Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

On The Same Page: Theory, Practice & The Ela Common Core State Standards, Jessica Lauer

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This research sought to examine how writing was happening in high schools. States across the country, including Michigan, began implementing the Common Core State Standards in 2010. The standards place a heavy focus on informational texts particularly as a student reaches high school. The standards also suggest that writing should be a shared responsibility among teachers, acknowledging the importance of cross-disciplinary writing skills. Using a grounded theory approach to analyze the semi-structured interviews conducted with eight English teachers in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, this research revealed a disconnect between theory and practice when it comes to how educational standards …

Speak, Little Mute Girl: Representations Of Mute Women In Film, Honor Schwartz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I focus my examination of mute women on three mainstream motion pictures spanning from the Hollywood studio to contemporary era times to explore the ways in which film undermines mute women’s attempts to use alternative languages. Johnny Belinda, Children of a Lesser God, and The Piano are films that display mute women and garner popular attention. I argue that the women in these films use alternative languages (such as sign language and touch) to gain representation and resist the masculine order; however, these women cannot obtain autonomy and agency because of their decisions to participate in romantic …

Reconceptualizing The Construct Of The Individual Writer In Composition Studies: A Felt Life Model Of Writing, Wendy Duprey

Wayne State University Dissertations

Current scholars in composition and rhetoric emphasize how our worldview perspectives and intellectual positions are animated by our emotional investments, attachments, and commitments. However, despite disciplinary efforts to theorize “the writing subject” in Composition Studies from the 1960s on, I argue the field has yet to develop an integrated cognitive-emotional-motivational construct of the individual writer that comprehensively investigates how an individual’s cognition, emotion, and motivation shapes, and is influenced by, one’s writing process. In my dissertation project, I draw on a range of perspectives from composition studies, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy to develop a model of the individual writer as …

Pathetic Politics: An Analysis Of Emotion And Embodiment In First Lady Rhetoric, Stephanie Lynn Wideman

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation explores the theoretical and practical relationship between our understandings of emotion’s role in political decision-making. In this pursuit I seek a resurrection for pathos’s legitimacy in persuasive studies through the pursuit of the pathetic political realm. This work has three primary concerns: how may pathetic power be accessed, from where does this power originate, and how might political actors enact this power for their own political goals. I draw primarily from theories related to visual rhetoric and the body in order to provide perspective on how the body is politicized through the pathetic realm. Theoretical perspectives are drawn …

Reimagining The Stacks: Classroom Technology And Library Collaboration For Writing In The Disciplines, Jossalyn Larson, Daniel C. Reardon

Journal of Student Success in Writing (Archived)

This article details the process by which one university redesigned a first year writing course to better promote discipline-specific and best-practice research techniques. The program offers experiential learning activities through scholarly collaboration, using library staff as mentors, producing an open-access peer-reviewed student journal, and emphasizing face-to-face interaction of peer research communities. It has the potential to establish for students in high school, community colleges and universities that research writing is fundamentally about joining and contributing to a conversation.

Language, Rhetoric, And Politics In A Global Context: A Decolonial Critical Discourse Perspective On Nigeria’S 2015 Presidential Campaign, Yunana Ahmed

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In this dissertation, I conceptualize a rhetorical and linguistic analysis of politics from a decolonial framework (Mignolo, 2011; Smith, 2012). My analysis draws on classical rhetoric (Aristotle, 2007), cultural rhetoric (Mao, 2014; Powell, et al., 2014; Yankah, 1995), and linguistics (Chilton, 2004) to reveal the different ways ideological and hegemonic struggles are discursively constructed in Nigerian political campaign discourse. The data for this study come from two speeches delivered by former President of Nigeria Goodluck Jonathan during the 2015 electoral campaign. This includes his declaration-of-intent speech and his speech marking the commencement of his formal campaign activities. My …

Implementing Vocational Training At Escuela Quiteña De Estudios Bíblicos, Joshua K. Marcum

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This DMin project addressed the problem of the absence of a viable training model to equip graduates of EQEB (Escuela Quiteña de Estudios Biblicos) for self-sustaining ministry. Based upon a theology of vocation, the project implemented and evaluated the inclusion of a technical-skills component to EQEB’s current seminary training. The project followed the integration of sixteen EQEB students in the vocational program implemented during the 2015-2016 school year. Qualitative research data gathered from five group interviews with these students, my own field notes, and a faculty interview provided the substance upon which I based the project´s findings. Over a seven-month …

Formulating A Covenant Of Discipleship For The Membership Of The Gwinnett Church Of Christ, David Chisholm

