English Language and Literature Commons^™

Tutoring Esl Students For Improvements In Language Skills, Hollie R. Craddock

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Much research has been conducted from the framework of Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory, and on the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). SCT has a wide application in many fields, including Second Language Acquisition (SLA).

This study collected and analyzed audio-recordings of voluntary, one-on-one tutoring sessions that took place over a six-week period in an Intensive English Program at an American University. The participants included both faculty and peer tutors and English Language Learners (ELLs) in the IE program. The recordings were analyzed to determine if any patterns emerged regarding the target language features on which the tutoring sessions …

This White Rose: Virginity In The Bloody Chamber, Kate Laurens

The Corinthian

Angela Carter’s book, The Bloody Chamber is one of the most interesting takes on fairy tales that there is. Upon first hearing about this book, some people may think that she has re-written some fairy tales or that she has made more “adult” versions of them. However, Carter insists that this is not the case. “My intention was not to do ‘versions’ or, as the American edition of the book said, horribly, ‘adult’ fairy tales, but to extract the latent content from the traditional stories and to use it as the beginnings of new stories.”

Ships That Do Not Sail: Antinauticalism, Antitheatricalism, And Irrationality In Stephen Gosson, Kent Lehnhof

English Faculty Articles and Research

Stephen Gosson's similes, particularly in 1579's The Schoole of Abuse, commend affective restraint, value stasis over motion, and idealize immobility. Combined with his Platonic mistrust of emotion and his dislike of stage plays for the emotional response they provoke, his criticisms can be seen to express a desire to slow cultural change and social mobility. The effect of this in The Schoole of Abuse is that it deprives objects and agents of their essential identify by removing the action that best defines them, implying that to become our best selves, we must give up the very qualities that define us.

Leave Creation To The Creator: The Corrupt Creator In Mary Shelley’S Frankenstein, Faith Borland '17

Outstanding Gateway Papers

My paper discusses the impact that Mary Shelley’s theistic views and the science of her time had on the writing of Frankenstein. Her Christian ideals helped her to shape the character of Victor and play out the consequences of his actions. She discusses many questions about the human soul and the afterlife in her novel. Using writings from her diary, it is clear that Shelley was a very dedicated Christian and believed absolutely in the presence of an eternal soul. A large theme in the story is the question of whether or not the Creature has a soul and, …

Image/Text And Text/Image: Reimagining Multimodal Relationships Through Dissociation, Amy K. Anderson

Theses and Dissertations--English

W.J.T. Mitchell has famously noted that we are in the midst of a “pictorial turn,” and images are playing an increasingly important role in digital and multimodal communication. My dissertation addresses the question of how meaning is made when texts and images are united in multimodal arguments. Visual rhetoricians have often attempted to understand text-image arguments by privileging one medium over the other, either using text-based rhetorical principles or developing new image-based theories. I argue that the relationship between the two media is more dynamic, and can be better understood by applying The New Rhetoric’s concept of dissociation, which …

Rereading Romanticism, Rereading Expressivism: Revising "Voice" Through Wordsworth's Prefaces, Hannah J. Rule

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Children’S Cacophony: Family In The Book Of Daniel, Eileen Totter

The Corinthian

E.L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel is not a tribute to leftist politics like scholars claim, but rather the family, which alone possesses the unique strength to endure the corruptive politics of both the right and the left.

