Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Discourse Functions Of Modal Verbs 'Will And Shall' In Christian Prayers, Olalekan T. Adepoju

Publications and Research

Prayer and language can be said to share similar definition in that they are both means of communication, though in prayer, one is communicating solely with a Supreme Being. This communication implies that a prayer is a form of discourse due to the presence of interaction; as such a discourse analysis of prayer will not be out of place. This study therefore investigates the use of modal verbs by pastors in Christian prayers. This is with a view to identifying and examining the discourse functions performed by these modal expressions. The Speech Act Theory and Systemic Functional Grammar, mainly using …

Hillman College Is A Different World From Where You Come From: A Thematic Analysis Of Relationships In A Different World, Natilie Williams

Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on the identity and relationships portrayed in the television series, A Different World. Although the popular series ended in 1993, this show continues to resonate with the African-American community. Specifically, Ron, D. Wayne, and Whitley are the primary characters of focus. Ron and D. Wayne maintain a brotherhood, while Whitley and D. Wayne maintain a romantic relationship. Both of these relationships include implicit expectations, illustrate varying levels of reciprocity, and provide identity-shaping communicative feedback.

Out Of The Classroom And Away From One-To-One Sessions: The Efficacy Of Writing Groups For High-Achieving Students, Vicki Kennell, Amy Elliot, Tammy Conard-Salvo

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Presentations

This presentation shares the results of IRB-approved research looking at the efficacy of writing groups for two high-achieving student populations: graduate students and Liberal Arts Honors College undergraduates. The writing groups were demonstrated to be effective for graduate students, but various factors affected the viability of writing groups as long-term writing support for the undergraduates.

In Search Of Solidarity: Identification Participation In Virtual Fan Communities, Jaime Shamado Robb

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study questions the way sports fans create (a sense of) community through online conversations. Here, ‘community’ and ‘internet’ are seen as invitational terms that suggest an authentic social interaction. By examining the language used by fans to sustain a sense of solidarity in the virtual realm, this study questions the ways in which rhetoric frames the situation. Participation in the virtual space relies on practices of identification derived from physical engagements. By using a rhetorical approach, this study illuminates the way individual participants operationalize a rhetoric in virtual conversations that spiritualize the fan’s experience at the base of a …

The Design And Research Potential Of Crow In Language Research And Teaching, Jie Gao, Sherri Craig

Purdue Linguistics, Literature, and Second Language Studies Conference

The proposal describes Crow’s developing background, preliminary structure, and research potentials. Possible scenarios and samples will be presented, opening ground for further contributions and suggestions. Crow serves as an example of how interdisciplinary projects could be launched, meanwhile integrating the use of corpus and database in language teaching and research.

"I Worried About Pretty Much Everything": Training Tutors To Work With L2 Writers, Vicki Kennell

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Presentations

Due to increases in international enrollment at Purdue, with resulting increases in international traffic in our writing center, I have spent a significant portion of time over the last 4 years developing an intensive training program to help our tutors gain the second language writing expertise they may lack when they first begin tutoring. This talk offers a behind-the-scenes look at the development process, including information about needs assessments, context constraints (such as funding and time), goals, topics, methods, and the creation of interactive training content. Although I offer specific examples of topics and some sample activities used in our …

Science, Policy, And Decision Making: A Case Study Of Deliberative Rhetoric And Policymaking For Coastal Adaptation In Southeast Florida, Karen Patricia Langbehn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to observe and analyze the process of regional climate adaptation planning and the role of stakeholder deliberation in decision making about adaptation actions. It employed a case study approach based on one of three total study sites of an international, multidisciplinary grant titled, “METROPOLE: An Integrated Framework to Analyze Local Decision Making and Adaptive Capacity to Large-Scale Environmental Change”. The purpose of the case study of this project was to analyze stakeholder deliberation at two workshops at the grant’s Broward County, Florida site regarding two adaptation options: elevation/floodproofing and voluntary buyouts. Analyzing stakeholder deliberation …

Learning The Language Of Academic Engineering: Sociocognitive Writing In Graduate Students, Catherine G. P. Berdanier

Open Access Dissertations

Although engineering graduate programs rarely require academic writing courses, the indicators of merit in academic engineering, such as journal publications, successful grants, and doctoral milestones (e.g. theses, dissertations) are based in effective written argumentation and disciplinary discourse. Further, graduate student attrition averages 57% across all disciplines, with some studies classifying up to 50% of these students as “ABD” (All But Dissertation.) In engineering disciplines specifically, graduate attrition rates across the U.S. average 36% (both Master’s and PhD students), according to the Council of Graduate Schools. The lack of socialization is generally noted as a main reason for graduate attrition, one …

Calling All Rebels!: Taco Bell Fights Fast Food Breakfast Fascism: A Rhetorical Analysis Of The “Routine Republic” Commercial Using Narrative Criticism And Intertextuality, Sharine Borslien

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Golding's The Spire As An Architectonic Novel, Stephan Schaffrath

