Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Where Are The Women?: An Ecofeminist Reading Of William Golding’S Lord Of The Flies, Hawk Chang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The absence of female characters and their voices in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954) has been previously examined. On the surface, this fiction focuses on the struggle and survival of a group of boys who are left alone on a Pacific island against the background of nuclear warfare. The only presence of women in the story seems to be the aunt via a boy’s narration. However, when approaching the fiction through the lens of ecofeminism, we can find a range of feminized entities which are metaphorically embodied in the natural surroundings of the secluded island. The boys’ interactions …

‘Convicted Of Patricide?’: Robert Frost’S Nationalism In The Eyes Of Contemporary Arab-American Women Writers, Eman K. Mukattash

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Given the culturally expansive nature of the American literary tradition of today, the question of the relevance of Robert Frost’s poetry to the poetry of contemporary Arab-American women writers is an issue worth digging into. Writing almost one hundred years ago does not make Frost’s poetry out of date. Frost’s poetry is as relevant to today’s America as it has been to the America of his days. And this can be ascribed to the multiplicity of perspectives he presents in his poetry as he examines crucial questions lying at the core of America’s “grand narrative of national development.” (Westover 2004: …

Write Now: Race, Resistance And Language Justice, Jim Kinnie

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

Mla Works Cited Entries For Various Sources, Angela Gulick

MLA (Modern Language Association) Documentation

This handout provides guidelines for constructing works cited entries for papers requiring Modern Language Association (MLA) style.

Nonprofit Social Media Internships: A Handbook, Allison M. Laroy

The Cardinal Edge

This brief research report provides details on a study that examines how nonprofits can best prepare their interns and how interns can best prepare themselves for a role in engaging audiences through social media. Through a literature review on nonprofit social media and internships, a series of qualitative interviews with interns and supervisors, and the researcher’s lived experiences as a social media intern, a handbook was developed for nonprofit social media internships. This guide is relevant to the specific experiences of nonprofit social media internships, includes advice on training, mentorship, and best practices, and finally, it incorporates further resources on …

Matthew Brown Fellowship Brochure, Matthew Brown

Brown, Matthew, 1776-1853

In the early 2000s, the First Presbyterian Church of Washington, Pennsylvania established the Matthew Brown Fellowship. In the words of this informational brochure, the Fellowship is a "college-aged ministry program" that seeks to "increase this church's involvement with its oldest friend, the College, and to extend its ministry...to meet the growing needs throughout the greater Washington Community."

This Ain't Yo' Mama's Composition Class: Addressing Anti-Blackness By Implementing Anti-Racist Pedagogy, Sharanna B. Brown

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

Kyoko Kishimoto writes that those who practice anti-racist pedagogical practices are not only required to teach about race, but instead "teach about race and racism in a way that fosters critical analytical skills, which reveal the power relations behind racism and how race has been institutionalized in U.S. society to create and justify inequalities" (541). This is the work. And I have chosen to do it.

Steeped in anti-racist pedagogy “This Ain’t Yo’ Mama’s Composition Course” aims to explore the ways that writing classrooms can affirm students’ autonomy while simultaneously equipping them with skills that equate to “cultural capital.” Anti-racist …

The Role Of The Reader Is To Fallow: Responding To The Negative Reception Of Paul Verhoeven’S Film Adaptation Of Starship Troopers, Julian Meyerstrom

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Robert A. Keinlein’s science fiction novel Starship Troopers (1959), and its film adaption of the same title directed by Paul Verhoeven (1997), received mixed critical reactions. Both pieces came across as supporting fascistic ideals to most critics upon release, despite the two creators opposing political and moral beliefs. Using Louise Rosenblatt's reader response theory as a framework for analyzing both the novel and film adaptation, this paper postulates the film adaptation fails to deliver an accurate critique of the novel by placing the burden of moral knowledge on the audience. Keinlein’s novel guides the reader into his moral sensibilities, whereas …

Identity Formation And Digital Spaces: A Nexus Of Social, Sexual, And Character-Based Development And Their Educational Potential, James Anthony Ottoson

Student Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to measure the perceptions, thoughts, and interactions of avatars between players of a text-based RPG called Lusternia while also examining the rhetorical choices behind the creation of a character and how the user chooses to interact through this character. Prior research indicates that online spaces are used by those with social anxieties to find potential comfort in a non-physical location, surrounded by like-minded people. This study confirmed that players who were more socially anxious or were neurodivergent used these spaces for such purposes. The findings from the distributed surveys and conducted interviews were then …

