Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Identity As Performance And Narrative Within Facebook, Trent Michael Kays

Theses and Dissertations

How does a user construct and maintain identity within Facebook is the central question of this thesis. This question is approached from an identity as performance and narrative perspective. The available means for performance and narrative are examined in this work and formed into categories based on Facebook user types.

Caught Between Two Paradigms: Changes In The Community Foundation Field And The Rhetoric Of Community Foundation Websites, Sarah Elizabeth Kinser

Theses and Dissertations

In this investigation, I analyzed the websites of three community foundations and interviewed communications personnel from each foundation to determine how and to what extent their websites address the rhetorical challenges implied by ongoing changes in the field that necessitate a more collaborative, community-oriented approach. The stated key messages of the personnel I interviewed emphasize community involvement and partnership, yet their comments indicate that they view their websites as tools for informing rather than interacting. The sites' structure and functionality foreground institutional information and push community-oriented and interactive content to the periphery. Additionally, the sites' formal language and use of …

Students Say The Darndest Things! A Conversation Analysis For Teaching Assistants In The First-Year-Writing Classroom, Meredith Mcmillan

Theses and Dissertations

Teaching writing is about more than just the writing itself. It's about effective communication between students and teachers, which should create a positive and productive writing environment. However, within conversations, challenges of authority are likely to occur. This project discusses the pitfalls of communication between teaching assistants and students in the first-year-writing classroom. These pitfalls are defined as discourse violations, and are further explained and analyzed using concepts of language theory. Case studies of discourse violation scenarios are presented for discussion. Each scenario illustrates various types of discourse violations, and creates an awareness of the need for classroom management. Ultimately, …

Seeking New Worlds: The Study Of Writing Beyond Our Classrooms, Bronwyn T. Williams

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

As new ways of creating and interpreting texts complicate ideas of how and why writing happens, the field of rhetoric and composition needs to be more conscious of how our institutional responsibilities and scholarly attention to college writing have limited its vision of writing and literacy. It is time to move beyond consolidating our identity as a field focused on college writing, reach out to other literacy-related fields, and form a broader, more comprehensive, and more flexible identity as part of a larger field of literacy and rhetorical studies.

Praise And Blame: The Rhetorical Impact Of Nineteenth-Century Conduct Manuals, Jessica Nicole Mattson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The following is an exploration of the use of epideictic rhetoric strategies in nineteenth-century conduct manuals, Sarah Stickney Ellis’s The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits, and Harriet Martineau’s Household Education. In examining the rhetoric of the conduct manuals, this researcher has identified the audience, the rhetorical situation, the exigence of that situation, and the use of phronisis, areti, and euonia by both authors.
Because the rhetoric of the conduct manual has not been discussed in current critical perspectives, this research is a starting point for further study. The different types of rhetorical …

Black And White And Read In Profile: The Silhouette As Race Manirhetoric In Flannery O'Connor And Kara Walker, Michelle Dacus Carr

All Dissertations

ABSTRACT
My research project, in fulfillment of the requirements for the dissertation in Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design, utilizes the schema or trope of the silhouette as a binding metaphor for black/white race relationships in America. Specifically, I argue that there is no better model for examining social interactions between the races than the back- and fore-grounding that is transacted through this primarily visual--but also verbal and oral--technique of profiling and outlining. This is particularly true given its origins in discriminatory practice, dating as far back as the literary iconismos and characterismos used to categorize Greek and Roman slaves, and …

Talmidae Rhetoricae: Drashing Up Models And Methods For Jewish Rhetorical Studies, Janice W. Fernheimer

Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Fresh, Frugal, And Fabulous: A Woman's Guide To Cooking With Life, Tricia Mahoney

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

A narrative cookbook, including tips and stories for managing a downturn in finances with style and fortitude.

