English Department Theses and Dissertations

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Adapting Writing Center Pedagogy for Composition Classrooms: A Metacognitive Approach
(2012-05-04) Gellin, Laura M.; Fox, Stephen L.; Buchenot, Andre; Hogue, Teresa Molinder
While a writing center tutor may view her role as a coach, a commentator, and a counselor, the tutor actually serves as scaffolding, a temporary, supportive replacement of the processes more experienced writers can manage alone without a tutor, namely, the metacognitive processes of self-assessing, self-monitoring, and self-motivating. Metacognition then becomes the essential factor in adapting writing center practices into the composition classroom. By re-conceptualizing the three roles of a writing center tutor and re-visioning the classroom into a more “pure” learning space, tutor-teachers improve students’ writing skills, increase their engagement, and redirect students’ focus toward the writing process rather than the grade. To demonstrate the efficacy of this adapted writing center approach in the composition classroom, I created an authentic, challenging project in which the pre-project activities, task design, work process, and reflection assignment enact my proposed theory. By adopting this approach, tutor-teachers ultimately empower students and design compositional tasks that act as a catalyst for transforming the way students understand themselves as writers and as students.
Addressing the "Wyndham Problem": A Versioned Approach to Textual Variation in John Wyndham's Postwar Novels
(2018-06) Sweet, Daniel Ryon; Eller, Jonathan; Witt, April; Haberski, Raymond
Matthew Moore begins his doctoral dissertation on John Wyndham with a provocative proposition: “‘John Wyndham’ does not exist.” This opening achieves its intended effect, and intrigued readers must continue on in order to understand that John Wyndham does not exist in the same way that Mark Twain does not exist; both are pen names which, due to the popularity of the fiction associated with them, have become synonymous with the actual identities of the authors. After Moore’s startling first line, he goes on to deftly examine not only what he calls the “Wyndham strategy” but also the motivations and literary influences that contributed to the creation of the author’s postwar novels, evaluating the composition history of each novel in order to understand John Wyndham as a man and artist. But Moore’s interpretation of the Wyndham strategy does not offer a solution to the textual variations found across Wyndham’s novels, variations which have yet to be fully grappled with in Wyndham criticism. For this study then, I will be taking a different approach, one that reworks Moore’s initial premise and that addresses what I call the “Wyndham problem”: John Wyndham does indeed exist, but he exists in multiple, incompatible textual forms.
The Adjunct Model of Language Instruction: Guidelines for Implementation in the English for Academic Purposes Program at IUPUI
(2008-10-10T17:54:02Z) Kinsey, Marienne Elizabeth; Upton, Thomas A. (Thomas Albin); Duerksen, Aye Nu E.; Belz, Julie A. (Julie Anne)
All the Pieces Matter: Fragmentation-as-Agency in the Novels of Edwidge Danticat, Michelle Cliff, and Shani Mootoo
(2013-01-30) Morguson, Alisun; Springer, Jennifer Thorington; Fox, Stephen L.; Henry Anthony, Ronda C.
The fragmented bodies and lives of postcolonial Caribbean women examined in Caribbean literature beget struggle and psychological ruin. The characters portrayed in novels by postcolonial Caribbean writers Edwidge Danticat, Michelle Cliff, and Shani Mootoo are marginalized as “Other” by a Western patriarchal discourse that works to silence them because of their gender, color, class, and sexuality. Marginalization participates in the act of fragmentation of these characters because it challenges their sense of identity. Fragmentation means fractured; in terms of these fictive characters, fragmentation results from multiple traumas, each trauma causing another break in their wholeness. Postcolonial scholars have identified the causes and effects of fragmentation on the postcolonial subject, and they argue one’s need to heal because of it. Danticat, Cliff, and Mootoo prove that wholeness is not possible for the postcolonial Caribbean woman, so rather than ruminate on that truth, they examine the journey of the postcolonial Caribbean woman as a way of making meaning of the pieces of her life. This project contends that fragmentation – and the fracture it produces – does not bind these women to negative existences; in fact, the female subjects of Danticat, Cliff, and Mootoo locate power in their fragmentation. The texts studied include Danticat’s "Breath, Eyes, Memory" (1994) and "The Farming of Bones" (1999), Cliff’s "Abeng" (1984) and "No Telephone to Heaven" (1987), and Mootoo’s "Cereus Blooms at Night" (1996) and "He Drown She in the Sea" (2005).
