Browsing by Author "Langstraat, Lisa, advisor"

Now showing 1 - 12 of 12

Open Access
Emotioned discourses in K-12 bullying cause, prevention, and response: the affective performativity of bully and victim
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Halboth, Olivia, author; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; Cloud, Doug, committee member; Hepburn, Susan, committee member
Bullying is a serious and exigent public health concern that affects millions of students in K-12 education every year. This thesis employs Critical Emotion Theory to reconceptualize bullying as a discursive issue of social justice, not merely behavioral. The first chapter outlines bullying as an affective issue. The second chapter analyzes ways that shame, disgust, and hate mechanize bullying. Chapter three traces discourses of empathy, pain and regret in public responses to four bullying incidents. Chapter four examines social-emotional learning (SEL) and federal programmatic prevention models, addressing empathy, love, and the absence of emotioned discourses. Finally, conclusions are outlined in chapter five. This inquiry ultimately found that the role emotions play in bullying's cause, prevention, and response are undertheorized on the macro- (emotions as a whole) and micro- (as individual emotions) level. Additionally, a prominent theme throughout each chapter that warrants critical consideration is an emergent pattern of entrenched affective divides between bullying's actors: how bully and victim become divergent, performed roles and how that affective performativity allocates attention and, subsequently, prevention and response resources.
Open Access
Moving toward a newer understanding of writing anxiety in adult students using a critical emotion studies framework
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Smith, Carmody Leerssen, author; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; Jacobi, Tobi, committee member; Davies, Timothy, committee member
Writing anxiety has been a part of composition scholarship for many years, but the research has failed to adequately address the effect it has on adult students. Early research on writing anxiety was primarily cognitively based and focused on quantitative data analysis such as Daly and Miller’s Writing Apprehension Assessment from 1975. These cognitively based research strategies are useful and valuable to composition and for understanding writing anxiety, but in this thesis I argue that it is now time we move beyond the notion that writing anxiety is an internal, mental barrier to writing success and instead look at the causes as well as strategies for alleviating writing anxiety through a critical emotion studies lens. By using a critical emotion studies framework, we can begin to understand writing anxiety as a social and cultural construct that is created through the individual’s relationship with writing.
Open Access
Networking narrative: a rhetorical analysis of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Page, Lydia, author; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; Thompson, Debby, committee member; Martey, Rosa Mikeal, committee member
Transmedia storyscapes, nonlinear narratives told across many different media platforms, have emerged as important sites of non-traditional reading and writing practices. These narratives enable a type of reading and writing that is subversive to exclusionary Western rhetorics. This study applies a Bitzerian rhetorical analysis to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a successful transmedia storyscape. Bitzer's definitions of exigence, audience, and constraints are challenged when applied to a transmedia text. This thesis will explore how meaningful redefinitions of key elements within Bitzer's rhetorical situation can further an understanding of transmedia. This rhetorical analysis will highlight the ways in which Rhetoric and Composition can use transmedia narratives to make space for important matters of identity and feminist forms of writing as identified by Cixous and Rich. Transmedia storyscapes are an important, though as of yet largely unconsidered, form of digital rhetorics. This thesis seeks to establish transmedia storyscapes as a viable genre of writing that successfully embodies feminist principles through the subversion of traditional writing practices.
