Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Can Patriotism Be Carved In Stone?: A Critical Analysis Of Mt. Rushmore's Orientation Films, Teresa Bergman

College of the Pacific Faculty Articles

This essay examines the three orientation films that have been shown at the Mt. Rushmore National Memorial since 1965, and analyzes how these films interpret the memorial as a patriotic symbol. Although the site was originally conceived to celebrate U.S. imperialism, each film moves away from that interpretation. This analysis tracks how these films’ interpretations of this patriotic icon have evolved to suit contemporary political exigencies rather than a fixed definition of Mt. Rushmore. I draw on memory studies, rhetoric, historical theory, and documentary film theory to examine the changing representations of nationalism and patriotism in these films.

Ethiopia Is Now: J. A. Rogers And The Rhetoric Of Black Anticolonialism During The Great Depression, Aric Putnam

Strategic Communication Studies Faculty Publications

The Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 inspired grass roots political activism in black America. To understand how this foreign policy issue became such a pressing domestic concern for black Americans, this essay analyzes an influential interpretation of the crisis, a pamphlet by J. A. Rogers entitled The Real Facts About Ethiopia. I argue that Rogers's text critiques the nature of race under colonialism by illustrating how state boundaries and racial categories are coordinate, strategic operations of colonial power. Second, I demonstrate how the text contrasts this parochial racial context with an alternative framework in which identity can be performed, …

Typed Document: Classroom Notes, Edna Louise Saffy

Saffy Collection - All Textual Materials

Miscellaneous class notes August 28- September 27, 2007.

Typed Document: Classroom Notes, Edna Louise Saffy

Saffy Collection - All Textual Materials

Dr. Saffy's notes for classes held 8:00 Tuesday and Thursday, August 30-September 25, 2007.

Session 11 - “Dangerous Things”: A Symbolic Domain For Killer Bees, Daniel E. Lebas

International Symposium on Technology and Society

Viewing usage of words in culture as key symbols, Sherry B. Ortner's indicators were applied to an analysis of the lay-public’s use of "killer bee", "Africanized Honey Bee", and "honey bee". While conducting social impact study in southern Nevada, the author noticed that informants were not associating "killer bee" with "honey bee" imagery. Interviews were conducted with residents in the community of Boulder City, Nevada focusing upon symbolic linkage between the expressions: honey bee, killer bee and Africanized Honey Bee. It was determined that people do not link these expressions together in the same symbolic domain. Ethnohistory of the human/bee …

Accounts Of Violence From Arabs And Israelis On Abc-Tv’S Panel Discussion From Jerusalem, Richard Buttny, Donald G. Ellis

Communication and Rhetorical Studies - All Scholarship

The North American network, ABC-Television, broadcast the news-panel program, Nightline, from Jerusalem during the beginning days of the Second Intifada. One of the main themes of this discussion was the violence, pain, and trauma—the civilians killed or wounded, the military’s actions, and how it all started. Even the horrible facts of violence must be told or narrated and discussed for its morality, causes, consequences, responsibility, and political ramifications. In this sense, violence is discursive. How violence gets told, how versions get constructed or contested is our focus. Participants used the communicative practices of invoking membership categories and activity terms and …

A Liminal Examination Of Always Already Meaning Within Language, James Richard Starr

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis juxtaposes Plato's allegory of the cave with Jacques Derrida's concept of the always already aspect of meaning, a concept derived from Ferdinand de Saussure's work. This theoretical investigation examines the implications of universal Signified forms of word meanings for postmodern composition theory.

Composition Heuristics And Theories And A Proposed Heuristic For Business Writing, Katharine Louise Peake

Theses Digitization Project

This work questions the usefulness of heuristic procedures, within composition in general writing in business in particular, as an effective aid to the generation of written, non-fiction discourse.

Error Feedback In Second Language Writing, Carol Ann Miller-Cornell

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis follows five second language (L2) students in an introductory composition class at California State University, San Bernardino. The study investigates their perceptions and responses to grammatical coded feedback provided by their writing instructor. The results showed that students wanted, expected, appreciated and understood the coded feedback that was given to them.

'Time In A Bottle': Temporal Discontinuities In Narratives Of Diaspora, Emily Churilla

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

The concepts of home have been, and continue to be, the foundation of much of the contention surrounding all sides of discourse regarding diaspora and immigration - through both viewing the home as threatened and defiled as well as redefining the imagined reality of home. It is the impasse of working around and against the frame of Western temporality and space from within the trope of home that this paper will explore; specifically how narratives of diasporic subjectivity disrupt and threaten normalized constructs of origin and time, history, and identity. Because to only consider the question of "home" leaves a …

Threatening Bodies Resisting Containment: Enemy Combatants, War Protestors And Same-Sex Couples, Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo, Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

The U.S.-launched "War on Terror" has been a major driving force in political discourses during the last few years, including presidential discourse. Since September 11, 2001, presidential rhetoric has systematically entangled international efforts, such as "the War on Terror" and the War in Iraq, with domestic issues, such as same-sex marriages and civil unions. In so doing, international and domestic threats have been effectively merged into one, and in the process, specific bodies have been constructed as "terrorist" agents in need of strict containment (for example, enemy combatant bodies, war protestor bodies, and the bodies of same-sex couples). This paper …

Encyclopedia Of Gender And Technology, Priscilla Finley

Library Faculty Research

This encyclopedia compiles 213 four- to five-page entries making observations about the role of gender in human interaction with information technology and the IT profession. Intended as a preliminary research agenda encompassing essays on gender and IT education and the workplace, the volume contains many essays that simply survey struggles faced by women in many parts of the world who interact with the Internet or telecommunications technology.