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project addressed the lack of a covenant of discipleship for the membership of the Gwinnett Church of Christ (GCC). The purpose of the project was to develop such a covenant document to help all the members of GCC better live out the process of becoming more like Jesus. To provide a theological foundation for this project, I explored discipleship in the exhortation sections of the book of Hebrews, which specifically addresses the need for greater commitment and intentionality amongst a community of faith. I also explored the theoretical framework of how formulating a discipleship covenant document could create progress …

Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, And The Populist Tradition In Presidential Rhetoric, Sarah Beth Shaw

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Populism is one of the most ambiguous terms in rhetorical scholarship. It can be a political strategy, a genuine reflection of personality, a deep manipulation of core American values, and much more. Political pundits have used it as a descriptive term, and on occasion as an insult. Some have deemed the concept’s flexibility confusing and even counterproductive, which sparked an interest in studying what is meant when analysts and scholars address political speakers as populist. This thesis examines populism in detail, by analyzing the rhetoric of former presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Two questions drove the research: (1) What …

Priestly Lineages In History And Rhetoric, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

A comparison of Cross’s reconstruction of the Oniad high priestly line with his Mushite theory lays the basis for re-evaluating historical scholarships’ interest in ancient Jewish priestly families. In the religious politics of the Second Temple period, the Aaronide priestly dynasties were the Mushite priesthood. Differentiating priestly families earlier in Israel’s history raises questions about methodology and purpose as well as evidence.

Braving Shame: The Rhetoric Of Bravery In Contemporary Women's Memoir, Debra Gayle Parker

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation interrogates the rhetoric of bravery as a culturally-infused way of hearing certain kinds of personal narratives. As a cultural rhetoric, “bravery” has deep roots in masculine militaristic ideology in which cowardice, courage, and shame are conceptually linked to a sense of duty. The memoir industry represents one environment that archives what is valued as brave writing. As rhetoric precariously at work in the memoir industry, this dissertation investigates the cultural assumptions that drive literary bravery as it is used to assess contemporary memoirs, particularly memoirs written by women. Braving Shame invokes a new brand of bravery—one that de-emphasizes …

Instattack: Instagram And Visual Ad Hominem Political Arguments, Sophia Evangeline Gourgiotis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this project is to examine the visual political ad hominem arguments used on Instagram during the 2016 presidential campaign. Using Walton’s (2007) five subtypes of ad hominem arguments, this study analyzes the “attack ads” posted on Instagram from five of the 2016 presidential candidates into each subtype. This project seeks to understand how ad hominem arguments within political rhetoric function when they are visual. This study uses Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) theory of modality and Rose’s (2012) compositional interpretation to analyze compositional structure of the image and parallels this analysis with ad hominem subtypes.

Findings reveal …

Rhetoric And Performing Anger : Proserpina's Gift And Chaucer's Merchant's Tale., Joseph Turner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Although scholars have historically minimized the relationship between medieval grammatical and rhetorical traditions and Chaucer's poetics, Proserpina's angry speech in the Merchant's Tale represents the intersection of medieval classroom grammar exercises, Geoffrey of Vinsauf's theory of delivery, and poetics. Proserpina's angry speech reveals that her rhetoric is calculated to subvert the masculine power structures that surround her. Such a focus on Chaucer's depiction of women's persuasive tactics helps to highlight Chaucer's deep engagement with rhetoric beginning in the 1380's. Moreover, this investigation asks for increased attention to the overlap between classroom grammatical traditions, rhetorical theory, and medieval poetics.

Evolving The Genre Of Empire: Gender And Place In Women's Natural Histories Of The Americas, 1688-1808, Diana Epelbaum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the eighteenth century, “natural history” was a capacious genre designation that alluded to conventions as diverse in their cultural and political resonances as they were in their applications within the New Science. My project is a genre study of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century natural history text and art produced by women scientists, explorers, colonists, and early Americans writing the New World; it destabilizes rigid notions of genre that exclude women, suggesting that genre is by nature fluid, inclusionary as well as exclusionary. To this end, I return into conversation understudied naturalists Maria Sybilla Merian, Jane Colden, and Eliza Pinckney, who …

Thou And It: Personhood Actualized Through Water Rights, Kierra M. Powell

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

While issues of racial and gendered discrimination are more visible and widely discussed, poverty and water based discrimination is often a silent fact of life for the many. As one of the most critical elemental resources required for the sustainability of human life, safe water has been designated a human right, but the current global distribution of water does not mirror this sentiment. The divide in quality water distribution provokes the question: whose life is intrinsically valued? This study seeks to determine the status of personhood as displayed by the movement of water in relation to the underprivileged. I first …

Wayfinding Localized Research Practices Through Mobile Technology, Adam W. Strantz

