"Write about what you know" is a familiar mantra in fiction workshops, but writing facts or details about what is known doesn't necessarily create character or reveal conflict. The story must develop from the alchemy of these elements and stand as a whole, and the story must pull the reader into its own particular world. "The Nature of Grief" and other stories center around one character named Loren Shay and her experiences as a first-time teacher in the small rural town of Folkston, Georgia. With the exception of "Free," these stories represent her conflicts with students and faculty and her struggle to know herself through her experiences. She does not always succeed, but the mystery of her life changes and grows with her identity. I tried to experiment with style and structure in these stories. "The Nature of Grief," "Adultrysts," and "In The Blackout" are written in episodic scenes pieced together to form a whole. For inspiration and guidance, I studied Lorrie Moore's stories from __Self-Help__and Susan Minot's __Lust__. "10-30," "Quonda B.," amd "Free" are more conventional, following traditional lines of conflict and resolution. My main goal in writing this thesis was to inhabit the fictional voice and create a rich, dimensional world of how one woman dealt with her triumphs and losses during her first year as a teacher. / Thesis / Master

The politics of Jane Austen’s novels have long been a topic of scholarly interest. Many scholars see Austen’s heroines as women embedded in the typical, conservative marriage plot while others see them as proto-feminist figures of intelligence and power. Her heroines have now become famous for their moral and intellectual lives, but many scholars argue that all of Austen’s heroines must be brought down through the correction of a superior male character in order to atone for their freedom of manner early in the novel and secure a suitable mate. In “Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl,” Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick identifies this as “the Girl Being Taught a Lesson” tradition of Austen scholarship. In this thesis, I argue that the scene of the girl being taught a lesson is actually a cover for the more progressive correction that the heroine gives to her family, friends and, most importantly, her male counterpart. We see that these intelligent women do not need to be taught a lesson in order to correct flaws in their characters. On the contrary, these women correct themselves through careful self-analysis and self-correction and use their intelligence and knowledge to teach other characters. In my three chapters, I argue that Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Emma Woodhouse in Emma, and Anne Elliot in Persuasion act as moral centers in these Austen novels. We see particular emphasis on these women’s corrections of the male characters in Elizabeth’s continual correction of Mr. Darcy, particularly in her rebuff of his proposal, in Emma’s correcting Mr. Knightley’s opinions of Harriet Smith and in teaching him to respect her impressive intellect, and in Anne’s teaching Captain Wentworth to respect her decision to give him up and to acknowledge, once again, her superior sense, intellect and moral character. These women are not contained by marriage; instead, they teach their male counterparts before marriage and show that they will continue these lessons after their respective unions. I show that these three heroines teach and correct those around them, offering a new perspective on female intellectual work and its importance within marriage and in improving society, one character at a time. / Thesis / Master

This thesis submission is a collection of short stories about women and the many ways women create identities for themselves in popular culture. Each of the main characters are painfully self-conscious, but still unaware of how carefully they have created their own personas. In “For the Sake of Anonymity,” “Annie” learns that a sweater set can have a mind of its own. In “The Voice of Reason,” Lauren defines herself against her sister. “The New You” and “Developing Chloe” both show characters who consciously create new personas for themselves through superficial changes. “Sensible People” is a story about a woman who decides to finally let her real self come out from her past. / Thesis / Master

Where is the importance in uncovering a link between the economic position and level of familial dysfunction in the short stories of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald? Furthermore, in composing these findings, what does this information have to offer in terms of bringing different insights to the works of these two writers who have already received so much attention from critics? In reading and researching the short stories of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, I find that published criticism has not sufficiently examined the connection between economic position and familial dysfunction. Trying to understand the psychology behind the characters’ lives and their consequential actions, however, requires us to look at this connection. One can articulate the effects and results that economic circumstances have in relation to the characters’ familial duties and responsibilities. / Thesis / Master

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF RYAN J. THORNSBERRY, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in ENGLISH, presented on December 27, 2013, at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. TITLE: COMPOSITION, PEDAGOGY, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF EFFECTIVE STUDENT-TEACHERS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TRAINING PROGRAMS FOR TEACHING ASSISTANTS IN ENGLISH DEPARTMENTS MAJOR PROFESSOR: DR. LISA J. MCCLURE The history of teaching assistant training has followed a tenuous road of development. For English departments, the primary role for teaching assistants has always been staffing sections of the basic composition sequence. Because inexperienced teachers are teaching inexperienced students, a fundamental concern was, and still is, what is the best way to prepare teaching assistants? This study explores this complexity by investigating the popular trends and approaches utilized by current TA training programs. This qualitative study surveyed 195 English departments from various Division I colleges and universities and focused on three basic questions: 1) What types of training programs do English Departments offer TA? 2) During their tenure as TAs, what efforts are used to enhance their teacher training? 3) How do institutions determine the effectiveness of their training programs? In an effort to identify TA training elements, the data gathered consisted of a program's schedule and duration, supervision, materials (physical as well as technological), required courses, TA opportunities (professional and teaching), assessment tools, and training for International Teaching Assistants. From a small sampling, this study reported findings collected from a 10-item Teaching Assistant Training Survey and an 8-item Demographic Questionnaire. The findings highlighted several training program issues such as time, duration, conductors, materials, courses, and assessment tools as key components of TA training. The findings suggested that even though most teaching assistant training programs contained some similarities, most training programs continue to evolve. Future research into the basic questions, what, how, why, and when of TA training, still need to be conducted in order to provide more detailed conclusions.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English