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Golding's The Spire as an Architectonic Novel" Stephan Schaffrath analyzes William Golding's work as an excellent example of one of Mikhail Bakhtin's early critical concepts. In contrast to most literary entertainment which thrives on the readers' suspension of disbelief, The Spire challenges readers to actively and consciously interpret its text, thus raising readers' awareness as participants in the reading act. The Spire achieves this by presenting readers with a novelistic world seen more or less through the eyes of a pseudo narrator, a third-person narration style that consistently and regularly — yet subtly — delves into the …

Digital Humanities And Publishing A Learned Journal, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Digital Humanities and Publishing a Learned Journal" Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek discusses digital humanities and the publishing scholarship online in the context of the politics of publishing scholarship specifically as it pertains to humanities. Funding for the publishing of humanities scholarship remains constricted worldwide whether in print or digital and the standard remains to publish journals by subscription fees. Based on his argumentation against the "colonialism of knowledge," Tötösy de Zepetnek argues for the publishing of humanities scholarship against subscription-based or author-pay models. Further, he presents suggestions as to the how-s of the founding of a digital …

Capitalist Rhetoric And The Redirection Of Power Through Metaphor In Reviews Of Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu Films, Isidro Zepeda

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Treating the concept of culture as a heuristic allows us to analyze multiple contexts involving culture as continuously changing with or without exterior contact. The productions from such system have the potential to develop identities through ideological materials produced by specialized rhetoric. This paper then focuses on how figurative language and structure affect the ways in which rhetoric, ideology, and identity are formed within the context of film reviews. In particular, I analyze reviews from the films Birdman and The Revenant, both directed by Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu, to detail how the use of metaphors influences the production of rhetoric. …

Postcolonial Studies In The Twenty-First Century: A Book Review Article Of Literature For Our Times & Reading Transcultural Cities, Alejandra Moreno Álvarez

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

The Demons Of Coed Intramural Sports, Amanda M. Schleper

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

The purpose of this assignment was to select a topic within the realms of gender issues, complete research in the library, and conduct personal research in the form of a survey or an interview. I knew I wanted to select a topic that was relative to me and my community. After talking to several of my peers, I realized there was a large controversy over the topic of gender specific rules in coed intramural sports. Thus, I decided to delve into the issue by undertaking it as my essay topic. Researching in the library and finding many scholarly sources as …

'Let It Go': Disney's New Approach To Copyright Enforcement, Kathryn W. O'Rourke

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

After the research paper had been assigned, I began researching possible topics. Once I found an area that interested me, I narrowed down my research and formulated a working argument. There have been many writings about Disney's strict enforcement of copyright; I however took a different approach. I gathered scholarly and popular sources that ranged from background information, similar arguments, and counter points. For the rough draft, I first crafted an outline, then wrote the body paragraphs, and finally the introduction and conclusion. In class, we had a peer review session and my professor gave us constructive notes on our …

Black Widow: Avenger Of Feminism, Elizabeth G. Michalenko

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

The purpose of the assignment was to construct a well-researched argument regarding a socially different superhero and their role in society. The argument needed to address the super’s social difference, as well as how that social difference defines the super’s role. Through class brainstorming sessions and individual research, I determined that emerging gender issues in American society and culture would provide the impetus for my investigation. I searched for the quintessential female hero and found Black Widow from the Marvel universe. Black Widow defies the stereotypes of women and superheroes by living within the constraints of both worlds without succumbing …

Flawed Heroes, Flawless Villain, Lauren N. Geiser

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This assignment was a textual analysis of the graphic novel Watchmen. The two course objectives of ENG 200H were addressed: to “demonstrate abilities to read complicated and complex texts closely and critically” and to “explore the relevance of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT) in reading, writing, and rhetoric.” Reading Watchmen, we aimed to demonstrate how the novel is related to the CIT, either through connections or disconnections. Because the assignment is a textual analysis, I had to pay close attention to the context of Watchmen and the CIT, include a summary of the text though a specific angle, narrow …

Copyright Laws In The Music Industry, Elise M. Erhart

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This assignment was to write an argumentative research paper on a topic related to the course theme, which was Remix Culture. After browsing through a list of suggested topics and reading about a number of famous copyright cases, I finally chose my topic. My biggest struggle during the composition of this paper was figuring out how to organize all of my thoughts and weave them into the research that I gathered. Having both a peer review day in class and a conference with my professor was very helpful and gave me a fresh perspective on my work, making it much …

Women In Engineering: Shifting The Balance, Samuel A. Barnhart

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This writing was submitted as the final research paper for my English class. The paper includes analysis of multiple sources and my original research done via survey of female engineering students at the University of Dayton. The paper underwent several peer reviews in class, assessed by the professor before submission, and was critiqued at the Write Place before submission.