Alzheimer's Disease Narratives and the Myth of Human Being
(2012-12-11) Rieske, Tegan Echo; Schultz, Jane E.; Johnson, Karen Ramsay; Tilley, John J.
The ‘loss of self’ trope is a pervasive shorthand for the prototypical process of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the popular imagination. Turned into an effect of disease, the disappearance of the self accommodates a biomedical story of progressive deterioration and the further medicalization of AD, a process which has been storied as an organic pathology affecting the brain or, more recently, a matter of genetic calamity. This biomedical discourse of AD provides a generic framework for the disease and is reproduced in its illness narratives. The disappearance of self is a mythic element in AD narratives; it necessarily assumes the existence of a singular and coherent entity which, from the outside, can be counted as both belonging to and representing an individual person. The loss of self, as the rhetorical locus of AD narrative, limits the privatization of the experience and reinscribes cultural storylines---storylines about what it means to be a human person. The loss of self as it occurs in AD narratives functions most effectively in reasserting the presence of the human self, in contrast to an anonymous, inhuman nonself; as AD discourse details a loss of self, it necessarily follows that the thing which is lost (the self) always already existed. The private, narrative self of individual experience thus functions as proxy to a collective human identity predicated upon exceptionalism: an escape from nature and the conditions of the corporeal environment.
And Just as Far as Ever from the End: A Textual Analysis of The Gunslinger by Stephen King
(2010-01-13T14:24:50Z) Kent, Sharmin T.M.; Eller, Jonathan R., 1952-; Touponce, William F.; Rebein, Robert, 1964-
Beginning as a collection of short stories published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1978 and novelized in 1982, The Gunslinger is the first novel in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. This thesis explores the textual journey of the novel that serves as the foundation for a series that has left its mark throughout King’s broader fictional canon. After finishing the final three novels of the series, King revised The Gunslinger to bring it closer to the narrative essence of the series’ subsequent novels. Collation of all three versions of the text—the serialized Fantasy & Science Fiction stories, the 1982 novelization and the 2003 revised and expanded version—reveals a sometimes overlapping pattern of revisions to the novel. These revisions concentrate on character, the novel’s cosmological framework, and languages and dialects King uses later in the series. The impact of these revisions extends beyond the plot elements of the series itself, as a number of King’s most popular novels—The Stand, ’Salem’s Lot, and It among them—have plot arcs that bend toward the Dark Tower mythos. King returned to the novel’s three main characters—Roland, Jake, and the man in black—to refine their actions and clarify their motivations. This also gave him the opportunity to provide the reader with more of their interwoven histories, a strategy that established the background for the role each character plays later in the series. In addition to introducing details about the main characters of the series, King enhances and redefines the world of The Gunslinger; the revisions reveal connections both within and outside of the Dark Tower multiverse. King also uses revision to introduce a variety of languages and dialects Roland encounters on his journey through an endless path of worlds. Finally, the textual evolution of The Gunslinger documents King’s development of a theme central to his entire canon: the multifaceted theme of salvation and sacrifice. In controlling the evolution of the Dark Tower series, particularly with his return to revise The Gunslinger, Stephen King shows that he is capable of maintaining a complex saga with a great degree of literary vision and craftsmanship.
At the center of American modernism: Lola Ridge's politics, poetics, and publishing
(2008-09-23T18:18:47Z) Wheeler, Belinda; Kovacik, Karen, 1959-; Schultz, Jane E.; Marvin, Thomas F.
