Digital Commons Network^™

Wmu International News Fall 2009, Haenicke Institute For Global Education

WMU International News

In this issue:

WMU's Confucius Institute offers educational/business links to China

Chinese linguist named director of WMU’s Confucius Institute

Kim and crew on task planning cultural, recreational entertaining events

Fashion learning in London takes the runway in Kalamazoo

French immersion points Michigan native to ESL career

Insider Vol. 10 No. 2 Fall 2009, College Of Arts & Sciences

College of Arts and Sciences news

College of Arts & Sciences Alumni Newsletter

English May Be A Living Language But That Doesn't Mean Anything Goes, Diether Haenicke

WMU President Diether Haenicke

This column was first published Aug. 11, 1999 in the Kalamazoo Gazette mlive.com/kalamazoo. The Kalamazoo Gazette reprinted this article on September 16, 2009.

English May Be A Living Language But That Doesn't Mean Anything Goes, Diether Haenicke

WMU President Diether Haenicke

This column was first published Aug. 11, 1999 and reprinted September 16, 2009 in the Kalamazoo Gazette mlive.com/kalamazoo

Ethics With Character: Virtues And The Ethical Social Worker, Paul Adams

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article explores the relevance to social work of those aspects of applied ethics that are not primarily about identifying and resolving dilemmas. It examines the potential of the ethical tradition rooted in the virtues and character of the practitioner-from Aristotle and Hippocrates to contemporary virtue-based ethics in medicine-to guide and enrich our understanding of the social work profession and the dispositions or qualities of character its practice requires and develops.

Incensed At 'Incent'? Don't Decool As I Present, Diether Haenicke

WMU President Diether Haenicke

This column was first published Jan. 26, 2000 and reprtinted Sept. 2, 2009 in the Kalamazoo Gazette mlive.com/kalamazoo

The Use Of Music In Early Childhood Centers In British Columbia: A Survey Of The Perceptions And Practices Of Early Childhood Educators, Michelle Lawrence

Masters Theses

This study explored the current practices of early childhood educators' utilization and perception about music in their classrooms. Early childhood educators are defined as individuals who have completed post-secondary training at an accredited college or university in early childhood education and are registered with the ECEBC Registry. Early childhood centers are defined as either preschools or licensed group child care centers. An online survey was been designed to obtain information regarding demographics and characteristics of early childhood centers in British Columbia, relevant musical and educational training, comfort level of the early childhood educator leading group music activities, implementation of the …

Creative Metacriticism: The Portrayal Of Literary Theory In Contemporary Fiction, Zaydun Ali Al-Shara

Dissertations

Some modern creative writers have shown a talent not only in writing tales, but also in philosophy and theory as they examine questions and problems in fiction-making and the very act of reading. This dissertation examines the role the metafictive novel plays in the development of literary theory and fiction. I explore how writers of this type of novel emerge as creative metacritics who overtly and/or covertly, through their fiction, respond to and critique literary theory. The inquiry examines the reciprocal relationship between the fiction of creative metacritics and important movements in literary theory in the late 20th Century. All …

Mapping The Global Landscape In Women's Diasporic Writing, Martha Addante

Dissertations

As a contribution to the theory of cognitive mapping, the dissertation examines the ways in which contemporary novels by women writers of diasporic literature offer new conceptual maps of the present global space. This study argues there is a need for alternative mapping strategies that locate the female diasporic subject within the new global political economy. Fredric Jameson's theory of cognitive mapping and Arjun Appadurai's model of global flows provide a useful framework for mapping global space, yet each must be filtered through a feminist critique and modified by a feminist politics. Ultimately, the dissertation argues for a feminist theory …

From Picture To Word To The World: A Multimodal, Cultural Studies Approach To Teaching Graphic Novels In The English Classroom, Shannon Renee Mortimore

Dissertations

Sequential narratives such as comics, graphic novels and Manga (Japanese-style comics) have long been popular in youth culture. Recent attention has shifted to the potential of utilizing these alternative texts in the secondary classroom, yet very little information for English teachers exists regarding how to engage students in close, careful, and culturally informed analysis of these works. While there is a long tradition of thoughtful analytical teaching about literary texts, when it comes to the study of various media with strong image content, language arts teachers often may not know how to proceed. Indeed, preconceptions about the legitimacy of comics …

Exploring The Relationships Between White Racial Consciousness, Feminist Identity Development And Family Environment For White Undergraduate Women, Kara E. Wolff

Dissertations

Although the literature has emphasized the importance of understanding between White racial consciousness, feminist identity development and family environment. Based on the relationships described by the canonical functions considered noteworthy in the analyses three main findings appeared to emerge. First, family environments that were perceived by White undergraduate women to promote engagement with a variety of outside perspectives were related to more actively antiracist worldviews and well-developed feminist identities; while family environments perceived to reflect a more insular focus (i.e. less exposure to divergent opinions) were related to more prejudicial racial attitudes and less feminist identity development. Second, the more …

