Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Writing​, University of Findlay, 2015, English

As online writing instruction (OWI) rises in prevalence at U.S. universities, the need for research into effective pedagogies increases. Using interview and observation data from first year composition instructors, this thesis argues instructors' experiences with course management systems (CMS) and therefore the way they teach in those spaces are shaped by the limitations and constraints they perceive as existing in those spaces. While instructors recognize the potential significance of CMS, there is still great disparity between instructors' practices in face to face and CMS spaces with many instructors failing to see their use of CMS as part of the teaching practice.

Committee: Ronald Tulley (Committee Chair); Elkie Burnside (Committee Member); Michael Scoles (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Higher Education; Information Technology; Instructional Design; Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2024, English

This dissertation examines research-writing as an activity system in the rhetorical ecologies of first-year writing instruction. It offers parallaxing ecologies as a methodological and pedagogical framework for examining and teaching such activity systems. I define parallaxing ecologies as a methodology for examining an object, concept, and/or practice with the goal of seeing how it is brought into being and how it is excluded across multiple and simultaneous rhetorical ecologies. Parallaxing some of the ecologies of research-writing at one institution, as I've done in this dissertation for instance, helps us better see not just how something like research is brought into being from different dwelling places, but also tends to how the lines of sight afforded from different dwelling places might preclude alternative points of view. In chapter 1, I situate this project in writing studies scholarship on research-writing instruction, looking at both the histories of the field and current conversations to establish how teacher-scholars have defined, understood, and taught research-writing in the context of first-year composition. In chapter 2, I describe parallaxing ecologies and offer dwelling places and anchoring objects as visual-spatial metaphors for how we become orientated in ways that open up some ways of knowing and foreclose others. In chapter 3, I use parallaxing ecologies to examine research-writing from the multiple ecologies of a specific writing program, looking to the dwelling places and anchoring objects and the lines of sight they offer for understanding research as multiple and simultaneous. In chapter 4, I turn to parallaxing ecologies as a pedagogy, describing how it informed the design and implementation of a research-writing course. In chapter 5, I explore further implications of and opportunities presented by parallaxing ecologies as both a methodology and a pedagogy, with examples and proposals for rhetoric and writing studies as a field, and f (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Linh Dich (Committee Chair); Heidi McKee (Committee Member); Gaile Pohlhaus (Committee Member); Lizzie Hutton (Committee Member); J Palmeri (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2023, English

In this project, I set out to investigate how Writing Program Administrators (WPA) can draw on theories, research findings, and best practices of transfer from both composition and second language writing studies in order to develop curricula and pedagogical practices to support multilingual writers in First-Year Composition (FYC). Research from the two separate fields of writing studies around genre and transfer shows that facilitating genre knowledge, genre awareness, genre uptake, discourse community enculturation, and generative dispositions can encourage learners to transfer what they know to new contexts. A transfer-encouraging curriculum needs to recognize and teach the social and learner-based aspects of writing and learning. This is even more important when working with first-year multilingual writers who were enculturated in different cultures other than American culture and have achieved high proficiency in languages other than English before they are enrolled in FYC courses. Drawing on scholarship in rhetorical genre studies, English for specific purposes, and systemic functional linguistics genre studies, this dissertation uses a methodology on genre transferability to understand what FYC programs across the US do (and can do) to support multilingual writers and what theories are guiding programs' curriculum development, pedagogical practices, and professional development activities. I argue that if our goal is to help novice multilingual students effectively respond to the cultural, discoursal, and linguistic challenges they face, then WPAs across institution types must work to develop FYC initiatives that draw on transfer scholarship from both composition studies and second language writing studies. In Chapter 1, I propose a conceptual framework that draws on both fields of writing transfer studies and discuss pedagogical implications for curriculum development and writing instruction for teaching first-year multilingual writers. In Chapter 2, I ou (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Elizabeth Wardle (Committee Chair); Sara Webb-Sunderhaus (Advisor); Tony Cimasko (Advisor); Elizabeth Hutton (Advisor); Thomas Poetter (Advisor) Subjects: Composition; Education; English As A Second Language; Linguistics; Multicultural Education; Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, English