Although many of Lola Ridge's poems champion the causes of minorities and the disenfranchised, it is too easy to state that politics were the sole reason for her neglect. A simple look at well-known female poets who often wrote about social or political issues during Ridge's lifetime, such as Edna St. Vincent Millay and Muriel Rukeyser, weakens such a claim. Furthermore, Ridge's five books of poetry illustrate that many of her poems focused on themes beyond the political or social. The decisions by critics to focus on selections of Ridge's poems that do not display her ability to employ multiple aesthetics in her poetry have caused them to present her work one-dimensionally. Likewise, politically motivated critics often overlook aesthetic experiments that poets like Ridge employ in their poetry. Few poets during Ridge's time made use of such drastically varied styles, and because her work resists easy categorization (as either traditional or avant-garde), her poetry has largely gone unnoticed by modern scholars. Chapter two of my thesis focuses on a selection Ridge's social and political poems and highlights how Ridge's social poetry coupled with the multiple aesthetics she employed has played a part in her critical neglect. My findings will open up the discussion of Ridge's poetry and situate her work both politically and aesthetically, something no critic has yet attempted. Chapter three examines Ridge’s role as editor of Modern School, Others and Broom. Ridge's work for these magazines, particularly Others and Broom, places her at the center of American modernism. My examination of Ridge's social poetry and her role as editor for two leading literary magazines, in conjunction with her use of multiple aesthetics, will build a strong case for why her work deserves to be recovered.
Best Practices in the Multidialectal High School English Class: Implementing Code-switching and Code-meshing
(2022-01) Johnson, Alicia M.; Fox, Stephen; Lovejoy, Kim Brian; Buchenot, Andre
Linguists define dialect as a form of a language, and they agree that all dialects are equally legitimate forms of the language. The stratification of dialects, however, is based on social hierarchies and results in some dialects being privileged and others carrying stigma. The bias against nondominant dialects results in language discrimination and limits one’s access to social power. This inequity gives rise to additional obstacles that impede academic success for students who speak a nondominant variety. A significant portion of those obstacles can be addressed with appropriate teacher training and the incorporation of language studies in the secondary English classroom. Language studies will benefit students who speak the dominant dialect by preparing them for interactions with the wide varieties of English they will encounter in the increasingly diverse and global workforce. Students who speak nondominant dialects will be equipped with the tools to navigate and challenge the standard language ideology.
Beyond Deficit: Reconstructing Perceptions of Justice-Involved Writers in the Field of Writing and Rhetoric
(2024-08) Hawkins, Kelsey; Brooks-Gillies, Marilee; Fox, Steve; Hyatt, Susan
This project analyzes and deconstructs deficit thinking in the perceptions of justice-involved writers within both carceral and post-carceral contexts. Current scholarship within the field of writing and rhetoric often discursively constructs incarcerated and formerly incarcerated writers’ literacies, epistemologies, and rhetorical practices through a deficit lens. By critically analyzing the discourses surrounding justice-involved writers, I identify the ways in which deficit thinking manifests in the field’s scholarship and instead emphasize anti-deficit understandings of carceral knowledge, rhetoric, and experience. The analysis reveals alternative approaches to researching, conceptualizing, and constructing justice-involved writers through antideficit lenses as well as pedagogical possibilities for teaching incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students.
Black, Brown, Yellow, and White: The New Faces of African American English
(2009-03-18T18:53:14Z) Vanegas, José Alfonso; Shepherd, Susan; Upton, Thomas A. (Thomas Albin); Fox, Stephen L.
This thesis began, as I imagine most theses do, as a very formal and very orthodox research paper. While it continues to be this to a measurable extent, it has undergone a metamorphosis. In these pages I discuss the serious challenges faced in schools (as well as the setbacks endured inside their walls) by native-English speaking children of all cultures and creeds, who speak forms of English other than Standard English (hereafter SE) in their homes and with their family and friends. I then contrast these challenges with the stark advantages enjoyed by children who, due likely to their inherited socio-economic class, make regular use of SE inside their residences and with their peers and relations. One non-standard dialect of English found in widespread use by young boys and girls in the United States is African American English (hereafter AAE). Because success in U.S. schools depends heavily on students’ production and comprehension of SE, those youngsters who already employ SE as their principal language are at an immediate educational advantage, one that is, by default, not afforded to children who as a rule speak a dialect/language other than SE, such as AAE. Within these pages you will find an official statement made by the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Executive Committee that soundly validates African American English as a true, rule-governed linguistic system, and thus a language. I also discuss my view that to devalue a child’s language in school, by not validating it as true, operative speech—“Don’t talk that way, that’s wrong!”—is, in essence, to devalue the whole child. It is an act that will be perceived negatively and reacted to negatively by most children. In addition to these issues, I discuss the prevalence of AAE in American society at large, as well as its prevalent use by non-African American youth.

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