Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Exploring The Canons Of Rhetoric Through Phil Davison’S Campaign Stump Speech, Joshua N. Westwick, Kelli J. Chromey

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

A common learning objective of many communication courses centers on speech criticism and evaluation, and the classic canons of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery of the speaker) have been used to help communication students achieve these learning outcomes. This teaching activity provides a creative and meaningful way to explore the canons of rhetoric—through assigning students to perform critical evaluation of a popularized YouTube video, the campaign stump speech of Stark County, Ohio, treasurer candidate Phil Davison. Students have responded favorably to the activity and demonstrated an increased awareness and understanding of the rhetorical canons and their use in …

"I Don't Always Look At Memes, But When I Do, It's For A Class": Using Memes To Demonstrate Language Rules, Jocelyn M. Degroot, Hannah Coy

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

This activity uses Internet memes to demonstrate the pervasiveness of language rules and culture’s effect on language in online culture. Numerous introductory communication courses include a discussion on verbal communication that focuses on language rules and the effects of culture on verbal communication. The most relevant language rules for memes are the regulative rules that guide action and how we use language (Cronen, Pearce, & Harris, 1979). In this exercise, students analyze and evaluate language rules present in popular online memes. The students identify the language rule utilized in each of a pre-chosen set of Internet memes and generate at …

Facing Our Racial Biases Via The Implicit Association Test, Stacey A. Peterson

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

Classroom discussions around race and difference are often difficult and challenging. We all come to our social interactions as products of our cultural selves, race being one of a myriad of multi-faceted characteristics. Therefore, while many feel that race is something that is discussed ad nauseam, others feel that such discussions rarely scratch the surface. This exercise uses the Implicit Association Test on race to encourage students to reflect upon and examine their hidden biases and address the role those biases play in potential communicative interactions, decisions, actions, and even emotions that they, the students, likely have of people of …

Using Video Clips To Illustrate How Paralinguistic Variation Communicates Emotion, Shane Semmler

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

Aristotle’s explication of the available means of persuasion includes logic, character, and emotion as the three artistic proofs available to any rhetorician. Because emotion is the least understood rhetorical proof (Jorgenson, 1998), this lesson plan uses Aristotle’s definition of delivery (i.e., variations in rate, volume, and pitch) to illustrate how paralinguistic qualities reflect and elicit emotion. Educators are provided with the necessary materials and procedures for a 50-minute multimedia instructional event including the content and citations for a lecture articulating how paralinguistic variation reflects and elicits emotion, links to audiovisual illustrations of emotional paralinguistic variation, worksheets to structure student processing …

Practicing Critical Research: Applying A Feminist Textual Analysis To The Film 300, Tatjana M. Hocke-Mirzashvili, Stephanie Kelly, Darrel Blair, Hoyoung (Anthony) Ahn

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

This single-class activity was developed to give students hands-on experience with critical research. The purpose of this activity is to assist students in developing critical, textual analysis skills by applying a feminist lens to the hyper-masculine film 300, specifically analyzing symbolic representations of power.

Explaining Theory-Guided Research Through The Big Bang Theory, Brittnie Peck, Scott Christen, Stephanie Kelly

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

The Big Bang Theory is a comedy aired on CBS that features the lives of a group of scientists. Like many people, the characters in this show find it difficult to avoid taking their work home with them. Thus, most episodes are rich with research terminology and demonstrations. This paper details an activity that provides a fun means of introducing students to the role of theory in guiding research through the use of The Big Bang Theory.

Interpersonal Rhetoric: An Approach To Bettering Oneself And Others, Anthony M. Wachs

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

Although interpersonal interaction is predominantly studied through the lens of communication studies, the field was originally studied primarily by scholars of rhetoric. Though this paradigm was instrumental in the founding of interpersonal communication, interpersonal rhetoric has largely been ignored by the discipline. However, throughout the last few decades, a few scholars have attempted to reinvigorate the study of interpersonal communication through the lens of rhetoric. This paper explores the several key concepts and perspectives within the history of the rhetorical approach to interpersonal communication, i.e., interpersonal rhetoric.

Connection And Avoidance In Campus Spaces: A Student Cell Phone Uses And Gratifications Study, Rick Malleus

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

This study explored student campus cell phone use by asking “What are students on campus doing with their cell phones?” One hundred and ninety-one student volunteers completed a qualitative questionnaire. Viewed through a uses and gratifications lens, results suggest student cell phone use on campus meets several different needs. Respondents reported that cell phones make their lives easier, but their attitudes toward campus cell phone use mix positive and negative valence. They stated that being connected in various campus spaces to friends, immediate family, and university personnel was important to gratifying their needs. Nearly half of the respondents reported faking …

Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety: Practical Applications For Classroom Instruction, Joshua N. Westwick

