Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

"It's Just That For The First Time, I Feel... Wicked": A Rhetorical Analysis Of Wicked's Elphaba Using Kenneth Burke's Guilt-Purification-Redemption Cycle, Patricia Foreman

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the Broadway production, Wicked, and more specifically, the character of Elphaba, or the Wicked Witch of the West. The study utilized Kenneth Burke's theory of the guilt-purification-redemption cycle, and considered Elphaba's journey between the three steps of Burke's cycle. In order to understand this journey better, the researcher considered various facets of the show, including the script, lyrics, costuming, including attire and make-up, and interactions with other characters in the production. Elphaba's causes of guilt, including her mother's death, her relationship with Glinda, her cause in working with Animals, and failed magic …

Upvoting The Audience: A Burkean Analysis Of Reddit, Doug Urbanski

Masters Theses

My thesis examines the Internet community Reddit through the rhetorical framework of Kenneth Burke, specifically his work with identification between individuals and how identification shapes communities. I focused on three sections of Reddit: World News, Ask Reddit, and Politics, and analyzed the best-voted comments of top posts from each section, focusing on how anonymous users communicate with one another and how their anonymity might influence the ways they interact. Additionally, I propose a method for instructors to use Reddit in the classroom, taking advantage of the medium's systematic anonymity.

Daniel Hannan, Thomas Paine, And The Rhetoric Of Outrage, Danae Brack

Masters Theses

The purpose of this rhetorical study is to examine the textual charisma of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and Daniel Hannan's speech "The Devalued Prime Minister of a Devalued Government" and how that charisma made these artifacts successful in spreading outrage surrounding the historical and political events of their respective eras. The author uses Weber's theory of charisma filtered through Rosenberg and Hirschberg's expanded theory identifying lexical charisma, or the charisma of messages. The author analyzes Paine's and Hannan's use of persuasiveness, believability, and powerfulness, translating each of these characteristics into specific cues that can be identified in the individual texts. …

From A Rodent To A Rhetorician: An Ideological Analysis Of George Alexander Kennedy's Comparative Rhetoric, James Begley

Masters Theses

George Alexander Kennedy, a professor of classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has given birth to a new understanding of rhetorical studies: he argues for the evolution of rhetoric from animals to humans. Using Sonja Foss's methodology of "ideological criticism," this thesis examined Kennedy's case as presented in his book, Comparative Rhetoric: an Historical and Cross-Cultural Introduction. This study discovered that the book was heavily influenced by a secular, pro-evolutionary ideology which dually contributed to its selective use of scientific evidences and production of inconsistent arguments. Evaluated on the basis of Biblical principles, this thesis concluded …

You Sir Are A Fine Young Gentleman. Thank You, My Lady: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Eighteenth Century Conversations Regarding Gentility And Gender, Kati Overbey

Masters Theses

This study rhetorically analyzed the eighteenth century work of Richard Steele and Joseph Addison's The Spectator and Eliza Haywood's The Female Spectator using Kathleen Turner's framework for rhetorical history as social criticism integrating text and context. Ten essays from The Spectator as well as ten essays from The Female Spectator were selected based on content and subject matter regarding manners and gentility. When Turner's framework for analysis was applied to the essays, defining characteristics of gentility were revealed. A presentation of the results of the textual and contextual analysis of these twenty selected essays is provided. An analysis of the …

The Significance Of Silence: The Muted Voices Of Count Fosco And Laura Fairlie In The Woman In White, Melanie Page

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the intricacies of voice using narrative theory and reader-response theory with Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. Since Collins first wrote this epistolary novel serially, he wrote aware of his audience as he printed segments with different narrators. This novel allowed Collins the opportunity to reveal an internal set of narrators' responses to other characters' voices--responses that sometimes conflict with and modify one another. At the same time, Collins' contemporary audience's responses to the novel reveal the role of characters' voices in shaping reactions of members of the novel's reading public. Two opposing figures--Laura Fairlie and Count …

Student-Consultant Continuum: Incorporating Writing Center Techniques Of Peer Review Into The Composition Classroom, Maria Lynn Soriano

Masters Theses

Peer collaboration about writing often functions as a required step in the writing processes of first-year writing students. Within the composition classroom, students read and respond to the writing of their peers, sometimes obtaining useful feedback, and sometimes just getting “You did a good job” as an evaluation. Outside of the classroom, the Writing Center exists as a space where students can work with a trained consultant to receive helpful suggestions and a thorough evaluation of their writing. Though the first-year writing classroom and the Writing Center exist as physically separate places, both rely on principles of collaboration and conversation …

Subsemy: Using Subversion To Create Multiple Meanings In Rhetorical Texts, Kane Madison Click

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the use of subversion to create multiple meanings in rhetorical texts. Subversion, an element focused on by Fiske (1986, 1987) and McKerrow (1988) in their early contributions to the rhetorical study of multiple meaning texts, has been an ongoing lacunae in the study of polysemic texts. I wish to provide a correction to this problem by offering the concept of subsemy. By examining the role of strategic ambiguity and irony in the functioning of subversion, the concept of subsemy provides a missing picture of how popular cultural texts, film in particular, can function subversively.

