Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Composing In Relation: Rethinking Multimodal Feedback As Rhetorical Design, Angela Laflen

Journal of Response to Writing

This qualitative study investigates how writing instructors compose feedback in multimodal digital environments, focusing on the rhetorical and relational dimensions of their design choices. Drawing on social semiotics and multimodal composition theory, the study analyzes feedback artifacts, instructor interviews, and student surveys from six first-year writing courses. Findings reveal that instructors engage in complex feedback design work across communication modes, often without formal training or shared frameworks. Instructors tended to default to text-based habits shaped by genre memory but adapted their strategies in response to communicative breakdowns and student needs. The study identifies three core themes: reliance on print-era conventions, …

Examining Automated Writing Evaluation Error Coverage In Relation To Uptake And Retention, Mohaddeseh Mehrzad, Mohammad Rahimi, Stephanie Link

Journal of Response to Writing

Despite the current widespread use of Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE) feedback, many issues regarding its efficacy still remain unresolved. Recent studies mainly focus on correctly detected errors with a lack of attention on the comprehensiveness of error detection, or error coverage. Error coverage is interesting because little is known about the capacity of AWE systems to fully detect common second language (L2) errors. It is also important to investigate the potential effect of such capacity on student uptake and retention, which are important constructs in fostering L2 writing development. To this end, the present study compared teacher feedback and AWE …

Navigating Feedback In Collaborative Writing: The Impact Of Student Backgrounds And Expectations On Transitions To New Academic And Social Spaces, Lindsey Gruber, María Fernández–Agüero

Journal of Response to Writing

This article examines how international students navigate feedback from a supervisor while working on a group writing project in a diverse English medium of instruction (EMI) bachelor’s program at a public university in Denmark, where no formalized writing or language support resources are offered in the students’ first year of instruction. Data were collected in qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 11 students who were identified through a survey of a first-year bachelor of arts cohort. Results from the survey showed that despite using a supervision model of education, few students perceived changes in feedback compared to their secondary school experiences, and …

Editors' Introduction, Betsy Gilliland, Lucie Moussu

Journal of Response to Writing

No abstract provided.

Full Issue Vol. 1 2026

The Penguin Review

No abstract provided.

Why Do We Romanticize “Old World” Europe?, Dalton D. Conden

The Penguin Review

“Old World” Europe feels timeless—but that feeling is constructed. What we’re drawn to isn’t just age, it’s preservation.

The Global Rise Of "Aesthetic Culture", Dalton D. Conden

The Penguin Review

Aesthetic culture feels harmless—until you realize how much it edits out. What gets labeled as “Scandinavian,” “Japanese,” or “French” style is usually the most digestible version of something much more complicated. It’s culture without friction.

Should We Let Robots Take Our Jobs?: A.I And Our Future, Alycia Carrasco

The Penguin Review

I don’t take many liberties in the text below, but one thing I will assume is that whoever may be reading this piece does not own and will not inherit any large company, particularly any large tech company.

For the average person, generative AI and its rapid development can be confusing. Information is kept elusive by even the most transparent of AI companies.1 It can feel hopeless to even care about AI considering its trajectory is largely decided by the top executives at the most powerful tech companies (and the U.S. military).2 However, the metaphorical ship has already sailed, and …

Dreaming In Spires: My Oxford Term, Sulgi I. Kim

The Penguin Review

After ten hours on a plane and a one-hour drive from Heathrow Airport, nothing felt more exciting than seeing the Oxford sign for the first time. I remember my hands were shaking as I stepped into an entirely new experience. Leaving warm California for a place widely known for continuous rain and cold was something I never imagined I would be ready for. Yet Oxford gave the warmest welcome. Despite arriving in October, my first day in the city was sunny and surprisingly warm. As we approached Oxford, I could not help but stare out the window. I began to …

Dead Poets/Society: How A Great American Classic Reflects The Fatal Shortcomings Of American Schools, Sophia Shapiro

The Penguin Review

Rarely do the worlds of film and academia coalesce in ways that change public discourse of both entirely. Almost always, endeavors to join these two very dissident disciplines fall flat in one realm or the other. But, every so often, a special feature becomes cinematic royalty for the world of academia, and none stands out as a larger paragon than Dead Poets Society.

