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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
531

Literacy and Religious Agency: An Ethnographic Study of an Online LDS Women's Group

Pavia, Catherine Matthews 01 January 2009 (has links)
This dissertation is based on an ethnographic study of a discussion board and its 120-150 female participants, all of whom are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). My primary goal was to discover how the women’s religion influences their uses of and the rewards of their online literacy and how their online writing affects how they practice their faith and define themselves. Methods of inquiry included two years of participant observation, phenomenological interviewing, discourse analysis interviewing, and collection of discussion board threads. Participants’ spoken comments and writing show how they created an enclave in order to communicate in ways driven by their religious beliefs and to discuss the multiple essences that emerge as they live their faith. Participants’ literacy practices also demonstrate that the discussion board functions simultaneously as a private board and as a public LDS community, in which participants use intimate literacy to construct public voices that are in harmony with LDS teachings but that reflect their individual differences with those teachings. My analysis reveals that writing in this enclave often contributed to open-mindedness and critical agency. The participants conscientiously engaged in both deliberative discourse and in a pragmatics of naming to claim religious essences and to negotiate their multiple relationships to their religious doctrine, even as they accept that doctrine. In doing so, they have found power to resist other cultural discourses. They also have become more open to difference within their community. This study shows that agency can occur within a fixed structure because there are choices within fixity and that religious discourses offered participants a position of resistance from which to speak. This study suggests the importance of qualitative research on private contexts for faith-based literacy because public contexts may not be deemed as “safe” for discussions of fluidity within faith. I argue that composition studies and literacy studies need to pay attention to the extent to which religion informs individuals’ literacy practices, particularly students who struggle to reconcile the coexistence of religious and academic literacies. I also suggest pedagogical tactics for welcoming faith-based literacies in the composition classroom.
532

(De)mystifying literacy practices in a foreign language classroom: A critical discourse analysis

Kumagai, Yuri 01 January 2004 (has links)
This study problematizes the literacy practices of a second-year, Japanese language classroom at a small women's college. Drawing on critical perspectives on language, literacy and d/Discourse (Gee, 1990)—in particular, on sociocultural and poststructural theories—this study discusses the joint actions of a classroom teacher and her students. Using Fairclough's (1992b) model of critical discourse analysis as an analytical tool combined with the methodology of critical ethnography, this study closely examines classroom interactions through moment-by-moment analysis of numerous literacy events. Through year-long ethnographic fieldwork and two subsequent years of dialogue with the teacher, I chose to focus my study on “moments of tension.” I selected five “critical moments” when diversions from the teacher's lesson agenda were observed during the classroom literacy events. The dynamic interplay among the texts, the students' identities and the teacher's discourses inspired those critical moments. They were moments when both the teacher and the students struggled to defend what they believed as true and attempted to inhabit ideal subject positions against textual representations. My use of critical discourse analysis revealed that, in general, the students drew from the dominant discourses that the teacher had provided so that they could successfully participate and make sense of the literacy events. However, when the texts represented a reality or truth that challenged the students' beliefs about their identity and/or ontology, the students resisted such representations and “disrupted” the dominant classroom discourse by drawing on counter-discourses. Similarly, when the students' counter-discourses challenged the teacher's ontology and/or identity, she resisted taking up those discourses and tried to normalize the moments by deflecting the issues at hand and by withdrawing from the “intersection of the discourses” rather than opting to facilitate a dialogue about competing discourses. This study argues that these moments of tension displayed how students contributed significantly to the production of knowledge in the classroom. They point out how students exercise their agency and take up positions as “knowers” that align with their sense of self. My analysis also allows me to draw implications for the possibility of critical literacy practices in a FL classroom.
533

Teaching to their strengths: Multiple intelligence theory in the college writing class