African-American Life Writing: Harriet Jacobs And Bell Hooks, Luo Yi

Masters Theses

Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and bell hooks' Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood share a common concern with emancipation and employ complementary rhetorical strategies. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl presents Harriet Jacobs' journey of personal self-discovery through various relationships with others, and her personal narrative finally serves the larger goal of emancipation for her people. Jacobs' narrative is full of other voices, or personae. Even the narrator, Linda Brent, is pseudonymous, or "other," in this sense. Jacobs invokes these personae in her autobiography; she explores her experiences as a web of …

Integrating Student Expectations Into Writing Center Theory And Practice, Mary J. Bonevelle

Masters Theses

When students go to a writing center to be tutored, they expect a certain type of instruction based on their prior experiences. Many students are perplexed to find that the parameters of writing center instruction are quite different than they anticipated. The resulting conflict between student expectations and actual center methods often induces tensions which can impede the effectiveness tutorial instruction. This thesis explores the basis of student expectations, strategies for addressing student expectations in practice, and the importance of acknowledging these expectations in writing center theory.

Chapter 1 discusses the incongruous relationship between writing center theory and practice and …

Computer Assisted Instruction And The Basic Writer, Kathy Ford

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Children Learning To Write: A Progression Through Predictable Stages, Shirley D. Vestal

Masters Theses

A first-grade teacher documents her students' progression through predictable stages as they learn to write: distinct units of scribbling and/or ground line and profile in drawing, letters, words, sentences, story structure (character, setting, problem, solving the problem, and ending the story/telling how the characters felt), and conventions (capital letters, punctuation, and conventional spelling).

Criteria based on readability at each stage by a knowledgeable and sensitive reader are an important aspect of this study.

The class writes every day using a five-day story format:

Day One: Character Pink paper

Day Two: Setting Blue paper

Day Three: Problem Yellow paper

Day Four: …

An Analysis Of Writing Across The Curriculum, M. Katherine Haight

Masters Theses

Between 1900 and 1925 several changes took place which modernized American universities. One of the most significant involved a different curriculum. The new program was, in part, geared toward preparing students for specialized careers. This approach, however, made it possible for teachers outside of English to eliminate writing from their courses and, more generally, to develop distorted and limited views of the uses of writing. Today, Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) programs are being incorporated into many colleges and universities across the country in an attempt to correct misperceptions and to bring writing back into non-English courses.

WAC stresses the …

The Rhetoric Of Documentation: Two Approaches, Walt Wisnewski

Masters Theses

In an attempt to clarify how a beginner who has not yet mastered a software program is to learn to use word processing programs, this thesis examines two examples, WordPerfect and W.W. Norton's TEXTRA from the standpoint of their documentation. Software developers have adopted conflicting rhetorical strategies in their documentation: some have sought clear instruction via a rule-based rhetoric with a reliance on jargon-free standard English, and others have pursued an inferential rhetoric. These two strategies parallel two models in modern communications theory: a decoding model and an inferential model. WordPerfect seems to follow a decoding (rule-based) approach and TEXTRA …

Evolution/Creation Debate: A Rhetorical Analysis, James V. Miteff

Masters Theses

During the course of human history, many social issues have come and gone. One argument that caught the writer's eye is the argument about how man came to exist.

Purpose of Study

The purpose of this study is to analyze an evolution/creation debate that took place at Columbus College, Georgia, on May 6, 1981. Evolutionary theory was supported by Dr. Schwinner, a paleontologist from Columbus College. His partner was Dr. Frazier, a professor of geology at Columbus College. Creation theory was supported by Dr. Henry Morris, President of the Institute for Creation Research, San Diego, and Dr. Slusher, an astronomer …

Tutoring German Esl Students, Sabina Mussgnug

Masters Theses

Tutors of American university writing centers can be invaluable advisors for German ESL students who come to study in the United States. The tutors can directly assist German students in coping with their particular academic and cultural difficulties.

German students must adapt to the American academic conventions to become successful students at their U.S. universities. The tutors can point out to them the features of the American academic standard and show them effective methods for learning and studying in the American environment.

The American academic standard includes the students' almost perfect reading comprehension. Students must be prepared for heavy reading …

A Weaverian Analysis Of The Secular Humanism/Christianity Arguments, Colleen Deborah Ryan

Masters Theses

Since the Renaissance, the unclearly defined movement known as "Humanism" has been a part of society. However, it is only recently that the movement itself has caused significant controversy. What is responsible for this sudden outbreak of humanism hysteria? Is it even to be classified as a problem? To many, especially the Catholic church and many fundamentalist groups, it presents an overt threat.

A vital area of controversy centers around education and the fight between a religious-based curriculum and the more recent secular studies. The issues, it appears, are often obscured by the rhetoric. Indeed, Karl Wallace sees rhetoric as …

A Comparative Study Of Filipino And American Student Essays: Common Errors And Sentence Length, Paz Navarro Canilao

Masters Theses

Error analysis and modified contrastive analysis were used to examine what type of writing difficulties were common to a selected group of De La Salle University (Philippines) and Eastern Illinois University freshman students, and what the average length and range in variation of length of the essays were in each group. The essays analyzed in the study were descriptive, and written within a span of fifteen minutes.

The results of the analysis showed that De La Salle and Eastern Illinois students have the following major difficulties: syntax, spelling, agreement, the use of comma, and the use of the s marker. …

Creating An Environment Which Produces Improved Student Writing, George David Brown

Masters Theses

Plato said, “When the mind thinks, it talks to itself.” The mind must use words when developing ideas, when formulating concepts, when digesting and assimilating information. When the student writes, the mind should think. However, this does not always occur. The main problem in student writing is that the student does not think. For writing is thinking, the most exact and exacting kind of thinking.

This thesis suggests that in order to improve student writing, the conditions for improved thinking must exist. These conditions would include a change or environment from the traditional, authoritarian one to an open, self-appraising one. …

A Synoptic History Of Classical Rhetoric, Richard C. Blakeman

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.