Digital Commons Network^™

The Effects Of Reading Poetry In Library Classes On Circulation Of The Library’S Poetry Collection, Mary Musselman

Graduate Research Papers

Many of the elementary poetry books on the shelves of the Manson Northwest Webster Barnum Center library in Barnum, Iowa were not being checked out by students. By reading poetry from those books to third and fourth graders during library time the librarian hoped to stimulate interest in those poetry books and increase circulation of them. After keeping track of the poetry book circulation before and after reading poetry to the groups, the reading did in fact increase the circulation of the poetry books significantly at the .05 level.

To Be Or Not To Be: A Portrayal Of William Shakespeare In Children's Literature, Kathy S. Grout

Graduate Research Papers

This study analyzed how accurately authors of historical fiction portray William Shakespeare, the man and events of his life. An attempt was made to locate 25 books that contained Shakespeare as a character or dealt with events from his life. Twenty-two books were chosen that were written for children, young adults and adults with recommendations for young adults. Each book was read, summarized, reread and examined by completing a content analysis checklist designed to evaluate the portrayal of William Shakespeare and events of his life. Four hypotheses relating to known facts about Shakespeare's life, the fictionalization of his character, the …

Trends, Patterns, And Characteristics Of Young Adult Horror Fiction, Melissa A. Buelow

Graduate Research Papers

The characteristics of young adult horror fiction include literary conventions, incidents and patterns that are unique to the genre and appealing to the reader. This researcher investigated the trends, patterns, and conventions of young adult novels which make these novels appealing to the reader. This researcher made this investigation using a quantitative content analysis of the young adult horror literature. The researcher chose the books based on the availability of the book, by using the keywords horror, supernatural, occult, gothic, and vampire. The whole book was then analyzed for the trends, patterns, and conventions which it contained.

Seven Recent Commentaries On Mark Twain, Peter Schmidt

English Literature Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Word Is Born: Critical Gaps And The Poetics Of Hip-Hop, Kabir Hamid

Honors Papers

I grew up listening to hip-hop music. Although I lived across the country from its birthplace, I would immerse myself in its sounds during the day and especially at night when my brother would play tapes before we fell asleep in our bunk beds. At a certain point in high school, I became obsessed with the music's lyrics. I was continually astonished by the cleverness, rhyme ability and edginess of the emcees I listened to. My admiration for hip-hop music developed alongside my admiration for the great authors I was reading at that time: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Herman Hesse and …

Turbulent Times: Epic Fantasy In Adolescent Literature, Karie Eliza Crawford

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a development of the theories presented by Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Bruno Bettelheim concerning archetypes, the anima/animus concept, the Hero Cycle, and identity development through fairy tales. I argue that there are vital rites of passage missing in Anglo-Saxon culture, and while bibliotherapy cannot replace them, it can help adolescents synthesize their experiences. The theories of Jung, Campbell, and Bettelheim demonstrate this concept by defining segments of the story and how they apply to the reader. Because of the applicability, readers, despite their age, can use the examples in the book to help reconcile their own …

Hardy And Owen On World War I: Explications And A Comparative Analysis Of "The Man He Killed" And "Dulce Et Decorum Est", William Wright

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

T(H)Ree Rhizome(S) On 'Close/Open' Encounters With Kinsella's Pastoralism Of The 'Radical' Kind, Klyth Tan Soo-Hong

Theses : Honours

In his elaborative Landbridge 'statement of intent', Western Australian and International poet John Kinsella - whose phenomenal rise since the '90s is now a worldwide literary success story that needs no introduction - asserts a profound interest for the 'pastoral radical' (Kinsella, ed. Kinsella, Landbridge, 1999): “I'm particularly interested in the 'pastoral radical'- in blending the so-called pastoral tradition with the lingui.stically innovative. This 'hybrid' ironises the pastoral construct but allows for genuine movement through rural spaces. Landscape is central to my project - ways of seeing, questions of occupation and space, the position and relevance of the so-called 'lyrical …

Information On The Assembly Line : A Review Of Information Design And Its Implications For Technical Communicators, Jason Nichols

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

Technological advances have made endless amounts of information on nearly every subject easily accessible, while at the same time fostering an economic climate conducive to international trade and partnerships. The challenge for companies then becomes one of figuring out how best to manage and use this mass of information, a task complicated by the increasingly global nature of business that requires products to be tailored to more specialized user groups in a wider array of formats and in different languages. Hence the emergence of information design, a field that technical communicators would do well to associate themselves with. Information design …

The Portrayal Of Grandparents In Young Adult Fiction, Sherri L. Imoehl

Graduate Research Papers

This study used content analysis to examine contemporary young adult fiction to see how the grandparent-grandchild relationship was portrayed. The titles were randomly chosen books taken from the American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults annual lists 1990-2000. Simple perceptions of grandparents as older adults who see their grandchildren on special occasions are no longer realistic. There is statistical evidence that many grandparents have a significant effect on the lives of young adults. Grandparents are becoming more active in the family household. Novels read by young adults may not mirror these new changes. Findings revealed that in the majority …

An Antidote For Testosterone Poisoning: Ya Books Girls—And Boys—Should Read, Chris Crowe

Faculty Publications

Today's world is loaded with dangers and dangerous people; it's a place where kids-good and bad, naive and worldly, cautious and reckless-are at risk. The sources of these risks are sometimes masked in the mixed messages children learn from society-messages about gender roles, about behavior, about what's right and what's not.

