English Language and Literature Commons^™

Formalized Curiosity: Outcomes Of An Empirically-Based Research Methods Course For English Majors, Samantha Stringham

Fall Student Research Symposium 2020

What are the outcomes of a course designed for English majors that teaches empirical research methods and uses quantitative and qualitative data collection? This question is of particular importance as students majoring in English typically do not engage in empirical research but are accustomed to humanistic inquiry or creative activity. Although there has been considerable research on assessment of outcomes of undergraduate research on STEM students (Lopatto; Seymour, et al), to date, no assessment of outcomes has been done on this population. We--all enrolled in just such a course--approached this research question through mixed methods:

• Content analysis of the syllabus; …

The Body And The City: Re-Envisioning Hong Kong Through Protest Poetry, Kimberlie Young

Fall Student Research Symposium 2020

In a time of civil unrest in Hong Kong starting summer of 2019, Hong Kong citizens have navigated a shift in identity and their political social climate. Beginning in early summer of 2019, protests broke out around Hong Kong in response to the Hong Kong government's proposal of an Extradition Bill, which ultimately would allow Hong Kong legal power to "extradite fugitives to territories where it doesn't have formal extradition deals, including mainland China, Taiwan and Macau" (Hollingsworth, 2019). The poems examined in this essay convey what it means to be a citizen of Hong Kong during a time of …

What Experiences Influence Individuals To Become An English Teacher?, Amanda Horning

Fall Student Research Symposium 2020

How do past literacy experiences influence an individual to choose an English teaching major? There is a teacher shortage across the nation that shows that not many individuals choose to become teachers. People's career choices are often influenced by experiences and this study is to find out what experiences influence those few individuals to choose the pathway to becoming an educator, specifically in English. English teaching students at Utah State University were asked to participate in a survey inquiring about their past literacy experiences in order to find which ones had the most impact on their decision to become an …

When Ice Isn’T Slippery, Alyssa Witbeck Alexander

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis is the start of what I envision to be a full-length memoir that addresses themes of perfectionism and sacrifice. I begin with an introductory chapter, then move into three chapters that highlight different elements of my life that are affected by these themes. I begin exploring childhood, passion for figure skating, perfectionism, Mormonism, and my first romantic relationship. The next chapter shows ways in which this commitment to perfectionism and sacrifice results in a severe eating disorder, and the ways in which that affects me, my family, and my relationship with figure skating. The final chapter chronologically covers …

Mining For Gold: Reimagining The Role Of Curricular Texts In Writing Instruction, Carrigan Price

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Secondary schools in northern Utah frequently combine literature and composition studies into a single English Language Arts course, limiting the time English teachers have to teach the skills and content important to both. Literature and reading often overshadow writing instruction in this situation, leading to concentrated writing instruction dependent on pre-made writing curriculum and texts. The way curricular materials used during writing instruction in ELA courses present the purpose of writing, the process of writing, and the identity of writers can impact student learning and academic identity in the short- and long-term. A rhetorical analysis, looking specifically at the writing …

Enacting Rhetorical Listening: A Process To Support Students’ Engagement With Challenging Course Readings, Jessica Rivera-Mueller

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Many educators assign course readings to purposefully enlarge students’ perspectives. In doing so, though, educators may face a range of behaviors—reluctance, resistance, avoidance, disengagement—from students who feel that such readings negatively press upon their prior knowledge, belief systems, or educational goals. This teaching challenge is often present for social justice educators. However, “rhetorical listening,” a rhetorical theory developed by Ratcliffe (2005), is a pedagogical tool that can help shift students’ understandings of and expectations for the activity of reading, thereby creating a learning environment that supports meaningful engagement with challenging course readings. In this article, the author outlines a process …

The Sacred Circle: Ostension In Native American Hoop Dancing, Emma George

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

This thesis examines the role of the semiotic concept ostension in folk dance, specifically in Native American hoop dance. Although the discipline of folklore is well-versed in ostension, folk dance has not been examined through this lens. I argue that dance is a form of ostension, of demonstrating a narrative, and this is especially apparent within Native American hoop dancing. I begin with a brief history of Native Americans in North America before discussing the origins of powwows, intertribal culture, and hoop dance. I then look at both the sacred nature and material culture of the modern hoop dance before …

A Mormon Missionary's Guide To Conversion Therapy Addiction Recovery, Shaun Anderson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This collection of essays explores my experience as a gay Mormon missionary, when I studied the Mormon Church's Addiction Recovery Program in an attempt to alter my sexuality. The initial four essays take place during the two years that I lived in Southern California as a Mormon missionary from 2011-2013. They present the text of the LDS Family Services Addiction Recovery Program workbook, with my own thoughts, experiences, and stories driven into the margins. Through these four essays, I demonstrate the hope, anguish, and longing of a gay man who desperately wants to live the model of a righteous Mormon …

Sink Hollow Volume 9

Sink Hollow

Our world experiences radical change every day. With this change, things that used to make us feel grounded in our lives may not translate. Our realities may not hold true anymore. Through artistic expression, whatever form that takes, we re-examine what it means to be human after change.

