Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Fearless Journal Delivers Another Knockout: Review Of Redivider, Fall 2018, Louisa Parzyk

The Review Review

Volume 15.2 of Redivider packs some serious heat with free-verse poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and graphic narratives addressing topics like death, war, racism, and more in its 141 pages. More often than not, the subject matter has a dark bent that gives way to grave themes.

"We Want To Read Stories And Poems That Leave Us Feeling Electric": A Chat With Daniel Finkel, Editor Of The Penn Review, Daniel Finkel, Jennifer Stern

The Review Review

The Penn Review, founded in 1951, showcases writing and artwork from around the world. Daniel Finkel, Editor-in-Chief of The Penn Review, talks to us about the magazine’s writer-friendly focus and its recent new initiatives.

Journal Takes You Into The Dark Well Of The Soul And Delivers Truth: Review Of The Tishman Review, Fall 2018, Matt Koehler

The Review Review

The Tishman Review is not for the faint of heart but that's not to say it shouldn't be read by anyone and everyone. True, it's unapologetically cruel to happy emotions but the assault is necessary to the mission of the journal. Art, here, mimics life and there is no guarantee of happiness or resolution found in Tishman. Rays of hope and humor are found across the electronic pages prose, poetry, artwork, and photography but one shouldn't expect it. Instead, the writing weaves its way through life's infinite number of variables, imperfections, and capriciousness to paint an honest picture.

"Publications In Literary Magazines Validates The Time I Spend Alone At My Desk": A Chat With Author Melissa Fraterrigo, Melissa Fraterrigo, Tanya Perkins

The Review Review

Melissa Fraterrigo has published two books: the short story collection The Longest Pregnancy, and Glory Days, a novel-in-stories. Her fiction and nonfiction has appeared in more than forty literary journals and anthologies including The Rumpus, Shenandoah, The Massachusetts Review, storySouth and Notre Dame Review. She has been a finalist for awards from Glimmer Train on multiple occasions, twice nominated for Pushcart Awards, and was the winner of the Sam Adams/Zoetrope: All Story Short Fiction Contest. Currently, she is director of the Lafayette Writers’ Studio, which she founded in 2014 in Lafayette, Indiana. The Review …

"Our Sole Ambition Is To Publish The Best Writing Possible": A Chat With Michael Ray, Editor Of Zoetrope, Michael Ray, Scottie F. Gerald, Becky Tuch

The Review Review

It's hard not to be awed by Zoetrope. In the world of small press publishing, Zoetrope is pretty much The Godfather of Literary Magazines. Zoetrope appears quarterly and offers up a wholly new look—and sometimes texture—with every issue. Guest designers have included Tom Waits, P.J. Harvey, Jeff Koons, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, to name just a few. Zoetrope has published the likes of Woody Allen, Kurt Vonnegut and Salman Rushdie, as well as filmmakers like Gus Van Sant and Miranda July. Then too there is the Classic Reprint feature: in every issue, a short story that inspired a movie is …

"The Realms Of Language And Art Are Boundless": A Chat With Kathleen Fitzpatrick And W.F. Lantry, Editors Of Peacock Journal, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, W. F. Lantry, Sanjeev Sethi

The Review Review

Peacock Journal began its creative journey in August 2016. In a short span of time it has caught the attention of the literati. More than 300 contributors have exhibited their excellence. Helming the endeavor is a polished couple: Kathleen Fitzpatrick (Managing Editor) and W.F. Lantry (Editor). K.F. in her other role is a gifted coloratura soprano while W.F.L. is a celebrated poet, respected for his layered compositions. Peacock Journal treats the text with extraordinary care. The layout is aesthetic with a visual accentuating the wordings. No wonder this journal is on the list of most contributors searching a home for …

Advice To My Pre-Published Self, Nichole Bernier

The Review Review

Recently at the pediatrician’s office I fell into conversation with a man in the waiting room, the father of a 7-month-old with some undiagnosed problem. We talked as parents do in these situations when you cut to the chase. About the toughness required of parents, developed over time for that limbo of uncertainty and worry. Somewhat sheepishly he told me about a video he’d seen online that had stuck with him. In it, mothers were asked what advice they would offer their younger, pre-parenthood selves. Which got me thinking about the long gestation writers go through for their first book. …

Welcome To The Review Review’S Archive Of Content From Our First Twelve Years, Jeffrey Dodd

The Review Review

While the look will be different from the original website, we’ve endeavored to keep the content as faithful as possible to the first posting on thereviewreview.net. Exceptions to this include correction of simple typos and style errors (often a result of html coding), author photos and graphic content that couldn’t be reproduced, and weblinks that aren’t included because the original url is no longer active. Otherwise, you’ll find the content intact.

