Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Faithful Transgressions, Laura L. Bush

All USU Press Publications

The central issue Bush finds in these works is how their authors have dealt with the authority of Mormon Church leaders. As she puts it in her preface, "I use the phrase 'faithful transgression' to describe moments in the texts when each writer, explicitly or implicitly, commits herself in writing to trust her own ideas and authority over official religious authority while also conceiving of and depicting herself to be a 'faithful' member of the Church." Bush recognizes her book as her own act of faithful transgression. Writing it involved wrestling, she states, "with my own deeply ingrained religious beliefs …

Music In The Heart, Claudina Silva

Undergraduate Review

No abstract provided.

A Tidy Spot, Stacy Nistendirk

Undergraduate Review

No abstract provided.

Maxine Hong Kingston, Charles L. Crow

Western Writers Series Digital Editions

“The history of the intermingling of human cultures is a history of trade—in objects like the narwhal’s tusk, in ideas, and in great narratives.”

—Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams

The Woman Warrior (1976), Maxine Hong Kingston’s first book, made her famous. Her arrival coincided with, and helped to fuel, an awareness of literature by women and ethnic minorities, and a change in the literature studied in high-school and college classrooms. Today Kingston is one of the most frequently taught of living American authors. Her works are studied in courses in English, women’s studies, Asian studies, ethnic studies, postmodern literature, postcolonial literature, …

The Bridge, Volume 1, 2004, Bridgewater State College

the bridge

Volume 1 Staff

Lauren Carter, Editor-in-Chief
Jennifer Stodder
Kaitlin MacLean
David Mitchell
John Butler
Christina Warsheski
Courtney Smith

Jerald Walker, Faculty Advisor
Linda Hall, Alumni Consultant
Rosann Kozlowski, Alumni Consultant

Story-List-Sanction: A Cross-Cultural Strategy Of Ancient Persuasion, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

Persuasion motivated the creation of many ancient Near Eastern texts. Persuasion was not limited to particular genres of discourse and literature but was frequently a stimulus leading authors to combine gemes to create more persuasive forms. In this process, the rhetorical capacities of many different kinds of liiterature were harnessed for overtly persuasive purposes. One such rhetorical strategy combined three kinds of materials-stories, lists and sanctions-to influence its audience's ideas and behaviors. It shaped the form and content of texts from a wide variety of periods and cultures in the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean, including the foundational scriptures …

Teaching Revising And Editing: An Annotated Bibliography, Priscilla Finley

Library Faculty Research

The most recent of six annotated bibliographies compiled by Speck and others covering facets of writing instruction, editing, and publishing, this work presents single-paragraph annotations of books, journal articles, and ERIC documents from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. Apart from noting that the six books in the series should be considered as a whole, the editors do not explicitly discuss selection criteria.

Wisdom To Know The Difference: The Rhetoric Of Pat Nixon, Linda B. Hobgood

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Henriette Wyeth Hurd painted the official portrait of Patricia Nixon. The woman depicted is serene, almost sad. She appears fragile, yet brave. Above all, the face that gazes from the canvas understands--the wisdom in her eyes reflects that sense of tribulation bequeathed by experience. Both the painting and the subject reflect "calm at the center." It is an insightful portrayal of the American first lady known to the world as "Pat."

“’National Apostasy,’ Tracts For The Times, And Plain Sermons: John Keble's Tractarian Prose.”, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

John Keble is perhaps best known for The Christian Year and his work as Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1831 to 1841. In this essay, I argue that his prose is worthy of study as well. I focus on "National Apostasy," the sermon that John Henry Newman saw as the inauguration of the Oxford Movement; the 8 pieces he contributed to the Tracts for the Times; and his many contributions to the Plain Sermons, by Contributors to the "Tracts for the Times."

A Certain Comfort: Betty Ford As First Lady, Nichola D. Gutgold, Linda B. Hobgood

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Her White House stay was short-lived, but the lessons of Betty Ford's experience remain vividly instructive. By accident of a national political crisis which catapulted her to the rank of the first lady in 1974, Mrs. Ford's tenure lasted a brief two years until her husband, Gerald R. Ford lost his bid for reelection. During that time, she developed a relationship of candor with the press and public. She spoke her mind on social and moral issues that were at the forefront of public debate. The positions she took were not always popular with the majority of Americans, many of …

Spectrum 2004, Saint Mary's College Of California

The Undergraduate Spectrum

No abstract provided.

