Education Commons^™

High Impact Practices In First Year Composition Courses, Haley Hamilton

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This capstone project explores High Impact Practices and how they can interact with First Year Composition Pedagogy through the creation of a Course Design for English 1102. The literature review is primarily an examination of research from the field of composition studies and high impact practices in higher education, as well as several aspects of composition studies such as transfer theory and first year composition pedagogy. The course design details ways to implement high impact practices into English 1102 in the context of specific university requirements. Through this project, I was able to make the connection between the WPA Outcome …

Finding Their Chrysanthemum: Linguistic Representation In Children's Literature, Marielena Zajac

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Children in America today struggle with finding themselves in the books they read due to societal expectations. From an early age, children are dictated on the correct way to speak and write in “American,” which can leave children and their home languages feeling unseen and dismissed. To help further the conversation and promotion of linguistic diversity in American society, this capstone analyzes dialectal representation in children’s books, with a heavy focus on attitudinal linguistic principles rather than prescriptive mechanics. The secondary research explores current literature and resources that discuss literacy acquisition in adolescents, trends in dialects in America, and childhood …

Understanding Community And Engagement In Synchronous Online Writing Instruction, Conner Sutton

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This capstone consists of an autoethnography based on the author's experiences as a synchronous online writing instructor. Using the current literature on synchronous writing instruction—as well as interviews with fellow instructors—this project explores how we define and measure classroom community and engagement from behind a webcam.

Ballot Readability And Plain Language, Roger Poole

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

The goal of this study was to examine the effect that readability and plain language had on voters' responses to Georgia's five legislatively-referred constitutional amendments (LRCA) in the November 2018 election. This study sought to answer the following questions regarding ballot readability and plain language:

1. Do voters distinguish the difference between traditionally composed ballots and plain language ballots?
2. Do voters have a preference between conventional worded ballots and reworded ballot language that improved readability?

Given that partisan lawyers and lobbyists write many state ballot questions, there may be tendencies to compose legislatively-referred constitutional amendments in confusing and unclear language designed …

Teaching The Sun As Simile: Bringing Nature Into Language Arts Middle School Classrooms, Stormy Kage

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Teaching the Sun as Simile is an essay that explores an interdisciplinary approach to teaching middle school English Language Arts (ELA) by infusing nature and environmental studies. This essay defines emerging concepts of new literacy studies and eco-criticism, literacy, and composition as it relates to ELA pedagogy. Also, it provides an explanation for the importance and relevance of using nature to develop an ecosystem of better readers, writers and communicators in middle school general ed and special ed classrooms.

Thinking Outside The Toolbox: A Teaching Resource For Vocational Writing, Dustin Ledford

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This capstone project combines elements of contextualization, professional writing, and process pedagogy to create a course design for teaching writing in the technical college/vocational school setting. With this course design, students are asked to complete a variety of scenario-driven, workplace-related writing tasks that teach fundamentals of college composition including research, critical thinking, and process-based writing. With this sample curriculum, students write from realistic scenarios from the healthcare industry, especially tasks from the medical office environment. The goal of this course design is to model and promote new practices for teaching writing in vocational settings to better engage students in these …

Unraveling Identity Signifier Literacy: A Case Study Of First-Year Composition Students' Communication Practices, Bailey Mcalister

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Identity signifier literacy is defined as one’s ability to accurately read – via personal interactions or via visual, verbal, written, or digital communication – the signifiers others display in direct and indirect ways and interpret these signifiers to gain understanding of others’ identities. In this study, 22 first-year composition students were surveyed about their communication practices in order to see how their identity signifier literacies influence and are influenced by digital environments and composition. These results are meant to improve first-year composition pedagogy by making connections between students’ informal composition practices and their academic composition courses.

Writing On The Margins: Student Experiences In A Learning Support English Course, Tabatha W. Martin

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This study evaluates the effectiveness of one learning support English program at preparing its students for first-year composition.

If You Don’T Want To Talk About Food, Don’T Sit Next To Me, Judith L. Polk

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

If You Don’t Want to Talk About Food, Don’t Sit Next to Me has as its main characters the same qualities taken from the new philosophy of Le Cordon Bleu: “Aspire, Discover, Flourish, Delight, and Thrive,” and the memories made while a full-time student.

Engaging Fyc Students With Quality Work Design, Candace Deal

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Students learn at deeper levels when engaged with their work; however, engaging students in writing is one of the biggest challenges all composition teachers face. This qualitative study asked Kennesaw State University students to describe the work in English 1101 and English 1102 that they found meaningful and engaging. The data collected was then aligned with research about engaging students in grades K-12 based on the work of Phillip Schlechty. Results from this study reveal that many of the same engagement qualities identified by Schlechty have application in the FYC classroom for engaging students and improving learning.