Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Kaffka's (1880-1918) Life Writing And Objection To The War, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Kaffka's (1880-1918) Life Writing and Objection to the War" Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek discusses the Hungarian author's poems, diary entries, and fictional texts. While Kaffka's importance as one of the most influential writers in modern Hungarian literature is recognized, her oeuvre as proto-feminist writing has only been studied only since the 1990s. Further, Kaffka's anti-war writing has not been explored except in a few isolated instances. Tötösy de Zepetnek elaborates Kaffka's objection to the war as seen in her poetry published in 1914 and in her diaries and correspondence and argues that Kaffka's objection to the war …

The War Memoirs Of Rachel Maccabi, Ilana Rosen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The War Memoirs of Rachel Maccabi" Ilana Rosen analyzes the memoirs of Rachel Maccabi (1915-2003) about her sacrifices to fulfill the Zionist creed. Raised in a well-off Zionist family, Maccabi moved to Israel/Palestine in the mid-1930s, served in the Haganah pre-State military organization, and later became an army officer. Her first husband fell in the 1948 War of Independence and her son in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Between 1964 and 1992 Maccabi published five memoirs. Rosen focuses on Maccabi's last three memoirs, in which she responds to the deaths of her husband and son in Israel's …

Documentation And Fiction In Hameiri's Accounts Of The Great War, Tamar S. Drukker

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Documentation and Fiction in Hameiri's Accounts of the Great War" Tamar S. Drukker discusses the only surviving Hebrew-language docu-novel of the Great War, written by Avigdor Hameiri (1890-1970), a Hungarian Jewish officer. His 1930 memoir The Great Madness is a wartime personal journal about his life at the Russian front. Many of the episodes described in The Great Madness receive a more styled treatment in Hameiri's wartime short stories which appeared in three collections during the 1920s. These stories are sometimes surreal, symbolic, and carefully crafted. Drukker's study of Hameiri's wartime life writing and his literary rendition …

Women's Wartime Life Writing In Early Twentieth-Century China, Li Guo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Women's Wartime Life Writing in Early Twentieth-Century China" Li Guo discusses military diaries, prison memoirs, and autobiographical reportages. These documents offer rich insights into the political endeavors and military mobility of women. Guo analyzes Bingying Xie's 1928 war diary about the Chinese nationalists' northern expedition, Langi Hu's 1937 book about anti-Japanese activism, and Lang Bai's 1939 reportage about the Sino-Japanese War and argues that these texts allow women to reconfigure the discourse of nation through experimental life writing in order to develop the genre with tales of valor, hope, struggle, and heroism. Guo argues that contrary to …

"Being Singular Plural" In Chi's 巨流河 (The Great-Flowing River), Tsu-Chung Su

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "'Being Singular Plural' in Chi's巨流河 (The Great-Flowing River)" Tsu-Chung Su explores the way Pang-yuan Chi organizes her life stories in her 2009 autobiography. Born in Mainland China, Chi is a renowned Taiwanese editor, scholar, and writer who started her autobiographical novel at age 81. In her text Chi describes life stories in a war-torn era, features her migration from the north to the south (1930 to 1950), her experiences in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and the Chinese Civil War (1927-1950) culminating in her successful academic career in Taiwan (1950-). Chi's life stories are infiltrated with …

En-Gendering Memory Through Holocaust Alimentary Life Writing, Louise O. Vasvári

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "En-gendering Memory through Holocaust Alimentary Life Writing" Louise O. Vasvári aims to underline the cultural and gendered significance of the sharing of recipes as a survival tool by starving women in concentration camps during the Holocaust and the continuing role of food memories in the writing of Holocaust survivor women she considers a genealogy of intergenerational remembrance and transmission into the postmemory writing of their second generation daughters and occasionally their sons. Vasvári argues that the study of multigenerational Holocaust alimentary life writing becomes important today because as direct survivors of the Holocaust disappear there is a …

