English Language and Literature Commons^™

The Embodiment Of Theory In Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts, Julie A. Ficks

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this research is to explore how Maggie Nelson, in her groundbreaking memoir The Argonauts (2015), works to bring critical theory (primarily queer and feminist theory) out of the academy and into the realm of the personal, rendering theory as tangible and embodied in a real-world setting. Through this unique exchange, Nelson radically reinstates norms relating to gender, sexuality, motherhood and relationships.

Suffering And The Black Female Narrative In The Twentieth Century, Aquilah Jourdain

Dissertations and Theses

Adventure, romance, and happiness are not large parts of the stories Black women tell. If we had to name ten mainstream literary novels released in the last 50 years that featured Black women central to the plot — and included the aforementioned themes — we would be hard-pressed to find them. Though there are real life accounts of love, joy, and adventure in the lives of Black women, why do we see these life experiences documented sparingly? In the stories written by andforBlack women, where can Black female readers find joy in their history and culture without elements of grave …

"Dawn And Doom Was In The Branches": Eros Revisited In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Fernando M. Duran

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Revolution, Reform, And Class Conflict In Rebecca Harding Davis’S Life In The Iron-Mills, Thomas Collins

Dissertations and Theses

Life in the Iron-Mills (1861) by Rebecca Harding Davis is a very early example of American fiction that depicts the living and working conditions in a mill town. Although the novella advocates for workers, it does not accurately depict contemporaneous working-class culture. Davis depicts workers as isolated and helpless in the face of the forces that oppress them rather than giving voice to the workers’ movement of her time. Although Davis depicts workers in a debased state, the text’s narrator holds out hope of the “Dawn,” suggesting a revolutionary movement. Because the narrator offers no interpretation regarding how the working …

Beyond A Language Boundary: Encounters With Silence And L1 Spanish-Speakers' Willingness To Communicate In English, John Turnbull

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The descriptive multi-case study asks three adult migrants, first-language (L1) Spanish-speakers from México, about their interpretations of their own and others’ silences as they navigate daily life, jobs, family, and English-language learning in the United States. Subjective opinions about silence, their second-language (L2) acquisition processes, comfort levels in various speaking situations, functions of L2 communication, and affective and social dimensions of language learning are related to participants’ willingness to communicate (WTC), a construct that measures a predisposition to talk, rather than stay silent, in L2 interaction.

The research, through daily language-use surveys and semi-structured Spanish-language interviews with the three English-language …

Witness: The Modern Writer As Witness, Amitai Ben-Abba, Bruce Bond, Dakota Canon, Laura Cesarco Eglin, Kate Finegan, Miriam Bird Greenberg, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Josef Krebs, Brandon Krieg, Cody Lee, Zining Mok, Aimee Noel, Martha Petersen, Anzhelina Polonskaya, Eman Quotah, Tim Raymond, Maxine Rosaler, F. Daniel Rzicznek, Fabian Severo, Sarah Mollie Silberman, Jean Thompson, Amber Weelerbacon, Amy A. Whitcomb, Caroline Wilkinson, Kristin Winet, Carolyne Wright

Witness Magazine

Editor's Note [Excerpt] The United States, as a society, is on the brink of profound and positive change. Demographically and culturally, things are improving, and the reason is obvious to people who study history: Conflict pushes us to be better, to strive for principled goals. Consider the inspired eco-advocacy of Greta Thunberg. Or the swearing in of most diverse class of lawmakers in history into the 116th Congress. Or billionaire Robert F. Smith’s pledge to pay off every Morehouse College (in Atlanta, Georgia) student’s debt. Indeed, there are many good people helping and great moments happening in spite of a …

Volume 11, Jacob Carney, Ryan White, Joseph Hyman, Jenny Raven, Megan Garrett, Ibrahim Kante, Summer Meinhard, Lauren Johnson, William "Editha" Dean Howells, Laura Gottschalk, Christopher Siefke, Pink Powell, Natasha Woodmancy, Katharine Colley, Abbey Mays, Charlotte Potts

