Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Dmt And “The Man Box:” Provoking Change And Encouraging Authentic Living, An Arts-Based Project, Steven Reynolds

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This thesis explores the mind-body experience through an arts-based research approach to examine, and redefine the emotional capacity and usefulness of males through societal determinants that limits and hinders men from living their authentic selves. Through the lens of a metaphoric “Man Box” 112 men participated in a workshop recreating their personal narratives of socialization through, style of dress, coping mechanisms, belief systems and who they should be as men through society's standards. In the “Man Box,” male bonding, and emotional feelings are discouraged, while the objectification of women, material property and physical/emotional strength are encouraged. This research investigates the …

Power And Vulnerability: How We Can Be Influenced, Christopher Fohl

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

I watched the ballet and started thinking of parallels I could connect with historical events.

Editor's note: This paper received third prize ($25).

Power And Vulnerability: Basis For Revolution?, Katlin Pistone

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Throughout the semester, our history class explored the differences in relationships including political, economical, and social aspects. I found one of the most compelling comparisons to be how people of vulnerability have historically suffered because of their circumstances yet are able to learn that within their vulnerability comes strength and change. After the themes of power and vulnerability were presented to us in preparation for our trip to the ballet, I was able, during the production, to draw many similarities. After narrowing my topic to a certain event in history that explored these ideas, the Haitian revolution, I began to …

'Dracula: Bloodlines' And The Role Of Women, Audrey Binzer

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

The writing process began after attending the Dracula Bloodlines ballet. While watching the performance, the integral role of women stood out to me and I decided it would be a good topic to write about. From there, it was a pretty easy process. I used the program to help support my ideas and make the essay complete.

Editor's note: This paper received first prize ($100).

Reconstruction's First Election: Various Interpretations Of The Lasting Significance Of A Grant Victory, Shannon M. Stanforth

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This paper was completed during the Spring of 2018 for my ASI 120 course. The assignment was a multi-phased historiography paper centering around the topic of Reconstruction. To begin preparing for the writing of the historiography and to gain a better understanding of the historical context and political unrest surrounding the task of Reconstruction, I read Eric Foner’s A Short History of Reconstruction. Foner’s book provided me with the knowledge to begin writing my topic proposal and introduced me to the influential event of the Election of 1868. I was interested in exploring the consequences and effects of the …

The One, But Not The Only, Lauren Durham

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

For this particular assignment, we had to reconstruct the main points that Plotinus, an ancient philosopher and educator, presents in his work titled the Enneads. In order to reorganize and retell his elaborate ideas appropriately, we had to come to understand the text in a way that would make our own interpretations easy to convey to audiences. In addition to reconstructing the Enneads, a comparison between a previously read creation story and Plotinus's ideas had to be made. After numerous in-class discussions, I established a logical order to present Plotinus's various cosmological entities. I felt that beginning with the …

The Body And Blood: What Was And Is At Stake In The Protestant Reformation, Anna L. Biesecker-Mast

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This paper is an explanation of Robert A. Orsi's concept of presence from the introduction and first chapter of his book titled, History and Presence. Before writing any paper for a class, I thoroughly review the syllabus for the assignment. Based on the requirements listed in the syllabus, and on the discussion we had in seminar about the Orsi text and Dr. Smith's lecture on the religious origins of modernity, I drafted an outline of my paper. Throughout the process of creating my outline, I considered various organizations for my explanation as well as a few different arguments I …

Coaching Styles For Boys’ And Girls’ Sports Teams, Jack Murphy

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

The writing process for this article began when my English 198 teacher assigned our third major essay, instructing that it was to be on the topic of gender and include original research. Being a lifelong athlete, I decided to investigate how coaching styles might differ depending upon whether one is coaching boys or girls. With this in mind, I set out to interview the coaches that I know so as to gain their insights and approaches to coaching. I developed a set of questions and interviewed four coaches of varying ages who had coached girls and/or boys at different levels. …

Sustainability Education At The University Of Dayton, Olivia M. Leblanc

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

To prepare for this Researched Argument writing assignment, I completed a research proposal that involved drafting a research question and creating a general timeline for conducting reseach leading up to this project's final submission. I then analyzed ten different sources through creating an annotated bibliography that examined the credibility, content, and relevance of each resource in relation to my paper's topic. In addition to collecting resouces, I personally attended SAP events and interviewed the SAP student leader in order to understand the innerworkings of sustainability education at the University of Dayton. I then composed a draft that was analyzed by …

Insight On Female Genital Mutilation, Kara Shunnarah

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This assignment was our third and final essay for this course; however, this essay is a continuation from my second essay in this class. Dr. Vorachek allowed us to pick any topic we felt we wanted to write about as long as it directly or indirectly related to gender. I had difficulty choosing at first, but then I began thinking about issues in our world and FGM stuck out to me. I first learned about FGM in high school, but never had the time for extensive research. I saw this assignment as an opportunity. Thus, I researched FGM, gathering information …

Serious Interactive Fiction: Constraints, Interfaces, And Creative Writing Pedagogy, Robert Terry, Lisa Dusenberry

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

To better understand how serious interactive fiction (IF) fits into creative writing pedagogy, we first consider how interface offers both affordances and constraints to the writer. Second, we discuss the ways teaching serious IF foregrounds the benefit of digital tools for creative writing. Third, we examine the interrelationship among research, interface, and procedural rhetoric. Fourth, we present findings from our research study by summarizing and discussing examples from roundtable feedback. We focus on students’ perception of serious IF’s affordances, concluding with how serious IF provides productive constraints for creative writing practice.

