Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Finding And Making Home: Poems And Reflections Of Undergraduate Children Of Immigrants, Gladys Perez

Master's Theses

The number of children of immigrants within the United States has grown over the past few decades and more so we are seeing a greater number of these children pursuing a higher education. With a growing number of undergraduate children of immigrants growing, there is a need to understand how they see themselves as a part of the United States. Previous studies take into consideration how these students navigate higher education, however, there is a lack of research on these students’ larger understanding of belonging within the overall nation. Poetry as data and a process was the grounding methodology that …

Final Ma Portfolio, Angela Geiger-Fields

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This is a final portfolio reflecting my writing and research for the Master of Arts in English with a specialization in English Teaching program. In this portfolio, I have included four essays or projects that focus on the topics of authentic audiences; argumentative, research, and technical writing; postcolonial film and literature; and linguistics. The portfolio begins with a personal narrative of my time in the program as well as the revisions and research I completed to make the finalized portfolio.

Bastard Reasoning: A "Preposterous" History Of Walter Benjamin's Ideas, Vladimir Cristache

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation presents the theory of ideas developed by Walter Benjamin in the “Epistemo-Critical Prologue” of his Trauerspiel book and thereby seeks to fill an existing gap in English-language Benjamin literature. On the one hand, it performs its task by closely reading this thinker’s early, epistemo-linguistic writings up to and including the “Prologue”: most prominently, “On Language as Such,” “The Program of the Coming Philosophy,” “The Concept of Criticism,” and the theoretically inclined sections of “Goethe’s Elective Affinities.” On the other, it does so by positioning Benjamin’s theory of language within existentialist philosophy and by applying his theory of …

Final Ma Portfolio, Muhammed Saadiq

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

In this MA Portfolio, the author showcases four of his most substantial works that were created throughout the pursuit of his MA in Writing and Rhetoric. He was able to blend his previous specializations with the current ones; specifically English as a Second Language (ESL) and English education with writing and rhetoric. To briefly highlight the works: research and analysis was conducted on the usage of English in the technical communication field in China, Muslims in a post-9/11 atmosphere in mass media, ESL and Generation 1.5 writing students in secondary and post secondary classrooms, and a teacher’s manual was created …

The Rhetoric Of Academic Discourse: A Qualitative, Phenomenological Study Of Students' Self-Investigation Of The Acquisition Of Academic Discourse In First-Year Writing Courses, Barbara E. Morgan

English Dissertations

Whether at a four-year university or a two-year community college, students who choose to pursue higher education will likely be required to demonstrate their eligibility to enroll in college-level writing courses. At a vast majority of colleges and universities in the United States, such eligibility is determined through various means that include college placement tests, like AccuPlacer®, or other standardized assessments and determinants. Once students are deemed prepared or eligible to enroll in college-level writing courses, their academic journeys often include some form of the compulsory first-year English classes. These courses, also known as freshman writing or composition courses, have …

Adventures In Storytelling: An Editor's Guide To Better Fiction, Rachel Frank

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Writing fiction can be daunting for beginning writers. This graphic guide seeks to make fiction more accessible, using the unique affordances of the graphic medium to explain fictional concepts and techniques in a clear, engaging way.

Final Ma Portfolio, Elizabeth Armor

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

A Final Portfolio submitted to the English Department of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the field of English.

Maybe She Found Me In A Poem, Robin Gow

English Honors Papers

Maybe She Found Me in a Poem explores my own family relationship and family stories through a variety of poetic forms, persona poetry, and prose pieces centered on an imagined relationship with my grandmother who died before I was born. The collection asks, “How much are our family stories our own?” and “Can we create memory?” Themes of haunting, ghosts, queerness, shared memory, death, and burial are carried throughout the collection and brought forward in their respective sections. Images are placed throughout as part of the collection to amplify the “haunting” power of the text.

Learning To Read In The Theaetetus: The Recuperation Of Writing In Plato's Philosophy, Luke Lea

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

In my thesis, I take up the popular question of the status of writing in Plato’s dialogues, but from a fresh perspective. Instead of approaching the question of writing head-on, I attend to the philosophical message about reading presented by two dialogues, the Phaedrus and the Theaetetus. My thesis offers interpretations of two individual dialogues whose emphasis on writing and reading as both literary themes and philosophical problems ensure that the overall meanings of these dialogues cannot be reached without attention to this subject.