Some of the fuzzy messages that concern me most are the ones that influence the behavior of young adult males. All teachers know that teenage boys can be some of the most obnoxious creatures on earth. I know this from personal experience as a former obnoxious boy and as …

Feminist Issues And Concerns In The Fictions Of Two Egyptian Women Writers: Alifa Rifaat And Nawal El-Saadawi, Shafiqa Anwar Fakir

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This thesis involves an examination of feminist issues and concerns in the fictions of two contemporary Egyptian women writers: Alifa Rifaat and Nawal el-Saadawi. The main focus will be on illuminating the social, sexual, economical problems that the literary female characters encounter and how they deal with these various forms of oppressions. Examination of these author's lives and works illustrates the complexity of women within the boundaries of the same nation in matters of gender justice and equality. This further, implicitly, illustrates the complexity of Arab women who tend to be viewed as a cohesive whole.

Robert Coover's "Cartoon": A Fiction About The Postmodern Problem Of Authenticity, Glenda Conway

Short Story

No abstract provided.

Narrative Patterns Of Racism And Resistance In The Work Of William Faulkner, Janet Elizabeth Barnwell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Keeping in mind the complicated nature of race relations in the South during the segregation era, as well as the economic volatility of the time, and recognizing Faulkner's position as a white southern writer, this dissertation poses and attempts to answer a few specific questions regarding Faulkner's work. First, beginning with New Orleans Sketches and ending with Go Down, Moses, what texts seem most devoted to examining issues of race difference? Second, where in these texts does Faulkner most strikingly incorporate and then challenge racial stereotypes and cliches about the South? Third, working chronologically, how did Faulkner reconcile his position …

Explaining The Explanation: Byron's Notes To Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cristina M. Caminita

LSU Master's Theses

In this thesis, I show that Lord Byron's notes to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage are an integral part of the poem itself, not to be read as added material, but to be read as material that comments upon and deconstructs the poem. I examine the first two cantos of the poem, reading the notes as Byron's own answers and questions to the stylistic and political ramifications of the romance verse. By scrutinizing Byron's use of the romantic hero, the romance verse, the romantic quest and the text of romance for his reading public, I show Byron's own subversion and questioning of …

Violence And The Scapegoat In American Film: 1967-1999, Paul E. Graham Iii

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study addresses the proliferation of cinematic violence since the demise of the MPAA’s Production Code in 1966. Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch were films that projected violence to comment on the civil fervent caused by the Vietnam War. Yet the floodgates these films opened allowed for virtually unlimited and graphic displays of bloodshed to redden big screens for the next three decades. Using the theories of René Girard, namely the scapegoating motif, this study proposes readings of film that, through cinematic ambiguity, contain humanitarian statements against violence by examining the consequences of using force to cause pain. …

Body And Soul: Food, The Female (In) Corporeal, And The Narrative Effects Of Mind/Body Duality, Andrea Adolph

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study combines philosophical, historical, and cultural modes of inquiry in order to explore what has occurred when selected authors have attempted to "write the body." Augmented by archival and primary cultural research, the dissertation is grounded in the experiential, "everyday" qualities of women's lives. Samples of women's cultural materials such as beauty, cookery, and household management texts, and popular women's magazines serve as informative backdrops for an investigation of middle- and working-class British and Anglo-Irish women's culture during the twentieth century. This study investigates some of the ways in which women have thought about food in relation to more …

Doing Homework: Negotiations Of The Domestic In Twentieth-Century Novels Of Teaching, Margaret M. Watson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this project, I analyze seven twentieth-century novels of teaching in order to investigate how notions of “home” and “school” are constructed, connected, and perpetuated in popular teaching narratives. Images of teachers in much of this century’s fiction often rest on views of the school as home that are derived from stereotypes of gender, race, and nationality—stereotypes that can be both inaccurate and repressive. For this reason, I examine these texts in light of how they negotiate school space with domestic space (“domestic” both as personal or familial, and as public or national). I contend that many of these narratives …

Prophet Singer: The Voice And Vision Of Woody Guthrie, Mark Allan Jackson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project discusses the cultural and political significance of a number of lyrics by songwriter and political activist Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie. By drawing on both the singer's personal experiences and relevant American history, I lay out how larger political and cultural forces in society impacted Guthrie's songs. Although this work focuses primarily on his lyrics, my dissertation also draws on his interviews, commercial recordings, drawings, and other writing. Since much of the writing discussed in this work comes from archival collections at the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and the Woody Guthrie Archives, I have covered a wider …

