Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

A Letter To A Struggling German Catholic During The Reformation, Rachel G. Zinck

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

The assignment presented was to write a position paper in the format of a letter to a German Catholic friend undergoing an existential crisis during the Reformation period. First, we needed to analyze Martin Luther's 3 Walls of the Romanists, and then take a stance either choosing to follow or ignore Luther. In writing this essay, I spent a lot of time reading over Luther's arguments and reflecting on my own personal views and compared them with careful consideration. I was aware that the situation at the time was a matter of life and death for many, and attempted to …

When The Nazi’S Are Misunderstood: Addressing Racist Rhetoric In The Composition Classroom, Charlesia Mckinney

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

N/A

Book Reviews: Alien Phenomenology, Or What It’S Like To Be A Thing By Ian Bogost, Jet Plane: How It Works By David Macaulay, Andvibrant Matter: A Political Ecology Of Things By Jane Bennett, Nathaniel A. Rivers

Criticism

In this review essay, I review Ian Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing (2012) and Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (2010) alongside David MacAuley’s Jet Plane: How It Works (2012), which is devoted to a child’s experience of airplanes. While composed for different audiences in traditionally discrete contexts, all three books do critical, speculative work in providing explicit articulations and implicit performances of alternative ontologies from which Critical Air Studies might benefit.

Miracle: Surviving The Bataan Death March, Gail Y. Richard

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a portion of the experiences of Bataan Death March survivors including those of Eddie Graham, my uncle, and Tillman Rutledge, an acquaintance. The event consisted of walking sixty-five miles over a period of six to twelve days without food or water. Throughout the duration of the walk, the prisoners endured inhuman atrocities at the hands of Japanese soldiers. Section two of this document highlights Eddie Graham's experience seventy-one years later while on a Kansas Honor Flight trip to the WWII Memorial, where he and other WWII veterans were honored. Section three follows with a description of the …

Composing Across Genres: A Study Of Writing Expectations At The University Of Arkansas At Little Rock, Howard Bryant Lytle

Theses and Dissertations

Students are entering the first-year composition (FYC) classroom underexposed to multiple genres, multiple potential audiences, and a variety of modalities. Based on survey responses from faculty members across the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR), this thesis project seeks to examine effective ways of teaching composition at the UALR to prepare students for upper-level coursework and for their future workplaces. Survey findings indicate that faculty members across the university ask students to respond to writing assignments in a variety of writing genres, address multiple audiences and purposes, and bring certain skill sets into their classrooms. As a result, this …

Getting The Picture: Engaging Student Learning Using Pinterest, Jo Koster

Winthrop Conference on Teaching and Learning

In a digital environment, teachers and students have access to a wide variety of material that can be used to create discussion, spark inquiry, and prompt critical thinking. One of the social media tools that can be used for this is Pinterest, a free online visual discovery, collection, sharing, and storage tool that allows users to curate and share information through the creation of visual bookmarks called “boards.” Users can “pin” material to their boards either by linking to other online sites or by uploading materials of their own; boards can be grouped by similar characteristics, themes, events, questions, ideas, …

Review Of Adin, Mariah, The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang And The Great Comic Book Scare Of The 1950s, Molly J. Scanlon

Communication, Media, and Arts Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Imaginary Subjects: Fiction-Writing Instruction In America, 1826 - 1897, Paul Collins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Imaginary Subjects: Fiction Writing Instruction in America, 1826-1897 is a study of the confluence of commercial, educational, and aesthetic developments behind the rise of instruction in fiction-writing. Part I ("The Predicament of Fiction-Writing") traces fiction-writing instruction from its absence in Enlightenment-era rhetoric textbooks to its modest beginnings in magazine essays by Poe and Marryat, and in mid-century advice literature. Part II ("Fiction-Writing in the Classroom") notes the rise of fiction exercise from early Romantic-era primers upwards into mid-centuryhigh-school level textbooks, and from there into Harvard composition exercises; this coincided with an increasing emphasis by author advocacy groups on writing as …

The Fictions Of Whiteness: Transatlantic Race Science, Gender, Nationalism, And The Construction Of Race In Nineteenth-Century American Fiction (1823-1867), Philip E. Kadish

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Fictions of Whiteness argues that political beliefs preceded and determined the race science theories which nineteenth century American white novelists applied or invoked in their work, the inverse of the current critical consensus. For issues ranging from Indian removal to slavery and Reconstruction, and utilizing theories from of Condorcet, Buffon, Camper, Louis Agassiz, James Pritchard, Johannes Blumenbach, and George Borrow these authors shifted allegiances to divergent race theories between and within works, applied those theories selectively to white, black, and Indians characters, and applied the same scientific race theories to politically divergent rhetorical ends. By analyzing shifting application of different …

Imagining A "Poethical" Classroom, Erica Kaufman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation begins at the crossroads of three fields—creative writing, contemporary poetics, and composition studies—and attempts to unite what is normally kept separate: the teaching of freshman composition and contemporary poetry. It is rooted, then, in the following anomalies: few students (unless they are English majors) encounter contemporary poetry; and few living poets (who often earn their livings as adjuncts, teaching composition) ever engage in a conversation about composition pedagogy. Fewer still teach the kind of poetry they write. Through a qualitative study of student writing in composition courses, this project investigates how encouraging students to engage with this form …