Although I examine the dialogues in isolation, believing that the setting and characters unique to …

J.M. Coetzee And Literary Paternity: The Father In The Work Of Writing, Joshua Kesterson

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

Visualizing The Narrative: A Modernization And Extension Of Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants"., Koryn N. Naylor

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

For this project, I completed a screenplay for a short film. For my preliminary research into screenplay writing and form, I studied key concepts in narrative cinema, including theories of visual and narrative content. I wanted to enhance my understanding of the relationship between the writing of film and the way it translates to the screen. In particular I studied the relation between the narrative (plot and story) and visual (cinematography and mise-en-scène) in film theory, and the dichotomy of classical Hollywood vs. Avant-garde cinema. My research enhanced my understanding of how visual narrative can offer elements to a story …

Using Twitter As A Pedagogical Resource To Teach First-Year Composition, Carol Reynolds-Srot

Department of Writing and Communication Theses

This study examines the incorporation of Twitter in a first-year composition classroom, and addresses the following question: “How can using Twitter as a pedagogical resource to teach writing benefit both students and professors?” The study employs mixed-methods, including surveys, textual analysis of student tweets, and an interview with the professor to assess the application and outcomes of using Twitter. The research finds that although students use social media for a significant amount of time daily, bringing it into the classroom does not automatically lead to better engagement or improved writing. However, students in this study did demonstrate a differentiated used …

Blogging For Profit In The 21st Century: An Autoethnographic Analysis, Samantha L. Warren

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to conduct an autoethnographic analysis on my literate activities as a blogger to better understand the content creation and monetization practices of modern bloggers. In Chapter 1, I introduce readers to my blog and discuss some current lines of scholarship on blogging. In Chapter 2, I discuss my research methods and justify my use of autoethnography for my study. In Chapters 3 and 4, I explain my content creation and monetization processes in detail. In Chapter 5, I draw conclusions from my analysis and provide a few further directions for research. My suggestions for …

Catching On Dark In Public, Joshua Robert Long

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Catching On Dark In Public contains sixty pages of poetry compiled by the author during his time in the MFA program at The University of Texas at El Paso.

Fan Fiction In The English Language Arts Classroom, Kristen Finucan

MA in English Theses

Inspired by the observation of an obvious deficit in students’ comprehension of higher level literature, as well as an apparent weakness in both verbal and written critical analysis skills, this study explores the creation of collaborative fan fiction by students as they read the classic text, The Great Gatsby. Fueled by research in the areas of fan fiction, participatory culture, and cooperative learning, this inquiry took place over the course of six weeks in a high school English class comprised of 10th and 11th grade students. Throughout the study, the researcher examined student survey results, videos of students as they …

Ecologies Of Sponsorship: What Fitbit Users Can Teach Us About Digital Literacy, Kimberly Tweedale

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

As digital technologies have expanded, so have the literacy sponsors that support and shape how those technologies are used. This project focuses on one of these growing sites of sponsorship surrounding a specific health-tracking technology: wearable Fitbit devices. While much of the work on literacy sponsorship has focused on institutional sponsors as agents, I argue that the picture becomes more complicated and interesting when we place our focus on how users—often considered the sponsored—can become agents in a system that may have marginalized, excluded, or used them.

Using a combination of qualitative methods, this dissertation highlights how various literacy sponsors …

Building Community Within The Writing Center, Candace Cooper

Theses and Dissertations

Since their inception, Writing Centers have had the purpose of helping students with their writing, and they have met this goal by using collaborative learning and by talking to students about their writing. While the form of the center has changed over time, its purpose has not, and to better help Writing Centers achieve their purpose, they should focus on building community both amongst their tutors and between their tutors and tutees. A greater sense of community, welcome, and harmony will make the center a better place to work for the tutors, and it will make students/clients will feel more …

Seeing Double: A Hermeneutics Of The Window And The Written Oeuvre In Proust’S In Search Of Lost Time, Julian Dime

Senior Projects Fall 2018

Ruminations upon the nature of seeing, and of seeing double, in the writing of Marcel's oeuvre and in the writing of In Search of Lost Time itself.