English Language and Literature Commons^™

The Ship Of Fools, Holly Day

The Mythic Circle

If you see a bird in a tree, don’t bother shooting at it.

Read by Nolan Meditz

Mythic Circle #42, The Editors

The Mythic Circle

The Mythic Circle is a creative writing journal devoted to fantasy-inspired creative works; it has been published by the Mythopoeic Society since 1987, and earlier versions of the Society’s creative writing efforts extend to Mythril (1971 to 1980) and Mythellany (1981 to 1987). These journals have now been archived in their entirety at https://dc.swosu.edu/mythsoc/ through the efforts of the Society’s archivist, Phillip Fitzsimmons, and digital assistant Benjamin Dressler. All but the current issue may be downloaded for free, and the current issue may be purchased as a digital download or ordered as a print-on-demand title from Amazon.

In its thirty-three …

Winter 2021 Call For Manuscripts, Jenny M. Martin

Virginia English Journal

No abstract provided.

Writing Conferences For Effective Instruction, Sarah Myroup

Virginia English Journal

This article presents an argument on behalf of writing conferences to provide individualized and personal instruction to foster the growth of students as writers. Writing conferences are an approach that centers around the students’ thoughts and goals for their written pieces and allows the teacher to more deeply understand and assist each writer. To host writing conferences in the most effective way possible, it is recommended that teachers make feedback to each student personal and specific to the piece, that they ask questions to guide conversation, but also that they allow the conference to be structured around and driven by …

Autism Speaks: Extending Grammar In The Classroom To Students With Autism, Bailey Nixon, Ashley Schweizer

Virginia English Journal

Developing sentence variety and elaboration are important skills for all students, so we wanted to create grammar lessons to help children with autism with these critical skills. After assessing a group of lesson plans found in Amy Benjamin and Joan Berger’s (2014) book, Teaching Grammar: What Really Works, we adapted lesson plans to cater to the needs of students with autism. We used strategies such as modeling, think-alouds, Applied Behavior Analysis, and the Discrete Trial Teaching Method. We created our lesson plan revisions in order to provide teachers with the best resources to create an inclusive environment within their …

Defining "Teacher", Kyle D. Trott

Virginia English Journal

The author takes an etymological look at the term “teacher” to humanize the current post-modern teacher’s quarries as to what their purpose is as a teacher. The author explicates the two terms, didaskalōs and pedagogue, to address the competing ideas of the role of a teacher before asserting that success, or virtue, comes in the form of continued development, paideia, of both the teacher and their students. Concluding that the current teacher doesn’t need to be any kind of teacher other than the one who continues to improve.

Making Reading So “Useful” It Sticks, Sarah Tanner-Anderson

Virginia English Journal

In the English language arts classroom, students must not only understand and appreciate the value of reading, writing, and speaking, but they must also learn, employ, and hone these skills for use as contributing members of their current and future societies. Our task, then, is to make learning so “useful” that it sticks-- to build a strong foundation of literacy that may continue to expand as students’ life experiences provide more depth and relevance to their work. For reading, specifically, we must both encourage and support interest, stamina, and understanding of the texts we explore, which is no small feat …

Let’S Get Graphic: The Integration Of Visual Representations To Demonstrate Learning, Courtneay Kelly

Virginia English Journal

Students derive meaning from knowledge that is presented to them in various ways. An instructor may present information through different modalities, though direct verbal instruction is the mode most often employed (Beesley & Apthorp, 2010). Research indicates that, when information is constructed through the use of visual representations, students gain deeper and more enduring understanding of the content (Jewitt, 2008; Kress, 1997). This article provides an explanation and definition of nonlinguistic and linguistic visual representations, a review of what research indicates in the integration of them, and examples of the inclusion of concept-based visual representations in a college course that …

Helping Freshmen Revise:Collaborative Peer Review Through The Eyes Of Students, Jean S. Filetti

Virginia English Journal

No abstract provided.

The Sublime Utility Of Poetry, Louis Gallo

Virginia English Journal

No abstract provided.

Introduction From The Editor And Vate President-Elect, Jenny M. Martin

Virginia English Journal

No abstract provided.

Projects To Enhance And Innovate Learning In The High School English Classroom: A Final Master’S Portfolio, Kayla Welch

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

My purpose for this portfolio is for each reader to look at teaching in a new and innovative way that will guide students and educators. I have resources in each project that will push ideas for new projects or encourage readers to try a new writing mode or novel that they have never tried before. I hope my students are engaged in my variety of lessons and research and feel challenged to push themselves in their own research and writing. I encourage the reader to use the following projects to create a positive writing and reading environment in the classroom.

