Browsing by Author "Eskew, Doug, committee member"
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Item Open Access Composition united: improving articulation between two-year and four-year colleges(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Lee, Kari, author; Frank, Katherine, advisor; Souder, Donna, committee member; Eskew, Doug, committee memberIn 1977, Mina Shaughnessy posed what she believed was an "embarrassingly rudimentary question"-- "What goes on and what ought to go on in the composition classroom?" (320). Over thirty years later, the answer to this question still remains under intense debate as educators struggle to maintain their distance from the K-12 standards and still ensure that students are receiving an equitable education at ever institution of higher learning. This thesis argues for improved articulation between composition programs in two-year and four-year colleges in the same community as a partial solution to this debate, advocating for a collaborative model as opposed to the increasingly popular competitive model for university operations. Two-year and four-year in the same community need to work together in order to ensure that students are receiving the same key concepts in their education, regardless of their place of enrollment. This will also illustrate academia's dedication to students' success and counter gainsayers arguing that there is another agenda. Finally, this thesis proves that, by increasing articulation and fostering communication, the overall structure of composition programs will be strengthened. This heightened dialogue between educators will allow them to learn from colleagues with different areas of expertise and strengthen areas of weakness. It will aid in successful assessment and professional development, and, ultimately, our institutions of higher learning will produce more confident, successful writers.Item Open Access From fountain pen to Facebook post: networking literacy as the intersection of digital and epistolary literacies(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Wilson, Emily M., author; Souder, Donna, advisor; Eskew, Doug, committee member; Gage, Scott, committee memberThis thesis examines the connections between 18th century epistolary literacy and 21st century digital literacy. I argue for the use of the phrase "networking literacy" as a term that captures the essential overlapping elements of the two other terms. A networking literacy is a literacy developed in a dialogic environment between two or more people who are too distant in proximity to communicate verbally, is strongly informed by audience, is typically discursive, and focuses on topics that are usually personal or addressed from a personal angle. Networking literacies transcend geographical location, historical moment, and especially technology. While the tools of technology change, the need writers have to engage in networking literacy and the impact it can potentially have upon their motivation to write and comfort with writing, remains the same regardless of whether they hold a pen or a smart phone in their hands. The tools of networking literacy will undoubtedly evolve within the next several decades into forms that may well be unrecognizable to us. However, whether it's via Royal Post, Tweet, or status update, networking literacies will find a way into our new technologies. Although networking literacy will certainly shape and be shaped by technology, an essential set of principles about the writer and writing process will remain the same regardless of the writing tools used. I argue that the emergence of epistolary literacy in 18th century England and its effect on both the individual and society bears striking similarity to the emergence of digital literacy in 21st century America, and that the points at which they intersect form the definition of networking literacy. Networking literacies help construct the identities of the users and share certain attributes regardless of technology, including being discursive, personal, narrative, and dialogic. Regardless of the technological tools writers use, the characteristics of networking literacy, including its dialogism, discursiveness, and the narrative template it provides for writers to lay over the events of their lives, remain the same in any era.Item Open Access Motherhood, performance, and mommy blogs: the political power of maternal online rhetoric(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) DiPrince, Dawn, author; Souder, Donna, advisor; Eskew, Doug, committee member; Arnegard, Iver, committee member"If you define writing as any kind of scribble, any kind of trying to mark on the world," Gloria Anzaldúa says in an interview with Andrea Lundsford, "And, some of us want to take those marks that are already inscribed in the world and redo them." Language - and thus, writing - has the power to transform, to redefine reality. Autobiographical writing is a performative act that forms - not reflects - identity. Mommy blogs are autobiographical acts with dual performativity: identity and maternity. With performativity, mommy blogs have the power to, as Anzaldúa writes, "rewrite culture." Yet, collectively, mommy blogs reify the normative motherhood narrative with gritty and sometimes profane clicktivist delusions, rather than actively work against the systemic issues that limit the lives of mothers: lack of quality child care; breastfeeding discrimination; unpaid maternity leave; wage disparity for women, working mothers and women of color. Mommy blogs emphasize a narrative of voluntary stay-at-home motherhood (SAHM). The SAHM narrative is essential to capitalism, which only thrives when a certain percentage