Subsemy: Using Subversion To Create Multiple Meanings In Rhetorical Texts, Kane Madison Click

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the use of subversion to create multiple meanings in rhetorical texts. Subversion, an element focused on by Fiske (1986, 1987) and McKerrow (1988) in their early contributions to the rhetorical study of multiple meaning texts, has been an ongoing lacunae in the study of polysemic texts. I wish to provide a correction to this problem by offering the concept of subsemy. By examining the role of strategic ambiguity and irony in the functioning of subversion, the concept of subsemy provides a missing picture of how popular cultural texts, film in particular, can function subversively.

Notes From An Eighteenth Century Courtship, Cynthia Booth Ricciardi

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

Discourse Of Evil: Speaking Terrorism To Silence, Galip Isen

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

That the impact of terrorism is equal to the reaction it elicits may be a truism, but one that deserves further probing as demonstrated by the way that reaction is put to use politically. Whichever of 150-strong definitions [1] is accepted, the consequential aspect of terrorism is ideational: the assault targets the concept and experience of normal in the lives and minds of ordinary people. Several writers argue that terrorism is generally inefficacious, strategically counterproductive and mostly unsuccessful as a method of attaining socio-political objectives [2]. However, overall public response to 11 September 2001 has been so profound …

Auto-Ethnography As A Communicative And Therapeutic Means Of Addressing Eating Disorders, Julie Irvin

Honors Theses

Under the premise that human beings are natural storytellers, narratives are an essential part of our lives and the way we shape and form our stories impacts our daily activities. When life struggles transpire, we typically make sense of our world through narratives, which is why therapists sometimes draw upon narrative therapy. By exploring different types of narratives-the basic genre of a life-story, testimonio, literary narrative, ethnography, and auto-ethnography-the mode that presents itself as a viable means of intrapersonal communication, possibly producing change, is auto-ethnography. Examining the need for narrative within the conditions of eating disorders, the question arises as …

Review Of Burger With The Works, Please! A Webjournal For Students Of The Humanities, Alexandra Ganser

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Role Of Explicit Teaching Of Cognitive/Metacognitive Reading Strategies To Improve Reading Comprehension At The Elementary Level, Sheila R. Deboer

Master of Education Program Theses

This paper presents a summary of selected research on teaching cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies and their correlation to improved reading comprehension at the elementary level. It also reviews instructional programs, and describes implications for teaching. Study findings indicate that explicit teaching of cognitive/metacognitive reading strategies are effective in improving reading comprehension for students at the elementary level.

Bryson’S Dictionary Of Troublesome Words, Priscilla Finley

Library Faculty Research

Travel writer and humorist Bryson has revised, adapted, and updated his style guide, first published in 1984 in Britain as Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words and in the US as Facts on File Dictionary of Troublesome Words, to appeal to contemporary American book buyers. Presenting itself as a "compilation of suggestions, observations, and treasured prejudices," the work compiles and comments on commonly misspelled words and proper nouns and other conundrums of usage scrupulous writers or copy editors may face.

What We Really Value: Beyond Rubrics In Teaching And Assessing Writing, Bob Broad

All USU Press Publications

The result of a long-term study of one university's introductory composition program, Broad's approach to mapping the values that inform writing evaluation is empirically grounded, painstakingly analyzed, yet flexible, human, and pedagogically wise. Not simple, but surely practical, his method yields a more satisfactory process of exploration and a more useful representation of the values by which compositionists actually evaluate their students. With this important study, Broad moves the field far beyond rubrics in teaching and assessing writing. What We Really Value traces the origins of traditional rubrics within the theoretical and historical circumstances out of which they emerged, then …

Genre And The Invention Of The Writer: Reconsidering The Place Of Invention In Composition, Anis S. Bawarshi

All USU Press Publications

In a focused and compelling discussion, Anis Bawarshi looks to genre theory for what it can contribute to a refined understanding of invention. In describing what he calls "the genre function," he explores what is at stake for the study and teaching of writing to imagine invention as a way that writers locate themselves, via genres, within various positions and activities. He argues, in fact, that invention is a process in which writers are acted upon by genres as much as they act themselves. Such an approach naturally requires the composition scholar to re-place invention from the writer to the …

Blurred Relationships: The Factual Fiction Of John Edgar Wideman, Melissa Bakeman Hartmann

Theses Digitization Project

Control is a central issue in any text: does the author's intention or the reader's interpretation better explain the resulting meaning of the text? This question has long been the subject of debate among textual theorists; this essay proposes a middle ground, namely that the author and the reader engage in a collaborative effort to make meaning in a text.

