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- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
- Creators: School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
- Status: Published
Description
This honors thesis outlines a method for teaching argument writing in the secondary classroom, including the elements of an argument based upon the Toulmin method, and diverse ways to help students who are all types of learners become engaged and receive the support they need. It includes all elements of argument, including evidence, warrants, backing, counterargument, claims, theses, the rhetorical triangle and the rhetorical appeals, including definitions and how they fit together in an argumentative essay. The largest portion of the project is dedicated to activities and resources for teachers based upon all of those elements, along with activities for the writing process as a whole. These activities are based upon the student's individual experience as well as various scholarly resources from leading professionals in the curriculum development field for English Language Arts. This is not meant to be an end-all be-all solution for teaching argument writing, but rather one of many resources that teachers can use in their classroom. This 30-page paper, including references, are condensed into an accessible website for teachers to use more easily. Each tab on the website refers to a different element or focus of the argument writing process, with both a definition and introduction as well as one or more activities for teachers to implement into the classroom. The activities are versatile and general for the purpose of teachers being able to include them into whatever curriculum they are currently teaching. The goal is that they can add argument instruction into what they are already either willingly or being required to teach in an easy and logical way. The website is available for any secondary teachers to use as they see fit at www.teachingargumentwriting.weebly.com.
ContributorsBrooks, Jenna Nicole (Author) / Blasingame, James (Thesis director) / Barnett, Juliet (Committee member) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The Way Home is a full-length young adult novel. The story is split between the perspectives of Theo and Ella, best friends from high school who are starting their freshman year in college. Neither is extremely excited about the start of the new phase of their lives; Theo struggles with severe anxiety and is just hoping to survive the four years; and dark memories in Ella's past don't seem to want to let her start over. A series of murders happening in town don't help their nerves at all, making it hard to focus on the "college experience." They were supposed to be there for each other... But then Ella goes missing, and Theo is left without a clue of where she went. While he searches for her desperately, she wakes up miles away from home, surrounded by strangers. In their efforts to find one another again, they instead find themselves presented with opportunities to study the impossible: magic. Things become stranger and stranger as murders, magic, police investigations, and ever-looming final exams begin to challenge Theo and Ella in ways they never expected. In writing this novel, I hoped to depict the transition from high school to college and the worries and wonders that come with it. The story is almost split directly in half, beginning with normal school life and shifting into the world of magic. The conflicts presented to the characters during the first half, such as grades, majors, and socializing, persist throughout the second half, but are also metaphorized once the characters begin studying magic. I chose to include a protagonist with an anxiety disorder because I believe mental disabilities are not represented enough in YA literature, though it is something that many high school and college students deal with. I wanted to create a character that could inform others and that students with similar mental disorders could relate to. Additional themes I deal with include newfound independence, individuality, growth, and friendship.
ContributorsWoner, Catherine Flynn (Author) / Blasingame, James (Thesis director) / Irish, Jennifer (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
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
"The Problem of Hope: Literary Tragedy in Mid-Twentieth Century American Fiction" examines Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar through the lens of tragedy. This thesis delves into how conflicts between internal and external identities can create a tragic individual, what kinds of success count toward achievement of the "American Dream," and whether the tragic "common man" is the socially normative one or the socially disenfranchised one. It raises a three-dimensional theoretical approach to American tragedy and, most importantly, considers the significance of tragic hope for American literature. This paper questions the construction of American identities across class, race, and gender according to social scripts. It seeks to uncover what forces these scripts exert on American cultural myths and rereads those myths through tragedy to explore Miller's idea of a noble common man. By moving from Miller to Ellison to Plath, this thesis traces the undercurrents of tragedy through some of the most identity-focused novels of mid-twentieth century American fiction to see how the overarching American narrative changed from 1940 to 1969 as the US underwent significant social changes domestically and image changes abroad. Ultimately, this paper concludes that tragedy in mid-twentieth century American fiction points toward a new idea of American success as a success that occurs beyond social scripts.
