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'Go Ahead Touch This Dinosaur Fossil': The Rhetoric Of Interactivity In Museum Culture, Steffanie Golliher May 2013

'Go Ahead Touch This Dinosaur Fossil': The Rhetoric Of Interactivity In Museum Culture, Steffanie Golliher

All Theses

In this essay, I will problematize the narrative housed within the Creation Museum in order to question the function of interactive exhibits and sensation in the museum space. The Creation Museum, like many science centers, utilizes displays with sensory triggers under the guise of visitor empowerment, yet their exhibits are sensational rather than interactive. Playing on conventions of science centers and the supposed visitor agency permitted by interactive exhibits, the Creation Museum asserts a narrative informed by the Bible and fueled by sensory stimulation. My analysis of the Creation Museum reveals the degree to which sensation for AiG is not …

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Delayed Action Or Locomotion? Con/Versions Of Reality In Dramatism And Inception, Jacob Greene May 2013

Delayed Action Or Locomotion? Con/Versions Of Reality In Dramatism And Inception, Jacob Greene

All Theses

This essay seeks to draw out the connections between perceptual conversions of reality within the work of Kenneth Burke and the film Inception (Christopher Nolan 2010). By establishing the degree to which Inception portrays an impossible pursuit of objective reality, one can better understand how dramatism implicitly instigates a similar pursuit of a mythic reality separate from any kind of orientational contingency. As way of reacting to this misconception of dramatism made apparent through the metaphor provided by the film, I want to foreground the concept of 'delayed action' as the fundamental basis of Burke's formulation of dramatism in A …

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A Leader's Impact On Sense Of Community In One Venue At The London 2012 Olympics, Laura Grouchy May 2013

A Leader's Impact On Sense Of Community In One Venue At The London 2012 Olympics, Laura Grouchy

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The importance of creating and maintaining sense of community in workplaces is becoming an increasingly essential facet to help restore bonds and develop support systems which can create happier and more efficient employees. The focus of this research will be on how leadership influences sense of community within one venue at the London Olympic Organizing Committee (LOCOG). This problem is of interest to scholars because Organizing Committees are rapidly growing, temporary and have symbolical strong cultures. In-depth interviews, participant observation and a big five-inventory questionnaire were administered to eight full-time employees at the same venue in London Olympic Organizing Committee. …

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The Charleston Trussed Roof: A Study Of The Development And Implementation Of A Structural Solution From 1740-1820, Pamela Marotta Kendrick May 2013

The Charleston Trussed Roof: A Study Of The Development And Implementation Of A Structural Solution From 1740-1820, Pamela Marotta Kendrick

All Theses

Charleston, South Carolina is renowned for the impressive churches, civic buildings, and mansions which line its historic streets. Although scholars have studied many of these famous structures in depth, the roof framing methods used to construct these large buildings has rarely been studied or documented. Where documentation exists it is rudimentary at best, often only identifying the overall form of the roof or the material used for the roof covering. The truss roof system was designed to accommodate buildings with a spans greater than twenty five feet wide. The implementation of these truss roof designs enabled the construction of Charleston …

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Quantifying Visitor Impact And Material Degradation At George Washington's Mount Vernon, Laurel Lynne Bartlett May 2013

Quantifying Visitor Impact And Material Degradation At George Washington's Mount Vernon, Laurel Lynne Bartlett

All Theses

Over one million visitors per year traverse the visitor path through George Washington's home at Mount Vernon. Increased visitation has tested the limits of the architectural materials and created the single most threatening source of degradation. While the history of Mount Vernon is dotted with attempts to mitigate damage caused by visitors, scientific analysis of the dynamic impacts to the historic fabric is needed to preserve the integrity of the preeminent national house museum. The following thesis presents a holistic analysis of visitor impact and material degradation occurring at Mount Vernon.
Visitor impact issues are acknowledged at historic sites around …

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Organizational Communication And The Meanings Of Social Media As Cultural Mediums: A Case Study Of Intramural Sport Participants' Interpretations Of Online Presence, Madeline Blair May 2013

Organizational Communication And The Meanings Of Social Media As Cultural Mediums: A Case Study Of Intramural Sport Participants' Interpretations Of Online Presence, Madeline Blair

All Theses

This thesis analyzes the relationship between organizational communication and social media presence in organizational culture. Using a university intramural sport program (UIM) as a case study, this study addresses the role of organizational members' interpretations of the introduction of social media into organizational processes and culture. This study an attempt to reveal a disconnect between organizational communication techniques and social media as cultural mediums by offering an interpretive approach to analysis of the UIM culture using Craig and Tracy's (1995) grounded practical theory. Ten interviews with UIM student employees and sport players were conducted and data were analyzed qualitatively. Findings …

