Education Commons^™

Judicial Rhetoric And The Rhetoric Of Myth In "Till We Have Faces", Maria Wilkening

Master of Arts in Classical Studies

C.S. Lewis is unquestionably one of the more enduring influences in the 20th century, due in part to his personal popularity during his lifetime, as well as to his prolific and approachable oeuvre in wide-ranging genres such as apologetics, fiction, and public debate and address. Lewis has only become more popular since his death, with continued interest building after the more recent development of movie interpretations depicting both his fiction and life. C.S. Lewis’s corpus is certainly vast, and even more has been written about C.S. Lewis and his writings since his death. Strong scholarship exists, particularly in the areas …

Challenging Dominant Ideologies In Order To Center Marginalized Voices And Enrich Learning: Theorizing Social Justice In English Studies Teaching, Heather Holliger

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio explores the reproduction of and challenges to dominant ideologies in popular culture and scholarly contexts and examines pedagogies for advancing social justice in the field of English studies through three distinct but interconnected projects. The first project considers pedagogy in the public sphere, examining the power of the meme genre to serve as “critical public pedagogy” within movements for social change. The second project focuses on the role of dominant norms in reproducing social injustices through classroom writing assessment, offering insights from antiracist, queer, feminist, decolonial, translingual, and disability justice scholars. The paper also reviews composition scholars’ strategies …

Educator Professional Development As Rhetorical Situation, Bethany Leigh Creswell Wilson

English Theses & Dissertations

Teacher effectiveness is recognized as the most prominent in-school influencer of student learning, and professional development (PD) of in-service educators is seen as vital to improving teachers’ effectiveness throughout their careers. Professional development is often studied atheoretically and with a linear view in which PD providers deliver instruction and teachers receive and apply that instruction as it was delivered to them. By casting them as passive, blank-slate receivers and automatic appliers of the PD, this view obscures the complexities of teachers’ role in PD. Examining educator PD through the lens of rhetoric, and viewing the PD experience as a rhetorical …

The Key Role Of Social Media In Students’ Understanding Of The Rhetorical Situation, Olivia Montine

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Gen-Z students have been chastised repeatedly for their lack of attention span, addiction to social media, and inability to complete tasks in school in the manner of generations past (Richtel). It would not be productive to attempt to reform the way current college students process information, as their upbringing has largely altered their attention span and methods of content consumption. Older modes of understanding on how to write in a college composition class do not take this into account. What if the method of instruction professors utilized shifted to better meet the capabilities of college students in 2023? To answer …

Neil Postman's Loving Resistance Fighter: A Philosophy Of Communication In The Age Of Technopoly, Ryan Mccullough

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project walks the work of Neil Postman (1931-2003) into the philosophy of communication. Traditional conceptions of Neil Postman’s body of work position his ideas within the traditions of media ecology, general semantics, or, more broadly, as a form of media studies and criticism. In addition, others label Postman’s work, especially in Technopoly (1992), as pessimistic, deterministic, and/or imbibed with Luddite tendencies. This project articulates a different view and contends that Postman’s scholarship, in particular his articulation of the loving resistance fighter in the final chapter of Technopoly, is committed to resisting the nefarious forces embedded in both technology …

Failure Facing Pedagogy In First-Year Rhetoric And Composition Classrooms, Karuna Minh Hin

English (MA) Theses

Failure in academia is commonly defined as not succeeding, missing the mark, or receiving a “below average grade or score” (Inoue 333). However, this perception of failure works to instill a fear in students that may last through their academic journey. Throughout a student’s academic journey, they are taught to operate within the binary of success and failure. “According to self-worth theory, in school, where one’s worth is largely measured by one’s ability to achieve, self-perceptions of incompetence can trigger feelings of shame and humiliation" (De Castella, Byrne and Covington 862). Teachers have attempted to address this problem throughout first-year …

Isocrates's Place In Postmodern Advertising, Christopher Barkley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study in communication and rhetoric seeks to ascertain constructive applications for distinct advertising practices by examining Isocrates’s work and place in postmodern advertising. The focus uses 5 principles known to Isocrates which are: 1) commonwealths of households, 2) integration of reputation, elegance, substance and style, 3) education and public discourse, 4) phronesis and praxis, and 5) truth and verisimilitude. These 5 principles can form a constructive and practical advertising approach. This study is important. It examines Isocrates through the lens of advertising and extends the research done about him by leading Isocrates scholars who have looked primarily at his …