Cultural Discourse In Taiwan. Ed. Chin-Chuan Cheng, I-Chun Wang, And Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek., Chin-Chuan Cheng, I-Chun Wang, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

The collected volume Cultural Discourse in Taiwan — edited by Chin-Chuan Cheng, I-Chun Wang, and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and published by National Sun Yat-sen Uiniversity Press in 2009 — is intended as an addition to scholarship in the field of Taiwan Studies. The articles in the volume are in many aspects comparative and the topics discussed are in the context of literary and culture scholarship. At the same time, the volume is interdisciplinary as the articles cover historical perspectives, analyses of texts by Taiwan authors, and cultural discourse as related to Taiwan consciousness, language, and linguistic issues. Copyright release …

Clcweb Best Practices, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Mapping The World, Culture, And Border-Crossing, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek, I-Chun Wang

CLCWeb Library

Authors in the collected volume Mapping the World, Culture, and Border-crossing — edited by Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and I-Chun Wang and published by National Sun Yat-sen University Press in 2010— begin with exploring theoretical premises about the processes and ramifications of cultural crossings to establish a clearly defined theoretical context for the case studies which follow. The case studies range from the creation of identity through patriotic songs in Taiwan under martial law, to nationality and Japanese identity, cultural autonomy in contemporary North America, Asian migration to Latin America, ethnic identity in the writings of Tan, Naipaul, Eliot, and …

Dish And Pot: Scatology And Liminal Space In Samuel Beckett, Keegan Bradford

Masters Theses

In the final novel of Samuel Beckett's trilogy, The Unnamable, the eponymous main character whose monologues, musings, and diatribes comprise the entirety of the work bemoans his inability to harness the communicable properties of language: "...it's like shit, there we have it at last, there it is at last, the right word, one has only to seek, seek in vain, to be sure of finding in the end, it's a question of elimination" (Three Novels 368). Beckett's work is consumed with this question of elimination. In this sense, language is parallel to scat in Beckett's work. Beckett's absurd language, circular …

Professional Writing In The English Classroom: Designing A High School Or Middle School Course (Or Unit) In Professional Writing, Jonathan Bush, Leah A. Zuidema

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

The article offers information on the development of professional writing course in English middle school or high school classroom. It mentions that a good syllabus not only provide answers to basic questions, but also to questions that Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins have pertained to as the essential questions. It notes that students learn from writing activities and assessments including how to write in genres, evaluate the settings of professional tools, and manage their writing processes.

Translingual Literacy, Language Difference, And Matters Of Agency., Min-Zhan Lu, Bruce Horner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

We argue that composition scholarship’s defenses of language differences in student writing reinforce dominant ideology’s spatial framework conceiving language difference as deviation from a norm of sameness. We argue instead for adopting a temporal-spatial framework defining difference as the norm of utterances, and defining languages, literacy practices, conventions, and contexts as always emergent, ongoing products of iterations, and thus manifestations of writer agency. Using the “White Shoes” essay from David Bartholomae’s “Inventing the University,” we show how such a framework addresses the writer’s agency iterating the “same,” and how it resolves concerns to meet students’ need and right to learn …

Exploring Metaphor In The Great Gatsby, Dan Gleason

The Great Gatsby Unit

In this lesson, students engage with one approach to metaphor and then apply that learning to metaphors in Great Gatsby. To start, students learn about I. A. Richards’s definition of metaphor as the link between tenor (topic) and vehicle (way of thinking about it). They then generate some metaphors by randomly combining tenors and vehicles in order to understand how the parts interrelate. Finally, the class interacts with the messier, more beautiful face of metaphor by working through, in groups, some key metaphors from the novel. Students identify the components of each metaphor (tenor, vehicle) and also consider what subtle …

Translingualism In Post-Secondary Writing And Language Instruction : Negotiating Language Ideologies In Policies And Pedagogical Practices., Nancy Bou Ayash

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on text-oriented data from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, this study examines how writing teachers and students constantly negotiate tensions between translingual sociolinguistic realities on one hand and monolingualist assumptions about language and language relations on another that dominate curricular and pedagogical designs in first year writing courses. The study involves a multiplicity of data sources, such as official institutional documents, individual instructional materials, classroom observations, structured interviews, and a method of "talk around texts." Writing teachers in this study sensitively grappled with tensions between the constant political pressures of generating the status quo and their ideological orientations …

No Greater Love: Recognition, Transformation, And Friendship In The Harry Potter Series, Stephen Parish