Issue 9 takes a journey of re-examination during times of radical- and sometimes harsh- change. The collage of pieces we have curated re-examine so much of what I thought I knew and give an entirely new meaning to my reality. I would challenge you as you read this issue to re-examine change …

Bad Puns: It’S How Eye Roll: Humor Writing As A Technique To Engage And Strengthen Writers, Hala Louviere

Tutor's Column

Much research has been done on why to use humor writing, but a lack of research on when to use humor writing exists. The researcher argues that when humor writing is used in scholarly and analytical writing, it can engage uninterested students and improve their writing through authorial voice. Previous studies support the researcher’s thesis; young adults, who frequently consume humor through social media and other modes, can appreciate writing more by combining it with a technique they are familiar with and enjoy. This appreciation also motivates students to insert more of their voice, which then improves their writing.

Literary Labyrinths: Reading Like A Detective, Emma A. Hallock

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Studying literature is like walking through a labyrinth of interpretative possibilities. So, it is no mystery why an English major would be fascinated with detectives; they seem to show the way out of the literary labyrinth. Like detectives, literary critics look for clues in the texts they study and interpret them to find meaning. However, many critics argue that detectives make bad models, and that reading like a detective leads to interpretations that are at best boring and at worst dangerous. It is not clear whether detectives are the best literary critics or the worst. To make sense of this …

Jefferson's Sensitivities: How Thomas Jefferson's Discussions Of Race And Slavery Are Influenced By Audience, Andrea B. Carlquist-Sagers

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Thomas Jefferson is often presented as an enigma. He who wrote that “all men are created equal” also owned over six hundred slaves during the course of his life. Jefferson was a man of immense complexity and intelligence and, as such, his beliefs cannot be presented in simplified terms. Although his contradictory positions on race and slavery were common during his time, his hypocrisy received critique from contemporaries. Jefferson was a famously sensitive man, and in order to avoid judgement from his peers, he often either censored himself or used eloquent but empty words to satisfy his disparagers. Some historians …

Diversity And Inclusion In Technical And Professional Communication Academic Programs, Chris Dayley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

With the recent social justice turn in technical and professional communication (TPC) scholarship, researchers have begun to focus their attention on issues of diversity and inclusion. Increasing diversity and inclusion in the field of technical and professional communication starts with TPC academic programs. This dissertation reports the results of qualitative interviews conducted with five undergraduate students, six graduate students, and five pre-tenure faculty who study TPC and identify as persons of color as well as six influencers identified by research participants. Interview participants discuss reasons why they chose TPC as a major, obstacles to discovering TPC academic programs, the importance …

Artisan: On Bread And A Meaningful Life, Emerson James

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In 1944, three decades before the start of the artisanal bread movement, H. E. Jacob published Six Thousand Years of Bread: Its Holy and Unholy History capturing bread’s cultural, political, religious, and technological impacts over time. In the introduction of the 2007 edition of the text, prominent American baker Peter Reinhart wrote that bread is “inextricably woven into our cultural and personal histories.” Reinhart notes that while bread does have its own story, “it is also the medium through which so many other stories are told: stories of escape from bondage; of historical and political battles ...; of the intermingling …

Editing Is Easy; Tutoring Is Hard: Helping Writers With Learning Disabilities, Mikenna Debruin

Tutor's Column

Tutors often feel uncomfortable in unfamiliar tutoring sessions. For new tutors in particular, tutoring students with learning disabilities proves to be a daunting task and may lead to panic-based tutoring decisions during sessions. Ultimately, there are two notions for tutors to keep in mind when tutoring those with learning disabilities: 1) work on what the student wants to work on in a session, and 2) don’t abandon standard tutoring practices (e.g. asking questions) simply because of panic in an unfamiliar circumstance.

Branding The Writing Center, Courtney Akagi

Tutor's Column

Brand identity affects student’s perceptions of the writing center. Referencing an article on the seven key elements of brand identity design, this article goes through a step-by-step analysis of how writing centers can create a brand to establish trust between students and tutors.

Questioning Our Questions, Makenzie Vance

Tutor's Column

A tutor’s effectiveness relies heavily on the questions they ask. Being able to properly address a student’s concerns is almost exclusively done through effective questioning. Looking into how folklorists interview provides a wealth of tactics commonly used to gather information from informants. Transitioning these tactics into tutoring can help tutors ask questions more intentionally.

The Place Of Procrastination, Grace Taylor

Tutor's Column

Understanding a student’s writing process can help to diffuse some confusion between the tutor and the student. Sometimes in a student's process, they procrastinate due to hesitation from past experience with writing. Knowing how to address this can help further the student’s confidence in their own future writing.

Writing Center Space The First Frontier, J. Benjamin Howell

Tutor's Column

This paper discusses the influence of writing center spaces on the impressions of tutors and students. First, the importance of creating a “homey” space is introduced, then followed by an example of a writing center thought by its denizens to be particularly welcoming and effective. An analysis of another writing center’s evolution and subsequent changes in impressions and use is included. Finally, scale is introduced as a foundational principle in the architectural field with particular application in creating a desired impression.

