English Language and Literature Commons^™

Examining Experiences With English Language Studies In Taiwan And In The United States, Ying-Mei Chien

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The importance of learning English to find success in today’s global community has never been more vital. However, choosing the best method for teaching English language skills in the second language (L2) classroom is still open for debate. This paper examines L2 strategies for teaching English in Taiwan. More important, it examines the notion that English as a Foreign Language (EFL) training in Taiwan could be made more successful by incorporating more effective EFL teaching strategies, including a communicative, or creativity based methodology for second language learning. EFL teaching methodology in Taiwan has and continues to emphasize a teacher centered …

Young Adult Literature And Empathy In Appalachian Adolescents, Kelsey R. Kiser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Based on recent research concluding that fiction can increase empathy, this project examines how multicultural young adult literature may encourage empathy in Appalachian adolescents. Empathy encourages prosocial behaviors, but evidence suggests that young adults’ ability to empathize has declined in recent decades. In addition, Appalachia in particular is still a relatively homogenous region as it is majority white, protestant Christian, and heteronormative. Because of this, young adults in Appalachia may encounter few diverse perspectives in real life; multicultural young adult literature can provide diverse perspectives with which teenagers can empathize in a region where they might not have similar opportunities …

Accommodation, Decorum, And Disputatio: Matteo Ricci's The True Meaning Of The Lord Of Heaven As A Renaissance Humanist Disputation, Roberto Sebastian Leon

Theses and Dissertations

Matteo Ricci's True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven (1603) has been studied extensively by scholars of the Jesuit China Mission, especially in terms of accommodation through means of Scholastic and Humanist arguments and translation choices. Few of these studies, however, discuss the genre of this work (disputation), nor consider this genre in relation to Renaissance rhetorical teachings and how this relationship informs Ricci's accommodative strategies. The purpose of this paper is to remedy this gap in early modern Jesuit scholarship. Through a review of the history of accommodations in disputations in the Aristotelian-Scholastic and Ciceronian-Humanist traditions, this paper claims …

Testing The Test: Expanding The Dialogue On Workplace Writing Assessment, Lindsay Elizabeth Tanner

Theses and Dissertations

This project is a case study of writing assessment practices in a particular workplace called "High Hits," a local search engine optimization (SEO) company. The writing tests given to new hires serve a parallel purpose to academic placement exams, in that they are a high-stress, high-risk situation that aims to evaluate writer ability rather than the quality of the completed task (Haswell 242, Elbow 83, Moss 110). However, while academic assessment measures ability with the aim to improve the students' learning, workplace assessment is driven by market forces and is seen in terms of return on investment. This case study …

Remember The Country And The Age In Which We Live": The British Gothic Novel In The Age Of Enlightenment, 1764-1798, Garland David Beasley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Remember the Country and the Age in Which We Live” argues that the British Gothic novels produced in the late eighteenth century were not, as has traditionally been assumed, written in reaction against Enlightenment values in the face of rising political and social discord. Instead, I contend that eighteenth-century Gothic novels take part in a larger tradition of the novel that sought to impart the values of Enlightenment into a modernist genre still on the rise. By exploring the influence of Samuel Richardson on the development of the Gothic novel, the role of formal and informal educational structures, representations of …

Perceived Preceptor: Narrator's Role In Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, Jason Godfrey

Faculty Publications

In this article, I posit that Austen uses her self-aware, colloquial narrator to satirize Catherine’s grandiose fantasies and quiz (or mock) the reader who would prefer a story where fantasies are indulged and also to instruct the reader about the importance of discernment both in-text and in larger social discourse.

"And A Sad Ditty Of This Story Born": Regeneration Through Decay In John Keats's Isabella, Erica Van Schaik

Master's Theses

John Keats’s Isabella; or the Pot of Basil (1818) has been read, like many of Keats’s of works, as an allegory for the death that surrounded the poet and his life’s tragic circumstances. Isabella has also been studied in regard to its gothic horror elements. Such previous readings identify a theme of mortality and decay within the poem, but I argue these themes serve a larger purpose, one related to the possibilities created by regeneration. Isabella, a young woman whose lover, Lorenzo, is murdered by her own brothers, removes Lorenzo’s head from his corpse and places it in a potted …

Allowing The Untellable To Visit: Investigating Digital Folklore, Ptsd And Stigma, Geneva Harline

