Digital Commons Network^™

English Language Learners Marginalized In Classrooms, Nayelis Guerrero

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Nayelis is an undecided major living in Everett, Massachusetts. Nayelis was an English language learner when she first came to the United States, and her essay was inspired by this experience. She says that researching and writing this essay “made me realize the ways in which English language learners can better incorporate themselves socially.” Nayelis is also passionate about helping her community, serving both as a coordinator of a group of Hispanic women that want to jump-start their own businesses and as part of a coalition that works with police in her city to change policies around the police’s interaction …

Letters To My Unrequited Love, Ogadimma Ebele

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Ogadimma is a political science major living in Hyde Park, Massachusetts. Writing is her passion and she credits this assignment with helping to further her composition skills. In 2019, she plans to focus all of her energy on pursuing her dream of landing a career in comedy writing.

2019 Editor's Introduction, Lauren M. Bowen

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

No abstract provided.

2018 Editor’S Introduction, Lauren M. Bowen

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

No abstract provided.

Tolkien’S Medievalism In Ruins: The Function Of Relics And Ruins In Middle-Earth (2025) Edited By Nick Katsiadas And Carl Sell, Deborah Sabo

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Deborah Sabo, of Tolkien’s Medievalism in Ruins: The Function of Relics and Ruins in Middle-earth (2025) edited by Nick Katsiadas and Carl Sell

Somewhere Far And Somewhere Near: A Short Story Collection, Jizelle Villegas

English Honors Projects

Somewhere Far and Somewhere Near is a short story collection that positions body horror, “where corporeality constitutes the main site of fear, anxiety and disgust,” alongside Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of la facultad, or “see[ing] deeper realities within surface phenomena,” which is heightened in the Latina body. Stories range from depicting realistic body horror like cancer and disordered eating to the grotesque and supernatural, like spirits and vampires. I draw on Latina speculative fiction writers, Tejana scholars and my own lived experiences to explore how location and identity presses upon the emotional and psychological stakes of my Latina characters

Seventeenth Century Poetry And Music: A Syllabus (English 721), Carrie Hintz

Open Educational Resources

A syllabus for my fall English 721 class (Seventeenth Century Literature: Poetry and Music).

Remixing Dialogue: A Case Study On Perceptions Of Hip Hop Pedagogy In A Professional Learning Course, Kelly J. Thelen

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

This qualitative case study examines how teachers’ decision-making and professional autonomy shift while participating in a Hip Hop Pedagogy Professional Learning course supported by structured FIXIT (Lo & Wachter, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c, 2023d; Wachter & Lo, 2024) game-facilitated dialogue in a rural, culturally and linguistically diverse Midwest community. Grounded in Freire’s (1970) Critical Pedagogy, Ladson-Billings’ (1995) Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (Paris and Alim, 2017), and Adult Learning Theory (Knowles et al., 2005), the study explores the reclamation of agency by teachers in a time of constrained creativity and educator autonomy shaped by strict policy environments, an emphasis on …

Secondary English Teachers' Experiences Of Supporting Literacy Using Books That Support Diversity And Inclusion: A Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Tremonisha L. Putros

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore the use of supporting BIPOC students’ literacy with books that support diversity and inclusion for secondary English teachers in the United States. The theory guiding this study is Bandura’s social cognitive theory, as it stresses personal student engagement in individual learning tasks. The Central Research Question asks: What are the lived experiences of secondary English teachers who support BIPOC students’ literacy with books that support diversity and inclusion by teaching a novel with a BIPOC protagonist in a predominantly BIPOC class? Employing a qualitative methodology, this hermeneutic phenomenology examined the …

The Dream Itself Was Home”: Imaginary Homelands As A Model For Analyzing Contemporary African Return Narratives, Renee King

