Education Commons^™

An Interdisciplinary Lesson Plan Of Social Studies And English Language Arts For Third Graders, Sidney L. Yant

Honors Theses

My name is Sidney Yant and I am a current senior honors student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I am majoring in Elementary Education. For my honors senior project, I have created a four-week-long unit lesson plan that focuses on English Language Arts and Social Studies. This unit starts off with two weeks of separate lesson plans for English Language Arts and Social Studies and then the last two weeks the lessons are completely integrated together into one plan.

Lincoln's Carnegie Library: A History Of Community And Philanthropy, Emily Blomstedt

Honors Theses

Nebraska received 69 Carnegie libraries from the Carnegie foundation between 1899 and 1922. The first and most expensive Nebraska Carnegie library was granted to Lincoln in December 1899, after a fire destroyed Lincoln’s previous library. Lincoln’s main Carnegie library served the community between 1902 and 1960 before it was torn down in 1961 to build the present-day Bennett Martin library. This thesis explores the 60-year history of Lincoln’s Carnegie library, how it connects to national trends surrounding Carnegie libraries, and the role community and philanthropy played in the development of Lincoln’s public library system. These themes are examined through a …

Exploring The Role Of Curricular Engagement In The Secondary English Classroom: A Case Study, Kelsey Leah Baldwin

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Educational engagement is an issue that has become problematic due to the many changes that have occurred since COVID, including technological dependency and teacher burnout. Teachers may need more skills to manage and implement engagement strategies in the classroom setting. Understanding educators’ experiences with classroom engagement in a variety of secondary English classrooms is the setting of this case study. The central research question explores how educators experience student engagement in their classrooms. The theory guiding this study is Bandura’s social cognitive theory, as I utilize the theory to examine behaviors affected by people and the classroom environment. This research …

Carmen Learns English, Ashley Beckstrom Dokter

Diverse Families Bookshelf Lesson Plans and Activities

The Student will be able to identify and describe the main story elements in Carmen Learns English. ● The Student will be able to identify and explain the moral of Carmen Learns English. ● The Student will be able to present information orally using complete sentences and appropriate volume.

The Double Entry Journal, Doreen C. Bowens

Open Educational Resources

The Double Entry Journal is a note-taking technique for English Composition courses that encourages students to become active readers.

Defining And Transferring Digital Literacies: What Does This Mean For High School And College Educators?, Jocelyn Spoor

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis aims to create a digital literacies transfer framework through a discussion regarding current conversations on transfer and digital literacies in the English field, including synthesizing the two ideas to think about the transfer of digital literacies as a concept. This digital literacies framework is made up of five components: the functional skills, critical skills, and rhetorical skills found in digital literacies scholarship and the genre awareness and meta-cognitive ideas found in transfer literature. This digital literacies transfer framework is then used to analyze information gleaned from four college and five high school English educators. The key findings from …

Education Gender Gaps In The Mountain West, 2022, Miguel Soriano Ralston, Lana Kojoian, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

K-12 Education

This fact sheet examines data from the Brookings Institution publication “Boys Left Behind: Education Gender Gaps Across the U.S.” authored by Brookings Senior Fellow Richard V. Reeves and Research Analyst Ember Smith. The original report includes data on gender gaps in college degree attainment, high school graduation rates, and test scores throughout the U.S. This fact sheet highlights the percentage of women and men with college degrees, percentage of women and men graduating on time, Math and English test score gender gaps, and rankings of education gender gaps in the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and …

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/

Engl 130: Writing About Literature In English, Kimberley A. Garcia

Open Educational Resources

This Open and Free Educational Resource (OER) and Zero-Cost Syllabus outlines a set of course materials for English 130: Writing about Literature in English. The course materials provided (all open education resources) include both written and visual texts to accompany and encourage multimodal assignments. The materials provided address literary analysis or composition practices and are adaptable to specific topics or literary works. The course model presented consists of three units (literary analysis, rhetorical analysis & scholarly engagement, and independent research).