Are Super Pacs Dangerous To American Democracy?, Mason Lee Compton

The Penguin Review

In the 2024 election cycle, just ten individuals contributed over $1 billion to Super PACs: more money than millions of ordinary Americans donated collectively.1 Reports described this select group as “an unelected shadow cabinet,” capable of reshaping entire campaigns from behind the scenes through rapid ad buys, targeted messaging, and electoral pressure. None of this would have been possible before 2010, when the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision– combined with the D.C. Circuit’s ruling in SpeechNow.org v. FEC– dramatically dismantled long-standing campaign finance restrictions.2 3 These decisions opened the door for unlimited independent expenditures, giving rise …

On Being A "Flâneur" (& Why It Still Matters), Dalton D. Conden

The Penguin Review

The French word "flâneur" gets translated as a wanderer, but that never really captures it. It’s not just walking—it’s observing. Lingering. Letting a city reveal itself to you without needing to control it.

The Fall Of Saigon And Its Legacy In The United States, Logan J. Kemp

The Penguin Review

The topic of South Vietnam has always been one close to home. My mother and grandma were evacuated from Saigon before the country fell to North Vietnam in 1975. They hopped on a US military helicopter, taking multiple stops on ships and islands before eventually landing in Orange County, California. Because of the evacuation, my family members were forced to start a new life; however, it was better than being sent to a re-education camp. My Grandma had done some business with an American, and she could have lost her life if she had been sent to the camps. Tens …

What Bombs Cannot Occupy: Memory, Heritage, And War In Ukraine, Dalton D. Conden

The Penguin Review

Air-raid sirens have become part of the daily soundscape in Ukrainian cities. They interrupt meals, classes, conversations, and sleep. When they blare, people gather what they can and move quickly sometimes to shelters, sometimes to basements, sometimes nowhere at all. Families lock their doors without knowing whether they will ever turn the key again. Children carry backpacks filled with whatever seemed important in the moment: a photograph, a stuffed animal, a book pulled hastily from a shelf. Around them, buildings that once anchored everyday life—churches, museums, historic neighborhoods— have been damaged or destroyed.

Q&A: On Being A College Student In Ukraine, 2025, Katherine A. Watt, Heidi K. Smith

The Penguin Review

Nataliia is a nineteen year old university student in Kiev, Ukraine. Her country has been at war since 2014 when Russia first invaded Crimea, a region in the Southwest of Ukraine. Four years into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Nataliia agreed to sit with the Penguin Review for a Zoom interview to discuss the current state of affairs, the experience of being a student during a time of war, and her hope for the country's future.

Annual Archaeology Update: The Valley Of Kings, Sophia Shapiro

The Penguin Review

There can be no contest for the Review’s annual archaeological highlight for 2025. Exactly one hundred years after Egyptologists discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun (King Tut) in the Valley of Kings, archaeologists discovered a series of steps buried by rockfall.

New Ways To Address The Plastic Problem, Andrew J. Hanna

The Penguin Review

Since 1950, the world has produced some 9.2 billion metric tonnes of plastic.1 Other sources place the total closer to ten billion metric tonnes Furthermore, nearly 500 million tonnes of new plastic are manufactured each year– a figure that's projected to increase to 1.2 billion tonnes by 2060.2 The environmental effects of all this plastic production and pollution are disturbing. Because most plastics are synthetic–meaning they contain "no molecules found in nature"– they can't decompose. Instead, they just break down into smaller and smaller pieces, becoming microplastics (less than five millimeters (5 million nanometers) across) and then nanoplastics (less than …

History Of Tarot, Sophia Shapiro

The Penguin Review

Believe it or not, this modern mystical favorite has a very different origin story! Tarot was originally a trump card game, Tarocchini, developed in 15th-century Italy.

The War On War: Desensitization's Effects On Society's Moral Fabric, Chelsea E. Johnson, Andrew J. Cudden

The Penguin Review

In an era of constant connectivity, violence is no longer distant or intermittent. Wars, political repression, mass shootings, and humanitarian crises now unfold in real time, shared instantly through twenty-four-hour news cycles and social media. Never before has global suffering been so visible. Yet this unprecedented access has failed to produce sustained moral urgency or collective responsibility. Instead, violence becomes increasingly utilised as fleeting content–viewed, shared, and then displaced by the next trending event. This paradox raises a pressing ethical question: how can a world more informed of suffering become so morally disengaged from it?