Masters Theses

Although contemporary African return narratives featuring female protagonists explore a wide range of themes, they consistently portray women who struggle to situate themselves within an increasingly globalized world. In these narratives, the homeland initially functions as a stabilizing anchor that emboldens the protagonist to pursue education or employment abroad, yet works such as Doreen Baingana’s Tropical Fish and Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah reveal that the homeland the protagonists once treated as immutable ultimately exposes itself as a dream. This destabilization unsettles the notion of an unshakeable cultural identity and demonstrates how migration reshapes both the self and the meaning of home. …

It All Begins With A Dream, Eileen M. Riley

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Eileen is an English major from a military family near Fort Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts. Her interest in vintage fashion led her to research representations of women in early 20th century advertisements for the Maidenform bra for her Composition II class. Impressed by the beautiful artwork she discovered in these depictions, Eileen was intrigued by the portrayals of women in roles that were traditionally held by men. Her essay explores how “these ads fed women’s desires for the gender norm dictates of that post-war time in America [and] went beyond these norms by depicting aspirational scenarios.” Eileen lives in Dorchester, …

A Close Look At The Function Of Slang, Ana Radonjic Sabbagh

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Ana is an undecided major, born and raised in Boston to Serbian and Lebanese parents. Writing has always been a passion of Ana’s, and she created this research essay as a final project for her Composition II course. She notes that “it was a topic that became increasingly interesting the more I researched it. I was thoroughly surprised by the complex history and function of slang, and I gained a new perspective on the role of language in our daily lives.” Other than writing, Ana’s biggest passion is traveling, and she loves discovering new places, meeting people from all around …

Profanity And Perceptions, Elizabeth Lefrancois

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Lizzie is an Exercise and Health Science major from Blackstone, Massachusetts. Assigned by her Composition II instructor to research an aspect of language that interested her, Lizzie chose to research swearing, which was never allowed in her home. Lizzie’s research enabled her to “open [her] eyes and see much more than a lack of vocabulary” when she heard others using profanity. She explains, “I felt as if I was programmed to think that swearing was this terrible thing that no one should do, and, because of that, I never thought about the positive side of this language.” Lizzie’s essay explores …

The Good Samaritan: The Role Of Religion In One's Morality, Kamla Javier

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Kamla is an Economics major currently living in Boston, Massachusetts. Kamla’s essay, created for her Composition II course, began as an exploration of morality. She set out to examine the stereotypes against non-believers in order to better understand the development of the moral compass and the role religion plays in morality. She writes: “In this day and age where all kinds of people can freely express their opinion, both hurtful and helpful, I also wish to communicate my own beliefs through a logical presentation of information.” Kamla wanted to voice a position that is accepting of all people and “hopefully …

There And Back Again: A Writer's Tale, By A Repeat Student, Mark Ballou

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Mark is an IT Major who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. Mark credits his parents for his life-long love of reading, and at a young age he loved writers, like J.R.R. Tolkien and R.A. Salvatore, who “in addition to having abbreviations for their first names, share an affinity for spending pages and pages describing the visuals in their books.” Mark is an Army veteran with nine years of service, and he has spent most of his adult life writing as a Counterintelligence Agent for the US Army, employing his meticulous style into his written work. In this essay for his Composition …

The Insights Of Literacy, Yasmim Alves Da Silva

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

No abstract provided.

Nice White Ladies: Exorcising The Ghost Of Lady Bountiful, Renee Lynch

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

This article explores how individuals with racial privilege can both acknowledge and start to move beyond the ways they are implicated in systemic injustices in internationalization through collaboration. The study examines how the author acted in complicity with colonial power in an international collaborative research project in English language education at a university in Tanzania. Critical ethnographic data was analyzed using positioning theory and applying the archetype of Lady Bountiful - a “nice white lady” who graciously participates in the civilizing work of colonization. This construct illuminates how the author perpetuated colonialism at the intersection of whiteness and femininity while …

Grieving And Attentiveness: Perception As Flourishing In Ocean Vuong And Mary Oliver, Madison Smith

Papers

The paper argues that poets Ocean Vuong and Mary Oliver treat grief as something formative to one's life and character rather than purely destructive; through their suffering, the subject has the opportunity to cultivate a sense of attentiveness that transforms perceptions of the self, others, history, and the natural world.