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Table of Contents:

Introduction, Dr. Roger A. Byrne, Dean

From the Editor, Dr. Larissa "Kat" Tracy

From the Designers, Rachel English, Rachel Hanson

Synthesis of 3,5-substituted Parabens and their Antimicrobial Properties, Jacob Coarney, Ryan White

Chernobyl: Putting "Perestroika" and "Glasnot" to the Test, Joseph Hyman

Art by Jenny Raven

Watering Down Accessibility: The Issue with Public Access to Alaska's Federal Waterways, Meagan Garrett

Why Has the Democratic Republic of the Congo outsourced its Responsibility to Educate its Citizens? Ibrahim Kante

Art by Summer Meinhard

A Computational Study of Single Molecule Diodes, Lauren Johnson

Satire of …

Useless, Seth Stone

Graduate Thesis Collection

Useless is a short story collection about people who feel lost in the world and go searching for fulfillment. Six disconnected stories about six disconnected people. The collection deals with themes of loss, identity, loneliness and the exploration of niche subcultures.

One Hundred Books: A Journey Through A Century Of John Newbery Award Books, Tyler Sassaman

Graduate Thesis Collection

"On a quest to read all of the existing Newbery award-winning books (est. 1921), a reading specialist examines the history of the books and the award itself. Considered the “most distinguished contribution to children’s literature,” the John Newbery gold medal, awarded by the American Library Association, is a high-water mark for upper elementary-aged children across the United States. The author’s two decades of teaching experience provide the analytical perspective and memoir-style investigation. Interviews with a book buyer for the Scholastic publisher, children’s librarians, former Newbery committee members, and a visit to the famed Kerlan Collection of Children’s Literature, frame the …

[Review Of The Book Looking For Lorraine: The Radiant And Radical Life Of Lorraine Hansberry, By I. Perry], Kaa Vonia Hinton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Chicago, Illinois, native, Lorraine Hansberry wrote the highly acclaimed A Raisin in the Sun (1959), the first play produced on Broadway by a Black woman. The play's title is inspired by one of poet Langston Hughes's poems, "Harlem," and focuses on a Black American family with dreams of buying a home in a white neighborhood in segregated Chicago. A Raisin in the Sun is taught widely in high schools and colleges in America, and most of us who are aware of Hansberry know about the critical success of her play, but do we know much more than that about …

“I Didn’T Want To Make Them Feel Wrong In Any Way”: Preservice Teachers Craft Digital Feedback On Sociopolitical Perspectives In Student Texts, James S. Chisholm, Alison Heron-Hruby, Andrea R. Olinger

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This qualitative multicase analysis investigated the role of “educational niceness” and “neutrality” (e.g., Baptiste, 2008; Bissonnette, 2016) in preservice English teacher feedback on sociopolitical issues in student writing. As part of the field experiences for several ELA methods courses at two universities, one urban and one rural, the teacher-researchers used Google Docs and other technologies (e.g., screencasts and Google Community) to connect preservice teachers (PSTs) with high school writers at a geographical distance so that urban-situated PSTs could mentor rural-situated writers and vice versa. Five methods courses over two semesters served as cases, and 12 PSTs from those courses participated …

Black Hawk In Translation: Indigenous Critique And Liberal Guilt In The 1847 Dutch Edition Of Life Of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, Frank Kelderman

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Afterlives Of Indigenous Archives, Ivy Schweitzer, Gordon Henry Jr

Dartmouth Scholarship

Afterlives of Indigenous Archives offers a compelling critique of Western archives and their use in the development of “digital humanities.” The essays collected here present the work of an international and interdisciplinary group of indigenous scholars; researchers in the field of indigenous studies and early American studies; and librarians, curators, activists, and storytellers. The contributors examine various digital projects and outline their relevance to the lives and interests of tribal people and communities, along with the transformative power that access to online materials affords. The authors aim to empower native people to re-envision the Western archive as a site of …

Book Review: You Go First, Laura Jackson

The Utah English Journal

You know it's going to be a fun story when Scrabble letter tiles are on the cover. Tying in a modern phone app version with the elusive charm of the board game, friends are connected. The protagonist struggles to find connection with her parents and friends while providing a positive yet true to life model of how to navigate the struggle. You Go First is a lighter read that has the potential to reach middle school aged students or even a funny reflection for high school students who would benefit from a less difficult level of reading.

