Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Title from file title page. Dana L. Fox, committee chair; Celeste Compton Bates, Joyce E. Many, Amy Seely Flint, Joel Meyers, committee members. Electronic text (165 p. : ill.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Aug, 21, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 142-150).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-175).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliography.

This dissertation is an investigation of how preschool children understand the meaning of determiner universal quantifiers such as English every and all. Although grasping the distributive force of such words, and generally showing adult-like comprehension of simple universally quantified sentences, the typical four-year-old is seen often to have a strikingly nonadult-like understanding of the meaning of such sentences. This is shown by the child's comprehension performance under certain experimental conditions. The principal claim of this dissertation is that the child comprehension phenomena in question is essentially linguistic in etiology and derives from a preference for quantification over individual events/situations rather individual objects.

Using a feminist poststructuralist framework, "the self," language, gender, writing, and schooling are retheorized in this study. An undergraduate course focused on developing thinking in writing was taught to nine female students. The intent of the study was to learn more about writing as an active socio-cultural site where writers could be found negotiating their ways through networks of power relations. Data were gathered to provide a description of the content and process of the course and the creative space it provided for students to develop their own writing practices; to examine subjectivity in flux and how writing came to influence it; and to consider the students' thinking as conveyed in their writing in terms of its discursive content. Several significant features of the course emerged. Most importantly the course was structured around an array of intertextual layers, including continual opportunity for writers to hear each other's in-class writing and feminist readings. Other aspects that are discussed include the teacher-student relationship and the provocative edge that emerged in the course by setting aside a more traditional disciplinary focus and dramatically increasing polyvocality. The writing of two students across the semester is examined in-depth. Feminist poststructuralist theorists describe subjectivity as pieced together, as in process, and under construction. By looking at the students' writing, these features were found but from the point of view of lived subjectivity. Using Foucault's theory of discourses as a starting point, the following content was discovered in the students' writing and is explored as a function of discourse: struggles within heterosexual relationships; preoccupation with the female body; and New Age Thinking. The intertextual layers of the course together offered these female student writers an alternative version of the social world. The writing did not bring the students to any definitive point, but rather it became a way for each to articulate and follow her own movement in and out of struggle. These writers negotiated their way through these relations of power at the same time that a new subject position--that of female thinker/writer--presented itself through the course structure.

This dissertation contextualizes and analyzes community/university partnerships through which college writing is paired with community action. Over the past few years a range of community-based and service-learning initiatives have been launched in departments of English. While some research is available on particular projects, little considers the wider movement. In response, I propose a typology for programs, distinguishing between those that write for, about and with the community; further, I investigate three exemplar programs. Throughout the study I explicate how such practices are situated within (and extend) the discourse of rhetoric and composition. The opening provides an overview of community-based writing initiatives at a range of colleges and universities, and how these programs position themselves in relation to current disciplinary discourses. I then propose a typology which sorts community-based writing pedagogies into three paradigms: those that write for the community, about the community, or with the community. These paradigms are distinguished according to the different aims, literacies and discourses most valued by each. The typology is intended not as a rigid means of categorization, but as a heuristic. John Dewey and Paulo Freire are established as the primary theoretical frames of reference for through a survey of their respective educational philosophies and pedagogical approaches. The places where Dewey's liberal progressivism and Freire's critical pedagogy overlap are emphasized, as are the issues on which they diverge. To put such theoretical discussions in dialogue with lived experience, the dissertation includes three empirical case studies. A junior-year writing-across-the-curriculum course at the University of Massachusetts is studied as an example of "writing for the community." A first-year service-learning composition course at Bentley College offers an example of "writing about the community." And the Community Literacy Center (CLC), a collaboration of Carnegie Mellon and a community center, stands as a representative of "writing with the community." An in-depth and comparative analysis of each results in a sharper understanding of their distinct theoretical, rhetorical and ideological assumptions. To close, this study looks forward, suggesting how community-based and service-learning programs both draw upon and enrich significant disciplinary debates in composition studies.