Introduction To Life Writing And The Trauma Of War, Louise O. Vasvári, I-Chun Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

African American Masculinity In The Wartime Diaries Of Two Vietnam Soldiers, Sharon D. Raynor

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "African American Masculinity in the Wartime Diaries of Two Vietnam Soldiers" Sharon D. Raynor discusses an unpublished diary (1967-68) written by her father, Louis Raynor with the diary (1965-66) of David Parks that was revised and published as a memoir. By contextualizing the traditions of African American autographical writing and wartime diaries, Raynor analyzes how African American masculinity permeates the autobiographical structure in the Raynor and Parks diaries as each soldier interweaves a collective experience with a unique personal experience in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam experience challenged their ideologies about racial politics, but affirmed their masculine …

Selected Bibliography For The Study Of Life Writing, Louise O. Vasvari, I-Chun Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Teaching Argument Writing And "Content" In Diverse Middle School History Classrooms, Chauncey Monte-Sano, Susan De La Paz, Mark Felton

Faculty Publications

Monte-Sano et al describe a program in which they worked with curriculum leaders in an academically and culturally diverse school district to develop materials and techniques that would strengthen middle school students' skills in making arguments and using evidence in historical essays. They outline the Shays' Rebellion investigation activity, which enable students to develop inquiry and literacy practices as they integrate critical reading, historical thinking, and argument writing.

Because Nothing Is Sufficient, We Must Use Everything, Danica Savonick

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Newbie Technical Writer: A Metacognitive Exploration Into Discovering And Writing For The Workplace Genre Of An Archive, Lydia Perry

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how I learned the workplace genre and environment of the UALR Center for Arkansas History and Culture in order to write documentation, user guides, and policies and procedures as a technical writing graduate assistant. I examine my experience by using genre theory, genre ecology, and activity theory.

Mediation In Literacy : Language, Technology, And Modality., Hem Sharma Paudel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The issue of difference in writing, both in terms of language diversity and modalities, has received increasing attention in the context of new developments in technologies, increasing global migration, and intensified intersections of cultural and linguistic practices accompanying these changes. Theories of language and modality are trying separately to develop ways to best respond to the challenges and opportunities brought about by these changes. Responding to scholars’ recent calls for bridging the gap between studies of multilingualism and those of multimodality, this dissertation offers an approach that, instead of separating the study of modality and languages, questions such a tendency …

Doing Time By Conceiving Space : The Rhetorical Cartographies Of Imprisoned Writers., Benjamin Bogart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a theoretical analysis of rhetorical constructions of identity as they are impacted by spatiality, with specific regard to the writing of incarcerated persons. It begins with an exploration of prison as “rhetorical space”—that is, the specific geography of communicative events, which includes both the material conditions of the environment as well as the cultural, abstracted conditions which offer persuasive potential. Proposing then a framework for analysis along these lines—a concept called “rhetorical cartography”—it then turns its attention, in the latter half, to analysis of actual texts authored by American prisoners. This dissertation is divided into four chapters, …

Defining The 99%: A Rhetorical Critique Of The Occupy Wall Street Movement, Molly Forgey

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Social actors assume a large task when attempting to legitimize their movement and motivate participation. For Occupy Wall Street (OWS) dissidents this task was even greater given that their grievances lie both with government and with large corporations, two of the most influential entities in the United States. Such obstacles sparked an interest in studying the language strategies OWS rhetors employed when attempting to define the movement. This thesis examines these strategies in order to discover how the movement was framed, and how framing processes relate to the collective’s identity. The discourse analyzed includes the initial call to action published …

Mathematics And Humor: John Allen Paulos And The Numeracy Crusade, Paul H. Grawe

Numeracy

John Allen Paulos at minimum gave the Numeracy movement a name through his book Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences. What may not be so obvious was Paulos’ strong interest in the relationship between mathematics and mathematicians on the one hand and humor and stand-up-comedian joke structures on the other. Innumeracy itself could be seen as a typically mathematical Gotcha joke on American culture generally. In this perspective, a Minnesotan acculturated to Minnesota-Nice Humor of Self-Immolation Proclivities (SImP) looks at the more raw-boned, take-no-prisoners humor style Paulos outlined in Mathematics and Humor and implemented in Innumeracy.

