Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Using Embedded Institutes As Professional Development To Create A Culture Of Writing Excellence, Melanie K. Farber

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The following thesis addresses the problem of creating a culture of writing excellence at a large, urban school. I will show how the Embedded Institute model helped our school to reconsider our professional development model and to create writing leaders across the content areas. The thesis will make the argument for something larger than test scores through qualitative feedback from teacher participants.

Adviser: Robert Brooke

Siren Song: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Gender And Intimate Partner Violence In Gotham City Sirens, Katlin Schmidt

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This project investigates comic book discourse. Specifically, I investigate how comic narratives provide readers with an interpretation for how they should discern and assess “appropriate” behaviors for women. The artifact of analysis included in this project is DC Comics Gotham City Sirens (2009). This text features popular female superheroes, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy. Because comic books utilize both textual and visual means to disseminate a message, this project evaluates the visual rhetoric of these characters within the narrative. Walter Fisher’s narrative paradigm is used to provide an understanding to how these visual means contribute to the meanings assigned …

“A Polished, A Practical, Or A Profound Education” : (Gendered) Rhetorical Literacies And Higher Learning In Louisville’S First Free Public High Schools, 1856-1896., Amy Jean Lueck

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This archival project investigates the first public high schools in Louisville as they negotiated the means and ends of providing higher education to an increasingly diverse and expanding body of learners. Drawing on primary documents from the schools’ first four decades of operation—particularly school board reports, newspapers, and student writing—I foreground the interplay and overlap between regional and institutional identities and histories, which contribute to a rich and complex picture of “higher education” in the nineteenth-century US. Each chapter of the dissertation explores a distinct but overlapping aspect of the curriculum—including “practical” education, women’s education, and manual or industrial education—that …

Language Difference And Expansive Learning : Negotiating Concepts, Contexts, And Identities In Writing-Related Transfer Studies., Megan Jeanne Bardolph

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers a theoretical examination of current conceptualizations of writing-related transfer of learning in Rhetoric and Composition. I analyze the models presently available for understanding writing-related transfer of learning and argue that they are constrained by narrow conceptions of language use/users that do not accurately reflect the rich and varied language practices student writers perform, nor the multilingual audiences students with whom students will interact when they leave our classrooms. As a result, I argue that transfer has been difficult for writing studies scholars to pinpoint and locate. Building on theoretical models of language from applied linguistics and second …

Redeeming Rhetoric: Augustine's Use Of Rhetoric In His Preaching Ministry, John A. Sypert

Liberty Theological Review

The art and practice of rhetoric occupied a fundamental place in the ancient Roman world. It is thus not surprising that Augustine (354-430 AD) was deeply committed to the art of speaking well. He spent his youth mastering the theory of rhetoric, putting into practice what he had learned during a preaching career of almost forty years. This essay examines elements of rhetoric in Augustine’s preaching, arguing that he purposely appropriated common rhetorical elements in his preaching for the purpose of making Scripture both plain and compelling to his audience. Augustine’s training in rhetoric is summarized, followed by an overview …

Rewriting Composition : Moving Beyond A Discourse Of Need., Bruce Horner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This essay argues that calls to end, move beyond, or expand composition participate in a discourse of need that accepts and reinforces the legitimacy of dominant, and restricted, definitions of not only composition but also alternatives to it: what we are led to believe is “new,” “different,” and therefore “better” than composition as conventionally defined. I analyze the operation of this discourse in David Smit’s The End of Composition Studies, Sidney Dobrin’s Postcomposition, and calls to make up for composition’s ostensible lacks by supplementing it with rhetoric or multimodal composition or by renaming it “writing studies.” Drawing on …

Was Feinstein’S Response To Netanyahu’S Speech Too Blunt?, Debra Johanyak

The Actual

No abstract provided.

In(Di)Visible Dream: Rhetoric, Myth, And The Road In America, Raymond Blanton

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation takes a rhetorical approach in exploring the mythology of the road in American culture, and in particular the road as an encounter with the other. Specifically, I argue for the road as a mythic archetype, developing an ultimate vocabulary of the road as an Upward/Downward Way in an effort to transcend the dialectical tensions inherent in extant discourse of the road as rebellion. I begin by situating the road as psychagogic rhetoric, a leading of the soul, in Plato’s Phaedrus, to delineate a fixed and reasoned progression of an ultimate order of the road. Then, I extend these …

Nothing Unlucky About This 13, Harlot Editors

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

No abstract provided.

Dottie And Me: Constructing Childless-By-Choice Alternative Rhetorics, Courtney Adams Wooten

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

Drawing on David L. Wallace's concept of "alternative rhetorics," this essay examines the recent growth of childless-by-choice rhetoric on social media. Analyzing how discourses about parenthood invalidate childless adults and divide parents from childless adults, I argue that the circulation of texts on social media needs to becomes more inclusive of the lives of those who choose to remain childless. Doing so promotes greater discussion about the roles adults can fill and how parenthood has been privileged in our society.

