English Language and Literature Commons^™

Don Gallo: The Godfather Of Ya Short Stories, Chris Crowe

Faculty Publications

For nearly 30 years, Don Gallo has been working steadily, prolifically in the field of YA literature. The consummate editor and anthologist, he excels at bringing out the best in writers and in presenting their best to grateful readers. As an editor, he has remained in the background, quietly yet forcefully creating a substantial body of work: seven anthologies of short stories, one collection of plays; author or editor of seven books about YA literature for teachers and scholars. When you add to this stack of books the countless articles, workshops, and conference presentations he has done, you have to …

A Voice From The Fire: The Authority Of Experience, Colleen C. Bernhard

Theses and Dissertations

Over all, this thesis was written to be a "ramble" of its own around and through three issues that are central to the writing of the personal essay-voice, authority, and experience-and central to the emergence of this author's own sense of "self."
Drawing upon years of voluminous journals, this collection of six personal essays demonstrates what the scholarly introduction proposes: that the personal essay is both a valid genre and a magnificent bridge from informal life-writing to genuine literary accomplishment. Drawing on Phillip Lopate's differentiation of "memoiristic" essays from the more classic autobiographical form, this collection includes three of each …

The Relationship Between Non-Native English Speakers' English Proficiency And Their Callings In The Lds Church In The United States, Dena Marie Wright Erickson

Theses and Dissertations

As part of BYU's Distance Learning Project to teach English for gospel purposes, a committee created a survey to assess the English needs of LDS non-native English speakers in native-language units in the United States. This thesis uses several sections of the survey to correlate proficiency, callings in the Church, and demographic information. In addition to survey data, this thesis uses qualitative information from focus groups, and interviews to illustrate the statistical findings. The theory underlying this research is that learning precedes involvement in a community. Although learning in the LDS Church community is multi-faceted, this study examines the learning …

Development Of An English For Gospel Purposes Vocabulary List: The Latter-Day Saint Lexicon As A Second Language, Jennifer H. Burrill

Theses and Dissertations

This study sought to explore the non-native English-speaking LDS adult's comprehension of the English LDS lexicon. Stahle (1981) conducted a study of the LDS lexicon which established at least 249 words as "basic" vocabulary. The current study had two foci: it first sought to determine how difficult these words were in both English and Spanish for native Spanish-speaking LDS adults living in the U.S. To assess this, a dual-language vocabulary instrument was administered to 245 subjects from Texas, California, and Utah. Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis was used to calculate difficulty levels of words and these values were plotted two-dimensionally …

Miss Dickinson And Perverse Pubescent Prurience, Chris Crowe

Faculty Publications

Right then, sound, time, and my heart stopped while Lexi and I were transported to another dimension at the center of the universe.

Mentors: Keys To Survival And Growth, Chris Crowe

Faculty Publications

My diploma proved I knew English; my teaching certificate proved I knew how to teach it. Armed only with these and a head filled with idealistic visions of myself as the next Mr. Chips, I landed my first teaching job. As a mid-year graduate, I was lucky to flnd any high school job, so I jumped at the first, and only, offer. I started work on January 3, taking over for an established teacher who at mid-term had gone on permanent disability leave.

Section 76 As Literature In The Doctrine And Covenants, William H. Brugger

Theses and Dissertations

This project attempts to demonstrate the value of literary approaches to the Doctrine and Covenants, using a predominantly formalistic approach. To establish a foundation, the first chapter discusses the rich literary content of the Doctrine and Covenants, providing examples of the various literary genres represented in it, such as narrative, saga, parable, and poetry. The second chapter presents portions of Section 76 that contain features characteristic of Hebrew poetry, such as figures of speech and parallelism. The third chapter analyzes ways in which Section 76's poetic dimensions are illuminated by "The Vision," a 312-line poem attributed to Joseph Smith. The …

Error Patterns In Research Papers By Pacific Kim Students, Chris Crowe

Faculty Publications

By looking for patterns of errors in the research papers of Asian students, educators can uncover pedagogical strategies to help students avoid repeating such errors. While a good deal of research has identified a number of sentence-level problems which are typical of Asian students writing in English, little attempt has been made to consider the specific problems which a long research paper presents. Of these problems, Asian students have the most difficulty integrating sources from research and developing transition, unity, and cohesion. These problems stem not necessarily from different thought patterns or primary language interference, but from the challenge of …

Symbolic Action And Persuasion In The Book Of Mormon, Keith H. Lane

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis contends that the Book of Mormon can be profitably read from a rhetorical perspective. It employs Kenneth Burke's ideas concerning language, texts, and his method of dramatistic analysis, to reveal certain persuasive aspects of the Book of Mormon, and to urge action in response to the persuasion of the Book of Mormon.

