Education Commons^™

High School Scholastic Journalism: An Empowering Force In Our Polarized Democracy And Democratic Empowerment - Scholastic Journalism Curriculum, Shelby Schmidt

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Consisting of two parts, this thesis explores the way a journalism classroom can create a democratic space for students that allows them to practice social life while developing more skills in tolerance and more confidence in their agency. The second portion consists of a sample curriculum to allow more democratic empowerment in our classrooms.

Advisor: Stacey Waite

Tilting At Windmills: Refiguring Graduate Education In English To Prepare Future Two-Year College Professionals, Darin L. Jensen

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation makes recommendations for the reform of graduate education to better serve current and future two-year college English instructors. The author undertakes historical and archival research to write a history of how English instructors have been prepared for the distinct profession of two-year college teaching. In addition, the author interviews two-year college English instructors from around the United States to chronicle their preparation narratively and how said preparation has affected their working experience. Drawing on the historical, narrative and current practices found in the research, the author details specific interventions, in the form of equity-centered partnerships, to improve preparation …

Cultivating A Learner’S Stance For Engagement In Teacher-Inquiry: An Aim For Writing Pedagogy Education, Jessica Rivera-Mueller

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation argues that writing teacher educators (WTEs) can more purposefully advance their commitment to sponsoring inquiry-oriented teacher development by helping pre-service and practicing writing teachers examine how they are developing as inquirers. Building from scholarship in Composition and English Education and the findings from a narrative-based qualitative study that included four secondary and post-secondary teachers of writing, I have named this attention to how teachers learn and grow their inquiry processes a learner’s stance for engagement in teacher-inquiry. This stance is a readiness to see and engage professional work with an eye toward growing one’s ability to engage …

Using Embedded Institutes As Professional Development To Create A Culture Of Writing Excellence, Melanie K. Farber

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The following thesis addresses the problem of creating a culture of writing excellence at a large, urban school. I will show how the Embedded Institute model helped our school to reconsider our professional development model and to create writing leaders across the content areas. The thesis will make the argument for something larger than test scores through qualitative feedback from teacher participants.

Adviser: Robert Brooke

The Writing Process: Using Peer Review To Develop Student Writing, Jennifer M. Troester

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The following thesis will explore how peer review through an online writing exchange influences student writers during the writing process. I propose that when students participate in this online writing exchange to peer review, it will assure that they will have a better understanding of the writing process, and more confidence in analyzing their own writing and in themselves as writers. It also makes these students more conscientious of the writing they share with peers because they have a wider audience than just their teacher, and this motivates them to improve their writing. The last part of the document features …

Student Engagement And Action In Classroom And Community: Place-Based Education And Social Action For The High-Achieving Student, Rachel M. Jank

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This paper briefly discusses the work done in a college-preparatory, Senior English class to combat the disengagement present in many educational institutions. This disconnect does not allow for learning retention and, therefore, does not allow for students to apply the moment of learning to life outside of the secondary classroom. The work I do is based off of Jessica Singer Early, Bruce Bigelow, Linda Christensen, and many other master teachers who work with the educational designs of Place Consciousness and Social Action within their respective classrooms. The theories of John Dewey and Paulo Freire suggest that a non-traditional style of …

Living Well: The Value Of Teaching Place, Catherine M. English

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation is a teaching memoir that examines the implementation of a place conscious pedagogy as a means to teach sustainable living practices into a secondary English classroom in a rural Nebraska school. It is framed upon the premise of instilling five senses of place consciousness into students as defined by Haas and Nachtigal (1998) including living well in community or a sense of belonging; living well spiritually or a sense of connection; living well economically or a sense of worth; living well politically or a sense of civic involvement; and living well ecologically or a sense of place. I …