De Vries, Kimberly Marcello 01 January 2002 (has links)
This dissertation combines research in neuroscience, psychology, inter-cultural communication, and teaching with technology to envision a more balanced approach to teaching writing. Many composition scholars have proposed theories about the cognitive processes that support writing, and have suggested pedagogies based in these theories, but too often this work has evolved in isolation from the research carried out in other fields. I hope that by taking this interdisciplinary approach, I can rough out some avenues for fruitful future exploration and lay to rest some misperceptions that currently hinder our teaching. I introduce this study by sharing a brief literacy narrative, and then in Chapter One lay out the range of theories held in the composition community about writing, learning, and thinking processes. In Chapter Two, I examine how Multiple Intelligence (MI) Theory can add to our understanding these processes, and consider recent attention to cultural context. China stands out as a particularly useful example by demonstrating very a different but effective pedagogy. Recent neuroscience research supports MI Theory, and I consider how it explains the existence of multiple intelligences in Chapter Three. In Chapter Four I shift to more practical concerns; the media required by non-verbal intelligences are hard to bring into classrooms, but computer technology offers solutions to some of these difficulties. I discuss my own experiences designing an on-line writing tutorial as an example of how neuroscience can be applied to teaching with technology, then describe an introductory literature class in which I used technology to address multiple intelligences. I suggest paths of further inquiry, identifying gaps in current research on teaching with technology. When discussing computer technology, we must ensure that students can cross the “digital divide.” I look at recent studies of access to computers and the internet; analysis of these results gives a clearer picture of how we might ensure that technology serves our students, rather than acting as another stumbling block. To close, this study looks forward, suggesting questions to be addressed in the future, as well as practical steps teachers can take now, to begin addressing multiple intelligences in their college writing classrooms.
534

Listening to the silences in our classrooms: A study of “quiet” students

Reda, Mary Margaret 01 January 2002 (has links)
In this dissertation, I explore this question: why are students silent? My interest was sparked by the stories most teachers have heard and told—that “quiet students” are shy, resistant, hostile. While discourses focusing on the politics of silencing are critical, we also need to consider how students see their own silences. This study provides alternate visions of silence as imagined by students. The project draws on many sources to explore silence, including the dominant critical perspectives represented in teaching narratives and feminist and cultural theories, as well as my own experiences that shape my teaching and this research. In addition to my own autoethnography and the thinking of scholars in various fields, the study focuses on the perspectives of students. Drawing on written reflections and interviews with five students, I examine students' vision of the influence of teachers and pedagogies on the decisions to speak or be silent. Often, practices designed to invite students' speaking (requirements, etc.) are experienced as silencing. Students suggest they are more encouraged to speak by “smaller gestures”—the cultivation of teacher-student relationships, a teacher's presentation of “self,” and focused attention to how questions are asked and responded to. Such efforts positively alter the dynamics of power, knowledge, and authority. I examine the intersections of identity and community and their impact on a student's speaking or silence. Many cite the “openness” of the community and how speaking invites evaluation of one's response, intelligence, identity. This is troubling, but not because they fear conflict. Rather, they perceive such interactions as demanding risky self-revelation in anonymous communities; they are conscious of the lessons about voice and audience we try to teach in writing classes. Finally, I investigates the alternate constructions these students use to understand classroom silence, including the communal sense that silence is not necessarily problematic. Instead it can provide space for intellectual work through internal dialogue. This research suggests possibilities for moving students “beyond silence.” But it also leads me to conclude that we should work to foster generative silences as well as dialogue in our classes.
535

Natural Flavors: Rhetorical Stories of Food Labels

West, Rebecca January 2017 (has links)
What is in our food? What can food labels tell us about what is in our food? This dissertation applies rhetoric in the everyday human act of reading food labels and making decisions about what to eat based on those labels. Rhetoric is continually operating from the beginning of the food manufacturing process, to designing and writing food labels and packaging, and finally to the consumer reading the label in the store. “Natural flavors” is an ingredient listing that appears more frequently on food labels, especially in the organic and natural foods industries. I collected food labels and used qualitative methods as I rendered labels textually into Word documents in order to see the discursive elements of food labels away from the sometimes elaborate graphic design. I found that food labels contained three elements: the story, the reality, and the credibility. The story of the food label lures the consumer into an emotional response in either purchasing the food item or putting it back on the shelf. The reality of the label is in the ingredients list, or what is actually in that food item. The credibility is the availability of the manufacture in connecting with the consumer and to what extent they have transparency. By comparing these three elements on a textual page, we can see if there is truth and label equivalence between them, with “natural flavors” as a central component when it appears in the ingredients list. To the extent that there is or is not equivalence is explored through qualitative rhetorical analysis and briefly discussed by engaging Brummett’s rhetorical homologies.
536

Looking Outside to Empower within: Feminist Activists, Feminist Agency, and the Composition Classroom