The Altercatio Ecclesiae Et Synagogae As A Late Antique Anti-Jewish Polemic, Michael J. Brinks

Masters Theses

The Catholic Church's newfound influence in late antiquity led to the political marginalization of the empire's Jewish community, a marginalization that is evident in Christian polemic against Judaism written after the Empire's religious transformation had largely been consolidated. This thesis is an analysis of the Altercatio Ecclesiae et Synagogae, written anonymously in the fifth century. Its primary intention is to discover what earlier writers influenced its author, what can be known about him, when the text was written, and what kind of arguments against Judaism he used.

The thesis begins by comparing and contrasting the anti-Jewish writing of Cyprian …

Nursing Faculty Experiences And Perceptions Of The Implementation Process To A Learner-Centered Teaching Philosophy: A Case Study, Sharon L. Colley

Dissertations

This study explores nursing faculty's experiences with and perceptions of, their school of nursing's change to a learner-centered teaching philosophy. The primary research goals are to determine faculty perceptions of what learner-centered approaches they are utilizing in their classes, what change conditions they perceive as significant to the implementation process, and how they perceive the overall faculty progress and unity toward the goal of adopting a learner-centered teaching philosophy. Using the theoretical frameworks of Carl Rogers and Donald Ely, a case study approach is used to examine the faculties' use of five key concepts associated with the learner-centered philosophy, as …

Sisters Of Semitics: A Fresh Appreciation Of The Scholarship Of Agnes Smith Lewis And Margaret Dunlop Gibson, Rebecca J. W. Jefferson

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Der Welsche Gast (The Italian Guest), Marion Gibbs

TEAMS Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions

Friedrich Neumann described Thomasin's Der Welsche Gast as a linguistic phenomenon without comparison within the corpus of German literature of the Hohenstaufen period. In the didactic literature of the time, Der Welsche Gast does indeed occupy a unique position. . . . [It] betrays the heavy hand of the clerical moralist who moves from providing the younger members of his audience with a primer for proper social etiquette in his early verses to a meticulous analysis of what he clearly viewed as the appropriate ethical code for the nobility of his time, often presented against the backdrop of a thundering …

Ethnicity Matters: The Socioeconomic Gradient In Health Among Asian Americans, Emily S. Ihara

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study examines the relationship between socioeconomic indicators and health status among Asian Americans using data from the 2001 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), a population-based random-digit-dial survey with race-ethnic supplemental samples. Multivariate logistic regression analyses show that the inverse relationship between socioeconomic position and health status is similar for Asian Americans when measured as an aggregate group compared to Whites. However, when specific Asian American ethnic groups are examined, the relationship varies greatly. For example, among Chinese Americans and Vietnamese Americans, education is a significant predictor of poor health status, but household income is more significant among Korean Americans. …

What Does Tv Viewing Have To Do With Internet Reading?: Readers, Television ‘Texts’, And Intertextual Links To Companion Websites, Rachel Brown

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

A growing number of television programs direct their viewers to access an Internet website for further information on a presented topic. The explicit link between television programs and companion Internet websites, both of which communicate information through multiple modes, can be considered a form of intertextuality. Do college students actually avail themselves of TV-Internet connections? Do they believe that this type of intertextuality influences their reading practices? This article reports research on these questions and then explores the implications of TV-Internet intertextuality for literacy and pedagogy.

A Cross-Sectional Approach To Institutional Anomie And Gang-Related Homicide, Michael T. Klemp-North

Dissertations

Gangs have recently migrated from major metropolitan areas to suburban and rural communities throughout the United States (Maxson 1998; NAIGA 2005). This migration creates a need for further research and understanding of the gang phenomenon in the United States. One commonly studied aspect of gangs is their propensity to participate in homicide and violent behavior (e.g., Curry and Spergel 1988; Decker and Curry 2002). This tendency has been tested and written about in the literature; however, none of the research addresses the migration and dispersion of gangs throughout states. Therefore, new approaches are needed to better understand gangs and their …

Homemaking In Asian American Women's Writing: Chuang Hua, Bharati Mukherjee And Meena Alexander Performing The Diasporic Home, Yan Jiang

Dissertations

This dissertation examines how homemaking, as depicted in contemporary Asian American literature, reflects the bigger issue of Asian diaspora and identity transformation. I analyze how Asian immigrants, especially Asian women, make the home in America in varying ways, seemingly following their ancestral pattern or the mainstream American model but eventually transcend both. Following Judith Butler, I suggest that Asian immigrants' homemaking is performative. In this study, I look to the ideas of cultural identification and identity formation as a foundation for contemporary definitions of the diasporic home and contend that far from being a static mimicking of their former homes, …

