Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wyoming, 2006. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on April 15, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 188-197).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-108).

This study explored the development of students' written story structure over a three-year period. Twenty longitudinal writing files, each containing three science fiction stories written at the end of students' grade 3, 4, and 5 years, were studied. The idea development of these sixty stories (20 written at each grade-level) was examined through the use of two methodologies, a genre-independent Idea Analysis, and a genre-specific Narrative Analysis. These analyses were used to explore three aspects of idea structure: (a) idea production, (b) idea elaboration, and (c) narrative structure {i.e., setting, character, and plot development}. / In the area of idea production, the following trends were identified: (a) significant growth from grades 3 to 5 in the number of idea units in students' stories, with a sharp increase in idea-unit production from grades 4 to 5, (b) steady growth in the proportion of embedded {i.e., complex} idea units in students' stories, and (c) steady growth in the proportion of Internal -State units {i.e., descriptions of story-characters' thoughts and feelings}. In the area of idea elaboration, proportions of both Descriptor- and Constraint-use remained stable across grades; in contrast, proportions of Rationale-use (a more specialized form of idea elaboration) increased steadily from grade to grade. Description was the highest-frequency of these three forms of idea elaboration, and the only one used universally by students. In the area of narrative structure, the number of setting elements in students' story openings increased steadily from grade to grade, with particularly strong emphasis on delivery of setting information in grade 5. Character description and narrative goal-setting means also increased steadily from grade to grade; however, within-grade variability was noted. The possibility that dialogue-use mediates growth in these two areas was explored informally. The developmental and instructional implications of these findings were discussed, and recommendations made for future study.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rowan University, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rowan University, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (PH.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2005. / "Publication number AAT 3205586."

Thesis (M.S.)--Rowan University, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Dissertation (PhD)--University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, 2005.

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 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.