Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

"I'M Not Talking To Myself, I'M Having A Parent-Teacher Conference!": A Study Of Literacy Practices And Mediation Within Homeschooling Families, Joshua Corlew

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Homeschooling is a dynamic learning and living community producing a growing percentage of our nation*s college-ready students. Serious academic studies of homeschooling remain scarce, and those that exist tend to come out of sociology and anthropology. Through an analysis of the literacy practices that constitute the work of homeschooling, this study offers findings and conclusions relevant to current discourses in the fields of literacy studies and rhetoric and composition. These include discussions on the ways technology is reshaping and individualizing traditional models of literacy learning and composing, as well as the growing research on the specific actions taken by literacy …

Scribblescholar Was Here: Confessional Notes Of A Vandal Academic, Clay Shields

Theses and Dissertations--English

As a (former) vandal-punk in the academy, I often fear succumbing to Ivory Tower Stockholm syndrome. The identities I perform, vandal-punk and scholar, ideologically clash to the point that they often feel irreconcilable. By codemeshing the high-low discourses associated with these adopted cultures, I attempt to disrupt any hierarchal privileging of either, instead searching for a way to live with and harness both.

[Introduction To] Mapping The Cold War: Cartography And The Framing Of America's International Power, Timothy Barney

Bookshelf

In this fascinating history of Cold War cartography, Timothy Barney considers maps as central to the articulation of ideological tensions between American national interests and international aspirations. Barney argues that the borders, scales, projections, and other conventions of maps prescribed and constrained the means by which foreign policy elites, popular audiences, and social activists navigated conflicts between North and South, East and West. Maps also influenced how identities were formed in a world both shrunk by advancing technologies and marked by expanding and shifting geopolitical alliances and fissures. Pointing to the necessity of how politics and values were “spatialized” in …

[Introduction To] A Revolution In Tropes: Alloiostrophic Rhetoric, Jane S. Sutton, Mari Lee Mifsud

Bookshelf

A Revolution in Tropes is a groundbreaking study of rhetoric and tropes. Theorizing new ways of seeing rhetoric and its relationship with democratic deliberation, Jane Sutton and Mari Lee Mifsud explore and display alloiōsis as a trope of difference, exception, and radical otherness. Their argument centers on Aristotle’s theory of rhetoric through particular tropes of similarity that sustained a vision of civic discourse but at the same time underutilized tropes of difference. When this vision is revolutionized, democratic deliberation can perform and advance its ends of equality, justice, and freedom. Marie-Odile, N. Hobeika, and Michele Kennerly join Sutton and Mifsud …

[Introduction To] Rhetoric And The Gift: Ancient Rhetorical Theory And Contemporary Communication, Mari Lee Mifsud

Bookshelf

Rhetoric and the Gift, taking as its starting point the Homeric idea of the gift and Aristotle’s related rhetorical theory, explores rhetoric not only at the level of the artful response but at the level of the call and response. Mari Lee Mifsud takes up a number of questions crucial to thinking about contemporary communication: What does it mean that communication is a system of exchange with others? How are we to deal with questions of ethics in an economic system of power and authority? Can exchange ever be truly generous, and can communication, then, ever be free? Is …

Se Habla Español: The Health Disparity Among The Latino Population, Karen Paz

The Corinthian

Latinos are considered the fastest growing and the largest ethnic minority group in the United States. It is estimated that by 2050, 24% of the U.S. population will be Latino. According to Census data, approximately 18% of the U.S. population age five or older speaks a language other than English at home, and current projections continue to show increases in U.S. immigrant and second-language groups nationwide. About half of that population self-reported that they speak English less than “very well.” Members of this population are referred to as individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP). As the largest ethnic minority, 28 …

Play And Procedural Rhetoric In Composition Coursework: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Trivial Pursuit Instructions, Peter Rampa

All Master's Theses

The rhetorical strategies used in the design of Trivial Pursuit instruction sheets were studied. The textual, visual, and procedural elements of Trivial Pursuit instruction sheets published between 1984 and 2009 revealed a series of revisions that accounted for sociocultural and historical contexts. Results indicated the potential for designing instruction sheets that are both persuasive and practical. Implications for the design of academic assignment prompts and coursework are discussed.