Does Family Communication Orientation Relate To How We Use Time? A Preliminary Study On Family Communication Patterns And People’S Perspective On Time, C. Leigh Nelson, Eric M. Fife

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

A web survey study of 853 respondents examined whether family communication patterns predicted people’s orientation to time. Conversation orientation was negatively and significantly related with a past negative perspective on time and was positively and significantly related to past positive, present hedonistic, and future orientation perspectives on time. Conformity orientation was positively and significantly related to past negative, present hedonistic, and present fatalistic perspectives on time but was negatively and significantly related to a past positive perspective on time. Multiple linear regression results indicated that both conversation orientation and conformity orientation were significant predictors of various time orientations.

Inviting Friendship: A New Approach To Nonprofit Communication, Stacia Glenn Wetherington

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Beginning with Greeks’ concept of virtuous friendship philanthropy has been part of society. Metaphors of civitas, caritas and social responsibility dominated man’s understanding of charity until the explosion of neoliberal thought in the 1980s. The Band Aid movement in response to the Ethiopian famine permanently changed the way we view philanthropy. This movement created an environment of extreme commodification of charity which has created a highly competitive nonprofit sector and a loss of the collective spirit upon which it was founded. This competitive atmosphere has led nonprofits to chase dollars at the expense of their missions while also relying heavily …

A Woman’S Optics: Margaret Cavendish, Sensory Mimesis, And Early Modern Rhetorics Of Science, Megan Poole

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Accounts of the rhetorical tradition in early modern England often focus on the Royal Society of London and the scientific epistemologies and visual pedagogies surrounding technologies like the microscope. One critic of the Royal Society, Margaret Cavendish, theorized her own optics to counter the increasing exclusivity of the scientific community. An analysis of this woman’s optics reveals how the rhetorical concept of mimesis brought a theory of embodied, material sight to a historical moment in which objectivity was emerging. This critically imaginative analysis thus brings forth an early rhetorics of science in which alternative epistemologies may critique mechanical, experimental processes …

Empirical Drawings: Utilizing Comic Essays In The Social Studies Classroom To Teach Citizenship, Angelo Letizia

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

This article posits that the comic medium, wedded with traditional essay assignments, may be a powerful tool for social studies teachers, those who prepare social studies teachers at the collegiate level and other teachers and professors who desire to teach about citizenship in an era of "fake news" and alternative facts.

Queer Rhetorical Agency In Fort Lauderdale Tourist Lgbtq+ Advertisements, Jordan I. Guido

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

The following case study focuses on the implicit and explicit rhetorical messages in LGBTQ+ focused travel advertisements following Waitt and Markwell’s (2014) observations of LGBTQ+ advertisements increasingly gaining prominence within the mainstream promotional material. The case study investigates the queer messaging within Fort Lauderdale’s national 2015-2017 Hello Sunny Campaign; heralded for its groundbreaking LGBTQ+ and Trans representation. The scholarship that informs this study are at the intersections of composition and rhetoric, queer composition, and queer tourism studies. The methodology for the case study includes a rhetorical analysis incorporating a new materialistic lens. The two promotional images were analyzed for their …

Gendered Rhetoric Of Video Game Streaming : Female Agency, Harassment And Cat Girls, Tommie Ann Sutton

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The streaming community is large and varied, with the most popular streamers playing video games daily for audiences of tens of thousands of people. The community is well known for its exclusion and harassment of female players and streamers, despite demographic information showing that most player populations represent an even spread amongst men and women. This study analyzes two case studies in female streamer agency: the first is an IRL streamer named Pokimane and the second on the female animated streamers called VTubers. Specifically, it shows how Pokimane disrupts gendered harassment and how VTubers ignore harassment and perpetuate stereotypes that …

The Co-Requisite Collaboration: Building Self-Confidence, Self-Efficacy, And Rapport Through Dialogue Journals In A Basic Writing Course, Timothy Jacob Pyatt

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Research on dialogue journals has grown in the last fifty years, but a gap exists in understanding how and why these dialogue journals work. During the fall of 2020, I conducted a study utilizing quantitative data to examine how dialogue journals impact student’s self-confidence, self-efficacy, and rapport. The data has confirmed that dialogue journals are effective classroom tools and that various aspects such as word count and purpose can be impacted in connection to student’s perceptions of themselves. This project responds to the gap in the literature and provides data to support how and why dialogue journals promote growth in …