Open Access
Opening the Black box of the 2015 Baltimore riots: an actor-network theory contribution to composition
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Koban, John Edward, author; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; Amidon, Timothy, committee member; Champ, Joseph, committee member
The purpose of this project is to experiment with new ways of supplementing the "social turn" in composition by using Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a methodology. In demonstrating the ways ANT could support composition, I conduct a study of the 2015 Baltimore riots in the wake of the fatal injury of Freddie Gray by Baltimore police. In understanding the events the focus is not on the riots themselves but the place where the riots occurred, Baltimore’s Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood, also the home of Freddie Gray and his family. The social focus of this study is to demonstrate how ANT could support an anti-racist composition theory and practice. Herein I argue that ANT has much to offer anti-racist composition theory, arguing that when the methodology is deployed that researchers can arrive at robust findings that supports writing that produces action. In making this argument I identify four general areas that ANT contributes to composition theory: the first area is that the theory behind the method is non-critical in nature. This simply means that instead of relying on critique as means to achieve social justice and critical thinking that we also spend more time describing and assembling and composing--drawing a picture of the social--before beginning the work of critical analysis. The second area ANT adds to composition theory is that in drawing the non-critical pictures of the social that we pay close attention to all agents in the site, and this means that we pay attention to the agency of the nonhumans in addition to the humans. We do this because humans do not exist and act without the agency of nonhumans. The idea here is that any kind of rhetorical work we do will be more robust when we pay more attention to all parts of context and rhetorical situations. The third area ANT contributes is that can cultivate an attunement between and among researchers and the ambient environment or site of study. In other words, in doing the slow work that ANT requires, the researcher has greater opportunity to cultivate an affective engagement with the other agents in the site of study, and when this happens then there is greater opportunity for researchers and students to engage with exigent sites of concern, in both material and affective ways. The fourth way ANT supports composition theory is in that it promotes an ethic of amateurism that allows researchers to tinker with texts and sites and studies in playful and amateurish ways. ANT is a relativistic and objective approach that seeks as its goal consensus through description and slow analysis and work with others and as such this method is a friendlier and less dogmatic form of empiricism. Because of the relativism, the researcher needs to be comfortable with uncertainty, but this uncertainty is beneficial because it allows the researcher to constantly inquire until a consensus and plan of action is reached. After conducting my study of Sandtown-Winchester, I found that the problem of something akin to racism is distributed across the material and discursive space of the neighborhood, arguing that if we only pay attention to the racist discourse in or about the neighborhood that we miss out on half of the picture (the material side of the picture), and that the kinds of actions that could support the neighborhood may be overlooked with only a focus on language and discourse.
Open Access
Performativity in comics: representations of gender and sexuality in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Vincent, Aimee E., author; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; Reid, Louann, committee member; Dickinson, Greg, committee member
This thesis examines the role of comics in rhetoric and composition studies. By examining Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel, this thesis shows that comics employ specific forms of visual-verbal rhetoric that can be useful to developing visual-verbal literacies in rhetoric and composition instruction. This thesis also suggests that gender and sexuality are underexplored areas in comics studies and examines representations of gender and sexuality through three main lenses: Foucauldian feminism through theorists such as Sandra Bartky, performativity through Judith Butler's framework, and queer theory through theorists such as Ann Cvetkovich. In the conclusion, this thesis proposes that one use for comics, specifically Fun Home, in rhetoric and composition classrooms is as a way to introduce queer theory and queer pedagogy into a first-year composition class.
Restricted
Return of the light
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Lanham, Ryan, author; Fletcher, Harrison Candelaria, advisor; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; DiVerdi, Joseph, committee member
This book is a memoir that traces my path of healing after reaching rock bottom with an earnest suicide attempt in October 2011, one year after completing my enlistment in the Army. Each chapter, except one, begins with an italicized scene that depicts a pivotal moment of miracle, magic, synchronicity, psychic reading, or psychedelic experience. The rest of the text attempts to decode and demystify these otherworldly moments, stringing them into a sequence of events that suggests a mysterious guiding force this life.
Open Access
Rhetorics of silence/listening and teaching trauma: Holocaust testimony in the composition classroom
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Miller, Teva, author; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; Jacobi, Tobi, committee member; Alexander, Ruth, committee member
Many scholars and educators who have taught Holocaust testimony and literature in their classes have offered numerous pedagogical methods to outline best practices, ethical concerns, and student engagement. While some of these methodologies are particularly instructive for the first year college composition course, most do not address the gaps or silences found in Holocaust testimony. Other pedagogical methods tend to lack the affective component that is an unavoidable part of teaching trauma texts. In this thesis, I offer a heuristic that can be used in the composition classroom to engage with Holocaust testimony. I argue that there is a need for this heuristic because it not only attends to the affective economies that are vital and inseparable from reading and writing about Holocaust testimony, but also because it re-privileges silence as a powerful rhetorical act made by both survivors and secondary witnesses. It also works to destabilize and disrupt “sentimental” student responses that tend to thwart invested critical analysis and which often lead to dehumanizing depictions of victim as well as potential misappropriations of a victim’s or survivor’s words.
