This qualitative study explored how teachers used graphic novels to encourage student engagement in learning. A case study approach was used to achieve my two research objectives: 1) to examine current research about graphic novels and pedagogical understandings relevant to the study of graphic novels as a pedagogical resource, and 2) to identify the pedagogical understandings of four secondary language arts teachers using graphic novels to encourage student engagement in learning. Action research framed the approach used to examine the collaborative practices of four teacher participants and myself as we learned about graphic novels. Interviews, focus groups, observations, and artifact analysis all contributed to highlighting the pedagogical understandings of the participants. The findings confirmed previous scholarship that graphic novels can be a beneficial pedagogical tool in ELA classrooms, further encouraging student engagement in learning and valuing students out of school interests. The findings also confirmed that teachers go through a unique, collaborative, and at times, individualized process of learning before teaching a new resource, but when preparing and sharing graphic novels with students preferred to frame the learning using before, during, and after comprehension strategies and activities to present their units. The findings also affirmed that resource selection and evaluation was highly influenced by the teachers prior-interests and understanding of curriculum. The study also produced some interesting findings that suggested the need for pre-service and in-service professional development opportunities around graphic novels so that teachers can be prepared to support and growing multimodal and multiliterate population. Furthermore, and unexpectedly, the participants each developed a passion for graphic novels where they previously had none and all continue to use graphic novels in their classrooms and read them for pleasure.

Both African writers and literary critics have long used the ideology of "Négritude" and the political commitment it generated as the theoretical basis for their works. However, since independence in Africa, this common practice started to lose momentum due to a shift in the social and political realities. Furthermore, in recent decades, new generations of African writers have moved away from the "Négritude" movement's beliefs. Nevertheless, there are still some nostalgic writers and critics who cling to this historic movement that shaped African literature and thought for half a century. The above two trends paved the way for my starting hypothesis: is it still possible to evaluate what Abiola Irele calls the "African imagination" in the narrative, and especially novels, without the traditional criteria of political commitment and ideology? To answer this fundamental question, I define my analytical method as a "politiscopie." This neologism is formed in the image of the word "radioscopie." "Politiscopie" combines the stem for politics, "politi-," with the suffix "-scopie," from the Latin scopium (instrument for viewing) and the Greek skopein (to look at). And I define "politiscopie" as the analytical examination of political discourse in literary text. This examination is stripped of the conscious or unconscious analytical tendency that I call "l'humeur idéologique des critiques," or "the ideological mood of critics. "This dissertation is divided into two parts and an introduction, in which I define political discourse based on L'archéologie du savoir by Michel Foucault. The first part--chapters one and two--is a "politiscopical" examination, an examination of political discourse in African novels since 1990. I discuss the explicit and implicit political discourse present in the considered novels. In the second part--chapters three and four, I attempt to tease out the triangular relationship between Africa, the writer, and the relevant political realities. I investigate the political representation of Africa by the new generations of African writers, and then I look at the impact of distance on those writers to see whether the location of the authors--abroad or on the African continent--affects the way they treat African political debates.

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Julia Kristeva's 1979 essay, 'Le temps des femmes', translated as 'Women's Time' in 1981, most explicitly articulates her approach to feminist thought, addressing women's troubled relationship to patriarchy in terms of time and space. In the essay, Kristeva identifies three distinct positions in the history of feminism: 'equality' feminism, 'difference' feminism; and finally, an anticipated 'third-generation' feminism that will integrate the previous two attitudes, representing what she defines as a new 'signifying space'. The value of the 'third space' is that is offers a method for proceeding beyond the either/or status offered by previous stages of feminist thought and analysis, challenging gender identity per se, and bringing out of the singularity of each individual subject. Women's literature of the interwar period provides a rich source of material in terms of the construction of the gendered subject, as political and military pressures transformed masculine and feminine roles. While literary giants such as Sassoon and Faulkner have committed the experience of the trenches to print, women's writing of this era often explores the effects of the First World War on the community at home, away from the front and its visceral nightmares. This thesis therefore examines the destabilising effect of war on both combatants and civilians as evident in this writing, and each chapter identifies a space in the text where identity is challenged and thrown into debate by the hardships of the War. The resulting signifying space is configured in varying ways, often bringing happiness and personal satisfaction to the protagonist, but it may also represent the darker aspects of Kristevan thought, resulting in negativity and even death.

