Other Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Review Of Creegan Miller, Tiffany D. 2022. The Maya Art Of Speaking Writing: Remediating Indigenous Orality In The Digital Age, Nora K. Rivera

English Faculty Articles and Research

A review of The Maya Art of Speaking Writing: Remediating Indigenous Orality in the Digital Age by Tiffany Creegan Miller.

Inciting Peace From The Inside Out, Stephen G. Adubato, Ebere Bosco Amakwe, Katherine Hinic, Sarita Maldjian, Forrest Pritchett, Jon Radwan, Nicholas Sooy, Chad Thralls

Conferences

Violence and war can be incited, and so can peace. This volume shares select addresses and responses from Seton Hall University’s 2/7/23 conference “Inciting Peace From The Inside Out.” A multi-disciplinary range of scholars each addresses how reconciliation processes grow from spiritual dynamics. Multiple religious traditions teach contemplative praxes that prioritize and nurture personal reflection oriented toward peace. Social conflicts divide, so engaging them with a partisan orientation only serves to escalate harmful rifts. In contrast, bringing personal awareness and sensitivity, spiritual balance, and holistic integral perspective to conflict can transcend divisions and work toward unity. This volume is supported …

What Counts As Legitimate College Writing? An Exploration Of Knowledge Structures In Written Feedback, Miriam Moore

Journal of Response to Writing

Research in feedback literacy (Carless & Boud, 2018; Molloy, Boud, & Henderson, 2020; Yu & Liu, 2021; Zhang & Mao, 2023) explores student use of written feedback and barriers to feedback uptake; the role of faculty in designing contextually appropriate feedback has been termed teacher feedback literacy (Carless & Winstone, 2023). When feedback does not achieve desired results, faculty must evaluate their feedback practices; they may be unaware of underlying features that hinder feedback effectiveness. In this paper, a long-time instructor of first-year college composition (FYC) interrogates her own feedback practices using tools from the specialization dimension of Legitimation Code …

More Than A Punchline: A Comparative Analysis Of Diversity In Dropout.Tv & Collegehumor, Alexander Gluchowski

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This paper examines the evolution of digital comedy through a comparative analysis of CollegeHumor and its offshoot, Dropout.tv, focusing on how each platform has approached the portrayal of diversity and inclusion. Utilizing a qualitative content analysis, the study contrasts selected episodes from both platforms to explore shifts in the representation of queer and POC comedians, and the thematic treatment of identity issues. The findings reveal that Dropout.tv significantly advances the inclusivity of comedic content, moving beyond CollegeHumor’s earlier reliance on stereotypical and controversial humor. This shift not only reflects changes in contemporary comedy but also highlights Dropout.tv's commitment to fostering …

Lifelong Movie Goers, Hardworking Filmmakers, And Oscars Discourse, Haley Kamola

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This paper focuses on the discourse surrounding the Academy Awards, often referred to as the Oscars. The differences in discourse between people working in the film industry and those who watch movies are analyzed, as they represent the supplier and recipient of films and filmmaking. These two groups offer varied perspectives on the topic. The discourse of another group, a group in-between–student filmmakers–is also analyzed. To many people, what makes a film “good” is quite subjective, so the Academy Awards are often a subject of discourse. One particular focus of discourse will be the 2024 Academy Awards. There were a …

“Pro-Woman, Pro-Life”: Framing Of The Anti-Abortion Movement, Olivia Rivet

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This project on the “Pro-Woman, Pro-Life" framing of the Anti-Abortion Movement uses James Paul Gee's theoretical lens on discourse analysis. My research corpus is comprised of historical, legislative, news, editorial, and film data. This project focuses on when the term "Pro-Woman" first appeared in the anti-abortion discourse and how it has been used to reinforce the Pro-Life stance. I argue that the phrase -- "Pro-Woman" -- is a discoursal strategy to appeal to women who are ideologically aligned with the Pro-Choice movement. According to the Pro-Woman, Pro-Life framework, no "feminist" would want to support a practice, such as abortion, that …

A Rhetorical-Sociological Understanding Of Emotion, Amy Boone

All Dissertations

This project presents a rhetorical-sociological understanding of emotion while foregrounding the place and role of language. Born from Sara Ahmed’s work in The Cultural Politics of Emotion, it presents a simplified equation (contact + orientation = emotion) as both a prescriptive and descriptive formula for making sense of human emotional experience. Starting with an exploration of the difficult-to-understand affect system, this dissertation identifies both rhetoric and affect as energies which cannot be understood apart from their traces, the things they move, produce, and become. As a way to get at these often-invisible forces, two trace studies are conducted which explore …

