It was the problem of this study to determine the status of recent experimental, empirical, and rhetorical studies in the teaching of persuasion. An instrument was devised which included studies related to ten major categories traditionally covered in the persuasion course.

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

In this study I examine twenty-five reading textbooks published in America between 1785 and 1819 for their rhetorical theory, pedagogy, and approach to language in order to discover more about the origins of modern writing instruction. The reading textbooks were selected for popularity, needing to go through at least three editions. I also examine four early writing textbooks, all published 1816 and earlier, and compare them to the reading textbooks on the same points.My results show that the dominant rhetorical theorist before 1800 is James Burgh, and not Hugh Blair. After 1800, rhetorical theory in these textbooks is dominated by Blair and John Walker. An emphasis on grammatical correctness is inherent in both writing and speech instruction, meaning the public associated grammatical correctness with writing instruction even in the eighteenth century. Correctness went beyond grammar into vocabulary and pronunciation because language instruction was primarily a matter of imitating the upper class. The reading textbooks, designed for teaching speech, show no evidence of the transition to writing instruction that occurred in the nineteenth century. My examination of the writing textbooks shows that writing instruction developed separately from speech instruction because the elocutionary pedagogy dominant in these years could not be applied to writing instruction. The early writing textbooks have the same emphasis on grammatical correctness, and add inventional schemata that are wholly absent from the reading textbooks. / 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

Educational and feminist researchers as well as philosophers and psychologist claim that women are not receiving the same university education as men. Studies show that males receive more praise and more attention in the classroom through the university. As a result, female students feel alienated from much of their educational experiences. Likewise, minority students also report feeling estranged in the university claiming that their previous experiences are undervalued.Freshman composition classes are designed to acquaint in-coming students with the discourse needed in order to succeed in college. Likewise, the Basis Writing Courses at Ball State University are designed to help underprepared students gain confidence and practice in their writing abilities. Teachers' written comments upon essay drafts are a major means of communication between the students and professors.This study was designed to determine whether or not instructors teaching in the Ball State University Basic Writing courses in the Fall Semester of 1992 gave responses on essays which were significantly different relative to the students' gender and/or race. In other words, did male students receive different editing and revisional advice than did female or non-Caucasian students? Did male students receive more praise and encouragement than did female or non-Caucasian students? Is there unconscious gender or racial bias exhibited in the basic writing classrooms at Ball State University as evidenced by instructors' written comments?? Contrary to the multi-vocal chorus proclaiming existing bias, this study found such bias did not exist at the significant Alpha level of .05, yet trends towards such bias did emerge. White males were slightly favored both in the amount of praise and the amount of advice offered on essay drafts. The careful selection of the Basic Writing faculty may have contributed to the lack of bias found at a significant level. As a secondary issue, it was also found that instructors were unaware of the extent of their direct editing habits. This overediting may result from the portfolio nature of the course where outside readers are involved in course assessment / Department of English

The nature and extent of classical rhetoric's influence on subsequent ages has been the focus of much recent study. Scholars have been concerned with how classical authors, particularly Cicero and Quintilian, emerged in educational and rhetorical theories of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and later centuries. Despite this flurry of research, a great deal of Quintilian's enduring legacy remains unknown, particularly in seventeenth-century England. "Quintilian's Influence on Obadiah Walker," then, extends our knowledge of Quintilian's influence into the seventeenth century by looking at one seventeenth-century thinker in particular, Obadiah Walker. More specifically, this thesis compares and analyzes the authors' primary works: Quintilian's Institutio oratoria and Walker's Some Instructions Concerning the Art of Oratory and Of Education, Especially of Young Gentlemen. This study investigates Quintilian's and Walker's similarities and differences within three comparable areas: their educational systems, their theories and placement of rhetoric in their systems, and their educational purposes. Within these areas, this study questions how and to what extent did Walker appropriate Quintilian's ideas when crafting his two educational/rhetorical treatises? The comparison of the primary texts manifests some specific and general conclusions. There are two specific conclusions. First, Walker is heavily indebted to Quintilian; he liberally adopts and modifies Quintilian's ideas in nearly every facet of his works. Second, Walker offers a seventeenth-century student a digest and modern version of Quintilian's Institutio. Moreover, this study offers some general conclusions. First, it demonstrates that Quintilian's influence extends into the late seventeenth century, at least in the works of one writer of the era. Next, it argues that if Quintilian's treatise lost favor, at least it did not do so completely. And finally, it contributes another story to classical rhetoric's incomplete history. / Graduation date: 1996

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.

Thesis (MTech (Education))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015. / Writing pedagogy of the News Report genre across the Intermediate Phase in one school. The low levels of writing proficiency that are experienced by students is a global phenomenon and South Africa is no exception (DBE, 2008; 2013). The NEEDU Report (2012) and Hendricks (2007, 2008) argue that insufficient extended writing takes place in South African classrooms, resulting in limited textual and linguistic progression across grades. According to Hendricks (2007, 2008) and Dornbrack and Dixon (2014) little research around writing pedagogy has been carried out in South Africa, particularly on how genres or text types are taught and extended across the grades. This research examines the teaching of the News Report genre across the Intermediate Phase in one school, the discourses and positioning of literacy by the three teachers and how these are translated into practice. This study is underpinned by the notion of literacy as a social practice which Street (2003) and Prinsloo (2013) propose is not merely a technical and neutral skill but that it occurs in social practice not only through formal schooling but within a social context which has a direct bearing on it. Themes that emerge from the semi-structured interviews conducted with the three teachers include inadequate information on writing in the CAPS documents, an “overloaded” writing curriculum, a lack of pre-service/ in-service training, gaps in espoused pedagogy and the impact of teachers’ writing histories on their conceptualization of writing and espoused pedagogy. Classroom observations of writing lessons on this genre reveal the dominance of a skills discourse by two of the teachers. However, the third teacher who clearly articulated her own writing history as being “fraught and contested” illustrates evidence of a socio cultural writing pedagogy which deeply engages her students (Ivanic, 2004).