Education Commons^™

Off The Rails: Cinematic Trains As Technological Controls Of The Natural World, Trinity Thompson

Honors Theses

Short train rail lines across the United States are seeing increased national funding to reduce toxic chemical spills caused by train derailments, the most notable of which happened in February 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio. A year prior, the film White Noise (2022) featured a similar toxic train derailment incident, taking place, too, in Eastern Ohio, and featuring actors from the town of East Palestine. In considering other films featuring trains, I identified a pattern of environmental conflict, leading me to question the relationship between trains and the natural environment as portrayed in popular cinema. To conduct my research, I …

Defining And Transferring Digital Literacies: What Does This Mean For High School And College Educators?, Jocelyn Spoor

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis aims to create a digital literacies transfer framework through a discussion regarding current conversations on transfer and digital literacies in the English field, including synthesizing the two ideas to think about the transfer of digital literacies as a concept. This digital literacies framework is made up of five components: the functional skills, critical skills, and rhetorical skills found in digital literacies scholarship and the genre awareness and meta-cognitive ideas found in transfer literature. This digital literacies transfer framework is then used to analyze information gleaned from four college and five high school English educators. The key findings from …

Final Report: Oer Textbook For Core A2 Courses, Cathy Gabor, Leigh Meredith

USF OER Faculty Grant

This report provides an overview of the project completed with OER grant funds received from USF’s Gleeson Library in 2021. Our OER project was to create a textbook that would reduce costs for students in USF’s current Core A2 classes, including RHET 120, 250, 295 and HONC 132. It was also intended to provide a “multimodal” (writing, speaking, digital) approach to composition to reflect best practices and pedagogical innovations in the teaching of composition and communication. This report will cover the specific plan for the OER, what was accomplished, what assessment efforts were undertaken, and areas for further development. Findings …

"Dear Stanford: You Must Reckon With Your History Of Sexual Violence" By Seo-Young Chu, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

In 2000 a Stanford professor raped me. My rape is now older than I was. (I’m still not as old as he was.) The more time passes the more I’m struck by Stanford’s apathy and fecklessness about sexual violence. I wrote a letter asking Stanford to stop compounding the abuse and to reckon with its rape culture. This letter—including the “Incomplete Compilation of Links to Sources Documenting Stanford’s History of Sexual Violence, in Chronological Order”—should be mandatory reading for administrators, faculty, students, alumni, and stakeholders at both Stanford and CUNY. #MeToo #MeTooAcademia

Generation(Al) Matters: Story, Lens, And Tone, Louise Weatherbee Phelps

English Faculty Publications

This essay tells a story of how “generation” came to matter in rhetoric and composition/writing studies; analyzes and advocates for “generation” as a lens through which to examine disciplinary studies and activities; and considers how we can productively engage in generational relations between individuals and groups. It adopts a framework of “hospitality” (adapted from Richard and Janis Haswell) to develop a concept of “cross-generational relations” as an aspirational category. An ethic of hospitality is proposed to facilitate respectful, productive relations among generational groups, which recognize and enact interdependence but allow for a wide range of stances and strategies of interaction …

Introduction: The Politics, Praxis, And Performativity Of Teacher Neutrality, Daniel P. Richards

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Full Disclosure / Now What?, Daniel P. Richards

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Frameworks For Collaboration: Articulating Information Literacy, And Rhetoric And Writing Goals In The Archives, Amy J. Lueck, Nadia Nasr

Staff publications, research, and presentations

Rhetoric and composition scholars have recently called our attention to the value of archival research in the undergraduate classroom, leading to rich collaborations with archivists and librarians at many institutions. As we engaged our own pedagogical collaboration as a university archivist and English faculty member, we realized that, though we might use slightly different language to articulate them or cite different sources in support of them, many of our learning goals overlapped. As we explored these goals together, we realized that they evidenced a correspondence in our disciplines that we had not explored—one that is reflected in our fields’ recent …

Delivery, Facilitas, And Copia : Job Market Preparation And The Revival Of The Fifth Canon., Joseph Turner

Faculty Scholarship

This essay argues that English Studies departments should implement training programs in oral delivery strategies for graduate students seeking tenure track employment. A sample a 13-week training program, modeled on elements of classical rhetorical pedagogy, can help students develop and refine stills in oral delivery necessary for academic job interviews.