of adults are removed from the workforce. Mommy blogs use narrative to keep women content while they are being forced out of the workforce through lower wages and lack of child care choices.Item Open Access Narrative, positionality, and pedagogy: an exploration of the classroom narrative(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Enoch, Jennifer, author; Gage, Scott, advisor; Souder, Donna, committee member; Eskew, Doug, committee member; Pettit, Sue, committee memberNarrative writing has become an integral part of scholarship in the field of rhetoric and composition, particularly in the area of composition pedagogy. This thesis identifies and interrogates the classroom narrative, a form of scholarly, narrative writing that narrates classroom events in order to persuade its reader to adopt, reject, or think critically about its author's pedagogy. This thesis argues that, in order to accomplish this purpose, the author of the classroom narrative employs a persuasive process in which she deliberately uses postionality, the process of articulating the author's identity in the text, to persuade the reader to invest in her pedagogy. At the same time, she uses the text's narrative features to reinforce the reader's understanding of her pedagogy. The result is that the persuasive use of postionality and the text's narrative features combine to advance a pedagogical argument and create pedagogical knowledge. In order to illustrate this persuasive process, two classroom narratives will be analyzed: "Understanding Problems in the Critical Classroom" by William H. Thelin and "The American Scholar Writes the New 'Research' Essay" by Jackie Grutsch McKinney. The classroom narrative's persuasive process - both its use of positionality and its reliance on narrative features - has implications for the way that positionality is conceived of and for how pedagogical knowledge is created through narrative.Item Open Access New English language arts: communication, technology, and rhetoric in the secondary classroom(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Beard, Eric, author; Sounder, Donna, advisor; Frank, Katherine, committee member; Eskew, Doug, committee memberIn this thesis, I discuss the changing nature of communication in the twenty-first century and how these changes affect English language arts education at the secondary level. I argue that emerging technologies are changing the way people process and produce information, yet the current environment of English language arts in America is stagnant and outdated. A new vision for English language arts must be adopted by teachers, administrators, and policymakers which includes innovative approaches to the goals, pedagogies, curricula, and methods of assessment used in these courses. Educators must look at communication as much more than merely print based writing; the terms “literacy” and “composition” must be expanded to include all of the multifarious ways that people communicate. I also assert that technology and rhetoric must play fundamental roles in these courses because they foster deeper critical thinking and encourage new methods of production. Greater communication between professionals at the secondary and post-secondary levels is essential for this vision to take root, as is solid professional development.Item Open Access Performance and pedagogy in the 21st century: theoretical and practical comparisons of composition and the theatre(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Heedt-Moosman, Dorothy, author; Frank, Katherine, advisor; Souder, Donna, committee member; Eskew, Doug, committee memberIn this thesis, I explore the shared exigencies of composition studies and the theatre as a method for addressing the problems inherent to first year composition programs. More specifically, I consider those issues that arise in mid-to-open enrollment institutions. I argue that composition instructors should use the practical approaches of the theatre as a means to 1) improve instructor attitudes and teacher-student communication; 2) embrace and effectively use technology, not as the defining pedagogical tool but as a way to maintain the relevance for composition students; 3) connect classroom practices to real-world purposes. I suggest that both composition studies and the theatre are rooted in the process of translating thoughts and feelings into action, resulting in effective communication to an audience. These aims are reflected by Kenneth Burke, whose explorations of motives and human communication and dramatism are applicable to composition pedagogy as well as connected to theatrical principles. I argue for an approach to teaching first year composition that would include the use of Burke’s pentad of human motives (with his inclusion of “attitude” as a sixth element) as a means for instructors to assess and revise their motives and perspectives as compositionists. I further contend that Burke’s pentad serves as a means to guide students towards more effective methods of rhetorical analysis and composition.Item Open Access Persepolis & Orientalism: a critique of the reception history of Satrapi's memoir(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Barzegar, Lila, author; Taylor, Cynthia, advisor; Eskew, Doug, committee member; Souder, Donna, committee memberSince its publication in 2003 Marijane Satrapi's Persepolis series, it has met surprisingly little negative criticism in comparison to other recent, highly commercialized memoirs written by Iranian women. For instance, Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran has sparked an interesting controversy concerning the topical atmosphere and stereotypes contributing to the popularity