English Language and Literature Commons^™

Finding Their Chrysanthemum: Linguistic Representation In Children's Literature, Marielena Zajac

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Children in America today struggle with finding themselves in the books they read due to societal expectations. From an early age, children are dictated on the correct way to speak and write in “American,” which can leave children and their home languages feeling unseen and dismissed. To help further the conversation and promotion of linguistic diversity in American society, this capstone analyzes dialectal representation in children’s books, with a heavy focus on attitudinal linguistic principles rather than prescriptive mechanics. The secondary research explores current literature and resources that discuss literacy acquisition in adolescents, trends in dialects in America, and childhood …

Authorial Agency: Investigating Composition Pedagogies Under A New Lens, Tyler Hurst

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This essay considers the work of three prominent composition scholars through the lens of authorial agency, which I define as a form of agency that focuses on the individual voice and self-determination of students in the writing space. Though the concept of agency has been previously considered by composition scholars, this contribution might aid in understanding various pedagogical approaches by analyzing how authorial agency is already being engaged within composition pedagogies and investigating how authorial agency aids teachers in understanding their pedagogy so that students learn to take back control of their own authoritative voice and self-determination. By re-investigating …

Female Superheroes, Rhetorical Reading, And Feminist Imagination : A Study Of College-Aged Readers And Comic Book Reading Practices Using Eye Tracking And Cued Retrospective Interviews, Aimee Vincent

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation uses feminist analysis and rhetorical genre studies to analyze the strategies used by college-aged students to read female superhero comic books. The dissertation responds to the growing trend of literature and writing instructors assigning comic books and graphic novels under the untested assumption that these texts are readily accessible to college students. This assumption contradicts what we have learned from studies of rhetorical reading strategies that found that readers analyze texts most effectively when readers are familiar with the text’s genre. In addition, the assumption ignores the specific rhetorical contexts of comics, including a problematic but powerful narrative …

The Criterion (2022)

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Definitions And Depictions Of Rhetorical Practice In Medieval English Fürstenspiegel., Joseph Ethan Blaine Sharp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how medieval authors defined rhetoric and depicted rhetorical practice in medieval English Fürstenspiegel. It begins by analyzing how the field of medieval rhetorical historiography has overlooked the Fürstenspiegel as a rhetorical genre due to its overt reliance on meta-rhetorical handbook genres as the objects of its analysis. This dissertation challenges traditional narratives that positions medieval rhetoric as a primarily academic discipline divorced from political practice by engaging in horizontal reading practices that examine the broader culture of medieval rhetorical practice alongside the definitions of rhetoric found in medieval English Fürstenspiegel. In so doing, this dissertation …

Twine 7: Immaculate, Ryenne Carroll

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

Need to Know

When writing the concept for the game, I wrote this with some form of an understanding of the Persona 5 universe, but I do hope that within the limited storytelling with the minimalistic format, I wrote the lore for this twine game in a way that needs minimal understanding of any other games.

Game Inspirations

The game was inspired by Persona 5, where I drew the inspiration of having a reflective world that ran on purifying hearts. I also drew inspiration from NieR: Automata, which lightly discussed the idea of what beauty actually means, and the lengths …

Twine 6: Deathly Afraid, Jahliem Brown

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

Deathly Afraid's key concept is to scare the player and make them question their choices. I thought of different ideas and scenarios on how my game will present itself to the players. A constant theme in horror games is to make players choose a path of light or dark. The light side is when the player decides to be a hero, risks their life to save others and becomes the one to solve the mysterious evil that hunts the town or kills everybody. The dark side allows the player to explore the evil side by being the main villain and …

Twine 5: 2099: Project Icarus, Nick Devitz

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

For my Choose Your Own Adventure project, I created a cyberpunk, action-oriented story called 2099: Project Icarus. In this story you play as an unnamed, ungendered character who I imagined players giving any identity to them that they wished. The protagonist is a quick-thinking problem solver, able to adapt to any situation they are facing. The story, is that you were fired from your job at a company called Xerxes Technologies, after digging into an incident you believe they were trying to cover up. The main objective of the story is to bring down Xerxes, with hard evidence of their …

Twine 4: The Cost, Nicole Williams

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

The Cost is an interactive fiction told through second person, following the character (“you”) as they wake up to discover themselves in a world they hardly remember. Outside there is an apocalypse, and a doctor has fixed the character to help rectify the world. While there are choices to make at the end, all of them are focused on “immortality” and what the cost of that is.