Cracking A Back Is Not Rehabilitation: A Comparative Analysis Of Chiropractic Vs. Physical Therapy, Lauren M. Radack

Student Scholar Showcase

There is an increasingly common belief among the general public that chiropractic care is more successful in treating injuries than physical therapy. Research shows that chiropractic care cannot be compared to physical therapy due to their different skill sets, knowledge of treatment, and applications; therefore, one modality cannot be determined better than the other. While the two domains are incomparable, individuals continue to feel pressured to select between chiropractic care and physical Therapy. Analyzing the influence of the false claims and misinformation that surrounds rehabilitation services, the belief that physical therapy treatment is able to be replaced by chiropractic treatment …

Implementing Writing Activities In A Postsecondary Tutoring Program For Students With Intellectual Disabilities, Milya Maxfield

Master's Theses

Peer mentors who work with students with intellectual disabilities at the post-secondary level are uniquely situated in their roles both as students and as tutors to assist their students not only with their academic work but also in modeling learning strategies one-on-one. This brief study, including both quantitative and qualitative survey data, establishes a baseline for tutors’ self-confidence when it comes to their own writing and tutoring their students in writing. It further examines the impact of a professional development learning opportunity on tutors’ ability to potentially practice and model a writing strategy in their sessions with their student population. …

Understanding Barriers To Participation In Digital And Hybrid Education: A Grounded Meta-Analysis Of Higher Education And The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jarett Dello Buono

West Chester University Master’s Theses

This thesis project overlaps rhetorical approaches to digital communication with emerging data on higher education pedagogies in order to identify barriers to participation and engagement. A grounded theory meta-analysis is utilized to interpret data presented from literature published after the shift to emergency remote learning (ERL) as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The data is presented thematically to deconstruct the infrastructural and pedagogical relationships that emerged from the literature on hybrid and remote pedagogies. This project identifies core categories and principles that aid in identifying future areas of inquiry for research on engagement as it relates to broader questions …

Improvisations: Methods And Methodologies In Lifespan Writing Research, Ryan J. Dippre, Talinn Phillips

Writing Commons Open Access Books

Improvisations provides readers with insights and options as they develop new lifespan writing research projects or seek to re-orient existing projects to incorporate a lifespan lens. In Part 1 of this edited collection, contributors consider research methodologies that have been adapted to the particular demands of lifespan writing research, with each methodology given two chapters: one that outlines the process of taking up the methodology, and another that provides a detailed example of the methodology in action. In Part 2, contributors suggest new methodologies for lifespan writing research and highlight challenges that this line of inquiry presents as an ethical …

Review: A Working Model For Contingent Faculty, Courtney L. Werner

The Writing Center Journal

In his book A Working Model for Contingent Faculty, Robert Samuels presents multiple ideas for helping contingent faculty organize to gain equity on campus: in their careers, working conditions, and pay. Samuels critiques current prominent, negative discourse on contingent faculty, offering instead ways to emphasize contingent faculty’s diverse and positive experiences and opportunities. I offer additional insights spurred from Samuels’s ideas, including connecting with student government and finding ways to make writing center work and research more public and apparent to institutional stakeholders (e.g., students, faculty, donors, administrators, boards/trustees).

Centering Linguistic Justice In The First Year Writing Classroom: An Argument For The Incorporation Of Code-Meshing And Narrative In Academic Writing, Traci Salazar

Masters Theses

The author addresses several questions across three chapters in relation to linguistic identity and standard language ideology in academic writing, particularly as it pertains to the First Year Writing classroom. Firstly, what is standard language ideology, and what are the detriments of its effects on students in the writing classroom? This answer is considered with an emphasis on the implications for students whose home languages are not in close proximity to Standard English (SE) and boils down to a homogenous language that is deemed ideal and is imposed upon others by dominant institutions, such as academic institutions. Within a literature …

Rhetorical (Re)Inscription Practices Among Black Intercollegiate Football Participants In The Era Of Name, Image And Likeness, Mikayla Beaudrie