8 Reasons Your Submission Strategy Sucks (And What You Can Do About It), Becky Tuch

The Review Review

It's a new year, friends, which means time for some serious resolution-ising. If you've been writing and submitting up a storm lately, good for you. Please ignore everything below and get back to whatever you were doing before. If, though, you feel like something is wrong, like your strategy for submitting to lit mags is not quite working, if you want to be published more frequently and in more venues you love and lust after, then perhaps some of what's below applies to you.

Chicanx Murals: Decolonizing Place And (Re)Writing The Terms Of Composition, Nora K. Rivera

English Faculty Articles and Research

Drawing from an interpretive decolonial framework that understands multimodal writing as the act of creating co-composed knowledge, this article analyzes Chicanx murals as multimodal compositions that exemplify the continuation of the Aztec tlacuilolitztli practice of writing with images. This work also invites rhetoric and composition scholars to reexamine Western understandings of history, particularly the history of writing.

The Plagiarism-Proof Policy Handbook: A Multidimensional-Systems Approach To Foster Student Writing Accountability And Prevent Plagiarism In College And University Classrooms, Cynthia D. Scott

Masters Theses

Academic integrity, ethical research, and proper documentation practices are key values emphasized within most post-secondary academic communities. To support positive student outcomes, colleges and universities use honor codes, policy measures, and plagiarism detection systems to deter plagiarism, believing that the above measures promote ethical behavior from the students who graduate from their institutions. This thesis first recommends a broader, environmentally focused approach which examines the micro, mezzo, and macro levels of the post-secondary educational setting within universities and colleges using systems theory and strengths theory. It then identifies some important plagiarism barriers and plagiarism enablers students encounter within each environmental …

Communication In The Ruins: Walker Percy And The Art Of Symbolic Mediation, Justin Bonanno

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation proposes to explore the mediating function of the symbol through the work of Walker Percy. In the first chapter, I provide the necessary background for undertaking this project. First, I situate Percy in his historical moment and review key events in his life that helped to shape his philosophy of communication. Second, I sketch out some of the primary coordinates in Percy’s thought. Percy’s hermeneutic of the self requires an understanding of the difference between sign and symbol, dyadic and triadic events, environment and world, and immanence and transcendence. Third, I review some of the key intersections with …

The Banality Of The Social: A Philosophy Of Communication Of Social Media Influencer Marketing, Kati Sudnick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project engages in a philosophy of communication approach in order to understand the role of social media influencer marketing within a historical moment defined via Hannah Arendt’s understanding of the social. Social media influencer marketing emerges as a new form of celebrity endorsement in which those finding fame on the Internet engage in word-of-mouth marketing for brands and organizations on their own personal social media pages, blurring the line between organic and sponsored content. According to Arnett (2010), philosophy of communication acts as a background road map for understanding foreground public action. Utilizing a myriad of metaphorical coordinates as …

10 Theses On Feminist Economics (Or The Antagonism Between The Strike And Finance), Luci Cavallero, Verónica Gago

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article, “10 Theses on Feminist Economics (or the antagonism between the strike and finance),” Luci Cavallero and Verónica Gago are interested in a feminist economics that is able to redefine, based on the bodies and territories in conflict, labor and exploitation, communal and feminized modes of doing and resisting, and popular innovation in moments of crisis. They write from the position of having formed part of the organizing for the feminist strike that, since 2016, has driven what they characterize as a massive, radical, and transnational movement. They root the theses that they synthesize here in that dynamic …

Readymade Or Made [To Be] Ready, Replicant Or Surplus: Social Reproduction And The Biopolitics Of Abstraction Prefigured In Contemporary Art, Jaleh Mansoor

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The artist may be one of the last subject-positions within capitalism to determine their own labour under the sign of “creativity,” and to be held at an oblique angle to value productive labour; they are dialectically “free” to be creative (Adorno, Vishmidt, Stakemeir, Beech). But since 1973 if not 1915, artists mark this creative capacity as a process whereby reification has migrated from that of the object to that of the subject, to the artist-subject, now heightened in a post-industrial era of “feminized” and immaterial labour where service eclipses production. Artists in the “post medium condition” elaborate practices that track …

Detroit’S Water Wars: Race, Failing Social Reproduction, And Infrastructure, Brian Whitener