Chapter one discusses common ways of reading scripture, and explains some of the inadequacies of these approaches. It gives a rationale of a rhetorical approach that concerns itself with action, and recommends this approach for the Book of Mormon. Chapter two applies a rhetorical reading to …

Teaching In A Liberal Arts College: How Foreign Language Courses Contribute To "Writing Across The Curriculum" Programs, Ilona Klein

Faculty Publications

This essay shares some thoughts about the need for interaction between foreign language instructors and English teachers, both in high schools and at the university level. As a foreign language teacher for the past nine years (the last four in a liberal arts college), I have encountered several problems and difficulties that could be overcome, I believe, if English, Writing, and Foreign Language departments addressed them together. I do not claim to be able to give definite answers, since many pedagogical concepts concerting L2 acquisition/learning and their possible application to writing programs remain misunderstood or are presently debated by teacher …

Lehi's Vision Of The Tree Of Life: An Anagogic Interpretation, Julie Adams Maddox

Theses and Dissertations

The significance of Lehi's life tree is that it gives life. Lehi's tree expresses the nonverbal, renews Lehi, effectually creates a culture, and keys the structure of a literary, viable, and contemporary scripture. My thesis chapters grow out of my reading of myth, tree mythology, and Lehi's dream. I see Lehi 1) traveling a polemic course toward the tree, 2) confronting the tree's death, and 3) by suffering, opening the symbol to his inner vision.
Lehi's first dream images, a dark and dreary wilderness vs. a man in white, suggest the birth of mythic creation. By traveling through and reconciling …

Incremental Repetition Within J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth: Shadow, Light, And Silmaril Within Mortal-Immortal Marriages, Nancy Lynn Hayes

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the use of incremental repetition to emphasize points of both syntactic and thematic importance within the Middle-earth works of J.R.R. Tolkien. By studying three specific terms: shadow, light, and Silmaril, and how their meaning changes with each occurance, it is possible to see how much Tolkien's mythology owes to his syntactic structure.

Through my research, I have concluded that not only was Tolkien's use of incremental repetition deliberate, but that it was also an essential part of his skill in creating his mythology.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Three Essays On Place And Meaning, Reed Evan Richards

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis consists of three personal essays and a postface, in part experiments in genre, mode, and structure, and in large part explorations of the meanings of specific places in culture and on the self-definition of the observer-writer, the first essay being set in Florida and centered at Disneyworld; the second consisting of fragments of observations along the route from St. Augustine to Washington, D.C., and ending with a brief fiction; the third, a speculative/anti-speculative rumination over many things, including meaning, death, faith, and enshrinement, and set in Illinois, Missouri, and South Africa; and the postface a theoretical/descriptive theoretical defense …

Clinton Larson's "The Witness": The Quest For A Mormon Mythic Consciousness, Dennis R. Perry

Theses and Dissertations

"The Witness" can be viewed as Clinton F. Larson's poetic manifesto that points the direction for much of his subsequent work. Although his poetic "mormonism" has been questioned by several of his critics, this thesis shows that Larson definitely expresses his Mormon faith in "The Witness" as a metaphorical quest for mythic consciousness. While searching in the poem for sacred space and time, Larson seeks to become closer to the divine and powerful center of being, creating at once a metaphor for his quest to understand and assimilate Christ's atonement and a poetic voice from which he can speak for …

A Survey Of Mormon Literary Criticism, Colin B. Douglas

Theses and Dissertations

Three general questions concerning literature have been addressed by the writers considered in this thesis: What constitutes a work of literary art? What ought to be valued by Latter-day Saints in a literary work? How should criticism be conducted by Latter-day Saints? To the first question, five basic answers have been proposed: significant form, uplifting thought content clothed in decorative form, typological symbol, ikon (as the word is used by C S lewis in An Experiment in Criticism), and capacity for helping the reader achieve a kind of "negative capability." These definitions also tend to be statements of value, …

Tales From The Tracting Book, Donna Christine Allen Ackerson

Theses and Dissertations

My original idea for the book was to do a picturesque-type novel, with chapters that would practically be short stories in themselves. But as I got into the writing of it, I decided to pursue one main theme--Sister Harper's conflicts regarding her missionary calling--working them out to a climax and a resolution. I still intended to give the book a picturesque flavor, however, by embellishing it with digressions, sidelines, and banalities that are always a part of missionary life.

