Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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Description
Each part of the book is written from a different relative, literarily-inclined perspective. The portion of this submission that captures what my experience as a Barrett student has lended to my approved manuscript (by Dorrance Publishing Co.) lies with the excerpted material from Part IV. Below is the table of contents for the novel work itself, as well as the styles of writing assumed per part.
ContributorsDampare, Patrick Nelu (Author) / Blasingame, James (Thesis director) / Glenn, Bruce (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Once upon a time and in a land that is not quite here, a girl and her brother are left in the woods on the cusp of winter and lose their way home. They find, instead, a little house that smells of ginger and cinnamon and the ancient, bent woman who presides over it and calls herself Oma Yaga. Three tasks she sets before the girl, with the promise of food as her reward. She accepts, not knowing that this deep, the woods are a strange and hungry place: you do not make it out the same as when you entered, if you make it out at all.
You have heard this story before, you think, or one like it—listen again. It is never the same twice.
You have heard this story before, you think, or one like it—listen again. It is never the same twice.
ContributorsBlitch, Savannah Morgan (Author) / Ellis, Lawrence (Thesis director) / Cruser, Laura (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
This project uses the format of a web-based choose-your-own-adventure game to integrate allusions, themes, and symbolism presented throughout Hellenic and Medieval literature. The research draws upon translations of The Aeneid by Virgil, Perceval by Chrétien de Troyes, Physica by Hildegard of Bingen, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as well as various Celtic, Germanic, and Greco-Roman myths and figures. The game itself draws on writing theory as exemplified in The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler, which sets the archetype of what constitutes a Hero and the stages a character must undergo to become that Hero. Hosted on an online game creation program called Inklewriter, the game presents a scenario, starting with a knight, waking up in a tree with no previous recollection of getting there, and the reader is given clickable options to choose in response to the situation.
The ultimate purpose of this project is to serve as an educational resource, wherein links to the alluded material and analyses of symbolism can help students find source material based on their interests, serve as a guide for critical analysis of literature, and exemplify how writing theory can be implemented into a narrative. Though this project is presently incomplete, the link to the game contains the introductory scenes and the following analysis exemplifies the writing process, explains the choice and integration of alluded material and symbolism, and describes several scenes that are to be completed in the future.
The ultimate purpose of this project is to serve as an educational resource, wherein links to the alluded material and analyses of symbolism can help students find source material based on their interests, serve as a guide for critical analysis of literature, and exemplify how writing theory can be implemented into a narrative. Though this project is presently incomplete, the link to the game contains the introductory scenes and the following analysis exemplifies the writing process, explains the choice and integration of alluded material and symbolism, and describes several scenes that are to be completed in the future.
ContributorsCarr, Gillian Elizabeth (Author) / Sturges, Robert (Thesis director) / Corse, Taylor (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Insect Girls is a chapbook-length collection of poems exploring the human inclination toward, and desire for, violence. Using insects and other bugs as motifs to show how people can often be treated like insects, these 25 poems complicate the relationships between violent people and their victims. The collection specifically focuses on women's issues such as domestic violence and female sexuality. The speakers range from a prostitute waiting in the rain, to a submissive girl at a fetish party, to a housewife with a werewolf for a husband. Violence and sex are depicted as inherently intertwined. Because of this, many characters in the book show a connection between desire and violence, how cruelty can have a kind of sex appeal. This is explored in the collection with depictions of sadomasochism and BDSM, where power dynamics can be at certain times problematic, and at others, beautiful. In writing these poems, I was inspired by the fact that upon seeing a harmless bug, so many people's first instinct is to crush it, for no reason at all except because they can. Bug imagery appears throughout the collection, illustrating the dehumanizing aspect of cruelty. The capture of a butterfly serves as a metaphor for sexual assault, and elsewhere bee wings show a desire for escape. Imagery as a whole is important to the collection because it illustrates not only the physical scars that result from violent actions, but also the strength and loveliness within the survivors. In Insect Girls, I didn't want to hide away ugliness, but I didn't want to hide away beauty either.
ContributorsPrice, Emily Kay (Author) / Ball, Sally (Thesis director) / Giner, Oscar (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Resilience is defined as an individual's ability to cope or "bounce back" after experiencing stressful life events (Rew et al., 2001). Survivors of trauma who express high levels of resilience are more likely to experience positive future life outcomes than equally troubled peers with lower resilience scores. It is possible to increase resilience by targeting several core factors: (1) personal competence, (2) sense of belonging, (3) sense of optimism (Lee et al., 2009). I developed an eight-week creative writing curriculum to boost these three core factors in the hopes of both increasing resilience in homeless youth while also introducing creating writing as an effective coping strategy. Each one-hour session included free-form writing exercises, mindfulness practices, writing workshops, and group presentations. Prompts and activities were carefully developed to encourage resilience-building in a group of homeless children and adolescents of ages seven to fourteen at Homeward Bound in Phoenix. With sample writing works and facilitator feedback, this curriculum was designed to be exceptionally easy and cost effective for future implementation. I hope that other organizations in the future will consider implementing this program to help build resilience in youth who have experienced childhood trauma.
ContributorsPopeski, Cara (Author) / Popova, Laura (Thesis director) / Cavanaugh Toft, Carolyn (Committee member) / Pickhart, Kalani (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05