Changing Princess Peach, Christian A. Matico

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

The main assignment for this paper was to gather sources from academia and various news sources and create a synthesis argument on a topic dealing with women in a certain field. All of the students chose a topic they felt strongly about and that showed how women have been encompassed in my field. Due to my admiration of video games, I decided to show how specifically female characters were being portrayed in popular titled games. A lot of research came from our presentations we had to do before hand on our topic and further research was done to gather statistics …

Fake Characters: Real Suffering, Brian P. Callahan

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

In this paper, I was asked to describe positive or negative literacy sponsors I have encountered in my life.

A Letter To A Struggling German Catholic During The Reformation, Rachel G. Zinck

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

The assignment presented was to write a position paper in the format of a letter to a German Catholic friend undergoing an existential crisis during the Reformation period. First, we needed to analyze Martin Luther's 3 Walls of the Romanists, and then take a stance either choosing to follow or ignore Luther. In writing this essay, I spent a lot of time reading over Luther's arguments and reflecting on my own personal views and compared them with careful consideration. I was aware that the situation at the time was a matter of life and death for many, and attempted to …

When The Nazi’S Are Misunderstood: Addressing Racist Rhetoric In The Composition Classroom, Charlesia Mckinney

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

N/A

Book Reviews: Alien Phenomenology, Or What It’S Like To Be A Thing By Ian Bogost, Jet Plane: How It Works By David Macaulay, Andvibrant Matter: A Political Ecology Of Things By Jane Bennett, Nathaniel A. Rivers

Criticism

In this review essay, I review Ian Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing (2012) and Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (2010) alongside David MacAuley’s Jet Plane: How It Works (2012), which is devoted to a child’s experience of airplanes. While composed for different audiences in traditionally discrete contexts, all three books do critical, speculative work in providing explicit articulations and implicit performances of alternative ontologies from which Critical Air Studies might benefit.

Miracle: Surviving The Bataan Death March, Gail Y. Richard

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a portion of the experiences of Bataan Death March survivors including those of Eddie Graham, my uncle, and Tillman Rutledge, an acquaintance. The event consisted of walking sixty-five miles over a period of six to twelve days without food or water. Throughout the duration of the walk, the prisoners endured inhuman atrocities at the hands of Japanese soldiers. Section two of this document highlights Eddie Graham's experience seventy-one years later while on a Kansas Honor Flight trip to the WWII Memorial, where he and other WWII veterans were honored. Section three follows with a description of the …

Composing Across Genres: A Study Of Writing Expectations At The University Of Arkansas At Little Rock, Howard Bryant Lytle

Theses and Dissertations

Students are entering the first-year composition (FYC) classroom underexposed to multiple genres, multiple potential audiences, and a variety of modalities. Based on survey responses from faculty members across the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR), this thesis project seeks to examine effective ways of teaching composition at the UALR to prepare students for upper-level coursework and for their future workplaces. Survey findings indicate that faculty members across the university ask students to respond to writing assignments in a variety of writing genres, address multiple audiences and purposes, and bring certain skill sets into their classrooms. As a result, this …

Getting The Picture: Engaging Student Learning Using Pinterest, Jo Koster

Winthrop Conference on Teaching and Learning

In a digital environment, teachers and students have access to a wide variety of material that can be used to create discussion, spark inquiry, and prompt critical thinking. One of the social media tools that can be used for this is Pinterest, a free online visual discovery, collection, sharing, and storage tool that allows users to curate and share information through the creation of visual bookmarks called “boards.” Users can “pin” material to their boards either by linking to other online sites or by uploading materials of their own; boards can be grouped by similar characteristics, themes, events, questions, ideas, …

Review Of Adin, Mariah, The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang And The Great Comic Book Scare Of The 1950s, Molly J. Scanlon

Communication, Media, and Arts Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Fictions Of Whiteness: Transatlantic Race Science, Gender, Nationalism, And The Construction Of Race In Nineteenth-Century American Fiction (1823-1867), Philip E. Kadish

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Fictions of Whiteness argues that political beliefs preceded and determined the race science theories which nineteenth century American white novelists applied or invoked in their work, the inverse of the current critical consensus. For issues ranging from Indian removal to slavery and Reconstruction, and utilizing theories from of Condorcet, Buffon, Camper, Louis Agassiz, James Pritchard, Johannes Blumenbach, and George Borrow these authors shifted allegiances to divergent race theories between and within works, applied those theories selectively to white, black, and Indians characters, and applied the same scientific race theories to politically divergent rhetorical ends. By analyzing shifting application of different …

Imagining A "Poethical" Classroom, Erica Kaufman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation begins at the crossroads of three fields—creative writing, contemporary poetics, and composition studies—and attempts to unite what is normally kept separate: the teaching of freshman composition and contemporary poetry. It is rooted, then, in the following anomalies: few students (unless they are English majors) encounter contemporary poetry; and few living poets (who often earn their livings as adjuncts, teaching composition) ever engage in a conversation about composition pedagogy. Fewer still teach the kind of poetry they write. Through a qualitative study of student writing in composition courses, this project investigates how encouraging students to engage with this form …