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In the introduction of 2012 issue of The Journal of Folklore Research, Diane Goldstein and Amy Shuman issue a “call to arms for folklorists … to concentrate on the vernacular experience of the stigmatized.” (Goldstein and Shuman, 2012:116). Drawing on this call to arms, this thesis investigates how Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is portrayed in social media through memes and captioned images. I argue that the genres of memes and captioned images in digital folklore work to help mitigate the stigma of PTSD because the veneer of anonymity in the digital world allows people with PTSD to be willing …

Final Ma Portfolio, Annelise Mason

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio contains papers on Urban Education and teaching speakers of African American Language/ African American Vernacular English. As the capstone to my Masters in English with a Specialization in Teaching, I have chosen four papers to revise and resubmit: “Intertwining Narratives: Stories of the I-280 Bridge Collapse,” “Reshaping Attitudes: Tailoring Urban Education to fit the African American Student,” “The Study of Language in a Multi-Dialectical Classroom,” and “Youth Acquisition and Ownership Is Crucial Language Vitality.” "Intertwining Narratives" is a report on the I-280 bridge collapse in Toledo. "Reshaping Attitudes" is an explanation of some best practice in urban education. …

Practical Christianity: Religion In Jane Austen's Novels, Erin R. Toal

Senior Honors Theses

A beloved English novelist of the late eighteenth century, Jane Austen captures the attention and emotion of readers through timeless insights into the inner workings of the human heart as characters navigate society, family life, and love. Her novels’ attention to practical morality but reticence toward explicitly religious subject matter raises conjecture concerning the religion behind her values; however, Austen’s Christian upbringing, Anglican practice, and Christian values suggest a foundation of faith from which the morality in her novels emanates. In Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park, Austen demonstrates her eighteenth-century Anglican worldview in …

On Cliché: Expression, Cognition And Understanding, Craig Jordan-Baker

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

Abstract: This paper argues that cliché is not simply a problem of language and expression, but rather a cognitive problem or one of understanding. It locates several distinctive features of cliché, namely their characteristic superficiality (low informational content) and the typically low cognitive effort they require to understand. It then argues for a distinction between ‘external’ and ‘internal’ clichés, where the former are the well-known phrases commonly recognised as clichés, but the latter are not recognised as clichés but nevertheless function as clichés within a specific literary work.

The Absent Father In Jane Eyre, Lauren Megan Epperson

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

The novel Jane Eyre was originally published as an autobiography by Charlotte Brontë, under the pseudonym Currer Bell. The heroine of this novel is widely celebrated as a proponent of feminist ideals, and as such, this paper is designed to examine the role of the patriarchy in Victorian English through the novel. The focus of this inquiry is the importance of the “father figure,” for young women, as means of protection, developing social identities, and securing, financially, a future. This paper, then, is an examination of the ramifications, i.e. the physical and verbal abuse, gross negligence, and poverty, Jane faced …

Devilish Leaders, Demonic Parliaments, And Diabolical Rebels: The Political Devil And Nationalistic Rhetoric From Malmesbury To Milton, Karra Hk Shimabukuro

English Language and Literature ETDs

Throughout its history, England and its writers have created its national identity out of thin air. Some writers such as William of Malmesbury and John Milton have consciously constructed their imagined Englands, while other authors during the medieval and early modern periods are subtler, but whose works reflect the historical and cultural moment, the fears, desires, and anxieties about kingship, tyranny, heirs, and stability, that existed during that time. Little scholarship has focused on the devil’s role in these constructions, his political nature, and how this nature is used in constructing nationalistic arguments. This devil can lead kings, nobles, and …

Tolkien’S Theology Of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, And Transcendence In Middle-Earth (2016) By Lisa Coutras, John Wm. Houghton

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review by John Wm. Houghton of Tolkien’s Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle-earth (2016) by Lisa Coutras

The Great Tower Of Elfland: The Mythopoeic Worldview Of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton And George Macdonald (2017) By Zachary A. Rhone, Mike Foster

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review by Mike Foster of The Great Tower of Elfland: The Mythopoeic Worldview of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton and George MacDonald (2017) by Zachary A. Rhone.

