Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

The Grimm Brothers As Editors, Blair Wright '15

Outstanding Gateway Papers

In almost all circumstances, copying the work of others has a strongly negative connotation. In fact, from a very early age, children begin to understand the consequences of mimicking others’ original ideas. It is not uncommon for a little girl to sneak across the street with a neighbor to pick flowers even though her parents had specifically instructed her to stay in their own yard. Upon confrontation, this little girl will likely defend herself by saying, “Well, Jessica was doing it too!” The little girl’s parents would then say, “Will you always just do what Jessica does? If Jessica jumped …

Studium And Punctum: The Duality Of Photography, Karen Thul '15

Outstanding Gateway Papers

What defines greatness? What element can change something from being mildly interesting to extraordinary? Details, emotion, back-story, and message can all add to the power of a photo, but these are all reasonable answers to define something unreasonable. Recognizing something powerful is instinctive, which makes it hard to define. Barthes gives some guidance to this process by separating the vaguely interesting from the piercingly wonderful. Through studium and punctum, images are separated into these categories, allowing the viewer to analyze images with acute precision. What makes this interesting? Why do I care? These questions are slowly answered by looking …

Using Ezra's Time As A Methodological Pivot For Understanding The Rhetoric And Functions Of The Pentateuch, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

The Persian period saw the transformation of pentateuchal materials into a scripture, the Torah. The story of Ezra exemplifies that transformation by its description of his manipulation of the physical scroll, his oral reading of it before the people of Jerusalem, and his arrangement for its professional translation/interpretation by Levites. These rituals have characterized the function of the Torah (and other scriptures) from that time forward. The Persian period, however, also marks a major change in the nature of our evidence for the form, contents and meaning of pentateuchal materials. The only historical evidence from before the time of Ezra …

The Rhetoric Of Sacrifice, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Developing A Thesis And Utilizing Supporting Evidence, Leah Kind

Writing Bootcamp Unit

Allow students more experience with formulating a thesis statement and drawing on specific textual evidence to support it. Students can utilize any reading they are familiar with—this familiarity allows them to already have knowledge of the piece’s content, and ability to use the most appropriate points as support. This activity assumes some prior exposure to and practice with thesis statements.

The Elephants Evaluate: Some Notes On The Problem Of Grades In Graduate Creative Writing Programs, Rachel Peckham

English Faculty Research

This article takes up the "special strangeness" of grading practices in the graduate creative writing workshop, based on the author's research, personal experience, and interviews with the faculty of her doctoral creative writing program. Using a structure of notes, the author attempts to make sense of the way grades are understood by both teacher and student at the post-secondary level. First, she considers why the formal evaluation of creative writing continues to be defined by a system of grades, despite the perceived failure of grades to represent the value of such work, and despite educators' historic and ongoing attempts at …

Adapting Health-Risk Communication To The Specific Cultural Contexts Of Diverse Populations : An Assessment Of Malaria-Treatment Programs In Liberia, Nathaniel Galarea Gbessagee

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Drawing on theories of technical communication, rhetoric, literacy, language and culture, and medical anthropology, this dissertation explores how local culture and traditions can be incorporated into health-risk-communication-program design and implementation, including the design and dissemination of health-risk messages. In a modern world with increasing global economic partnerships, mounting health and environmental risks, and cross-cultural collaborations, those who interact with people of different cultures have “a moral obligation to take those cultures seriously, including their social organization and values” (Hahn and Inhorn 10). Paradoxically, at the same time as we must carefully adapt health, safety, and environmental-risk messages to diverse cultures …

Uncovering Poiesis : The Role Of Production In Technical Communication, Work, And Public Life, Thomas E. Vosecky

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This dissertation is a report on a collaborative project between the Computer Science and the Humanities Departments to develop case studies that focus on issues of communication in the workplace, and the results of their use in the classroom. My argument is that case study teaching simulates real-world experience in a meaningful way, essentially developing a teachable way of developing phronesis, the reasoned capacity to act for the good in public.

In addition, it can be read as a "how-to" guide for educators who may wish to construct their own case studies. To that end, I have included a …

Locating American Indian Sciences : A Report On The Development, Use, And Analysis Of A Survey Of Perceptions, John Eric Holmlund

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

All students in the United States of America are required to take science. But what if there is not a science, but in fact a number of sciences? Could every culture, perhaps every different grouping of people, create its own science? This report describes a preliminary survey, the goal of which is to improve the teaching of science at American Indian Opportunities and Industrialization Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota by beginning to understand the differences between Western and American Indian sciences.

