of narrative analysis was used to construct paragraphs on what each …

The Readers Constructed By Shakespeare Anthologies And Pedagogical Scholarship, Andrea Berns

Theses and Dissertations

In my graduate thesis, I determine that modern Shakespeare anthologies provide features for an audience with specific learning needs that may not be representative of the students currently enrolled in undergraduate classrooms who are reading these anthologies. On the other hand, scholars of Shakespeare pedagogy also depict readers with certain learning needs their research, the results of which may have been influenced by bias and, therefore, also may not be representative of the “real” reader of Shakespeare. To determine where the two “constructed” readers depicted in modern Shakespeare anthologies and in pedagogical research overlap and where they diverge, I will …

Reflection Through Revision: A Master's Portfolio, Laura Hoebing

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This document is a compilation of four essays centered around a theme of reflection and teaching English at a high school level. The essays include pedagogical research on reflective writing, teaching grammar, and standards-based grading in a junior high curriculum, as well as an analytical research essay on the role of the police in two contemporary domestic noir novels.

Young Adult Literature And Empathy In Appalachian Adolescents, Kelsey R. Kiser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Based on recent research concluding that fiction can increase empathy, this project examines how multicultural young adult literature may encourage empathy in Appalachian adolescents. Empathy encourages prosocial behaviors, but evidence suggests that young adults’ ability to empathize has declined in recent decades. In addition, Appalachia in particular is still a relatively homogenous region as it is majority white, protestant Christian, and heteronormative. Because of this, young adults in Appalachia may encounter few diverse perspectives in real life; multicultural young adult literature can provide diverse perspectives with which teenagers can empathize in a region where they might not have similar opportunities …

Final Ma Portfolio, Annelise Mason

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio contains papers on Urban Education and teaching speakers of African American Language/ African American Vernacular English. As the capstone to my Masters in English with a Specialization in Teaching, I have chosen four papers to revise and resubmit: “Intertwining Narratives: Stories of the I-280 Bridge Collapse,” “Reshaping Attitudes: Tailoring Urban Education to fit the African American Student,” “The Study of Language in a Multi-Dialectical Classroom,” and “Youth Acquisition and Ownership Is Crucial Language Vitality.” "Intertwining Narratives" is a report on the I-280 bridge collapse in Toledo. "Reshaping Attitudes" is an explanation of some best practice in urban education. …

Effects Of Multimedia Instruction On L2 Acquisition Of High-Level, Low-Frequency English Vocabulary Words, Euna Cho

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study examined the effects of multimedia enhancement in video form in addition to textual information on L2 vocabulary instruction for high-level, low-frequency English words among Korean learners of English. Although input-based incidental learning of L2 vocabulary through extensive reading has been conventionally believed to be appropriate for high-frequency words, intentional or explicit vocabulary learning is suggested to be more sensible or realistic for the acquisition of low-frequency academic words. Multimedia support in foreign language instruction has revealed benefits in promoting direct teaching and explicit learning of L2 vocabulary; moreover, adding textual information to video seems to boost students’ …

Creating A Multiracial Lesson Plan, Clayton Davis

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The purpose of this project is to teach students about multiracial identity issues. Multiracial populations in the U.S. continue to grow and it’s important for educators to address the needs of these students. A 5-E multiracial literature lesson plan was created for second grade that incorporates KWL and Text-to-World teaching strategies. A second grade class were read two children’s picture books, each featuring a biracial protagonist, and were asked to discuss and evaluate the content and commonalities of these stories. Students recorded what they learned in this lesson in their KWL’s. The results reveal that some students understood the problems …

"Y'All And All These Assessments Is A Little Bit Too Much" : The Effects Of High-Stakes Testing On Critical Literacy Pedagogy., Diana Lalata

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

As the United States of America becomes increasingly diverse, there is a need for teachers to embrace multiculturalism within the classroom. Shifting away from the traditional “banking model” of teaching, educational researchers call for a more critical approach—one in which teachers and students challenge dominant beliefs and practices of education. Foregrounded in those aims of cultural competence and critical consciousness, “critical literacy pedagogy” addresses the politicization of literacy education and employs conscious curriculum and teaching strategies to empower marginalized voices. Although a number of case studies on critical literacy pedagogy show considerable promise in disrupting dominant discourse and developing cultural …