abstract: Past experiences influence how teachers identify as teachers, writers, and teachers of writing and impacts what they do in their classrooms, including their motivation and effectiveness in teaching writing. When teachers fail to identify as writers, they tend to spend less time teaching writing and may find it difficult to model a genuine passion and love for writing. Because of this, it is important to address the writing identities of preservice teachers before they enter their own classrooms. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate and address preservice teachers' identities as teachers, writers, and teachers of writing using an adaptation of a visual literacy strategy known as full circling. Quantitative data were collected through a pre- and post Teacher/Writer Identity Survey and qualitative data were collected through classroom discourse transcripts, student reflective journals, field notes, and the researcher's reflective journal. Data analysis included a t-test comparison of pre- and post survey results and open and axial coding of qualitative data to establish major themes from emerging codes. The following conclusions were derived from the data: a) past experiences in writing affected the writing identities of the preservice teachers in the study; b) the full circling process provided a means for the preservice teachers to build knowledge on the traits and skills of effective teachers, writers, and teachers of writing; and, c) through full circling the preservice teachers demonstrated shifts in their identities as teachers, writers, and teachers of writing. Findings provided evidence that using a full circling strategy assisted preservice teachers in uncovering their identities as teachers, writers, and teachers of writing. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Leadership and Innovation 2014

This study explores MBA students’ experiences of academic writing, and endeavours to determine the difficulties experienced by MBA students during the writing of their dissertations especially in terms of academic literacy. Case study research design and mixed methods were used to generate both quantitative and qualitative data in this qualitative study. A constant comparative method of analysis was used to identify categories and themes within the data. The results of this research showed that the majority of MBA students, while at Business School X, viewed their identities primarily as business professionals as opposed to students of business in an academic setting. Findings of the study showed that MBA students’ identities as readers and writers are strongly framed by the business genres they encounter in their professional capacities. The study also revealed that MBA students writing their dissertations desire to produce a professionally relevant research document as much as one that meets the requirements of academic rigour. It is within this arena of academic research writing that a dilemma exists for MBA students with reference to the purpose, format and value of the dissertation as a vehicle for reporting research findings. Recommendations are that academic literacies and genre pedagogy are mainstreamed into the course design of the MBA programme at Business School X and that the repurposing of the dissertation as a genre be evaluated in terms of business relevance.

Present research addresses the topic of construction immigrant identities in two novels, White Teeth and Swing Time by contemporary British author Zadie Smith. The main focus of the work is to look closely at the examples of the characters in the aforementioned two novels who are first and second generation immigrants and see how they negotiate and create their identity formations. The most valuable theoretical framework for the present research proves to be the hybrid identity theory created by Homi Bhabha. Thus, the first theoretical part of the thesis attempts to explain the theoretical framework in order to apply the notion to the literary examples from the novels that are addressed in the following two chapters of the thesis. The following analysis of the literary characters revealed that the identity formations are primarily constructed through negotiation and hybridization as the immigrant identities tend to be hybrids of the cultures of their ancestors. Additionally, the penultimate chapter addresses the ideas of cross-national cosmopolitanism that are mentioned in the second novel which seem to be the possible and desired outcome of the processes of hybridization, while also exploring the limits of the theory.