Motivation And Identification: A Burkean Rhetorical Analysis Of The Mission Statements Of A Class Of Higher Education Organizations, Mark Razor

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to understand higher education organizations as if they were texts and from that perspective to determine how motive was expressed and community was created through the mission statements of a class of higher education organizations. The mission statements of Carnegie comprehensive doctoral institutions of higher education with a medical and/or veterinary school were rhetorically analyzed and the results organized into groups much as chemists organized elements into the periodic table. In addition to rhetorical studies, organizational studies were employed, especially those that employed Identification Theory. This study provides a model for understanding complex institutions, …

The Concentration Of Carnivalesque Themes In The Shared Fabliaux Of The Decameron And The Canterbury Tales, Timothy R. Jordan

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Geoffrey Chaucer's interest in social interactions in The Canterbury Tales is easy to see through his pilgrims' estate-based conflicts with each other. In addition to the frame narrative, the interest in social interaction is also apparent in the characters of the individual tales and as a reflection of the conflict between the individual pilgrims. Most of these social interactions embody what is called the camivalesque: free, open, contact between people due to the suspension of social hierarchies. Mikhail Bakhtin has described the camivalesque as characteristic of medieval thought. In medieval literature, the genre of the fabliau, short bawdy stories that …

Lagu And Belu: The Semiotics Of Bottled Water Packaging, Daniel Fusch

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

There has been considerable recent criticism of the bottled water industry from professional and popular as well as scholarly sources. This criticism disputes the veracity of a brand's claim to a pure and natural source, as well as the standards for regulation. This paper adds another factor to the criticism of bottled "natural springs" water, emphasizing the magical operation implicit in the rhetoric for the packaging of bottled water. The paper examines the natural and supernatural semiotics of the commercial packaging for bottled "natural springs" water, and identifies a correlation between the semiotic function of the ancient Germanic rune lagu …

Preliminary Report To The Purdue Writing Lab: Assessing Usability Of The "New" Online Writing Lab (Owl) Design And Contents, Michael Salvo, H. Allen Brizee, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Morgan Sousa

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Research Reports

This report is submitted June 16, 2006 to the Purdue University Writing Lab, specifically to Linda Bergmann, Director; Tammy Conard-Salvo, Associate Director; and Karl Stolley, Lead Web Designer. Intended to inform the ongoing redesign of the Online Writing Lab (OWL), it is written to maintain the highest level of usability and user-centered design of a unique, globally-utilized information resource. This document is a preliminary report limited to initial findings from a five-step usability testing protocol conducted February 25 through March 3, 2006. This testing plan was submitted to Purdue’s Institutional Review Board’s Committee on the Use of Human Subjects (IRB) …

Blessing And Sending The Church Into The World For The Sake Of The World, Using Congregational Blessings As A Missional Enterprise, Michael Harbour

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This thesis project equipped the elders to function as a community of men called and authorized by God to bless and send his people into the world for the sake of the world. They were equipped through seven sessions of theological reflection on Scripture and reflection on narratives of those who have offered pastoral blessings. The sessions also included an examination of templates and the opportunity to practice writing and speaking blessings. The elders have been speaking a shepherd’s blessing as the last liturgical act of the Sunday assembly. In this project, missional and textual focus was given to the …

Handling And Preventing Journalistic Fraud: Janet Cooke, Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, Kenneth Munson

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Fraud is a growing concern in the news business, especially in recent years where numerous journalism scandals rock its foundation. This paper examines the most prominent cases: Stephen Glass, the reporter for The New Republic newsmagazine who completely or partially fabricated 27 stories in the late ‘90s; Jayson Blair, the New York Times reporter who was found to have plagiarized or made up his supposedly on-thescene reporting in 2003; and Janet Cooke, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for her Washington Post story about a child heroin addict who, in actuality, did not exist. This paper will examine flaws …

If Your God Has Really Spoken To You… Then All The World Must Hear It: The Discourses Of Revelation And Satire In Salman Rushdie’S The Satanic Verses, Conrad William

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

In his essay, “Is Nothing Sacred?”, Salman Rushdie lays out a place for literature as an arena in which various perspectives may interact. He thereby provides a context for the controversy regarding his books, most particularly The Satanic Verses. Despite his claims, however, literature, as Rushdie conceives it, operates not simply as an arena for discourse but similarly as a rule-maker, controlling the discourse which operates within its bounds. The Satanic Verses, in particular, suggests that revelation as it passes through unstable and hybrid human language loses its authority and power to speak purely or dogmatically. In so …