Simon & Samwise: Big Damn Heroes, Andrew Peterson

Journal of Tolkien Research

Joss Whedon’s seminal TV show Firefly, based on Michael Shaara’s book The Killer Angels, has interesting parallels to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. In both tales, nine disparate people band together on a journey to topple a tyrannical force while protecting a hero burdened with the means to end the struggle against a mighty oppressor. Each hero is blessed with a loyal protector who fiercely defends his charge from threats from within their fellowship and from the world at large. A closer look will reveal the similarities between River Tam and Frodo Baggins and between …

Death As A Gift In J.R.R Tolkien's Work And Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Gaelle Abalea

Journal of Tolkien Research

In the episode “Intervention” (S5 ep.18), when going on a spiritual quest about her nature as a slayer, Buffy is told, by the guide under the form of the first Slayer, that ‘Death is her Gift’. Buffy, a 20^th century young woman is confused by the declaration, as are the viewers unless they have read the Silmarilliion, in which the Elves refer to human mortality as the Gift of Illuvatar, a gift they greatly envy.

Writing decades apart, Tolkien and Whedon may not have the same use of the word “gift” as their background and inspirations are quite different …

Introduction To Special Issue: J.R.R. Tolkien And The Works Of Joss Whedon, Janet Brennan Croft, Kristine Larsen

Journal of Tolkien Research

Describes the impetus for and contents of the special issue on Tolkien and Whedon.

Faulknerian Echoes And The Grotesque In Mccarthy’S The Orchard Keeper, William Haynes

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Faulknerian Echoes and the Grotesque in McCarthy’s The Orchard Keeper (August 2020)

William Leland Haynes, B. A., Texas A&M International University

Chair of Committee: Dr. Manuel Broncano

This thesis is an exploration of Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner’s craft through a focus on their works The Orchard Keeper and “Barn Burning.” This analysis charts the two dialoguing or conversing with each other across times through the art of their writings.

The basis of this project examines a key phrase from “Barn Burning,” where the problem of doing the right thing creates a conflict of identity within the story’s young …

Posting About Blm Made It A Movement Pushing For Real Change, Nolan Michaels

Pop Culture Intersections

Although social media includes opposing views that have unified against BLM, it has been responsible for massive growth of the movement. In this paper, I will show how social media plays a pivotal role in BLM by scaling up the movement and encouraging more nuanced and diverse perspectives on BLM to develop. Although all social media platforms are used to promote BLM, my examination will focus mainly on Twitter because it is the primary platform analyzed by scholars that investigates the growth of BLM. What MLK was able to accomplish by tapping into the new medium of television is now …

“They Do Us The Honour Of Treating Us Like Gods, And We Respond By Treating Them Like Things”: The Problem With Fathers In William Shakespeare’S Titus Andronicus And J.M. Coetzee’S Disgrace, Colleen Walsh

Theses and Dissertations

Titus Andronicus’s obsession with honor eclipses his daughter's agency whereas David Lurie’s acceptance of his daughter's choices ultimately creates conditions of possibility. Coetzee represents Lurie as ultimately shedding patriarchal preoccupation with “dignity” and “honor.”

Journey Into The Self: Essays On Biculturalism, Heidi Moe Graviet

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines what it means to exist as a bicultural being and how one approaches creating and negotiating a multicultural identity in terms of names, war, religion, belonging, and loss. In Narrow Road to the Interior, Matsuo Bashō embarks upon a journey of transcendence and self-discovery into the interior regions of Japan. In doing so, he establishes a Japanese writing tradition that centers around introspective journey-taking and writing oneself into truth and being. This thesis examines, participates in, and expands upon this writing tradition as it follows one Japanese American woman’s attempts to selfhood. Ultimately, it proposes the idea …

Merleau-Ponty's Poetic Of The World: Philosophy And Literature [Table Of Contents], Galen A. Johnson, Emmanuel De Saint Aubert, Mauro Carbone

Philosophy & Theory

Merleau-Ponty’s Poets and Poetics offers detailed studies of the philosopher’s engagements with Proust, Claudel, Claude Simon, André Breton, Mallarmé, Francis Ponge, and more. From Proust, Merleau-Ponty developed his conception of “sensible ideas,” from Claudel, his conjoining of birth and knowledge as “co-naissance,” from Valéry came “implex” or the “animal of words” and the “chiasma of two destinies.” Thus also arise the questions of expression, metaphor, and truth and the meaning of a Merleau-Pontyan poetics. The poetic of Merleau-Ponty is, inseparably, a poetic of the flesh, a poetic of mystery, and a poetic of the visible in its relation …