It Came From Outer Space: The Virus, Cultural Anxiety, And Speculative Fiction, Anne-Marie Thomas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study seeks to explore and interrogate the “viral reality” of the 1990s, in which the virus, heavily indebted to representations of AIDS for its metaphorical power, emerged as a prominent agent in science and popular culture. What becomes apparent in both fictional and non-fictional texts of this era, however, is that the designation of “virus” transcends specific and material viral phenomena, making the virus itself a touchstone for modern preoccupations with self and other. As constituted by the human body’s interaction with pathogenic agents, the binary of self and other may be deconstructed by an interrogation of the virus …

Audience And The African American Playwright : An Analysis Of The Importance Of Audience Selection And Audience Response On The Dramaturgies Of August Wilson And Ed Bullins, Ladrica C. Menson-Furr

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this study I discuss the importance of audience selection and response upon the dramaturgies of African American playwrights August Wilson and Ed Bullins. Using the theories and criteria for African American art and theatre as espoused by Alain Locke, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Amiri Baraka, and created by the 1960s and 1970s Black Theatre and Black Aesthetic movements, I discuss the importance of audience selection to Wilson's dramas, especially given his tremendous success on Broadway. I also explore the claimed lack of importance of audience to Bullins's dramaturgy, particularly as demonstrated in those plays written during his brief tenure …

Jaepl, Vol. 7, Winter 2001-2002, Linda T. Calendrillo, Editor, Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Editor

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Morris Berman tells the story of his maternal grandfather, who, when he was five years old in 1883 or 1884, was sent to a Jewish elementary school in Belorussia. On the first day of class, the teacher startled the young boy by taking each child's slate and smearing the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet—aleph and beys—on it in honey. His grandfather's first lesson consisted of eating the letters off the slate. The symbolism of this act is complex, Berman muses, but central to the ritual is the belief that what is real must be taken into oneself, ingested: …

Reflections On A Shimmering Screen: Television’S Relationship To Writing Pedagogies, Bronwyn Williams

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Annotated Bibliography Of Research In The Teaching Of English, Deborah Brown, Judith Kalman, Macrina Gómez, Gert Rijlaarsdam, Anne D'Antonio Stinson, Melissa E. Whiting

Faculty Publications

Twice a year, in the May and November issues, RTE publishes a selected bibliography of recent research in literacy education, Most of the studies appeared during the six-month period preceding the compilation of the bibliography (January through June, 2001 for the present bibliography), but studies that appeared earlier are occasionally included. The listing is selective;; we make no attempt to include all research and research-related articles that appeared in the period tinder review Comments on the bibliography and suggestions about items for inclusion may be directed to the bibliography editors. We encourage you to send your suggestions to [email protected], [email protected], …

Household Words, Lisa Knopp

English Faculty Publications

The Germanic words for home may have been derived from two Indo-European words: kei, which means lying or settling down, a bed or couch, as well as something beloved, and ksêmas, which means safe dwelling. These linguistic ancestors also yield the Greek koiman, to put to sleep, which is the root of koimeterion, a sleeping place or cemetery. In time, the word for home in several European languages (ham in Anglo-Saxon; heimr in Old Norse; háims in Gothic; kemas or kaímas in Lithuanian; caymis in Old Prussian, etc.) also came to mean a village, town, or collection of dwellings. Home …

Tin Can Tourist, Scott Hightower

Poetry

A world of history is a world of destinations and possibilities. In Tin Can Tourist Scott Hightower draws from a legacy larger than the limits of personal history, body, and brand. From the harsh Protestant landscape of his native central Texas to the pageantry of the historical architecture of St. Maria in Trastevere, Rome, he persues the limit of the poet. Where exactly does one begin and the world start? Hightower reflects a world containing AIDS and cancer, Caravaggio and van der Werff. Nature, interpersonal relationships, and the culture of the world—from simple to extraordinary—are all fair game. His partaking, …

Greenaway's Books, Steven Marx

English

Peter Greenaway's adaptation of The Tempest is titled Prospero's Books, renaming and representing Shakespeare's play as a work made of books. Prospero begins imagining, speaking and writing The Tempest in his bath while turning the pages of "The Book of Water." It and the other 23 books which inspire and empower him appear in Greenaway's version both as props in the narrative and as "real" documents located in a separate picture plane, where they are described by a donnish voice distinct from that of the protagonist-author.

Eng 3009g-004: Myth And Culture, Carol Stevens

Fall 2001

No abstract provided.

Eng 3009g-006: Myth And Culture, Martone

Fall 2001

No abstract provided.

Eng 3090g-099: Literary Masterworks (Honors), Zahlan

Fall 2001

No abstract provided.