Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

English Language and Literature Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Rhetoric and Composition

Theses/Dissertations

2021

Institution
Keyword
Publication

Articles 1 - 13 of 13

Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Girlpwrd: Amplifying Silenced Voices Of Women Through Digital Storytelling, Brooke Schumann Dec 2021

Girlpwrd: Amplifying Silenced Voices Of Women Through Digital Storytelling, Brooke Schumann

English Theses

Drawing on data from a multi-month digital storytelling community project, this qualitative case study offers portraits of three marginalized women who re-author pivotal moments of silencing in their lives. The foundational framework blends scholarship on rhetorical silence, rhetorical listening, and semiotics of multimodal expression. These cases demonstrate how digital storytelling allows women a space to form and give voice to their silence, where they are the empowered agents of their own stories. The digital platform elevates these underrepresented narratives by creating new pathways for listening.


Multimodal Expertise Training For Writing Center Tutors, Erin E. A. O'Day Dec 2021

Multimodal Expertise Training For Writing Center Tutors, Erin E. A. O'Day

English Department Theses

As digital technology becomes more common on college campuses and multimodal compositions are assigned by more instructors, writing centers must incorporate support for multimodal projects into their tutoring. However, no method for training writing center tutors to understand the basic principles of multimodal compositions is currently available. This thesis, therefore, proposes a method for training multimodal expert tutors in writing centers which focuses on both the importance of rhetorical choices in communicating a message in different media and on the basic principles of design for four primary areas: visual, audio, video, and web design. Example tutor training handouts for these …


An Analysis Of Class In Composition From 1970-2010, Holland R. Cutrell Dec 2021

An Analysis Of Class In Composition From 1970-2010, Holland R. Cutrell

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Class and socioeconomic status in composition and rhetoric remains a topic that is felt, yet not often discussed. The language students use is highly indicative of their class background, and everyone has a slightly altered form of discourse they prefer (Zebroski, 2006). My thesis examines the issues working-class students have faced with literacy acquisition and discourse assimilation from 1970s–mid 2000s. My analysis illustrates how composition and rhetoric has evolved from the error-centered and hyper-correct culture of the 1970s to the technologically dominated, media driven production powerhouse that affects every aspect of college and beyond. To most effectively address how working-class …


Literacy, Rhetoric, Tradition, And Truth In The Age Of Bede, Gerard A. Lavin Iii Jul 2021

Literacy, Rhetoric, Tradition, And Truth In The Age Of Bede, Gerard A. Lavin Iii

English Language and Literature ETDs

Despite his own high level of literacy and education, the Venerable Bede (672/3–735) inhabited a world in which nearly all personal, social, educational, and political discourse was conducted orally. A thorough understanding of his works will require an understanding of this discourse, but attempts to apply broad theories of “orality” derived from other cultures to early medieval England have repeatedly foundered. This dissertation establishes a set of guiding principles to produce a more nuanced and localized model of discourse in Bede’s England and observes a variety of ways oral and literate forms of rhetoric were employed by political actors in …


Master's Portfolio, Sydney Ludewig Jun 2021

Master's Portfolio, Sydney Ludewig

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This is the final portfolio for my Master's of Arts in the field of English. It includes an analytical narrative along with four projects that best illustrate my knowledge and skills in regards to teaching literature. These four pieces are titled "Problematic Women and Gender Roles in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night," "Teaching Linguistic Justice," "The Importance of Teaching Identity," and "Image Grammar and Narrative Essay Unit."


Writing Not Writing: Transdisciplinary Poetics, Institutional Critique, Miriam L. Atkin Jun 2021

Writing Not Writing: Transdisciplinary Poetics, Institutional Critique, Miriam L. Atkin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an exploration of transdisciplinary creative practice as a means of institutional critique. The artists I have chosen as my primary focus—Robert Kocik, Eleni Stecopoulos, Zora Neale Hurston, Jimmie Durham, Leslie Scalapino and Lyn Hejinian—employ multiple mediums and fields of discourse to address the presumptions and exclusions that are structurally integral to the institutions that house them. They enact “architextural” interventions through their use of forms that move between the page and three dimensional space, incorporating architecture, sculpture, drawing, painting, film, performance, poetry and prose. My work aims at a renewed understanding of critique as such, and therefore—though …


Presidential Rhetoric And Media's Contribution To The Subjective Nature Of Truth In American Democracy, Bianca Miccolis May 2021

Presidential Rhetoric And Media's Contribution To The Subjective Nature Of Truth In American Democracy, Bianca Miccolis

