Research in psychological type theory – especially that done by Jensen and DiTiberio on type and composition – has offered writing teachers another way to understand the different writing processes of their students. One aspect of composition that has not been researched with regard to psychological type theory is the writing style of students. This study proposes a relationship between psychological type theory (specifically the sensing and intuition continuum) and the writing styles of First Year Composition students. Seventy-two students participated in the study, taking the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) and submitting their diagnostic essays to be analyzed using Corbett's stylistic analysis. The results suggest a relationship between writing style and personality type that teachers can use to tailor lesson plans for students (in areas such as revision and audience awareness) to increase student growth. / Department of English

This dissertation investigates the expression of contrastive transitions in the ESL/EFL (English as a Second Language/English as a Foreign Language) writing of university students of Arabic language background. For this purpose, an experimental group of 30 freshmen at Sohar University in Oman whose native language is Arabic served as the experimental group. They did three tasks, two writing activities and a cloze test, ranging from semi controlled (free writing) to the highly controlled cloze test. A control group of 30 Ball State University freshmen in Muncie, Indiana who speak English as a native language performed the same three tasks.For the first task, the subjects wrote about one of 15 possible topics. They then performed the second task, which was writing about a different topic, and were also provided a list of 35 contrastive transitions to use at their discretion. For the third task, the subjects inserted contrastive transitions in the blanks of the doze test, marking the confidence in their choices on scales provided in the margins.This study indicates that the Arabic ESL/EFL students use contrastive transitions when writing contrastively in English. However, the expression of these contrastive transitions is relatively inadequate and limited compared to that of their native-English speaking peers. The Arabic students show a high rate of success in their expression of but as a contrastive transition. However, they show a lower rate of success in their expression of other contrastive transitions. Furthermore, the difference in the levels of confidence in the choices between appropriate and inappropriate contrastive transitions used in a controlled context shows they have little or no idea if their choices are correct or not. / Department of English

In this dissertation, I explore a writing center tutor training model based on the theories and practices of Gertrude Buck, a nineteenth-century teacher and scholar. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Buck was among the few offering an alternative to the dominant view of writing as a tool to reflect existing ideas objectively and correctly. She instead held a Deweyan view of language as a practice that allowed students to explore knowledge and come to a better understanding of themselves, others, and their communities.I examine evidence that effects of prescriptive nineteenth century trends linger in our contemporary writing center setting at Ball State University; next, I describe the process of creating a tutor training model over the course of a semester as I introduce Buck's ideas, observing how Buck's principles are discussed and implemented in writing center sessions and staff training situations. Specifically, I ask the following questions for the descriptive study that I conduct: What practices emerge as a result of using the principles of Gertrude Buck in writing center tutor training? What are the relationships among this tutor training process, tutors' perceptions of writing, and their resulting practices and approaches toward tutoring writing?Findings from the descriptive study demonstrate that the use of Gertrude Buck's principles in our writing center enabled tutors to openly, productively discuss the complexities of writing and language and to more confidently meet the needs ofdiverse writers in a range of situations. The use of Gertrude Buck's principles, which emphasize collaboration, an inductive approach to learning, and continuous reflection on the relationship between practice and theory, in fact have a broader application beyond writing centers. Writing center administrators, tutors, and teachers of writing can benefit from Buck's principles as a guide for examining their own practice and theory connections and creating models for teaching and tutoring to fit their specific contexts. / Department of English

This exploratory study describes microlinguistic errors in composition written by a population of forty adult students enrolled in advanced English classes in three English language teaching institutions in Dakar, Senegal. The subjects had Wolof as their L1, French as their L2 and English as their L3.The study indicates that EFL learners in this context made intralingual and transfer errors; however the latter type was predominant. Most of the borrowing was from French, very little from Wolof. Researchers have suggested as the reason for extensive negative transfer the similarity of the L2 and L3 and the necessity to get one's meaning across. This study concludes that there may be other causes of borrowing: prestige associated with tolerance of breaches and societal predilections for borrowing. Arguments for this claim are found in the native language and the culture of the population involved; it is argued that in the Senegalese situation one needs cultural, sociological and historical information to account for transfer from French as a linguistic behavior.Pedagogical implications are drawn from the findings of the study, suggestions concerning the teaching of English in contexts similar to that of Senegal are made, and avenues are suggested for future research in the area. / Department of English

