English Language and Literature Commons^™

The Word That Dare Not Speak Its Name, Pamela Caughie

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay asks, when does our effort to avoid offending students interfere with our ability to teach them? Rehearsing conflicts over language and terminology, over who can speak and what can be said, from my four-decade career as a literature professor, critical theorist, and gender scholar, I confront contemporary efforts to censor certain words, to prohibit certain kinds of inquiry, and to limit who can speak about certain subjects by placing recent incidents in relation to previous debates in academia and the public sphere. The university classroom and scholarly peer-reviewed journals have long served as spaces where established viewpoints can …

Pedagogical Alliances Among Writing Instructors And Teaching Librarians Through A Writing Information Literacy Community Of Practice, Zoe Mcdonald, Deborah Minter

Department of English: Faculty Publications

In this praxis piece, a WPA and a writing instructor describe a writing information literacy community of practice among writing instructors and teaching librarians. Through paying attention to one resulting assignment, a full class annotated bibliography, the co-authors argue this professional development program extended collaborations among the writing program and the library to center contextual notions of authority and metacognition that connect to composition’s democratic political commitments.

Designing "Writing For Health And Medicine": Course Arcs, Anchors, And Action, Elizabeth L. Angeli, Lillian Campbell

English Faculty Research and Publications

This article details how we developed a hybrid rhetoric of health and medicine and technical communication writing course in response to a call for a health sciences writing course. We anticipate that other institutions may be experiencing similar demand for these courses and thus introduce our process and course design as models for meeting this growing curricular need.

Perspectives On Usability Testing With Iot Devices In Technical Communication Courses, David Wright

English and Technical Communication Faculty Research & Creative Works

This Article Offers Perspectives on Adopting Smart Home Technology into Usability Testing for Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) Courses. Usability is a Valued Skill for Technical Communicators. However, Usability Testing Methods Have their Problems as Pedagogical Tools. Internet-Of-Things (IoT) Devices and Smart Home Technology (SHT) May Offer Instructors Tools to overcome Some of Those Problems. This Article Details Advantages and Concerns Associated with using SHT for Curricular Usability Testing.

Pedagogies Of Rhetorical Empathy-In-Action: Role Playing And Story Sharing In Healthcare Provider Education, Lillian Campbell, Elisabeth L. Miller

English Faculty Research and Publications

Since successful healthcare relies heavily on a practitioner’s ability to empathize with the patient, the allied health professions—like nursing and speech therapy—have long considered the possibilities and limitations of a pedagogical practice that centers empathy. In this essay, we analyze two such pedagogies: role playing with simulated patients in nursing and story sharing in a multimodal memoir group with aphasic clients in communicative sciences and disorders (CSD). Comparing theories of empathy in these fields as well as interviews with the future nurses and speech therapists participating in these experiences, we show how students engage in what we call “empathy-in-action” through …

Dewey In The Digital Age: Experiential Composition And Reflection As Transformation, Danielle Page

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores the act of composing as a transformational, ongoing event and offers digital reflection as a tool for first-year writing students to evaluate their own writing practices. I analyze student vlogs produced in response to an assignment that asked students to produce digital reflections on their work as writers across the process of completing a final course project. My findings suggest that adapting experiential learning principles, digital and non-digital, into composition classroom design creates and facilitates writing experiences that are immersive and transformational. Crucial to designing learning occasions is the process of active reflection upon what the writer …

The Lived Experiences Of Male Generation Z Collegians: Transcendental Phenomenological Approach, Nona Pratt Oshman Reynolds

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to examine the academic experiences of 11 male Generation Z born between 1995-2012 and describe their undergraduate collegiate experiences by exploring their thoughts and perceptions. The central question is: What are the academic experiences of male undergraduate Generation Z college students? Intrinsic and extrinsic factors are sinuous in the lives of Generation Z males; therefore, sub-questions investigated the views of participants regarding the implications of generational shifts, motivations, societal trends, and technology within higher education. Purposive, criterion, and snowball sampling were used to select 11 participants. The educational theories of constructivism, sociocultural, …

