Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring Young Children’S Digital Composing Practices, Megan D. Cross

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the many layers involved in young children’s meaning-making as they digitally compose. Utilizing a multimodal, social semiotics theoretical framework to analyze children’s digital compositions using a composing app, this study was designed around one research question: What is the nature of three and four-year-old children’s multimodal meaning making while using a composing app? The qualitative study involved four focal participants from a three- and four-year-old classroom, who attended an inquiry-based lab school in the southeastern United States.

The data were collected over a period of eight weeks, where the children were invited to tell their stories using …

Editing Aphra Behn In The Digital Age: An Interview With Gillian Wright And Alan Hogarth, Laura Runge, Gillian Wright, Alan Hogarth

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

This interview provides a view of the work in progress for the Cambridge University Press edition of the Complete Works of Aphra Behn. Gillian Wright serves as a general editor (with Elaine Hobby, Claire Bowditch, and Mel Evans) as well as the volume editor for Behn’s poetry. Alan Hogarth is the Postdoctoral Research Associate working with Mel Evans on the computational stylistics and author attribution testing. The discussion focuses on the scope and principles of editing the poetry of Aphra Behn, the role of stylometry in establishing the corpus, the status of work, a few particular poems, and some surprises.

Reading Her Queenly Coiffure: A Collaborative Approach To The Study Of Marie-Antoinette's Hairstyles, Hélène Bilis, Jenifer Bartle, Laura M. O'Brien, Ruth R. Rogers

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Four colleagues--a faculty member, a digital services librarian, a research librarian, and a curator of Special Collections--take turns describing their role in creating an undergraduate student project around an eighteenth-century almanac that belonged to Marie-Antoinette. In recounting the steps taken, the collaborative process, the student research, and the analysis of the contents of the Trésor des Grâces almanac, we share the lessons learned for completing a digital exhibit over the course of one semester.

The Performance Of Memorialization: Politics Of Memory And Memory-Making At The Arthur G. Dozier School For Boys, Kaniqua Robinson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My study examines how religion operates as a form of social control in the politics of memory and memory making in the case of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys (1900-2011), a state reform school in Marianna, Florida. Collective memory making is a dynamic process that reflects the social, economic, and political tensions of the present. It is a process most evident during circumstances of reconciliation following conflict, violence, or cases of turmoil resulting in death and in conflicting memories of the experience. Emergence of a dominant narrative about the tragedy or traumatizing event and subjugation of conflicting stories …

Teacher Attitude And Self-Efficacy Differences Regarding English Language Learners And Disabled Learners., Miriam Carballo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There has been little research combining both groups of students who were English Language Learners (ELLs) and Exceptional Student Education (ESE) students in relation to teacher attitudes and self-efficacy. The purpose of this study was to compare teacher attitudes and self-efficacy related to instructing either ELLs with or without disabilities in elementary schools

Teachers from six elementary schools in the XYZ Excellence School District participated in a 52-item comprehensive survey. Two questionnaires and the demographic form were combined to create one comprehensive questionnaire totaling 52 questions for the purposes of this study. Teachers were solicited to participate in the study …

The Effects Of Using Textual Enhancement On Processing And Learning Multiword Expressions, Adel Zain Alshaikhi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Multiword Expressions (MWEs) are crucial aspects of language use. Second language (L2) learners need to master these MWEs to be able to communicate effectively. In addition, mastering these MWEs helps L2 learners improve their cognitive processing of language input. In this study, my primary objectives were to explore the effectiveness of using Textual Enhancement (TE) to assist L2 speakers’ comprehension of MWEs, to explore whether there is a difference in comprehension between collocations and idioms, and finally, to explore how L2 speakers transact the MWEs’ meanings as presented in texts.