The study implied that a basic writer's overall abilities, shown through a type of "emotional intelligence quotient" [EQ], could help in determining that individual's inherent abilities in the writing classroom. Using prompted and timed writings plus two EQ surveys, developed by the investigator, the study analyzed students' emotional cognition in their writing environments. EQ qualities displayed while interacting with their instructor and peers or self-disclosed EQ qualities displayed in surveys or metacognitive writings were interpreted and compared to portfolio assessments by outside readers.During the spring semester of 1996, 409 students enrolled in 27 Ball State University English 102 basic writing classes. From 7 classes, 108 sample subjects accomplished surveys and prompts. Fifty randomly-selected subjects of the 108 were scrutinized. Comparisons of the two samples were detailed. Providing a close look at the 50 random-sampled group, 13 students occupying opposing levels at particular scoring-range margins were further detailed. Portfolio results, course grades, and how classroom teachers viewed their classroom students' emotional intelligence skills were the quantitative data compared with two EQ surveys' results.The study's governing gaze revealed self-disclosed, emotional dynamics of basic writers. It surrounded those disclosures with particulars on the biology of emotions. It extended the views on students' personality types as determined by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The study combined the conceptual knowledge of the biology of our emotions and the specific knowledge of personality traits to explain certain dimensions of the composing process. With the beginnings of a comprehensive synthesis, we may better understand how basic writers begin to evolve as effective writers and thinkers.Whether two surveys and portfolio assessments can determine a relationship between basic writers' emotional intelligence and how appropriately they write is still undecided. The statistical results are not as convincing as would be desired for any clear breakthrough. However, the descriptive information, written by the students themselves, coupled with information about preferred and inferior traits, displayed a nucleus of support for the hypothesis: a predisposition toward the four categories of emotional intelligence relates to basic writing skills and composing processes. / Department of English

Teachers confront the problem of plagiarism when they give research assignments. These research projects vary according to the way in which the professor, the department and the discipline defines research. To investigate research across the disciplines, I interviewed six professors who teach research assignments in their classes and six students who attempted to complete these assignments during the academic period of summer semester (1993) through fall semester (1994) at Ball State University.Specifically, I observed six disciplines--English, history, philosophy and religious studies, anthropology, physics, and biology--to assess the teachers' procedures for teaching research, and their explanations of how research could go wrong.Six student volunteers were observed throughout their research assignment as they gathered sources, accumulated data, observed experiments, wrote papers and compiled11a Works Cited list. After students completed their research assignments, I requested that each instructor evaluate the assignments and conclude whether it constituted legitimate, effective research. Although all six student researchers had difficulties completing their assignments, by the end of the semester four out of the six produced successful research projects. One student received an F on her project because she plagiarized, while another earned a C because she did not complete the assignment effectively. The students who did well on their research projects exhibited discipline-specific skills and the following general characteristics: the ability to gather sources, focus topics, authenticate sources, employ disciplinary language, adhere to citation and documentation format guidelines, and use computer and lab equipment. Indicators of possible plagiarism in research projects included: students using unspecified format (such as an older MLA format), writing that revealed improvement several skill levels above previous writing, uncited elevated language and phraseology, and a lack of sources in the bibliography. / Department of English

Using a multimodal approach, this study examines the ways learning styles contribute to the dynamics of writing groups and the effects of those groups on the development of writing maturity in two classes of sophomores at a mid-sized midwestern rural high school. Students' learning styles were assessed through testing with the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory. Then using the middle two dimensions, the perception and judgment dimensions, one section of students was assigned to writing groups of widely diverse learning styles, and a second section was assigned to groups with similar learning styles. Group effectiveness and writing maturity were then evaluated by measuring changes in students' scores from a pre-semester administration of the Daly-Miller Writing Apprehension Test to a post-semester administration, changes in students' essay grades and course grades, changes in students' evaluations of their groups' effectiveness from the beginning of the semester to the end, students' behavior as recorded in the teacher-researcher's daily journal, students' evaluations of writing groups as articulated in post-semester interviews, and the maturity level of students' writings.Results indicate that students worked most effectively in writing groups that consisted of dominant N's or dominant S's or included an I with an N auxiliary in a dominant-N group or S auxiliary in a dominant-S group. Almost as effective were pairs with the two middle dimensions in common. More mature students could work effectively with students who shared only one middle dimension. Social problems or gender issues could disrupt the dynamics expected between types. Each type needed different responses from a writing group. These needs did not necessarily reflect the teacher's expectations for writing group work. / Department of English

