English Language and Literature Commons^™

Two Southern Women Writers: The Civil War Journals Of Emily Jane Liles Harris And Mary Boykin Chesnut, Robert L. Wilson

Graduate Theses

Through the examination of primary texts, along with appropriate secondary criticism, I argue that Southern women during the Civil War were not the mythological “Southern Belle” that they have often been portrayed as, but that they were intelligent, strong, and passionate writers. I examine the farm journal of Emily Jane Liles Harris and contrast it to the private journal kept by Mary Boykin Chesnut, to explore the role that education and literacy, writing, and authorial voice played in women’s lives during the War. Close attention to the role education and background played in the lives of these women, the uniqueness …

Designing For Human-Machine Collaboration: Smart Hearing Aids As Wearable Technologies, Krista Kennedy

Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition - All Scholarship

This study examines design aspects that shape human/machine collaboration between wearers of smart hearing aids and their networked aids. The Starkey Halo hearing aid and the TruLink iPhone app that facilitates real-time adjustments by the wearer offer a case study in designing for this sort of collaboration and for the wearer’s rhetorical management of disability disclosure in social contexts. Through close textual analysis of the company’s promotional materials for patient and professional audiences as well as interface analysis and autoethnography, I examine the ways that close integration between the wearer, onboard algorithms and hardware, and geolocative telemetry shape everyday interactions …

Expanding Efficiency: Women's Communication In Engineering, Jennifer C. Mallette

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

As engineering fields strive to be more inclusive of women, focusing on perceptions of women's work is vital to understanding how women can succeed and the limitations they may face. One area in need of more attention is the connection between communication and women's experiences in engineering. This article examines the gendered nature of writing labor in engineering, focusing on case studies of three women who were able to use writing effectively, yet how communication emerged as a gendered form of labor subject to gendered perceptions. While these women's communication skills led to professional success, their association with writing echoes …

Thinking Before You Act: A Constructive Logic Approach To Crafting Performance-For- Development Narrative, Angela Duggins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The intent of this thesis was to test the feasibility of constructing performance-for-development narrative using a constructive logic approach. I created an equation which expressed the sum of non-human-elements as the sum of a narrative with each element serving as a variable. I used a review of persuasion literature to provide insight into the selection and manipulation of each variable. I provided my family as a hypothetical example and used my knowledge of their preferences and communication styles in conjunction with the literature and the equation to craft a narrative which might increase pro-school attitudes in other families like my …

Heroes Vs. Villains, Evan A. Poole

Sierpinski’s Square

This article questions the use of heroes and villains in literature, whether our perceptions of these characters as good and evil is proper, and what literature should do beyond this dichotomy.

Intuition In Healthcare Communication Practices: Initial Findings From A Qualitative Inquiry, Elizabeth L. Angeli, Lillian Campbell

English Faculty Research and Publications

This brief paper reports on how healthcare providers negotiate stages of care and communication by using intuition. This focus shifts attention away from the product-patient records-and towards the process of medical communication. To support this claim, the paper presents preliminary findings from qualitative analysis of two individual ethnographic research projects with live-action clinical nursing simulations and emergency medical services. Using a grounded theory analysis that identified intuitive moments in the writing practices of healthcare providers, this brief paper demonstrates how intuition manifests in all five stages of care-anticipate, assess, plan, act and reassess, and document-and grounds medical assessment and decision …

Reframing Readiness: Through The Cracked Looking Glass: The Framework For Success In Postsecondary Writing As Assessment Model, David Hyman

Publications and Research

The Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing (Council of Writing Program Administrators, National Council of Teachers of English, and National Writing Project) describes experiences and habits of mind that will equip students for success in college writing. This column highlights examples of the values espoused by the Framework and aims to increase understanding of this statement, advocating for its rich conception of writing.

The Intrinsic Factors That Influence Successful College Writing, Kenneth Dean Carlstrom

MA in English Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of several intrinsic or non-cognitive factors that can positively influence successful collegiate writing. Using college writing as a forum for exploring intrinsic traits such as curiosity, grit, self-efficacy, time management, organization, and a growth mindset, reveals success stories in this qualitative study. Since writing clearly connects to the vicissitudes students experience, it serves as an appropriate means of measuring intrinsic characteristics. This study entwines student experiences with cognitive theorists to generate benefits for students, high school teachers, and college professors. Through extension, the power of mentors, the growth mindset, and …

The Rhetoric Of Mass Incarceration, David Coogan, Kevin Farley

English Publications

Professor David Coogan teaches rhetorical theory and criticism and composition, as well as service learning, for the VCU Department of English. For the last ten years, he has also taught and collaborated with writers in the Richmond City Jail, in a program called Open Minds. In his published and forthcoming work on the importance of writing for social and personal transformation – Electronic Writing Centers: Computing the Field of Composition, The Public Work of Rhetoric: Citizen Scholars and Community Engagement (co-edited with John Ackerman), Writing Our Way Out: Memoirs from Jail, and Memoirs of Mass Incarceration: The Rhetoric …

Introduction To New Work On Immigration And Identity In Contemporary France, Québec, And Ireland, Dervila Cooke

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided for the introduction.