Masters Theses

Nobody today doubts the momentous influence the Harry Potter series has had on a generation of readers. Many scholars and critics assume Harry's place amongst other great works of children's literature, and indeed the series has brought about a revival in children's literature scholarship. Despite this popularity, many critics question the series' aesthetics, its attention to moral demeanor. Therefore, what element exists in Harry Potter that could enforce its aesthetic quality? Based on a rhetorical reading of the texts, my thesis upholds the aesthetic nature of the books through an analysis of the trio's friendship and and its impact on …

Life Inside The Spectacle: David Foster Wallace, George Saunders, And Storytelling In The Age Of Entertainment, John Hawkins

Masters Theses

This project explores George Saunders's In Persuasion Nation and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest as interventionary literature. The thesis asserts that the two works confront the problems of isolation and dehumanization created by entertainment-based consumerism; they do so by depicting satirically exaggerated consumer societies and placing well-developed, sympathetic characters in those settings. The thesis includes a consideration of Jameson and deBord's theories of spectacle and Wallace's stated concerns with postmodern irony as an ineffective form of critique.

Stop! Think! Grade!: Developing A Philosophy Of Writing Evaluation, Terri A. Fredrick

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

n the first day of my graduate course in evaluating student writing, I ask the students to describe their evaluation philosophy. After a few moments of silence, the students, a mix of graduate assistants and full-time K–12 teachers, begin by telling me what they expect from students’ writing. When prodded to focus on their own evaluation, they list writing issues they mark in student papers. Some describe evaluation practices: “I don’t pick up my pen until I’ve read through the paper at least once,” says one teacher. “Why?” I press. Eventually someone will venture a claim like this one: “I …

Professional Writing In The English Classroom: Professional Collaborative Writing: Teaching, Writing, And Learning -- Together, Jonathan Bush, Leah A. Zuidema

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

The article discusses the significance of writing professionally and collaboratively in English learning. It states that if people consider writing as just an individual act, they miss the big part of the value of professional writing. It says that oftentimes, professional writing explicitly represents an organization. It adds that collaborative writing involves the work of two or more members of a team.

Bibliography For Work In Digital Humanities And (Inter)Mediality Studies, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Uncovering Fallacies In Documentary Film, Nicole Trackman

Rhetoric Unit

This is an introductory activity that will familiarize students with eight essential fallacies. Students will be given a specific fallacy and its definition along with examples. Student will search for their fallacy in a twenty minute screening of a documentary film. Through small group and whole class discussion, students will leave class with an expert understanding of their own fallacy as well as a solid foundation of understanding for the other seven fallacies presented.

Change One Thing, Change Everything: Understanding The Rhetorical Triangle, Tracy A. Townsend

Rhetoric Unit

This lesson exposes students to the most fundamental rhetorical concept, that of the “rhetorical triangle,” a device for understanding and articulating audience awareness in persuasion. Provided here are suggestions for a brief and engaging mini-lecture, followed by an exercise using two classic pieces of American rhetoric, speeches by the suffragettes Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Students will be challenged to learn the principles of the rhetorical triangle, close-read a text for rhetorical clues and cues, and make sound judgments about the speaker’s rhetorical process based on evidence. This lesson and activity are suitable for students in grades 9-12, …

Cross-Cultural And Multilingual Encounters: Composing Difference In Transnational Contexts, Tika Lamsal

Rhetoric and Language Faculty Publications and Research

A rapid increase in the population of cross-cultural and multilingual students and faculty in the U.S. universities has spurred the need to develop a culturally and linguistically more inclusive pedagogy in the teaching of writing. By analyzing the writing of a couple of multilingual and multicultural students from a freshman composition class in a U.S. university, this article explores the ways that help facilitate the writing process of such students. Stressing the value of students’ previous experiences based on their social, cultural, and language differences, the essay argues for the need to recognize and promote the use of multilingual and …