The Intricacies Of Tutoring Personal Narratives, Hailey Hunt

Tutor's Column

In order to effectively tutor personal narratives, tutors must be aware of the different tutoring strategies for academic papers and personal narratives. This essay offers several different tutoring strategies that remain the same for academic papers and personal narratives, and several that are different. These strategies prepare the tutor to empower, educate, and validate the student’s unique and vulnerable personal histories, while also being sensitive to each individual student’s needs.

Being The Tutor Students Need, Clayton Lords

Tutor's Column

In writing center culture, there is a prevailing idea that there is one ideal way to tutor students. However, in reality it becomes increasingly clear that each writer’s needs are unique and that tutors need to be much more malleable in their approach to tutoring. In this paper, we explore the reasons we hold back from being flexible, and specific things we can do to change this.

Voices Of Usu: An Anthology Of Student Writing, Vol. 13, Utah State University Department Of English

Voices of USU

This collection of student writing represents the voices of over 2,000 students who enroll each academic year in Utah State University’s second-year composition course, Intermediate Writing: Research Writing in a Persuasive Mode. Voices of USU celebrates excellence in writing by providing undergraduate students of diverse backgrounds and disciplines the opportunity to have their work published.

Suffering In Medical Contexts: Laughter, Humor, And The Medical Carnivalesque, Lisa Gabbert

English Faculty Publications

This article argues that a primary context for medical humor is a culture of suffering that permeates the medical profession and suggests that this laughter–suffering connection is part of a broader phenomenon called the medical carnivalesque that is found in medical culture.

Connecting Our Pedagogical Questions And Goals: An Exercise For Writing Teacher Development, Jessica Rivera-Mueller

English Faculty Publications

In this article, the author argues writing teachers can more fully inquire into their questions about teaching writing by paying closer attention to the ways their goals for teacher development shape their engagement in pedagogical inquiry. To explain these connections and illustrate these possibilities, the author shares findings from a narrative-inquiry study that examined the development of pedagogical inquiry in the lives of four teachers of writing. Using the participating teachers' shared goals for teacher development, the author demonstrates how writing teachers can reflect upon the development of pedagogical inquiry, stretch themselves to practice other aspects of pedagogical inquiry, and …

On The Right Note, Carolyn Baird

Tutor's Column

This is a cross-disciplinary comparison of violin playing and tutoring writing. As a violinist and a tutor, I have found that my mindset and way of tutoring is greatly influenced by my experience as a violinist. There are many valuable parallels from the violin world that can be used as tutors in how we approach students, how we critique their writing, and how we think about tutoring in general. I hope to pull out those similarities to provide some insights on how to improve giving feedback in a tutoring situation.

Becoming A Goat: Leaving Mediocracy To The Sheep, Heidi Bonkemeyer Roskelley

Tutor's Column

Many new tutors can become quickly overwhelmed by their lack of experience coupled with a driving desire to perform well in the tutoring session. This dream to become a great tutor can be quickly snuffed out by lacking the confidence and the knowledge of how to achieve our full potential as tutors. In this essay, I will discuss two specific ways that we, as tutors, can go from “good” to “great” and ultimately become the tutors we strive to be. Through adaptability and positivity, we can leave behind the anxiety-stricken herd of aimless sheep and strike out on our own …

Pictures Of Words: The Importance Of Visual Strategies In Tutoring Writing, Kylie Smith

Tutor's Column

An estimated 65% of people are visual learners. Additionally, research suggests that most people are more likely to remember learned concepts when those concepts are attached to visual aids. Unfortunately, Writing Center tutors often forget the importance of using visual strategies when tutoring writing concepts. The implementation of quick and simple visual strategies in tutoring sessions will help students retain information and help them become independent writers for life.

Writer Empowerment: Seeing Through The Veil Of Disinterest, Jay Paine

Tutor's Column

Students sometimes come to the writing center uninterested in their writing, however, a student’s disinterest may be indicative of not knowing how to proceed with their writing. A solution to help combat a writer’s disinterest entails asking open-ended questions. Sometimes the phrasing of open-ended questions does not resonate with the student, however, simply rephrasing an open-ended question can help the writer understand where and how they can continue writing their paper which ultimately empowers the student.

What's Another Name For Bull****?, Nicole Hurst

Tutor's Column

Pretension is present in almost every aspect of academic writing. The desire to sound “smart” or professional is a normal reaction that appears when students try to mimic a style that they don’t fully understand. Dealing with academic BS in high-level writing is as much a part of tutoring as flow and conventions. Oftentimes, students need help to recognize the importance of personal voice and author’s intent in “good” writing, as well as the role the audience plays in crafting academic writing.

Sink Hollow Volume 8

Sink Hollow

To make a magazine, we seek contrast and even the tension of contradiction.

We hunt for the words that defy experience, and experiences that defy words alone but must be captured by clever poetic contraptions and literary devices that violate the architecture of language and definitions in order to teach us what we can't know by conventional means. We crave the ingenious art of using words to drag meaning outside the semantic containment of words. There's contradiction! This is the skill of infusing words with the power to evoke emotion and connection. The work of the poet, the artist, the …