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In this essay, I theorize an emergent urban power dynamic of infrastructural resource grabs or the use of state power to transfer infrastructural resources away from marginalized, racialized, and/or precariously documented populations. As a transfer, rather than a set of cuts or privatizations, I argue this dynamic is distinct from those of neoliberal or “shrinking” states and is a direct attack on the social reproduction capacity of communities and individuals. Focusing on the case of Detroit, where predominantly white suburban elites succeeded under the cover of Detroit’s 2013-14 bankruptcy proceedings to pry the possession of the water and sewage infrastructure …

Murmurs Of Revolution: Mythical Subversion In Dostoevsky, Connor Guetersloh

English (MA) Theses

Throughout history, revolutions have been plagued by unpredictability; it is all but impossible to know when cultural systems will be turned on their heads. Is there a common motivator, to predict social unrest bubbling beneath the surface of society? I suggest the development of this motivator is detectable by deconstructing Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiotic patterns within the field of rhetorical mythology. “Mythology,” in the rhetorical and linguistic sense developed by Roland Barthes, is the study of a collective system of thinking we subconsciously subscribe to when interpreting meaning, perpetuated by greater society. The struggle for meaning is split into the …

Moving Beyond Grades: A Shift In Assessing First-Year Composition, Matthew Goldman

English (MA) Theses

In Spring 2020, I conducted an I.R.B. approved study with the students in my English 103: Writing About Writing course. I wanted to determine how students felt about the two grading models—a qualitative-grading system vs a modified form of contract grading that I called a participation-based system—at two separate points in the semester. Early on I gave students a survey gathering data about their past experiences with both models. Prior to enrollment in my course, none had experienced a participation-based classroom, but everyone was familiar and comfortable with grading rubrics. The survey had 21 questions and gauged concepts from the …

Do The Verb. Become The Noun: Writing Towards A New Identity, Mary K. Tedrow

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

Abstract

The initial composition course in the community college has the potential to be a transformative space for the identity formation of adult learners towards the linguistic signifier of scholar. Freshman students of variable ages enter a new culture which demands the negotiation of an alternative academic language, an adaptation to the post-secondary culture, and the development of the critical thinking required for academic work. All of these factors can destabilize identity as students confront long-held beliefs and biases in their studies (Bartholomae, 1985; Tingle, 2004; Bracher, 2006). Students who are unable to adapt to the new environment are …

Powerful Men: An Evaluation Of Successful Rhetoric, Rachel Hollenbeck

Undergraduate Research Journal

This study examines the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill and why it was so successful. Both men are famous for their rhetoric, but this study is a more in-depth look at how they spoke well and influenced people. Through the lens of Lloyd F. Bitzer’s “The Rhetorical Situation” and the classical rhetorical appeals, multiple details of Hitler and Churchill’s speeches are brought to attention and analyzed, especially how their responses fit the situations they were facing, how they connected with their audiences, and how their wording matched the goals they were trying to achieve. One of the purposes …

Teaching The Syllabus At The Community College, Yuemin He

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

Reacting directly to the fact that even the best syllabus is worthless to the student who does not read it, this essay draws inspiration from research of the past decade, especially from the learning-focused syllabus concept that was introduced by three researchers at the University of Virginia, and uses a questionnaire to gauge our community college students’ needs. It suggests specific methods to build the bridge between course content instruction and syllabus teaching. Ultimately, it contributes to the discussion of several important syllabus-related questions: How can instructors use the syllabus as a pedagogical tool to build a strong student rapport? …

Problem Based Learning: Connecting Sociocultural Theory With Service Learning And Reflection, Lauren K. Foster

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

This presentation focuses on the aspects of problem-based learning within writing courses and the interconnectedness to sociocultural theory and its impacts on service learning and reflection. This presentation highlights service learning as an interactive learning tool for students to incorporate problem based learning and introduces reflection as a means of assessment. Through reflection of service learning students can understand the validity of sociocultural impacts within the world around them to help better prepare them to problem solve through writing applications. The goal then is to actively engage students on larger scale by introducing real-world problems and introducing cultural impacts.

Making Modality: Transmodal Composing In A Digital Media Studio., Chris Scheidler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The multiple media that exist for communication have historically been theorized as possessing different available means for persuasion and meaning-making. The exigence of these means has been the object of theoretical debate that ranges from cultural studies, language studies, semiology, and philosophies of the mind. This dissertation contributes to such debates by sharing the results of an ethnographically informed study of multimedia composing in a digital media studio. Drawing from Cultural Historical Activity Theory and theories of enactive perception, I analyze the organizational and infrastructural design of a media studio as well as the activity of composer/designers working in said …

Critical Language Awareness Pedagogy In First-Year Composition: A Design-Based Research Study, Megan Michelle Weaver