The Fanned Flames Of Discontent: A Solidarity-Inspired History Of The Identity/Ideology, Cultural History, And Rhetorical Strategies Of The Wobblies During The 1916 Minnesota Iron Ore Strike, Gary Kaunonen

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Rooted in critical scholarship this dissertation is an interdisciplinary study, which contends that having a history is a basic human right. Advocating a newly conceived and termed, Solidarity-inspired History framework/practice perspective, the dissertation argues for and then delivers a restorative voice to working-class historical actors during the 1916 Minnesota Iron Ore Strike. Utilizing an interdisciplinary methodological framework the dissertation combines research methods from the Humanities and the Social Sciences to form a working-class history that is a corrective to standardized studies of labor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Oftentimes class interests and power relationships determine the dominant …

Foundational Practices Of Online Writing Instruction, Beth L. Hewitt (Editor), Kevin Eric Depew (Editor)

English Faculty Bookshelf

This is an Open Textbook available through the Open Textbook Library: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/foundational-practices-of-online-writing-instruction. Reviews are available there.

Foundational Practices in Online Writing Instruction (OWI) addresses the questions and decisions that administrators and instructors most need to consider when developing online writing programs and courses. Written by experts in the field (members of the Conference on College Composition and Communication Committee for Effective Practices in OWI and other experts and stakeholders).... The editors believe that the field of writing studies is on a trajectory in which most courses will be mediated online to various degrees; therefore the principles detailed in this …

Peer Review In A Graduate Writing Class: Case Studies Of First-And Second- Language Students, Petcharat Saenpoch

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This research explored peer review strategies of L1 (native speakers of English) and L2 (non-native speakers of English) graduate student writers from different disciplines. The focus was on how they revised their writing and which strategies they used. The study was conducted in a Graduate Writing Workshop class at a public university on the U.S. - Mexican border in the United States of America. Five participants were selected as case studies. The researcher collected data by recording face-to-face peer review sessions, observing the class, interviewing the instructor and students, collecting the students' reflections, and gathering the students' writing drafts. The …

The Normalization Process Of Multimodal Composition: The "Unseeing" People Of Color, Yumani Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study attempts to identify normalization cues within multimodal scholarship to highlight moments of "un-seeing" multimodal composing practices and theoretical contributions from non-Western traditions. Advocates of this approach to teaching composition understand it as an effective way for incorporating other voices into the curricular structures of composition courses. However, the instructional resources do not include or cite research that does not lend itself easily to dominant views of composing within academia. I assert that academia must go further with how value is assessed. There is research that acknowledges the multiliteracies practices found within subcultures of America, and plenty of work …

Seeing A Whole Life: Genre And Identity In Occupational Therapy, Stefanie Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A significant body of writing and rhetoric research focuses on the literate practices that reflect or construct the professional self, particularly in disciplines that rely heavily on the use of forms to categorize or identify customers, clients, or patients. Many of these studies examine the influence of discipline-specific genres on the creation of a professional self for healthcare practitioners. Occupational therapy, a nearly 100-year-old yet little understood profession, is significantly different from many other healthcare disciplines, in part, because the genres used by occupational therapists reflect the profession's careful attention to the whole life of a patient. These genres are …

Detroit's Sport Spaces And The Rhetoric Of Consumption, Anthony C. Cavaiani

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation argues how Detroit’s spaces of sport consumption rhetorically configure the city’s identity. Specifically, this project interrogates the city’s sports spaces and argues how they anchor identity in the following ways: through the production of accessible discourses, through the emphasis on certain discourses and the de-emphasis of other discourses, through the regulation, control and biopower of the city’s sports spaces and their rhetorical effect on Detroit’s identity, and through the creation of distinct public memories produced from these discourses.

Rhetoric Of Young Non-Regular Workers In Post-Bubble Japan: A Genealogical Analysis, Noriaki Tajima

Wayne State University Dissertations

This work explores the development and struggle of a rhetorical subject of Japanese young non-regular workers against the recent slow economic trend. In Japan, the bubble-burst in 1991 invited a long economic recession, and companies started to adopt non-regular—low-wage, short-term and insecure—contracts from quintessential Fordist full-time seishain regular contract; yet, a large body of older seishain workers has retained this stable and affordable status. As a result, the vast majority of working forces enrolled in the job market since then has suffered from a low living standard, many on the verge of survival, while domestic mass media discourses have legitimated …

Variabilidad Lingüística En Las Lenguas De Especialidad, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