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation presents wayfinding—the process of orienting oneself amid the myriad users, technologies, and digital spaces impacting any writing work—as a research methodology for contextualizing writing in mobile environments. Central to web design and non-web service design, wayfinding is an important addition to rhetoric and writing studies. First, it is descriptive: it observes and records first, showing how people go about tasks, and revealing relationships among people and their environments. Second, it helps when people get lost and then found. It records traces of the mental work people do to get unlost. Finding themselves, peoples’ maps help them both narrate …

Superheroes And Social Action: Reproduction, Recurrence, And Recognition In The Superhero Genre, Max M. Renner

Open Access Theses

Rhetorical genre analysis examines genre as social action and is primarily concerned with the experiences of individual users (Miller, 1984). The genres that rhetorical genre scholarship takes up are typically functional genres or genres in which individuals have direct means of utilizing and modifying a genre. This focus on functional genres makes sense in terms of the tradition’s interest in user experience and reciprocity. This project seeks to examine the potential implications rhetorical genre analysis has for vernacular genres which, for the most part, have remained the domain of literary scholarship due to their focus on structural, formal elements.

This …

To See In A Mirror Dimly: An Ecology Of Ritual Transmission, Rebekah Elizabeth Sims

Open Access Theses

I examine ritual transmission through three practices: Sacred Harp hymnody, Montessori Sunday School, and Celtic thin place, all practices meant to provide the participant with a tangible sense of transcendence. Ritual transmission in not linear exchange, but is instead a complex system involving pedagogy, praxis, and persuasion: an ecology. Ritual ecology provides a way to think about rituals as both preserving practices and as consistently evolving. The composition of a ritual – that which makes it possible to transmit – requires the development of technical praxis. Ritual praxis is a blend of procedural and exegetical knowledge; it is the link …

Listening To Our Stories In Dusty Boxes: Indigenous Storytelling Methodology, Archival Practice, And The Cherokee Female Seminary, Emily M. Legg

Open Access Dissertations

Influenced by a drive to seek out interdisciplinary connections within Rhetoric and Composition and to put these intersections into practice, this dissertation seeks out the ways indigenous ways of knowing, such as storytelling, can provide a heuristic to understand the ways our dappled discipline works to create community-based knowledges, and how these knowledges sustained through storytelling can recover the histories in our discipline by opening up our boundaries framed by dominant origin stories. Building on the work of decolonial and indigenous scholars, this dissertation asserts that indigenous storytelling encourages researchers to re-tool dominant methods in existing colonial structures in order …

Encounters Beyond The Interface: Data Structures, Material Feminisms, And Composition, Christine L. Masters

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation argues that data literacy should be taught in college writing classes along with other new media literacies. Drawing from several areas of study, this dissertation establishes a definition of data literacy, introduces a feminist methodological approach to Big Data and data studies, and makes a case for teaching data literacy in first year composition and professional writing courses as a foundational writing-related literacy. Information written into and read from databases supports research activities in any number of fields from STEM to the humanities; while different disciplines approach databases and data structures from diverse perspectives, all students need foundational …

Decentering The Writing Program Archive: How Composition Instructors Save And Share Their Teaching Materials, Stacy Olivia Nall

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation decenters the writing program archive through research on instructors’ digital archives. Artifacts of composition instruction are no longer saved to print archives alone; rather, digital technologies expand the locations where artifacts of writing pedagogy can be archived and accessed. The following archival ethnography, focused on a community engagement writing course in the Introductory Composition at Purdue (ICaP) program, finds that many digital archives of composition are hidden to outside researchers or not sustained (which are theorized as either “abandoned” or “pop-up” archives). At the same time, some pedagogical materials are publicly visible by virtue of personal web spaces …

Pick Yourself Up By Your Broadband: Access, The Digital Divide, And Migrant Workers, Enrique Reynoso Jr.

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation proposes a process called pizarron borrado: reorienting “failure” as a productive part of the research process. Using the backdrop of research on migrant workers’ technological access, I argue that classrooms can become much more accessible by moving from failure and looking at points where writing and research have moved in unexpected ways. As scholars such as Grabill have pointed out, access to computers and the Internet is an issue of public policy, and technical communicators are strategically positioned to contribute to, “policy making, research, and teaching” in ways that can help expand these services to underserved and underrepresented …

Emerging Genres, Dangerous Classifications: The Kairos Of Digital Composing Policy, Ellery Sills

Open Access Dissertations

Emerging Genres, Dangerous Classifications: The Kairos of Digital Composing Policy argues that writing policy infrastructure plays a significant (if often invisible) role in affording emerging digital genres in rhetoric and composition. Within the last few decades, the accelerating transformations and instabilities of emerging genres have posed a challenge for contemporary writing programs, which demonstrate a persistent wariness over incorporating digital composing into their mission. In response to this challenge, national educational associations have issued a growing number of policy statements meant to encourage a broader understanding of composing in the classroom. Curiously, relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to …