Unknown Date (has links)
This dissertation takes as its starting point a recurring problem within the composition classroom: women writers silencing themselves in compliance with patriarchal expectations that frame the good girl role. In the process, these students subordinate, if not entirely erase, their own feminist agency. The disempowerment of women within the writing classroom is especially worrisome given that the NCTE Mission Statement defines one of the main aims of this classroom as helping students use "language to construct personal and public worlds and to achieve full participation in society." If the composition classroom aims to help students develop and practice rhetorical agency, how can this goal be successfully met when women students are implicitly and explicitly taught to adopt a classroom persona of silence? To address the problem of the good girl identity within the composition classroom, I turn to an exploration of feminist agency enacted beyond academia. Women have not – perhaps have never – been completely disempowered or completely silenced. Historically and currently, women have developed innovative and effective ways of performing feminist agency in social spaces beyond the classroom. Accordingly, this dissertation asks, "What strategies for fostering feminist agency in the composition classroom might be derived from the practice of feminist agency deployed outside of the classroom?" To answer this question, I first identify the visual, linguistic, and embodied strategies employed by feminist activists beyond classroom walls. Next, I consider how the activists use these strategies to support enactments of feminist agency within their specific spheres. Finally, I analyze these enactments in order to discern specific strategies we can use for fostering feminist agency within the composition classroom. This dissertation consists of three case study analyses. The first analysis focuses on The Guerrilla Girls, a feminist art activist group. The second examines Here. In My Head, a feminist perzine, and the third considers the feminist music album A Woman's Reprieve. Within each case study, I conduct first-hand interviews with the participants and textual analyses of the activists' work. This analysis of the rhetorical practices of feminist activists has revealed three valuable conclusions regarding feminist agency. 1) Effective feminist agency, understood as action that challenges rather than perpetuates patriarchal ideologies, begins with the personal and circulates beyond the self. 2) Choice, self-determination, action, and audience participation are central tenets to effective enactments of feminist agency. 3) One overarching goal of feminist activists is to promote a more inclusive reality, one that values women and their experiences/perspectives within the public sphere. These conclusions call on us to consider fascinating avenues through which we might foster feminist agency within the composition classroom. Specifically, my study proposes that we can foster feminist agency within the classroom by emphasizing its personal, active, public, and collaborative characteristics, and I offer specific pedagogical means for doing so. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2015. / June 2, 2015. / composition, feminism, feminist activism, feminist agency, pedagogy, rhetoric / Includes bibliographical references. / Kristie Fleckenstein, Professor Directing Dissertation; Pat Villeneuve, University Representative; Kathleen Blake Yancey, Committee Member; Linda Saladin-Adams, Committee Member.
537

Rhetoric, Religion, and Representatives: The Use of God in Presidential Inaugural Addresses from 1933-2009 as Reflections of Trends in American Religiosity

Unknown Date (has links)
The purpose of this study is to explore the rhetorical functions of references to God and the Bible in the first presidential inaugural addresses from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Barack Obama. The Inaugural Address serves to reunite the nation after the division of an election. The language used in this address reflects the culture and identity of the nation it speaks to. Through a modern rhetorical analysis of the inaugural addresses from 1933-2009, this thesis aims to identify the trends in American religiosity, as can be seen through particular use of references to God and uses of biblical metaphor as a rhetorical and persuasive tool in the inaugural address. / A Thesis submitted to the School of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2015. / April 9, 2015. / Inaugural Address, Presidential Rhetoric, Religion, Rhetoric / Includes bibliographical references. / Jennifer Proffitt, Professor Directing Thesis; Davis Houck, Committee Member; Steven McDowell, Committee Member.
538

Seeing the Unseeable: The Philosophical and Rhetorical Concept of Enargeia at Work in Latin Poetry