Fiqws Fall 2018: Phase 2 Assignment Prompt The Exploratory Essay, Sabina Pringle, Missy Watson

Open Educational Resources

This phase two writing assignment prompt for FIQWS 10003 - HA1 WCGI History & Culture and FIQWS 10103 - HA1 Composition for WCGI History & Culture (fall 2018) provides guidelines for writing an Exploratory Essay in which students will consider the ideas of course readings and compose an essay that demonstrates their engagement with those ideas. The rhetorical purpose of this assignment is for students to demonstrate the ways in which their thinking about language and literacy has developed so far in the course, using evidence based on interpretations, ideas, and examples as well as passages from four or five …

Dwelling In The Ruins: Recovering Student Use Of Metaphor In The Posthistorical University, Daniel P. Richards

English Faculty Publications

This article argues that the field of Rhetoric and Composition has long harnessed the active potential of metaphor to change its own practices but has considerably overlooked student use of metaphor--a particularly urgent oversight given the metaphorical battleground that constitutes the discourse of contemporary higher education. Using this exigency, the article 1) explains how a more thorough reading of Lakoff and Johnson's popular work on metaphor theory can re-energize Rhetoric and Composition to be more inclusive of student experiences in classroom coverage of metaphor and 2) offers imaginative but concrete pedagogical approaches and activities aimed at facilitating student learning of …

Engl 254: Writing And Communities—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Rachael Wendler Shah

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This course portfolio analyzes a section of English 254: Writing and Communities, exploring how well the course met individual teaching goals and the departmental course goals for English 254, with a particular focus on how the new English Department mission statement priorities are actualized in the class and how well the class supported learning to communicate across difference. The portfolio includes an outline of institutional context, course outcomes, and student background, as well as a backwards planning chart that demonstrates alignment between outcomes, activities, and assessment strategy. Then, the portfolio examines student data from each of the three major assignments, …

Digital Literacies And Visual Rhetoric: Scaffolding A Meme-Based Assignment Sequence For Introductory Composition Classes, Andie Silva

Publications and Research

Introducing students to the practice of academic writing ideally goes beyond teaching strategies like drafting, outlining, and revising in order to encourage deeper skills such as critical thinking and metacognition. This post discusses an assignment series focusing on reflection, genre analysis, and multiliteracies leading up to the design of original memes.

Rhetoric As Inquiry: Personal Writing And Academic Success In The English Classroom, Erica E. Rogers

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Holistic and critical pedagogy, an approach to learning and teaching, integrates the everyday realities students live, with the systemic and institutional objectives of education itself. Working with theories from composition, rhetoric, feminist studies, and cognitive psychology from a teacher-researcher perspective, this dissertation explores and theorizes holistic, critical pedagogy within the composition classroom while outlining the use of personal writing as a means to develop critical consciousness. Student study participants kept “Inquiry Notebooks,” semester-long personal writing projects that served as receptacles for practical and theoretical engagement with a variety of texts and ideas, then interviewed after the course to discuss their …

Come On In, The Writing's Fine: Preserving Voice And Generating Enthusiasm In My English 100 Syllabus, Elisa Leah Berry

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis explores the potential for creating a composition syllabus that presents a model of good writing, is an enthusiastic invitation to the discipline, and provides a clear roadmap to success, not only for the course, but also for the students’ college career. This is especially useful for an increasingly diverse student community that arrives to college with a varying knowledge of the academic institution, with its specialized language and systems. The project explores the existing research on syllabus crafting, uses current composition studies and a survey of English 100 students to interrogate the rhetorical situation of the author’s own …