El presente trabajo revisa desde un punto de vista teórico algunos de los aspectos fundamentales en los que se ha manifestado la variabilidad dentro de las lenguas de especialidad: desde la misma nomenclatura de este enfoque, pasando por la metodología empleada a lo largo de su evolución, las características de la lengua de especialidad o la variabilidad entre los géneros de las distintas disciplinas dentro del ámbito profesional y académico. La armonía con la que se viene integrando esta variabilidad en las distintas etapas de este enfoque desde hace más de un siglo, hace presagiar un avance al mismo tiempo …

From Sisters To Ceo's: Defining Organizational Rhetoric In A Case Study Of Social Sorority Bylaws, Paige Rood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Organizational Rhetoric is typically used in the fields of Communication and Mass Communication to examine the communicative strategies that animate businesses and corporate organizations. This study aims to give a more rhetorically focused definition of organizational rhetoric by emphasizing how communicative acts structure action and shape the construction of identity in settings beyond formal workplaces. Based on an analysis of the social sorority bylaws of Kappa Alpha Theta and the rhetorical situations those bylaws address, this study suggests that social sororities employ organizational rhetoric as an effective means of persuading their members to be active participants within the organization. Ultimately, …

The Writing On The Wall: Examining The Literacy Practices Of Home Renovation Work, Jennifer Gaskill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Home renovation workers have historically belonged to the blue-collar workforce. Their jobs are often stereotyped as less cognitively complex than those belonging to their white-collar counterparts. While prior research has revealed the cognitive complexity of such work, there is still a gap in research investigating the literacy practices of “blue-collar” workplaces. Through the lenses of New Literacy Studies and activity theory, this case study examines the texts used in a room remodel, the literacy practices surrounding the texts, and the sociocultural implications of these practices. Through document-based and retrospective interviews, the primary participant is given a voice in identifying and …

An Analysis Of Undergraduate Creative Writing Students'writing Processes: Gauging The Workshop Models' Effectiveness Through The Lens Of Genre Theories, John Chrisman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Current approaches to teaching creative writers the ways to success in creative writing courses consist largely of workshop style classes. While workshops often vary from class to class in style, generally a workshop will consist of a group of writers, led by a mentor/instructor, who exchange drafts and provide reader and writer focused feedback to the author. Yet because the workshop approach has not been the subject of close empirical study, it is unclear whether it is an effective pedagogy. This thesis serves two purposes. First, it presents an argument for new research into creative writing pedagogy and creative writers' …

Understanding The Role Of Resources In Writing Center Tutoring Sessions, Megan Lambert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the use of writing resources in tutoring sessions, which is considered one of the valued tutoring practices at the University Writing Center (UWC) at the University of Central Florida (UCF). This research explains the methodology and presents the findings of a study that serves as a partial answer to the call for more evidence-based research in the field of writing center studies. There is scholarship that explains the importance of using resources to facilitate learning, but there is a lack of empirical research that explores the patterns and variations in the resources that writing tutors use, the …

The Undergraduate 2015, Saint Mary's College Of California

The Undergraduate Spectrum

No abstract provided.

The Fall Of The Tsars, Jamie Hendrickson

A with Honors Projects

This paper summarizes the events that led to the fall of the Romanov family and the end of the tsarist autocracy in the early 20th century. Also summarized is the search for and final discovery of the bodies of the entire Romanov family, putting to rest the theory that Anastasia Romanov had lived.

Mcnair Research Journal - Summer 2015, Kelly Abuali, Starr Bailey, Krystal Courtney D. Belmonte, Brittaney Benson-Townsend, Jennifer Bolick, Mihaela A. Ciulei, Ashley Crisp, Daniel N. Erosa, Richard V. Foster, Gisele Braga Goertz, Michael A. Langhardt, Kara Osborne, Julienne Jochel Paraiso, Shawn M. Rosen, Bella V. Smith, Jeevake Attapattu, Ernesto H. Bedoy, Michael G. Curtis, Wanda Inthavong, Marielle Leo, Primrose Martin, Tamieka Meadows, Rosa Perez, Jessica Recarey, Shea Silver, Linda Tompkins

McNair Journal

Journal articles based on research conducted by undergraduate students in the McNair Scholars Program

Table of Contents

Biography of Dr. Ronald E. McNair

Statements:

Dr. Neal J. Smatresk, UNLV President

Dr. Juanita P. Fain, Vice President of Student Affairs

Dr. William W. Sullivan, Associate Vice President for Retention and Outreach

Mr. Keith Rogers, Deputy Executive Director of the Center for Academic Enrichment and Outreach

McNair Scholars Institute Staff

Spectrum 2015, Saint Mary's College Of California

The Undergraduate Spectrum

No abstract provided.