While several researchers have explored how input enhancement in general …

Mirror Images: Penelope Umbrico’S Mirrors (From Home Décor Catalogs And Websites), Jeanie Ambrosio

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the artwork’s title suggests, Penelope Umbrico’s "Mirrors (from Home Décor Catalogs and Websites)" (2001-2011), are photographs of mirrors that Umbrico has appropriated from print and web based home décor advertisements like those from Pottery Barn or West Elm. The mirrors in these advertisements reflect the photo shoot constructed for the ad, often showing plants or light filled windows empty of people. To print the "Mirrors," Umbrico first applies a layer of white-out to everything in the advertisement except for the mirror and then scans the home décor catalog. In the case of the web-based portion of the series, she …

The Role Of Migration-Related Stress In Depression Among Haitian Immigrants In Florida: A Mixed Method Sequential Explanatory Approach, Dany Amanda C. Fanfan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recognizing, appropriately treating depression, and meeting the mental health needs of the growing number of Haitian immigrants in the United States (US), continue to pose a challenge because of differences in culture, beliefs, idiom of distress, expression of depression as well as specific stressors associated with the migration process. Previous studies, while limited, document high levels of depression among Haitian migrants, and postulated that migration-related stress (MRS) may play a significant role. Aspects of the migration process, more specifically stressors endured during settlement in the US may negatively precipitate the development of depression.

This study used a mixed method sequential …

Cutr Transportation Webcast Series, Cutr

Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Exploring Explicit Fanfiction As A Vehicle For Sex Education Among Adolescents And Young Adults, Donna Jeanne Barth

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fanfiction consists of works written by amateurs using pre-existing characters and plots, often shared online for free. Although fanfiction began long before the advent of the internet, the worldwide web has created a platform wherein fanfiction is allowed and encouraged to spread almost unconditionally, reaching new populations and rising slowly but surely into the public eye. As the internet has made fanfiction more accessible and public, it has also increased the number of children and young adults involved in the process. And in the unsupervised wilderness of the internet, sexual content is a common feature of fanfiction, with a varying …

Cancer Patient Experience Using Integrative Health Techniques, Spencer R. Bockover

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Objective:

From a patient-centered perspective, this study sought to explore cancer patient experiences using integrative health techniques, while undergoing or after having completed conventional cancer therapy.

Methods:

Recruitment and data collection both occurred within the Supportive Care Medicine Department of a comprehensive cancer center in the southeastern United States. The primary collection method was semi-structured interviews, of which 13 were conducted.

Results:

Patients using integrative therapies experienced a variety of physical and mental/emotional benefits from their chosen therapy, such as management of lymphedema and nerve damage, increased mobility, and improved self-confidence.

Conclusion:

Integrative therapies can provide many benefits to patients …

The Medievalizing Process: Religious Medievalism In Romantic And Victorian Literature, Timothy M. Curran

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Medievalizing Process: Religious Medievalism in Romantic and Victorian Literature posits religious medievalism as one among many critical paradigms through which we might better understand literary efforts to bring notions of sanctity back into the modern world. As a cultural and artistic practice, medievalism processes the loss of medieval forms of understanding in the modern imagination and resuscitates these lost forms in new and imaginative ways to serve the purposes of the present. My dissertation proposes religious medievalism as a critical method that decodes modern texts’ lamentations over a perceived loss of the sacred. My project locates textual moments in …

Asian Immigrants In Leadership Roles In The United States: Exploration For Leader Development, Ramil L. Cabela

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cultural identity and resource availability aspects in traditional leadership development literature remain understudied, especially among minority populations like Asian immigrants.

This study explores the leadership journeys of 24 United States immigrants from China, India and the Philippines using a phenomenological approach, primarily with semi-structured interviews. Experiences of 18 additional immigrant leaders published in popular media were also analyzed.

