This study investigates the dynamics of critical thinking in an introductory writing class that incorporated disability studies (DS) through a critical-pedagogy approach. Critical thinking, as I define it, is the process by which subjects become more aware of their own positions, others' positions, and the ways those positions are shaped by discourses. The course, themed “Exploring Normalcy,” aimed to teach critical thinking by questioning knowledges and assumptions around gender, class, and race, as well as disability. As a teacher-researcher, I both observed and taught the course during the Fall semester 2002. Observation, group and individual interviews, and text analysis were used to investigate how students' critical thinking operated in the classroom. Seven students volunteered to participate in the post-classroom phase of the study. After preliminary text analysis and a group interview, I selected three “focal students,” who occupied a range of positions in relation to disability discourses, for individual interviews and further text analysis. Focal students' texts were analyzed using an adaptation of critical discourse analysis as described by Norman Fairclough and Ellen Barton. Interview transcripts were analyzed by identifying and grouping patterns and themes. Analysis of students' written work and reflections on that work indicate that their critical thinking evolved in a complex pattern affected by factors including students' self-identifications; discourses students inhabited before, during and after the course; and the passage of time between drafts of a project and reflections on that project. While usually viewed as a “skill” that can be discerned and evaluated within a single artifact (e.g., the final draft of a paper), in fact critical thinking is better understood when viewed as a process that emerges through the evolution of a series of texts. Therefore, pedagogical suggestions include assigning a variety of written tasks (e.g., short/long, or low-stakes/high-stakes); working in a variety of modes (e.g., written, oral, graphic); involving discussion with peers and teacher at multiple points during the larger project; and asking students to reflect upon and revise their ideas as they develop. This study substantiates claims made by disability-studies scholars that DS can prompt critical thinking while emphasizing the need for ongoing study of the ways DS and critical thinking interact in specific contexts. Critical thinking is a viable goal in the writing classroom, but we must remember it is characterized by diffuse effects through a student's ways of knowing, both during a course and after it ends.

Electronic discussions occurring on computer forums supported by a college or university can potentially reach a larger public and affect the institution in multiple unforeseen ways. This dissertation presents a case study of one such discussion, with three goals: (1) to argue for continued examination of electronic discourse in context, and for the institution as a key category of analysis, (2) to examine, comparatively, two methodologies that provide differing theories of agency in public deliberation, and (3) to consider the extent to which electronic discourse enables students to develop public voices. The electronic discussion was analyzed in relation to other texts produced within the institution on the same topic. The two forms of analysis were chosen for their emphasis on language and on the circulation of language in institutional and public context. Rhetorical analysis revealed specific strategies deployed by students to shift from private-oriented discourse to public-oriented discourse—the widening of audience invoked, and explicit shifts in levels of diction, with two rhetorical political effects—organization into action groups with unofficial representative leaders, and an increase in improved argument types. Critical discourse analysis revealed strong affiliation between students and the institution, with demonstrably similar linguistic structures and argument types deployed by student leaders and an official of the institution; borrowings extended both up and down the power hierarchy. Two linguistic tendencies were notable, both in the official language and in the change in students' language as they identified more strongly with official language: (1) a reduction in sentences with human agents, with increased emphasis on corporate identities, and (2) reliance on attributive adjectives to distinguish between members of the college community and outside antagonists. Students, in both electronic messages and letters to the editor, countered the first tendency by alternating sentences with human agents with sentences with processes in subject position. These findings are considered in light of various theories of “the public,” ranging from John Dewey to contemporary deliberative democratic theorists. It is argued that the electronic sphere can function as a site where publics with competing (or shared) interests can, in Dewey's word, “find” each other.

This study explores academic women's experience of writing and blocking through ethnographic interviews focusing on the women's history of writing in the academy, impediments to writing they have faced, and strategies they have used to write through blocks. Women in the humanities and social sciences at three-levels of academic accomplishment--master's students, doctoral students, and junior faculty--participated in hour-long interviews. Particular attention was given to the impact of the writer's academic and social context on her ability to compose. The results demonstrated that block, rather than a fixed entity, is a phenomenon that occurs along a continuum. It is affected by the individual's acculturation into the academy, including explicitness of cultural norms, her family and social life, the presence or absence of direct instruction in the discourse modes of her discipline, and the role and type of evaluation she has experienced in relation to her writing. Solutions and potential solutions for writing through block are discussed, as well as implications for future research in teaching, advising, and in the acculturation process of graduate students and junior faculty.