I came into the process of this game with the world already in my mind, knowing that I wanted it to be an apocalypse type of story. But besides that, I didn’t know …

Twine 3: We Must Be Killers, Oliver Mckeone

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

I’ve always been a fan of murder mysteries, that much is true, but “We Must Be Killers” is a murder mystery based on “Who Killed Markiplier?”, a video based murder mystery made by YouTuber Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach. After watching Mark make a murder mystery where all his friends played roles as various characters, I figured it’d be fun to make “We Must Be Killers” along a similar vein. Each character is based on one of my friends, with input from them about what they wanted their characters to be like. I’ve had this idea bouncing around in my head for …

Twine 2: A Western, Matthew Bandy

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

My game has changed a lot since I originally came up with the concept. Obviously, I took inspiration from western media such as deadwood, Clint Eastwood films, and Red Dead Redemption. The game ended up much more in-depth than I originally planned, but I don’t believe that to be a bad thing in of itself. I believe the biggest flaw of this game was my inexperience with coding. I had so many ideas to add – inventory lists, a map, special text effects – but I didn’t have the knowledge or time to implement these. I think, though, I still …

Twine 1: Shepherding, Alexander Rainer

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

Shepherding will technically be the second creation in a greater project of mine I’ve been calling Project Bleak. The first creation is unfinished and still a WIP, but is meant to be an anomalous NES-style game called Bleak. The story behind it is that evidence of an obscure game development team from the late era of NES games has resurfaced, and a community of lost media gurus, classic game experts, and similar people (plus anyone else who wants to help) has formed to hopefully unravel the mystery of who they were.

Bleak is really just meant to be an odd …

Conference Program 2022, Sandra M. Leonard

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

No abstract provided.

The Pedagogical Pitfalls Of Literature In College Composition And Teacher Education: A Foundational Analysis, Rinn Norman

Symposium of Student Scholars

Many of today’s college students struggle with college-level writing in Standard English, and during the last few decades, educators, parents, and experts in countless professional fields have begun to express a collective frustration over the quality of college graduates’ written English. However, this lack of quality in students’ and graduates’ writing is not due to laziness or generational differences, but rather a foundational shortcoming in the use of literary texts as the basis for instructional material in lower-level composition classes. This paper examines the traditional use of literature-based instruction in first-year composition (FYC) classes as well as undergraduate and graduate …

Whose Body Is Deserving: Discourse, Power, And Ideologies Concerning Non-Normative Bodies On Instagram, Misty Thomas

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation uses FCDA to investigate the construction and control of the boundaries of normativity as they relate to the body. Data in the form of comments was collected from three different Instagram accounts run by individuals with non-normative bodies. From the data, I argue that not only are non-normative bodies controlled through the coded language of health, but through racialized dehumanization. Even alleged demonstrations of support are problematized through what is being supported. The Instagram comments left on the accounts of non-normative bodies demonstrates that these bodies are suppressed as a way to maintain normative ideologies.

English Is Not Dead! Long Live English: Teaching The Evolution Of English And Inclusive Communication Via Online, Face To Face Or Hybrid Instruction, Teresa Marie Kelly, Stephanie Thompson, Sheryl Bone

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

When popular media and many individuals discuss changes in English, some erroneously contend that the language has always been the same and changes amount to little more than “politically correct woke liberalism” desired by only certain people. The English language continually evolves as a natural process that nothing can force nor prevent. Field-specific language also changes with increased understanding and knowledge. The variety of English taught to most students also shifts as Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)/Writing Across Disciplines (WAD) initiatives increasingly focus on Global English rather than the standard of any one country or group. Even informal interactions with …

Writing Center Resources, Samantha Hince

Honors Projects

This project facilitated the composition of a series of resources for the Bridgewater College Writing Center website, part of the MyBC online portal. The result was thirty resources on writing-related topics such as the writing process, including prewriting, drafting, and revising; citation styles and avoiding plagiarism; and grammar, mechanics, and style. These resources are available to Bridgewater College students, faculty, and staff. The primary purpose of these resources is to assist Writing Center tutors during tutoring sessions with students and to provide supplemental writing assistance for students. Project development was based on research into college writing centers and best practices …

Dewey In The Digital Age: Experiential Composition And Reflection As Transformation, Danielle Shumaker Page

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores the act of composing as a transformational, ongoing event and offers digital reflection as a tool for first-year writing students to evaluate their own writing practices. I analyze student vlogs produced in response to an assignment that asked students to produce digital reflections on their work as writers across the process of completing a final course project. My findings suggest that adapting experiential learning principles, digital and non-digital, into composition classroom design creates and facilitates writing experiences that are immersive and transformational. Crucial to designing learning occasions is the process of active reflection upon what the writer …

Dismantling Structural Systems Of Oppression Through A Revolutionized Pedagogy, Ambar A. Quintanilla

Toyon: Multilingual Literary Magazine

No abstract provided.

Test File, Sandra M. Leonard

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

No abstract provided.

Humanism, Capitalism, And Rhetoric In Early Modern England: The Separation Of The Citizen From The Self, Lynette Hunter

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to concepts of the self associated with the development of humanism in England, and to strategies for both inclusion and exclusion in structuring the early modern nation state. It addresses writings about rhetoric and behavior from 1495-1660, beginning with Erasmus’ work on sermo or the conversational rhetoric between friends, which considers the reader as an ‘absent audience’, and following the transference of this stance to a politics whose broadening democratic constituency needed a legitimate structure for governance-at-a-distance.