As a common touchstone for millions of college students annually, First-Year Writing (FYW) is an important site of research activity that seeks to determine high-impact teaching practices that serve this increasingly diverse student population. Many teacher-scholars have turned to principles of Learning Transfer as a solution for promoting student learning in the writing classroom. Learning transfer, the repurposing or generalization of knowledge between contexts, is an incredibly complex process. Discussions of transfer often lack critical attention to what prior knowledges, skills, dispositions, or literacies we expect students might bring into writing courses, as well as what we hope they will take with them. Writing studies scholarship needs a model that defines prior knowledges and transfer in ways that explicitly attend to sociocultural and linguistic diversity to establish practices for cultural accountability in teaching for writing transfer. To address this need, I designed a mixed-method study that was guided by four research questions: 1. What prior knowledges, if any, do First-Year Writing instructors expect students to possess? 2. To what degree do those expectations account for sociocultural and linguistic knowledges from home, school, and other contexts? 3. How are students' prior knowledges valued or mobilized by instructors? 4. What patterns, if any, exist across instructors' beliefs about teaching and learning, assumptions about student prior knowledges, and instructional practices? Through a framework of writing studies transfer scholarship and asset-based, multicultural education pedagogies, my mixed-methods analysis of participating instructors' survey, interview, and teaching document data offers two contributions to writing studies and transfer scholarship. The first is a systematic Typology of Prior Knowledges, makes it possible to account for the various expectations instructors have about students' prior knowledges. When used as a re (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kay Halasek (Advisor); Scott L. DeWitt (Committee Member); Beverly J. Moss (Committee Member); Timothy San Pedro (Committee Member) Subjects: Curriculum Development; Education; Literacy; Rhetoric; Teacher Education

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2020, English (Arts and Sciences)

This dissertation explores what happens when antiracist education is brought into the composition classroom, not simply as a theme, but as an organizing principle for the exigencies of composition education and the field at large. It engages with critical concepts from postcolonial theorists like Edward Said and Frantz Fanon, scholarship on the rhetorics of race from rhetoricians like Victor Villanueva, as well as antiracist frameworks from diversity scholars like Robin DiAngelo as I conceptualize my project through critical and pedagogical loci of power and possibility. Using cultural competency and racial literacy education frameworks and the results of two qualitative studies, I argue that composition education should prioritize the subject of race toward meeting both writing and social justice education goals.

Committee: Mara Holt PhD (Committee Chair); Talinn Phillips PhD (Committee Member); Ryan Shepherd PhD (Committee Member); Devika Chawla PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Literacy; Multicultural Education; Pedagogy; Rhetoric

Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Writing​, University of Findlay, 2019, English

The project detailed throughout these chapters addresses a critical scholarship gap in meeting the needs of autistic students in a collegiate composition classroom. I became aware of this gap as a mother of an autistic son, as an English teacher, as a student in Rhetoric and Writing, and as a graduate student instructor of English 106: College Writing II. My experience in English 501: Writing Theory and Pedagogy led me to believe that through examining the Cognitive Process Model by Flower and Hayes that a series of lesson plans could be produced to make First Year Writing more accessible for students with ASD. I determined areas of potential breakdown in each stage of the Flower and Hayes model in the composing of students with ASD. I applied strategies from my literature review to develop accommodations for deficiencies in each stage for autistic students. As a result of applying strategies to make writing more accessible for students on the autism spectrum to the different stages of the Cognitive Process Theory by Flower and Hayes, I proposed modified English 106 lesson plans for an argument research essay unit. As a result of my study, instructors will be able to find suggestions for teaching the analysis of primary and secondary sources, research and documentation skills, and argumentative thesis generation to students with ASD. Each lesson plan will contain scaffolding, suggested strategies and rationale for implementation of the strategies.

Committee: Christiine Denecker PhD (Committee Chair); Christine Tulley PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Composition; Education; Educational Theory; Rhetoric; Secondary Education; Special Education; Teacher Education; Teaching

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2018, English

First- and second-year required writing courses, typically housed within English departments and taught by English faculty, are valued by various stakeholders as a means of preparing students for future writing contexts. While these courses are intended to impart students with knowledge and skills to equip them for writing beyond the walls of the English classroom, students are often dubious of the value of these required writing courses to their future careers as students and professionals. As research on transfer becomes an increasingly-prominent area of focus within composition studies, the significance of students' own perceptions of the value of required writing courses has emerged as a key factor in determining how successfully they will transfer what they learn in those classes to writing in the disciplines (WID). This case study draws on insights from over 200 survey responses and six interviews to determine students' attitudes at the University of Dayton toward ENG 100 and 200 and the value of these courses to future writing contexts. Findings indicate that many students have misconceptions and questions about the purposes of these courses, which can contribute to distorted views of how transferrable the skills and knowledge gained in these courses will be. In addition to shedding light on students' perceptions of transfer, this research argues for the importance of understanding students' forward-reaching conceptions of the purpose and value of writing instruction in order to ensure that transfer is possible.

