This thesis is a collection of six short stories and a novella. These works follow sons, fathers, loners, and families as they must confront what haunts them. In "Brainbarn," a boy whose parents left him at a young age tries to rid himself of the memory of killing a horse by forcing himself on his cousin. In "Scavengers," a father guides his family of disparate parts on a hike in attempt to bring them together, but he instead comes face to face with what he actually wants his family to be like. In "Haruspices," shepherds disrupt an ancient burial practice with dire consequences. "Cenotaph" is about a son who, after his father dies, learns how to properly bury his father, and the memory of his father, through beekeeping. "Wands" is about two cousins who struggle over a lost fiddle. And "Dispatches from a Future Norwegian Futurist" follows a single survivor of a future plague whose job is to dispose of the bodies until he learns he is soon to be replaced in this position by a thing called Prometheus. The novella, entitled The Re-Enactors, follows a father and son--Brinkley and Drift--who, six months after the mother's sudden death from an antique Civil War weapon accident, find themselves riding on top of a train through South Carolina. Through the course of leaping off the train, hiking through a swamp, and confronting a violent mob in the countryside, Brinkley and Drift also confront each other concerning the mother's mysterious death and how they themselves must keep their family together.

This thesis consists of three short stories dealing with loss. "A Solemn Music" depicts Frederick's attempt to maintain his comfortable life apart from Nature, which, in the form of cicadas, is bent on moving him from his complacency. "The Waker" explores Floyd's reactions to the death of a girlfriend. "Appetites" relates the story of Allen's encounter with a beauty pageant queen and his subsequent attempt to begin a relationship with her.

No description available.

Writing is critical to two main anthropological goals: to communicate useful knowledge about humanity and society; and to stimulate interest, discussion, and action on issues that are of societal import. To achieve these goals anthropologists must write in accessible styles for diverse audiences. In this paper, we review the work of five popular nonfiction writers to determine the extent to which their approachable writing styles are compatible with anthropological rigor and nuance. While none of these authors meets all of our hopes for anthropological analysis, each does manage to blend some elements of scholarship with a readable style. We therefore highlight some of their stylistic approaches in the hope that these might help anthropologists engage more effectively in public debate.

Writing gives children a chance to practice self-expression and creativity (Dobson, 2015b; Millard, 2005) as they learn needed literacy skills (Calkins, 2003). When children write, they appropriate semiotic materials from popular culture, literature, and the world around them (Dyson, 1997, 2003, 2013). Although the National Commission on Writing (2003) recommended that writing instruction be "placed squarely in the center of the elementary curriculum," attention to writing continues to lag behind other subjects (Coker et al., 2016; Cutler and Graham, 2008; Korth et al., 2016; Simmerman et al., 2012). Vygotsky's sociocultural (1978) and creativity (1971) theories, together with Freire's critical pedagogy theory (1970), form the basis of the theoretical framework used for this research. Various literature on the importance of writing (e.g., Dyson, 1993, 2008), creativity (e.g., Csikszsentmihalyi, 1996), and place (e.g., Gruenewald, 2003) were also influential in its framing. This study sought to illuminate the possibilities that emerge when rural students in the intermediate elementary grades engage in narrative fiction writing. Qualitative content analysis (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005) was used to analyze 237 stories written as the culminating project of the semester-length Fiction unit of Promoting PLACE (Azano et al., 2017a), a place-based language arts curriculum for fourth graders attending rural schools. The researcher first typed the stories, making low-level inferences to correct spelling and grammar mistakes so comparisons could be made across stories about macrostructure elements (Koustofas, 2018), or the overall structure, organization, and cohesion of the piece. The data were described and catalogued according to codes that emerged from a deep dive into the stories. Thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) was used to inductively identify thematic understandings across the stories. Specifically, the researcher searched for expressions of identity, connections to place, and mastery of age-appropriate language arts standards. Findings revealed that students can exert agency and express their identities through creative writing and that many students demonstrated mastery of needed language arts skills through the narrative fiction writing task. The study illuminated the value of sharing place-based literature as "mentor texts" for rural students, the importance of providing choice in writing assignments, and the need to foster the writing talent of rural students as a matter of social justice. / Doctor of Philosophy / Writing gives children a chance to practice self-expression and creativity (Dobson, 2015b; Millard, 2005) as they learn needed literacy skills (Calkins, 2003), yet attention to writing lags behind other subjects (Coker et al., 2016; Cutler and Graham, 2008; Korth et al., 2016; Simmerman et al., 2012). Using Vygotsky's sociocultural (1978) and creativity (1971) theories, together with Freire's critical pedagogy theory (1970), as the theoretical framework, this study sought to illuminate the possibilities that emerge when rural students in the intermediate elementary grades engage in narrative fiction writing. Qualitative content analysis (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005) was used to analyze 237 stories written as the culminating project of the semester-length Fiction unit of Promoting PLACE (Azano et al., 2017a), a place-based language arts curriculum for fourth graders attending rural schools. Thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) was used to inductively identify thematic understandings across the stories, and findings revealed that students exerted agency and expressed their identities through creative writing while demonstrating mastery of needed language arts skills. The study illuminated the value of sharing place-based literature as "mentor texts" for rural students, the importance of providing choice in writing assignments, and the need to foster the writing talent of rural students as a matter of social justice.