Derrida’S Deconstruction Of Logocentrism: Implications For Trauma Studies, Julie Elaine Goodspeed-Chadwick

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

This article examines Derrida’s conception of logocentrism as it is discussed throughout the entirety of his seminal work Of Grammatology, as well as in his collected interviews, Points...: 1974-1994. Systematically refuting logocentrism, Derrida’s deconstruction enables exposure of the mechanisms, such as binary constructions, that exert a dominant—and domineering—influence over marginalized people, places, and concepts. Specifically, presence and the (falsehood of the) totality of the sign define logocentrism, and these terms cannot productively contribute to trauma studies because it is precisely in texts and textuality that embodied states can be studied. Texts are themselves material embodiments that display …

Lessons Learned As Author And Editor, Connie Foster

DLTS Faculty Publications

Writing and editing are dynamic, creative processes. At some point both author and editor must release the finished product and submit to the production process (more copy editing, proofing and queries). To offer the best manuscript possible, some tips are presented.

A Comparative Study Of Editorials In Chinese And English, Meiyen Huang

Theses Digitization Project

The study reveals national cultures may influence the use of politeness strategies and organizational patterns in editorials written in the two languages, English and Chinese. Due to a newspaper's political orientation and its regional and national background, the rhetorical form of linguistic features in editorials might vary among cultures.

Black And White And Read All Over: An Analysis Of Narratives In The O.J. Simpson Murder Trial, Martin Larry Lastrapes

Theses Digitization Project

The thesis examines the O.J. Simpson murder trial and analyzes the racial narratives that affected its outcome and the way it is perceived by the American public. By examining four books about the trial written by lawyers who served on the case, the analysis focuses on how race functions within each of the reconstructed narratives, as well as within the framework of the U.S. criminal justice system. The author argues that racial narratives affect how and why people can see the same event differently, a prime example of which is the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Representations of Mark Fuhrman, his …

Owl Usability Report: Appendices, Michael Salvo, H. Allen Brizee, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Morgan Sousa

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Research Reports

This document includes appendices to the OWL Usability Report and contains survey and testing instruments, testing scripts, and testing data. It also includes information about the Creative Commons licensing associated with the OWL Usability documents produced in 2006.

Purdue Online Writing Lab (Owl) Research Report, Michael Salvo, H. Allen Brizee, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Morgan Sousa

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Research Reports

This report outlines the history of the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) and details the OWL Usability Project through the summer of 2006. The paper also discusses test methodologies, describes test methods, provides participant demographics, and presents findings and recommendations of the tests. The purpose of this report is to provide researchers, administrators, and pedagogues interested in usability and Writing Labs access to information on the Purdue OWL Usability Project. We hope our findings—and this open source approach to our research—will contribute positively to the corpus on usability and Writing Lab studies.

Haptic Communication And Musical Aesthesis: Feeling In Jazz, Jon Radwan

CHDCM Publications

No abstract provided.

On Mccomiskey And Ryan's City Comp: Identities, Spaces, Practices, Matthew Ortoleva

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

City Comp: Identities, Spaces, Practices is a collection of essays that address the intersections of composition studies and place studies. But don't look for any sublime vistas or sweeping landscapes in this volume. Rather, City Comp is an engagement with urban spaces and the citizens, teachers and students who write, work and live in these spaces. The (auto)ethnographic, narrative style of the collection is common to composition studies, but this volume resists the kind of self-therapeutic tendencies that are often found with such an approach. Rather, City Comp makes a critical exploration of the historical, political, cultural and …

Nurturing Sense Of Place Through The Literature Of The Bioregion, Patrick Howard

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

This paper explores the possibility that a participatory engagement with the literature of the bioregion, in this case the North Atlantic coast, may work against the life alienating tendencies of our modern culture, to reaffirm and renew our children’s consciousness of and sensitivity for their place in a larger Earth community. We are in need of another way of knowing our place, a way to activate and reactivate the complex articulations and relations of things. Through the literature of the bioregion and a bodily, imaginative and participatory engagement with the other-than-human, children can return to the conditions of human embeddedness …

When English As A Second Language Students Meet Text-Responsible Writing, Miso Jung

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis follows two international freshman students in an English composition class at California State University, San Bernardino. The results indicate that the students generally experienced feeling challenged and overwhelmed about the unfamiliar topic, but detailed assignment guidelines played a key role for students to progress in understanding the assignment.

From 9/11 To Iraq: Analysis And Critique Of The Rhetoric Of The Bush Administration Leading To The War In Iraq, Lakesha Nicole Covington

Theses Digitization Project

The project investigated the events that led the United States from September 11, 2001 to the current war in Iraq. The specific time frame examined was the period beginning on September 11, 2001 and ending with the first pre-emptive attacks in Iraq on March 19, 2003.