A Word Is Worth A Thousand Pictures: A Systemic Functional And Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Intersemiotic Evaluation In University Science Textbooks, Leo William Roehrich

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Images are an invaluable medium in science textbooks for clarifying confusing concepts and establishing a visual foundation for field related topics. The integration of image and language within a single unit of discourse builds a larger meaning than the two semiotic forms are capable of producing separately. Visual representations are chosen for their functional value in aiding linguistic explanation and also for their aesthetic value in textual enhancement. Aesthetic choice is a matter of subjective opinion. Although science writing is generally classified as objective, authors embed personal opinion in written and visual discourse. The choice of visual medium has a …

Who Is You? Identifying "You" In Second-Person Narratives: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Analysis, Davina Kittrell

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In narratives, characters are introduced to readers through the use of textual clues left by the author. These clues, often in the form of pronouns, enable the reader to follow the various characters involved throughout the story. Pronouns have no lexical content and are used as referential devices, guiding the reader through the story and helping them recover the identity of the story’s characters. However, some narratives employ a literary technique in which the story’s protagonist is introduced by the pronoun “you” with no previous textual information given. As a result the pronoun “you” is assumed to be exophoric, pointing …

A Contrastive Systemic Functional Analysis Of Causality In Japanese And English Academic Articles, Masaki Shibata

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Typological differences between languages have been a much debated topic in linguistic studies. Despite their usefulness in understanding syntactic features of various languages, such contrastive analyses have yet to thoroughly explore semantic variation among languages; furthermore, the results obtained have not been practically utilized in other areas of applied linguistics. This situation may come from the fact that a large number of contrastive studies have eclectically examined isolated areas of language variation either from syntactic, morphological, or from pragmatic perspectives. Viewing this issue from another angle, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) focuses on language from a multi-dimensional perspective, where language is …

'In Love With Either/Or': Religion And Oppositional Logic In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (Chapter 3 Of Irigaray, Incarnation And Contemporary Women's Fiction), Abigail Rine

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "Margaret Atwood is a prolific and award-winning Canadian writer whose work regularly exposes the destructive and oppressive forces at work in society, particularly as they affect women. Though Atwood refers to herself as a 'strict agnostic: she maintains an interest in religion, which is evident in her fictional work (Moyers 2006).1 Atwood's second novel, Surfacing (1973) , has received a fair amount of critical attention for its religious themes and is examined in both Carol Christ's Diving Deep and Surfacing and Barbara Rigney's work Lilith's Daughters.2 Atwood's Cat's Eye (1989), with its mystical Marian imagery, has also been explored …

Stop! Think! Grade!: Developing A Philosophy Of Writing Evaluation, Terri Fredrick

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

n the first day of my graduate course in evaluating student writing, I ask the students to describe their evaluation philosophy. After a few moments of silence, the students, a mix of graduate assistants and full-time K–12 teachers, begin by telling me what they expect from students’ writing. When prodded to focus on their own evaluation, they list writing issues they mark in student papers. Some describe evaluation practices: “I don’t pick up my pen until I’ve read through the paper at least once,” says one teacher. “Why?” I press. Eventually someone will venture a claim like this one: “I …

Understanding School Genres Using Systemic Functional Linguistics: A Study Of Science And Narrative Texts, Allison D. Canfield

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this study is to examine elementary level textbooks (grades 2-4; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing; The Trophies Collection) using Systemic Functional Linguistics as the theoretical framework to study the different types of lexical choice and grammatical options made in the textbooks. The two genres examined are science and narrative, which are significantly different from each other. Science texts are “information based,” and narrative texts, “story based.” It is very important for teachers to understand how the genres are different so that they can convey those differences to their students.

The two school genres, science and narrative, differ from …

Ua35/11 Honors Program, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about the Honors Program. Includes brochures, awards programs, student handbooks, newsletters and research publications.