Formulating An Intentional Curriculum For Spiritual Leadership Development At The West University Church Of Christ, Daniel A. Mcgraw

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project addresses the lack of a formal curriculum for spiritual leadership formation in the West University Church of Christ in Houston, Texas. While the West University Church of Christ has been blessed by strong congregational leaders in both the past and present, recent conversations revealed the need for a deeper connection to God and a better understanding of spiritual leadership on the part of the congregation’s leaders. The problem I identified was a lack of understanding about spiritual leadership in contrast to secular understandings of leadership and the lack of a formal curriculum to help address this problem.

This …

The Available Means Of Imagination : Personal Narrative, Public Rhetoric, And Circulation., Stephanie D. Weaver

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the digital circulation of personal narratives by non-celebrity individuals that become part of larger public and political debates. I posit the “available means of imagination” to describe the ways that narratives – cultural, fictional, and personal – influence our ability to understand the many facets of a given public debate before tracing the interactions among narrative, emotion, and circulation in a series of case studies using new materialist methods. I argue that emotion plays a key role in structures of participation of social media and in how we subsequently engage with contemporary political issues, especially with regards …

"This Machine Kills Fascists" : The Public Pedagogy Of The American Folk Singer., Harley Ferris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the figure of the American folk singer as a public pedagogue engaged in rhetorical action for social change. Through four case studies—Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Ani DiFranco, and Tom Morello—the dissertation examines nearly a century of folk music as a form of activism through these four figures. Each folksinger occupies a unique role in a unique era, requiring each musician to revise the work of their musical forebears to accommodate new cultural and technological environments. Drawing on theories of public pedagogy, rhetorical framing, and media, I argue that an effective use of music in social change depends …

Revision And Re-Writing As Adaptation: Using Adaptation Theory To Encourage Student Recognition Of Rhetorical Situations, Alicia Claire Troby

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many students don’t want to revise their writing, or do so in small, surface-level ways. This has been an issue many composition instructors have faced over the years, and there is a large body of scholarship about revision and the writing process by many in writing studies. From Nancy Sommers, Janet Emig, Donald Murray, and others, to more recent publications “post-process,” composition instructors and writing studies scholars are concerned about revision and the role it plays in students’ learning to write. As a strategy for teaching bigger-level revision, I implemented the use of adaptation theory (reading/watching and doing adaptation) as …

Designing Place-Sensitive Professional Development: A Critical Ethnography Of Teaching And Learning Argumentative Writing, Sarah N. Holland

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the experiences of teachers participating in a two-year professional development program designed by the National Writing Project and funded by a U.S. Department of Education Investing in Innovation (i3) grant. Informed by New Literacy Studies’ ideological model of literacy as a Social practice and rural literacies’ notion of pedagogies of sustainability, this study employs critical ethnography and discourse analysis to analyze the discourse of teachers participating in the College-Ready Writers Program (CRWP) in order to understand how professional development might be adjusted to re-empower teachers. Data sources included field notes, interviews, lesson …

Harken Not To Wild Beasts: Between Rage And Eloquence In Saruman And Thrasymachus, Dennis Wilson Wise

Journal of Tolkien Research

One of the giant gaps in Tolkien scholarship has been to miss how deeply Saruman answers the age-old antagonism between rhetoric and philosophy. Like John Milton, Tolkien cannot bring himself to trust rhetoric. It threatens the unitary truth of a divinely-revealed moral order and, ironically, Tolkien applies great rhetorical skill to convince his reader of rhetoric’s illusionary nature. In this matter Tolkien has been largely successful, since few readers (if any) question the de-privileging of Saruman’s perspective. In the process, though, I suggest that Tolkien has developed in his master rhetorician a new relationship between rhetoric (eloquence) and rage ( …

Material Expertise: Applying Object-Oriented Rhetoric In Marine Policy, Zachary Parke Dixon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation applies object-oriented rhetorics and posthuman philosophies to environmental policy deliberation in order to help bridge gaps between policy makers, scientists, and citizens. For environmental policy scholars the non-credentialed expertise of local, or indigenous stakeholders is valued as possessing technical, objective merit that can improve the development and implementation of environmental policies. However, the utilization of stakeholder expertise in environmental policy faces serious challenges in terms of finding common grounds for communication within complex techno-social systems, of overcoming deep cultural differences and perceptions, and grave ethical issues of access and power. This dissertation develops two case studies of marine …