Digital Commons Network^™

Researching Pds Initiatives To Promote Social Justice Across The Educational System, Gail Shroyer, Amanda Morales, Sally Yahnke, Lisa A. Bietau

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The examples and data shared in this chapter provide evidence that our comprehensive mission to understand and impact issues of social justice and equity within education is being achieved as the PDS Partnership continues to improve K-16 teaching and learning and enhance the teaching profession across all levels of education. The major implication of our findings is that systemic reform is achievable and the outcomes can be exceptionally rewarding. Of course, such initiatives require time, continuous effort, resources, broad-based participation of all stakeholders, and a sense of need for change. Developing human capital across the educational continuum requires a commitment …

Interrupting The Professional Schism That Allows Less Successful Educational Practices With Ells To Persist, Edmund T. Hamann, Jenelle Reeves

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Different worldviews, different histories of induction into teaching, presumed differences in responsibilities, and different emphases in pre-service and in-service preparation have all long contributed to enduring schisms that keep general education (or mainstream) teachers and English language support faculty from coordinating and finding common cause in their efforts. This division has been at the cost of impeding many English language learners’ (ELLs) academic success. So, given that ELLs consecutively or concurrently negotiate these too-often separate schooling subworlds, it is imperative to overcome historical divisions and to conceptualize all teachers as needing (a) to be willing to see ELLs as part …

Understanding American Mexican Children, Víctor Zúñiga, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In 1997, when we first met while independently conducting field work in Whitfield County, Georgia, and its county seat, Dalton, we heard from local principals and teachers that Latino students sometimes "disappeared" from the schools. Most of these who disappeared were immigrant students from Mexico and other Central American countries, students who had arrived suddenly in local schools while accompanying their parents who found jobs in the carpet and poultry mills of the area (Hamann, 2003; Hernández-León & Zúñiga, 2000; Zúñiga & Hernández-León, 2009). The "disappearances" led one of us (Hamann, 2001) to develop a concept—the sojourner student—and draw from …

Accounting For Lesbian-Headed Families: Lesbian Mothers’ Responses To Discursive Challenges, Jody Koenig Kellas, Elizabeth A. Suter

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Although lesbian mothers are often called to justify their family’s legitimacy, we know little about these interactions. The current study included 44 female coparents across 10 focus groups discussing the interactive process of discursive legitimacy challenges. Using the theoretical framework of remedial accounts (Schönbach, 1990), inductive and deductive coding revealed several existing and new types of challenges, accounting strategies, and evaluations relevant to interactions of lesbian mothers. Communicative processes unique to the interactions of female coparents included challenges emerging from societal master narratives (e.g., health care, education, politics, religion); accounting strategies such as leading by example; and evaluations related to …

Zoomorphic Penannular Brooches In 6th And 7th Century Ireland, Esther G. Ward

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

In this thesis the author examines the evolution, manufacture, and societal significance of zoomorphic penannular brooches, a type of metal dress fastener used in early medieval Ireland that is often decorated. The brooches examined are dated to the 6^th and 7^th centuries, during which the Irish underwent a process of religious conversion from Celtic paganism to Christianity, and social rank was paramount. It is in this social context that the brooches are examined. Despite the significance of this time of social change, brooches from this period tend to be overlooked by scholarship in favor of the more ornate …

Teacher Education And Supporting Immigrant Students In The Standards-Based Education Era, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This commentary reflects on pre-service and in-service teachers' sense that teaching to standards and being responsive to immigrant newcomers are, if not incompatible, unlikely to be reconciled by peers or administration. It highlights that away from classroom leaders (e.g., superintendents) are positioned to challenge this unnecessary dichotomy in the interest of educational equity and success.

Accuracy Of Perceptual And Acoustic Methods For The Detection Of Inspiratory Loci In Spontaneous Speech, Yu-Tsai Wang, Ignatius S. B. Nip, Jordan R. Green, Ray D. Kent, Jane Finley Kent, Cara Ullman

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

The present study investigates the accuracy of perceptually and acoustically determined inspiratory loci in spontaneous speech for the purpose of identifying breath groups. Sixteen participants were asked to talk about simple topics in daily life at a comfortable speaking rate and loudness while connected to a pneumotach and audio microphone. The locations of inspiratory loci were determined on the basis of the aerodynamic signal, which served as a reference for loci identified perceptually and acoustically. Signal detection theory was used to evaluate the accuracy of the methods. The results showed that the greatest accuracy in pause detection was achieved (1) …

The Road To Pomp And Circumstance For Ell Students: The Perceived Ambivalent Schooling Experience Of Ell Students With Mexican Ancestry In An Urban Midwestern High School, Kristine M. Sudbeck