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The Impact Of Rising Trade On Wage Inequality: An Empirical Study On U.S.-China Trade From 2000-2010, Jie Chen May 2013

The Impact Of Rising Trade On Wage Inequality: An Empirical Study On U.S.-China Trade From 2000-2010, Jie Chen

All Theses

International trade has been cited as a source of widening wage inequality in industrial nations. In this paper, I investigate how the structure of the wage premium has been impacted within the United States due to rising trade with China. Using the U.S. Census data, since China joined WTO, I find the presence of the skill premium and over time the skill premium is higher. A counterfactual exercise indicates rising U.S. exports to China increase the wages of workers, especially for high-skilled laborers, and the effect is more pronounced in 2010. At the same time, increasing imports from China increase …

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'Pulse For Pulse, Breath For Breath:' Reconsidering Embodiment Through The Phenomenology Of Respiration, Erica Britenburg May 2013

'Pulse For Pulse, Breath For Breath:' Reconsidering Embodiment Through The Phenomenology Of Respiration, Erica Britenburg

All Theses

A phenomenological examination of the respiratory process reveals that possessing the ability to breathe carries with it more significance than an action that solely supports life: capable of leaving the immediate confines of the body, the breath is an enigmatic extension of the self. This particular traversing capability of the active body challenges notions of what it means to be fully embodied by indicating the possibility of subjective expansion outside that which is tangible and fleshly. Due to the intertwining and exchanging characteristics implicit within respirational activity, the sensational boundaries of subject and object become conflated with one another; the …

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The American Lawn: Culture, Nature, Design And Sustainability, Maria Ghys May 2013

The American Lawn: Culture, Nature, Design And Sustainability, Maria Ghys

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Abstract

This was an exploratory study examining the processes and underlying concepts of design nature, and culture necessary to discussing sustainable design solutions for the American lawn. A review of the literature identifies historical perceptions of the lawn and contemporary research that links lawns to sustainability. Research data was collected by conducting personal interviews with green industry professionals and administering a survey instrument to administrators and residents of planned urban development communities. Recommended guidelines for the sustainable American lawn are identified and include native plant usage to increase habitat and biodiversity, permeable paving and ground cover as an alternative to …

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Eugene Genovese And Elizabeth Fox-Genovese: Partners In Life And History, Emily Chandler May 2013

Eugene Genovese And Elizabeth Fox-Genovese: Partners In Life And History, Emily Chandler

All Theses

This study examines both the personal and professional relationships of historians Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. Considered by many to be a `power couple' in the historical academy, they were pioneers in the field of southern history and offered a number of contributions to a Marxist interpretation of the antebellum South. They also wielded a considerable amount of influence within their discipline. Previous studies have largely focused on the Genoveses' professional collaboration and scholarship, but have neglected to explore their marriage. This study takes a closer look at their personal lives and marriage and seeks to determine the influence …

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The Stonecutters And Tomb Builders Of Lafayette Cemetery No.1, New Orleans, Louisiana, Emily Anne Ford May 2013

The Stonecutters And Tomb Builders Of Lafayette Cemetery No.1, New Orleans, Louisiana, Emily Anne Ford

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This thesis explores the building history of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, established 1833. The historic cemetery, located in what is now the Garden District of New Orleans, Louisiana, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, but has continued to experience preservation issues concerning its traditional above-ground tombs and other landscape features.
By investigating the building methods and background of the historic craftsmen who helped develop Lafayette No. 1, the cemetery will be better understood and, thus, better preserved. A combination of structural surveys and archival research, this thesis constructs a dimensional portrait not only of specific …

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Effect Of Forage Type And Corn Supplementation On Animal Performance And Meat Quality, Asher Wright May 2013

Effect Of Forage Type And Corn Supplementation On Animal Performance And Meat Quality, Asher Wright

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Angus x Hereford steers (441 ± 24 kg; n = 32) were used in a 2-yr study (2011 and 2012) to examine forage type (legume species, alfalfa and soybeans LG vs. grass species, tall fescue and sudangrass, GR) and daily corn supplementation (0%, NS, vs. 0.75% BW, CS) on animal performance and carcass quality. Steers grazed (May-August) for a total of 98 d and 105 d in 2011 and 2012 respectively. Upon completion of the finishing period, steers were slaughtered and carcass data were collected. Steaks (2.5 cm thick) from the longissimus dorsi muscle (LM) were collected for measurement of …