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When intercollegiate athletic participants were permitted the right to profit off of their name, image and likeness (NIL), the landscape of college sports was fundamentally changed. This qualitative explanatory case study investigated one consequence of that change: the discourse of amateurism. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has historically identified participants in the athletic programs it oversees with the word “student-athlete.” In the years since the word was first introduced, its meaning has generally been static. In short, the linguistic sign “student-athlete” has been signified in and by the discourse to reflect the amateur status of collegiate sport participants, emphasizing …

Inoculant To Influence: Cultivating Critical Citizenship By Foregrounding Ontology Through Kenneth Burke And Walter Fisher’S Rhetorical Frameworks, Mark Griffin

English Department Theses

Scholars interested in exploring the potency of the writing modality of critical pedagogy for molding students into proactive citizens will find the integration of Kenneth Burke’s Dramatism and Walter Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm instrumental, offering tools essential for cultivating a rhetorical awareness adept at navigating narratives in the 21st century. Synthesizing Burke’s rhetorical dialectic between the nature of reality and our understanding of it with Fisher’s concept that the human condition is a narrative condition yields insights into the critical writing process. This integration fosters a rhetorical awareness, serving as an inoculant to influence, countering the prevailing persuasive elements within today’s …

Posthuman Lessons For Writing And Well-Being: Reparative Practices, Anna A. Larsson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The influence of post-humanist interdisciplinary theories on Writing Studies has displaced its conventional preoccupation with the cultivation and management of subjects via First-Year Writing (FYC), to productive but at times artificially divisive ends. This project aims at an inclusive, anti-racist first-year writing ecology through theories of networked consciousness and digital “making.” I reread and recuperate earlier variants of posthumanist writing theory and draw from feminist materialism and mindfulness studies to establish a vision of well-being that I call networked reparative practices. To bring the abstract into the tangible, an often-valued endeavor in a field historically defined by teaching, I introduce …

“Difference In/At The Center" A Transnational Approach For Mobilizing International Multilingual Graduate Writers' Writing Assets During Writing Instruction., Olalekan Adepoju

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research project presents an empirical exploration of how the writing assets possessed by international multilingual graduate writers impact the theory and pedagogical practices in writing studies, especially regarding the approaches to teaching writing. Extant scholarship in writing studies, especially on second language research/teaching, translingual writing practices, and asset-based writing pedagogy has engaged issues of difference in language, race, culture, as well as funds of knowledge, highlighting the impacts of these differences on the academic success of non-native English speakers in US schools and colleges. My dissertation builds on these trends and highlights the narratives, perceptions, and experiences of international …

Digitally Rural: Identifying How Technological Inequity Impacts Rural Students In First-Year Writing Courses, Jo Anna M. Nevada

English Language and Literature ETDs

To teach composition in this era means to engage students with technology; it is all but an unspoken requirement at the majority of universities. This dissertation theorizes, however, that the imbricated use of technology in first-year writing (FYW) classrooms places rural students at an inherent disadvantage, with issues of inadequate technological proficiency and inconsistent access causing a substantial learning disparity between this student population and their urban peers. Through mixed-methods data analysis of student survey responses and final FYW course portfolios, this study reveals that the expectation of technological access and presumption of digital literacy is detrimental to rural student …

Editors’ Introduction, Aurora Matzke, Louis M. Maraj, Angela Clark-Oates, Anyssa Gonzalez, Sherry Rankins-Robertson

English Faculty Articles and Research

"When we proposed this special issue, we sought to illuminate the conceptual and embodied contact zones we discuss above. Tensions that, for us, were centered by scholars and attendees who participated in any of the three CCCC Feminist Workshop between 2021-2023 when the majority of the editors of this special issue co-chaired. During that time frame, CCCC’s shifted from in-person to fully online to hybrid due to COVID-19 and attempted to move toward more national and international attendance inclusivity. With this organizational backdrop, it was during the 2021 CCCC Feminist Workshop that we grappled with coalition as a commonplace."

A Case For Tolkien As Master Of The Sublime, Graham A.C. Scheper

Journal of Tolkien Research

The present article aims to reconcile Tolkien with the Literary Critics through an exploration of Tolkien's use of the sublime. First, an explanation of the sublime is given, with a summary of its evolution over the past two millennia. Subsequently, three key thrusts of the sublime's manifestation in Tolkien's work are identified: his use of depth and incompleteness, his use of vastness and grandeur, and his usage of shadows and death. Investigating Tolkien's usage of these devices in turn illuminates his skill as an artist and as an author.