No description available.

The aim of my study is to find out more about the pupils’ early attempts at writing fictional texts. More specifically, I examine how different teachers work to teach pupils in the third grade to write narrative texts or fiction. I have chosen to interview teachers who have been working for different periods of time, to get a picture of how their lessons are planned. Furthermore, through classroom observations, I get an idea of what pupils think about writing narrative texts and how they do it.     The results of the study show that there are several methods that teachers use to teach writing in the case of narrative texts. The result also points out that even though society itself is digitalized, work in school has not been affected to the same degree. / Mitt arbete syftar till att ta reda på mer om elevernas tidiga möte med den skönlitterära texten. Jag undersöker i detta arbete hur olika lärare i årskurs 3 arbetar med att lära sina elever att skriva berättande texter, eller berättelser. Då vi befinner oss i ett alltmer digitaliserat samhälle har jag valt att intervjua lärare som varit verksamma olika länge för att få en bild av hur deras synsätt eventuellt påverkats av den ökade användningen av datorer, surfplattor etc. Genom observationer i klassrummet har jag kunnat bilda mig en uppfattning av vad eleverna anser om att skriva berättande texter och på vilket sätt de gör det.      Studiens resultat visar att det finns flera metoder som lärarna använder för att undervisa i skrivning när det gäller berättande texter. Resultatet pekar även på att trots att samhället i sig är digitaliserat så har det inte gått riktigt lika fort fram i skolan.

The aim of this thesis study is to examine questions regarding truth in fiction, the term literarytruth. The study is based on the two works of fiction, Märit by Ing-Marie Eriksson (1965) and Eufori by Elin Cullhed (2021). Märit and Eufori both enable interesting approaches to thequestion of truth in fictional literature from different perspectives. Märit, being the only bookin Sweden to be sentenced for defamation, and Eufori being a fictive story about the historicalperson Sylvia Plath. The research questions will be explored through the theory of the readers'contract and the term faction and be discussed in a wider perspective regarding both readingand writing. We can claim to write truth, we can claim to write untruth. We can seek inspiration for ourcharacters both from within and without. But literary truth is not only found in the text itself. Itis also about paratexts, media presence and the author's own statements about the novel. It is onthis basis that the author's intention is visible, and the reader's contract is established. Literarytruth can thus be found both inside and outside the text.

The dissertation primarily involves an exploration of art-like research possibilities via symbolic constructivism, concerning research into a therapeutic process from the position of a beginning therapist. Symbolic constructivism within the broader framework of artistic inquiry forms the methodological paradigm. Symbolic constructivism is regarded as a social constructionist research method, and entails using art-like formats in creating a symbol representing the issue being researched. Fiction writing is thereby used in creating a story as a co-constructed symbol, exploring what happened during a therapy process involving issues regarding trauma and dissociation that I undertook with a female client. The client acts as co-researcher in co-writing and editing the story's content, style and tone. The study also represents my reality in terms of understanding theoretical constructs from epistemologically diverse paradigms, therapeutic processes, doing research and writing a dissertation as it is punctuated at a specific moment in time. As a subtext the dissertation may also be described as a narrative about becoming - becoming a therapist, being a person, and the interface between these two (amongst other) selves. In the dissertation, I therefore hope to present a process-oriented account of personal therapeutic development as well. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Psychology / unrestricted

Syftet med det här arbetet är att ta reda på vad eleverna i årskurs 4 tänker om att skriva texter tillsammans och hur respons kan skapa ett samarbete när eleverna skriver texter. I undersökningen användes två metoder. Den ena metoden är att genomföra kvalitativa intervjuer med eleverna. Den andra metoden är att genomföra observationer i klassrummet. Syftet med intervjuerna är att ta reda på vad eleverna tänker om att skriva texter tillsammans och vad de tänker om respons. Syftet med observationerna är att se hur respons används i klassrummet och hur eleverna samarbetar när de skriver texter tillsammans. Ett annat syfte med observationerna är att ta reda på hur ett samarbete uppstår i interaktionen mellan eleverna. Resultatet av studien visar att vad eleverna tänker om samarbete och respons skiljer sig från vad som händer i praktiken. I studien går det även att hitta tre faktorer som skapar samarbete och respons mellan eleverna. De tre faktorerna är behovet av bekräftelse, behovet av kunskap och behovet av att jämföra texter. / The purpose of this study is to find out what pupils think about writing texts together and how response can create cooperation between pupils when they write texts. Two methods were used in the study. One method was an interview and the other one was an observation. The purpose of the interviews was to find out what the pupils thought about writing texts together and what they thought about response. The purpose of the observations was to see how response was used in the classroom and in what way the pupils cooperated by writing texts together. Another purpose with the observations was to find out how cooperation and response emerges in the interaction between pupils. The result of the study showed that what the pupils thought about cooperation and response was different from how it was in reality. At the same time three different elements behind the cooperation and response between pupils could be found. The three elements was the need to confirm, the need to know (knowledge) and the need to compare texts.