Friends Or Foes? Composition And Creative Writing, Christopher N. Davis

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

In the current realm of collegiate English, there exists a polarized separation between two fields: composition and creative writing. Though there are a number of ways these two fields intersect, they are seen and taught as distinct entities, and have been so for much of the last three decades. Some scholars see the blending of the two fields as potentially hindering to students’ writing development in either field – the idea that attempting to do two things at once, rather than focusing on each one at a time, will inevitably result in less-effectiveness in both. Others see creative writing as …

“We Were Just Trying To, You Know, Survive”: Coming Of Age As A Displaced Person And Narrative, Eli Megibben

Undergraduate Theses

“Home” is a personal construct that shapes who we are. It is not a physical place, but rather an experience tied to a place. How are people to respond, then, when the socio-political institutions that rule the land that they call home say “you’re not allowed to exist because of who you are and where you come from”? In this project, I investigate the effects that physical displacement (by way of war and violent conflict) have on an individual’s identity through the analysis of narratives composed by individuals who were displaced by the Holocaust, the Bosnian war, and the current …

A Song Of Distant Memory, Andrew Devin Gadberry

Student Theses and Dissertations

This creative thesis features a critical introduction, which discusses both the nature of the fantasy genre as well as my authorial process in creating this story. Our story begins as Ohku, Hunter of hunters, tracks a rabid beast through the depths of the mysterious dark forest of La'ia only to find that the creature is no mere beast. And when the hunter's path crosses with that of a fallen spirit, the creature’s dark nature begins to reveal itself. Yet, when Ohku returns to his village and warns the Chief and Warden of what he has found, he is sworn to …

Fortunates Part 1, Lawrence Upton

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

A poem. With corrections listed in an email of today's date

Zemlja And Pioneer Day, Natalie D-Napoleon

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Poems: Zemlja and Pioneer Day by West Australia born author Natalie D-Napoleon.

Snorkel Virgin, Emma J. Young

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Snorkel Virgin

Plunging Down Under, Ian Smith

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Plunging Down Under

Complete Issue 1, Volume 9

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

The complete issue 1 of volume 9, Landscapes Journal.

Toro Times: Raising Our Voices!, Griffee Albaugh, Tiana Andrade, Mitchell Chen, Eric Cho, Kimberly Contreras, Minerva Ipatzi, Natalie Oporta, Jorge Cortes, Wendy Flores, Victoria Sato, David Hernandez, Kendall Hill, Ryan Guzman, Jose Lopez Huerta, Gerard Villaseñor, Isa Basche, Anthony Castro, Adolfo Bello, Raymond Ferman, Paul Callahan, Olivia Coston, Julie Ornelas, Jane Gore, Jiva Jimmons, Sakura Kato, Jessie Latin, Erin Leung, Diana Miranda, Sydnie Partida, Reuben Regalado, Kimberly Velazquez, Isabelle Arriaga, Ezekiel Banda, Angelynn Benitez De La Cruz, Airiale Hernandez, Alana Caires, Katelyn Carbajal, Karly Eastley, Kiaya Estes, Layla Fulton, Leslie Rosales, Bella Ryan, Marisol Gallardo, Krystal Gonzalez, Ciera Ortiz, Brody Shellenbarger, Jackie Solano, Kyra Gallego, Vanessa Garcia, Nhi Vo, Emily Gutierrez, Sarah Hernandez, Keila Pineda, Valerie Quinones, Luke Kudlinski, Samantha Mbodwam, Alexa Muro, Jasmine Nava, Dayana St. Clair, Lizbeth Teran, Heaven Wong

Yorba-Chapman Writing Partnership Anthology of Journalistic Writing

During the Spring 2019 semester, Dr. Noah Asher Golden's Teaching of Writing K-12 students partnered with the Journalism class at Yorba Academy for the Arts. Through collaboration over a four-month period, Chapman's future teachers and Yorba's junior high journalists engaged a deep writing process to write a series of features, editorials, and news articles related to a number of global issues. Thank you to Principal Preciado-Martin, former principal Tracy Knibb, Mrs. Andrea Lopez, Mrs. Kori Shelton, and the Lloyd E. and Elisabeth H. Klein Family Foundation for supporting this project.

