Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Democratic Communication: Lessons From The Flint Water Crisis, Mindy Myers

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation develops an approach to institutional critique that re-works Porter, Sullivan, Blythe, Grabill, and Miles’ foundational configuration. This project argues that John Dewey’s concept of democratic communication articulated in his debate with Walter Lippmann provides a useful heuristic for developing democratic communicative practices that allow citizens and experts to communicate with one another about technical issues such as water quality and safety. Through an analysis of Michigan’s emergency manager law, the relationship between citizens and experts that exposed the crisis, and the Flint Water Advisory Task Force’s Final Report, this dissertation establishes that citizens must participate in technical decision-making …

Articulating Digital Archival Practice Within Writing Program Administration: A Theoretical Framework, Amanda Girard

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Throughout Writing Program Administration scholarship there has been a clear call for archivization and archival work. This dissertation project takes an interdisciplinary approach to digital archival practices for Writing Program Administrators to consider and employ in their home institutions. While I recognize that WPAs are not typically identified as “archivists,” I situate the digital archive within the digital humanities as an interdisciplinary, collaborative project and offer suggestions that lead to recommendations for making an institutional archive. I review archival practice in order to justify the digital archive as an appropriate vehicle for WPAs’ work. Further, I argue that the digital …

Ecologies Of Sponsorship: What Fitbit Users Can Teach Us About Digital Literacy, Kimberly Tweedale

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

As digital technologies have expanded, so have the literacy sponsors that support and shape how those technologies are used. This project focuses on one of these growing sites of sponsorship surrounding a specific health-tracking technology: wearable Fitbit devices. While much of the work on literacy sponsorship has focused on institutional sponsors as agents, I argue that the picture becomes more complicated and interesting when we place our focus on how users—often considered the sponsored—can become agents in a system that may have marginalized, excluded, or used them.

Using a combination of qualitative methods, this dissertation highlights how various literacy sponsors …

Spectrum 2018, Saint Mary's College Of California

The Undergraduate Spectrum

No abstract provided.

Out Of Many: Multiplicity And Divisions In America Today, Camille Goodison, Racquel Goodison

Publications and Research

An anthology of new U.S. fiction and nonfiction, as well as transnational writing. A wide variety of fiction writers and essayists describe what it means to be American in a world of changing borders. A bright showcase of progressive literary style, personality and content. Contributors include Tope Folarin, Alia Yunis, Maurice Emerson Decaul, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Patricia Park, Sonny Singh, Aisha Sabatani Sloan, Zeeva Bukai, Courtney Zoffness, and others.

A Literacy Narrative Of A Female Saudi English Teacher And A Qualitative Case Study: 12 Multilingual Writers Identify Challenges And Benefits Of Daily Writing In A College Composition Class, Ghassoon Rezzig

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

The author begins this thesis with her literacy narrative and practices what Kirsch and Royster call “strategic contemplation” about the material conditions of her mother’s life leaving school at 12 to marry and to raise 12 children. Her mother’s illiteracy is not the focus, however. Rather it is her mother’s strengths and her commitment to educating her children—all of whom earned college degrees before her mother died. The case study that follows emphasizes that developing English writing skills among multilingual speakers is considered a hard task. In order to improve academic writing, writers must make a tremendous effort and practice …

The Undergraduate 2018, Saint Mary's College Of California

The Undergraduate Spectrum

No abstract provided.

Touching The Unreal: The Definition, Narrative Strategies, And Aesthetics Of 3d Cartoon Narratives., Nathan Snow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

"Touching the Unreal" follows the structure set out by Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics to argue that understanding cartoons is serious business and requires that we define the art form, outline its basic tenets, and theorize how the mind understands it. The dissertation argues for a new definition of 3D computer generated cartoons, beginning with the most basic definition applicable to all forms of animation and taking into account new technological developments before arriving at the 3D cartoon narratives of today. The dissertation outlines the basic facets of 3D cartoon narratives in terms of narrative and aesthetics, arguing that, in …

Celebrities, Fans, And Queering Gender Norms: A Critical Examination Of Lady Gaga's, Nicki Minaj's, And Fans' Use Of Instagram, Brandy Dieterle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation used queer rhetoric as a lens for studying queering gender norms on Instagram by using Lady Gaga's, Nicki Minaj's, and fan posts as case studies. The research considers how celebrities may use social media, like Instagram, for queering gender norms, and what this might look like. This research also aimed to better understand if and how fans may take up celebrities' efforts at queering gender norms and, in turn, queer gender norms in their own Instagram posts where they tag Gaga or Minaj. To conduct this research, I took a multimodal methodological approach and collected and coded 1,000 …

Book Review: Information Literacy And Writing Studies In Conversation: Reenvisioning Library-Writing Program Connections, Jacqulyn Ann Williams

Communications in Information Literacy

No abstract provided.

Translinguality And Disciplinary Reinvention, Bruce Horner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Dominant narratives of disciplinarity that WAC/WID confronts conflate disciplines with departments and material institutional structures, such as departments and professional organizations—what is here called “departmentality.” The relative autonomy of disciplinarity from departmentality means that challenges to foundational concepts of disciplines are in fact normal to disciplinary work and do not threaten the material institutional structures associated with those disciplines, as illustrated by the history of challenges to foundational disciplinary concepts of basic writing and second language acquisition carried out in disciplinary writing. The relative autonomy of disciplinarity enables us to accept the legitimacy of the challenges translingual theory poses to …

Communicating The Health Impacts Of Climate Change: From Conviction To Persuasion, Emma Lozon

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Drawing on rhetorical theory as well as research in health and environmental communication, this thesis analyzes the effectiveness of messages that link climate change with health implications at moving audiences to persuasion. The two texts analyzed are a report produced by a group of physicians advocating for action on climate change and an episode from the Years of Living Dangerously Series. The findings indicate that communicators have the opportunity to frame climate-change-health messages in rhetorically sensitive ways that are more likely to empower audiences. Progressing from problems to solutions and to benefits of taking action can frame distressing health messages …

Accessing Library Space: Spatial Rhetorics From The U.S. To France And Back Again, Emily Simmons

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The exterior environments of libraries are sites rich for study, as they often hold histories of inequality that affect present-day access and use in complex, layered ways. The particularities of the environment through which community members pass before entering a library have an impact on the experience within the library. If libraries wish to remain public spaces dedicated to the strengthening of democracy, they should extend their focus beyond their walls to the surrounding neighborhood. This study puts into conversation the fields of spatial rhetorics, accessibility, and critical geography. Four topoi were developed to assess the accessibility of exterior library …