Data from the study reveals that Asian migrants’ roads to leadership in U.S. organizations are heterogeneous and characterized by either linear or nonlinear, overlapping phases of leader development where migrant leaders overcome assimilation challenges and leverage their unique, individual human capital to …

Collaborating Across National Boundaries For Narrative Teaching And Learning, Haji Karim Khan, Theresa Y. Austin

Journal of Practitioner Research

University faculty members always learn through their collaborative engagement in teaching and research. This article reports on collaborative efforts between a Pakistani and US university professor to develop and teach a graduate seminar on narrative inquiry. We used a self-study approach to record, analyze, and report on our experience of teaching narrative inquiry in a graduate research course. We used our reflective journals, course outline, course description, session plans, class-notes, and students’ reflections as data for analysis. As a result, we developed our analytical stories of experiences under several themes.

Findings showcase insights arising from philosophical (ontological and epistemological) underpinnings, …

Full Issue 12.2

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Reflections On The Significance Of Images In Genocide Studies: Some Methodological Considerations, Lior Zylberman, Vicente Sánchez-Biosca

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This is the editors' introduction to the special issue: "Images And Collective Violence: Function, Use And Memory."

The Unbribable Witness: Image, Word, And Testimony Of Crimes Against Humanity In Mark Twain’S King Leopold’S Soliloquy (1905), Nora Nunn

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

In the creation of King Leopold’s Soliloquy, a textured, visually irrefutable, and darkly satirical account of crimes against humanity in the Belgian Congo Free State, Mark Twain aimed to evoke his Euro-American audience’s empathy by activating their imaginations and inaugurating political reform. Informed by the work of cultural and literary critics such as Roland Barthes, this paper considers how the visual imagery in Twain’s text engender questions about fact, testimony, and witnessing in the realm of human rights and collective violence—both in the Congo Free State and, indirectly, in the United States. I ultimately argue that the relation (or …

Antropofagia, Calibanism, And The Post-Romero Zombie: Cannibal Resistance In Latin America And The Caribbean, David S. Dalton

Alambique. Revista académica de ciencia ficción y fantasía / Jornal acadêmico de ficção científica e fantasía

This study uses zombie theory to flesh out common themes between Oswald de Andrade’s The Cannibalist Manifesto and Roberto Fernández Retamar’s Calibán. While both of these canonical Latin Americanist thinkers theorized literary and cultural cannibalism as a resistant act that could challenge the hegemony of Western cosmologies and aesthetics, very little scholarship has thought to reconcile—or even juxtapose—these men’s thought. The article asserts a shared camaraderie between Latin American people of color and the zombie’s of the region’s cultural production by emphasizing both entities’ association (fair or not) with cannibalism in the Western imaginary. When viewed through this framework, …

Crow's Nest, September 10, 2018, Crow's Nest Staff

Crow's Nest

The September 10, 2018, issue of the Crow's Nest.

Media Framing Of Fatal Bicycle Crashes In Hillsborough County: A Critical Discourse Analysis, Cutr

Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Points Of Pride, September 2018, University Of South Florida St. Petersburg. Academic Affairs Office

Points of Pride, Scene & Herd, and E-News

The September 2018 issue of the newsletter, Points of Pride, with academic affairs news and accomplishments sent to faculty at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

Commencement Convocation Program, St. Petersburg Campus, August 5, 2018, University Of South Florida St. Petersburg

USF St. Petersburg Graduations and Commencements

No abstract provided.

Commencement Convocation Program, Usf, August 4, 2018, University Of South Florida

USF Graduation and Convocation Programs

King O'Neal Scholars - Katlyn Eastridge, James Garrett, Gautam Krishna Koipallil, Kayla Li, and Olivia Taylor; Outstanding Graduate - Barbora Skopalova; Global Citizens Award - Kayla Li, Phoung Ly, and Hannah Seamans

Deaf Lesbian Identity, Noël E. Cherasaro

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Deaf lesbians are a population that is underrepresented in the academic literature. Through the use of narrative inquiry, the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with a woman who self-identified as Deaf and lesbian. She shared her experiences growing up as a woman who is Deaf and later in her life, realized she is lesbian. The researcher juxtaposed her experiences as a hearing, lesbian woman and an ally to the Deaf community to better illuminate the Deaf lesbian experiences. The research delved into how these dual minority identities have affected the Deaf lesbian participant as she makes her way in the world …