English Honors Theses

This thesis examines the role of media on the subjectivity of truth in presidential rhetoric and its ethical implications. In my three case studies, I find that there is some form of deception by each president in their chosen form of media. I analyze Roosevelt’s use of the radio, which he uses to hide his disability and gain more executive power to combat the Great Depression. I examine Reagan’s use of television and how he fabricates an intimate relationship with the American people to enact tax reform. Finally, I investigate Trump’s use of Twitter to deflect negative publicity as he …


Nonprofit Social Media Internships: A Handbook, Allison Laroy May 2021

Nonprofit Social Media Internships: A Handbook, Allison Laroy

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

This thesis examines how nonprofits can best prepare their interns and how interns can best prepare themselves for a role in engaging audiences through social media. Through a literature review on nonprofit social media and internships, a series of qualitative interviews with interns and supervisors, and my own lived experiences as a social media intern, I develop a handbook for nonprofit social media internships. This guide is relevant to the specific experiences of nonprofit social media internships, includes advice on training, mentorship, and best practices, and finally, it incorporates further resources on nonprofit social media that interns and supervisors can …


Big Community In Little Chinatown: How Asian Americans (Re)Present Their Community Today, Meghan Morrison May 2021

Big Community In Little Chinatown: How Asian Americans (Re)Present Their Community Today, Meghan Morrison

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This paper looks at a series of modern Asian American pieces of media in order to analyze how women and LGBT+ depict and create their community, especially in relation to another marginalized ethnic group. By examining the relationship between these groups within popular media, we can uncover how Asian Americans choose to represent themselves and gain a deeper understanding on how marginalized groups choose to portray themselves.


The Writing For Healing And Transformation Project, Heather Elizabeth Osborn Mar 2021

The Writing For Healing And Transformation Project, Heather Elizabeth Osborn

Education Doctorate Dissertations

As a qualitative action research study, the purpose of The Writing for Healing and Transformation Project was to facilitate more inclusive writing strategies and to promote individual and collective healing on issues of social suffering and oppression (Kleinman, Das, & Lock, 1997; Pennebaker & Smyth, 2016) for diverse students at a community college located in the northeastern United States. The 18 participants in the study included students in my English II literature and composition course. The theoretical framework encompassed Pennebaker’s (2016) “writing for healing” paradigm, advocating the use of expressivist writing and “social suffering theory,” examining how power structures affect …


War Of Words: A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Military's Sexual Assault Prevention Posters, Nancy Thurman Clemens Jan 2021

War Of Words: A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Military's Sexual Assault Prevention Posters, Nancy Thurman Clemens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Joining the expanding discourse surrounding language and its effects, specifically regarding the performance of gender in a hypermasculine environment, this dissertation offers a rhetorical analysis of the United States Department of Defense's sexual assault prevention and response training materials, particularly posters created between 2009 and 2012. This dissertation examines the context of sexual harassment and assault within the military from the late 1970s until the mid-2000s. Presenting scandals that led up to the development of the Department's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) program, I give a brief history of the establishment and scope of responsibility for the program in …


Material Interactions: Early Modern Women’S Textual Embodiments, Olivia R. Tracy Jan 2021

Material Interactions: Early Modern Women’S Textual Embodiments, Olivia R. Tracy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Material Interactions: Early Modern Women’s Textual Embodiments claims that early modern women writers present embodied constructions of the sensory-domestic—the bodily practices of herbal and culinary labor, which were shared with medical and scientific practices—to locate an ethos at the intersection of medical, scientific and literary discourse communities. Drawing from approaches including ethos-as-location, rhetorical genre, and early modern ecofeminism, my articulation of a sensory-domestic ethos offers new ways to explore the ways writers construct ethos by navigating their individual standpoint, their writing context, and their “acceptable” social labor. My first section argues that early modern women engaged ingredients as agents in …


Death, Discipline, And The Dead: Biopolitical Rhetoric In Early Modern English Texts, Leslie Raybuck Malland Jan 2021

Death, Discipline, And The Dead: Biopolitical Rhetoric In Early Modern English Texts, Leslie Raybuck Malland

Theses and Dissertations--English

Death, Discipline, and the Dead: Biopolitical Rhetoric in Early Modern English Texts locates allusions to the biopolitical culture of Early Modern England within popular English texts. Through my examination of the period’s fascination with death—public executions, newly-authorized anatomies—and the ways in which death, as well as the treatment of the dead, was authorized by and supported the ideological aims of the state, my research identifies how those themes carry over into the most popular works of the day, reviewing instances of both verbal and nonverbal rhetoric across genres to find allusions to biopower — or, state control of the biological. …