Committee: Patrick Thomas Ph.D. (Advisor); Margaret Strain Ph.D. (Committee Member); Stephen Wilhoit Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Education; Higher Education; Pedagogy; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, EDU Teaching and Learning

This dissertation explores seven second language (L2) undergraduates' learning experiences in a First-Year Writing (FYW) course at an American university. While the FYW course is designed from the perspective of first-language (L1) composition scholarship and focuses, broadly speaking, on analytical writing and the related development of critical thinking skills, the English as a Second Language (ESL) writing courses most of the participants had taken are designed from the perspective of second language (L2) writing scholarship and the development of more fundamental writing skills. Thus, employing a qualitative case-study approach, the present study was especially interested in the L2 students' transition from ESL to FYW, as this kind of study is not common in writing scholarship, though many L2 writers participate in both types of courses, thus generating a need for such an investigation. Driven by the theoretical frameworks of knowledge telling versus knowledge transforming, writing to learn, as well as transfer of learning, data was collected through interviews, journals, think-aloud protocols, classroom observations, field notes, and text-based artifacts. Participants included seven L2 undergraduates from Honduras, Bangladesh, and China recruited from three different sections of FYW; two FYW instructors; and the director of the First-Year Writing Program. Five of the L2 students (those from China) had taken one or two ESL writing courses at the university before they took the FYW course, and their experiences were of particular interest during the study. By following the participants throughout a 15-week semester as they engaged the various FYW course assignments, the study produced an in-depth look at their task representations of what they were asked to do and how they responded to the course activities and expectations. The findings reveal, first, that the seven L2 undergraduates used their first languages (L1) in various situations when the (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Alan Hirvela (Advisor); DeWitt Scott (Committee Member); Halasek Kay (Committee Member); Selfe Cynthia (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Curriculum Development; Education; English As A Second Language; Higher Education; Literacy

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2015, English

For my thesis, I conducted a teacher-researcher study which focuses on first-year composition students' perspectives on team writing. In this study, I examine two different pedagogical approaches for teaching team writing. In both of my first-year composition sections, I used two different methods for grouping students: one where students kept the same team throughout the semester (Class A) and one where they formed different teams for each of the two team writing projects (Class B). My study examines student views through a collection of different student generated data. My thesis answers the following interrelated questions: what are first-year students' experiences with collaborative writing? what suggestions do they have for improving pedagogy for composition? what practices may best facilitate collaborative writing? And what grouping method for team projects seemed to work best for them? My thesis concludes by offering instructors suggestions for improving student collaborative writing based on my findings.

Committee: Heidi McKee (Committee Chair); Jason Palmeri (Committee Member); Michele Simmons (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2015, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD

This qualitative case study project explored the literacy practices of two eighteen-year-old African American males who were enrolled in two separate predominantly White four-year universities in Northwest Ohio. I studied their literacy practices because limited research exists in Composition Studies on African American males, particularly on African American males who self-identify as successful writers. Many African American males meet the objectives of first-year writing courses the first time they take them, yet far too many of them do not succeed in those courses. Hence, it is imperative that literacy studies scholars, compositionists, and writing program administrators study successful African American male writers so they might learn how to improve the writing skills of more African American males. Findings show that four general factors contributed to key participants' success in first-year writing courses: 1) their acquisition of literacies at home, 2) their ability to carry literacies from home to school, 3) their use of school and non-school resources to help them further develop their literacies, and 4) their dispositions regarding formal education, which, for the most part, were shaped by their African American fathers' perspectives on formal education. In essence, key participants' literacy practices are only one of the primary factors that impacted their success in first-year writing courses. This project has import for Composition Studies, particularly because one of its cases includes attention to a participant's father's voice and the pivotal role he played in the development of his son's literacy practices. I urge writing teachers to consider the full range of students' literacies and to integrate the voices of successful African American males in Composition Studies research. These scholarly practices will likely increase the achievement rate among African American males in first-year writing courses.

Committee: Lee Nickoson Ph.D. (Advisor); Timothy Murnen Ph.D. (Committee Member); Donna Nelson-Beene Ph.D. (Committee Member); Sue Carter Wood Ph.D. (Committee Member); Steve Lamos Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2015, English (Arts and Sciences)

