Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Fostering Healing Through Reconciliation In The Abernathy Church Of Christ, Randall K. Carr

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project is an exercise in addressing anxiety as a result of unresolved conflict in the Abernathy Church of Christ. In 2009 emotions escalated to a climactic point, leading a group of participants to separate from the Abernathy Church of Christ. The events surrounding this episode have played an influential role in shaping the narrative of the Abernathy Church of Christ. This project seeks to identify areas of residual pain in the existing narrative and move the congregation into a narrative of hope for the future of the Abernathy Church of Christ. The central theme is reconciliation and results from …

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 …

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 …

Cultivating The Practice Of Missional Hospitality For Small Groups At West Houston Church Of Christ, Kevin Stewart

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the results of a project in which I led a team to develop a plan to cultivate the practice of missional hospitality for small groups at West Houston Church of Christ. I used missional theology as a framework to give shape to the practice of hospitality. The project team met for nine weeks in the fall of 2014. The team practiced lectio divina focused on Luke 10, participated in theological reflection on missional hospitality, and fulfilled assignments to practice missional hospitality. These activities helped form the group spiritually and informed the development of a …

Evaluating An Oral Draft Of Luke 8:4-15 In Uduk, Jeremy N. Harrison

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the findings of a project in which I led a group of immigrants from South Sudan through the process of generating and evaluating an oral draft of Luke 8:4-15 in Uduk. The aim of this project was to provide a substantive field test of an oral translation methodology conducted among immigrants living in the United States who speak a language that lacks a translation of the entire Bible. The project involved facilitating basic translation training and conducting an oral drafting process with a team of three Uduk speakers. This project also involved evaluating the …

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

Intertwining Discourse: An Examination Of Suffrage And Antisuffrage Rhetoric, Emilee L. Cutright

Honors Theses

Throughout the progression of history and human life, individuals have used rhetoric to convey emotions, dictate meaning, persuade others, and better lives, empowering ideas, individuals, communities, nations, and the entire world. In stark contrast, women have consistently experienced extreme oppression that has hindered their right to speak. The expansion and reconstruction of the United States during the latter half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century parallels the fact that “women were reconstructing their lives in these years as well” (DuBois and Dumenil 325). These years created an era for women defined by female assertion, unparalleled …

Hidden Sites Of 'First-Year' Composition : What Do We Mean When We Say 'Ap'? : The Diversity Of Practices In Ap English Language And Composition Courses., Hollye Nicole Wright

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation responds to recent conversations on college readiness and precollege credit for writing alternatives. Specifically, this dissertation investigates the ways in which dispositions associated with college readiness are fostered within AP English Language and Composition courses at multiple locations within a single school district and illustrates the intersections between AP English Language and Composition and first-year writing at different locations to highlight the diversity of practices within AP English Language and Composition. Chapter one traces the histories and intersections of AP English Language and Composition and first-year writing. Chapter two describes the research methods utilized in this study. Chapter …

A Few Good Men And Women : The Rhetorical Constitution Of Military Personnel Identity., Ashly Bender Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I examine the public negotiation of service member identity by multiple stakeholders as a way to better understand the available rhetorical strategies for affecting ideological constructions of identity. While current Rhetoric and Composition research attends mostly to student-veterans, I draw on cultural and rhetorical theorists, such as Louis Althusser, Kenneth Burke, Maurice Charland, to identify the rhetorical approaches used to construct military personnel identity, particularly in the post-9/11 era. Through analysis of films, recruiting materials, and the publicly-shared stories of personnel, I extend current understandings of constitutive rhetoric and rhetorical identification—which tend to focus on the work …

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 …

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 …

“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 …

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.

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 …

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.

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 …