Era[C]Ing Diversity: A Critical Rhetorical Approach To Race And The New Citizen, Theresa Donovan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Era[c]ing Diversity is guided by a broad question of inquiry regarding the formation and reformation of subjectivity through the filling out of "blank" forms such as the application for naturalization. This dissertation examines how the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service uses and distributes race, and how subjects participate in the social reproduction of the dominant ideology to create a society where individuals think: I am White; He/she is Black, or Asian, or Native American etc. Era[c]ing Diversity examines how the N-400 constructs the new citizen and the ways that permanent legal residents of Mexican origin disrupt or reify this construct. …

The Border Mural In The Electronic Age: Xican@ Literacy As Rhetorical Agency, José Angel Maldonado

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Border Mural in the Electronic Age is a project that responds to blanket statements, not only about a people's literacy (or illiteracy), but to the ways in which we define and measure literacy in the electronic age. In this study, literacy is located on the US-México border, and this specific location serves as the social, political, and economic grounds on which to study the types of literacies used by the local population. A cultural ecology approach is necessary when studying niche literacies, and in today's world, traditional literacies coexist among emergent forms of literacy most likely attributed to technological …

Hybrid Interactive Rhetorical Engagements In Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (Mmorpgs): Examining The Role Of Rhetors And Audiences In Generative Rhetorical Discourses, Yowei Kang

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The dissertation explores the emerging rhetorical practices in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) in general and World of Warcraft (WoW) game in particular. The study applies Kenneth Burke's rhetorical theories and concepts to examine the persuasive processes employed by both game designers and players at various stages of their gameplay experiences. The author argues that the analysis of these interactive rhetorical discourses during gameplay helps rhetorical scholars to understand the emerging rhetorical practices where the rhetors and the audiences collaborate to co-generate their hybrid intensive rhetorical engagement (H.I.R.E.).

On the basis of the gaming sessions captured by the researcher …

Making Memory: Techne, Technology, And The Refashioning Of Contemporary Memory, Kimberly Lacey

Wayne State University Dissertations

My dissertation answers two questions: Does the tension between interactive technologies and rhetoric re-shape the nature and relevance of the canon of memory? Do interactive technologies affect the ways we remember and persuade? I argue that my interpretation of techne suggests possibilities for the creation and production of new types of memory in combination with digital media. To interrogate this connection, I suggest three interpretations of the Greek concept, techne: as a process that is inherently productive; as a force that renegotiates contemporary sources of social power; and as a skill that balances expert knowledge with instrumentality. I explore …

Gender And Race, Online Communities, And Composition Classrooms, Jill Anne Morris

Wayne State University Dissertations

As the culmination of a two-year long Internet ethnographic study of three separate sites, I use examples of women and minorities fighting against discrimination online to explore the power structures inherent to networks and how these might affect classroom practice. I will show how our ordinary assumptions in rhetoric and composition as well as computers and writing about the necessity of safe spaces in fostering communication about gender and race and safety for people of color and women online might actually be harming the rhetorical effectiveness of these writings. To focus this discussion, I will develop three case studies and …

Recognition Of The Transgender Self: An Examination Of The Apologia Of The 'Pregnant Man', Erika Marie Thomas

Wayne State University Dissertations

In 2008, Thomas Beatie, a legally recognized male, transgender man, became pregnant with his first child and approached the American mass media to tell his story and defend his decisions. Shortly thereafter, the public fought against his image, attempting to normalize his body and gender. Beatie's unique gender blurring, his choice for exposure and social recognition, and the resulting public controversy surrounding the incident makes for an important test case to understand Beatie's discursive and visual strategies directed toward the American public.

This study, a rhetorical examination of the discourse and iconic visual image used by Beatie while his pregnant …

Revisión De Estudios Sobre Las Funciones De Las Citas En Textos Académicos Escritos Por Estudiantes De Posgrado Nativos Y No Nativos Que Aprenden Una Lengua Extranjera, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

El estudio de las citas, los motivos por lo que se cita un trabajo y las funciones retóricas que las citas cumplen en el discurso escrito, han sido materias abordadas desde distintas disciplinas, entre ellas la Lingüística Aplicada. En el presente trabajo se rastrean los orígenes de estos temas y se revisan más concretamente los estudios llevados a cabo en el contexto académico universitario sobre citación por aprendientes nativos y no nativos de una lengua extranjera.

Summary: The study of citations, the purposes for which a work is cited, and the rhetorical functions that the citations carry out in the …

Spectrum 2011, Saint Mary's College Of California

The Undergraduate Spectrum

No abstract provided.

The Undergraduate 2011, Saint Mary's College Of California

The Undergraduate Spectrum

No abstract provided.

"Army Of One" To "Army Strong" : Visual Media And U.S. Army Recruitment During Bush"S "War On Terror", Shawn Paul Apostel

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

From Bush’s September 20, 2001 “War on Terror” speech to Congress to President-Elect Barack Obama’s acceptance speech on November 4, 2008, the U.S. Army produced visual recruitment material that addressed the concerns of falling enlistment numbers—due to the prolonged and difficult war in Iraq—with quickly-evolving and compelling rhetorical appeals: from the introduction of an “Army of One” (2001) to “Army Strong” (2006); from messages focused on education and individual identity to high-energy adventure and simulated combat scenarios, distributed through everything from printed posters and music videos to first-person tactical-shooter video games. These highly polished, professional visual appeals introduced to the …

Place For Video Games : A Theoretical And Pedagogical Framework For Multiliteracies Learning In English Studies, Ethan T. Jordan

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Students are now involved in a vastly different textual landscape than many English scholars, one that relies on the “reading” and interpretation of multiple channels of simultaneous information. As a response to these new kinds of literate practices, my dissertation adds to the growing body of research on multimodal literacies, narratology in new media, and rhetoric through an examination of the place of video games in English teaching and research. I describe in this dissertation a hybridized theoretical basis for incorporating video games in English classrooms. This framework for textual analysis includes elements from narrative theory in literary study, rhetorical …