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

Perceptions of high school faculty and staff members about the graduation outcomes of English language learners of Mexican ancestry were explored. Throughout the course of one semester, observations were made and field notes taken in classrooms and other school locations. Interviews were conducted with 25 faculty/ staff members and 7 students, all of whom were former or current English language learners of Mexican ancestry. The author used a mixed methods strategy; interviews were coded for themes to assess qualitative data, and SPSS was used to analyze quantitative data. Faculty/staff perceived the top three indicators of whether or not an ELL …

Contextos Y Prácticas En Las Humanidades Digitales, Joseba Moreno

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

La aplicación de la tecnología a los trabajos enmarcados en el campo de las humanidades y la creación de un nuevo conjunto de prácticas denominado humanidades digitales, es el tema principal de este trabajo, que pretende servir de introducción a algunas de las prácticas y metodologías más recientes en el ámbito académico.

Material Memory: Willa Cather, “My First Novels [There Were Two]”, And The Colophon: A Book Collector’S Quarterly, Matthew J. Lavin

Digital Initiatives and Special Collections

Willa Cather's 1931 essay "My First Novels [There Were Two]" is an often-cited statement on place in the author's literary oeuvre. In the essay, Cather distances herself from her first novel 'Alexander's Bridge' (1912) and its imitative, Jamesian motifs and setting. Her second novel 'O Pioneers!', she writes, was a kind of second "first" novel, one written "entirely for myself" and preoccupied with the story of "Scandinavians and Bohemians who had been neighbors of ours when I lived on a ranch in Nebraska." As Merrill Maguire Skaggs, Robert Thacker and Emmy Stark Zitter have argued, "My First Novels [There Were …

Evaluating The Role Of Latinidad And The Latino Threat In The State Of Missouri, Joel Jennings, J.S. Onésimo Sandoval

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Growing Latino populations in midwestern cities of the United States are leading to the creation of contested ethnic spaces and urban landscapes. In this article we examine the historical, demographic, and social contexts associated with a growing sense of Latinidad and the countervailing Latino threat narrative in Kansas City and St. Louis, the two largest metropolitan areas in Missouri. Latinidad, or a notion of belonging based on ethnic identity in Missouri, is being challenged by nativist discourses that frame the growing Latino population as a threat. We highlight the different historical trajectories and geographical characteristics that have created distinct demographic …

Review Of Land Of The Tejas: Native American Identity And Interaction In Texas, A.D. 1300 To 1700. By John Wesley Arnn Iii. Foreword By Tom D. Dillehay., Robert Cast

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This tremendously enjoyable, thought-provoking book should be read by anyone interested in the history of the state of Texas, the archeology of the Plains, and the past social and cultural interactions among peoples living within this region during this time period. Arnn provides a concise framework for his theme in his introduction: "This book presents a model of late prehistoric and early historic Texas that was also extremely dynamic and diverse and suggests that as early as A.D. 1300 aboriginal peoples living in this region may have also recognized a broader sociocultural identity." ... Overall, Arnn does a fine job …

Intermodality In Teaching Writing, Margarette Christensen

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation articulates a writing pedagogy based on a theory of intermodality to help writing instructors navigate the affordances and challenges of multimodal composition. Drawing from recent discoveries in neuroscience about how the brain makes meaning, I situate this pedagogy of intermodality – literally, “between the modes” – within the Rhetoric and Composition traditions of embodied rhetoric and visual/multi-sensory rhetoric. A pedagogy attuned to intermodality capitalizes on how the senses (“modes”) work together to create meaning when composing with sound, image, movement, and text. In addition to the five senses, intermodality also incorporates the cultural, social, and material aspects of …

A Day At Filastrocca Preschool, Pistoia, Italy: Meaning Making Through Literacy And Creative Experience, Keely D. Cline, Carolyn Pope Edwards, Algo Giacomelli, Lella Gandini, Donatella Giovannini, Annalia Galardini

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

In this article,1 we explore how the library teacher of an Italian preschool with a special mission focused on books, stories, and the imagination uses group literacy activities as a context for encouraging shared meaning making through creative experiences. We take readers inside one day at the Italian Preschool, Filastrocca, providing detailed descriptions and analysis of interactions and activities. We suggest that elaborate extended dialogue among children and the teacher, promotion of empathy through opportunities to take others’ perspectives (including book characters’), and group engagement in shared and multi-faceted creativity are important characteristics related to meaning making in the context …

Blinded By The Veil, Laura Stemp-Morlock

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper considers how the intersection of religious ideology, gender, culture and history affect the role Muslim women in QuÈbec navigate for themselves in a society suspicious of veiling. QuÈbec's proposed niqab ban is the latest in a series of events spotlighting the friction between the province's avowed secular policy and its residents for whom religion is not a private practice. When Muslim women wear their veils in public, many QuÈbecois perceive this as a hostile practice directly confronting their "secular values" of equality and liberty, and a symbol of repressive social values and structures. While this is a common …