Traditions Of Eloquence: The Jesuits And Modern Rhetorical Studies [Appendix], Cinthia Gannett, John Brereton

Religion

This groundbreaking collection explores the important ways Jesuits have employed rhetoric, the ancient art of persuasion and the current art of communications, from the sixteenth century to the present. Much of the history of how Jesuit traditions contributed to the development of rhetorical theory and pedagogy has been lost, effaced, or dispersed. As a result, those interested in Jesuit education and higher education in the United States, as well as scholars and teachers of rhetoric, are often unaware of this living 450-year-old tradition. Written by highly regarded scholars of rhetoric, composition, education, philosophy, and history, many based at Jesuit colleges …

Rhetorical Genre Theory And The Enactment Of Faith In The Composition Classroom, Heather N. Hill

Faculty Integration Papers

In James Berlin’s Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1985 he argues that “every rhetorical system is based on epistemological assumptions about the nature of reality, the nature of the knower, and the rules governing the discovery and communication of the known” (4). Beginning with the debates between Plato and the sophists and running through the history of rhetoric to the likes of Wayne Booth on one side and William Covino on the other, rhetorical theorists have always been interested in debating the nature of reality, knowledge, morality, ethics, and T/truth. How one defines the status of these, …

Mobile Knowledge, Karma Points, And Digital Peers: The Tacit Epistemology And Linguistic Representation Of Moocs, Lisa Portmess

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Media representations of massive open online courses (MOOCs) such as those offered by Coursera, edX and Udacity reflect tension and ambiguity in their bold promise of democratized education and global knowledge sharing. An approach to MOOCs that emphasizes the tacit epistemology of such representations suggests a richer account of the ambiguities of MOOCs, the unsettled linguistic and visual representations that reflect the strange lifeworld of global online courses and the pressing need for promising innovation that seeks to serve the restless global desire for knowledge. This perspective piece critically appraises the linguistic laboratory of thought such representation reveals and its …

Change One Thing, Change Everything: Understanding The Rhetorical Triangle, Tracy A. Townsend

Rhetoric Unit

This lesson exposes students to the most fundamental rhetorical concept, that of the “rhetorical triangle,” a device for understanding and articulating audience awareness in persuasion. Provided here are suggestions for a brief and engaging mini-lecture, followed by an exercise using two classic pieces of American rhetoric, speeches by the suffragettes Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Students will be challenged to learn the principles of the rhetorical triangle, close-read a text for rhetorical clues and cues, and make sound judgments about the speaker’s rhetorical process based on evidence. This lesson and activity are suitable for students in grades 9-12, …

The Rhetorical Oracle: A Fun Introduction To Rhetoric, Dan Gleason

Rhetoric Unit

In this lesson students meet three key rhetorical schemes – anaphora, antithesis, and chiasmus – in a fun, engaging way. The students share some common concerns related to school (e.g., too much homework, not enough time with friends, bad grades on essays); after a student raises an issue, that student is given a slip of paper with a relevant (and rhetorical!) sentence or two to read aloud. With these rhetorical pronouncements, students hear the patterns of the three schemes in an engaging and personal way. The teacher can then follow up with a more detailed account of the rhetorical patterns.

When The Virtual Meets The Real: An Assessment Of The Benefits And "Costs" Of Open Access Texts For First Year Writing Courses At Cuny, Johannah Rodgers

Publications and Research

An assessment of the advantages, drawbacks, and costs of Open Access / OER texts for First Year Writing courses at CUNY.

