This thesis is an original sequence of fifteen poems which explore the author’s reactions to Nature and God, her search for the meaningful in her life, and her search for answers to the “great questions.” Some of the works are in blank verse; some are in more controlled rhyme to emphasize the tension the writer felt. Several poems are experiments in the sonnet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of English, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 126-131).

The five short stories which comprise this creative project are designed in exploration of the contemporary woman's state of mind. In accordance with this design, each of the stories is told. from the point of-view of the woman who is its main character. Though each of the five protagonists is of the Midwestern middle class, the women vary in the details of age, education, and, marital status as well as in the qualities of maturity, intelligence, and, self-awareness. Whether the woman is a flighty girl in her early twenties inanely trying to establish something worthwhile in herself, a middle-aged housewife attempting to deny the vapidity of her life, an aging widow seeking to recapture the contentment she found with her first husband, or a shrewd., elderly woman scheming to manipulate her fellow inmates in a sterile convalescent home, each one finds herself in conflict with the facts of the life she has created for herself. And because few such conflicts reach the best of all possible resolutions in life outside of fiction, the struggles of these women are not sophomorically resolved, but remain to them as sources of dissatisfaction, confusion, and alienation.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2008. / Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 183 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1998. / Title from title page screen, viewed July 13, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Charles Harris (chair), Ronald Fortune, Curtis White. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 304-316) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2005. / Title from title page screen, viewed September 25, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Janice Neuleib (chair), Bob Broad, Claire Lamonica. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 221-233) and abstract. Also available in print.

Within recent years there have been numerous scholarly discussions describing the tendency to erect various binaries between the fields of composition and creative writing. In order to investigate some of these binaries, I used an ethnographic methodology and the Engestrom model of activity systems to examine one first-year composition and one introductory creative writing classroom. Doing so, I came to understand how several factors, such as mediated artifacts, rules, and division of labor affected how the instructors taught writing, how these factors affected the writing process of students, and what was produced in the classroom. Ultimately, the methodological lens of ethnography, where the perspective of instructors and students was at the forefront of inquiry, integrated with an exploration into the structure of activities, allowed me to interrogate previous non-empirical, lore-based scholarship. / Department of English

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Mar. 11, 2008). Directed by Nancy A. Myers; submitted to the Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 176-186).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2003. / Title from title page screen, viewed October 17, 2005. Dissertation Committee: Ronald Strickland (chair), Janice Neuleib, Cecil S. Giscombe, Karen Coats. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-211) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1998. / Title from title page screen, viewed July 12, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Lucia C. Getsi (chair), James Elledge, William Woodson. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 196-200) and abstract. Also available in print.