Clothes Make The Page: Uniforms In The U.S. Capitol, Felicia Wivchar

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

When thinking of a uniform in the U.S. Capitol today, the first image conjured is most probably a middle-aged man in a dark suit. Business attire has long been the standard dress for both Members of Congress and their office staff. However, this de facto uniform is not the only dress code for the Capitol complex. Within these grand and historic buildings, it is often taken for granted that spaces will appear pristine and practical functions will be seamlessly maintained. The groups of laborers that have long helped maintain this illusion have also long been clad in assigned uniforms specific …

Thangchhuah Puan: The Highest Status Mantle Among The Mizo People Of Northeastern India, Barbara G. Fraser, David W. Fraser

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Mizo are a large sub-group of the Chin (also known as the Zo, Lai or Kuki), a loosely related group of two million people living in the hills of western Myanmar (Burma), northeastern India, and southeastern Bangladesh. The Mizo strive to attain merit through success in hunting, war, accumulation of wealth, and communal feast giving involving a series of five separate feasts. A Mizo man who has either hosted two complete series of five communal feasts or killed an entire series of wild animals attains the greatest merit and is known as Thangchhuahpa. Such men were held in high …

Textiles And Politics – Dishtowels And Diatribes, Carol D. Westfall

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

When a Dutch curator invited my students and me to join an international group of felt makers to create felt balls for peace, I sent mine to them encased in barbed wire. My life has been marked by war. My Dad fought in the Second World War, my high school colleagues in the Korean War and those who returned joined me as freshmen in college. My husband served in Vietnam and various acquaintances in my hometown of Jersey City, New Jersey served in the first Gulf War and now serve in Afghanistan and Iraq. At age 4, I was so …

Technology-Enhanced Multimedia Instruction In Foreign Language Classrooms: A Mixed Methods Study, Olha Ketsman

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Technology-enhanced multimedia instruction in grades 6 through 12 foreign language classrooms was the focus of this study. The study’s findings fill a gap in the literature through the report of how technology-enhanced multimedia instruction was successfully implemented in foreign language classrooms.

Convergent parallel mixed methods study was used to produce well-substantiated conclusions about the topic. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected concurrently but separately and were equally weighted.

Foreign language teachers identified as those who extensively used technology-enhanced multimedia instruction participated in the study. Participation in the study involved completion of an online survey and a qualitative interview. Both the …

Is Weak Oral Language Associated With Poor Spelling In School-Age Children With Specific Language Impairment, Dyslexia Or Both?, Jillian H. Mccarthy, Tiffany Hogan, Hugh W. Catts

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that word reading accuracy, not oral language, is associated with spelling performance in school-age children. We compared fourth grade spelling accuracy in children with specific language impairment (SLI), dyslexia or both (SLI/dyslexia) to their typically developing grade-matched peers. Results of the study revealed that children with SLI performed similarly to their typically developing peers on a single-word spelling task. Alternatively, those with dyslexia and SLI/dyslexia evidenced poor spelling accuracy. Errors made by both those with dyslexia and SLI/dyslexia were characterized by numerous phonologic, orthographic and semantic errors. Cumulative results support …

Neeg Tawg Rog (War-Torn People): Linguistic Consciousness In The Hmong Diaspora, Geraldine Craig

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines how new Hmong textile forms that started in Ban Vinai refugee camp have served as dialogical performance, spiritual and political agency, and transnational commodity in the diasporas. These textiles create a hybrid social language that draws from a diversity of linguistic consciousnesses in a culture where there was not a universally understood writing system until the mid-20th century. Traditional paj ntaub (flower cloth) garments in Laos were a primary indicator of Hmong identity and can be seen as an alternate text. The complex, layered geometric patterns in paj ntaub established ethnic group identification and offered passive resistance …

Significant Themes In 19th-Century Literature, Matthew L. Jockers, David Mimno

Department of English: Faculty Publications

External factors such as author gender, author nationality, and date of publication affect both the choice of literary themes in novels and the expression of those themes, but the extent of this association is difficult to quantify. In this work, we apply statistical methods to identify and extract hundreds of "topics" from a corpus of 3,346 works of 19th-century British, Irish, and American fiction. We use these topics as a measurable, data-driven proxy for literary themes. External factors may predict fluctuations in the use of themes and the individual word choices within themes. We use topics to measure the evidence …

Graduate Connections- August 2012

Graduate Connections: A Newsletter for UNL Graduate Students

In This Issue:

Navigating Graduate

School ............................................. 1

Time Management: How to Plan for a

Successful Semester

Treating Graduate School Like a Career

Creating a Professional Online Presence

Good Practices in Graduate

Education ........................................ 4

Fine Lines in Academic Integrity

Five Reasons to Attend Academic Integrity

Week Events

Professional Development .............. 5

Preparing to Interview at a Conference or

Convention

Teaching Blogs You Should be Reading

Teaching Tip ................................... 6

Forget the Syllabus and Let Learning

Begin

The Graduate Student Writer .......... 7

Twitter Citations in Academic Writing

Funding Opportunities ..................... 8

Events ........................................... 10

Campuswide Workshop for Graduate

Teaching …

Classification Of Genomic Sequences By Latent Semantic Analysis, Samuel F. Way

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Evolutionary distance measures provide a means of identifying and organizing related organisms by comparing their genomic sequences. As such, techniques that quantify the level of similarity between DNA sequences are essential in our efforts to decipher the genetic code in which they are written.