Zapatista Maya Literacies And Decolonial Civic Pedagogies, Juan Moisés García-Rentería

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Zapatista Maya Literacies and Decolonial Civic Pedagogies evaluates an educational outreach project led by an Indigenous grass roots mobilization in the high plateau of central México, the Zapatista movement. Using retrospective narrative inquiry and theoretically informed perspectives, this dissertation shows that the program of the Zapatista escuelita, Spanish for “little school,” is rooted in the Maya educational paradigm of nojptesel-p’ijubtasel, a cultural and political process of socialization at the heart of contemporary Maya peasant families. The research focus of this study offers rhetoric, composition, and literacy studies two interrelated points of insight tied to the overall Maya conception of the …

Walking Back The System Trope: Reimagining Incarceration And The State Through A Spatial Theory Approach, Cody Hunter

All Dissertations

This dissertation critiques the systems theory approach to incarceration policy, practice, and research and proposes a rhetorically informed spatial theory approach as an alternative. Offering a non-hierarchical complexity theory as a bridge between systems and space, I then integrate rhetorical listening as a strategy for navigating and operationalizing our proposed spatial theory approach. I then apply our proposed methodology to archival research, focusing on the South Carolina Penitentiary as a case study, and offer two heuretic experiments to explore the range of this methodology for archival research. I also explore potential applications of this rhetorically informed spatial theory approach in …

Reading With Social, Digital Annotation: Encouraging Engaged Critical Reading In A Challenging Age, Miranda L. Egger

English Theses & Dissertations

This design-based research study examines the pedagogical role of social, digital annotation in teaching reading as rhetorical invention, particularly the kind of invention necessary for thoughtful democratic participation in the contemporary discursive era, often described as troubled. In this dissertation study, I deployed a classroom-based intervention meant to challenge how educators in rhetoric and composition/writing studies might directly address the acute and exigent discursive struggle in the first-year composition classroom. This study ultimately finds that social, digital annotation invites significant shifts in students’ reading habits, in that Hypothes.is-based annotations yielded a far more complex, multifaceted set of reading skills, behaviors, …

Mental Illness Diagnosis And The Construction Of Stigma, Katie Lynn Walkup

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how mental health legislation and related policy documents contribute to identification, diagnosis, and stigmatization. Using a mixed methods approach including content and stylometric text analysis with R as a heuristic for close and critical reading, I demonstrate how these documents normalize mental health concerns as a public threat. To do this work, I analyze how the Florida Mental Health Act (Chapter 394) and the Florida Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act (SB 7026) circulate and sustain dominant narratives about mental illness. I trace where these narratives are distributed into Florida school districts’ mandatory mental health …

“Pertinent And Plain”: Robert Barclay And The Transformation Of Quaker Silence, Samuel Phillips

All ETDs from UAB

Scholarship on Quaker rhetoric has frequently neglected the subversive possibilities of Quaker pamphleteering, particularly in the period following the publication of Robert Barclay’s Apology. This article develops an epistemological framework based on the Apology and demonstrates that although Quaker pamphleteers during this “Quietist” period asserted the honesty and transparency of their use of language, the Apology works to license certain circumlocutionary moves which Quaker authors used to obscure potentially seditious or heretical ideas. It focuses on two classical rhetorical figures, paralipsis and aposiopesis. Through a close reading of pamphlets written before and after the publication of the Apology, it demonstrates …

There And Back Again: An Educator's Journey, Chrysta Wilson

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio includes two research projects, one seminar paper, and one pedagogical project that demonstrate the author's diverse course experiences and growth as a writer and as an educator in the Professional Writing and Rhetoric specialization.

Dawn Of The Undead Classroom: Pop-Culture In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Sierra A. Ellison

English (MA) Theses

Supplemented by the findings of her IRB certified research project, Sierra A. Ellison delves into the positive effects pop culture and genre have on the first-year composition classroom, exploring how engaging students through a common discourse that is relatable and comfortable can aid in their writing and composition progression. She explains how teaching under a framework such as the undead and examining these types of thematic material can engage students in the material and give students the space to open up about key issues like race, sex, politics, morality, and consumerism that they might be reluctant to discuss otherwise.

