Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Centering Access: Reimagining Basic Writing Through Critical Disability Frameworks, Jason Burton Mccormick

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Despite decades of scholarship arguing otherwise, developmental writing spaces are still often treated as places of deficit in higher education. This deficit positioning emerges in the ways the courses are discussed (as barriers and burdens to graduation), the way learners are imagined (being “unprepared” for college work), and the way placement is understood as punishment. Developmental educators continue to fight this stigma, but rely on stories of students “overcoming” rather than acknowledging that the stigma is a product of the institution and its discriminatory norms, not the offering itself.

My work reimagines the developmental writing classroom as an essential liminal …

Rethinking Writing Assessment In The Age Of Generative Ai: Toward A Conceptual Framework For First-Year Writing, Abeeb Hammed

English Faculty Research Publications

Emerging technologies have changed the dimensions of the first-year writing classroom. Before AI, assessment focused on traditional rubrics that emphasized arguments, rhetorical strategies, and language conventions. While this traditional checklist remains important for assessing student writing, it is also necessary to argue that the traditional rubric is insufficient for evaluating student performance in the current age of AI. We acknowledge that a rubric is not necessarily designed to detect AI use. However, there is a growing need for AI-informed assessment. A final-product rubric alone may provide insufficient evidence about the student’s writing process, decision-making, and authorship when AI is involved. …

Pedagogical Empathy As Instructor Self-Care: Struggles, Structures, And Support, Colleen J. Hart

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Building from interviews with writing instructors at an urban R1 institution, this article identifies the struggles between balancing empathetic teaching practice—a practice that seeks to understand and address another’s needs in the classroom—with practicing self-care. In proposing a feminist pedagogical empathy, this article investigates how empathetic teaching practices, such as flexibility and transparency, and empathetic course policies can offer benefits to both instructors and students. Ultimately, I argue that empathetic teaching practice can function as self-care for instructors, rather than be considered additional labor or diminished as lenient or unrigorous, upholds rigor by clearly defining expectations for students while also …

“Honey, Life Is Just A Classroom:” Using Taylor Swift As A Pedagogical Tool For College Composition, Liz Thomae

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

As educators, we confront the challenge of cultivating a deeper understanding of writing in an age obsessed with utilitarianism, instant gratification, and pragmatism. Students come into our classrooms inundated with these messages of utility and often find subjects within the humanities, especially first year writing, boring and unhelpful. Especially with the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) use in our classrooms and society at large, we as pedagogues have our work cut out for us. I propose a pedagogical approach that bridges students' interests with essential writing skills by integrating Taylor Swift's music into the composition classroom. Swift's evolution as …

Exploring Students’ Feedback Literacy Through Asynchronous Writing Center Tutoring Sessions: A Mixed-Methods Study, Bobby Pelphrey

Theses and Dissertations

MLLs face linguistic and cultural complexities when engaging with writing feedback; however, writing center practices often follow monolingual models. This study examines how MLLs develop and apply feedback literacy—the ability to seek, interpret, and use feedback—compared to their non-MLL peers in asynchronous writing center consultations. Using a convergent mixed-methods design, the study integrates survey data from the Feedback Literacy Behavior Scale (FLBS) (N = 532; n = 146 MLLs, n = 386 non-MLLs) with qualitative case studies. The survey measured feedback-seeking behaviors, sense-making strategies, emotional regulation, and feedback application, while case studies used think-aloud protocols, semi-structured interviews, and revision analysis. …

Gaming The System: A Study Of The Effect Of Simulation-Gaming On The Performance Of First-Year Writing College Students, Jen L. Justice

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores the impact of digital simulation-gaming on the writing performance of first-year college students enrolled in Northern Illinois University’s First-Year Composition (FYC) program. Using the video game Minecraft as a development platform, the study engaged students in a semester-long simulation where they acted as employees of the NIU admissions office tasked with creating a digital campus map to attract and support students. The project aimed to investigate whether simulation-based learning could enhance students' motivation, foster real-world connections in their writing, and improve academic performance compared to traditional composition courses.