Despite the …

Writing The World: Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions Of 21st Century Writing Instruction, Kristine E. Pytash, Elizabeth Testa, Jennifer Nigh

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to explore preservice teachers’ perceptions of integrating technology into writing instruction before and after a methods course and the experiences in a methods course that, according to the preservice teachers, influenced these perceptions. Participants were enrolled in two sections of a Teaching Language and Composition course. Data collected included an adapted Likert-scale pre and posttest survey, and focus group interviews. Preservice teachers self-reported salient course experiences, and also discussed the affordances and tensions they felt in thinking about how to use technology to teach writing. This study has implications for teacher education and …

"I Second That Emotion": Minding How Plagiarism Feels, Ann E. Biswas

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

It stands to reason that when writing teachers believe their students have plagiarized, they will experience strong emotions that impact their relationships with students, their pedagogy, and their sense of professional identity. Far from being a threat to reason, understanding and acknowledging writing teachers’ emotional responses to plagiarism can lead to a deeper wisdom of its true impact. By examining the literature on emotion from psychology, sociology, education, and writing studies as well as findings from a pilot study of writing teachers’ emotional responses to plagiarism, this article argues that the work involved in managing the emotions of plagiarism reflects …

We Learned What?: Pre-Service Teachers As Developmental Writers In The Writing Methods Class, Christina Saidy

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article employs a pedagogical reflection of a pre-service teacher and her out-of-context grammar lesson. The author uses this pedagogical reflection to argue for enhancing the writing methods class by inviting pre-service teachers to see themselves as developing writers and see the teaching and learning of writing as an ecological practice.

Teaching Reflective Writing: Thoughts On Developing A Reflective Writing Framework To Support Teacher Candidates, Donna L. Pasternak, Karen K. Rigoni

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

To achieve licensure in the United States, many teacher candidates must demonstrate competency as reflective practitioners. This requires many of them to describe their experiences through reflective writing, a mode of writing that is far from the academic writing that is taught throughout their baccalaureate education. Much reflective writing is being assigned to teacher candidates without it being taught. In an effort to intervene in that pattern, the authors examined multiple sources and developed a framework to teach to their teacher candidates to support them to communicate their practices as effective, reflective practitioners. This paper documents the evolution of creating …

Entering The Conversations, Practices And Opportunities Of Multimodality Texts, Theresa Dark, W. Douglas Baker

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

No abstract provided.

Structure Speaks: User-Centered Design And Professional Development, Nikki Holland, Christian Z. Goering

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This reflective essay situates a yearlong professional development endeavor led by a site of the National Writing Project within the language of technical communication. Developing rural writing teachers through four distinct design features—needs assessment, frequent contact, website redesign, collaborative planning through Google Docs—this work sought to put participants and providers on equal levels, sharing control of programming when possible. Professional development providers and teacher educators ultimately must model practices they desire to impacting students in the classroom.

Collaborative Power: Graduate Students Creating And Implementing Faculty Development Workshops On Multilingual Writing Pedagogy, Dorothy Worden, Brooke R. Schreiber, Lindsey Kurtz, Michelle Kaczmarek, Eunjeong Lee

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

The increasing numbers multilingual students in US universities, whether international students or multilingual citizens and permanent residents, have made it clear that students’ language needs can no longer be relegated to the ‘experts’ in specialized courses or tutoring centers. All faculty will teach multilingual students, yet few faculty have received specialized training to prepare them to work effectively with the multilingual writers in their classrooms. While there is a need for professional development efforts designed to help faculty more effectively teach multilingual writing, institutional divisions between first language (L1) and second language (L2) writing instruction pose challenges for the organization …