A Competitive Education: How Charter Schools Include And Exclude, Talia M. Bromberg

Scripps Senior Theses

A Competitive Education examines how the charter school movement is one of both inclusion and exclusion, while also serving as a study in rhetorical theory. Written as a senior thesis in the discipline of Writing and Rhetoric, this paper includes an introduction and reflection analyzing the text of the document from a rhetorical perspective. The article, written in a journalistic style, is presented in two ways: first, as one long article, and then as two shorter articles. The content of the articles looks at the history, politics, and real world effects of the charter school movement in California and across …

From Small Beginnings To Large-Scale Harm: On Demagoguery And Misogyny In The Classroom And Writing Center, Shannon Roberson

Theses and Dissertations

My project is grounded in the rhetorical concept of aretê—excellence or virtue—as it relates to education and educational spaces within demagogic and misogynist cultural forces. The problems of demagoguery and misogyny stem from small-scale perpetuation of agonistic norms that go unaddressed in U.S. culture, a culture that is deeply identity-driven. These forces persist on social media platforms and within patriarchal systems of education.

For my project, I suggest rhetorical media literacy education of small-scale demagoguery moments on social media as a way to bring awareness to larger-scale events. On a micro-scale, social media influencers cultivate behaviors that mimic demagogic …

New Gta’S And The Pre-Semester Orientation: The Need For Informed Refinement, Jessica L. Griffith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In a First Year Composition (FYC) setting, many courses are taught by graduate assistants, regardless of if these instructors are truly qualified to teach. Incoming instructors must balance their roles as students with that of brand-new teachers, with each of them attempting to incorporate their own pedagogical approach. Therefore, it would benefit FYC programs to have a solid training program in place, specifically with the pre-semester orientation, in order to smoothly transition these new instructors.

To clarify, this is not to suggest that many programs are not already strong. It does suggest that programs must adapt to the changing climate …

Cultivating A New Educator: Teacher And Students Sharing Growth, Megan Campbell

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This is Megan Campell-Looney's final portfolio for her M.A. in English (with a specialization in teaching). It includes a reflective narrative and four revised pieces: "A Murderous Moral Tale: Depictions of the Ideal Victorian in Wilkie Collins' Jezebel's Daughter," "Critical Thinking and Counseling Through the Power of Literature," Developing an American Identity: Syllabus and Assignment Plan," and "Evolving and Adapting Rhetoric and Theory: Indigenous Theory Writing Back." The portfolio focuses on research and study that developed Looney's classroom pedagogy and philosophy. Students and educators both must write back to gain the agency needed for growth.

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 …

Remaking Identities, Reworking Graduate Study : Stories From First-Generation-To-College Rhetoric And Composition Phd Students On Navigating The Doctorate., Ashanka Kumari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation responds to the decreasing number of first-generation-to-college doctorates in the humanities and the limited scholarship on graduate students in Rhetoric and Composition. Scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have long been invested in discussions of academic and/or disciplinary enculturation, yet these discussions primarily focus on undergraduate students, with few studies on graduate students and far fewer on the doctoral students training to become the next wave of a profession. In this dissertation, I argue that if we engage intersectional identities as assets in the design of doctoral programs, access to higher education and academic enculturation can become more manageable …

Literature In The World: A Critical Discourse Study Of World Literature Pedagogy, Elisa Cogbill-Seiders

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

“Literature in the World” is a critical discourse analysis of world literature pedagogy in U.S. higher education. It investigates the ways discourse communities in higher education produce and shape the field of world literature. The dissertation begins by establishing and analyzing the generic conventions of university mission statements, finding they are primarily dominated by discourse on global learning. It follows with an analysis of world literature course descriptions from the same schools. World literature course descriptions alternatively replicate, resist, or subvert global learning discourses. The last chapter uses findings from the first two chapters to trace how university and instructor …

Unraveling Identity Signifier Literacy: A Case Study Of First-Year Composition Students' Communication Practices, Bailey Mcalister

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Identity signifier literacy is defined as one’s ability to accurately read – via personal interactions or via visual, verbal, written, or digital communication – the signifiers others display in direct and indirect ways and interpret these signifiers to gain understanding of others’ identities. In this study, 22 first-year composition students were surveyed about their communication practices in order to see how their identity signifier literacies influence and are influenced by digital environments and composition. These results are meant to improve first-year composition pedagogy by making connections between students’ informal composition practices and their academic composition courses.