of Iranian women's memoirs, particularly memoirs concerning the Iranian community at a time of increasing US intolerance towards the current political powers and cultural ideology of Iran. Not only does Satrapi's memoir fall under such criticism, but that it can also be seen as more threatening to the perpetuation of anti-Iranian and anti-Islamic sentiments than Nafisi's memoir. Several factors contributing to this claim are its accessible graphic form, appealing child protagonist, and liminality of the author's position. I will also explore the academic credibility that graphic novels have achieved in the past decade and uncover the geopolitical climate and marketing variables of Satrapi's Persepolis success in Euro-America. Moreover, through analysis of this hybrid text, I will discuss the instances that reinforce stereotypes through the symbol of the veil as well as the depiction of Islam, without the context of the religion or culture. Such omission of context assists to perpetuate such beliefs that Islamic countries are backward and barbaric and that the West should intervene to liberate oppressed people.Item Open Access Psychological principles and pedagogical possibilities: toward a new theory of motivation in the composition classroom(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Van Winkle, Kevin W., author; Frank, Katherine, advisor; Souder, Donna, committee member; Eskew, Doug, committee memberDespite its importance, the issue of a student’s motivation to engage in the composition process is rarely discussed in composition theory. As a first step towards correcting the absence of motivation as a topic in composition theory, this thesis advances the notion that more attention should be paid to what can motivate students to engage in the composition process. The central tenet of this thesis is that students motivated to write are more likely to become better writers and fulfill the expectations composition instructors hold for them. Furthermore, the key to motivating students to engage in the composition process requires composition instructors make connections between the use of composition and the students’ original goals for entering the university. This thesis puts forth the argument that rhetoric, as learned and developed through composition studies, is the most useful aspect of composition studies for students, and therefore the teaching of rhetoric in the composition classroom is most likely to motivate students to write. As a result of the dearth of research and discussion on the topic of student motivation in the composition classroom, it was necessary to search outside the composition theory field and look at what others, namely psychologists, have to say about motivation as it relates to individuals and their participation in academic endeavors. Lastly, this thesis makes suggestions for future areas of study as related to student motivation in the composition classroom.Item Open Access Reconsidering the fourth canon: rhetoric, memoria, and composition in the digital age(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Clark, Meagan, author; Souder, Donna, advisor; Eskew, Doug, committee member; Lopez, Derek, committee memberIn this thesis, I argue that the rhetoric we teach and the context included in composition textbooks should comprise the discourse applicable not only to the academic discipline of composition but be equally relatable to current and modern demands of professional and business communities in which most composition students will be expected to write proficiently in the future. The consideration of the rhetorical cannon of memoria in the modern day writing classroom is one seldom recognized, yet exists as a highly influential area of discourse that has the power to prepare students in a composition classroom to enter any career path, academic in nature or otherwise, in the digital age. The distinct abandonment of memoria is an element that should be recognized and discussed by the field since the creation and selection of first-year composition textbooks relies heavily on disciplinary, institution, and program memoria. In this thesis, I have developed a four-way test by which composition textbooks can be judged, objectively. Through a qualitative study and analysis of five composition textbooks from the top publishing companies, using the four-way test, I have found that the most commonly used first-year composition textbooks rely on memoria. My findings not only provide reason for revisiting how the fourth canon is considered in the field of composition, but also that the current state of first-year writing textbooks do not provide adequate practice or instruction for writing in the digital age.Item Open Access Samantha Stephens as the Third-World feminist other: border theory and Bewitched(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Lundahl, Audrey, author; Souder, Donna, advisor; Eskew, Doug, committee member; Gage, Scott, committee memberIn this thesis I argue, using Samantha Stephens from the television show, Bewitched, as an example, that Third-World feminism can be expanded beyond identifications of ethnicity only in terms of physical appearance, in order to speak to experiences by women who are oppressed by dominant society in ways that are not easily recognizable. Bewitched presents a narrative of a Third-World oppressed experience, as defined by Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands, Sonia Saldivar-Hull's Feminism on the Border and the collective "radical women of color" in This Bridge Called my Back. Samantha's experience as shown through this narrative is not a typical experience of oppression because her ethnicity is portrayed