English Language and Literature Commons^™

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 Death And Rebirth Of The Feminine Muse: Edgar Allan Poe And Sylvia Plath, Noha Ibrahim

Theses and Dissertations

While drawing on mythology and a literary history that associated women with death as well as creativity, Edgar Allan Poe and Sylvia Plath experimented with binary oppositions such as masculine/feminine, composition/decomposition, and death/(re)birth. They gained inspiration from the same source, the dead muse, but how do they transform traditions that derive from classical and medieval literary precedent, perhaps in ways that are inherently critical of patriarchal modes of gender dynamics? Why is Poe fixated on a feminine dead muse while Plath is inspired by what she calls her “father-sea-god muse”? How do both authors represent the female body, and how …

Engl 200: Writing About Writing (The Problem Of The University), Flora De Tournay

Open Educational Resources

"The Problem of the University" is a (largely) open education syllabus that marries a criticality of/with the university as a site and space of knowledge making and knowledge suppression with a metacognitive writing approach for undergraduate students. The syllabus' contents include texts from bell hooks, Paolo Freire, Derrida, Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, among others.

Complete and updated syllabus available at https://waboutw.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

English Is Not Dead! Long Live English: Teaching The Evolution Of English And Inclusive Communication Via Online, Face To Face Or Hybrid Instruction, Teresa Marie Kelly, Stephanie Thompson, Sheryl Bone

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

When popular media and many individuals discuss changes in English, some erroneously contend that the language has always been the same and changes amount to little more than “politically correct woke liberalism” desired by only certain people. The English language continually evolves as a natural process that nothing can force nor prevent. Field-specific language also changes with increased understanding and knowledge. The variety of English taught to most students also shifts as Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)/Writing Across Disciplines (WAD) initiatives increasingly focus on Global English rather than the standard of any one country or group. Even informal interactions with …

Writing In Film Studies: Poetics And Pedagogy, Bryan Mead

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The focus of this dissertation is writing instruction inside undergraduate film courses. While the existence of textbooks devoted to teaching students how to write about film highlights the need for such instruction, evidence suggests many courses underuse or neglect such texts. Instead, most instructors focus their efforts on content instruction, expecting students to translate an increased content knowledge into written argumentation. Yet, as is the case across the disciplines, students struggle to write successfully in these disciplinary courses. One of the main reasons for this disparity between instructor expectation and student success is the notion of disciplinarity, and how influential …

The Enemy Of Writing: Standardized Testing, Catelynn Pasterchick

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

As the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) Act of 2001 enforced frequent standardized testing, the US Department of Education established a curriculum centered around drilling test material to meet nationwide requirements. Consequently, students are still offered a limited education, encouraging skills like memorization and quick thinking to be reflected in their scores. Particularly in writing, these tests and timed assignments stifle creativity, as they leave little room for students to be thoughtful and critical in their responses. Standardized tests lead both teachers and students to forget the purpose of writing as a tool for authentic expression and individuality. Furthermore, the …

The Storying Of Colombian Writing Centers, Jennifer Erin Pretzer

Masters Theses

Using the results from a study conducted on Colombian writing centers, this thesis applies principles from narrative theory to posit a grand narrative for Colombian writing center professionals. The study was modeled on one Jackie Grutsch McKinney used to examine US writing center professionals’ descriptions of their work, and the thesis includes a comparison with her results. Respondents were asked to answer seven questions, two of which were multiple choice and five of which were short answer. The questions asked respondents to describe their tutoring staff composition, their center’s operations, writing centers in general, and ways their center resembles and …

Saternus Dissertation-Multilingual Literacy Practices In One Community.Pdf, Julie Saternus

Julie Saternus

When Process Becomes Processing: Managing Instructor Response To Student Disclosure Of Trauma In The Composition Classroom, Kelci Barton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In first-year composition courses, there are three aspects of teaching that are researched well so far: disclosure of trauma in student writing, instructor feedback, and emotional labor. The disclosure of trauma is almost completely unavoidable in first-year composition. We encounter an issue with instructor feedback; how do we provide feedback to student writing, like grammar and mechanics, when the student has disclosed trauma in the writing? Additionally, we can build off this with emotional labor, which already occurs consistently in teaching but is heightened in this instance. When providing feedback to a student who has disclosed trauma, this can be …

A Literary Journey Back In Time, Hannah K. Heil

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Before I began writing, I reflected on the effect literature has had on my life. I brainstormed different experiences in which I found literature to be very influential. I talked with various people including my parents and past teachers to ensure the accuracy of the various childhood stories I decided to write about. When it came time to put the final draft together, I focused on my various experiences with literature and the grand effect it has had on my life. I also incorporated why I value being a literate person today as a university student.

