The purpose of the composition of the "Music for Chamber Band" is the creation of an extended work for an ensemble of solo wind instruments are treated as woodwind and brass quartets, with the percussion section, which requires four players, serving a subordinate function. The "Music for Chamber Band" is in three contrasting but thematically interrelated movements. The first movement, entitled "Lament," is marked "Slowly and simply" and has a mournful character. The second movement is fast and vigorous, frequently utilizing cross accents which give the impression of two or more meters performed simultaneously, and is entitled "Dance". The third movement, "Antiphon," is moderate in tempo and relaxed in nature. The form of the work as a whole can be likened to an arch which contains (or is made up of) three smaller arches.

Four Preludes is a musical setting of Carl Sandburg's poem, "Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind." The music consists of four movements scored for chorus, soprano solo, baritone solo, and full orchestra. The movements are connected by orchestral interludes between each of the four verses. The total performance time is approximately twelve minutes.

Oscillation for Prepared Electronic Tape and Symphony Orchestra is a multi-sectional one-movement composition with an aleatory section that has been partially serialized. The piece begins with a five-tone motif on tape which is developed by the orchestra as an introduction to Section I. The principal theme is developed by the strings and brought it to a climax. This climax is immediately interpolated by the five-tone motif slightly altered. At this point the thematic material is mutated and the orchestra goes through a harmonic texture change. The quartal harmonic treatment develops a cluster of tones that resolve into other clusters and the process is repeated to the accelerando of Section II.

Three Movements for Woodwind Quintet contains serial technique to a limited degree. The composition is not tonal but is in three distinct sections, the first of which is in ABA' form. The first movement is in a fast tempo with the exception of the second section, which is slightly slower. The meter is 2/4 throughout the entire first movement. The second movement is a slow movement and is in variation form. The third movement starts at a fast tempo and the meters alternate between 2/4, 3/4, 5/8 and others so as to change the stress in certain phrases.

This composition is a two-movement work for orchestra and prepared electronic tape. The second movement preceeded by a solo tape prologue. The work requires approximately twenty-five minutes for performance. One of the purposes for the composition of this work was to explore the possibilities, potentialities, and limitations of combining orchestral resources and taped electronic material.

Music for Katurah is scored for string quartet, flute, alto flute, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, piano, and two percussion with total duration of approximately nineteen minutes. The work has three movements and uses spatial as well as standard notation. Each movement begins softly, builds gradually to a highpoint, and returns to the soft beginning. Timbral exploration and improvisation are prominent features in this piece. Also, through the use of spatial and standard notation, the piece combines strict rhythms and free rhythms.

The Requiem, for mixed chorus (4 and 8 parts), two brass quartets (2 trumpets, horn and trombone each), timpani (4) and organ, is divided into four sections or movements: I. Introit and Kyrie II. Sanctus III. Pie Jesu IV. "Take Thou Comfort". The principal feature of the Requiem is the cyclic treatment of the two main themes. These will be referred to as the "Introit" theme and the "Kyrie" theme, in that these are the sections in which they first appear, respectively.

This project explores digital media productions based specifically on food and cooking in order to demonstrate that new communication technologies are increasingly incorporating all five of the bodily senses. In doing so, they contribute significantly to the emergence of new ideological apparatuses appropriate for a global community. These apparatuses – including the formation of a posthumanist subject, the use of technology to support embodied cognition, and the establishment of entertainment as an ideological institution – have become the harbingers of a rhetorical evolution. Based on the work of Gregory Ulmer, along with Jacques Derrida, N. Katherine Hayles, Donna Haraway, and Cary Wolfe, this evolution expands the work of Plato and Aristotle by overcoming the privileging of mind over body and abstract reasoning over concrete physical experience. As such hierarchies become turned on their heads, a renewed emphasis on materiality and embodiment demands virtual products that stimulate the body. As such, a phenomenon I have named disembodied consumption takes place whereby users' chemical senses can be incited through participation with digital technologies. Through the stimulation of these physical senses, and in turn the connected emotions, today's digital citizens are practicing the rhetorical method referred to by Ulmer as conduction. By examining sites, blogs, and postings that include references to food and flavor, I reveal examples of conduction and show how this method is necessary for the development of well-being, and the defeat of compassion fatigue in digital society.

Research in writing studies has focused on students who make the traditional transition from high school to first year composition, to the entry level discipline specific courses in their chosen majors (Wardle, 2007, 2009; Sommers and Saltz, 2004; Beaufort, 2007; Carroll, 2002). Very little scholarship addresses those students who "skip" first year composition and find themselves in entry level discipline specific courses classrooms. With three former students, I conduct a case study over the course of eight months via a series of face to face, facetime, skype and email interviews. Each of these students, through earning high test scores in high school, forego first year composition and move directly to entry level discipline specific courses. Using third generation activity theory as a lens (Engeström, 1996, 1999, 2001; Roth and Lee, 2007; Russell, 1995, 1997; Kain and Wardle, 2002), I examine these students' understanding of what they have experienced in high school writing—specifically high school English class—what they think college writing will demand, and finally what, in fact, they find the college writing demands to be. Not only do I find that each of the students felt very prepared for the demands they will encounter, but they remained confident. The study does, however, illuminate unforeseen challenges for both students and those who teach them: student literate lives are incredibly complex, and there is a real potential for a writing gap between formal writing instruction and when students will engage in intensive discipline writing tasks.

Grounded in my interests in the possibilities presented by digital distribution and composition's focus on the public turn, this project questions what a move to the public means for writing students. Building on the work of compositionists, such as Bruce Horner, John Trimbur, and Amy Lee, who question the ways in which teaching practices and contexts position our students, I examine the public turn to better understand the implications of the assumption that going public itself leads students to value their texts more highly. To this end, I conducted a teacher-research project to study the relationships among student texts, valuation, and distribution through the lens of circulation--an understanding of the interconnected nature of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption grounded in Marxist thought. Circulation stresses not only the ways student texts move, but also how such movement shapes the ways student writers approach the act of composing and the relationships they establish with their labor. Only by investigating such relationships can we truly assess what kind of "value" accrues in writing that "goes public" for both the writer and the larger textual economies in which she is working. Although my findings support the publication of student writing, they also show that assuming value comes with publishing alone is problematic. Instead, I argue that a move to the public must be grounded by students' active decision making as well as a materialist view of the classroom. That is, a pedagogical approach grounded in the notion of circulation--an approach that invited students to consider the significance of distribution and to make their own decisions about how and why their texts might be made public--positioned students as decision makers who frequently "felt like writers" as they questioned the ways in which their texts are valued and the relationships they form with their labor. "Going public" alone does not, as a practice, necessarily lead students to revalue their writing. Instead, I argue that it is only the meta-critical awareness of circulation, audience, and distribution (and their effects on one's writing) that lead to such a rethinking of value.