ContributorsMedeiros, Amy Marie (Author) / Holbo, Christine (Thesis director) / Sadowski-Smith, Claudia (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This project focuses on techniques contemporary American poets use in their work. Ten different poetry collections are analyzed for dominant writing styles and techniques, which I then apply to my own poems, concentrating on modeling that particular poet. I then reflect on those poems through an evaluation of my writing process, how those techniques were implemented, and how they affected the poem. In addition to these reviews and reflections, I also wrote three articles about the literary community and what I've learned from my interactions in that community. All these materials are organized into a website, which shows the connections between the different writings via links and menus. Creating this website brings all the materials together to demonstrate my growth as a poet, writer, and designer. This heavy focus on poetry and analysis has helped sharpen my critical thinking skills and has better prepared me for a career in design and journalism.
ContributorsHansen, Elizabeth Sarah (Author) / Murphy, Patricia (Thesis director) / Savard, Jeannine (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This honors thesis features a translation of Andrés Bello’s “Historia físicia y política de Chile por Claudio Gay” that had never before been reproduced in English, as well as a discussion of translation theories and a biographical sketch of Andrés Bello, a prolific Latin American author and philosopher. The goals of this thesis include promoting Latin American literature, bringing awareness to Bello’s contributions to Chile’s history, and promoting translation as a creative form of education.
ContributorsDominick, Alicia Lorae (Author) / Humphrey, Ted (Thesis director) / Martinez, Maria Teresa (Committee member) / Burke, Janet (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This paper explores how marginalist economics defines and inevitably constrains Victorian sensation fiction's content and composition. I argue that economic intuition implies that sensationalist heroes and antagonists, writers and readers all pursued a fundamental, "rational" aim: the attainment of pleasure. So although "sensationalism" took on connotations of moral impropriety in the Victorian age, sensation fiction primarily involves experiences of pain on the page that excite the reader's pleasure. As such, sensationalism as a whole can be seen as a conformist product, one which mirrors the effects of all commodities on the market, rather than as a rebellious one. Indeed, contrary to modern and contemporary critics' assumptions, sensation fiction may not be as scandalous as it seems.
ContributorsFischer, Brett Andrew (Author) / Bivona, Daniel (Thesis director) / Looser, Devoney (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series has revolutionized the young adult publishing industry. So popular are the Potter books that they have managed to spawn an empire of merchandise, scholarly literature, movies, and even a theme park, suggesting that Harry Potter is more than just a children's book. In fact, The Harry Potter books, although often categorized under children's literature, contain many elements that make a book distinctly young adult; therefore, by conducting a rhetorical analysis of Rowling's first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, this thesis will delve deeper into the specifics of theme, literary elements, rhetorical devices, plot, marketing, and characterization to analyze, on a basic level, why Rowling's books appeal to so many, and why they are quintessentially young adult.
ContributorsMarshall, Haley Jung Ae (Author) / Hattenhauer, Darryl (Thesis director) / Fazio, Marsha (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This study evaluated whether the Story Champs intervention is effective in bilingual kindergarten children who speak Spanish as their native language. Previous research by Spencer and Slocum (2010) found that monolingual, English-speaking participants made significant gains in narrative retelling after intervention. This study implemented the intervention in two languages and examined its effects after ten sessions. Results indicate that some children benefited from the intervention and there was variability across languages as well.
ContributorsFernandez, Olga E (Author) / Restrepo, Laida (Thesis director) / Mesa, Carol (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Speech and Hearing Science (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
"The Hunger Games: What a Dystopic World Reveals about Modern Society" is an interdisciplinary thesis that examines the impossibility of revolutionary stories or concepts in popular culture by specifically analyzing the Hunger Games project. First, an analysis of what young adult fiction is and how it is written is provided. The formulaic way in which modern adolescent literature is written provides the basic structure for Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. The second chapter examines the main character of the Hunger Games series, Katniss Everdeen. The way in which this young female heroine relinquishes her independence and courage due to being consistently undermined by the men and political leaders in her life is traced by following the development of the story throughout the three novels. The third chapter of the thesis delves into how the entire Hunger Games project of novels and films fits into current popular culture. An analysis of the mass production of the novels, and then turning the books into films, merchandise, and further commercialization of the story is discussed in detail throughout the chapter. Finally, the thesis discusses the responsibility authors of young adult literature should assume when addressing a young impressionable audience and how Collins took advantage of the position she had in telling the story of Katniss Everdeen.
ContributorsHeath, Elisabeth Rose (Author) / Gruber, Diane (Thesis director) / Bixby, Patrick (Committee member) / Roy, Sohinee (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05