Ideational Grammatical Metaphorical Features Of Efl Textbooks, Yuya Kaneso

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Various genres of textbooks have been researched from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Although the previous research has been concerned with textbooks covering subject areas in English speaking countries, it has not examined English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks. By analyzing 14 EFL textbooks for junior high school and high school students from the perspective of the SFL grammatical metaphor, this study attempts to examine levels of lexico-grammatical complexity and its sequential features as used in the data. The findings show that semantic junctions whereby semantic elements are incongruently realized at the level of lexicogrammar do not …

Peeling The Onion: Satire And The Complexity Of Audience Response, Jane Fife

English Faculty Publications

Satire is a popular form of comedic social critique frequently theorized in terms of Kenneth Burke’s comic frame. While its humor and unexpected combination of incongruous elements can reduce tension that surrounds controversial issues to make new perspectives more accessible, audience response to satire can vary tremendously—including the very negative as well as the very positive. Teaching satire should include exposure to rhetorical theory and audience reception analysis to better prepare students as consumers and creators of satires. With a complex, layered pedagogy, satire can be an important component of the twenty-first-century rhetor’s toolkit.

It's A Whole New Ball Game: The Mitchell Report, Performance Enhancing Drugs, And Professional Sports, Brian J. Schrader

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the findings of a congressional investigation into the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in Major League Baseball, known as the Mitchell Report. It analyzes the primary arguments presented in the report, the argument for integrity, role-models, and apology specifically, through the lens of governmentality and moral regulation. It argues that the report represents a distinct mode of governance that seeks to condemn PED use in a moralizing way. This mode of governance is characterized by its emergence from a variety of locations as opposed to the relatively simple use of the state and its legal apparatus. …

The Impact Of Philanthropy, Jonathan F. Denzler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Forwarding a narrative framework of philanthropic impact this thesis problematizes the evaluation methods used by social engagement organizations to measure the impact or change that they are contributing to in a community. By focusing on the example of food access, and the corresponding language of the "food desert", this project locates the power to control the framing of social issues in the hands of funders as opposed to those who experience the real life effects of living in poverty or resource-poor communities. This process then lets the philanthropists set a goal and meet that goal without ever truly communicating or …

Meeting Paul As Rhetor: Creation, Nature, And The Law Written In The Heart, Jon Radwan

CHDCM Publications

No abstract provided.

A Double-Sided Mirror: "Otherizing" And Normalizing The Silenced Voices Of Appalachian Women, Ashley Canter

Bridges: A Journal of Student Research

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Appalachian region was not only exploited for capitalistic gains, but also put on display by outsider voices for being home to a supposed "backwards" and "barbaric" culture. Appalachians experienced exploitation working in mines and other industries that only benefitted those receiving the resources of the mountains. A once self-sustaining, individualized culture was now forced to be dependent and suffer through the "otherization" of its own people. Voices hidden in the murky skies and distant mountains of Appalachia were not only silenced, but more hauntingly, they were spoken for, manipulated, and marginalized. …

Girl Power, Caroline Olesen

The Corinthian

It is now in the 16th year of the 21st century, and as a species, we are trying to improve. We’re trying to reduce our carbon footprint; we’re trying to help the sick and the poor; we’re trying to combat racism, anti-Semitism, and sexism. But as of recent years, sexism has been more on the back burner – not because it is less important, but because of the huge strides that were made in the Western world in the 20th century.

Sexy Technical Communication, Tamara Powell, Jonathan Arnett, Monique Logan, Cassandra Race, Tiffani Reardon

2016 Faculty Bookshelf

Sexy technical writing…we’ve got to be kidding, right? But no, we aren’t. Good technical writing is powerful and clear and gets the job done. It brings people together and solves problems. Good technical writing purrs and hums like that BMW you plan to be driving someday.What’s not sexy about that? On the other hand, poor technical writing skills may lead to a lifetime of asking people if they want fries with that…or worse, selling vacuum cleaners door to door. There’s no need to ask what’s not sexy about that!

WE – your textbook authors – are a team of dedicated …

Blackfish-Ing For Buzz: The Rhetoric Of The Real In Theme Parks And Documentary, Steven W. Schoen

Faculty Publications

In 2014, a year of record tourism in the state of Florida, SeaWorld saw a drop of one million visitors to its theme park in Orlando. The decline followed Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s 2013 documentary film Blackfish, which presented the circumstances of orcas, or “killer whales,” held in captivity at parks like SeaWorld as cruel to the animals and dangerous to their trainers. In 2016, SeaWorld announced it will stop breeding orcas, and phase out its orca theatrical shows by 2019, a move widely attributed in the press to the impact of Cowperthwaite’s film. This article examines the film Blackfish as a …

Rhetoric In The Mass Media: Terrorism Or Freedom Of Speech?, Carolyn Rhoades

Bridges: A Journal of Student Research

Terrorism is a widely debated topic on social media networks such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. This is due to the fact that a high percentage of users rely on sites such as Twitter and Facebook as a news source for developing stories and information. In a study conducted in 2015 by Pew Research Center, in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, research found that 63 percent of Facebook users and 63 percent Twitter users depend on these social networks for their news, which is a substantial increase from 2013. This paper presents a rhetorical analysis …