Arts and Humanities | Open Access Articles | Digital Commons Network™

The Woman And The Well, Lauren Luomala Dec 2023

The Woman And The Well, Lauren Luomala

Honors Projects

A collection of 16 poems inspired by personal life experiences, containing themes of the natural world, relationships, and faith.

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True Posts, Archana Kadam May 2023

True Posts, Archana Kadam

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

The poem "True posts" is written from the perspective of an autistic child who is learning his way with social media.

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Theorizing Autistic Sexualities As Collective Poetic Experiences, Anna Nygren, Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist Nov 2022

Theorizing Autistic Sexualities As Collective Poetic Experiences, Anna Nygren, Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This article is a palimpsest emerging as part of a project of collective autoethnographic writing on the theme of sexuality. It draws on the intensification of friendly writing, friendly as in friends with benefits. We write as autistic and neuroqueer subjects, writing until our textualities becomes sexualities. We write until the text becomes a room – call it Earth or call it Body, call it Brain or call it Heart – in which one could crack meanings―but these are not the most important ones. Instead of meanings and positions, we want to write about movements in time. The time it …

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Don’T Be Like Me: A Letter To My Daughters, Morénike Giwa Onaiwu May 2022

Don’T Be Like Me: A Letter To My Daughters, Morénike Giwa Onaiwu

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

It is often stated that parenting is "the toughest job you'll ever love." And it certainly doesn't come with an instruction manual. However, though we will falter, because of our love for our children, most of us learn a lot on the journey. This growth helps us to develop the skills and understanding needed, as parents, to be able to effectively guide, support, and nurture our children. Such knowledge, though beneficial for all families, is critical within neurodiverse households.

So what do you do when you just don't have it? What do you do when you have as much (if …

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My Learning Circles, Archana Kadam May 2022

My Learning Circles, Archana Kadam

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This poem is written from the perspective of an autistic child who loves mathematical concepts. The poem attempts to explain his or her understanding of rules of social thinking.

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The Girl In The Yellow Dress, Lauren Julia Thibault Apr 2022

The Girl In The Yellow Dress, Lauren Julia Thibault

Honors Projects

In Fall 2021, I studied abroad in Rome, Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic. During my four months, I had the opportunity to travel not only throughout Italy, but around Europe as well. In this guide, I lay out every trip I took and wrote tips and tricks for each area I went to. I go through overall points to keep in mind when traveling through Italy and Europe, what to eat, where to stay, what activities you should (and maybe shouldn't) do, and a little bit of history of what I'm talking about. I also list all of the apps …

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“In The Midst Of Experience:” Civic Education Through Narrative Creation, Jeff Spanke Feb 2021

“In The Midst Of Experience:” Civic Education Through Narrative Creation, Jeff Spanke

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Through employing a narrative, reflective approach, I discuss how the experience of working with international students during a summer institute informed the developed and implementation of a civically minded project in a college Young Adult Literature seminar. The project sought to frame "America" as an actual teenager, relative to other, more "adult" countries in the world, and asked students to construct a conventional YA narrative featuring America as the primary character. Through this narrative, I explain the various successes of the project and ultimately argue that students' stories and original compositions offer a viable mechanism for progressive, democratic citizenship education …

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Teaching Materialism Through Storytelling: A Collection Of Short Stories And Learning Materials, Zoie Zvonar, Katherine Arnold Dec 2020

Teaching Materialism Through Storytelling: A Collection Of Short Stories And Learning Materials, Zoie Zvonar, Katherine Arnold

Honors Projects

This collaborative projects seeks to combine the disciplines of psychology and writing into a collection of short stories and learning materials dedicated to teaching young students the psychological concept of materialism. In order to accomplish this goal, Zoie Zvonar and Katherine Arnold have designed and created a set of materials that seek to inform, educate, and instill in those young students what materialism is, how to recognize it in our own lives, its consequences, and potential strategies to lower high materialistic tendencies. Zoie Zvonar created the companion guide, learning activities for both students and instructors, and an additional resources list …

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Stuck In The Middle: An Illustrated Essay On Covid-19 And Other Past Pandemics, Amanda Pszczolkowski Dec 2020

Stuck In The Middle: An Illustrated Essay On Covid-19 And Other Past Pandemics, Amanda Pszczolkowski

Honors Projects

The project is a visual essay, in a graphic novel-esque style, exploring how the coronavirus compares to other illness outbreaks of the past century and how the associated restrictions have impacted me at an individual level. The creative nonfiction essay intertwines historical perspectives as a way to inform, contextualize, and reflect my own experience with COVID-19. The project began with extensive research on illness outbreaks of the past century, current developments in the Coronavirus pandemic, and genre conventions of graphic novels and memoirs. The intent was to provide a cohesive whole that illuminates themes in the linguistic essay.