Editor's note: For this …

Afterword: Horizons Of Transformation: When Age, Literacy And Scholarship Meet, Louise Wetherbee Phelps

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Designing For Human-Machine Collaboration: Smart Hearing Aids As Wearable Technologies, Krista Kennedy

Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition - All Scholarship

This study examines design aspects that shape human/machine collaboration between wearers of smart hearing aids and their networked aids. The Starkey Halo hearing aid and the TruLink iPhone app that facilitates real-time adjustments by the wearer offer a case study in designing for this sort of collaboration and for the wearer’s rhetorical management of disability disclosure in social contexts. Through close textual analysis of the company’s promotional materials for patient and professional audiences as well as interface analysis and autoethnography, I examine the ways that close integration between the wearer, onboard algorithms and hardware, and geolocative telemetry shape everyday interactions …

Introduction To New Work On Immigration And Identity In Contemporary France, Québec, And Ireland, Dervila Cooke

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided for the introduction.

Thematic Bibliography To New Work On Immigration And Identity In Contemporary France, Québec, And Ireland, Dervila Cooke

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

The New Writing Series, Spring 2016, The University Of Maine Honors College

Cultural Affairs Distinguished Lecture Series

In its thirty-fourth consecutive semester of programming, the New Writing Series will host six readings featuring four poets (John Keene, Prageeta Sharma, Divya Victor, and John Yau) and two fiction writers (Emily Fridlund and Joanna Walsh).

These writers are all highly active across the full spectrum of literary activity. They are editors, publishers, and anthologists; translators and tale-tellers; art-makers and trail-blazing scholars.

The New Writing Series brings innovative and adventurous contemporary writing to the University of Maine's flagship campus in Orono on selected Thursdays at 4:30pm.

Writing For Social Action: Affect, Activism, And The Composition Classroom, Sarah Finn

Open Access Dissertations

Due to the public turn in Composition and Rhetoric, many teachers look beyond the academy in order to give students a "real" writing experience for social change purposes. However, as Bruce Horner notes, this denigrates the real work that is done within the classroom. In this dissertation, then, I argue that we can find ingredients for writing for social action in our courses, and we can do so by studying activist students who are already writing for just change. Using a case study methodology, I learn from activist students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I find that these students' …

Professional Writing In The English Classroom: Let's Get Real: Using Usability To Connect Writers, Readers, And Texts, Jonathan Bush, Leah A. Zuidema

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

The article discusses the application of the concept of usability and user-centered design in the interaction between the writers and the readers in the English classroom. It is inferred that the interaction with readers is essential during the process of writing. The elements of effective lessons on usability and user-centered design are highlighted.

Disciplinary Permeations: Complicating The "Public" And The "Private" Dualism In Composition And Rhetoric, Erica E. Rogers

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

As Composition and Rhetoric rose in disciplinary status and academic legitimacy the discourse practice of negation, the positioning of texts in oppositional binaries that set the “new” over the “old,” the “novel” over the “familiar,” became embedded in academic tradition, seeming to be an inherited part of scholarship instead of an individual’s rhetorical choice and deliberate ethos strategy. Negation, when one idea or set of ideas constructed by another is critiqued, advocated, and/or redeveloped by another scholar, is a discourse practice firmly established in the Rhetorical Tradition as part of Socratic dialogues, reappears in “modern rhetoric”, and remains today as …

Grammar Workshop: Systematic Language Study In Reading And Writing Contexts, Leah A. Zuidema

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Responding to claims that grammar instruction has become too limited, Zuidema describes field notebooks, mentor text, show-and-tell essays, and other strategies for engaging students in systematic language analysis.