Rhetorical Body Work: Professional Embodiment In Health Provider Education And The Technical Writing Classroom, Lillian Campbell

English Faculty Research and Publications

This article introduces “rhetorical body work” as a framework for understanding professional embodiment in health provider education and technical and professional communication (TPC) pedagogy. Using the case study of clinical nursing simulations and drawing on sociological theory, I provide a detailed analysis of three components of rhetorical body work as they manifest in three simulation scenarios: physical, emotional, and discursive. I conclude by considering the implications of these findings for the embodied teaching of TPC.

I Told You That To Tell You This: Metagaming And Metacognition In The Hybrid Classroom, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This paper theorizes the use of play and gamified methods to foster metacognition, or strategies for learning and learning about learning, in online graduate instruction. In the process, it calls into question the determinism of “serious” games as being the only means of facilitating metacognition. Ultimately, by adopting metagame approaches—that is, approaches based on0 goals and achievements that are external to the game and/or are developed by the players themselves—metacognition can and does occur because students participate in the development of the rewards. Moreover, any metagame feature ultimately becomes a commentary so that an approach based on metagaming offers its …

Large Lecture Best Practices List (Plus Sample Activity), Jessica Luck

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

Includes a list of tips and best practices for running Large Lecture classes effectively, as well as a Bibliography of helpful resources (focused on English/Humanities). Ends with a sample engaging large lecture activity in which students perform Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells.”

Digital Culture Or Gutenberg Culture: Some Reflections On The Design Principles Of Online Courses., Julie Paegle

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

This short essay explores online course design, especially in the crisis conditions of the coronavirus pandemic. We reflect on the question of whether the basic design orientation in online classes should be toward textual or non-textual content, and we consider the view that textual content may in fact be far better.

Reflections On Pedagogy For Large Lecture Humanities Courses, Stephen Lehigh

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

In this short essay, lecture technique used by Professor Michael Sandel is adapted to the task of shaping productive lectures in a large lecture course in the humanities, here literature. A brief discussion of Sandel’s method distills it into four points. A brief example follows.

Reacting To The Future: An Immersive Experience With The Hunger Games, Amanda Taylor

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

Description of an immersive, role-play based assignment centered on The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Designed for a ENG 1120 Speculative Fiction course focused on dystopian literature. The assignments adapts elements of Reacting to the Past pedagogy and was developed as part of a Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy Faculty Learning Community focused on large lecture literature courses.

Connecting Our Pedagogical Questions And Goals: An Exercise For Writing Teacher Development, Jessica Rivera-Mueller

English Faculty Publications

In this article, the author argues writing teachers can more fully inquire into their questions about teaching writing by paying closer attention to the ways their goals for teacher development shape their engagement in pedagogical inquiry. To explain these connections and illustrate these possibilities, the author shares findings from a narrative-inquiry study that examined the development of pedagogical inquiry in the lives of four teachers of writing. Using the participating teachers' shared goals for teacher development, the author demonstrates how writing teachers can reflect upon the development of pedagogical inquiry, stretch themselves to practice other aspects of pedagogical inquiry, and …

How To Play A Poem By Don Bialostosky, Jayme Stayer

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Don Bialostosky has long been admired as a writer of dense texts aimed at theory-minded academics and addressing Bakhtin and rhetoric. With How to Play a Poem, Bialostosky plays to a different audience, positioning himself as “something of a popular entertainer,” to use T. S. Eliot’s improbable self-description in the wake of The Waste Land. Aimed not at theoreticians but average teachers of poetry, Bialostosky’s text attempts to make Bakhtin accessible for the college and high school classroom. For my own audience here, I offer a conflict-of-interest disclosure: Bialostosky directed my dissertation over twenty-five years ago, but there is little …

Lesson Plan For Teaching Mohsin Hamid's "Exit West", Keyan Shayegan , '22, Peter Schmidt

