Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Action, Experience, And Responsibility: Using I And We In High School Writing, Corinne Mccumber

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2018

In the field of composition studies, scholars often explore and debate how educators should train students to use the general forms of academic writing. Of particular interest, a trend has emerged in high schools where students are banned from using the words “I,” “me,” “we,” and “us” to avoid sounding subjective--even though composition studies scholars consistently employ these first-person pronouns for rhetorical effect. In this presentation, I closely examine how scholars use first-person pronouns in award-winning works. In particular, I show how scholars employ “I” and “we” to introduce personal examples, to call readers to action, and to reassert responsibility …

"Song Is The Simple Rhythmic Liberation Of An Emotion": Stephen Dedalus' Musical Martyrdom, Colleen E. Mulhern

The Criterion

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, published in 1916, is Joyce’s semi-autobiographical bildungsroman centered on Stephen Dedalus’ struggle to reconcile Catholic teachings with his own artistic ambitions. In Portrait, music aids Stephen’s epiphanies. Stephen uses music to express emotions unable to be conceived of in – what Joyce calls –“cut-and-dry language.” He appreciates the ability of songs to arouse emotion and induce thought; the songs that Stephen encounters help to form his identity, first as a martyr and, later, as a creator.

Awarded The Leonard J. McCarthy, S.J., Memorial Prize for 2018

Fed Up With The Personal Responsibility Of Obesity: A Pentadic Analysis Of Fed Up, Rebekah Peterson

SCOM Undergraduate Research Conference

This paper uses Kenneth Burke’s pentadic criticism to examine the reality Fed Up, a documentary about obesity in the United States, wants its audience to accept about the obesity epidemic and why. The first half of the documentary frames the obesity epidemic as scene-act in order to change the audience’s reality of the issue because the obesity epidemic has been framed in society as agent-act, portraying obesity as the individual’s fault. The second half shifts to an agent-scene ratio to answer why Fed Up attempts to change the audience’s reality. The implications of the pentadic ratios and shift are discussed …

A Rhetorical Analysis Of Desmond Tutu’S 1976 Letter To Prime Minister John Vorster, Nicholas Anguiano

SCOM Undergraduate Research Conference

In 1976, South African clergyman Desmond Tutu wrote an open letter to Prime Minister B.J. Vorster urging him to end the apartheid system of racial segregation. In the midst of growing frustration amongst the black population and fear of violence, the letter pleads for the Prime Minister to recognize their shared humanity, showing that they share the same interests for preserving peace and prosperity for all South Africans, warning of potential widespread violence in the near future. Tutu's appeals can be viewed through the lens of Kenneth Burke's theory of consubstantiality. As Burke's theory indicates concerning all rhetoric, Tutu's letter …

Becoming A Woman Of Isis, Zoe D. Fine

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this study, I examine how terrorism is produced and consumed in communication. Using discourse analysis, I investigate how terrorism is constituted in the accounts of four women described in online news reports as having joined, or almost joined the so-called Islamic State (IS): “Alex,” constructed as having been lonely and flirted with IS; “Khadija,” presented as a schoolteacher turned member of IS’s all-women’s brigade; Laura, described as a woman whose partner abandoned her, who met a man online, and who brought her son with her to join IS; and Tareena, referred to as a health worker who brought her …

“Black Is Powerful ”: A Gramscian Rhetorical Analysis Of Post-Racialism At The University Of Missouri, Taylor Bauer

Theses and Dissertations

The election of Barack Obama brought an uptick in discourse surrounding the notion of a “post-racial” America. This thesis will investigate post-racialism and the backlash surrounding its assumptions about the United States in the context of an act of resistance that took place at the University of Missouri in 2015. Black football players on the Missouri football team joined students in the #ConcernedStudent1950 activist group in calling for the resignation of university president Tim Wolfe. Threatening to abstain from athletic activity, Wolfe stepped down, signaling a victory for the minority student body. By utilizing Gramscian rhetorical theories and concepts, the …