Fighting For The Story: How Identity Shapes The Israel–Hamas War, Ana Lilia Zavala

The Penguin Review

The war between the state of Israel and the militant group Hamas is often portrayed in strictly strategic or material terms, from rockets and tunnels to ground offensives and massive casualties. Yet what truly lies at the core of the conflict in the Gaza Strip is not merely a struggle over territory or security, but a struggle of identities, narratives, and legacies of harm. From my constructivist standpoint, I believe that actors act not just because of “national interests,” but because of how they understand their own identity, how they interpret the other, and how normative structures shape their choices. …

Present Day North Korea, Milo Fisher-Golton

The Penguin Review

The government of North Korea poses an extreme threat to the world while suppressing its citizens’ freedom, so why doesn't this topic get the attention it warrants in the United States? North Korea has been the cause of two major inhumane issues for some time now: as a nuclear threat to all other countries, and as a human rights suppressor to its own population under its communist dictator, Kim Jong Un. North Korea is at odds with its geographical neighbors, the United States, and other global powers. Their access to nuclear weapons– along with their alliances with Russia and China– …

Has Politics Always Been Like This?, Tyler Bernius

The Penguin Review

There are some things that I, even as someone relatively new to politics, know are not normal–the blatant disregard of the Constitution, the seemingly rapid collapse of checks and balances, and the twisting and extending of presidential powers, to name a few. What is not clear to me, however, is whether people's reactions, attitudes, and interactions towards politics have always been this way. Growing up, I imagined politicians were respectable people who worked in the best interests of our country and who, even when disagreements did arise, settled problems with structured deliberation. I assumed voters looked at politics with logic …

Faculty Mentor's Note | Editor's Note, Aaron Richardson, Sophia Shapiro

The Penguin Review

No abstract provided.

Through The Lense Of The Camera Obscura, Kayla Minick, Jacob King

Create@State

Our project is to create a tangible camera obscura, a device that utilizes light passing through a small hole to project a flat image on an opposing surface. It is our goal to create a camera obscura that viewers will be able to interact with and use to create their own drawings of a still-life, which will be set up to view through the camera obscura and can be traced using the camera obscura projection. Guests will be allowed to move the objects around within the still life section to create their own scene. We chose to construct a camera …

Pop Art's Influences On 1960s Mod Fashion, Erin Bryan

Create@State

Abstract

I will be exploring how the pop art movement, in particular, influenced the fashion associated with the 1960s Mod style. This style was popular among young people in Britain, as the term “Mod” is short for “Modernist”, and featured bold colors, geometric motifs, sharp lines, as well as slim and simple silhouettes.  I will be creating my own 1960s mini dress, following a vintage pattern from that time, and using fabric that reflects the bright, geometric, and colorful characteristics of pop art, all while documenting my progress. Not only will I be capturing the visual similarities between this art …

The Ethnic And Cultural Amalgamation In Buenos Aires And The Evolution Of Argentine Tango, Damien N. Ehie

Create@State

Ethnic and Cultural Amalgamation in Buenos Aires and the Evolution of Argentine Tango

Argentine tango is widely recognized as a national symbol of Argentina, yet it did not originate as a unified cultural expression. This project examines how large-scale immigration and urban geography in Buenos Aires between approximately 1880 and the mid-twentieth century shaped tango’s musical language and social meaning. During this period, the city absorbed massive numbers of Italian and Spanish migrants alongside existing Afro-Rioplatense communities, creating dense neighborhoods where diverse populations lived in close proximity. Shared housing, informal performance spaces, and working-class leisure environments produced sustained cultural interaction. …

The Digital Museum: Classical Reception In Animal Crossing New Horizons, Anna G. Kendall

Create@State

My project examines how Animal Crossing: New Horizons brings the ancient body into a modern, digital world through its recreations of classical Greek sculptures. In the game, players can collect, study, and display famous works such as the Venus de Milo, Discobolus, and Nike of Samothrace in a virtual museum. These sculptures reveal how the Greeks represented beauty, strength, and divine movement through the human form. By interacting with them in-game, players connect with these ancient ideas of the body in a new way. The game’s system of real and fake artworks also teaches players to look closely and …

Sanitizing Escape Lines: Memory Transmission Among Wwii Airmen, Darrah S. Thompson

Create@State

Through declassified archival documents, family archives, and oral histories of WWII airmen, this poster examines how memory was impacted by wartime and post-war secrecy. Using the American Air Crew of the B-17 Flying Fortress, “Baby Dumpling,” as my case study,  I explore how the containment of sensitive information through intelligence protocols during and after WWII led to different understandings of the same catalyzing experience among the ten man crew. Following their crash—resulting in death, POW capture, or evasion—I trace how Francis B. Cater and Jack R. Zeman shared different accounts of the same event based not only on their experiences, …

Behind The Scenes - Wing Shya

V Music Magazine

No abstract provided.

Behind The Scenes - Anthony Cheung

V Music Magazine

No abstract provided.