Open Access
Rhetorics of song: critique, persuasion & education in Woody Guthrie & Martin Hoffman's "Deportees"
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Kannan, Vani, author; Doe, Sue, advisor; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; Mumme, Stephen, committee member
This thesis investigates the lyrical and musical elements of the song "Deportees," and considers the song's reinterpretation in two contemporary songs. Through autoethnographic writing and rhetorical analysis, I analyze the way all three texts respond to silences in popular media, and in doing so, shed light on the nationalistic ideologies embedded in that silence. I argue that the songs' preservation and circulation of marginalized histories and the performance practices through which they circulate suggest their rich rhetorical and pedagogical potential to inform scholarship in rhetoric and composition. I conclude that transnational feminist analysis and production of song texts and autoethnographic writing can support rhetoric and composition's commitment to social justice by offering guidelines for composing critical texts that respond to silences in the historical record, and allow students and scholars to "write themselves into" transnational events.
Open Access
Service-learning in first-year composition: using critical reflection to ensure student learning and benefit to the community partner
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Calvert, Chandra, author; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; Doe, Sue, committee member; Greene, David, committee member
Over the past few decades, service-learning has taken hold in English departments at colleges and universities across the U.S, as service-learning offers real-world rhetorical situations for composition students. Further, some composition instructors have created first-year composition courses that include service-learning and it helps to connect incoming students with their communities, which has been found to be a means to improving retention from the first year of college to the second. This thesis sets forth the claim that service-learning is a viable option for first-year composition courses, but must follow certain parameters if the course is to be of benefit to both students taking the course and the community partner. A focus on reciprocity is key, including involving the community partner early in the planning of the course so they have a say in the structure of the service-learning portion of the course. Secondly, while reflection has long been seen as a vital component of any service-learning course, composition courses should go a step further to require critical reflection so students can confront their own struggles early on, increasing the likelihood of a successful, positive outcome for both the student and the community partner. What follows is a brief history of service-learning in first-year composition courses as well as a review of literature the sub-topics included in the claim (needs of first year students, the importance of reciprocity, and critical reflection to name a few) as well as suggestions on how to incorporate critical reflection into a first-year service-learning composition course that is of mutual benefit to both the student and the community partner.
Open Access
The rhetoric of disgust: considering public texts of disability
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Loewen, Katherine A., author; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; Doe, Sue, committee member; Bone, Jennifer, committee member
While composition studies has paid heed to the topic of disability, it seldom explores the political and affective dimensions of disability studies, such as how bodies write and are written by the world. The purpose of this thesis is to explore discourses of disability by employing critical emotion studies, particularly theories of disgust, to rhetorically analyze two popular texts, Freaks directed by Tod Browning and Fears of Your Life by Michael Bernard Loggins. These texts illustrate how disgust works to both reaffirm and transform the normal/abnormal binary that maintains public perceptions of disability as a stigmatized and marginal identity. Largely, this analysis emphasizes the role of non-academic, non-institutional, and non-standard discourses of disability to revitalize composition's foundational commitment to supporting human agency and social change.
Open Access
Where we have been matters: offering non-traditional students greater opportunities for personal connections to "academic discourse"
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) O'Neill, Tifarah Hadassah, author; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; Doe, Sue, committee member; Jennings, Louise, committee member
With 73 percent of students now being classified as non-traditional in some way according the U.S Department of Education, it is clear that the student populations at the two year colleges as well as universities are no longer as homogeneous as they were originally. This thesis examines the ways in which non-traditional students may differ in their learning styles and how we as educators can better provide better learning opportunities for these students based upon the works of Malcolm Knowles and other education theorists. This thesis explores the ways non-traditional students are placed within marginalized positions within current university and classroom structures. However, I explore the benefits of creating more inclusive classrooms which value students' external experiences primarily through "hybrid" or personal form of writing. This thesis also explores some of the challenges that can arise when incorporating personal writing into the classroom as well as some pedagogical approaches to combat those challenges.
Open Access
Whiteness, anger, and anti-racist pedagogy: toward a raced theory of emotion
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Earle, Christopher, author; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; Jacobi, Tobi, advisor; Browne, Kate, committee member
This thesis examines the political and rhetorical functions of white racial anger in the anti-racist first-year composition course. Elizabeth Spelman poses a generative question: "[w]hy has anger been appropriated by and for dominant group or beings when in so many other ways emotions are thought to be the province of subordinate groups?" (264). Further, this thesis questions why the anger of white men has become so common and persuasive in and through racial discourses? To address these questions and to explore pedagogical strategies to address white racial anger in the anti-racist composition classroom, this thesis seeks to investigate and build upon the connections and overlaps (or gaps) between anti-racist pedagogy and critical emotion studies.