Approaching Trans Debates As Fascistic Sites Of Engagement., Sarah Jump

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For the past decade, trans rights issues have been a legal topic of discussion and are still discussed publicly in 2021. This thesis researched how arguments surrounding anti-trans issues were successful in the United States. The arguments surrounding these issues are important to study to see how they pass within society and if traditional rules of argumentation are changing. This thesis proposes that traditional dialectical argument is no longer occurring and has taken a post-dialectical turn. The purpose of this thesis is to describe the kinds of arguments used in these issues and build the case that they are evidence …

The Space Between: Listening Within Difference In Writing Center Consultations., Jessica S. B. Newman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Writing center consultations are built of writer and consultant relationships and differences. Listening is a stance that facilitates navigation of these differences, yet it has long been undervalued. I investigated the roles of listening in writing center consultations, exploring the perspectives of writer and consultant participants. For this mixed methods case study, I collected observations, surveys, interviews, and asynchronous responses to follow-up questions. I also synthesized three listening theories that attend to relations between self and other: dialogic listening, rhetorical listening, and listening otherwise. Listening’s connections with openness, understanding, and power have many implications for the writing center. Listening involves …

Getting Our Act(Ivism) Together: Understanding And Fostering Secondary And University Teacher Advocacy Collaborations, Nicole E. Green

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Given the deleterious effects on students and teachers caused by ever-expanding neoliberal approaches to K-16 English Language Arts and literacy education policy, this dissertation argues effective policy advocacy and reform absolutely depends on collaborations among secondary ELA and postsecondary composition and English education teacher-scholars. Borrowing from the traditions of participant action research, this project traces the experiences of a small group of secondary and postsecondary English educators across the span of a 16-month collaborative advocacy project. By examining a range of data including recordings of group meetings, interviews, and written reflections through the lens of activity theory, this study seeks …

Rotten With Prediction, Serena Raquel Hicks

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This project focuses on the relationship between religion and technology as it is portrayed in Science Fiction (SF). This thesis explores the SF genre rhetorically by examining the 2002 movie Minority Report (MR), which signaled the importance of surveillance and the need to predict future crimes following 9/11. The events of 9/11 played a significant role in post 9/11 SF films, which reflect and critique our communal and cultural values. 9/11 created a new relationship between the U.S justice system, predictive technologies (PTs), and data gathering. Through the Bush Doctrine of “preemptive action,” the U.S government attempted to use Dataism, …

Breaking Down The Gendered Barriers In Critical Pedagogy, Tonianne Erickson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Critical pedagogy is a teaching philosophy that guides students to question dominant discourses and the status quo, encouraging them to reflect on the part they play in these discourses. Since critical pedagogy deals with critical consciousness and sociopolitical topics, teachers who engage in this teaching philosophy are expected to exert some power in the classroom in order for students to get to that place of critical consciousness or personal growth. However, when female-identifying teachers use their power to embody critical pedagogy in the classroom, they are often met with resistance from students and fellow colleagues, rendering them unable to effectively …

Iluqata: All Of Us, Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The field of technical and professional communication (TPC) is solidly within the social justice turn that encourages TPC practitioners and scholars to consider how their work, if left unchecked, could perpetuate oppressive societal norms, such as racism. Increasing awareness of how technical communicators can combat oppression through coalitional action and through centering multiply marginalized and underrepresented (MMU) voices and experiences through inclusive research methodologies are important components towards equity in TPC. This dissertation presents five accepted publications that demonstrate how narrative methodologies and coalitional work function to enhance scholarly activism and work towards equity. These five publications are thoroughly introduced …

Literacy, Rhetoric, Tradition, And Truth In The Age Of Bede, Gerard A. Lavin Iii

English Language and Literature ETDs

Despite his own high level of literacy and education, the Venerable Bede (672/3–735) inhabited a world in which nearly all personal, social, educational, and political discourse was conducted orally. A thorough understanding of his works will require an understanding of this discourse, but attempts to apply broad theories of “orality” derived from other cultures to early medieval England have repeatedly foundered. This dissertation establishes a set of guiding principles to produce a more nuanced and localized model of discourse in Bede’s England and observes a variety of ways oral and literate forms of rhetoric were employed by political actors in …