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The Second Choice, Yangchun Li May 2013

The Second Choice, Yangchun Li

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This creative thesis strives to carve out the constitutional disappointments in our psychic experiences and the equally constitutional human effort to seek a temporal sense of contentment amid the disappointments, from the context of the increasing fluidity of the present world, where international mobility has ceased to be the privilege or misfortune of a few and become the norm of a growing globalized population. In this thesis, an inward-looking, self-exploring approach is employed to explore the pluralism in both disappointment and self-consoling. The limitations in the characters' perspectives are essential to both stories in this thesis, because a limited perspective …

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Improving R-Value In Brick Systems Using Various Pore-Forming Agents, Graham Shepherd May 2013

Improving R-Value In Brick Systems Using Various Pore-Forming Agents, Graham Shepherd

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Energy efficiency and energy savings are two topics that have continued to gain momentum over the last decade. This topic is extremely important when it comes to the construction of buildings and homes. Efforts have been ongoing to increase the insulation value of brick systems to hinder the conductive heat transfer through the material. The use of pore-forming agents (PFA’s) have been studied to increase the porosity within a ceramic system, through sacrificial burnout or place–holder method, which leave a residual, defined pore size distribution. This increase in porosity leads to better insulating capabilities and inherently lower conductivity values. In …

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Holding The Process Accountable: An Exploration Of New Housing Developments And Place In Cukurcayir, Turkey, Beyza Sen May 2013

Holding The Process Accountable: An Exploration Of New Housing Developments And Place In Cukurcayir, Turkey, Beyza Sen

All Theses

Housing environments are the places where its residents spend most of their time in. In Turkey, housing types that have been built in the past have over time. Especially during the past decade, due to the concentration of people in the city centers and the nations goals on housing developments have resulted in dense and tall apartment buildings to be built in newly developing cities. This study exemplifies the current planning practices and its effects on housing environments and place. The reasons why this study is focusing on the housing environments are: housing environments represent the culture and society, people …

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Remembering The Legacy Of Coastal Defense: How An Understanding Of The Development Of Fort Moultrie Military Reservation, Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, Can Facilitate Its Future Preservation, Karl Philip Sondermann May 2013

Remembering The Legacy Of Coastal Defense: How An Understanding Of The Development Of Fort Moultrie Military Reservation, Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, Can Facilitate Its Future Preservation, Karl Philip Sondermann

All Theses

This thesis examines the landscape evolution of the one hundred and twenty year history of Fort Moultrie Military Reservation (FMMR), Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, one of the United States' Twentieth Century coastal defense installations. During the first half of the century, these technologically advanced fortifications protected the country's coasts as the nation emerged as a world power. When World War II's technological advances made these installations' obsolete, most were quickly converted into new military or government operated public uses. The remainder, including FMMR, was sold after the war to the public, before the limited protections of the National Historic Preservation …

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Neighborhoood Snapshot Inventories: A Study Of The Cooper River Bridge Tax Incremnent Financing District, Rebecca Anne Quandt May 2013

Neighborhoood Snapshot Inventories: A Study Of The Cooper River Bridge Tax Incremnent Financing District, Rebecca Anne Quandt

All Theses

Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is one of the most widely used economic development tools in the nation. In 2008, Charleston, South Carolina, designated the Cooper River Bridge neighborhood (CRBN) as its fourth TIF district. The planning process is now underway, and many large redevelopment projects have already started construction. Private investors will receive funding to develop vacant lots and revitalize dilapidated properties, and the City will benefit economically from new property taxes added to the revenue roll. City officials have anticipated the economic change this TIF district will provide, but have they properly anticipated the changes that will occur to …

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Noiseless, Automatic Service: The History Of Domestic Servant Call Bell Systems In Charleston, South Carolina, 1740-1900, Wendy Danielle Madill May 2013

Noiseless, Automatic Service: The History Of Domestic Servant Call Bell Systems In Charleston, South Carolina, 1740-1900, Wendy Danielle Madill

All Theses

Shortly before Europe's industrial revolution, tradesmen discovered an ingenious way to rig bells in houses to mechanize communication between homeowners and their servants. Mechanical bell systems, now known as house bells or servant call bells, were prevalent in Britain and America from the late 1700s to the early twentieth century. These technological ancestors of today's telephone were operated by the simple pull of a knob or a tug of a tassel mounted on an interior wall. Bell-pulls increased privacy for both servants and their employers by separating both parties by the length of a bell wire, but they also increased …

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Fan Motivation For Attendance To Men's Division I College Soccer Matches, Stephanie Withey May 2013