Social Justice Across The Curriculum: Research-Based Course Design, Rebecca Walton, Jared Sterling Colton, Rikki Kae Wheatley-Boxx, Krista Gurko

English Faculty Publications

This Programmatic Showcase describes why and how Utah State University redesigned our Technical Communication and Rhetoric program to incorporate considerations of social justice across the curriculum. After describing our programmatic vision, we describe in detail the design of a pedagogical study informing our curricular redesign and then share strategies for course design and university-community partnerships. The course-design strategies include 1) explicitly framing courses around broad issues of social justice, 2) incorporating hands-on practice to connect conceptions of social justice to professional practices, and 3) facilitating opportunities for both students and clients to reflect upon these connections. The strategies for facilitating …

Lost In Translation: The Immigration To Academia And Implementing Critical Thought, Stacie Denetsosie

Writing Center Analysis Papers

Denetsosie compares her entry-level English students to immigrants. New to the requirements of academia, these students need practice acclimating to academic culture. Denetsosie recommends writing centers and composition classes as low-stakes environments where students can practice their new voice. Tutors and teachers can make this transition easier by asking open-ended questions, encouraging students to use their own words, and teaching students to think critically.

Transformations Of Free Movement: Syrian Refugee Rights Within Neoliberal Signal Territories, Jordan Hayes

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Alongside representations of the fractious civil conflict in Syria, our media frequently depict victims of forced displacement using their smartphones. In October 2015, Time published images of refugees taking selfies after making the journey from the Turkish coast to Lesbos, Greece. These images show refugees using mobile devices to enjoy human rights like the freedoms of expression and movement. Absent is the state sanction implied by UN compacts such as the 1951 Refugee Convention.

This paper situates these representations, recent scholarship, and my own fieldwork with Syrian refugees sheltering in the Kurdish Region of Iraq within an analysis of human …

Indigenous Rights In The Trump Era, Tereza M. Szeghi

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This paper examines the ways in which the Dakota Access Pipeline and the related protests were divergently covered in mainstream versus alternative news sources and what this divergent coverage suggests about the current status of American Indian affairs and the role of American Indians in the U.S. cultural imaginary. Moreover, the paper will address the status of American Indian tribal sovereignty in the Trump era more broadly, with particular focus on American Indians' treaty-related rights to self-determination in the use of their lands.

Analyzing Wants Versus Needs In The Writing Center, Jessica Griffeth

Writing Center Analysis Papers

Last year, as I was sitting in my living room doing my homework, my sister, Abby, started telling me about her experience in the Writing Center. She was encouraged from her visit because of the praise she had received, and she was excited to implement the advice she was given. However, when Abby got her grade for the paper, she was devastated. The grade she received was unacceptable, and she was confused. She went to the Writing Center, and shouldn’t applying the few suggestions she was given help her get an A? The tutor gave Abby some suggestions laced with …

“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.

Open Humanities: Strategies For Creating Open Access Course Materials, John Venecek, Christian Beck, John Raible, Sarah A. Norris, Lily Flick

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

As textbook affordability and access to information become important topics on university campuses and within the population more generally, finding ways to decrease book costs in a humanities classroom while providing the best possible resources for students emerges as a multi-disciplinary strategy that requires cooperation across campus. Open Access texts are a way to offer content for free, but humanities assembling this type of text in the humanities is often restricted by copyright and intellectual property. Utilizing materials found in public domain or with a Creative Commons license, however, provides an opportunity to create Open Access texts. In spring 2016, …

Hawthorne: Heavy Handed?, Natalie Dueker

Scholars Week

Abstract

This paper will take a formalist approach and focus on the symbolism in numerous works by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The paper will not only discuss in detail Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, but will also discuss a select few of Hawthorne’s short stories such as “The Birthmark,” “Young Goodman Brown,” and “The Minister’s Black Veil.” This paper will cover the symbolism in the short stories and the novel, how those symbols affect or relate to the characters and how they affect or alter the story as a whole. Common symbolism found throughout Hawthorne’s …

I Know You Are, But What Am I? Hawthorne's Projection Within The Minister's Black Veil, Coral Serrano

Scholars Week

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Minister’s Black Veil” has been analyzed from various perspectives, but thus far in the published literature, very few have examined this work using psychoanalytic criticism. It is even more rare to find research over “The Minister’s Black Veil” addressing the use of psychological projection. Through the character of Mr. Hooper in “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Hawthorne projects his difficulties publicly expressing his criticism and opinion of religion because of the overshadowing actions of his forefathers. Evidence of this is laced within the short story: references to mental illness, the connotations of adjectives and other words …