Yorba Times: Standing Up, Speaking Out, Noah Asher Golden, Caroline Jenner, Lisbet Wences, Leslie Tehuastle-Zamora, Veronica Aguilar, Ryan Guzman, Aida Calderon, Cassandra Gomez, Aileen Arriaga, Toni Guesnon, Dana Canning, Zoe Bonfield, Emmery Llewellyn, Sylvia Tavetian, Emily Hernandez, Areli Vazquez, Leslie Arriaga, Kaitlyn Zeigler, Karly Bokosky, Kristi Kayoda, Abby Galletti, Arianna Gama, Ashley Diaz, Alyssa Kaplan, Jodi Payne, Sammy Hurst, Montana Mcintyre, Ansley Wong, Kiaya Estes, Chloe Kardasopoulos

Yorba-Chapman Writing Partnership Anthology of Journalistic Writing

During the Spring 2018 semester, Dr. Noah Asher Golden's Teaching of Writing K-12 students partnered with the Journalism class at Yorba Academy for the Arts. Through collaboration over a four-month period, Chapman's future teachers and Yorba's junior high journalists engaged a deep writing process to write a series of features, editorials, and news articles related to a number of global issues. Thank you to Ms. Andrea Lopez, Ms. Kori Shelton, Mr. Nick Sepulveda, Ms. Tracy Knibb, and the Lloyd E. and Elisabeth H. Klein Family Foundation for supporting this project.

Diversity, Identification, And Rhetoric In Tech: On The Analysis Of Satirical Conference Talks, Bryan Knowles

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this thesis, I examine the rhetorical strategies in Jenn Schiffer’s satirical conference talks in which she comments upon her own tech community. In part, I consider her arguments under the theoretical lenses of Burke, Epicurus, and Camus, theories placed alongside the reflective writing of Ullman as a queer woman in that selfsame community. I also discuss the pedagogical opportunities of such an analysis–of tech conference talks in general–to the modern student in our technologically-connected age. Finally, in the long term, I plan to connect the outcomes of this project to a larger project in partial fulfillment of a doctorate …

Eng 100: Society's Negative Perception Of Feminism, Kyah Stewart

English 100-200-300 Conference

No abstract provided.

Anxiety At John Carroll: Why Developmental Writers Avoid The Writing Center, Emily Tomusko

Masters Essays

This paper describes the underlying issues and attempts to offer a possible remedy John Carroll University’s developmental writing students’ lack of engagement with the campus Writing Center. While developmental writing students across the United States visit their respective writing centers frequently, these students at JCU do not visit at the same pace. In this project, I draw from class surveys of student writers, from class visits, and from tracking student consultations at the Writing Center to learn why developmental writers do not visit as often as their EN 125 counterparts. In doing so, I argue that JCU’s developmental writing students …

"Turn In Your Bible To...": Examining Rhetorical Agency In Sermonic Discourse, Marshall Thomas Covert

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Rhetorical agency is an ideologically contentious facet within communication and rhetorical research. While its importance in scholarship can be traced back to early works by Kenneth Burke and Pierre Bourdieu, debate continues regarding the source of agency, how it is enacted in rhetorical application and communication, and who/what can claim responsibility for the communication practices one may utilize in enacting their respective levels of agency. Thus, the ways in which the rhetoric of popular, influential individuals/antecedents affects the rhetorical agency and invention practices of those without significant levels of influence must be examined. American Christianity, in particular the culture created …

Reflective Practice And Student Progression In First-Year Writing, Ellie C. Rafoth

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

Are We All #Nastywomen? The Rhetoric Of Feminist Hashtags And Respectability Politics, Kimberly Lynette Goode

English Theses & Dissertations

In a time where misogynistic phrases from political figures such as Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are being reclaimed by feminists on Twitter, it is crucial for feminist rhetorical scholars to pay close attention to the rhetorical dynamics of such reclamation efforts. In particular, the reclamation of the phrase nasty woman via #NastyWoman, #NastyWomen, #IamANastyWomanBecause, #IamANastyWoman, etc. is a fruitful site for analysis. In this thesis, the reclamation efforts of Twitter feminists will be analyzed to gauge the underlying discourse at work in the hashtag. Based on the origins of the hashtag and the way the tweeters have come to …

An Analysis Of The Association Between Dialogue, Rhetoric And Engagement In President Trump's First 100 Days On Twitter, Amy Kutka