Unusually, the book brings together the impact on behavior of these new concepts about rhetoric, with the …

Origin Of The Term 'Dude', Gerald Leonard Cohen, Barry A. Popik, Peter J. Reitan

Arts, Languages and Philosophy Faculty Research & Creative Works

The book (261 pages, soft-covered) is intended as a scholarly study and therefore contains more detail than would appear in a book intended for a broad readership.

“’We Know What We Are, But Not What We May Be’: Student Transformation Through Commentary Blogs", Cheryl Hogue Smith

Publications and Research

This chapter discusses how, when students follow the online discussion practices of Sheridan Blau's Commentary Project, they can learn to embrace confusion, value questions, recognize that uncertainty is part of the learning process, and accept that what they don’t understand is often more important for them as a learner than what they do.

Beyond Transactional Narratives Of Agency: Peer Consultants’ Antiracist Professionalization, Amy T. Cicchino, Katharine H. Brown, Christopher Basgier, Megan Haskins

The Writing Center Journal

Social justice movements, especially Black Lives Matter, inspired many writing center administrators to reflect on their commitments to antiracism and engage with antiracist professional development with their staff. However, there is continued need to study the impact antiracist professional development has on writing center consultants’ ability to practice antiracism in sessions. This article presents a predominantly white institution (PWI) writing center’s attempt to do this work, with a particular emphasis on how antiracist professional development complicates portrayals of consultant agency within the writing center. The study analyzes qualitative data collected from consultants’ reflective writing, survey, and interview responses. Results illustrate …

Marilynne Robinson’S Housekeeping Read Through The Conceptual Prism Of “Tethers”, Sarah Street

The Criterion

Marilynne Robinson’s novel, Housekeeping, follows her central protagonist, Ruth, her sister Lucille, and her aunt Sylvie as they work to establish their place up against a greater surround. This paper attempts to read the novel through the conceptual prism of the word “tethers.” I argue that the characters' relationships with the surround shifts as they work through their trauma and grapple with the notion of impermanence by reconciling with both those things that tether them, those tethers that do not exist or have been released, and the tethers from which they want to break free. Ultimately I argue that …

Shakespeare’S Staging And The Self In The Sonnets, Xiani Zhu

The Criterion

This essay examines the theatricality of Shakespeare’s young man sonnets and how he uses the “stage” as a shortcut to deliver abstract ideas such as the concept of beauty, time, and love that are otherwise difficult to express. On a micro level, he frames each individual sonnet as a stage, where each specific setting and scenario allows dramatic tension to arise between the characters on stage, and from there, abstract ideas and emotions are naturally presented without being directly stated. On a macro level, the entire young-man sonnet sub-sequence — being in love with a beautiful young man — itself …

“His Own Was Ampler:” Dickinson And Whitman’S Sunset Poetry, Devyn Forcina

The Criterion

Although they are utterly dissimilar poets, Dickinson and Whitman made sunsets frequent subjects of their work. Dickinsonian sunset poetry attempts to imitate the natural phenomena and evokes tension and competition. A kind of closure is forced upon her unwilling speaker, who struggles against the inevitable ending of the day. In contrast, Whitmanian sunset poetry sings and celebrates the finale of the setting sun and delights in the cyclical nature of time. While Dickinson acknowledges the temporary quality of a single sunset, Whitman rejoices in their immortal occurrence. Both poets preserve the imagery of sunsets as photographers would, while imbuing them …

Letting The Cat Out Of The Wall: Irrepressible Perversity In Poe, Kelly Gallagher

The Criterion

This paper examines several short stories by Edgar Allan Poe that feature the motif of immurement, the practice of imprisoning a victim within walls. Poe uses immurement in “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” to suggest psychological suppression as the narrators physically hide their victims while simultaneously hiding their own self-destructive natures, which he refers to as “perversity.” His stories “The Imp of the Perverse” and “The Cask of Amontillado” convey that attempting to suppress one’s capacity for self-destruction only guarantees self-destruction. Poe’s motif of immurement demonstrates how human beings tend to ignore their inherent perversity, but his stories …

Injustice In Childhood: Jane Eyre And The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, Christian Barkman

The Criterion

Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, are autobiographical novels narrated by the fictional Jane Eyre and the real Frederick Douglass. Both stories evoke an outpouring of pity for their respective narrator: Jane, for the unmerited abuses dealt against her by family and school administrators, but most of all Douglass, who reserves the greater portion of lament on account of his dreadful persecution under the evil of slavery. The environments Jane and Douglass inhabit throughout their childhood inflict an immense burden on their physical body and psyche. This essay specially examines the …

Femininity As Disability In Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar., Shae Kirkus, Monika Shehi Herr

University of South Carolina Upstate Student Research Journal

Disability studies is often associated with the treatment of people with physical disabilities, which are defined as features of non-normative human bodies. However, analyzed through the lens of the classical idea of the ideal body, which was first and foremost male, femininity itself is also atypical and therefore confines women to the realm of being disabled.

Sylvia Plath’s autobiographical novel The Bell Jar shows how the feminine is a disability in and of itself. As Plath’s main character and narrator, Esther Greenwood, spirals into her own madness, her condition is only worsened by societal reactions to her declining mental health. …