Fan Motivation For Attendance To Men's Division I College Soccer Matches, Stephanie Withey

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Fan attendance rates are a vital part to college athletics. With most athletic programs already losing money for universities, the recent decline in attendance rates has added further stress to budgets (Fulks, 2010). Most of the research on sports fans examines the socio-motivational and psychological motivations for attending games. Fan research has primarily focused on English soccer and American baseball, with little focus being placed on college soccer. While sports like college soccer do not generate enough revenue to sustain themselves, athletic departments still need to maintain positive attendance numbers at these events. Non-revenue sports provide free publicity and advertisement …

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The Historic Collapse Of Patriarchal Power: Investigating The Aristocracy's Crisis Of Masculinity At Mid-Century, Laura Mogel May 2013

The Historic Collapse Of Patriarchal Power: Investigating The Aristocracy's Crisis Of Masculinity At Mid-Century, Laura Mogel

All Theses

Although most scholars locate the crisis of masculinity in the 1880s and 90s, with the emergence of the New Woman and the fin de sicle, through the presentation of narratives, journals, letters, newspaper articles, satirical cartoons, and novels that focus on the aristocracy's role in the Crimean War, interaction with divorce proceedings, and the fallen aristocratic man in sensation fiction, I suggest that the aristocracy's crisis of masculinity happened long before the end of the nineteenth century. Since scholars do not often make a designation between the aristocracy and the middle-class crisis of masculinity, this work seeks to interrogate these …

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Exploring Doctoral Student Experiences From The Perspectives Of Mid-Career Professionals In Educational Leadership Using Photo-Elicitation, Kenyae L. Reese May 2013

Exploring Doctoral Student Experiences From The Perspectives Of Mid-Career Professionals In Educational Leadership Using Photo-Elicitation, Kenyae L. Reese

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Recent literature cites a growing population of students who wait several years post-baccalaureate and into their careers before entering a PhD program. Such population includes doctoral students in education. Despite repeated calls from scholars of higher education, few empirical studies investigate mid-career students’ experiences in doctoral programs. Existing literature consists of anecdotal reports, demographic accounts in which mid-career is a data point among many variables, or empirical studies of international students. Theoretical models describing student experiences of mid-career professionals in doctoral programs are particularly absent. A handful of studies have explored doctoral student experiences of mid-career professionals through traditional interviewing …

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Schulz's Religion: Exploring Faith In The Mainstream Media Through The Peanuts Franchise, Stephen James Lind May 2013

Schulz's Religion: Exploring Faith In The Mainstream Media Through The Peanuts Franchise, Stephen James Lind

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This dissertation is an exploration of various theoretical and cultural issues surrounding depictions of religion and spirituality in mainstream entertainment media properties. Such portrayals cultivate particular cultural norms that dictate the conditions of public and private discourse on religion, and in this study, these issues are approached through a mixed-method study guided by the Peanuts franchise. The Peanuts franchise is a provocatively rich launching point for analysis of dominant media cultures, given its colossal success in the secular mainstream entertainment industry and its explicit references to and even affirmations of Christian theology. Throughout the study, the references to religion manifested …

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Integrating Spatial Modeling Into Recreational Planning In Parks And Protected Areas, John Beeco May 2013

Integrating Spatial Modeling Into Recreational Planning In Parks And Protected Areas, John Beeco

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Understanding the utility of space in natural area resources is of growing importance as recreation in these areas increases and availability of land remains stagnant. Space utility is of particular importance to multiple use forests which may have multiple recreation demands, minimum acceptable levels of biophysical impacts, sensitive ecological areas, and/or timber harvesting and mineral extraction strategies for the generation of revenue. In order to holistically consider space and protected area management, three factors must be better understood: a) methods and spatial analysis tools that can help with managerial and planning decisions, b) how space affects the relationship between use …

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Factors Influencing Volunteering Among The Elderly In The Czech Republic, Michaela Kabelkova May 2013

Factors Influencing Volunteering Among The Elderly In The Czech Republic, Michaela Kabelkova

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Using data from a convenience sample of 274 respondents, 55 years and older and living in the Czech Republic, the author carried out an exploratory research study to shed more light on volunteering among Czech senior citizens. Volunteering is currently promoted by the government of the Czech Republic, but as yet, remains an under-researched topic. The investigation of presumed low volunteer rates among Czech senior citizens was framed by two theories--social capital theory and socio-structural resources theory--and additionally by country specific factors that take into account geographical structure and historical development. The socio-structural resources were represented by variables related to …

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The Application Of Embodied Conversational Agents For Mentoring African American Stem Doctoral Students, Kinnis Gosha May 2013