Literacy Education Across Languages In Writing Centers., Lance M Gibson

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

Literacy education in writing carried out through writing centers (WCs) is a practice that occurs beyond one individual language; rather, almost every developed country provides some extent of education regarding written communication in an alternate language, whether facilitated through a WC or a classroom. Many of these countries’ methods for writing education have been documented in either self-reported evaluation or surveys; however, this documentation of methods is only the beginning of a larger conversation about how these international writing methods have evolved into discussions on topics related to these methods. Writing education that occurs in multiples languages within the same …

Bursting The Filter Bubble: Information Literacy And Questions Of Valuation, Navigation, And Control In A Digital Landscape, Komysha Hassan

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The evolution of social media platforms and other public forums in the digital realm has created an explosion of user-generated content and data as a component of the already content-saturated digital landscape. The distributed, horizontal nature of the internet as a platform makes it difficult to ascertain value and differentiate between texts of varying validity, bias, and purpose. In addition, the internet is not an inanimate interface. As Pariser (2011) argues, content aggregators, such as Google, actively filter, personalize, and therefore limit each individual's access to information, in both range and type. This has created a crisis of information valuation …

Investigating The Causes And Cures For Unclear Scholarly Writing, Marlene Ingrid Mahony

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative dissertation investigated possible causes and cures for unclear scholarly writing. For this study, a stipulative definition of unclear scholarly writing, or “academese,” is that the language tends to be vague and verbose. The problem, according to the included literature, is that people who use or accept vague language have less academic, social, professional, and civic power. Academese, some say, can detach readers and that can accordingly diminish collective exchange. Because higher education is meant to share knowledge, promote agency, and prepare students to communicate powerfully within and beyond the university, this study researched the causes and cures of …

Multimodal Pedagogies, Processes And Projects: Writing Teachers Know More Than We May Think About Teaching Multimodal Composition, Jessica B. Gordon

Theses and Dissertations

Multimodal writing refers to texts that use more than one communicative mode to convey information. While there is much scholarship that examines the history of alphabetic writing instruction and the alphabetic composing processes of students, little research explores the historical origins of multimodal composition and the processes in which students engage as they compose multimodal texts. This two-part project takes a fresh approach to studying multimodal writing by exploring the multimodal pedagogies of ancient Greek and Roman rhetoric and writing teachers, analyzing the role of mental and physical images in modern writers’ composing practices, and investigating contemporary students’ processes for …

Excavating Eportfolios: What Student-Driven Data Reveals About Multimodal Composition And Instruction, Amanda M. Licastro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The pedagogical practice of asking students to compose in open, online spaces has grown rapidly in recent years along with an increase in institutional and financial support. In fact, in July 2013, the Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) announced the “coming of age” of ePortfolios as the percentage of higher education students using ePortfolios rose above the 50% mark in the U.S. (“About”). There are a host of constituent assertions that support the use of open online writing platforms in college-level courses. These claims include that writing publically cultivates digital literacy through broader audience awareness, facilitates interactivity …

Math As Text, Rhetoric As Reason: Can The Humanities Save Math Education?, Elizabeth Melendez

KSU Journey Honors College Capstones and Theses

As a student I had always struggled hopelessly with math. I noticed many of my classmates and associates outside of school shared similar experiences with this subject. However, a unique convergence of fortuitous circumstances shed some much needed light on my difficulties with math. Using a creative and communicative approach, I was able to analyze my experience from a rhetorical perspective, which allowed me to see more clearly, not just the problem I was having with math, but the overall problems many seem to have with math education. My findings were astonishing and became the subject of my research for …

Your Face Betrays You: A Fantasy Theme Analysis Of Lie To Me, Caroline Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research concerning the consequences of edutainment has revealed that television shows have the capability to influence audience members. As the lines between education and entertainment are becoming increasingly blurred, viewers may not be aware of how watching such shows impacts them. Lie to Me is a popular edutainment television series that educates viewers about the power of micro expressions. Ekman has dedicated a large part of his life to the development of research related to micro expressions. The show’s main character, Cal Lightman, portrayed Paul Ekman’s special talents and knowledge through his ability to detect micro expressions. The first three …

Politics And Pedagogy: Recuperating Rhetoric And Composition's Native Ethical Tradition, Derek Risse

Wayne State University Dissertations

Over the past decade, scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have shown renewed interest in the topic of ethics, prompting what some have described as an ethical turn in the discipline. Spurred by a deep-seated concern for the legacies of humanism, scholars have turned increasingly to extra-disciplinary referents in continental philosophy. This dissertation works to recuperate the discipline’s native ethical tradition via a critical rereading of the often-implicit treatment of ethics in Composition scholarship of the 1980s and 1990s. Returning to this “critical” moment and emphasizing the rich thinking around the question of ethics provides fuller and more disciplinary-specific resources for …