Implicature And Argumentation, Jon Nelsen Preacher

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis explores the role, if any, that implicature plays as a strategy in informal debate. Transcripts of spontaneous debates from television and radio public affairs talk shows were analyzed with a focus on the use of implicature as a strategic rhetorical tool employed to gain advantage in an argument.

Internal Dialogues: Construction Of The Self In The Woman Warrior, Ann Shirley Modzelewski

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis considers past autobiographical theory and questions whether it addresses the autobiography of the female writer. Autobiographies of Harriet Jacobs, Margaret Sanger, and Maxine Hong Kingston are examined to reveal their polyvocality, use of the autobiographical "I", and rhetorical strategies maintained in order to create a close relationship with the reader. Particular attention is paid to Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of dialogism and Sidonie Smith's autobiographical "I."

Exploring Visual Learning In The Basic Writing Classroom, Prince Michael Ferguson

Theses Digitization Project

For many students in basic writing classrooms the language of writing assignments, essay prompts and required reading is especially difficult. Therefore, some teachers are using approaches other than logical or linguistic methods to assist these students. This thesis details some of the methods teachers and researchers are using. Most significant is a case study that explores the use of visuals in a basic writing classroom. The results of the case study and a survey instrument suggest that there is a niche for alternative methods and the use of visuals in the basic writing classroom.

Home And Who: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Rudyard Kipling's "Tiger! Tiger!' And "Letting In The Jungle", Steven Clark Estus

Theses Digitization Project

These stories are representative of an idea that is repeatedly expressed both in the concrete details of Kipling's stories and in the way he uses language. It is possible to see that Kipling, the archetypical man of the empire, may not always have been the empire's man in his work; and causes for that may be found in the alluring, very non-English place he lived in for several years of his youth: India.

The Knowledge And Skills Of Freshman Writers, Aram Paul Sarkisian

Theses Digitization Project

This research identifies what proficient writers know and do by the end of their freshman year in college and raises the kind of questions that improve the articulation of English instruction.

Re-Examining The Personal Narrative In First Year Composition, Kathryn Marie Hansler

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis explores the current theories on the personal narrative (as a tool in teaching freshman composition) and examines the ways that this essay is now being used in first year courses at California State University, San Bernardino.

The Working Hour: A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Lyrics Of Tears For Fears, Jennifer Anne Gross-Mejía

Theses Digitization Project

Childhood friends Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal founded the band Tears for Fears, and were the two primary members from 1982-1990. Their songs describe the struggle of coping with childhood abuse. This thesis analyzes the rhetorical aspects of their lyrics, emphasizing how the words of their songs express the fundamental human response to abuse, and the painful process of recovery. It explores how the songwriters use the psychological theories of Arthur Janov and Carl Jung to scaffold their experience of working through emotional trauma; and how they combine those theories with astrological symbolism to explore the idea of destiny. This …

Landscape Of Desire: Identity And Nature In Utah's Canyon Country, Greg Gordon

All USU Press Publications

Landscape of Desire powerfully documents and celebrates a place and the evolutions that occur when human beings are intimately connected to their surroundings. Greg Gordon accomplishes this with a tapestry of writing that interweaves land use history, natural history, experiential education, and personal reflection. He tracks the geomorphology of southern Utah as well as the creatures and plants his student group encounters, the history lessons (planned and unplanned), the trials and joys of gathering so many individuals into a cohesive will, and his own personal epiphanies, restraints, insights, and disillusionments.

The Center Will Hold: Critical Perspectives On Writing Center Scholarship, Michael A. Pemberton, Joyce Kinkead

All USU Press Publications

In The Center Will Hold, Pemberton and Kinkead have compiled a major volume of essays on the signal issues of scholarship that have established the writing center field and that the field must successfully address in the coming decade. The new century opens with new institutional, demographic, and financial challenges, and writing centers, in order to hold and extend their contribution to research, teaching, and service, must continuously engage those challenges. Appropriately, the editors offer the work of Muriel Harris as a key pivot point in the emergence of writing centers as sites of pedagogy and research. The volume develops …