Traditional methods for estimating the evolutionary distance separating two genomic sequences often require that the sequences first be aligned before they are compared. Unfortunately, this preliminary step imposes great computational burden, making this class of techniques impractical for applications involving a large number of sequences. Instead, we desire new methods for differentiating genomic sequences that eliminate …

Numeric Estimation And Response Options: An Examination Of The Measurement Properties Of Numeric And Vague Quantifier Responses, Mohammad T. Al Baghal

Survey Research and Methodology Program: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Many survey questions ask respondents to provide responses that contain quantitative information. These questions are often asked requiring open ended numeric responses, while others have been asked using vague quantifier scales. How these questions are asked, particularly in terms of the response format, can have an important impact on the data. Therefore, the response format is of particular importance for ensuring that any use of the data contains the best possible information. Generally, survey researchers have argued against the use of vague quantifier scales. This dissertation compares various measurement properties between numeric open ended and vague quantifier responses, using three …

Changes In Narrative Sense-Making Over Time: The Role Of Mother–Daughter Communication During Conversations About Difficulty, Haley Kranstuber Horstman

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The mother-daughter relationship is one of the first and often most important sites for (effective and ineffective) social support in women’s lives. Effective mother support helps daughters to make sense of and cope with life’s stressors, which leads to improved physical and psychological health. Narrative theorizing suggests that individuals cope with and make sense of their (difficult) experiences through creating and telling stories with others. Likewise, research shows that when individuals’ sense-making increases over time, they are likely to experience higher rates of well-being (Pennebaker, 1993). Yet, although narrative meaning-making is largely an interpersonal process (Koenig Kellas, 2005) that often …

Money Painting And The Duplicitous Multiple: The Interdependence Of American Copyright Legislation And Artistic Production, Jaclyn N. Siemers

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

In this thesis I investigate the interworking and influences of the United States’ federal copyright legislation, specifically its relationship to the history of artistic production from the late nineteenth-century to the present. A detailed analysis of the evolving copyright statute, the social and legal impact of the multiple (including the counterfeit copy), and the progressive recurrence of representational money paintings will reveal the mutually dependent relationship of copyright legislation and artistic production. The progression of styles in America art—nineteenth-century trompe l’oeil illusionism, mid-century Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, and contemporary appropriation art—provides an illustrated roadmap of the complex relationship between the …

What I Mean When I Say Autism: Re-Thinking The Roles Of Language And Literacy In Autism Discourse, Bernice M. Olivas

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Literacy studies are deeply intertwined with issues of identity. Olivas explores the ways that public discourses of autism have constructed an autism “Identity kit,” as defined by James Paul Gee, which harms autistic students and communities more than it helps. This is particularly true for adult autistics. Considering the growing presence of the autistic learner in the composition classroom, it is important to understand how public discourse influences classroom dynamics. Drawing heavily on her own experience as the mother of autistic sons and on Melanie Yergeau’s “Circle Wars: Reshaping the Typical Autism Essay,” Olivas explores how her children have been …

“School Sponsorship” And Hazelwood’S Protection Of Student Speech: Appropriate For All Curriculum Contexts? (White Paper), Adam Hoesing

Nebraska Law Bulletin (Selected Issues)

This article addresses whether and to what extent the First Amendment protects student speech when students select or discuss a particular topic as part of curriculum that allows students to freely and sovereignly choose their desired substantive topic. Specifically, this article addresses the applicability of the First Amendment protection provided by Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, protection that allows a school to censor speech “in school-sponsored activities so long as [the school’s] actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.” Part II provides and explains the pertinent federal jurisprudence, obligatorily starting with Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, …

The Importance Of Activating And Building Knowledge, Stephanie Wessels

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The following exchange occurred in a third-grade classroom:

"I thought grit was a food. It doesn't make sense," Saida commented.

"Yes, there are grits that people eat. Grits are ground corn, however, in this story the word is grit. Do you remember when it was really windy outside and dust and dirt got on you? That was grit," Mrs. Henning explained. "That was gross. It got in my hair and teeth," replied Saida. In this exchange, the grade-level teacher made a meaningful connection between a recent experience and the new vocabulary word. This connection allowed the teacher to clarifY the …