“Above All Greek, Above All Roman Fame”: Classical Rhetoric In America During The Colonial And Early National Periods, James M. Farrell

Communication

The broad and profound influence of classical rhetoric in early America can be observed in both the academic study of that ancient discipline, and in the practical approaches to persuasion adopted by orators and writers in the colonial period, and during the early republic. Classical theoretical treatises on rhetoric enjoyed wide authority both in college curricula and in popular treatments of the art. Classical orators were imitated as models of republican virtue and oratorical style. Indeed, virtually every dimension of the political life of early Ameria bears the imprint of a classical conception of public discourse. This essay marks the …

Liminal Practice In A Maturing Writing Department, Louise Wetherbee Phelps

English Faculty Publications

[First Paragraph]

In Spring 2011 I was awarded a Fulbright Specialist Grant to "consult, collaborate, and inform" on the future of the Department of Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications at the University of Winnipeg, located in the city of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. The Department of Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications department (hereafter, RWC) was a pioneer in writing instruction in Canada, where it became the first unit to establish itself independently as a department with a full-‐time faculty committed to both teaching and scholarship in writing and rhetoric. It remains a rare phenomenon on the Canadian higher education scene, where studies …

Preliminary Report To The Purdue Writing Lab: Assessing Usability Of The "New" Online Writing Lab (Owl) Design And Contents, Michael Salvo, H. Allen Brizee, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Morgan Sousa

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Research Reports

This report is submitted June 16, 2006 to the Purdue University Writing Lab, specifically to Linda Bergmann, Director; Tammy Conard-Salvo, Associate Director; and Karl Stolley, Lead Web Designer. Intended to inform the ongoing redesign of the Online Writing Lab (OWL), it is written to maintain the highest level of usability and user-centered design of a unique, globally-utilized information resource. This document is a preliminary report limited to initial findings from a five-step usability testing protocol conducted February 25 through March 3, 2006. This testing plan was submitted to Purdue’s Institutional Review Board’s Committee on the Use of Human Subjects (IRB) …

Purdue Online Writing Lab (Owl) Research Report, Michael Salvo, H. Allen Brizee, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Morgan Sousa

Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Research Reports

This report outlines the history of the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) and details the OWL Usability Project through the summer of 2006. The paper also discusses test methodologies, describes test methods, provides participant demographics, and presents findings and recommendations of the tests. The purpose of this report is to provide researchers, administrators, and pedagogues interested in usability and Writing Labs access to information on the Purdue OWL Usability Project. We hope our findings—and this open source approach to our research—will contribute positively to the corpus on usability and Writing Lab studies.

Hard Lessons Learned Since The First Generation Of Critical Pedagogy, David Seitz

English Language and Literatures Faculty Publications

Review of the following books: (1) Collision Course: Conflict, Negotiation, and Learning in College Composition by Russel K. Durst, (2) Mutuality in the Rhetoric and Composition Classroom by David Wallace and Helen Rothschild Ewald, and (3) Teaching Composition as a Social Process by Bruce McComiskey.

Using A Civil Procedure Exam Question To Teach Persuasion, Sophie M. Sparrow

Law Faculty Scholarship

Studies show that learners master new material more effectively when it builds upon what they already know. By revisiting assignments from a previous semester, students can focus their efforts on persuading, rather than learning new doctrine or facts. Turning a predictive discussion into a persuasive argument demonstrates that making an argument requires the same rigorous thinking as predicting a result. One way to do this is to assign students to write an argument based on their fall Civil Procedure exam.

Making Writing Matter: Using "The Personal" To Recover[Y] An Essential[Ist] Tension In Academic Discourse, Jane Hindman

Publications and Research

Considers how constructing a hopeful professional discourse requires substantial revision of current professional discursive practices. Notes that the search for local knowledge and a shared, more hopeful discourse has rekindled interest in the rhetorical as well as material authority of ideologies, in various forms of writing collected under the overdetermined rubric "the personal." (SG)

Fostering Liberatory Teaching: A Proposal For Revising Instructional Assessment Practices, Jane E. Hindman

Publications and Research

Appraises the assumptions that drive standard evaluation methods and compares them to those assumptions that undergird more critical approaches to teaching. Presents an alternative teacher evaluation instrument and explains how it more accurately measures what is said and believed to be effective teaching. Offers statistical evidence supporting the instrument and suggests further steps to foster teaching practices