Life, Strength, Woman: English Translation Of Julia De Burgos’S Poetry, Alexis Stoffers

Honors Theses

The purpose of this translation project is to make Puerto Rican feminist and political activist Julia de Burgos’s poetry available to a wider audience. Its feminist themes and exploration of powerful emotions are just as relevant today as they were in Burgos’s lifetime. Translating these poems to English in the twenty-first century means a whole new generation of developing women will have access to Burgos’s words. They will feel Burgos’s deep and intricate emotions and understand that it’s okay to struggle as long as they remain true to themselves. A detailed history of Burgos’s life accompanies the translated poems in …

Dancing And Poetry: A Study Of The Whirling Dervish Dance Through Rumi’S Poetry, Tasneem Huq

Honors Theses

This exploration investigates the influence of Rumi’s book of poetry, Mathnawi, upon the Sufi practice of the Whirling Dervish dances. It argues that Rumi’s Mathnawi underlies the choreography of the Whirling Dervish dances. Each step of the dance expresses, manifests or embodies themes found in Rumi’s poetry: separation from Unity, ascension, annihilation, and a return to Unity. The thesis introduces this argument, and then discusses historical, theological, and linguistic themes related to Rumi, Sufism, and the Whirling Dervish dances. Following this, the thesis provides a framework that begins with the Neoplatonic theory of emanation grounding Rumi’s poetic thought, followed by …

Nasty Woman: An Analysis Of Women's Rage In Popular Culture, Sarah Kee

Honors Theses

The goal of this senior project was to analyze the underlying cause for why certain female characters in popular culture were villainized for their behavior and generally deemed to be “nasty woman.” After reading numerous books and viewing films that contained “nasty woman”, there was a common denominator that linked their behavior and influenced their decision to enact their often-bloody retribution: the patriarchy. These women were a victim of some aspect of the patriarchy, commonly sexual assault, and could not receive the support they needed, so they decided to take matters into their own hands. The “nasty women” analyzed in …

The Impact Of Women On The Life And Legacy Of Mark Antony, Lauren E. Yaple

Honors Theses

Throughout the life of Mark Antony, the women he became involved with had a large impact on his political career, life, and legacy. These women, such as Fulvia and Cleopatra, used Antony as a means to achieve their own political, economic, and personal goals and were able to gain power in a very anti-feminist society through their relationships with and manipulations of him, affecting the career of Antony in many ways including his politics and his actions as a military commander, as showcased by the examination of primary sources from the late Roman Republic and early Roman empire periods. This …

Teaching Writing To Middle School Students With Disabilities: A Merc Research Brief, David Naff, Jennifer Askue-Collins, Julie S. Dauksys

MERC Publications

This research brief by the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium explores peer reviewed literature about effective strategies for teaching writing to middle school students with disabilities. It answers the following questions: 1) Why is it important to teach writing? 2) What is the nature of the challenge in teaching writing to middle school students with disabilities? 3) What interventions help with teaching writing to middle school students with disabilities? and 4) What strategies are utilized in the MERC region for teaching writing to middle school students with disabilities?

Variations In Project-Based Course Design, Eun Hye Son, Tara Penry

Literacy, Language, and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

Project-based learning (PjBL) is seeing increasing scholarly interest and pedagogical use in higher education, but instances of PjBL do not necessarily seek the same educational outcomes. Using the grounded theory method, the authors plot five courses in a PjBL program on a matrix of course design characteristics ranging from Fixed to Flexible and Individualistic to Cooperative. They describe four major variations of PjBL based on this matrix. Recognizing that PjBL courses vary in their use of student choice and student collaboration, the authors make recommendations for assessment researchers and for teachers wishing to develop new strategies that fit their institutional …

Using Song To Teach Sight Words, Taylor Hagood Guin

Graduate Research Showcase

This research is about how a group of seven kindergarten classes used a short and straightforward song to recognize the following six common kindergarten sight words: on, off, up, us, no, & go. As a current music educator and former middle grades English teacher, I wanted to create an opportunity to establish cross-curricular connections in my music classroom. For this specific experiment, seven different classes, including General Education, Self-Contained Special Education, and English Language Learning classes, were selected. They were taught these six sight word songs through the “Sight Word Song.” I selected the sight words specifically because the students …

Learning Loss Among Adolescent Girls During The Covid-19 Pandemic In Rural Bangladesh, Sajeda Amin, Md. Irfan Hossain, Sigma Ainul

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Poor learning remains a central challenge in Bangladesh despite considerable progress in advancing schooling access and reducing gender gaps in education. The learning crisis is feared to have been exacerbated during extended school closures and limited alternative opportunities for schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic. This brief summarizes findings on learning loss among adolescent girls during the pandemic in rural Bangladesh.