Unknown Date (has links)
This dissertation examines the Hellenistic concept of enargeia (self-evidence/vividness) in both its philosophical and literary dimensions and then applies this concept to a close reading of Lucretius' De rerum natura. I argue that the theory of enargeia provides an important model for understanding the epistemological themes of this epic poem. My study offers a history of the concept from its origins in Homeric poetry through its development as a philosophical term in Plato and Aristotle, before turning to examine the theory enargeia in epistemology, rhetoric, and literary theory in the Hellenistic period. Based on the foundation of these Hellenistic theories, I turn to a discussion of the stylistic effect of enargeia and the link between seeing and knowing in Lucretius. I illustrate how vivid imagery often serves to inspire knowledge in both the reader and the didactic addressee, Memmius. According to Epicurean (and Stoic philosophy), vision and sense-perception of self-evident facts ultimately provide the basis for knowledge. I maintain that we can see this same framework underpin Lucretius' rhetorical strategies, his descriptions, and the way that he guides us as readers to imagine the poetic subjects before our mind's eye. By noticing how enargeia plays a role in Lucretius' philosophy and poetics, we can better understand the way Hellenistic thought continued to influence Latin literature. Through the lens of rhetorical and philosophical theory, I draw important conclusions about the epistemological themes in the poem and how they influence the reader's response. This lens seems entirely appropriate, as Lucretius would have been thoroughly familiar with enargeia through his study of philosophy, rhetoric, and literature. An especially helpful result of my study is that it offers a way to integrate various dimensions of ancient thought--philosophical, rhetorical, literary, and historical--with one another. By considering the topic of enargeia, I show that these dimensions are not separate from each other, but rather they allow us to glimpse how various fields of thought interacted and continued to be appropriated and applied in the creation of poetry in the later Republic, into the imperial age, and throughout the Western tradition. This interdisciplinary approach helps us to draw conclusions about the intellectual background of Lucretius, however my findings and methodology can also be understood to apply for other Latin writers, most importantly Virgil, as I illustrate through a brief study of the end of the Aeneid in my closing chapter. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Classics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / March 16, 2015. / Enargeia, Epicureanism, Lucretius, Philosophy, Rhetoric, Virgil / Includes bibliographical references. / Timothy Stover, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; John Roberts, University Representative; Nathaniel Stein, Committee Member; Francis Cairns, Committee Member.
539

A Cross-Section of Research and Reflection in Composition and Rhetoric

Unknown Date (has links)
The four essays in this exam portfolio are representations of my research interests and expertise in Composition and Rhetoric following the exam portfolio structure. The first essay is a revision of two essays I wrote during fall 2001 about Robert Zoellner's 1969 talk-write theory. I argue that Zoellner's ideas lay the foundation for social constructionist theory and have similarities with process pedagogy. Many of Zoellner's critics dismissed talk-write because of its behaviorist base, but I believe that the problems with writing pedagogy Zoellner brought to the forefront are the same problems writing teachers and theorists struggle with today. The second essay is a bibliographic essay in which I review the recent literature on online writing labs (OWLs). I use the bibliographic essay to inform the third essay, which is an original essay written for this portfolio that offers tips for writing center directors who are interested in setting up an OWL, but are apprehensive. I point out the benefits of reaching students online, as well as the challenges of OWL set-up, maintenance, theory, and practice. The fourth essay is my teaching philosophy. I explain that my teaching philosophy is continually evolving, and with each semester, new experiences influence my growth and teaching identity. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Summer Semester, 2003. / April 1, 2003. / Composition and Rhetoric, Talk-Write Theory, Process Pedagogy / Includes bibliographical references. / Wendy Bishop, Professor Directing Thesis; Deborah Coxwell-Teague, Committee Member; Dennis Moore, Committee Member.
540

Orality in the Composition Classroom Audience: Now You See Me. Now You Don't

Unknown Date (has links)
This thesis addresses the benefits of orality in the composition classroom when audience is more apparent for writing students. Looking to the site of the black church as a literacy event and viewing the semon as a community text and call response as a rhetorical device, I used this model to construct a first-year writing course. In this course, students were encouraged to see that every assignment and written activity could take oral form through activities that enabled them to focus on audience awareness and envision themselves first as speakers and as writers second. Students are then asked to view writing as a social process as they participate in an "oral workshop." Taking on the two central questions for this study—1) How do students respond to an orally based workshop and 2) What impact does an oral-oriented workshop activity have on students' sensitivity to audience—I examine how this different approach, as observed by the black church, translates for writers. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts. / Summer Semester, 2009. / July 6, 2009. / Call and Response, Community Text, Oral Workshop, Black Church, Orality / Includes bibliographical references. / Kathleen Blake Yancey, Professor Directing Thesis; Kristie Fleckenstein, Committee Member; Maxine Montgomery, Committee Member.

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