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

During the 2013 Speech Communication Association of South Dakota annual conference, there was a lively discussion surrounding students’ Public Speaking Anxiety (PSA). During the dialogue, numerous strategies on how to help reduce students’ speaking anxiety were discussed. However, I was surprised at the number of suggestions that refuted tested and proven strategies for PSA reduction. Moreover, I was startled and dismayed to hear comments such as “I have just given up and allowed my students to read from a manuscript” or “the only way I can get [my students] to stay calm is when I allow them to write as …

So, You’Re A New Forensics Coach?: Establishing An Oral Interpretation Program And Culture Of Success, Barb Kleinjan

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

As many new English and Speech instructors quickly realize, their first teaching contract will most certainly include forensic extra-curricular activities. By the simple virtue of training to become fine arts teachers, administrators and principals may assign the coaching of Debate, One Act Plays or Oral Interpretation to their contracts, even though the individual may have had no experience in any of those activities. In my first secondary school contract, I was required to coach Oral Interpretation, three One Act Plays and the spring All School Play. My drama background consisted of a knowledge and appreciation for Shakespeare, yet with no …

From The Editor

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

No abstract provided.

Algorithm Controls: An Examination Of Ethos, Agency, And Interfaces In The Fallout Series, Daniel Cox

English Theses & Dissertations

Presenting a framework for videogame agency based on relationships, the constraints on those relationships, and their context, an examination of the representations of ethos and karma, agency models, and interfaces in the Fallout series is shown. Reviewing ethos through its historical and quantifications across the games, the presentations of the Reputation and “Karma” systems across the games are examined as affecting player choice in different ways. Building across agency models and past scholarship, a temporal framework for agency is considered and applied to a case study of Fallout 3 (2008). Closing the framework through positioning actions as happening within layers …

High School Girls”: Women’S Higher Education At The Louisville Female High School, Amy J. Lueck

English

Nineteenth-century women gained access to significant higher education opportunities under the auspices of the urban, public high school (as well as at seminaries, academies, normal schools, and other variously named institutions) even when they did not matriculate into colleges proper. Women made great strides in all forms of higher education in the last half of the nineteenth century, but particularly in high schools and academies; while remaining underrepresented in colleges until 1978, women constituted a majority of graduates from high schools as early as 1870. This trend held true both nationally and in the local context of Louisville, where women …

Learning From And Reflecting On Marjane Satrapi’S Persepolis Ii: The Story Of A Return [Composition], Ece Aykol

Open Educational Resources

This staged Composition I - ENG 101 assignment in its entirety was completed over the course of approximately six weeks. Students were allowed to revise and re-submit their work along the way and the grade they earned from this module constituted 30% of their final grade for the course.

In addition to being aligned with the integrative learning core competency and written ability, the assignment emphasizes advancing the students’ abilities to closely read primary and secondary sources, synthesize their understanding of these texts in their writing, and reflect on their work and learning in all the parts outlined below.

While …

The Rhetoric Of The Civil War: Literary Devices Of The North And South, Kelsey Williams

Senior Honors Theses

While both Northern and Southern antebellum writers employed religious imagery for their persuasive purposes, their specific rhetoric differed: Timrod pictured the South romantically, as the revival of Camelot even after the Confederacy’s death; Stowe, heavily influenced by her personal background, enacted emotion accompanied by an appeal to ethics in her fictional apologetic for the end of slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Although history handed both authors the opportunity to affect the nation’s trajectory, only Stowe achieved this feat, and she owes her triumph over Timrod, the victory of the North over the South, to her emotional rhetoric concerning slavery. …

Having A Feel For What Works: Polymedia, Emotion, And Literacy Practices With Mobile Technologies, Bronwyn T. Williams

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Tweeting The Anthropocene: #400ppm As Networked Event, Lauren E. Cagle, Denise Tillery

Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies Faculty Publications

Social media platforms have been widely available for over 10 years, and communication research has responded in part by exploring how Facebook and other social media sites are used for advocacy and public discourse. Environmental issues, including climate change, have also been the focus of recent work on social media, including Environmental Communication's 2015 special issue on Climate Change Communication and the Internet. Bruno Latour's actor-network theory allows people to account for the roles played by users, links, hashtags, and other actants in the effort to move information through a larger network. The high percentage of tweets in the dataset …

Andrew Johnson: The Uniting Or Dividing Factor Of Reconstruction, Nicole Perkins

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This historiography began with an abundance of research done on the topic of Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction, annotating each source, noticing trends in interpretation, and organizing my thoughts. Through this historiography, the reader will be able to clearly see the drastically different interpretations of Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction during different time periods of American history.