This dissertation uses the rhetorical theory of Kenneth Burke to illuminate the development of Walt Whitman's rhetorical poetics, in which Whitman sought to transform the reader's identity from one based on static and divisive notions of race, class, region, and gender to a malleable identity based on the actions of the human body. I show how this rhetorical poetics is the product of a number of factors, including the variety of roles poetry played in early nineteenth-century American culture, the economics of the publishing industry, the fragmentation of the two-party system, and nineteenth-century oratorical culture, and that a careful examination of the intersection of Whitman and these factors reveals the development of this rhetorical poetics. I focus on four bodies of evidence: Whitman's pre-Leaves of Grass poetry; the various rhetorical roles poetry played in America from 1820–1850 (roles shaped in large part by changing economic conditions) as exemplified by three poets whom Whitman read and admired, McDonald Clarke, Martin Farquhar Tupper, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Whitman's pre- Leaves of Grass notebooks; and the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. Whitman's early poetry reveals a young poet, intensely aware of the variety of roles poetry could play, moving progressively toward a poetry that could combine the communal persona of the ballad with the individual persona of the romantic lyric. In his pre-Leaves of Grass notebooks, written from 1848–1855, we see Whitman struggling to discover a poetics that will replace party politics. Close attention to external references, developments in style and rhetoric, and manuscript evidence reveals both the order of the notebooks and the different purposes for which Whitman used them, and the origin of some of the key themes of Leaves of Grass, including slavery, race, class, the body, and sexuality. Finally, the 1855 text itself is an overtly rhetorical text. While C. Carroll Hollis has shown how Leaves of Grass reflects nineteenth-century oratory at the micro-level, I show how the macro-level also reflects that discourse. Specifically, I show how “Song of Myself” employs theories of rhetorical arrangement described by Aristotle and Hugh Blair.

Invention should be privileged in the writing classroom. This is the most important implication resulting from extensive interviews with seven published writers about how they write. There are vast differences in their approaches to writing, but one thing common to all of them is that invention is central. Invention was central for Aristotle and for early eighteenth century pedagogical theorists, and it was again privileged by the theorists involved in the early days of the writing process movement of the 1960s, but historically it has always been gradually neglected. One predominant pedagogy today, often labeled current-traditional rhetoric, privileges form and correctness. The attempts to discredit current-traditional pedagogies have long been raging, and yet writing textbooks continue to teach their methods. Three important approaches to composition often associated with the process approach—expressionism, cognitive rhetoric, and social constructionism—represent a pulling apart of Aristotle's important proofs of ethos, pathos, and logos. The pedagogies of invention that are usually associated with these theories tend to emphasize one proof over another, and the unfortunate result is a narrowing of the concept of invention. Until we privilege and enrich invention we may never see the changes needed in the conceptualization and teaching of the process approach. We need to broaden our perception of a writer's process of writing to understand when invention is occurring and to recognize its powerful drive. Because of its serendipitous nature we need to be less rigid in our pedagogy to allow for and validate a writer's proclivities. Pedagogical implications from this study include the need for student writers to begin their writing and to be continually nourished by their own inventions. They will be motivated by their ideas to improve their writing. Student writers need to know the importance of recognizing and recording their inventions and to trust their individual writing processes that produce the inventions. Student writers will benefit by sharing in-process writing with people they trust, and they will benefit from the positive comments of teachers in response to their writing. Invention centered pedagogy, fortunately, promotes writing worthy of praise by teachers.

This dissertation articulates the theoretical and pragmatic foundations of a rhetorical approach to psychotherapy; an approach, that is, which is informed by the worldview, concerns, and methodologies of the discipline of rhetoric. Rhetoric—which originated in ancient Greece—long predates psychotherapy in aiming to understand the workings of influence or persuasion, both as it occurs between persons and within persons (i.e., self-persuasion). Persuasion is of critical importance to psychotherapy not only because it is instrumental in producing change in clients, but because it is an ongoing facet of everyday life, accounting for a substantial portion of why persons behave as they do. Despite the apparent commonalities between rhetoric and psychotherapy, the literature on psychotherapy contains few references to—and fewer substantive explorations of—rhetorical works, concepts, and strategies. Moreover, the majority of works on psychotherapy which do refer to rhetoric neglect to root their claims in a rhetorical understanding of the psychology of the individual. Integrating concepts drawn from rhetoric with contemporary psychological theories of emotion, cognition, and psychopathology, this dissertation offers, first of all, a construction of the individual as a rhetorical subject, or as a being whose psychological capacities are organized to facilitate the sending and delivery of messages, and the exertion and reception of influence. Secondly, this dissertation demonstrates how rhetorical insights and procedures can help psychotherapists meet the daily, pragmatic demands of doing psychotherapy. Accordingly, this dissertation culminates in a structured, clinically-oriented description of how psychotherapy may be carried out according to rhetorical principles. The model for psychotherapy proposed here is intended to enable clinicians to envision a rhetorical framework or logic for psychotherapy cases, as well as to engage clients in (a) symptom-relieving rhetorical exchanges and (b) the work of developing greater rhetorical (self)understanding and proficiency. In articulating a model for psychotherapy, emphasis is placed on the role of argumentation, both as it is practiced by clients and by therapists. It is suggested that the fundamental mechanism of healing—that is, the essential occurrence to which therapeutic effects are due—is carefully constructed, psycho-socially apt, symptom-targeted argumentation.