through the fictional idea of Samantha being a witch. The show very clearly defines Samantha's identity as a witch as a cultural and ethnic difference, which is different and opposite from the dominant mortal culture. Samantha's narrative relies on the conflict that is created when Samantha marries Darrin, a mortal. Several episodes set up Samantha's identity as a witch as an ethnicity that is oppressed by mortals, and most of these episodes rely on Darrin's experiences with Samantha's mother, Endora. Endora and Darrin's interactions set up an "us vs. them" dynamic through the show, which parallels experiences of oppression in This Bridge Called my Back, which represents a collection of women who experience oppression in many different ways, because of their different identifiers, but who seek to understand each other and reach a common goal of equality. Samantha's experiences as a witch who must exist in a mortal world when she gets married, makes her narrative parallel with the ideas expressed in Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands, because of Samantha's place living among two liminal spaces. This relates specifically to Anzaldua's experiences expressed through her book living on the physical Borderlands in Southwest Texas, which further leads to a psychological border set up to distinguish and categorize places that are "safe and unsafe." Samantha's experiences are further complicated as she must face further oppression because of her place in a gender role as a 1960's middle-class housewife. Samantha's feminist struggles are comparable to Saldivar-Hull's Feminism on the Border because her theory speaks to a complicated identity as a female and a Chicana. And finally, I make the argument that through this analysis of Samantha Stephens' Third-World Feminist struggles in Bewitched, we have a model in which to judge television more critically in order to reach a more fair look at disparate experiences. This look at Bewitched can also help to encourage a more authentic look at the historical past, because of its representation of the 1960s.Item Restricted Singular visions(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Lee, Michael Scott, author; Morales, Juan J., advisor; Eskew, Doug, committee member; Seeber, Kevin, committee memberSingular Visions is deeply seated in both the realist and fantastic modes. Its most realistic stories contain their dollop of the fantastic and its unnovelized aesthetic, and the most unnovelized show their share of the novelizing influence. There exists in the current day and age a societal hunger for the fantastic at both the popular and high cultural levels that has grown steadily since the resurgence of epic and romance in the form of the genres/marketing categories science fiction and fantasy (hereafter SF&F) in the first half of the twentieth century. This growth in the acceptance and prestige of works in the fantastic mode is due to the work of two forces, the novelizing influence of the novel proper on all other genres as cited/predicted by Bakhtin in 1941's "Epic and Novel," and the postmodern insistence on a decentered, unknown, and unknowable universe. The result of the interaction of these two competing forces is a tremendous increase in volume of the middle of the spectrum of novelization that runs from the critically/academically dominant traditional novel in the realistic mode to the nearly unnovelized extended fictional narratives of SF&F, a middle I will call the novelized fantastic. While individual stories within the collection may lean heavily toward one aesthetic or another, Singular Visions as a whole embodies the middle ground of the novelized fantastic.Item Restricted Small bird movements: feminist prose poetics and the poet as shaman(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Kosovich, Varina, author; Morales, Juan, advisor; Eskew, Doug, committee member; Taylor, Cynthia, committee memberSmall Bird Movements follows the poet past youth to a budding awareness of feminist issues. The manuscript's four sections detail the structure of a bird feather, ending with the section Flight to illustrate this change in the poets view on the world. Through verse and prose poetry the manuscript highlights the personal female but also global women's issues, often times stemming from violence against minority women. Using the text Borderlands, by Gloria Anzaldúa as a theoretical base, the manuscript details imagery, rather than societal labels, as a method to construct identity to better reflect the individual. The poet as shaman allows for development of community through writing and shared imagery. For the community, the poet creates writing, but also transfers language to the population. In Small Bird Movements, the poet strives for strong female voice as a tool to challenge a patriarchal capitalist agenda. Rather than alienate, the poets' goal is to connect, utilizing the oral roots of poetry and the form of the prose poem. Often this combination is used by minority poets to expand language and experiment with form to transgress patriarchal discourse. Small Bird Movements focuses on themes of youth, violence against females, methods of identity construction, and female agency with the intent to emphasize construction of identity and the value of female concerns, personal or global. The themes found in the manuscript reflect an enactment of Anzaldúa's Nepantla, construction of identity through change and imagery.Item Open Access The remediation opportunity: writing articulation and collegiate discourse(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Trujillo, Dana M., author; Souder, Donna, advisor; Eskew, Doug, committee member; Pettit, Sue, committee