This project was an output for The Belmont Formation Scholars Cohort for Character Research and Writing, which received generous support funding from The Kern Family Foundation.

I gratefully acknowledge peer review feedback on this project, and I am accountable for writing of this product without generative AI and in alignment …

Cardinal Vices In Middle-Earth (2025), By Martina Juričková, John Wm. Houghton

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by John Wm. Houghton, of Cardinal Vices in Middle-earth (2025), by Martina Juričková.

The Narrative In The Algorithm: Storytelling, World Literature, And The Smartphone, Chad Szalkowski-Ference

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I interrogate the role algorithms, artificial intelligence, and smartphone technology play in contemporary world literature. My analysis begins with the post-truth condition, which speaks to the contemporary era’s embrace of alternative facts, authoritarianism, and conspiratorial thinking. I draw on narrative theory and paradigms of world literature to show how “algorithmic reasoning” has led to a state of paranoid persecution. This reasoning has forged new collectivities across traditional borders. Additionally, I show that these new collectivities and new technologies have produced new narrative points of view: the algorithmic first- and third-person, allowing narratives to retain the intimacy and …

Postmodern Fantasy & Its Twin Traditions, Skyler J. Alexander

Honors Thesis

Fantasy literature is diverse and difficult to categorize; nevertheless, throughout the twentieth century two main subgenres emerged: sword-and-sorcery and high fantasy. This thesis examines the differences and similarities between these two traditions, how contemporary examples of the genre fit into or diverge away from the traditions that influenced them, and proves in the negative what and how much of contemporary fantasy fiction is original to itself, with no prominent antecedent. The analysis was performed by comparatively reading two contemporary fantasy novels, The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan and A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, with …

A Case For Societal Provenance: Marguerite Harper As Told By The Men She Represented, V. Emily Cranwell Deinert

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This paper argues for making societal provenance the grounding framework for archival descriptive standards to ensure that important voices already present in archives are no longer buried. This study reclaims from archival obscurity the career of literary agent Marguerite E. Harper to illustrate the need for this expansion. Harper proves strikingly absent from some of the archives for the authors she represented. Likely an unwitting omission from archivists that uncritically accepted the narratives of these male authors, Harper’s erasure provides a potent example of the ways that archival descriptive standards may unintentionally further silence historically marginalized voices within archives. The …

Our Heritage Vol Ii 2026, Ana Iraheta, Jake R. Turcotte, Siobhan Lahiff

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

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Ana C. Iraheta and Jake R. Turcotte (Editors)

Siobhan Lahiff (Illustrator) "

Más Que Saltos: Patinar Me Hace Feliz/More Than Jumps: Skating Makes Me Happy, Amelia Costa

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

Skater changes her goals, works hard, and finds new joy.

Por Siempre En Mi Corazón/Forever In My Heart, Valeria Barrón

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

A young woman honors her late friend with love and tradition.

Los Abuelos Viven Para Siempre/Grandparents Live Forever, Mariana Padilla

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

A young woman misses her grandpa, remembers his love, and applies his lessons every single day.

Una Historia Sobre Cultura, Familia Y Sueños/A Story About Culture, Family, And Dreams, Roseline Tavarez Cepeda

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

Young immigrant celebrates culture, overcomes fear, and shares her story.

La Pequeña Defensora/The Little Advocate, Krystal Cuello Samper

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

Krystal faces challenges, uses bilingualism to help others and grow.

Mi Loca Mundaza A Connecticut/My Crazy Move To Connecticut, Luciana Ybarra

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

Moving from Hawaii to Connecticut taught values, adaptation, and cultural respect.

Cuando No Entendía El Por Qué/When I Didn't Understand Why, Nancy Nuñez

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

Nancy moved to a new country, learned English with effort, and discovered how valuable education is.