The study involved 115 students across five sections of …

The Enactive Nature Of The Relationship Between Criticism And Aesthetics: From Practice To Theory To Pedagogy, Ivan Magrin-Chagnolleau

Presidential Fellows Articles and Research

This article delves into the intricate relationship between criticism and aesthetics, emphasizing its enactive nature. It explores how this relationship informs pedagogy and has culminated in the creation of an innovative undergraduate aesthetics course centered around the practice of writing critiques. Moreover, it illustrates the dynamic process through which practice gives rise to theory, subsequently influencing pedagogical approaches, and, intriguingly, circling back to practice. To elucidate this flow of ideas across the realms of practice, theory, and pedagogy, we introduce several key concepts. These include the paradigm of creation research, also known as practice as research, which forms the foundation …

Responding Through Listening: Promoting Listening Skills Through Lightning Talks And 2x2x2 Storytelling, Elizabeth L. Angeli

Journal of Response to Writing

Current scholarship in writing pedagogy and peer review focuses on how and what to write and say. What is often left unaddressed in these discussions are how we listen and how we teach our students to listen, making listening an often overlooked and understudied piece of the peer review and writing response process. Yet, the quality of the feedback we receive and offer is directly tied to how well we listen to what is said and written. To this fill this gap, this teaching article offers two activities, Lighting Talks and 2x2x2 Storytelling, that promote students’ listening skills so that …

I'M Just Me: The Rhetorical Study Of Veterans’ Experiences Of Academic Labels In College Classrooms, Taylor Weeks

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project seeks to provide a glimpse into the impact of academic labels on student veterans via the student veterans' own voices. This project reflects on and builds from previous research projects that involve transition theories and pedagogical theories in the field of writing studies as well as veteran studies that involve student veterans. Through a locally situated multi-case study qualitative approach using questionnaires and interviews, I examine to what extent do academic labels have on student veterans from the student veterans’ own voices. Finally, I offer implications of this project for writing instructors, administrators, and future researchers involving student …

"You Want Me To Teach What?!": Emerging Technologies, Required Knowledge, And Pedagogical Practice, Rachel Bryson, Ryan Cheek, Sam Clem, Hannah Stevens

English and Technical Communication Faculty Research & Creative Works

Being assigned to teach unfamiliar content is an experience that many technical communication (TC) instructors can relate to. In this experience report, four TC instructors describe their experiences teaching unfamiliar and emerging technology, providing takeaways for readers about how they might approach similar tasks, particularly when constrained by a lack of time and resources when teaching a class for the first time. The instructors had to adapt their pedagogical approaches to teach a range of technology and software. These approaches include building students' visual and rhetorical literacy, diving deep into ethics, explicitly teaching students how to learn, and humbly showing …

Locked-In Learning: Honorlock And Surveillance Capitalism In The First Year Writing Department, Tehyah Carver

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This paper explores the impact of implementing the proctoring software Honorlock in the collegiate writing classroom. Through a framework inspired by Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, the investigation analyzes the efficacy of Honorlock’s attempts to reduce plagiarism and student test-taking anxiety when applied to preliminary writing assessments in Seton Hall University’s First Year Writing program. With professor interviews, surveys, and observations, the paper exposes the flaws of Honorlock’s promise of student empowerment and honesty by dissecting the punitive language used in their marketing material to potential and current consumers, administrators and professors. …

Coalitional Response(Ability) In Rhetoric And Composition, Zoe Nicole Mcdonald

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation considers the literacy practices of progressive coalitions as a provocative way to examine central responsibilities of rhetorical scholars, college writing instructors, and writing program administrators. Through attention to case studies, this dissertation suggests opportunities to consider social differences as crucial assets for political advocacy, scholarly knowledge production, and teaching strategies.

Advisor: Stacey Waite

Talking About Writing: Scenes Of Writing Workshops In History And Practice, Erika Luckert

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation envisions the writing workshop as a space where we do essential political and social work—where we can reimagine writing, and the teaching of writing, in more interdependent and inclusive ways. This research responds to the work of BIPOC writers and scholars who have urged those of us in Writing Studies to address the homogeneity of the workshop’s history, and to revise its exclusionary logics. Drawing on interviews and observations of teachers in undergraduate creative writing and composition classrooms across the United States, the author examines what actually happens when students talk together about their in-progress writing. This dissertation …

Developing Intercultural Competence And Cultural Capital: Applying Virtual Reality To Study Abroad Pedagogy, Jenifer Butler

English Theses & Dissertations

As the world becomes increasingly globalized thanks, at least in part, to the ubiquity of digital technology, scholars in discourse and new media must explore the possibility of learning and composition to expand pedagogical practices and opportunities. This project uses study abroad programs and education as a test case for establishing the feasibility of easily incorporating existing virtual reality (VR) technology into the classroom. It examines the theoretical and technological question of whether advancements in virtual reality have achieved the potential for practical pedagogical applications, and if virtual technology can provide responsible, accurate, and educational access to concepts as complex …

#Hotgirlsemestersyllabus, Katrina Marie Overby, Gheni Platenburg, Niya Pickett Miller

