English Language and Literature Commons^™

“Whatever Happened With That Student?”: How To Measure Our Success As A Tutor And Teacher, Rachel Ross

Writing Center Analysis Papers

Through her experience as a peer tutor and teacher, Ross finds success as a tutor and teacher cannot be entirely defined by the student. Ross shares an impactful tutoring session that ultimately led to inaction on the student's part. In reflecting on this tutoring appointment, she chooses to focus on the good that happened during her interaction with the student instead of the end result. Ross ultimately defines success as growth in process.

Engaging In The Drafting Process: The Key To A Student’S Writing Success, Camila Sanabria

Writing Center Analysis Papers

In comparing her tutoring and teaching experiences, Sanabria discovers the value of drafting and editing. She believes success in tutoring comes from engagement early in the writing process. While she as a teacher cannot be heavily involved in every step of her students' writing process, she can allow for more time and focus in the early stages of brainstorming through revision.

Adaption Reaction, Michelle Jones

Writing Center Analysis Papers

Jones identifies adaptability as a fundamental aspect of tutoring and teaching success. Teachers and tutors who are genuinely invested in students find themselves in unconventional discussions. Being adaptable in these off - script situations leads to better listening and understanding.

Cold Turkey Belongs On The Dinner Table: How Tutors Can Warm Up To New Tutoring Sessions, Terri Wesemann

Writing Center Analysis Papers

While tutors may feel anxiety towards the unknown of tutoring sessions, Wesemann suggests they appreciate the training they received before becoming tutors. Tutors bring experiences and resources to the job that help them connect with students and give them good feedback. Wesemann also suggests tutors share tutoring experiences with one another to validate concerns, ask questions, share solutions, and practice new strategies.

Getting To Know You, Emily Withers

Writing Center Analysis Papers

Unless students feel comfortable with their peer tutor and teachers, they rarely open up enough to learn. Withers suggests behavior problems--especially passivity-- can be avoided when teachers, tutors, and students feel respect for one another. She suggests questioning and reflecting as two tools to establish open communication.

A Folklorist's Touch, Daisy Ahlstone

Writing Center Analysis Papers

Ahlstone uses folklorist questioning strategies to make the most of her short time with her students and writing center tutees. She suggests asking open-ended, contextualizing, environmental genre, and specific open-ended questions to help students open up and think critically.

Three Powerful Tools For Teaching And Tutoring, Chris Davis

Writing Center Analysis Papers

Though initially perplexed by the writing center tutor requirements for graduate students, Chris Davis found tutoring beneficial to his teaching. He identifies questioning techniques, the inverted triangle of focus, and reading aloud as three of the most beneficial crossovers between peer tutoring and teaching. His essay gives specific examples of how these techniques have helped him in both tutoring and teaching.

Emily Dickinson's Funeral And The Paradox Of Literary Fame, Paul Crumbley

English Faculty Publications

In the months preceding her death on May 15, 1886, Emily Dickinson requested that Emily Brontë's poem "No coward soul is mine" be read at her funeral, thereby enlisting Brontë's defiant declaration of immortality in what can be interpreted as Dickinson's own equally defiant final statement on the relation of fame to enduring art. Dickinson expressed the logic behind this request four years earlier in an 1882 letter to Roberts Brothers editor Thomas Niles in which she refused his request for a "volume of poems" (L749b) and instead sent him "How happy is the little Stone" (Fr1570E), a poem in …

Interpersonal Communication: One Smile Away From A Lifetime Of Success, Alexander Anthony Johnson

Tutor's Column

The reason I chose to write my tutors column on interpersonal communication is the application it has in every tutoring scenario. Without effective interpersonal communication skills, you might not be able to develop the feedback that is most beneficial to your peer. Instead of helping them uncover their voice and passion for writing, you might become a broken record, repeating grammar issues that they knew they had but were too lazy to fix prior to the session. As a tutor, we are expected to be masters of the English language. We can catch problems in a paper that most students …

Why Don't You Ask Me?, Matilyn Mortensen

Tutor's Column

Writing center tutoring sessions are built on questions. Questions help tutors gain information needed to help students. This may include details about the student’s classes, professors, assignments and struggles. Questions can also engage the student and make them an equal partner in the session. However, just because questions are being asked does not mean the student is getting the help they need. The types of questions asked directly influence the quality of the tutoring visit. Questions need to be genuine, which means they come from the tutor’s desire to truly understand the student and where the student’s ideas come from. …

Putting Writers At Rest Into Motion, Cody Kelley

Tutor's Column

Many students whose studies emphasize science-based fields often struggle to understand why writing skills are important and necessary. For this reason, writing center tutors have the opportunity to adjust tutoring practices in such a way that students are equipped for both educational and professional experiences. Research has shown that the majority of college graduates lack basic written communication skills employers look for, suggesting a disconnect between English classes and other writing situations. As tutors understand the struggles of science-based students, they can adjust tutoring practices such that students are comfortable learning about writing and translate those skills into all aspects …

Power To The Writer, Sara Mozingo

Tutor's Column

Some students are intimated by writing at a university level. Often, self-degrading comments will be made, in which the tutor will reject and attempt to build their confidence. Is there a correct way to empower each student? McCarthy and Weimer suggest giving specific feedback, using starter terms, picking a topic relevant to the author, helping them feel competent, acknowledging the effect a writer can have, and giving the student the option to choose. By using these tactics, the tutor can shape the student’s feelings for writing and help them become an independent writers.