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Babble About Autism Talks Too Much, Adam J. Wolfond Nov 2020

Babble About Autism Talks Too Much, Adam J. Wolfond

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

Two poems by Adam Wolfond, "How" and "Babble About Autism Talks Too Much" (2020) "language" autism differently, questioning the way neurotypicality asserts authority over the meaning and experiences of autistic people. Wolfond is a non-speaking writer who is the first and youngest poet to be published by poets.org. He is a public text-to-speech presenter, collaborator on academic projects, an artist who has previously exhibited in Toronto, Canada and has published two books of poetry with Unrestricted Interest. His interest lies in movement, relation, affect and language.

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Visuals, Archana Kadam May 2020

Visuals, Archana Kadam

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

The poem “Visuals” is written from the perspective of a child with Autism who is a visual learner and encourages us to see the world through his eyes.

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The Things We Talked About, Angelica Davilla May 2020

The Things We Talked About, Angelica Davilla

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

Creative nonfiction about Latinx sisterhood

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Private Facebook Group, Aimee Chor May 2020

Private Facebook Group, Aimee Chor

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

No abstract provided.

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Consulting On Creative Writing In Undergraduate Writing Centers, Alaina Taylor Apr 2020

Consulting On Creative Writing In Undergraduate Writing Centers, Alaina Taylor

Honors Projects

This project is intended to serve as a guide for present and future writing consultants in navigating creative writing-based consultations. Preliminary research was conducted among existing employees of the Frederick Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan Authors in order to gauge which aspects of consulting on creative writing they felt the most uneasy facing. These were narrowed down to four main areas. By combining discussions held during the Creative Writing Committee team and secondary research, strategies were designed in order to help navigate these specific areas.

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The Moon Is Especially Full: Notes On Poetry, Teaching, Tests, And [Autistic] Intelligence, Chris Martin Dec 2019

The Moon Is Especially Full: Notes On Poetry, Teaching, Tests, And [Autistic] Intelligence, Chris Martin

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This essay explores the ways in which poetry can help autistic students utilize creative expression and develop tools for self-advocacy.

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Void, Bethany Fink Dec 2019

Void, Bethany Fink

Honors Projects

This is a work of fiction. It forays into topics such as mental illness and how it affects relationships with friends and family. Trigger warnings include anorexia, self-harm, depression, and suicide ideation.

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Yellow Pads And The Return Of The Writer, Gregory Shafer Nov 2019

Yellow Pads And The Return Of The Writer, Gregory Shafer

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

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“We Are The Walking Dead”: Morality In Robert Kirkman’S Comics Series, Amy L. Jacobs Aug 2019

“We Are The Walking Dead”: Morality In Robert Kirkman’S Comics Series, Amy L. Jacobs

Masters Theses

Despite widespread cultural success, Robert Kirkman’s comics series, The Walking Dead, has received little critical attention in the literary canon. The limited critical attention it has received fails to provide an in-depth examination of the work’s morality. This could be a result of the ever-present influence of Frederic Wertham’s claims in his 1954 work, Seduction of the Innocent. However, when viewed through the frameworks provided by John Gardner’s On Moral Fiction and Wayne C. Booth’s The Company We Keep, Kirkman’s zombie narrative exhibits morality in multi-layered and complex ways with every turn of the page. Through the …

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Midwestern Writers Need Midwestern Historians, Bonnie Jo Campbell Nov 2018

Midwestern Writers Need Midwestern Historians, Bonnie Jo Campbell

Studies in Midwestern History

These remarks were given on a plenary panel titled "Writing on the Midwest," held at the Fourth Annual Midwestern History Conference in Grand Rapids on June 6, 2018. Bonnie Jo Campbell received her MFA in creative writing from Western Michigan University. Her 2009 book, American Salvage, published by Wayne State University Press, was a finalist in fiction for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

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Tales Of Cherry Blossom Dreams, Kelly Dykstra Aug 2018