English Literature Faculty Works

A lesson plan for teaching this novel to college and university students. After completing the lesson plan, students should have an enhanced understanding of the following learning goals: the similarities between different types of internal and external migration, and the effects migration has on individuals and their senses of identity; why nativism is so prevalent, the negative impact it has on humanity, and how it can be overcome by shared experiences between people; how authorities such as governments and mass media corporations use technology to deter immigration, via both force and influencing the public, in ways that dehumanize immigrants; how …

Lesson Plan For Teaching Mohsin Hamid's "Exit West", Ruby Guerrero , '22, Peter Schmidt

English Literature Faculty Works

A lesson plan for teaching this novel to high school grades 11-12, community college, and/or college and university students. This lesson is planned for three weeks and three times a week, but I recommend that teachers revise these plans as needed in order for the lesson to fit their class schedules. Learning Goals: students will be able to identify stereotypes of migrants and refuse to accept these as proper understandings of people; students will be able to reclaim their identities using the novel as a basis for this outcome; students will learn to identify the different types of narration, how …

Confirmation Bias: Misinformation In Society, Refutation As A Pedagogical Solution, And The Turn Of The Screw, Crystal Veber

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the societal implications of confirmation bias through the analysis of the characters and criticism of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, and the application of modern psychological and pedagogical studies to demonstrate a similar misunderstanding of truth in society. The aim of this study is to provide an approach to teach students that the plausibility of a belief based on selective evidence is insufficient justification for validation. Such flawed logic insidiously erodes one’s trust in objective truths, instead promoting subjective truths that are misinformed by media forms like fake news, biased claims, and unfiltered online content. …

Why Analyze A Sonnet? Avoiding Presumption Through Close Reading, Devon Madon

Faculty Publications & Research

In the first session of my Introduction to Shakespeare course, I always teach one of Shakespeare's best-known sonnets: Sonnet 130, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun:' I open with this sonnet because students frequently think that they know what the poem is about. W hen I ask the class, someone will usually give me the most common misreading of the sonnet: the speaker tells his mistress that she does not look like other women, but he loves her all the same. Rather than dismissing this reading, I ask many questions. How did you reach this conclusion? What do …

Flipping The Jane Austen Classroom, Lynda A. Hall

English Faculty Articles and Research

The contemporary Austen classroom might appreciate cultural and racial diversity, examine popular culture’s distortions of the original texts, and consider multimodal ways of reading. This paper reflects on a course that “flipped” the research process in order to “find” Austen and her works in the popular culture and to evaluate our understanding in the twenty-first century. Students discovered the commodification and distortion of “Jane Austen” and conducted research for creative projects to learn more about the social, cultural, and historical contexts of the written texts.

Textual Mediation In Simulated Nursing Handoffs: Examining How Student Writing Coordinates Action, Lillian Campbell

English Faculty Research and Publications

In clinical nursing simulations, a group of students provide care for a robotic patient during a structured scenario. As care is transferred from one group to another, they participate in a patient handoff, with outgoing students passing key information onto incoming students. In healthcare, the nursing handoff is a critical and perilous communication moment that is mediated by a range of participants and texts. Drawing on observations and video recordings of 52 simulation handoffs in the United States, this article examines how two student-designed texts – a collaborative patient chart and individual notes – are leveraged during the handoff. I …

Lesson Plan For Teaching Four Stories Featuring Multi/Mixed Identities, Sierra Sweeney , '21, Peter Schmidt

English Literature Faculty Works

Developed by a Swarthmore College student, Sierra Sweeney, with feedback from Professor Peter Schmidt, as a final assignment in English 71D, "The Short Story in the U.S.," fall 2018.