Thematic Bibliography To New Work On Immigration And Identity In Contemporary France, Québec, And Ireland, Dervila Cooke

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Unfolding: An Academic Autobiography, Aaron Barlow

Publications and Research

An academic autobiography of one who came to academia later in life than most, Unfolding uses blog post from the past decade stitched together by a narrative of what brought one person to teaching.

Global-To-Local-To-Global: A Model For Tutoring Esl Students In The Writing Center, David Aguilar

Theses and Dissertations

Since its inception, the writing center has always focused on traditional students, and today that tradition is continued in such a way that the overwhelming amount of research dedicated to writing center theory and practice addresses the concerns of those students. However, universities with unique student populations, such as the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley with its majority of Hispanic students, require novel practices within their writing centers. Moreover, much of the linguistic, social, and cultural factors of the region are not well documented and therefore are not addressed by the mainstream theory and practices of other universities. With …

We Share Our Matters / Teionkwakhashion Tsi Niionkwariho:Ten: Two Centuries Of Writing And Resistance At Six Nations Of The Grand River By Rick Monture, Eric Russell

The Goose

Review of We Share Our Matters / Teionkwakhashion Tsi Niionkwariho:Ten: Two Centuries of Writing and Resistance at Six Nations of the Grand River by Rick Monture.

Earth Joy Writing: Creating Harmony Through Journaling And Nature By Cassie Premo Steele, Anne Milne

The Goose

Review of Cassie Premo Steele's Earth Joy Writing.

Leveraging The Methodological Affordances Of Facebook: A Model Of Social Networking Strategy In Longitudinal Writing Research, Jenna Sheffield, Amy C. Kimme Hea

English Faculty Publications

While composition studies researchers have examined the ways social media are impacting our lives inside and outside of the classroom, less attention has been given to the ways in which social media—specifically Social Network Sites (SNSs)—may enhance our own research methods and methodologies by helping to combat research participant attrition and build a community around a research project. In this article, we share some of the successes and shortfalls of using SNSs for research purposes, based on our own experiences using Facebook in the context of our writing program’s Longitudinal Study of Student Writers. Specifically, we present five considerations related …

Writing In College: From Competence To Excellence, Amy Guptill

Milne Open Textbooks

Writing in College is designed for students who have largely mastered high-school level conventions of formal academic writing and are now moving beyond the five-paragraph essay to more advanced engagement with text. It is well suited to composition courses or first-year seminars and valuable as a supplemental or recommended text in other writing-intensive classes. It provides a friendly, down-to-earth introduction to professors’ goals and expectations, demystifying the norms of the academy and how they shape college writing assignments. Each of the nine chapters can be read separately, and each includes suggested exercises to bring the main messages to life.

Students …

Teaching Autoethnography: Personal Writing In The Classroom, Melissa Tombro

Milne Open Textbooks

Teaching Autoethnography: Personal Writing in the Classroom is dedicated to the practice of immersive ethnographic and autoethnographic writing that encourages authors to participate in the communities about which they write. This book draws not only on critical qualitative inquiry methods such as interview and observation, but also on theories and sensibilities from creative writing and performance studies, which encourage self-reflection and narrative composition. Concepts from qualitative inquiry studies, which examine everyday life, are combined with approaches to the creation of character and scene to help writers develop engaging narratives that examine chosen subcultures and the author’s position in relation to …

The Unicorn Newsletter Fall 2015, Stephanie Nunley

English Department Publications

No abstract provided.