abstract: ABSTRACT This research studies the effects of a writing community on three novice, middle school, Title I language arts teachers' perceptions of themselves as educators and as writers. The participants wrote on topics of their selection, on a bi-monthly basis, for one semester, to explore their teaching and learning. The teachers are in their first five years of instruction and work in Title I, urban schools with ethnically diverse students. All participants are National Writing Project fellows. The researcher analyzed teachers' journals, narratives, conversations, interviews and pre-surveys to collapse and code the research into themes. Findings suggest that teachers need time and support to write during the school day if they are going to write. They also need a supportive, honest, and friendly audience, the writing community, to feel like writers. Findings generated have implications for teacher preparation programs. The participant, who was not an education major, in her undergraduate program, is the only teacher who feels confident in her writing abilities which she connects to her experience in writing and presenting her work as an English and women's studies major. More teacher education programs should offer more writing courses so that preservice teachers become comfortable with the art of composition. Universities and colleges must foster the identities of both instructor and writer in preservice language arts teachers so that they become more confident in their writing and, in turn, their writing instruction. It may be implausible for novice teachers to be effective writing instructors, and educate their students on effective writing strategies, if they do not feel confident in their writing abilities. Although writing researchers may posit that English teachers act as gatekeepers by withholding writing practices from their students (Early and DeCosta-Smith, 2011), this study suggests that English teachers may not have these writing skills because they do not write and or participate in a writing community. When preservice English teachers are not afforded authentic writing opportunities, they graduate from their teacher education programs without confidence as writers. Once ELA teachers transition into their careers they are, again, not afforded the opportunity to write. In turn, it is difficult for them to teach writing to their students, particularly low-income, minority students who may need additional support from their teachers with composition. K-12 teachers need the time and space to write for themselves, on topics of their selection, during the school day, and then, must be trained on how to use their writing as a model to coach their students. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2012

The central topic of the thesis is a (seemingly) paradoxical preposition of current feminist thinking that a woman in language and in our culture is absent. It is an all theoretical work that focuses on interpretation of key concepts of gender analysis related to the major concept of absence of a woman in language. It is trying to explain these concepts as deeply as possible and point at their interconnections and eventually their different conceptions, whereas the analysis proceeds primarily on the grounds of literary criticism. The work is structured into two thematically interconnected units. The first focuses on analysing key terms of contemporary poststructuralist philosophy and critical theory, particularly language, text, writing, discourse, power, gender identity and falogocentrism, with the aim to map the theoretical foundations of the concept of absence of a woman in language. The second unit concentrates on analysing the subversive potential of individual conceptions of women's writing, mainly of the theory of l'écriture feminine of Heléne Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva and the concept of "women's writing" of Jan Matonoha, which all equally aspire to destabilize and problematize the functioning and the logic of the dominant discourse discussed in the first unit and thus create a...