Historiography Of The Reconstruction Era Kkk: Reconstructing Understandings Of Racism, Mary Mcloughlin

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

The writing process for this historiography spanned a large portion of the semester. I started by writing a topic proposal where I identified my goal for the project as examining the way the classification of the Ku Klux Klan has evolved. Next, I gathered an array of sources which I later narrowed down to the eight used in my historiography. Using these eight sources, I submitted an annotated bibliography to my professor. I used the feedback given on my annotated bibliography to craft an initial draft of my historiography. After consulting the CORE write place consultants and utilizing the feedback …

A Woman’S Place Is In Politics: The Changing Interpretations Of The Women’S Suffrage Movement’S Involvement In Reconstruction, Sabrina Jemail

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

I wrote this historiography paper over the course of the Spring 2017 semester in my ASI 120 class. The assignment was to write a historiography paper about a topic of our choosing during the Reconstruction period in America. In addition to the analyzing historians' interpretations of our topics, we were also asked to choose the group of sources that we felt was most accurate and compelling. To prepare for the paper, I read Eric Foner’s A Short History of Reconstruction, which provided me with deeper background knowledge of the time period and guided me in the development of my …

Irene Adler, Just Another Damsel, Sarah Litteral

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

As someone who identifies as a feminist, I was very excited to discover that my English class, which focused on the topic of Sherlock Holmes, had a whole entire section dedicated to the interactions of women within the series. Once we were able to choose what our final research paper would be on, I knew exactly what I wanted to talk about. My whole life I have love mystery novels, especially the Holmes series, however, I was always a little unsatisfied at the lack of prominent female characters within it. I felt that this paper would be the perfect format …

The Neighborhood Of Mccook Field: Putting The Community And The Environment Back Together, Claudia Hampel, Rebecca Richardson

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Our assignment was based on the concept of community and all it entails. Each student pair in our class was assigned a neighborhood in Dayton (ours being McCook Field) and given the task of identifying an asset of their respective neighborhood, along with demographic information, physical geography, economic characteristics, etc. We initially began our assignment by talking about how communities are defined and constructed, then we began doing research on our assigned neighborhood in order to find one asset. In our case, we chose to focus on the issue with volatile organic compounds in McCook Field and the steps being …

Dayton, Ohio Education & Industries: Getting To The Source Of The Problem, Nina Santarpia

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

After researching the history of industries in Dayton, Ohio and examining the current economic characteristics, I wanted to know how Dayton was being proactive and planning to make changes. I interviewed a director from Ruskin Elementary and learned about how they are conditioning children to improve the future economy of Dayton and industries.

Selfishness: The Basis Of Conflict, Lilly M. Barnett

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

For this essay, we were prompted to discuss themes and characters of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and how those related to John Paul II's ideals of the common good. After careful consideration and research, I came to the understanding that characters Frankenstein were not particularly working toward the common good and therefore revolved my paper around that and supporting facts from Shelley. I also incorporate supporting details from Rebecca Solnit's Ice.

Branding In Today's Society: I Do Care, Kayla A. Flaute

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

For this assignment, I was required to critique a literary work by Kathleen Norris, a best selling poet and essayist. I chose her essay called "I Don't Care," which outlines that people should not care about what brands they buy. However, I believe there are several reasons for people to care about what brands they buy. That being said, I picked three of the most important reasons why people should care and used these reasons to critique Norris' essay.

The Common Good Frankenstein Textual Analysis And Argument Essay, Julia G. Bonfiglio

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

My writing process for this particular essay was fairly simple and straightforward. I began by reading the prompt and writing notes on my teacher's specific directions. I then went to the library, where I reviewed my notes and the directions. Next, I began to write a brief rough draft which I later printed and gave to my teacher for review. Finally, I took all of her suggestions for improvement into consideration and completed my essay.

Writing The World: Ten Strategies For Internationalizing The Writing Classroom, Stefanie Frigo

Journal of Student Success in Writing (Archived)

In an increasingly global educational and professional environment, it is essential that new graduates are able to communicate across international and local cultural borders and barriers. Given the reach of composition classes, touching almost every undergraduate, first year writing is uniquely positioned to deliver classes that teach written, verbal, and visual communication and enhance intercultural understanding and global competency. One of the greatest challenges that departments face is delivering this content in an innovative and engaging manner, and without requiring an international experience – something beyond the reach of many students. This article offers solutions via ten practical classroom strategies …

On Cheating And Prosperity, Trey Conatser

Greater Faculties: A Review of Teaching and Learning

At the outset of a new academic year, we'd do well to reflect on how we pitch academic integrity—and the concept of cheating—to our students. Not only does it affect how they see us as teachers and scholars; it also affects in profound ways how we see (or don't see) students as complex human beings. And this asks us to go against our gut reactions to the apparent moral legibility of cheating. If we understand cheating as an evasive concept, and as a product of our institutions, we're much less likely to incentivize it.

Theresienstadt - The "Show Camp," A Burkean Analysis, Suzanne Homsley Homsley

Theses and Dissertations

For this thesis, a rhetorical analysis of Theresienstadt, the Jewish hybrid camp and ghetto, was completed by using Kenneth Burke’s pentad. Terministic screens were identified and Burke’s definition of man was examined in relation to the inmates and others involved in key events of Theresienstadt. This analysis was done to determine if Theresienstadt was a tool of propaganda the Nazis used to convince the world mass exterminations of Jews were not being done. An interdisciplinary approach was taken, by using the works of Kenneth Burke to complete a rhetorical analysis combined with the use of historical primary and secondary sources. …