Feminist Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

Understanding Barriers To Participation In Digital And Hybrid Education: A Grounded Meta-Analysis Of Higher Education And The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jarett Dello Buono

West Chester University Master’s Theses

This thesis project overlaps rhetorical approaches to digital communication with emerging data on higher education pedagogies in order to identify barriers to participation and engagement. A grounded theory meta-analysis is utilized to interpret data presented from literature published after the shift to emergency remote learning (ERL) as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The data is presented thematically to deconstruct the infrastructural and pedagogical relationships that emerged from the literature on hybrid and remote pedagogies. This project identifies core categories and principles that aid in identifying future areas of inquiry for research on engagement as it relates to broader questions …

Writing Centers & The Dark Warehouse University: Generative Ai, Three Human Advantages, Joe Essid

Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies

Institutions are scrambling, at an unaccustomed pace, to adapt to generative artificial intelligence. While justified concerns focus on plagiarism, the nature of student learning, and changes to assignments, recent scholarship has largely ignored the potential for faculty and staff unemployment that may accompany acceptance and deployment of the new technology. As we ponder seismic changes in higher education, one voice should join, indeed lead, campus discussions. Writing center professionals have proven adept at weathering technological changes, budget cuts, administrative big ideas, and professional marginalization for more than half a century. Early on, centers were sometimes dismissed as mere “fix-it shops” …

Decolonization Of The Writing Classroom: Creating Space For Decolonial Theory, Tools, Anti-Racist Pedagogy, And Methods To Improve The Emerging Bilingual Student Experience, Desiree L. Brown

Masters Theses (Archived)

In this thesis, the author addresses the colonial roots of the secondary writing classroom and the origin of standard academic English which enables strict standardized testing and writing assessment requirements that in-turn incite linguistic violence towards emerging bilingual students. The author frames her study within the framework of April Baker-Bell and Asao B. Inoue through a reflective/reflexive study of her teaching in a ninth grade writing classroom in a primarily Hispanic school district in South Texas, which is assessed by the state of Texas through STAAR. This study seeks to identify instances of linguistic violence being perpetuated in the writing …

Digitally Rural: Identifying How Technological Inequity Impacts Rural Students In First-Year Writing Courses, Jo Anna M. Nevada

English Language and Literature ETDs

To teach composition in this era means to engage students with technology; it is all but an unspoken requirement at the majority of universities. This dissertation theorizes, however, that the imbricated use of technology in first-year writing (FYW) classrooms places rural students at an inherent disadvantage, with issues of inadequate technological proficiency and inconsistent access causing a substantial learning disparity between this student population and their urban peers. Through mixed-methods data analysis of student survey responses and final FYW course portfolios, this study reveals that the expectation of technological access and presumption of digital literacy is detrimental to rural student …

Failure Facing Pedagogy In First-Year Rhetoric And Composition Classrooms, Karuna Minh Hin

English (MA) Theses

Failure in academia is commonly defined as not succeeding, missing the mark, or receiving a “below average grade or score” (Inoue 333). However, this perception of failure works to instill a fear in students that may last through their academic journey. Throughout a student’s academic journey, they are taught to operate within the binary of success and failure. “According to self-worth theory, in school, where one’s worth is largely measured by one’s ability to achieve, self-perceptions of incompetence can trigger feelings of shame and humiliation" (De Castella, Byrne and Covington 862). Teachers have attempted to address this problem throughout first-year …

Linguistically Diverse Writers And The Shaping Of A Scholarly Ethos: Rhetorical Listening As A Strategy In Composition Pedagogy, Ashlynn T. Rader

West Chester University Master’s Theses

This thesis project advocates for a more inclusive approach to writing instruction, challenging traditional pedagogical practices that have historically excluded marginalized groups from fully participating in academic discourse. This project highlights the ways that Aristotelian interpretations of ethos continue to inform and shape contemporary writing pedagogy, despite their potential outdatedness in the context of the 21st-century composition classroom. By examining the Conference of College Composition and Communication's policy resolution entitled Students' Right to Their Own Language, this project recognizes the presence of linguistically diverse writers and their historical, ongoing struggle for academic legitimacy. Furthermore, this project proposes rhetorical listening …

“My Purpose Is To Assist”: How Chatgpt Can Push Liberal Arts Institutions To Think Critically About Themselves, Clare B. Martin

Scripps Senior Theses

Since its release, ChatGPT, a chatbot specialized in writing content and answering questions in response to user prompts, has posed an unclear threat to liberal arts institutions. Can it serve as an effective tool for cheating? Can its responses replace work done in the liberal arts? This thesis argues that ChatGPT’s limitations—particularly its inability to think critically—prevent it from replacing real liberal arts work, which involves questioning, critique, and re-examination. If anything, this thesis suggests, ChatGPT can push liberal arts institutions to better promote critical thinking by serving as a litmus test for liberal arts-level work.