A Rhetoric Of Fields: Orientationalist And Enactive Essays For Writing Studies, Daniel Louis Singer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Beginning primarily in the late 1980s, the phrase “Writing Studies” has increasingly come to be used as a synonym for “Composition and Rhetoric.” Analyzing the orientational and disorientational significance of assuming both synonymy and distinction between the two, I argue for a methodological enactment of Writing Studies as a distinct but deeply entailed field and consider a range of conceptual, practical, political, disciplinary, institutional, curricular, and identity issues at stake in doing so. As the possibility of a Writing Studies that is non-identical to Composition has not yet been widely taken up, the potential of Writing Studies as a distinct …

Et Cetera, Marshall University

Et Cetera

Founded in 1953, Et Cetera is an annual literary magazine that publishes the creative writing and artwork of Marshall University students and affiliates. Et Cetera is free to the Marshall University community.

Et Cetera welcomes submissions in literary and film criticism, poetry, short stories, drama, all types of creative non-fiction, photography, and art.

Only Time Changes: A Collection Of Science Fiction Short Stories, Justin Dennis

Whittier Scholars Program

This project is a collection of six short science fiction stories written by the Scholar. The first five stories are all different, and the final one ties them together. The Scholar aims to share as many perspectives as possible through his writing. The final part of this project is an explanatory essay about each of the stories.

City Limits And Other Stories, Leandro Fefer

Whittier Scholars Program

This project is a collection of short-stories. There is a three-part and design story titled City Limits and six other stories. The bibliography is a list of sources of information and inspiration with notes about each.

The Modernist Novel In Its Contemporaneity, Pamela L. Caughie

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Through the writings of Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, and Nella Larsen, this chapter considers the temporality of the now, the modernist novel in its contemporaneity, to show how the ambient environment of daily life takes shape in, and shapes, the modernist novel.

Revival Of The Fittest: A Return To Writer Subjectivity In Composition, Ashley Mcclary

Theses and Dissertations

Writing can be unpleasant. And most examples of good writing start from early attempts to identify a partial understanding of complex, complicated concepts that emanated from a willingness to be honest and open and smart about the surrounding world. The inception of a good text—especially when paired with the strength to fulfill an incessant, ridiculous desire to tell a truth—can produce an affected writing sample, one of purpose and presence. In the field of Composition, when instructors ask students to write and suggest they do it well, it is easy to overlook the demand that students take new risks in …

Libyan Graduate Students Encounter English-Writing Difficulties While Attending U.S. Universities, Abdelsalam A. Mustafa El Raggas

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the writing difficulties that Libyan graduate students encounter while attending universities in the United States. Libyan graduate students have difficulties in writing effective paragraphs and essays. Most of their academic writing tasks have numerous grammatical errors and their writing style appears elementary-like. The main purpose of this study was to diagnose writing issues such as grammar, unity, style, diction, and language interference that the students encounter and find solutions for existing problems. A mixed-methods approach was employed in this study. One hundred Libyan graduate students studying at U.S. universities were sought as participants. Data were collected by …

The Unicorn Newsletter Fall 2014, Stephanie Nunley

English Department Publications

No abstract provided.

The Story Of My Art: A Study In Fiction Writing, Victoria J. Steelman

Senior Honors Theses

This creative thesis examines the several aspects of the author’s study and experience on the path to become a fiction writer. The author’s writing theory is addressed, utilizing research from a variety of authorities on the subject and focusing primarily on the nonexistence of rules for crafting fiction, the role of education in the life of the writer, and the importance of the practice of writing itself. The second section details the writer’s personal method of crafting fiction, focusing on the key elements of character, plot, and setting. The third section contains a full marketing plan for the author’s intended …

The Influence Of Literacy On The Lives Of Twentieth Century Southern Female Minority Figures, Laura Leighann Dicks

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The American South has long been a region associated with myth and fantasy; in popular culture especially, the region is consistently tied to skewed notions of the antebellum South that include images of large plantation homes, women in hoop skirts, and magnolia trees that manifest in television and film representations such as Gone With the Wind (1939). Juxtaposed with these idealized, mythic images is the hillbilly trope, reinforced by radio shows such as Lum and Abner, and films such as Scatterbrain (1940). Out of this idea comes the southern illiteracy stereotype, which suggests that southerners are collectively unconcerned with education …

The Inclusion Of Lgbtq Yal In The Curriculum: Can It Foster Acceptance?, Alysha Mercendetti

3690: A Journal of First-Year Student Research Writing

Overview: Acceptance, whether it be by friends, family, teachers, or peers, is crucial for any teen. Finding acceptance can be significantly more difficult for a teen going through the coming out process or maybe one that has already done so but is still not feeling completely okay in his or her own skin. Along with the fact that the world is highly a heteronormative one, society holds extremely shortsighted views and lacks knowledge on the subject of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning sexualities, and this ultimately plays a huge role in why LGBTQ teens are either too afraid to …