In the literature of writing centers, and in particular the literature around online peer tutoring, the voices of the tutors themselves are conspicuously silent. We read the perspectives of writing center administrators, but not those of the people actually providing the service. As administrators of writing centers, we are at a loss as we attempt to prepare our tutors for the online environment because there is little data that addresses the tutors' perceptions of what it is like to conduct a tutorial in a virtual environment. Thus, we are left with theory and practice that is little more than an adaptation of face-to-face tutoring pedagogy. This study began with the premise that the perceptions of peer tutors of their tutoring experiences, especially those experiences in the online tutoring environment, are a valuable resource. To tap this resource, this study asked tutors to reflect on their perceptions of the online tutoring environment, their perceptions of their own tutoring in the online tutoring environment, and their perceptions of any changes they felt necessary to accommodate the online tutoring environment. This was a situated exploratory study conducted at the Washington State University Vancouver Writing Center, which focused on 4 tutors at that site. It drew on Jim Bell's (2001) “reflection on practice” model in which peer tutors reflect on their face-to-face tutoring practices. The goal of this study was to address the gaps in the literature of tutor training through an understanding of the perceptions of these tutors as they negotiate tutoring online. Data for this study was collected over a period of two semesters. The researcher took the role of participant/observer/interviewer for these semesters. Interviews with tutors were audio taped, transcribed, and coded according to a scheme created from the transcripts. The significance of this study is the inclusion of the often silent voices of the tutors who perform online peer tutoring in the body of literature covering that task. It presents first-hand perceptions of online tutoring that can add to our understanding of the nature of online tutoring and, in turn, assist in the development of training programs for peer tutors.

In educational and instructional technology communities, learning objects have generated a great deal of interest in recent years. The learning object paradigm promises many benefits, most of which have yet to be realized. This dissertation proposes approaches for using learning objects outside of the currently dominant approach, which could be characterized as course-centric and informed by skills training, knowledge-transfer, and a content-delivery orientation. The dissertation examines ways that objects can be used to support learners in two key areas central to the concerns of English departments: critical thinking and development of competence in academic (and other) discourses. I argue against the “seamless course” model of content-delivery in favor of an approach that capitalizes on the modular, component architecture of learning objects by letting learners access and manipulate objects at a granular level. Objects that are searchable, shareable, versionable and annotated provide new ways to represent, manipulate and evaluate structural knowledge, and to tie learning content to discursive knowledge. An ongoing concern throughout the dissertation is the necessary and fruitful bridging of the divide between education and training. It is argued that such a bridge is useful for object initiatives to integrate concept-learning, problem-solving, critical thinking, and the social construction of knowledge.

This study is based on in-depth interviews with seven graduate students of literature who teach for a large research university, and the main concern is with their personal experiences and perspectives as they develop as teachers and students. How do they see themselves as readers and critics of literature? How do they see themselves as instructors of writing? The interviews focus on the reading, writing, and educational histories of these seven individuals, as well as on their impressions of their current classrooms: those they enter as students and those they enter as teachers. What stories do they have to tell? In addition to considering the seven participants as individual teachers and students, this study also focuses on their relationships with the teaching community within which they work. According to these seven teachers, how does their program construct the image of a writing teacher? Of a writing classroom? Of a writing assignment? How do those images align with previous ones held by the seven teachers? What adaptations and alterations take place? How might those changes relate to their study of literature? Some writers (Bishop 1995, Gale, Sullivan 1989) have portrayed the graduate literature classroom as pedagogically antithetical to certain writing classrooms, and this study investigates the oppositions and connections between those two spaces. Ultimately, this study also speaks to the complex disciplinary relationship between the fields of literary studies and composition. The participants provide a unique perspective on the relationship, and one that has been given little attention in other work. At times the difference between the two fields has been considered a cultural one (Elbow 2002, Moran 1995), necessitating different identities. But the participants here do not talk of shifting identities, or of cultural differences. Instead, their concerns with studying literature overlap with their concerns about teaching writing.

This project is designed to examine and, therefore, hopefully understand how and why personal, reflective writing is used in business communication classes. Personal, reflective writing is treated differently in business communication classes than it is in management classes, yet management theory is greatly influential in the development of business communication as an academic field. In management courses, mostly those with a leadership focus, personal, reflective writing is used as a way to help students identify personal values and goals and then connect those personal discoveries to professional values and goals. In leadership textbooks especially, evidence of personal, reflective writing exercises, such as the personal mission statement, is extensive, suggesting that personal development is integral to professional development, to becoming a manager and leader. Trade books designed to help readers improve and grow as managers and leaders also confirm this, as most books from the genre include personal, reflective writing exercises that are similar to those found in textbooks. However, in business communication textbooks personal, reflective writing exercises are different. To understand better how personal, reflective writing exercises are used in business communication as well as in its affecting discipline of management, this dissertation project has three research foci. They are: a content analysis of business communication and management textbook and business/leadership trade book personal, reflective writing exercises; a brief survey of Association of Business Communication members about their uses of using personal, reflective writing exercises in their classes; and, last, interviews with instructors of management in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts about their uses of personal, reflective writing in their classes. Results of each study and their implications are discussed.