Fiction as a genre is well known for its ability to discuss a wide range of topics in a way that is both entertaining and empathetic. But while fictional pieces, especially the short story, are famous for creating narratives that help readers understand experiences unlike their own and characters unlike themselves, I would argue that fiction can also serve as a medium of self- reflection. As someone who identifies as multi-ethnic …

Illiteracy As Immanent: The (Re)Writing Of Rhetoric's Nature, Michael Kennedy

Honors College

Literacy is often thought of as a skill-set, that is, an ability to read and write in the dominant language of one’s socio-historical milieu. Illiteracy, on the other hand, is often thought of as a lack – an absence of a necessary skill-set that influences how well one can work and communicate (via reading and writing) within their dominant language and their society. In other words, illiteracy seems to have been defined by its relationship to the definition of literacy, that is, as a “negative-literacy” or a “not-literacy” that creates a lacuna of meaning when attempting to define illiteracy as …

Engl 487: English Capstone Experience—A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Kelly Stage

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio documents the teaching objectives, strategies, and assessments for a capstone course in the English major at UNL. As the English Studies Capstone and as an ACE (Achievement-Centered Education) 10 course at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, English 487 must help students meet key outcomes for the department and the University, but it also allows flexibility and creativity in the methods chosen to meet these requirements and structure the course. This portfolio thereby reflects on the intellectual labor of designing a particular version of these requirements and on guiding students through the design. The assessments included here are measuring traditional …

Theorycrafting The Classroom: Constructing The Introductory Technical Communication Course As A Game, Carly Finseth

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

When games are approached as a pedagogical methodology, the homologies between games and technical communication are highlighted: pedagogy that teaches people to play and succeed within certain confines; classroom assessment that provides meaningful feedback to encourage self-improvement; instructional design that incorporates gaming theory and game design principles; and usability to ensure optimum success. This paper provides an overview of these topics for instructors to consider when designing a technical writing course as a game.

Treasure Hunt Without A Map: Archival Research At The University Of Pennsylvania, Meghan Strong

English Independent Study Projects

Under the supervision of Meredith Goldsmith in the English Department, I spent this semester developing archival research projects for lower level students in the humanities. My project corresponded with the aims of the Council for Undergraduate Research, which works to develop undergraduate research skills throughout the disciplines. The Kislak Center is a nearby resource that has the potential to provide students with opportunities to develop crucial research skills while discovering little pieces of history that are hidden away in the archives. The final exercises presented here focus on the subjects of Walt Whitman, Marian Anderson, and Michel de Montaigne.

Communicating Shakespeare: How High School Educators Should Approach The Great Playwright, Samantha Defilippe

Honors Program Theses and Projects

This study is being done to show how relating Shakespeare’s plays, specifically the characters, themes, and events in his plays, to high school students can increase their appreciation and understanding of the famous writer. It discusses better methods for teaching Shakespeare than line-by-line interpretation so that students may see the valuable insight his works have to offer, rather than skimming the readings and using unreliable online resources, such as Sparknotes, because they are uninterested. Previous research has shown the importance of trying to relate readings to students so they are able to form a connection with the characters and main …

'There Are No Rules. And Here They Are": Scott Mccloud's Making Comics As A Multimodal Rhetoric, Dale Jacobs

English Publications

No abstract provided.

Pedagogies Of Possibility Within The Disciplines: Critical Information Literacy And Literatures In English, Heidi Lm Jacobs

LRI Participants at CAIS - ACSI

While most disciplines have responded to the generic openness of the ACRL Standards by creating discipline-specific guidelines and competencies, there is a need for us to consider other ways to approach information literacy in the disciplines. Critical information literacy reminds us to engage ourselves and our students with what Freire described as "problem-posing education," which “bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality” (84). This article discusses how information literacy work in literatures in English could engage students and librarians in the act of collective problem-posing about the discipline. Drawing upon critical information literacy's emphasis on …

Teaching White Papers Through Client Projects, Russell Willerton

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

White papers are increasingly prevalent in business and professional settings. Although textbook resources for white paper assignments are limited, a white paper assignment completed for a community client can provide a learning experience that students enjoy and that strengthens ties between the university and the community. This article describes a way to approach the white paper assignment in a communications-focused course and identifies resources to support white paper assignments.