English Theses & Dissertations

In this design-based research (DBR) study, I collaborated with two first-year composition (FYC) instructors in designing and implementing Critical Language Awareness (CLA) pedagogy to promote students’ linguistic consciousness while strengthening and enhancing their postsecondary writing skills. I designed and implemented this study by drawing on a critical theory of language, informed by literature on language ideologies (Silverstein, 1979; Irvine & Gal, 2000; Kroskrity, 2010) and raciolinguistics (Flores & Rosa, 2015; Alim, 2016), and a critical theory of pedagogy, informed by literature on critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970, 1973; Giroux, 2011) and critical race pedagogy (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Lynn, 1999). After …

Resisting ‘Raid-And-Rescue’: Capturing The Ideograph Of Victimhood In Nevada Law A.B. 166, Samantha Thies

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Critical rhetoricians and legal communication studies scholars have long recognized that rhetoric and ideology are inherent to legal structures, shaping legislation and impacting the lives of those such laws are meant to address. Fewer look to, not just civic discourses, but also the vernacular discourse surrounding such institutions, shaping the ideologies that support it. There is a need, however, for the study of outlaw discourses to both help define ideographs and challenge their very existence through contrasting outlaw and hegemonic logics. Thus, this thesis examines debates over A.B. 166, a Nevada state law meant to alleviate sex trafficking, by establishing …

Drawn To Peace: Comics As Multimodal Narratives In Peace And Conflict Education, Laurence Stacey

Doctor of International Conflict Management Dissertations

Comics, a type of multimodal narrative, have historically been used as platforms for political discourse. Through a combination of visual, verbal, and spatial devices, comics often explore issues of peace, conflict, and justice “from below,” in ways that reveal the complexities of narrative and identity. In doing so, they have the potential to interrogate grand narratives that often go undisrupted. Humanities scholars have long recognized the value of literary and visual arts in preparing students to engage the salient themes of peace education. However, the medium of comics remains undertheorized in that field, despite the increasing popularity of comics as …

Game Manuals: A Genre Analysis, Geoffrey Kincaid Townsley

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the elements of printed game manuals so their genre can be seen for its historical value and connection to contemporary game documentation in its many forms. Six manuals are analyzed for their genre elements: contextual, structural, stylistic, and semantic. Each manual was selected based on its related game's popularity for that decade. The analysis found that the genre had a heavy focus on both instruction and immersion. The results of the thesis can be used to refine research on other types of game documentation, because several types either evolved from or replaced the video game manual. The …

Pedagogies Of E-Literary Practice For (Un)Continuous Times: Lightning Talks, Caleb Andrew Milligan, Sarah Whitcomb Laiola, Erin Kathleen Bahl, Élika Ortega

Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2020

In response to Debbie Chacra’s charge to “celebrate and foster education, maintenance, analysis, critique, and, above all, caregiving” in maker cultures, this roundtable imagines pedagogies of e-literary practice that combine creation and caregiving in ways restorative to the ongoing tradition(s) of e-lit (“Beyond Making”). E-lit regularly confronts theoretical, cultural, and material challenges endemic to the field, as genres of previously accessible work are being lost to technological obsolescence and new developments are moving increasingly off the screen and out of practical reach. One way to counter such challenges of these "(un)continuous" times is through an integrated, applied, practice-based model of …

Sex, Lies, And Murder: Feminized Detective Fiction And The English Estate Novel, Meaghan Lanctot

The Criterion

In Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and Ian McEwan’s Atonement, the protagonists unravel the events of egregious crimes and their own complicity with the central tragedies. Set against the backdrop of crumbling English estates, the crimes highlight the erosion of the British ruling class at the onset of the 20th century. The unnamed narrator of Rebecca and Briony, the narrator of Atonement, are bound by their youth, age, and gender in their respective investigations into the sinister events that plague the history of Manderley and the Tallis estate, respectively. We see how the English estate is a hotbed of illicit …

Collaboration In The Technical Communication Classroom: Negotiating Team Contracts In A Pwi, Alyssa Herman

Theses and Dissertations

As TPC teacher-scholars, we must acknowledge the overwhelming Whiteness of our field and the racism, ableism, and sexism inherent in our institutions. We must actively work toward inclusivity and socially just collaborations in our classrooms by encouraging dominant-identified students to confront their privileges and implicit biases in order to better engage with historically marginalized students. With that said, this thesis examines how teacher-scholars might take up a cultural-rhetorical approach to teaching TPC and how we might negotiate team contracts in PWIs. Firmly situated within the social justice turn, Herman draws from both feminist disability theory and critical race theory to …