A Field-Wide Examination Of Cross-Listed Courses In Technical Professional Communication, Carolyn M. Gubala

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study assesses cross-listed courses (courses with a mix of undergraduate and graduate students) to uncover current pedagogical and programmatic trends at a field-wide level. The applied mixed-methods study provides important foundational insights into an under researched area in Technical and Professional Communication (TPC). Research questions include: What courses are cross-listed? How does offering these courses affect writing programs and writing program administration? Through the use of three types of data: (1) course data from institutional documents, (2) interview data from program administrators and/or faculty, and (3) pedagogical materials (syllabi and assignment sheets) from the courses supplied by administrators or …

Distribución De Las Funciones Retóricas De Las Citas En Los Apartados Del Trabajo Fin De Máster Escrito En Español Y En Inglés, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

This study correlates with a research study published in the journal Pragmalingüística, in which the contrastive use of the rhetorical functions of citations in master’s theses in Spanish and English was studied. The main objective pursued by this new research is to determine which rhetorical functions are used most frequently in the different parts of a master’s thesis and what these can accomplish in each part of the text. Following Petrić (2007), a computerized textual analysis of the rhetorical function of citation was used to study this phenomenon in a corpus of sixteen (16) theses of which eight (8) were …

Countering Online Misinformation In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Samantha Sparrow Williams

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis encourages the intentional and explicit integration of the best practices in media literacy education within the first-year composition classroom. The nature of FYC, which incorporates such content as research skills and source evaluation, provides an ideal opportunity to address the online misinformation and disinformation that have resulted in growing political polarization and cynicism. Recent findings suggest that these trends can be countered with the teaching of practices like lateral reading to verify a source’s veracity. After first demonstrating the challenges that university freshmen may bring with them to campus, this project makes suggestions for simple, consistent practices that …

The Matter And (Mostly) Manner Of Mere Christianity, Gary L. Tandy

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Presented to a meeting of the Inkling Folk Fellowship (IFF), July 23rd, 2021.

Zoom Session Link: https://youtu.be/F2ZKEPD0YFg

Research Question•Why does Lewis’s work of popular apologetics continue to find a wide readership while other excellent books in the same genre—e.g., Sayers’s Creed or Chaos—do not?

Christianity Today Survey (2000): Most influential Christian books

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1942-44; 1952) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (1937) Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (1932-67) J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (1968) G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908) Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948) Richard Foster, …

Core Advanced Writing: Rhetoric Of Storytelling, Cruz Medina

English

On September 23, 2020, the New York Post reported that “President Trump had signed an executive order expanding a ban on government agencies receiving sensitivity training involving critical race theory to federal contractors” (Moore). By the time this executive order passed, I had already planned to teach a course titled “Rhetoric of Storytelling” that included a Critical Race Theory (CRT) reading from Aja Martinez advocating for counterstory. In response to the murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests during the summer of 2020, my academic department, like many institutions nationwide, issued a statement in support of Black Lives Matter. In …

Writing Inside And Outside The Rhetoric Of Containment: An Analysis Of Writing Strategies In First Semester Students Transitioning To The First Year College Composition Classroom, Brenda R. Gallardo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Based on Bowden’s (1993) notion of containment, this study analyzes how containment—as well as other pedagogical restrictions and limitations—was manifested in the high-school-to-college transition of first year student writers. This study addresses the following questions of inquiry: How do participants’ experiences in high school affect them as writers in college?; What practices and strategies do students in the first year composition classroom apply to overcome containment in the college writing classroom?; and, How can instructors use pedagogy to overcome containment? This dissertation applies a qualitative design to gather data via interviews, questionnaires, and classroom observations. Via grounded theory, data gathered …

Cold Mother, Cold Case: Memoirs Of An Abandoned Daughter, Tasha Marie Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

“Cold Mother, Cold Case: Memoirs of an Abandoned Daughter,” is a collection of stories that many young girls and women can relate to. These are stories of solitude, abandonment, abuse, resentment, determination, and survival. These emotions stemmed from the relationship with the one person that is supposed to love unconditionally, our mothers. The main purpose for the author writing the memoir was to use it as a way to heal from and to reflect on her childhood. The author’s hope is that the story will inspire young girls and women to strive for greatness from life, even when dealt an …