In this creative project, I propose that comics can be used fruitfully to introduce undergraduates to the image-word dynamic, helping them become betters critics, more thoughtful consumers, and more effective creators of images. In addition, I argue that such a course of study be housed in an undergraduate rhetoric and composition major. Therefore, this project accomplishes three goals: it explores the rhetorical function of comics; second, it justifies the inclusion of comics in an undergraduate rhetoric-composition program; and, third, it provides a master syllabus for four classes that would provide the experience necessary to students wishing to study visual, verbal, and visual-verbal rhetorics. / Department of English

This dissertation identifies if and how graduate teaching assistants and instructors working in the field of rhetoric and composition teach multimodal assignments in first-year composition (FYC) courses. The research questions for this study were as follows: 1) In what ways do graduate teaching assistants and faculty teach multimodal assignments in FYC courses? 2) Are graduate teaching assistants, adjuncts, and contract faculty equally as likely as assistant, associate, and full professors to teach multimodal assignments in FYC courses? 3) What kinds of training do graduate teaching assistants and faculty receive to prepare them to teach multimodal assignments in FYC courses? 4) Do graduate teaching assistants and faculty feel the kinds of training they receive adequately prepare them to teach multimodal assignments in FYC courses? If not, what needs to change? These research questions were investigated using a combination of online survey research methods and follow-up interviews. This study provides a broad and current analysis, as well as a reflective picture, of the teaching of multimodal assignments in FYC courses. As a result of quickly evolving technologies, instructors have potentially more opportunities to teach multimodal assignments. However, in some cases, writing program policies and curriculum limit or make it difficult for graduate teaching assistants and instructors to assign multimodal assignments in FYC courses. Thus, this study investigated the ways current graduate teaching assistants and/or instructors teach multimodal assignments despite difficulties and limitations. It also investigated whether or not graduate teaching assistants and instructors receive any training or help in shaping their multimodal pedagogy and whether or not they feel this training or help was adequate. The findings indicate instructors are more willing than their departments to implement multimodal composition pedagogy. The findings also show that instructors teach multimodal assignments in their classrooms in various ways, including the use of different technologies and resources. Evidence suggests that despite their desire for more help from their departments, instructors teach themselves how to use such technologies and resources to implement their multimodal composition pedagogy. The study concludes that how multimodal composition pedagogy is implemented in a writing classroom is more likely an individual instructor’s decision rather than a department’s decision. / Department of English

In this dissertation I conduct a historical and theoretical reexamination of Walter Ong in order to explore the extent to which technology transforms consciousness. I discover within his work an understanding of literacy, technology, and humanity that can help us negotiate change without succumbing to the teleological urge to dichotomize. Technology transforms consciousness, but consciousness also transforms technology. This relational aspect of evolutionary change, which is essential to Ong’s work, is often missed or misread. The misreadings obscure important concepts in Ong’s work that can help us negotiate questions that occupy our own present and near-future. How do we teach writing in the presence of technology? What is literacy becoming and how can we understand the increasing multiplicity? Are our students being transformed by the latest technologies? Ong’s work offers answers in a somewhat unexpected way. Rather than continuing or redefining the orality, literacy, secondary orality continuum, I demonstrate that Ong’s work is grounded in more relevant concepts that should no longer be overlooked. A deeper understanding of “the word,” “interior,” and “presence” leads to the revelation that understanding “noetic economy” and “sensorium” not only clarifies Ong’s work, but also offers tools for transforming pedagogy, understanding literacies, and advancing historical understandings. Ong’s work is an enactment of scholarship within the sensorium. That enactment was somewhat unconscious; he did not always articulate the interaction of aural, oral, visual, kinesthetic, olfactory, and tactile, but merely referred to the human sensorium to explain the interactions of the physical and intellectual aspects of human existence. This recovery of Ong’s work demonstrates our need for conscious enactment of the sensorium. One such enactment includes rereading Alexander Bain, who failed to respond to the shifts in the human sensorium occurring alongside developments in writing technologies. Changes in the noetic economy shifted invention away from oral and memory-based composition towards visual and kinesthetically-enacted shaping and revising of ideas. Bain’s assumption that ideas come fully formed from the mind, shared with his students, became reified in current traditional pedagogy. Enacting the sensorium offers us an opportunity to avoid passing on problematic pedagogy to our own students. / Walter Ong's reception in English studies -- Speaking of changes, or, "How the divide is not so great" -- Before orality and literacy : earlier explorations in Walter Ong's thought -- The (not so) great divide : recalling the sensorium -- Applications. / Department of English