memberEach year, almost half of America's new freshmen begin their college careers with an unpleasant surprise: the need to enroll in remedial classes. These classes, for which students do not earn college credit, are the result of under preparedness for college coursework in writing, reading, and/or mathematics. For students who have been out of formal education for a time, the remedial classes may be expected; but for many who just graduated from high school, the classes are totally unexpected. And here begins the remediation debate of why are the high school graduates unprepared and why do they have to take a classes that are not college level when they were accepted for admission? Why do they have to take additional classes to earn a college degree? While the remedial requirement is often state-mandated, savvy institutions have come to view the remedial courses as opportunities to prepare their new students, within their classrooms, with the specific skills they want them to have as new freshmen. The goal of writing remediation courses should be to write effectively and to learn the discourse of the institution. Successful courses in writing remediation must have high expectations, qualified teachers, small class sizes, a limited number of remedial courses, and the philosophy of "every student a writer." Statistics show that students enrolled in remedial courses who successfully complete them have similar graduation rates as the students not required to enroll in remedial courses. Like it or not, remediation is an important aspect of higher education in America, no matter how much it is disliked by institutions of higher education, policy makers, students, and parents for prolonging graduation and adding more requirements to a degree without college credit. Ultimately, writing should be integrated into the K-12 grade curriculum to adequately prepare students for college-level writing, with the curriculum articulated from kindergarten through postsecondary education. Until this becomes a reality, remedial courses should be embraced as the opportunity they present to institutions of higher education.Item Open Access Toward a literate future: pairing graphic novels and traditional texts in the high school classroom(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Roberts, Nicolas J., author; Souder, Donna, advisor; Eskew, Doug, committee member; Taylor, Ted, committee memberThis thesis focuses on the need to incorporate visual literacy instruction in the secondary classroom. I begin by first exploring the need for a change in the instruction of literacy at the high school level; especially a change that emerges from those who are currently working in the high school classroom. I examine how visual literacy instruction can help to improve declining traditional literacy rates. The use of multimodal texts, such as graphic novels, has been proven to increase the ability of students to read traditional text-based works. I also look at the impact that the lack of visual literacy competency has on students when they leave the secondary setting. High schools are producing students who can consume visual culture, but they are unable to produce and critique that culture. This visual illiteracy places students at a disadvantage. They enter the culture with a lack of culture capital, and are missing the skills to attain more. In my argument, I suggest that one way to help improve the visual literacy skills of students is to incorporate graphic novels into the high school curriculum by pairing them with traditional texts. I offer suggestions for ways educators can make different pairing, based on the needs of their classrooms.Item Open Access "Who is 'you'?": teaching authentic approaches to audience and genre in first-year composition(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Crowe, Sara, author; Souder, Donna, advisor; Eskew, Doug, committee member; Lopez, Derek, committee memberOurs is a highly digitized society, and accordingly, so are the daily practices of communication in composition classrooms. Students of the digital age bring with them a new and continually evolving language into their college writing, which, while it is indicative of the change in language processes, can be problematic. The impetus for this thesis developed through my experiences teaching first-year composition. Frustrated with the ambiguity of audience in student writing, I would ask students in one-on-one conferences "who is 'you'?" in order to create the opportunity to discuss specific directives of audience. What I came to realize was how often their rhetorical situation changed due to social media and other forms of instant communication. If and when the digital language that forms through social media interferes with the development of student identity and authorial agency as a result of a lack of comprehension to an identified audience. Digital Natives must be approached as multilingual English language learners because they carry with them similar code-switching tendencies into the classroom, which means that it is imperative that recent trend to incorporate blogs and other methods of digital writing be integrated in the classroom as ways to connect students to the language with which they are most familiar. Through the inclusion of digital media in composition classrooms and a careful articulation of the rhetorical situation, students can begin to gain more agency through their writing. Compositionists will be better equipped to prepare students for their collegiate careers in the formative years during enrollment in first-year composition by including narrative, literary, linguistic, and rhetorical traditions in the classroom.