Translinguality, Transmodality, And Difference : Exploring Dispositions And Change In Language And Learning., Bruce Horner, Cynthia Selfe, Tim Lockridge

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This collaborative piece explores the potential synergy arising from the confluence of two growing areas of research, teaching, and practice in composition (broadly defined): multi- (or trans-)modality, and trans- (or multi-) linguality.

Building A Discourse: Bridging The Gap Between New Media's Convergence And Rhetoric And Composition's Multimodality, Katherine G. Aho

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

My dissertation emphasizes the use of narrative structuralism and narrative theories about storytelling in order to build a discourse between the fields of New Media and Rhetoric and Composition. Propp's morphological analysis and the breaking down of stories into component pieces aides in the discussion of storytelling as it appears in and is mediated by digital and computer technologies. New Media and Rhetoric and Composition are aided by shared concerns for textual production and consumption.

In using the notion of "kairotic reading" (KR), I show the interconnectedness and interdisciplinarity required in the development of pedagogy utilized to teach students to …

Agro/Hort403/803: Scientific Writing And Communication—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Brian M. Waters

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Scientific writing is a skill that is useful for science students, since many of them will write about their research in theses, dissertations or journal articles. However, many students have not been trained in scientific writing, and the task seems insurmountable to some, who can develop a “fear of writing” that prevents them from finishing their program or manuscript. To effectively teach scientific writing, the instructor should devote the most effort to the most effective learning activities. Thus, this inquiry portfolio addresses two Research Questions: 1) “What is the most effective activity in my course for student learning?”, and 2) …

Relational Agency, Networked Technology, And The Social Media Aftermath Of The Boston Marathon Bombing, Megan M. Mcintyre

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Agency is a foundational and ongoing concern for the field of Rhetoric and Composition. Long thought to be a product and possession of human action, rhetorical agency represents the most obvious connection between the educational and theoretical work of the field and the civic project of liberal arts and humanities education. Existing theories of anthropocentric rhetorical agency are insufficient, however, to account for the complex technological work of digitally enmeshed networks of humans and nonhumans. To better account for these complex networks, this project argues for the introduction of new materialist theories of distributed agency into conversations about agency within …

Evidence Of Things Not Seen: A Semi-Automated Descriptive Phrase And Frame Analysis Of Texts About The Herbicide Agent Orange, Sarah Beth Hopton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From 1961 to 1971 the United States and the Republic of South Vietnam used chemicals to defoliate the coastal and upload forest areas of Viet Nam. The most notorious of these chemicals was named Agent Orange, a weaponized herbicide made up of two chemicals that, when combined, produced a toxic byproduct called TCDD-dioxin. Studied suggest that TCDD-dioxin causes significant human health problems in exposed American and Vietnamese veterans, and possibly their children (Agency, U.S. Environmental Protection, 2011). In the years since the end of the Vietnam War, volumes of discourse about Agent Orange has been generated, much of which is …

The Editorial Double Vision Of Maxwell Perkins: How The Editor Of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, And Wolfe Plied His Craft, Rachel F. Van Hart

Theses and Dissertations

Scholars and literary enthusiasts have struggled for decades to account for editor Maxwell Perkins’s unparalleled success in facilitating the careers of many of the early twentieth century’s most enduring and profitable writers, among them F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. This study seeks to penetrate that mystery by dissecting Perkins’s editorial practice and examining how he navigated the competing tensions between commercial success and aesthetic integrity in various circumstances. At play in the construction of his literary legacy are prevailing perceptions of authorship, complex interpersonal relationships, and the inherent battle between art and commerce. Focusing on his day-to-day …

Rhetoric, Participation, And Democracy: The Positioning Of Public Hearings Under The National Environmental Policy Act, Kevin C. Stone

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

There are two predominant models for thinking about proper communicative conduct on the part of citizens participating in federal environmental decision making. The consultative model is typically the basis for traditional forms of public participation. The consensus model has been developed as an alternative to the perceived failings of traditional forms of public participation, and underpin increasingly common collaborative approaches to public participation). In this paper, I will take a humanities based approach to advocating for the consideration of a third approach, that of ‘reasonable hostility.’ I argue that neither of the currently dominant models of participatory conduct successfully accounts …