The Woman Of Sorrows: Clara's Self-Destructive Behavior Based On Supernatural Belief In Wieland, Or The Transformation: An American Tale By Charles Brockden Brown, Paden Carlson

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

Much has been devoted to the study of causality and ambiguity within Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland, or the Transformation. While there is textual and cultural evidence providing explanations for Clara’s behavior, little has been said about the ramifications of Clara’s actions. This essay seeks to add to the discussion of Wieland by exploring Clara’s transformation from theistic rationalist to someone who is inclined to believe in supernatural explanation concerning seemingly inexplicable events.

In more than one instance, Clara’s supernaturally-charged beliefs endanger her. Brown uses Clara’s increasing reliance on supernatural explanation to suggest that, should the early United States similarly abandon …

Remembering As Resurrection: Transgenerational Trauma And Memory In J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter Series, Erika Beckstrand

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

What does it mean to bear witness to the memories of previous generations’ trauma victims? What lessons should we learn from those who came before us to ensure a happier future?

This thesis explores the trauma and memories of the deceased or older generation found in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. I intend to analyze the character of Harry Potter as he interacts with the memories of the previous generation, which he is able to resurrect in embodied forms through the use of magic. By testifying to the memories of the previous generations’ trauma, Harry is able to break the …

Shallow Bones, Brian Lee Cook

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The research for this thesis examined historical and recent events embodying persecution both directed towards and perpetuated by the Mormon church. In order to convey the complexity of persecution, I examined stories told by church members, accounts written during the early years of the religion, and scholarly pieces written about the church's history. These stories revolved around the assassination of Joseph Smith and the Mountain Meadows massacre.

To portray the events surrounding the Mountain Meadows massacre, I performed a site visit, documented scenery, and discussed the massacre with others visiting the site. The great majority of my Mountain Meadows descriptions …

Running In Rem Cycles: Escapism In The French Postwar Films Le Silence De La Mer And La Vache Et Le Prisonier, Danielle Green

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This thesis compares two postwar critiques of escapist entertainment that appear in Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Silence de La Mer (1949), and Henri Verneuil's La Vache et le Prisonnier (1959). Their directorial choices acknowledge the power, even shortcomings of escapism through entertainment. Overall, Melville and Verneuil's films argue that escapism creates a "dream" cycle in which the audience, in an attempt to escape reality through entertainment. The films' cyclical narrative structures symbolize their characters' psychology, a tactic that frames Le Silence and La Vache into France's postwar culture. In a side-by-side comparison, the repetitive narrative structure of Le Silence and La …

The Revival Of America's First Genre: Exploring The Panther Narrative's Feminist Principles In Post-Revolutionary War America, Abigail Bentley

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

America’s victory in the War of Independence posed new challenges for the men who drafted the Constitution. Gender roles shifted dramatically during the war, creating a new attitude about women’s roles in the new republic. Before the Constitution was ratified, women like Abigail Adams advocated for women to have a more active role in the new nation. Radical literature regarding women’s roles also became a driving force in the movement. The Panther Narrative used the resurgence of America’s first genre, the captivity narrative, to combine the new republic’s obsession with personal freedom and radical ideas about gender spheres. The anonymous …

Skeptically Optimistic, Moira Hammons

Writing Center Analysis Papers

While many "soft" writing tutoring skills have helped Hammons in her classroom, she finds that not all tutoring skills transfer well to teaching. Hammons is complimentary of peer tutoring's emphasis on wait time, silence, and adapting to individual needs. However, she finds she does not need these skills as often in teaching because of the long-term relationship she has with her students. Hammons asserts that better student and tutor education on the purpose of writing centers--along with students visiting the same tutor repeatedly-- will help tutors and students make the most of their brief time together.

Learning To Write By Teaching Writing, Richard A. Blake

Writing Center Analysis Papers

Blake asserts that English teachers and writing tutors both strive to answer students' problems by addressing language skills, grammar, assignment requirements, and brainstorming. He warns that students' concerns must come first, even if teachers and tutors find alternative concerns in the students' writing. After helping students address their concerns more thoroughly, students can take advantage of writing center tutors to make more universal changes.