On Analyzing Literature And Visual Rhetoric With Practices Of Teaching Grammar In The Context Of Writing, Julie Schwab

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio contains three analytical works and a lesson plan for a college composition course. The first piece analyzes technology and the Internet and discusses how the ideas presented in M.T. Anderson’s dystopian novel Feed can apply to our world today. The second piece analyzes J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit as a piece of children’s literature and considers how one may use this novel to help teach college students how to write children’s literature. The third piece analyzes the social media trend of fitspiration (fitness inspiration) and discusses the impact this has on viewers and what can be done about it. …

Rewriting Writing As Transmodal And Translingual: Tranßcribing Japanese., Alex Way

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the use of different scripts in Japanese writing practices to disrupt English-language and Western-centric approaches to multimodal composition. Early chapters establish a brief history of the Japanese writing system (JWS) and explore its functionality. I trace the JWS’s development from borrowed Chinese characters (kanji), which were adapted to the Japanese language through the translation process of kundoku, to the contemporary system which utilizes the supplemental phonetic scripts of hiragana and katakana, in part, to represent Japanese syntax. Building on this historical context, I demonstrate how the use of the Japanese multi-scripts (hiragana, katakana, and kanji) in conventional …

Inventing Network Composition: Mobilizing Rhetorical Invention And Social Media For Digital Pedagogy, Jacob Richter

All Dissertations

Inventing Network Composition: Mobilizing Rhetorical Invention and Social Media for Digital Pedagogy investigates how students learn through writing and invention in digital social networks. Pursuing a primary research question of How do student composers invent within networked social media environments?, the dissertation examines how social media and digital writing tools can help students to learn, connect, and share generatively. The core theoretical contribution that this dissertation offers is a theory of network composition, which is a mode of invention that composers engage in social media environments that is intensely social, that is structured by a digital interface, that …

Expressivism And Its (Dis)Contents: Tracing Theory And Practice From History To Here And Now, Sasha A. Maceira

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the theory and practice of expressivism as a pedagogy viable for the twenty-first century. Expressivism, in its inception (1960s), was wrongly perceived in many ways for the seemingly superfluous nature of its intentions; mainly it was targeted as an elitist, individualistic approach to the teaching of composition, only seen as suitable for a privileged student body. What was entirely overlooked that expressivism offered, were the more conventional ideologies and activities, such as process theory and peer review—things we use and cherish to this day. What I discovered through archival research was that expressivism then was inadvertently divided …

What’S The Word On The Street?: Witnessing/Performing Theory, Desirée D. Rowe

Feminist Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

Potential For A Pedagogical Level-Up: Teaching First-Year Composition Through Rhetoric Of Gaming, Cayman Beeman

English (MA) Theses

Instructors of First-Year Composition courses are pursuing new ways to help integrate students into collegiate writing. One approach that has been gaining more widespread use is teaching composition through a popular medium. Inspired by these pedagogical movements, I designed a first-year composition course that approached writing through looking at different rhetorical elements of video games. During the course I encouraged students to enter into an I.R.B. approved study in which I recorded certain elements of their progression, discourse, and understanding regarding composition taught through gaming in an effort to document what was pedagogically successful, and what aspects of the course …

Inclusive Pedagogy: Connecting Disability And Race In Higher Education, Meredith Persin

All Theses

Higher education was never made for marginalized people. The academy was created based on the privileged white, able-bodied, males who preoccupied higher education for the longest time. While that has certainly changed over the years, the institution itself is still in the past resulting in BIPOC students and disabled students continuing to struggle within higher education. While instructors have begun to take interest in the need for inclusive pedagogy within the last decade, it still has a far way to come in order to help the marginalized students with intersecting identities and students who may not benefit from a one …

Dewey In The Digital Age: Experiential Composition And Reflection As Transformation, Danielle Shumaker Page

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores the act of composing as a transformational, ongoing event and offers digital reflection as a tool for first-year writing students to evaluate their own writing practices. I analyze student vlogs produced in response to an assignment that asked students to produce digital reflections on their work as writers across the process of completing a final course project. My findings suggest that adapting experiential learning principles, digital and non-digital, into composition classroom design creates and facilitates writing experiences that are immersive and transformational. Crucial to designing learning occasions is the process of active reflection upon what the writer …