Learning To Teach Writing In The Age Of Standardization And Accountability; Toward An Equity Writing Pedagogy, Shannon M. Pella

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Qualitative data from over three years of a lesson study project were analyzed through a situated learning theory lens in order to describe the connections between teacher learning and the variety of situations, or contexts that shaped the learning. The lesson study professional development model included planning, observation, and student data analysis protocols. The lesson study was situated in various middle school classroom settings, which provided multiple learning contexts. Additionally, teacher learning was shaped by the larger socio-political context often comprised of accountability rhetoric, standardization, and testing pressure. This study described how two teachers negotiated balance, or theoretical equilibrium, across …

[Review Of] The Promise Of Reason: Studies In The New Rhetoric. Edited By John T. Gage. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2011; Pp. 272. $60.00 Cloth., Janice W. Fernheimer

Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of "Hearing The Hurt: Rhetoric, Aesthetics, And Politics Of The New Negro Movement", Aric Putnam

Strategic Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Review of Eric King Watts, Hearing the Hurt: Rhetoric, Aesthetics, and Politics of the New Negro Movement (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2012) ix + 245 pp. (cloth).

Embodied Literate Practices Of Freshman Women Students: A Phenomenology Of Students In First-Year Composition, Carmen Lynn Christopher

English Theses & Dissertations

This project examines the experiences of freshman women students as they compose their first papers for first-year college composition. This study uses an interpretative phenomenological method to explore the lived experiences freshmen women undergo before they arrive at college and how those experiences inform these women’s practices in first-year composition. This dissertation has three main goals: to recover and clarify Heidegger’s interpretative phenomenology, to use that clarified method to explore freshman women’s experiences in first-year composition, and to suggest ways in which phenomenology might be used in the daily practices of writing instructors and administrators in higher education.

To address …

Multimodal Composing Across Disciplines: Examining Community College Professors’ Perceptions Of Twenty-First Century Literacy Practices, Elizabeth Bensen

English Theses & Dissertations

Providing a close examination of how professors approach twenty-first century literacy practices and production of multimodal texts, this project focuses on community college professors’ perceptions and expectations of students’ composing abilities pertaining to academic discourse across disciplines. Participants included 24 professors from a variety of disciplines at a large community college. The project examined survey responses, assignment guidelines, course syllabi, course outcomes, and video interviews of five of the 24 participants. Video interviews provided greater insight into participants’ perceptions and expectations. Additionally, research questions targeted course and assignment design, course outcomes, and assessment practices. Data findings suggest that despite access …

Community, Identity, And Transition: Student Veterans And Academic Writing At The Two-Year College, Mark Edward Blaauw-Hara

English Theses & Dissertations

Higher education is experiencing an almost unprecedented influx of student veterans. However, research is sparse on their transition to college, and, in particular, their experiences with college writing. Additionally, current scholarship focuses mainly on veterans at four-year schools. This dissertation describes six student veterans’ transitions to academic writing at the community college. Based on a case-study approach, the study seeks to identify key themes in student veterans’ experiences with learning and writing in the military and compare them to their experiences learning and writing in college. In addition to locating areas of disconnect, the study highlights typical strengths student veterans …

Creating Memories: Writing And Designing More Memorable Documents, James Eric Sentell

English Theses & Dissertations

If communication’s purpose is to enable action or belief (Johnson-Sheehan, 2012), then communication will be more effective—and thus more ethical—if the audience can easily remember it. However, the study of memory has long been neglected in English Studies. Therefore, communicators lack strategies for enhancing documents’ memorableness and an ethical framework for assessing (un)memorable documents and composing processes.

To develop an “ethic of memory” and identify strategies that enhance a document’s memorableness, I asked twenty subjects—ten teachers and ten college freshman—to walk down a high school hallway in which various posters and flyers had been posted by the administration, teachers, or …