Age Perception And The Peer-Tutor Relationship, Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq

Writing Center Analysis Papers

As a non-traditional graduate student and peer writing tutor, Itchuaqiaq explores the challenges she and other older students encounter connecting with their much-younger undergraduate tutees. Itchuaquiq includes several reflections from other non-traditional graduate peer tutors that explain the struggles they face establishing an appropriate peer power balance. Additionally, Itchuaquiq calls for more writing center research on how age affects tutees' writing center perceptions and experiences.

This As Theory In The Context Of The London School Stylistics: A Prolegomena To A Longer Note, Gene Washington

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Voices Of Usu: An Anthology Of Student Writing, 2017, 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.

Sink Hollow 2017 Creative Writing Contest Edition

Sink Hollow

This special edition of Sink Hollow presents the winning entries of the Utah State University Creative Writing Contest, which is open to all USU undergraduate and graduate students from all departments and disciplines. We want to thank all our contestants this year for yet again raising the bar with their excellent work, and for helping to create such a vibrant and inclusive writing community here at USU and in Cache Valley.

Many thanks for the generosity and discriminating taste of our contest judges: Alex Baldwin, Matt DiOrio, Mary Ellen Greenwood, Brian McCuskey, Bonnie Moore, Paige Smitten, and Isaac Timm. Thanks …

Sink Hollow Volume 4

Sink Hollow

Sink Hollow is growing up.

Our fledgling magazine is not so fledgling anymore. Bounding into a maturity that even the most passionate founding members could not have envisioned, Sink Hollow is here to stay. It is my pleasure, as this magazine’s third Managing Editor, to present to you my inaugural publication: Sink Hollow Volume IV.

This issue presents a raw, magnifying view into the ever-changing human experience. It reminds us that, no matter where we come from or what has shaped us, we are all uniquely, gloriously human. In these tumultuous times, it is essential that we allow ourselves to …

Sink Hollow Volume 3

Sink Hollow

It's difficult to believe that my time with this journal has come to a close. It has been one of the greatest experiences of my undergraduate career to be an integral part of its publication.

At the time of this writing, our previous issues have been read over 5,500 times, with this volume set to increase that number substantially. We have worked with undergraduates across the United States and from many other countries as well. A great thanks goes out to all our submitters. Without you there is no journal.

Though I'm moving on to other things, I trust the …

On John Wilmot (Lord Rochester) "Upon Nothing": A London School Stylistics Account, Gene Washington

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Scholarship On Robert Burton's The Anatomy Of Melancholy, Matthew Bishop

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

The history of scholarship on Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy will be explored in this thesis, beginning with a biographical background of Robert Burton and a brief description of The Anatomy of Melancholy. The overall arc of scholarship on Burton’s text began with a wave of early popularity in the seventeenth century, followed by a period of critical neglect in the eighteenth century when no new editions of the book were published. A renewed interest in the Anatomy in the nineteenth century led to a flurry of Burton studies in the twentieth century. The major trend in Burton …

“Virtue Is As Much Debased As Our Money”: Generic And Economic Instability In Love’S Last Shift, Mattie Burket

English Faculty Publications

In January 1696, Colley Cibber’s first comedy, Love’s Last Shift; or, The Fool in Fashion, debuted to great success at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. The play was a hit and immediately entered the repertory, where it remained for decades. It inspired a sequel, John Vanbrugh’s The Relapse (1697), which debuted the following season and also became a stock play. Despite early audiences’ appreciation for Love’s Last Shift, however, modern critics have shown less enthusiasm. For scholars of British drama, the play is frequently a symbol of the shift from the rakish, witty, aristocratic comedies of the …

Revisiting Digital Sampling Rhetorics With An Ethic Of Care, Jared Sterling Colton

English Faculty Publications

Rhetoric and composition studies have conceptualized and defined digital sampling as a method of composition in many ways and for various pedagogical purposes: from a means of free-play invention that is critical of more formalistic writing practices to a semiotic strategy rooted in African American rhetorical traditions designed to effect political change. The latter view is critical of the former in that the former does not account for student digital sampling projects that unquestioningly appropriate from other people and communities. This is a real pedagogical problem, but students can create unethical and hurtful digital sampling projects, no matter the assignment …

Sufficient For Herself: Women & Silence In Wilkie Collins's Novels, Shannon Branfield

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

Wilkie Collins is a major sensation author of the Victorian period, known for introducing the form of the novel to detective fiction. His novels contain biting social critique and dynamic, multidimensional characters, the majority of whom are women, making his novels rich material for an examination of gender norms, power dynamics, and difference in Victorian society. His major works include The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868), the two novels on which I focus. Previous critics have focused on the anxious male narrators in these novels and their attempts to establish positions of authority by taking control of …