Adolescent Girls And Covid-19: Mapping The Evidence On Interventions, Sarah Blake, Miriam Temin, Tara Abularrage, Nihal Said

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

With the COVID-19 crisis continuing to evolve, evidence on the effectiveness of short-term emergency-oriented responses and long-term mitigation strategies is expanding but still limited. There are, and will continue to be, substantial evidence gaps on programming to address risk across outcomes of importance to adolescent girls. More evidence is needed to slow the risks posed by the pandemic for this subpopulation, which can help guide gender- and age-responsive prevention and impact mitigation investments. Evidence from approaches delivered in other unstable contexts may offer important lessons for decision-making in the current context. Recognizing this, the Population Council conducted a structured review …

Getting Girls Back To School In Kenya: The 4ts ('Trace, Track, Talk And Return') Initiative Implementation Report, George Odwe, Chi-Chi Undie, Ann Gachoya, Truphena Kirongo, Fredrick Kiiru, Jane Njogu

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Covid-19 pandemic led to devastating economic and social disruptions globally including in the education sector. The pandemic disrupted access to both sexual and reproductive health services and safe spaces. As a result, many girls faced vulnerabilities that inhibited access to basic education, including risks of child marriage, early pregnancy, gender-based violence, female genital mutilation/cutting, sexual exploitation, and child labor. The negative impact of Covid-19 on girls' education underscores the need for interventions addressing the effect on school re-entry and retention. Kenya has a favorable policy environment for supporting retention within, and re-entry into, schools for vulnerable girls. Notable core …

Research Visualization On Teaching, Language, Learning Of English And Higher Education Institutions From 2011 To 2020: A Bibliometric Evidences, Dr. Muhammad Shoaib, Mr. Nusrat Ali, Dr. Behzad Anwar, Dr. Shamshad Rasool, Dr. Raza-E Mustafa, Mr. Shi Zici

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

No abstract provided.

To Read Or Not To Read: Navigating Young Adult Literature In The Classroom In The Age Of Trigger Warnings And Banned Books, Ashley Sell

Honors Projects

Most public school libraries or English classrooms celebrate Banned Books Week during the school year, featuring dozens of Young Adult novels that have been challenged or banned in public schools across the country. However, books aimed towards young readers are typically not optimized for educational use in the classroom. In this project, I will explore the benefits of using Young Adult literature in the classroom, while also investigating the obstacles that one might face in order to do so, i.e. censorship, sensitive subject matter. I also want to summarize and respond to an argument for the retainment of classic literature …

Silent Film: A Visual Narrative For Developing Linguistic Competence, Patricia George

Open Educational Resources

Visual narratives in silent films are an effective method for developing linguistic competence in English language education and are equally constructive in developing critical thinking skills across disciplines. “Silent film, more than any other film property, capitalizes on ESL students’ visual literacy, using it as both a foundation and a catalyst for honing the verbal language skills that are key to acquiring and articulating complex knowledge in English” (Kasper and Singer, 2001). Silent films rely on the power of vivid, interactive visual imagery to depict personal struggles, character interactions, and plot development. This medium grabs the attention of ESL students …

Impact Of Multimodal First-Year Composition Courses On Student Success, Satisfaction, And Growth, Abdullah Mir

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Universities have shifted towards pedagogies involving different modes of composition. However, little focus has been shown on students’ ability to transfer learned skills to other fields. Florida International University (FIU) addressed this problem by retooling their First Year Composition (FYC) curriculum in 2013, including more multimodal opportunities for students. This thesis will look into how FIU addresses students’ ability to transfer their skills and their dispositions. The thesis analyzed anonymous surveys conducted on site in 2021 and assesses whether students believe they have been able to transfer their learned skills outside the classroom. By using grounded theory and coding to …

