Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf [59-62]). Also available in print.

This research addressed two major questions: (1) whether students in an English 104 class in which synectics was used as an aid to invention would develop the ability to think analogically by using an analogy invented in the synectics process and to think divergently by using the oxymoron invented in the synectics process and (2) whether these students would develop a more positive attitude towards writing.The subjects of the study were two English 104 composition classes with fifty students, including eight case studies. The research was conducted during Winter Quarter 1982-83 at Ball State University.The study followed these steps: (1) a diagnostic theme, (2) questionnaires, (3) three synectics sessions and the resulting essays, accompanied by journal responses and logs, (4) interviews as necessary to complete data, (5) a final theme without a synectics session, accompanied by a journal response and log, and (6) instructor's logs.Analyses of the data led to the following findings:(1) that all of the case studies and the majority of the group used analogical thinking on all of the themes.(2) that although four of the case studies and the majority of the group used divergent thinking on at least one theme, only one of the case studies and a minority of the group used this type of thinking on the final theme.(3) that all of the case studies and the majority of the group evaluated synectics as being helpful.(4) that of the four case studies responding to the questionnaires, two indicated more positive attitudes towards English 104 than they had indicated towards previous writing experiences, as did the majority of the group as a whole.These findings led to the following conclusions:that students learned to think analogically. that few students learned to think divergently. that students developed a more positive attitude towards their writing.

The number of people learning English as a second or foreign language has increased dramatically over the last two decades. Many of these second language learners are university students who must attain very sophisticated academic skills. To a great extent, their academic success hinges on their ability to read a second language. This multiplecase study investigated first language (LI) and second language (L2) reading strategies in academic settings. The study drew on Bernhardt's (2000) socio-cognitive model of second language reading. Five Chinese students in a graduate program in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) volunteered to participate in the study. A combination of data collection techniques was employed including think-alouds, interviews, learning logs, classroom observations, course materials, and the participants' reading samples. The results showed that there were similarities and differences between LI and L2 reading strategies. Although evidence was found supporting the view of cognitive universals and socio-cultural constraints, individual differences at the cognitive level and similarities across cultures were also identified. The findings of this study indicate that the comparison between LI and L2 academic reading should take into consideration the similarities and differences at both cognitive and cultural levels. Implications are discussed in relation to the construction of an L2 transfer model as well as the delivery of L2 reading instruction.

<p> This dissertation analyzes war discourse in sixteenth-century military handbooks and history plays with a focus on formal performances of martial rhetoric and the informal language used to rally audiences and justify war. Chapter One uses Rhetorical Genre Studies to classify the pre-battle oration as a social genre with common structures and themes, familiar not only to exhorting commanders and their soldiers but also to the general Renaissance populace. Establishing the pre-battle speech as a highly-conventionalized, even ritualized form of oratory, Chapter Two argues that performances of the genre are social actions in which audience familiarity elevates the speech act. This heightened valuation raises anticipation for the rhetorical moment and helps transform events like Elizabeth's Tilbury Speech and Henry V's Agincourt address into transcendent hero narratives. Chapter Three dissects formal justifications of war in William Shakespeare's <i>Henry V</i> and George Peele's <i> The Battle of Alcazar</i>. The chapter demonstrates a playwright's ability either to persuade an audience of legitimate cause, even in the face of possible war crimes, by systematically leading viewers through the rules of Just Cause Theory or to complicate legitimacy assumptions by disrupting the expected framework and destabilizing the systematic narrative. </p><p> The final two chapters examine informal motives in the trope of martial masculinity and in figurative language descriptions of war. Conducting a character analysis of official and surrogate martial commanders in Shakespeare's <i> 1, 2, and 3 Henry VI,</i> Chapter Four evaluates recurrent themes of effeminacy in the manuals. It connects anxieties about masculinity to questions of patriarchal power and uncertainties about sociocultural transitions occuring within an English society that at once idealized peace and vilified it as emasculating. Using Cognitive Metaphor Theory, Chapter Five uncovers similar anxieties embedded in the figurative expressions used to describe war in which warfare is conceptualized as natural and unpredictable, but England's men lack the knowledge and training to keep the country ordered and war-ready. This study advocates for an increased literary-historical awareness of war discourse and gives explicit evidence for connecting the treatises to early modern literature, an assumption that remains as-yet unproven by prevailing scholarship.</p>

Basic writers often require different courses than traditional Freshman Composition 1 students to succeed in college. Ball State University's basic writing program offers a two-semester sequence that provides students with additional time and attention, thereby addressing these students' special needs. The program encourages students to see themselves as academic writers and as part of the academic community.This study examined the degree of presence of academic voice in students' writing as measured at four intervals during the program's initial year. A 2 x 4 analysis of variance measured change in academic voice for female and male students, using the Academic Voice Checksheet. In addition, students' levels of confidence was measured using the Daly-Miller Writing Apprehension Test (W.A.T.) and correlated to the presence of academic voice using the Pearson product-moment correlation. Findings are presented in an analysis of the study group as a whole and in an analysis of six individual students' work. Those students' profiles were examined for overall academic voice, discrete features of academic voice, the W.A.T. overall scores, and specific questions dealing with student confidence.The analysis revealed that a change in the degree of presence of academic voice occured during the two-semester sequence. However, male and female students were seen to have the same basic profile, thereby suggesting no difference according to sex of student, challenging current gender theory. A comparison of the initial measurement and the final measurement indicated a positive change in a majority of academic voice scores.A correlation between the academic voice score and a decrease in students' writing apprehension was found in the final measurements. Five percent of students' W.A.T. score may be explained by the academic voice measurement. In the study group, 65 percent of the students showed a decrease in W.A.T. scores between the two measurements, indicating a positive lessening of writing apprehension.This study suggests that the basic writing sequence at Ball State University is providing an environment that facilitates students' use of academic voice and lessens their writing apprehension. Both factors enhance students' opportunities for academic success. / Department of English