Joseph Smith As A Jacksonian Man Of Letters: His Literary Development As Evidenced In His Newspaper Writings, Walter A. Norton

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the newspaper writings of Joseph Smith Jr., the Mormon Prophet, traces his development as an American writer as evidenced in his newspaper publications, and notes the major concepts contained therein which demonstrate that Smith may deservedly be called a "Jacksonian Man of Letters."

Emerging from his youth lacking even rudimentary writing ability, Smith began his development with the translation of ancient scriptural records. Literary experiences with other scriptures, historical records, and even grammar classes augmented his development. Smith later turned his attention to frontier newspapers and served briefly as an editor. Jail confinement provided further stimulus to …

A Study Of Some Textual Variations In The Book Of Mormon Comparing The Original And The Printer's Manuscripts And The 1830, The 1837, And The 1840 Editions, Stanley R. Larson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a study of textual variations in the two manuscripts and the first three editions of the Book of Mormon. Successive collations of each of these were made against the text of the first edition. From these collations some 427 specific textual variations were selected for inclusion in the thesis.

The research disclosed that some genuine corrections as well as editorial revisions were made by Joseph Smith in 1837 and 1840. However, it was also concluded that some alterations of the text arose from accidental causes.

The most significant contribution of this study was that both the Original …

Bayard Taylor's The Prophet: Mormonism As Literary Taboo; Calaveras County Comes Of Age; The Erosion Of Belief In The Poetry Of Clinton F. Larson, Thomas D. Schwartz

Theses and Dissertations

The three papers included in this thesis reflect my development as a graduate student during the course of my master's program at Brigham Young Universtiy. I came to Brigham Young University interested in creative writing and developed a love for research and criticism. My work in nineteenth century American literature led to the first two papers. Both deal with literary history, the first narrow in scope, devoted to a study of the significance of a single play, the second broad in scope, devoted to a study of the unifying thread of anti-sentimentalism in the writings of the major American realists. …

The Song Of The Righteous: An Historical And Literary Analysis Of The Latter-Day Saint Hymnal, Ruth Alene Thomson Symons

Theses and Dissertations

The hymnal of the Latter-day Saints first proposed only shortly after the organization of the Church and published continually every few years between 1835 and 1871, is a remarkably accurate indicator of the changing fortunes and beliefs of the early Saints. The first hymnal, gathered by Emma Smith, uncompromisingly sets forth the basic Mormon belief in man's free agency, his innate perfectability, and his kinship to his Heavenly Father. Later editions reflect the missionary concerns of the church (1840), the tremendous persecution the saints are subjected to (1841), the Church difficulties after the martyrdom of Joseph Smith (1849), the call …

The Poetry Of Matthew Arnold: A Study In Versification, Douglas A. Mathewson

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the great number of published works that deal with English prosody or the more restricted subject of versification, there is a noticeable scarcity of studies that describe the practices of individual poets. One of the more apparent reasons for the meager number of versification studies is the instability of the basic criteria by which a poem is examined. Prosodists quite simply find it difficult to establish concrete principles of scansion that are acceptable to all other prosodists. Without going into discussion of the various schools of thought on metrical structure, suffice it to say that there are conflicting opinions …

A Study Of The Literary Qualities In The Diary Of Hosea Stout, Richard G. Ellsworth

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this thesis is to present the diaries of Hosea Stout in the light of literary criticism and analysis. Two questions have been asked: do the diaries contain literary quality by revealing the characteristics, attitudes, abilities, and feelings of Hosea Stout; and, does Hosea Stout's style contain the literary elements necessary to distinquish it from ordinary communication. Passages from the diaries have been quoted and analyzed to answer these questions. Conclusions are made after each analysis, after each chapter, and at the end of the thesis.

This study revealed that, in spite of Hosea Stout's spelling difficulties and …