« Je ne vois pas pourquoi on blâmerait une fille comme Nanette, de profiter, pour mettre le plus haut prix à sa personne et à son art, de la folie et du désordre extrême de vos riches libertins ? » - s’interroge la Leontion de Wieland. Ce « désordre extrême » n’est qu’une des caractéristiques de l’existence insouciante exprimant le triomphe du libertinage des mœurs à l’époque où l’attirance des sociétés européennes pour la conduite libertine, réelle ou imaginaire, trouve son reflet dans les littératures anglaise, française et allemande. La présente thèse démontre ainsi la diversité du libertinage littéraire en Europe dans la seconde moitié du dix-huitième siècle. Les romans épistolaires Clarisse Harlove de Richardson en Angleterre, Les Liaisons dangereuses de Laclos en France et Menander und Glycerion de Wieland en Allemagne nous ont paru les meilleurs exemples afin d’esquisser cette diversité et d’en comparer les aspects. Le regard que les trois auteurs portent sur les lois de l’ordre social, la religion et les mœurs traduit une vision originale du monde. Et bien que cette vision ne dépasse pas le cadre de la fiction romanesque, l’étude de leurs œuvres met en relief un certain nombre de données propres au climat sociopolitique de l’époque tout comme des éléments autobiographiques ayant contribué à l’élaboration du modèle qui est le leur du libertin masculin ou féminin. Notre objectif est d’étudier la richesse littéraire de ce modèle de libertins et de leur conduite, d’ailleurs propre aux deux sexes, sa complexité et sa singularité en procédant par rapprochements et contrastes, similitudes et différences. / “I don’t see why a girl like Nanette should be blamed for profiting from the madness and extreme disorderly conduct of your libertines, in order to set the highest price to her person and her art,” Wieland’s Leontion says to herself. This “extreme disorderly conduct” is only one of the characteristics of that kind of carefree existence which is an expression of the triumph of libertine mores at a time when the fascination of European societies for libertinism, whether real or imaginary, is reflected in English, French and German Literature. The following thesis thus demonstrates the diversity of libertine literature in Europe in the second half of the XVIIIth century. In order to analyse this diversity and compare its different aspects, I have chosen three epistolary novels that I consider to be paradigms in the matter: Clarissa Harlowe by Richardson in England, Les Liaisons dangereuses by Laclos in France and Menander und Glycerion by Wieland in Germany. The implicit or explicit judgement that these three authors pass on the laws of social order, on religion, and on the mores of the period is emblematic of an original vision of the world. Although this vision is expressed within the limits of works of fiction, the study of these works highlights a number of elements that are specific to the social and political atmosphere of the time, as well as certain autobiographical elements which have contributed to the social paradigm of feminine and masculine libertinism to which they subscribe. The purpose of this thesis is to study these literary works as rich sources of information on the libertines and their conduct as an accepted social model for men and women alike, and to discuss the complexity and singular nature of this phenomenon by a differential treatment of the various themes through which it can be identified.

The purpose of this thesis is to show that an indigenous, emotional, and poetic lyricism is found in the novels of Jose Maria Arguedas, which distinguishes and separates Arguedas from the Hispanic indigenous classical writers.

The purpose of this study is to explore Mark Twain's involvement with the southern ante-bellum experience as reflected in his Southern Trilogy, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade), and Pudd'nhead Wilson. He came to denounce the South more and more vehemently in these novels, and each occupies a critical position in his artistic and philosophical growth.

This thesis on Work of Pavel Kohout from 1979 to 1989 deals the period of Kohout's life and work during his exile in Austria. The aim was to find out the main characteristics of Pavel Kohout's prosaic art and also to compare the period critiques and show their contact and different points. The first part focuses on a destiny of Pavel Kohout in chosen decade. The second part examines his novels Nápady svaté Kláry and Hodina tance a lásky together with the memoir-novel Kde je zakopán pes. The final part studies the period critiques and try to point out their similarity or difference. Thanks to analysis, the author found out that in exile Pavel Kohout continues in his poetic style, but his work also evinces the element of autentization. The novels Nápady svaté Kláry and Hodina tance a lásky represent Kohout's ability in fabulation. Value of the memoir-novel Kde je zakopán pes consists in its genre, which places the text on the border between fiction and non-fiction. The author proved that the beletrization of own memories increases the esthetic impact of a text. A comparison of certain critiques showed that a literary criticism looks at Kohout's work inconsistently. In novels Nápady svaté Kláry and Hodina tance a lásky the reviewers appreciate the presentation of chosen themes. The memoir-novel is often...

This thesis is focused on poetics of places and space in the novels of Czech author Ota Filip (*1930). The analysis of individual spaces displayed in Filip's work wants to demonstrate the importance of these places for the narrative construction of the autor's novels. This thesis aims to show the importance of displayed space and individual spaces for the overall sense of the fictional world in the Filip's work. The methodological basis of the thesis is the study of the Polisch scientist Janusz Sławiński: Space in Literature: Basic Division and Introductory Commonplace (2002 [1978]). Research of space displayed in the literary work based on the text of a particular novel.

The purpose of this project is to argue the effectiveness of utilizing comics as a learning tool in the first-year composition classroom to help students better understand synthesis. The two main features of comics that help teach synthesis are comic panels and comic closure. Library research was conducted to give insight into the history and terminology of comics, the value of comics in the classroom and in the field of rhetoric and composition, the practicality of using visual rhetoric and literacy in the classroom, and synthesis in the first-year composition classroom. I furthered my research by conducting a retrospective account of my own synthesis comic that I created during my graduate program. I analyzed how creating the synthesis comic helped me to better understand synthesis. I also analyzed how I was better able to effectively execute synthesis specifically through the genre conventions of panels and comic closure. Based on insights from my retrospective account, I will illustrate how the scaffolding exercise of creating a synthesis comic can be an effective tool in the first-year composition classroom. Additionally, I will offer suggestions for further research on the significance of this scaffolding exercise. Comics are becoming more widely valued in academia at large, as well as valued specifically in the field of rhetoric and composition. It is my hope that this thesis will contribute positively to this trend.