College basic writers are often misunderstood. Much of the literature available on these writers depicts them as a large homogeneous group. Ignored is the diversity that exists within this population. According to George Jensen and John DiTiberio, personality type as measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a neglected factor in most composition research that aids in ascertaining and appreciating the diversity and strengths of basic writers.Case study methodology was used to investigate whether a relationship existed between the personality types of thirty-four basic writers at Ball State University and the writing strategies they used. Triangulation of data provided a thick description of the students. Scores from pre- and post-good writing questionnaires and process instruments (process logs and self-evaluations), student journals, student writing, participant-observers fieldnotes, and the teacher-researcher's journal enriched and supplemented the MBTI results.Findings are presented in a group portrait and four case studies. The group portrait demonstrates that 1) most of the students were not highly apprehensive about writing; 2) they were a diverse group with fifteen of the sixteen MBTI personality types represented; and 3) they displayed a wide variety of writing strategies.The four case study subjects represent four of the sixteen MBTI personality types (ISTJ, ISFP, ESTJ, ENTP) each with a different dominant function. These students demonstrated that they were diverse in their attitudes about writing, degree of writing apprehension, their personality types, and their use of writing strategies. The case study subjects often used strategies that supported their personality preferences, were able to tap into previously unused strategies that coincided with those preferred preferences, or incorporated unpreferred processes into their composing strategies. While personality type apparently played a major role in the students' writing strategies, previous experiences, past writing instruction, successes and failures, and attitudes about "English" also affected them. / Department of English

This study attempts to discover and describe patterns of variation in college students' overt attitudes toward a limited set of grammatical and lexical variables, the shibboleths of edited written American English usage. The basic instrument used in the study is a 115 item multiple choice questionnaire prepared by the researcher. Fifteen questions were designed to assess the respondents' social, economic, and demographic backgrounds, whereas the major part of the questionnaire elicited judgments about one hundred English sentences offering the choice between the attributes "good," "bad," and "I can't decide." This questionnaire was administered to 172 students in nine freshman composition classes during the spring semester of 1994 at Ball State University. The study sought to discover and describe systematic relationships between the answers to the first set of questions (extralinguistic data) and the second set of questions (linguistic data) by using various analytical methods and statistical techniques, such as correlation coefficients, chi-square tests, and multidimensional scaling.It was hypothesized that variation in subjects' overt judgments about linguistic variables would parallel the findings of numerous sociolinguistic studies about variation in linguistic production, and hence would pattern along the social and demographic characteristics of the subjects. However, although this study found considerable variation in the freshman students' judgments about the usage shibboleths, it did not find social or demographic correlates to the respondents' judgments.By investigating the nature of the variation in freshman composition students' notions about linguistic correctness, this study attempted to answer questions which have not been asked by traditional usage studies, sociolinguistics, or composition research. Moreover, this study has added support for linguists' claims that the traditional "mistakes" in usage handbooks have almost no empirical basis, even if they remain the favorites of most handbook authors and English teachers. / Department of English

This mixed model study informed by a multi-modal approach investigated the relationship between reading aloud and the student revision process. Participants for this study were undergraduate juniors and seniors enrolled in any one of four sections of English 393 (Writing Competency Course) at Ball State University during the summer semester of 2003. These students had previously failed the Writing Competency Exam at Ball State; therefore, they had to complete English 393 successfully to fulfill Ball State's writing competency requirement and, ultimately, to graduate. Specifically, this study examined what types of surface and global features that these English 393 students noticed when reading their initial essay drafts aloud to themselves and what global revisions they made, if any, based upon these initial observations. Methods used were audio recordings, observation logs, multiple copies of student drafts, pre- and postattitudinal surveys, read-aloud surveys, post-revision surveys, introductory and concluding instructor surveys, additional instructor surveys, and reviews of composition/rhetoric textbooks.Results of this study indicated that students enrolled in English 393 courses at Ball State University during the summer of 2003 predominantly noticed surface features in their essays as a result of reading their initial drafts aloud to themselves. Therefore, using this read-aloud method did not prompt the large majority of these junior- and senior-level English 393 students to make global revisions in their drafts. They predominantly made surface-level revisions, indicative of the types of revisions that freshman college writers make. While one student from the population did make global revisions as a result of using the read-aloud method, the researcher attributed this anomaly to the student's probable oral learning style and/or the student's previous experience using the read-aloud method. / Department of English

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

This thesis reports on the effectiveness of using a genre-based approach in teaching academic English writing to studnet teachers who were learning English as a foreign language in a state university.