Six Propositions Of A Social Theory Of Numeracy: Interpreting An Influential Theory Of Literacy, Jeffrey Craig, Lynette Guzmán

Numeracy

We share our experiences comprehending social theory as it applies to numeracy scholarship. We build on existing arguments that social theory—explicitly acknowledging the presence and influence of histories, power, and purposes—offers something important to scholars who study and discuss numeracy. In this article, we translate the six propositions of one particular social theory of literacy into propositions about numeracy, then we explore the meaning of each proposition, its connections to existing scholarship, and its implications. This article emerges from two literature reviews: one on social theories (especially their application to and development in literacy) and one on numeracy. We bring …

Beyond Replicative Technology: The Digital Practices Of Students With Literacy-Related Learning Difficulties Engaged In Productive Technologies, Aimee Frier

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I present the findings from a qualitative case study of the digital literacy integration of a teacher and the digital literacy practices of three students with literacy-related learning difficulties within her classroom. As a researcher, I was interested in the ways students with literacy- related learning difficulties navigated digital tools in a technology-infused environment created by a teacher who has experience using digital tools for instructional and student-learning purposes. My research was guided by the following questions: (1) What was the context, content, and structure of the teacher’s technology instruction? (2) In what ways did the students …

A Unique Small-Scale Microclimatic Gradient In A Temperate Karst Harbours Exceptionally High Diversity Of Soil Collembola, Natália Raschmanová, Dana Miklisová, Ľubomír Kováč

International Journal of Speleology

The collapse doline of the Silická ľadnica Ice Cave, 351 m² in area, is a unique phenomenon, a steep microclimate gradient in a low-altitude temperate karst in the Western Carpathian Mts, Slovakia, with a remarkable temperature decrease from the edge of karst plateau towards the doline bottom, which harbours perennial ice deposits. Collembola communities were studied in detail at seven sites along the 117.5 m long gradient slope during 2005–2007. An exceptionally high species richness of soil Collembola was observed, 129 species, which is about 91% of the total species richness generated by Chao1/ACE estimator. Species richness positively correlated …

“I Want Ketchup On My Rice”: The Role Of Child Agency On Arab Migrant Families Food And Foodways, Faisal Kh. Alkhuzaim

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This exploratory research study examines changes in food and foodways (food habits) among Arab migrant families in a small community in Tampa, Florida. It also explores how those families’ children may play a role in the process of change. Within this community, I conducted my research study at a private school, where I recruited families with children between the ages of eight and seventeen. In applying the ecological model of food and nutrition and the developmental niche theoretical framework, this research draws on qualitative methods, including structured interviews with parents; focus group discussion with parents; a food survey; and children’s …

The Uses Of Community In Modern American Rhetoric, Cody Ryan Hawley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the functions of the term “community” in American social and political rhetoric. I contend that community serves as a god-term, or expression of value and order, which rhetors use to motivate actions, endorse values, include/exclude persons, and compensate for modern losses. Informed by the philosophy of Kenneth Burke, I explore the general features of “rhetorics of community,” including community’s ambiguity and status as an automatic good, the relationship between community and modernity, the myth of communal loss, and the uses of community as a site of political unity and contest. I analyze the writings of John Humphrey …

Resisting Essentialism In Cultural Research: A Participatory Action Research Study Of Parent Involvement In Education Among Spanish-Speaking Students And Families, Michael J. Frank

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study aimed to investigate a locally-driven action research project to improve connections between Spanish-speaking Latinx parents and the high school that their children attend. Using Participatory Action Research (PAR), the study sought to create a collaborative research agenda that would empower the participants to study their own culture and practices at the school, and how the two combined to create a home-school partnership. Six parents and two members of the school’s bilingual staff comprised the PAR team, with a total of nine members including the principal investigator. The project began with the creation of a public sphere in …