The Inadvertent Alliance Of Anthony Comstock And Margaret Sanger: Abortion, Freedom, And Class In Modern America, Karen Weingarten

Publications and Research

This article investigates how moral-reformer Anthony Comstock, who helped outlaw the practice of birth control and to have abortion criminalized, and Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood and birth-control activist, advanced their causes through the discourse of freedom and self-control. While Comstock’s and Sanger’s works are often seen in opposition, this article questions that positioning by pointing out how they both lobbied against accessible abortion using similar tactics. Finally, this article demonstrates how Comstock and Sanger, through different means, worked to present abortion as a depraved practice that would lead to the demise of American society. Presenting Comstock and Sanger …

Missing Our Own Audience: The Perceptions Of Audience In The Composition Classroom, Chelsea R. Swick

English Theses & Dissertations

Although considered a critical part of the writing process by scholars such as Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford, the concept of audience is elusive when actually looking for its presence in composition classrooms. Many instructors believe that they provide a framework for understanding and valuing audience awareness in writing but then do not understand when student writing does not show these connections. This raises the question of how audience is being taught in the classroom. The purpose of this study is to determine how audience is being addressed as a pedagogical framework in first year composition classrooms by instructors as …

The Question Of Robin Hood, Jessica Kinkhorst

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Pre-Game Rhetoric: Pure Motivation Or Simply Show?, Sam Alan Hettinger

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

John F. Kennedy's Address To The Greater Houston Ministerial Association: A Speech Of Apologia, Carlos Ernesto La Puente

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

A Disciplined And Virtuous Vampire, Holland (Holly) Brown

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

The Features Of The Voice Of African American Tradition: An Analysis Of African American Rhetoric For The Influence Of The Call Response Technique, Laura Venezia

Communication Studies

This project explicates the nature of the rhetorical strategies, especially the call response, used by various African American artists and orators (Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and Public Enemy). The techniques include the interplay of repetition and heightening emotion provided especially through 1. using the “call response” directly, 2. announcing jeremiad warnings and rallying cries, and 3. using potent images to arouse emotions—the objective correlative.

Writing, Illustrating, And Publishing A Children’S Book, Sarah Payne

Senior Honors Projects

My book is entitled Delilah Discovers Degas, about a girl named Delilah who is very passionate about ballet dancing. When Delilah discovers the impressionist painter, Degas, his paintings serve to fuel her imagination as she goes about her daily activities before ballet class. The paintings of adult ballerinas, which I’ve incorporated into the book, represent her dream of one day becoming a professional ballerina. My target audience is 4-6 year old children.

I am studying both English and Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Rhode Island. My academic efforts culminated in creating a children’s book as my senior honors …

Working Rhetoric And Composition., Bruce Horner, Min-Zhan Lu

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Given the multiple meanings of rhetoric and composition, as well as the vexed history of institutional relationships between these two terms, it is important for scholars to trace how they are “worked”—that is, how they materially function—in a variety of specific circumstances.

Keeping History Alive: David Mccullough And The Debate Between Popular And Academic History, James R. Allen

History

The purpose of this paper is to explore the differences between academic history and popular history through David McCullough, one of the most successful popular history writers. It attempts to reconcile the schism between the two schools of thought, and provide a middle ground where each can stand.

The Annie Prey Jorgensen Papers: Nineteenth-Century Writing Instruction And Women's Rhetoric On The Plains, Renee Mcgill

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation examines the college and professional writing of Annie Prey Jorgensen, who attended the University of Nebraska during the 1890s as both an undergraduate and graduate student. Annie’s collection of papers, housed in Archives and Special Collections at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, offers composition and rhetoric significant insights about women college students’ rhetorical practices at the end of the nineteenth century. Specifically, Annie uses personal experience and narrative techniques to deploy a feminist rhetorical strategy that allows her to inscribe gendered experience into academic writing. Annie’s collection offers a cross-section of writing from three sites of inquiry—the papers …

Extending Transfer In Composition: Exploring A Model For Conceptualizing Rhetorical Problems, Janet Roser

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the use of a new rhetorical problem-solving model for writing instruction to create opportunities for abstract thinking and extend the transfer of rhetorical knowledge. The author conducts a qualitative research study on the transfer of rhetorical knowledge by interviewing former students and evaluating their writing samples written in their courses beyond composition. By revisiting the early cognitive writing process research of Linda Flower and John R. Hayes, evaluating the differences between novice and expert writers, and creating corollaries with David Perkins and Gavriel Salomon’s theories on transfer, the author identifies markers for transfer within the rhetorical situation …