Writing Across Institutions: Studying The Curricular And Extracurricular Journeys Of Latina/O Students Transitioning From High School To College, Todd Ruecker

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation is based on a year and a half multi-institutional study of seven Mexican American students transitioning from high school to a community college or a university. It explores the differences between high school, community college, and university literacy environments, focusing on the following: the impact of standardized testing at the high school level, the role of rhetoric and composition disciplinary expertise in shaping first-year composition (FYC) curricula, writing in the disciplines, and the digital divide between institutions. Seven case studies examine students' literacy experiences across institutions as well as both challenges and sources of support in and beyond …

Professional Writing In The English Classroom: Beyond Language: The Grammar Of Document Design, Jonathan Bush, Leah A. Zuidema

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

The article offers guidelines in teaching professional writing in an English classroom. It highlights the elements in deciding for a good document design which include layout, fonts and color. It outlines the CRAP acronym (Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity) formulated by Saul Greenberg which summarizes the essential techniques in grammar design.

Professional Writing In The English Classroom: Professional Writing: What You Already Know, Jonathan Bush, Leah A. Zuidema

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

The article offers the authors' insights on professional writing that are taught in the English classroom, in which it is defined as writing within professional context with genres such as formal reports, directives, and proposals. They state that many teachers learn professional writing not only from advice, but also from experience and practice. They also mention that professional writing can be integrated in all fields of English language arts classrooms that can be taught to students.

Picturing Writing For Ndow 2010, Jenn Fishman

Jenn Fishman

These are my reasons for hosting a photo contest for NDOW. I hope my rationale along with the sources I site can contribute to an ongoing conversation about what writing and writing instruction are—and should be—in the twenty-first century.

Grades 2-4 Publishing Writing, Maria Cirello

English

This is an English language arts lesson for second through fourth graders (Grades 2-4) on publishing writing. Through this lesson, students will be able to respond to literature by socially interacting with their peers, gain an understanding of a tagline story through this lesson. In addition, they will come up with their own tagline story/poem/song/script. The lesson is tiered into three levels where students are grouped by ability. In each level students will receive a task card and can choose the activity that is of most interest to them.

Twenty-First-Century Writing/Twentieth Century Teachers?, Ian Barnard

English Faculty Articles and Research

"My students are writing in their everyday lives—indeed, their everyday lives are written—but we (teachers—writing teachers, in particular--and education administrators, no doubt nudged by politicians and “the public”) have to a large extent failed miserably in embracing and capitalizing on that writing: email, text messaging, instant messaging, blogging, twittering, responding, video gaming, Second Lifeing. Andrea and Karen Lunsford’s recent longitudinal study of Stanford students has shown the lie to the given that students today don’t write as much as they used to (they are writing much more). Are we becoming the stodgy, ungenerous, rigid English teachers that we ourselves were …

Teaching Creativity In Technical Communication Curricula, Curtis Robert Newbold

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis addresses the need to claim creativity as an essential component to our technical communication curricula as we prepare students for what their managers want. While many technical communication programs at universities across the country have recognized a need to teach skills beyond "writing technically," few, if any, have addressed or "claimed" a concept such as creativity that helps build these skills. I argue that creativity is what managers are looking for and what technical communication programs are already implementing. Claiming this concept will help us further define a discipline that is becoming much richer and help students develop …

Review Of "Writing The Economy: Activity, Genre, And Technology In The World Of Banking", Andrea R. Olinger

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Bias And The Teachable Moment: Revisiting A Teacher Narrative, Darren Crovitz

Faculty and Research Publications

Such responsibility may be vital for English teachers, especially, as we strive to establish communities of writers and spaces for critical thinking and conversation. When I sat down to write about this experience, I saw it as an opportunity to discuss a taboo situation and its positive aftermath, with the aim of demonstrating how it might be possible to use such events as points of departure in creating engaging writing assignments.

Never Let The Truth Stand In The Way Of A Good Story: A Work For Three Voices, Bronwyn T. Williams

Faculty Scholarship

Describes how the author's habit of fabrications and stories as a 10-year-old became a source for writing fiction. Notes how he pursued journalism as a profession, but was frustrated by its limitations. Considers how as a professional field, composition continues to contemplate and struggle with issues of power and representation in research and writing. Addresses the issues of power and representation and the ethical concerns that such issues entail.