Using "Chunks" Of Academic Language, Thomas Henry, Jim Pettersson

The Utah English Journal

Graff and Birkenstein (2018) provide great insights into producing quality academic prose. Likewise, they demystify the textual practices of academic writers by asking students to use (or borrow) patterns of academic language. When examining the patterns found within dozens of academic abstracts/summaries, the following patterns emerged. These "templates" (as we call them) or "chunks" (the term provided by students) may help to guide students to create more academic-style prose; likewise, these sorts of patterns may help students in the practice of writing more complex prose (see Figure 1: The Language of Abstracts).

Beyond Posters And Powerpoints: A Case For Authentic Multimodal Writing In The 21st-Century Ela Classroom, Amber Jensen

The Utah English Journal

When I graduated from high school in 2001, my classmates and I were delighted to be the first graduates of a new century. Ushering in the twenty-first century evoked glittering promises of new and faster technologies, networked global communication, and a wide array of professional possibilities. When I entered my first classroom as a high school English teacher in 2004, however, I noticed that not much about the classroom or the curriculum had changed: I taught many of the same classic novels I had read in high school, I assigned the same kinds of writing tasks I had written as …

Not Just A Princess: Using Cinderella To Teach Adolescents About Power, Rylee Carling

The Utah English Journal

The immortal words "once upon a time" have been ingrained in our society's collective memory, at times to the irritation of those who feel they've outgrown the childish stories that begin with this seemingly trite phrase. However, bringing fairy tales and their legion YA novelizations into the classroom can help adolescent students understand constructs of power while offering a familiar story in which to explore those mature themes.

Autobiographical Multigenre Project, Cindy D'On Jones

The Utah English Journal

This Autobiographical Multigenre Project is designed to incorporate several motivational supports for adolescent students, including promoting development of identify as a reader, a writer, and a user of literacy.

This project also serves as an instructional scaffold for future multigenre projects. Each student is an "expert" on the topic of self This allows students to learn the process of a creating a multigenre project while minimizing the cognitive load of investigation required for multigenre projects about less-familiar topics.

Adaptive Acts: Queer Voices And Radical Adaptation In Multi-Ethnic American Literary And Visual Culture, Michael M. Means

Theses and Dissertations

Adaptation Studies suffers from a deficiency in the study of black, brown, yellow, and red adaptive texts, adaptive actors, and their practices. Adaptive Acts intervenes in this Eurocentric discourse as a study of adaptation with a (queer) POC perspective. My dissertation reveals that artists of color (re)create texts via dynamic modes of adaptation such as hyper-literary allusion, the use of meta-narratives as framing devices, and on-site collaborative re-writes that speak to/from specific cultural discourses that Eurocentric models alone cannot account for. I examine multi-ethnic American adaptations to delineate the role of adaptation in the continuance of stories that contest dominant …

Reading Roth/Reading Ourselves: Looking Back, Victoria Aarons

English Faculty Research

Roth thus presents his characters as figures bearing the very seductive possibility of a "multitude of realities." Disenchanted with a worn-out, dampened, banal, and diminished life, one can slip into another, "an exchange of existences," as the wily Zuckerman says. But, in changing those distasteful and objectionable aspects of one's existence, one would do well to caution against the intemperate, impulsive desire, the head-long rush to "change everything," as Zuckerman chastises his brother Henry (Counterlife 156; italics in original). In other words, one would do well to show some restraint, as Roth's characters more often than not humorously …