How To Win Papers And Influence Professors: Creating Positive First Impressions Through Effective Titles, John Lamothe

Publications

By the time you finish reading this first sentence, you’ve already started forming a first impression about this article. In fact, you really started forming it after reading the title. With the words, “How to Win Papers and Influence Professors,” a spoof on the popular Dale Carnegie book, “How to Win Friends & Influence People,” I already began establishing a tone and setting up expectations for you, the reader. Whether you realized it or not, you had a reaction to that title. This shouldn’t come as a great shock. It’s human nature to form quick first impressions; we’ve all been …

Developing Stem Interest And Genre Knowledge Through Science Fiction Prototyping, Justin Nicholes

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

Upward Bound Math and Science, a federally funded initiative, aims to persuade U.S. high schoolers to become college STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) majors. The program attempts this persuasion by developing students’ content and procedural knowledge so that students may succeed in high school and college STEM courses. Primary focus on knowledge acquisition, however, may cause missed opportunities to engage the imaginative dimensions of students’ science identities and students’ senses of wonder for science. In this reflective essay, I describe a science fiction prototyping assignment that meets the knowledge-based objectives of the Writing Skills course in a five-week Upward Bound …

Series Iii. Folder 6. Poems, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains approximately 15 poems and 2 letters: a letter to a parishioner praising her singing voice, and one to Cummings thanking him for making regular payments on his account with the Benson Printing Co., located in Nashville, Tennessee.

Series Iii. Folder 5. Poems, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts and manuscripts of approximately 10 poems. Some of them show Cummings’ political side, criticizing what he saw as the shortcomings of the GOP and warning that “If you vote for Ike you’ll cut your throat.”

Series Iii. Folder 4. Poems, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts and manuscripts of approximately 15 poems. Topics include the dangers of cynicism, the fleeting nature of wealth, and Cummings’ reflections on his long pastoral career.

Words, Pictures, And The “Nonlistening Space”: Visual Design And Popular Music As Forms Of Performance In First-Year Writing, Maria Lynn Soriano

2019 Faculty Bibliography

The chapter focuses on the importance of teaching visual rhetoric by examining a multimodal first-year writing course unit that asks students to create concert posters for their favorite bands or musical artists. In addition, students produce explanatory essays that translate their creation process into words, representing their imaginations on paper. Soriano discusses the ways that this unit has improved and enriched the writing of many of her students, including poster examples and supplemental materials for instructors who might want to adopt this assignment and challenge their students to invade their own “nonlistening spaces.”

Writing For The Humanities And Arts, Shamecca A. Harris

Open Educational Resources

This dynamic English Composition course asks students to both create and engage with texts, in a variety of forms, that demonstrate how culture and personal experience inform a writer’s work. In this class, students will read and write voraciously about social, political, economic and cultural issues that influence their lived experiences and use the conventions of multiple genres to both reflect and respond to the times in which they live. Moreover, they will also consciously consider what it means to write academically at the college level through regular self-reflection and revision. In doing so, students will strengthen their rhetorical knowledge …

Teaching Visual Literacies: The Case Of The Great American Dust Bowl, Mary F. Rice, Ashley K. Dallacqua

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Teachers and students require a range of tools to engage with visual texts. Using The Great American Dust Bowlby Don Brown (2013) as an exemplar text, we outline four conceptions of visual literacy: rhetorical, instructional, industrial and visuo-spatial and discuss their use in our literacy education practice. In addition, we provide a brief model of a second text, The Arrival (Tan, 2013) and a list of suggested texts for students at different levels (elementary, middle, and high school). We argue that these tools have the potential to deepen conceptions of visual literacies and empower teachers and students to understand …

Disrupting” The Broadcast: Female Showrunners As 21st Century “Fangirl” Feminist Rhetors, Veronica Diaz

Department of Writing and Communication Theses

Despite being considered a female-driven discipline, previous scholarship and personal testimonies indicate that composition remains solidly a “boys’ club.” Popular media is male-dominated as well, resulting in on-screen representations of women that, written from the male perspective, tend toward one-dimensionality. Recently, more women are permeating Hollywood writers’ rooms and producing multi-layered stories that offset the aforementioned portrayals.

This thesis examines how showrunners Marti Noxon, Jenji Kohan, and Shonda Rhimes have redefined female representation on-screen—and subsequently, perceptions of women in real life—by crafting nuanced, female-driven narratives. Elements analyzed include: themes present in Noxon’s Sharp Objects (2018) and Dietland (2018), Kohan’s Weeds …

Untitled Unknown, Taylor Simone Stewart

Theses and Dissertations

This article is the first of a series exploring domination culture through the ways narrative has been indoctrinated as reality and weaponized as a holding cell for captives. Within this exploration, the narrative of domination is placed in relation to higher dimensional realms of the unknown; this being the before and after of domination culture. This positioning will allow for the reality of a simultaneous existence within the labyrinth of domination and a higher dimensional unknown to be framed. Within this series of articles, I question the roll of the rogue characters shamanistic agents of resisting domination, the fear of …