The Application Of Embodied Conversational Agents For Mentoring African American Stem Doctoral Students, Kinnis Gosha

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This dissertation presents the design, development and short-term evaluation of an embodied conversational agent designed to mentor human users. An embodied conversational agent (ECA) was created and programmed to mentor African American computer science majors on their decision to pursue graduate study in computing. Before constructing the ECA, previous research in the fields of embodied conversational agents, relational agents, mentorship, telementorship and successful mentoring programs and practices for African American graduate students were reviewed. A survey used to find areas of interest of the sample population. Experts were then interviewed to collect information on those areas of interest and a …

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Virtual High School Graduates: A Phenomenological Study Investigating Transitions To Postsecondary Environments, Emily Green May 2013

Virtual High School Graduates: A Phenomenological Study Investigating Transitions To Postsecondary Environments, Emily Green

All Dissertations

As education systems continue to grow and evolve with new advancements in technology, so do methods of instruction. Technological advancements have helped to further distributed learning, making instruction available to students in various geographic locations and times. Virtual secondary education is a form of distributed learning where secondary students complete their degrees fully online, outside of a brick-and-mortar school. There is a lack of information regarding the experiences of these students as they transition to traditional colleges and universities after attending virtual high schools.
This study sought to describe the experiences of virtual high school graduates as they transition to …

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Teaching And Assessment Of Mathematical Principles For Software Correctness Using A Reasoning Concept Inventory, Svetlana Drachova-Strang May 2013

Teaching And Assessment Of Mathematical Principles For Software Correctness Using A Reasoning Concept Inventory, Svetlana Drachova-Strang

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As computing becomes ubiquitous, software correctness has a fundamental role in ensuring the safety and security of the systems we build. To design and develop software correctly according to their formal contracts, CS students, the future software practitioners, need to learn a critical set of skills that are necessary and sufficient for reasoning about software correctness.
This dissertation presents a systematic approach to both introducing these reasoning skills into the curriculum, and assessing how well the students have learned them. Specifically, it introduces a comprehensive Reasoning Concept Inventory (RCI) that captures the fine details of basic reasoning skills that are …

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Glass-Clad Semiconductor Core Optical Fibers, Stephanie Morris May 2013

Glass-Clad Semiconductor Core Optical Fibers, Stephanie Morris

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Glass-clad optical fibers comprising a crystalline semiconductor core have garnered considerable recent attention for their potential utility as novel waveguides for applications in nonlinear optics, sensing, power delivery, and biomedicine.
As research into these fibers has progressed, it has become evident that excessive losses are limiting performance and so greater understanding of the underlying materials science, coupled with advances in fiber processing, is needed. More specifically, the semiconductor core fibers possess three performance-limiting characteristics that need to be addressed: (a) thermal expansion mismatches between crystalline core and glass cladding that lead to cracks, (b) the precipitation of oxide species in …

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The Effects Of Story Grammar On The Oral Narrative Skills Of English Language Learners With Language Impairments, Rhonda D. Miller May 2013

The Effects Of Story Grammar On The Oral Narrative Skills Of English Language Learners With Language Impairments, Rhonda D. Miller

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Studies with monolingual English speakers have demonstrated the significance of children’s narrative development for the acquisition of literacy skills. This research has shown that children’s ability to perform school narrative tasks may significantly predict children’s early literacy skills (Gutiérrez-Clellen, 2002), including English reading comprehension outcomes within and across languages in Spanish-speaking ELLs (Miller et al., 2006). This study investigated the effects of a story grammar intervention that used a Story Grammar Marker ® and repeated story retells on the oral narrative skills of third and fourth grade ELLs with SLI. A single case multiple probe across participants design was used …

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Seven Strangers, Rhetorical Devices For Hospitality, Epiphany, And Repentance In The Media Flood, Jimmy Butts May 2013

Seven Strangers, Rhetorical Devices For Hospitality, Epiphany, And Repentance In The Media Flood, Jimmy Butts

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Beginning with the foundation that rhetorical devices are often inherently defamiliarizing, often to productive ends, this study explores the theories, ethics, and praxis behind defamiliarizing rhetorical tactics. Because of the cultural shift toward increasing novelty within 21st century media production, it is progressively difficult for the contemporary writer to speak into the boisterous public sphere, which in turn creates a growing need for uniquely unfamiliar modes of rhetorical intervention. Strangeness offers a lens for seeing deliberate stylistic choices within the information flood; additionally, it asks us to consider how we can compose for potentially disinterested audiences. The examination also suggests …

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