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Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:06:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MariaGS_DISSERT.pdf: 3445366 bytes, checksum: 68440e4fb7bb00bea09b12ac4797d669 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-01-29 / The construction of a mapping of the practices of reading and writing printed and digital texts, declared by graduating students from the Bachelor s degree in Science and Technology (BCT), has provided us the analysis of the course they are making in such a socio-historical moment characterized by the revolution of the post-paper. In this sense, the general objective of this research is to understand how that construction works under the point of view of those graduating students. For this, our reflection has been guided by the search of answers for some questions which have presented to us: what reading and writing conceptions BCT graduating students have; what reading and writing practices those collaborators develop; what collections they declare to have access to; what differences they declare to have between printed and digital reading and writing along the different social roles they develop; what the reader/writer identity relations of those collaborators are. To achieving the plausible answers, we have gathered a corpus composed by texts of three genres of the argument order: academic profiles (or self-portrait), opinion articles and argumentative letters. Besides, we have made semi-structured interviews and questionnaires in the online tool of the Google Docs. The methodology which supports this academic work is the qualitative research (SIGNORINI; CAVALCANTI, 1998)of ethnographic direction (THOMAS, 1993; ANDR?, 1995) in Applied Linguistics (CELANI, 2000; MOITA-LOPES, 2006) and the theoretical contribution comes from the bakhtinian perspective of language conception (BAKHTIN [1929] 1981); the socio-historical writing construction (L?VY, 1996; CHARTIER, R., 1998, 2002, 2007; COSCARELLI, 2006; CHARTIER, A., 2007; ARA?JO, 2007; COSCARELLI; RIBEIRO, 2007; XAVIER, 2009; MARCUSCHI; XAVIER, 2010); from the studies of the pedagogy of the writing (GIROUX, 1997); from the literacy studies understood as sociocultural practice, plural and situated (TFOUNI, 1988; KLEIMAN, 1995; TINOCO, 2003, 2008; OLIVEIRA; KLEIMAN, 2008), from the studies about identity in postmodernity (HALL, 2003; BAUMAN, 2005). The results of the analysis have pointed at a multiplicity of reading/writing practices of printed and digital texts developed by the BCT graduating students due to the coexistence of the modality printed and that one derived from the new mobile devices. In that multiplicity, the prevalent idea of the collaborators is that there is a continuum between printed texts and digital texts (not a dichotomy), since the option of reading/writing printed texts or digital ones is always linked to specific communication situations, which involve participants, objectives, strategies, values, (dis)advantages, besides (re)creation of discursive genres in function of the mobile devices to which those collaborators have access in the different spheres of activities that they participate. All of that has caused a deep intersection in the identity traces of college students readers/writers in the 21st century which cannot be ignored by academic formation / A constru??o de um mapeamento das pr?ticas de ler e escrever textos impressos e digitais, declaradas por graduandos do Bacharelado em Ci?ncias e Tecnologia (BCT), propiciou-nos a an?lise do percurso que eles est?o fazendo em um momento s?cio-hist?rico caracterizado pela revolu??o do p?s-papel. Nesse sentido, o objetivo geral desta pesquisa ? compreender como se d? essa constru??o sob o ponto de vista desses graduandos. Para tanto, norteou nossa reflex?o a busca por respostas a algumas quest?es que se nos apresentaram: 1) quais as concep??es de leitura e escrita dos graduandos do BCT; 2) quais as pr?ticas de leitura e escrita que esses colaboradores desenvolvem; 3) quais os acervos (digital, impresso ou ambos) a que eles declaram ter acesso; 4) que diferen?as eles declaram existir entre a leitura e a escrita impressa e a digital no exerc?cio dos diferentes pap?is sociais que desenvolvem; 5) quais as rela??es identit?rias de leitor/escrevente desses colaboradores. Para chegarmos a respostas plaus?veis, reunimos um corpus constitu?do de textos de tr?s g?neros da ordem do argumentar: perfis acad?micos (ou autorretratos), artigos de opini?o e cartas argumentativas. Al?m disso, realizamos entrevista semiestruturada e question?rio na ferramenta online do Google Docs. A metodologia que sustentou este trabalho acad?mico ? a de pesquisa qualitativa (SIGNORINI; CAVALCANTI, 1998) de vertente etnogr?fica (THOMAS, 1993; ANDR?, 1995) em Lingu?stica Aplicada (CELANI, 2000; MOITA-LOPES, 2006) e o aporte te?rico vem da concep??o de l?ngua(gem) de perspectiva bakhtiniana (BAKHTIN [1929] 1981); da constru??o s?cio-hist?rica da escrita (L?VY, 1996; CHARTIER, R., 1998, 2002, 2007; COSCARELLI, 2006; CHARTIER, A., 2007; ARA?JO, 2007; COSCARELLI; RIBEIRO, 2007; XAVIER, 2009; MARCUSCHI; XAVIER, 2010); dos estudos da pedagogia da escrita (GIROUX, 1997); dos estudos do letramento entendido como pr?tica sociocultural, plural e situada (TFOUNI, 1988; KLEIMAN, 1995; TINOCO, 2003, 2008; OLIVEIRA; KLEIMAN, 2008), dos estudos sobre identidade na p?s-modernidade (HALL, 2003; BAUMAN, 2005). Os resultados da an?lise empreendida apontam-nos para uma multiplicidade de pr?ticas de leitura/escrita de textos impressos e digitais desenvolvidas por graduandos do BCT devido ? coexist?ncia da modalidade impressa e da que decorre dos novos dispositivos m?veis. Nessa multiplicidade, a ideia que prevalece do ponto de vista desses colaboradores ? a de um continuum entre textos impressos e textos digitais (n?o uma dicotomia), uma vez que a op??o por ler/escrever textos impressos ou textos digitais est? sempre atrelada a situa??es de comunica??o espec?ficas, que envolvem participantes, objetivos, estrat?gias, valores, (des)vantagens, al?m da (re)cria??o de g?neros discursivos em fun??o dos dispositivos m?veis a que esses colaboradores t?m acesso nas diferentes esferas de atividade de que participam. Tudo isso tem ocasionado uma profunda intersec??o nos tra?os de identidade de leitores/escreventes universit?rios do s?culo XXI que n?o pode ser ignorada pela forma??o acad?mica