Master's Theses (2009 -)

President Donald Trump’s use of Twitter to primarily communicate with the public is unprecedented and demonstrates a simplistic and informal style of presidential communication. The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not this online presidential communication strategy successfully implements traditional public relations strategies, specifically Kent & Taylor’s (1998) Dialogic Communication Theory and rhetorical strategies. A content analysis was used to examine the use of Dialogic Communication Principles and rhetorical strategies in tweets sent from @realDonaldTrump within his first 100 days in office. It was then determined whether or not the use of these principles and strategies have …

Reclaiming The Black Personhood: The Power Of The Hip-Hop Narrative In Mainstream Rap, Morgan Klatskin

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Hip hop, as a cultural phenomenon, leverages rap as a narrative form in periods of acutely visible political unrest in the Black American community to combat pejorative narratives of Black America as revealed in the American criminal justice system’s treatment of Black Americans. Hip-hop themes were prevalent in golden-age rap of the 1980s in response Regan-era war-on-drugs policy, which severely disadvantaged the Black community and devalued the Black personhood. Hip hop used narrative to reclaim the Black personhood while it served to encourage political involvement in the Black community, urging Blacks to participate in rewriting the narrative of Black America. …

The Ethos Of Dissent: Epideictic Rhetoric And The Democratic Function Of American Protest And Countercultural Literature, Jeffrey Lorino Jr

Dissertations (1934 -)

My dissertation, “The Ethos of Dissent: Epideictic Rhetoric and the Democratic Function of American Protest and Countercultural Literature, 1940-1962,” establishes a theoretical frame-work, the literary epideictic, for reading the African American social protest literature of Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, and the American countercultural literature of Jack Kerouac and Ken Kesey. I argue that epideictic rhetoric affords insight into how these authors’ narratives embody a post-World War II “ethos of dissent,” a counterdiscourse that emerges out of a climate of dynamism deadlocked with controlling ideologies. Epideictic, the branch of rhetoric concerned with civic matters, commends or censures a particular individual, …

The Beholder, Allan Lake

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

A poem on the effect of landscape on the emotions.

Poetry Of Roe 8, Nandi Chinna

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Poetry of Roe 8

The occasion for the writing of these poems was activism surrounding the controversial highway known as the Roe 8 extension in the areas of Cockburn and Fremantle in Western Australia. Planned in the 1950s, Roe 8 is contentious for a number of reasons, including extraordinary political deals over funding, undue process regarding environmental reporting, lack of a business case, inadequate noise and traffic modelling, erasure of Indigenous heritage sites, and clearing of the sensitive Beeliar wetlands and Coolbellup banksia woodlands which were designated a Threatened Ecological Community in 2016. During the summer of 2016/2017 contractors started …

Teaching College Writing To High School Students: A Mixed Methods Investigation Of Dual Enrollment Composition Students' Writing Curriculum And Writing Self-Efficacy, Erin Dena Scott-Stewart

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to use a quantitative survey to assess the relationships between the credit pathways students choose to earn first-year, first-semester (FYFS) university writing credit (i.e. dual enrollment, Advanced Placement, university courses, and ACT/SAT exemptions) and several writing experiences and outcomes, including writing curriculum, self-efficacy, self-regulatory strategy use, and course performance. The same survey was also used to explore relationships between these writing experiences and outcomes and preexisting student characteristics (i.e. race/ethnicity, gender, and parents’ education). For dual enrollment (DE) students only, the following aspects of the participants’ writing experiences were also investigated using …

Turning “Bad Jews Into Worse Christians”: Hermann Adler And The London Society For Promoting Christianity Amongst The Jews, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

This paper explores how sermons contributed to Jewish-Christian relations in Victorian England. I begin with a rhetorical analysis of sermons preached on behalf of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, the largest and best known missionary organization of its kind. I then examine a collection of sermons in which Hermann Adler, then rabbi of London’s Bayswater Synagogue and later Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, pushes back against their efforts, offering the “true explanations” of passages which, in his view, had been improperly employed by Christian preachers. Finally, I trace a kind of “feedback loop” in which …