The purpose of this study is to explore, identify, and describe the causal relationship between leadership and the phenomena that produce an environment conducive for growth of the arts in higher education, by recording the thoughts, perceptions, and experiences of individuals who are, or were, in leadership roles at selected institutions. The institutions chosen for this study were The Ohio State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Each institution is noted for distinction in the arts. Both institutions are state funded land-grant universities, with comprehensive arts programs in the performing and visual arts and have professional arts presenting centers on campus. Through “expert nomination,” over fifty participants were invited to take part in this study. The participants were central administrators, mid-level administrators, chairs, and arts faculty. Qualitative research methods were used in collecting the data through the use of a guided, open-ended and in-depth interview with each participant. The research questions for this study focused on the participant's view of: (1) how the history of the campus connected with the history and growth of the arts at the institution, (2) what were the most significant integrative components of the arts on the campus, (3) what accounted for the growth of the arts on the campus, (4) what was the perception of the educative role of the arts on campus, and (5) what would be the ideal situation for the arts on campus. The analysis of the data revealed three major areas where leadership had effected the growth of the arts on these two campuses: (1) the creation of an environment that encourages collaborative and outreach ventures, (2) the creation of an environment that is based on a shared vision and goals, (3) the creation of an environment that generates faculty and staff excitement and high morale.

Research in the area of early literacy has strongly supported instruction at the phonemic awareness level. In addition, a number of research articles have discussed the importance of involving parents in their children's education through home-based activities. This study examined the effects of a parent-training on early literacy skills in the areas of phonemic awareness and letter-identification. This study utilized a pre-experimental AB design. Thirty-nine kindergarten children from the northeast were administered early literacy measures (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills - DIBELS) ten times during both the base-line phase and treatment phases. Twenty children comprised the treatment group, and their parents participated in five training sessions and 10 weeks of interactive book reading and practice and instruction of specific skills with their children. Results were positive and significant for the three early literacy measures, (Onset Fluency, Letter-Naming Fluency, and Phoneme Segmentation). In addition, treatment integrity and acceptability were measured. Limitations to the study, implications for education and future research are also discussed.

The work of play theorists such as W. D. Winnicott, Gregory Bateson, and Erving Goffman suggests that the element of play has intriguing potential for the teaching and learning of writing: repositioning students in relation to dominant discourses, providing an avenue for risk-taking and experimentation, and offering students and teachers a subtle means to negotiate social roles. However, play as a discrete subject has drawn little attention in composition studies, and as yet there has been no attempt to enact a curriculum that deliberately foregrounds the element of play in all aspects of a composition course. The study described in this dissertation fills this gap. In Chapter 1, I discuss interdisciplinary theories of play in relation to work done in composition studies and develop a provisional definition of “play.” In Chapter 2, I present the methodology I used in this study, which focuses on three sections of a first-year composition course I taught during a single semester. In Chapter 3, I describe the curriculum I designed in light of the theories discussed in Chapter 1. I also relate my observations on how the curriculum was received, comment on my own experiences of play, and discuss spontaneous play initiatives. In Chapter 4, I present and discuss student reactions to the play activities as expressed in written reflections, individual and group interviews, and other artifacts. In Chapter 5, I focus on the identity negotiations of three students as these negotiations related to play in classroom discourse and their formal essays. Finally, in Chapter 6, I draw together, complicate, and extend the central themes of the previous chapters by discussing them in the context of the key questions that guided the study.

Though attention to academic language is a key component of the Teacher Performance Assessment and the new Common Core Standards, little has been researched regarding how pre-service teachers build academic language knowledge and integrate it into their practice teaching experience. This study focuses on the construction and delivery of academic language knowledge to pre-service teachers in a one year immersion teacher preparation program. It studies the pre-service teachers' use of academic language knowledge in their planning, teaching, and assessment throughout a practicum and clinical experience, as well as their use of academic language knowledge as part of reflective practice. Through analysis of classroom observation notes, interviews, and artifacts, the data show that after receiving instruction on academic language concepts in the areas of content-area terminology and language use, reading, and writing, pre-service teachers consciously integrated an attention to the terminology and language use of their content area into their practicum experience. However, faced with understanding themselves as teachers while navigating their mentor teacher's expectations, learning the curriculum they are teaching, and developing classroom management skills, etc., attention to academic language instruction in reading and writing was limited. Recognition that content-area terminology and language use is key to accessing content, though, influenced reflection on how content knowledge is accessed. This conscious understanding of the role terminology and language use plays in accessing content knowledge opened the door for a deeper reflection on the role academic language plays in the classroom. And, during their post-practicum clinical experience, these pre-service teachers were able to more knowledgeably reflect on how to integrate specific content-area reading and writing instruction into curriculum. These conclusions suggest that an introduction to academic language concepts and practices can reveal "blind spots" that enable pre-service teachers to better address content-area literacy in their future practice. They also suggest that more focus in academic language instruction in teacher education programs could help pre-service teachers more efficiently learn the complexities of their new role.