Death: The End We All Have To Face(Book), Christine Martorana

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

When my friend Aaron unexpectedly died several years ago, I gained firsthand experience with a growing online phenomenon: mourners turning to online spaces following the death of a loved one. In what follows, I present details from Aaron's Facebook page in order to illustrate two specific observations: 1) Digital technologies are reconfiguring the permanence of death, inviting the living to recreate the deceased as a heavenly intermediary, and 2) this continued virtual existence of the deceased alongside the constant accessibility of digital technologies is opening a space for death-related egocentrism. As I have observed Aaron's wall over the past several …

Designs Of Meaning: Tools For Digital Storytellers, Aimée Knight, Austin Starin

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

As the creation of digital texts flourishes in and out of the classroom, new strategies for composition are needed. Digital stories are multimodal by nature; they communicate meaning through multiple media, especially the combination of text, audio, image, animation, video, and interactive content forms.

Kress, Van Leeuwen, Wysocki, Ball and other multimodal scholars believe that as we see writing transition to the "logic" of the senses, new spaces and new approaches are necessary. DeVoss & Selfe (2002) argue for new "rhetorical positionings" for teachers of writing in digital environments to "help students explore, develop, and communicate more effectively within online …

Life In Movie Stills: Persona Making In "Learning From Bruce Lee: Pedagogy And Political Correctness In Martial Arts Cinema", Michael Soares

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

How much influence does the cinema of our youth shape persona? When I was thirteen, the personas of myself and my friends were profoundly shaped by the discovery of Tae Kwon Do. Bolstered by hit "karate" films of the 1980's, in our minds we were ninja warriors and martial arts champions. Nearly thirty years later, the memories retained are an articulation of not only of my Tae Kwon Do experience, but the peripheral imagery generated by the 1980's karate media, including martial arts films. These articulated images, imagined as film stills, create for many of us what Meaghan Morris describes …

Pleased To Tweet You, Cate Blouke, Paul Muhlhauser

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

"Pleased to Tweet You" is an interactive, personal narrative of Cate's experiences using Twitter at academic conferences, loosely following the narrative structure of a traditional five act play. The article describes and reenacts the ways in which live-tweeting creates a "participatory theatre" for conference-goers, and Cate argues for an ethics of participation around how Twitter is used in these situations. Although the article focuses on academic conferences, the issues addressed -- participation, attention, and performativity -- apply equally to any live-tweeting experience, be it political protests, presidential debates, or the Oscars. Incorporating both real and fabricated tweets related to the …

Mind The Gap: A Case Study In Instructor Intention And Feedback, Meredith R. Grady

Theses & Honors Papers

While effective instructor written feedback is critical, the process is often the least understood and is a detriment to student success when improperly applied. This case study identifies strategies that characterize successful instructor written feedback for students' written assignments in an introductory college composition course. My research examines instructor feedback within the diverse environment of the community college thus highlighting the importance of instructor knowledge of composition pedagogy and feedback methods and approaches. A review of literature on instructor feedback identifies instructor and student collaboration as a key component for success together with understanding of historical trends in the field …

Negotiating A Professional Identity As An International Tutor At The Writing Center, Heejung Kwon

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Graduate Student Presentations

The ethos of international teaching assistants or non-native speaker professionals in the field of writing studies has been researched with a specific focus on teacher identity in classroom settings. The status of international tutors can become a topic of discussion in terms of their credibility, language proficiency, writing competence, and self-efficacy. In this presentation, I discuss how I situate myself as an international tutor at a writing center and ways to self-train and professionalize myself as a better tutor, as well as explore ways to think about mentoring relationships for prospective international tutors.

Strategies For Tutors Developing Long-Term Relationships With English As Second Language Students In Writing Centers, Andrew Yim

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Graduate Student Presentations

This poster is looking at strategies for tutors looking to develop long-term relationships with ESL and ELL students in writing centers. The strategies that are included within this poster are taken from my own experiences and other readings. Furthermore, the poster looks at different writing centers throughout the United States that have programs that encourage these long-term relationships.

To Correct Or Not To Correct: The Ethics Of Addressing Grammar In Writing Center Tutorials, Vicki R. Kennell

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Presentations

Although students often ask for grammar help, writing center tutors are conflicted over whether and how much to provide such help because of how they internalize the tutoring mandates found in training manuals, tutoring literature, and writing center policies. This results in disconnects between what happens in tutorials and what tutors and writers think happens, with grammar being prioritized regardless of stated agendas or document needs. Solutions to this problem include educating writers and instructors, as well as educating tutors to address grammar productively when and if it is warranted.

Sounding The Horn: Howling About The Moral Outrage Of The Politics Of The Gray Wolf, Paul H. Veridian

Browse All Undergraduate research

In this paper I will show how through the use of a moral argument, the article titled “OR-7’s Sister Dies Grisly Death…..” is used to persuade the audience about the moral outrage being perpetrated upon the gray wolf population by the state of Idaho. I will show how the author uses the tactics of vilify and ennoble, melodrama, naming, god and devil terms, and the tragic frame to get this done. The use of the moral argument creates moral outrage in the audience, which polarizes the issue.

April Fools’ Day, A Celebration Of All Things Creative, Steven Gimbel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

April Fools' Day is unique among our holidays because it is the only one for which ingenuity is required. Other festivals are celebrated with expectations of prepackaged icons. Try serving something other than turkey for Thanksgiving and you are likely to face a revolt. Holidays are bastions of repetition, but April Fools' Day is a commemoration of creativity. [excerpt]