Girls' Education Roadmap: 2021 Report Summary, Stephanie Psaki, Nicole Haberland, Meredith L. Kozak, Lauren Woyczynski

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

While insufficient to meet the vast needs, billions of dollars are being invested in girls’ education advocacy, program, and policy solutions around the world. At the same time, hundreds of millions are invested in research about what works in education. And yet, the policies and approaches that are pursued often don’t line up with what researchers find is effective. The result is that governments, international organizations, and NGOs are too often investing scarce resources in policies or interventions without knowing whether they work. As noted in this report summary, the Girls’ Education Roadmap shares insights derived from data in the …

Girls' Education Roadmap: 2021 Report, Stephanie Psaki, Nicole Haberland, Meredith L. Kozak, Lauren Woyczynski

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

While insufficient to meet the vast needs, billions of dollars are being invested in girls’ education advocacy, program, and policy solutions around the world. At the same time, hundreds of millions are invested in research about what works in education. And yet, the policies and approaches that are pursued often don’t line up with what researchers find is effective. The result is that governments, international organizations, and NGOs are too often investing scarce resources in policies or interventions without knowing whether they work. In partnership with Echidna Giving, the GIRL Center at the Population Council developed the Evidence for Gender …

Reviewing Tools For Evaluating K-12 Instructional Materials Through An Implementation Lens, Kristen R. Rolf, Sarah E. Pinkelman, Kaitlin Bundock

Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling Faculty Publications

This review examined how state-created tools for evaluating instructional materials support local schools and school districts to address implementation when adopting instructional materials. We followed a priori, systematic procedures to conduct a web search and visit each state’s department of education website in search of instructional materials evaluation tools. After identifying all of the state-created instructional materials evaluation tools in the areas of English/language arts and mathematics, we reviewed the tools and coded them for evidence of alignment with the six implementation indicators defined by the Hexagon Tool (Metz and Louison, The Hexagon Tool: exploring context. Based on Kiser, Zabel, …

Integrating L1 In L2 Classrooms: The Case Of Arabic As A Foreign Language In Us Universities, Martin Isleem

Faculty Journal Articles

For many years, instructors and scholars of the Arabic language in American high- er education schools have debated two pedagogical questions: (1) whether or not non-standardized Arabic varieties, Spoken Arabic, should be integrated with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in the foreign Arabic classroom, and if so, (2) what that integration should look like (see Al-Batal, 2017). One of the prominent claims of those favoring MSA in the classroom is that MSA is the more prestigious language variety and therefore better represents Arabic literature, religious tradition and culture (Ryding, 1995:226) However, in the last two decades there has been an evolving …

Writing Priorities Across Academic Disciplines, Ashley Conway

Summer Scholarship, Creative Arts and Research Projects (SCARP)

This project examines the writing priorities of varied disciplines at Elizabethtown College to better understand what they value in student writing. A survey sent to faculty collected discipline-specific writing concerns and information about writing requirements beyond foundational courses. It also gathered thoughts on how EN100, Etown’s introductory English composition course, supports or fails upper-level writing. Follow-up interviews were conducted with select faculty. Faculty responded that sentence mechanics errors, paragraphs that lack unity or feel disorganized, failure to find effective sources when needed, and lack of clarity at the word or sentence level were the most problematic common writing errors when …

The Imagen Story: A Framework For Restoring Indigenous Girl Societies, Kelly Hallman, Lisa Polen, Katey Peck

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Indigenous Adolescent Girls’ Empowerment Network (IMAGEN) builds upon long-standing Native cultural traditions, providing platforms for intergenerational transmission of matrilineal knowledge. Girl Societies recognize the unique responsibilities held by and challenges facing Native girls, thus offering culturally grounded, Indigenous-led systems of support.

An Examination Of Risk Factors Of Cancer, Nathaniel Teague

Fall Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

My goal for this research project is to examine risk factors pertaining to the likelihood of developing cancer, to examine weather or not cancer is a largely genetic or lifestyle disease, and to come up a number of clearly defined recommendations and takeaway points that a general audience could apply.