The Effects Of Multiple Exemplar Instruction On Generating Functional Interdependence Between Listener And Intraverbal Categorization Repertoires, Sarah A. Lechago

Dissertations

The results of the present study extend the literature on multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) by demonstrating that MEI was ineffective in producing functional interdependence between listener and intraverbal categorization repertoires. Four typically developing children between the ages of 3 years 11 months and 4 years 7 months participated in the study in which two categorization types (listener and intraverbal) were targeted. Previous research has demonstrated functional independence between these two categorization response forms (Petursdottir, Carr, Lechago, & Almason, 2008). The present study examined the efficacy of MEI in the form of alternating categorization response forms (listener and intraverbal) during training …

When Self-Pacing Goes Wrong: A Comparison Of Two Methods For Reducing Computer-Based Racing, Douglas A. Johnson

Dissertations

Self-pacing, although often seen as one of the primary benefits of computer-based instruction (CBI), can also result in an important problem, namely, computer-based racing. Computer-based racing is when learners respond so quickly within CBI that mistakes are made, even on well-known material. This study compared traditional CBI with two forms of CBI designed to reduce computer-based racing: incentives/disincentives and postfeedback delays. All three formats were evaluated in terms of both performance and satisfaction using a between group repeated measures design with pretest and posttest. Dependent measures included posttest scores, satisfaction questionnaire ratings, percentage correct during learning, and total training time. …

Technical Adequacy Of Curriculum-Based Measures Of Vocabulary Growth For Preschool English Language Learners, Kathleen M. Vantol

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to design and establish the technical adequacy of curriculum-based measures (CBMs) of vocabulary acquisition for use with preschool children. This study sought to establish the technical adequacy of two tools that can be used for measuring benchmarks of vocabulary acquisition for both native English speakers and for English language learners (ELLs) who are native Spanish speakers. In order to address the instructional needs for students who are Spanish speakers, a Spanish version of the CBM expressive language measure was created.

In this study, CBMs of expressive and receptive vocabulary were developed based upon the …

African-American Girls And Scientific Argumentation: Lived Experiences, Intersecting Identities And Their Roles In Constructing And Evaluating Claims, Phyllis Haugabook Pennock

Dissertations

Scientific argumentation can be traced back to ancient times; yet has seen a recent upswing over the last decade in the area of science education. This is due to current national education standards that ascribe this practice as a way of promoting scientific literacy for all. Current literature reflects an evolution of scientific argumentation – accommodating emerging research that uses socio-scientific issues. National standards highlight the need to teach argumentation, yet also recognize the urgent demand for educational equity of all students.

The purpose of this research was to narrow the gap dividing argumentation studies from other science discourse research. …

D-Day Through Song: Teaching History Through Music And The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences, Lucas Rewa

Honors Theses

Socials studies teachers know that making their lessons engaging for students in of utmost importance. History has a reputation of being one of those subjects that students think is boring. They think that history has no connection to their lives; it has no meaning for them. In order to get the students engaged in the material and to really learn, a teacher has to relate history to the students' lives. They need to foster an emotional attachment between the students and the material. "Emotion is the glue that makes history stick."

Wmu International News May 2009, Haenicke Institute For Global Education

WMU International News

In this issue:

New brown‐bag series links campus international scholars and researchers

WMU to host 18 faculty‐led summer short‐term study abroad programs

WMU hosted 20th International Festival in March

Large, smelly tropical plant attracts WMU researcher

Biomed bachelor’s leads to stem cell and spinal cord research for WMU alumna

Joan Conway's classroom: Where business and English intersect

Masoud Al Ajmi

44th International Congress On Medieval Studies, Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University

International Congress on Medieval Studies Archive

The printed program of the 44th International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 7-10, 2009), including the Corrigenda.

English Department Faculty Development Forum, Beth Bradburn

Academic Leadership Academy

This project consisted of the first ever English department retreat, where different disciplines in the field (Linguistics, Rhetoric and Writing, Literature, English Education, and Creative Writing) came together and shared their insights to the English language. This forum was called “What is a Difficult Text?”, and was followed by another forum, called “Authority.”

Prism #38, April 2009, Office Of The Provost

Prism: Western Michigan University's Newsletter for Academic Affairs

No abstract provided.

Insider Vol. 10 No. 1 Spring 2009, College Of Arts & Sciences

College of Arts and Sciences news

A Publication for Friends of the College of Arts and Sciences

Footnotes, Issue 3, Spring 2009, Department Of English

Footnotes: Department of English Newsletter (2008-2012)

No abstract provided.