Rhetoric and composition histories have given considerable attention to first-year composition in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. However, they have primarily limited their attention to current-traditional rhetoric's manifestations — especially its over-focus on superficial correctness. They have failed to give any significant attention to the writing assignments central to composition classes. To address this gap, this dissertation examines the history of composition instruction in the United States through the lens of writing assignment genres. I argue that such an examination can reshape our understanding of our field's history and is significant for understanding the role and history of many writing assignments still in use today, which might influence current teaching and future developments in our discipline and our classrooms. Focusing on assignments, I utilize genre theory as a theoretical lens in analyzing and understanding their role and historical development. Examining and revising composition history through the lens of what I call a “theme system” and genre theory complicates the field's conception of the period's current-traditional focus and can inform our understanding of current pedagogical practices that have roots in the theme system. In making my argument, I first trace the history and development of theme writing from its roots in classical rhetoric and sixteenth-century English education to its forms when first-year composition was instituted at Harvard in 1885. I then examine how the spread and development of first-year composition, characterized by a theme writing approach, can be seen as the spread and development of an assignment genre system: the theme system. Following this, I reexamine the design of Harvard's influential English A, focusing on the role and purpose of the course's writing assignments. Finally, comparing the writing assignments in three popular current composition textbooks to assignments of th (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Mara Holt (Committee Chair); Sherrie Gradin (Committee Member); Albert Rouzie (Committee Member); David Descutner (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Composition; Education History; Pedagogy; Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2014, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD

My dissertation, Affective Possibilities for Rhetoric & Writing: How We Might Self-Assess Potentiality in Composition, presents a reconceived approach to teaching self-assessment practices to writing students in college writing classrooms by combining practices of reflection with consideration of potentiality. As defined in this project, potentiality is a quality of student writers and of their writing−a capacity for change, growth, and development into the future. These findings are built upon an empirical study of four first-year writing students, who were interviewed about their own assessment practices, both in terms of their writing processes with specific texts and in terms of their own conception of themselves as writers. I situate my data within contexts of writing assessment, feminist scholarship, affect studies, and liminality. At the crossroads of these varying conversations are concerns about literacy and agency, as well as about capacity and potential. Haswell and Haswell (2010) advocate for writing assessment practices that honor and encourage student writers’ sense of authorship. They conceive of this sense of authorship as being intimately tied to a notion of potentiality. How to define, identify, and attend to potentiality are the questions that I consider through the lenses of feminist scholarship and affect studies. Feminist scholarship promotes literacy as a means to achieve identity and agency in the spaces around us, in education and in practice. In the spaces between texts and agents, feminism finds possibility for change and for access to power that seems tied to fixed positions. Similarly, affect studies draws attention away from subject positions and subjects to focus on the interactions and expressions that pass between agents. My analysis of the data from my empirical study includes a definition of potentiality informed by these aspects of feminist scholarship and affect studies. My project demonstrates that potentiality can b (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kristine Blair (Committee Co-Chair); Lee Nickoson (Committee Co-Chair); David Tobar (Committee Member); Sue Carter Wood (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2014, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD

Scholars such as Diane Kelly-Riley and Patricia Bizzell have argued that the student writing feature most likely to place a student into a basic writing course is the presence of dialect other than standard academic English. My dissertation examines this notion and pushes further: if this is true, what are instructors doing to address and assess varieties of English in the first-year writing classroom? What is error to a first-year writing student? What is error to an instructor of first-year writing? To answer these questions, I conducted a semester-long participant observation of two sections of first-year writing, also considered basic writing preparatory courses, in the Fall 2012 academic semester to examine how instructors assess varieties of English. I conducted student surveys twice during the semester to gather student feedback; I also interviewed the instructors near the end of the course to gain additional input. Feminist research methodologies influenced my project; I frequently asked my participants to provide feedback and offered opportunities to review my data through the creation of a dissertation website. After a grounded theory analysis of the data, I found that students internalized the assessment language used by instructors and that this language, paired with the writing models used by instructors, shaped students' values on writing. To better emphasize the contextual nature of writing, instructors might utilize diverse writing models and rubrics that vary based on the writing assignment.

Committee: Lee Nickoson PhD (Advisor); Kristine Blair PhD (Committee Member); Sue Carter Wood PhD (Committee Member); Catherine Cassara PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, Educational Theory and Practice

Although tutorial programs have become key components of college freshmen writing programs, few studies have considered how students learn to tutor their peers. This study is a qualitative examination of a first-year writing tutorial program situated within a college writing center with a mission to ensure student retention in the college. In the tutorials, peer tutors consulted biweekly with basic writers throughout their first year of college. The peer tutors were trained in a three-week tutor training program designed to introduce them to both writing center theory and tutoring strategies which are aligned with the writing center mission and goals. Case study methods were used to consider the transfer of teaching tools from tutor training to the tutors' practices in the writing conferences. Through an activity-theory analysis of tutor training sessions, audio-taped and transcribed conferences, field notes, observation-based interviews, and other data, the two tutors' decision-making was interpreted as a function of their participation in tool-mediated action—both conceptual and practical—in a range of settings. The research employed ethnographic methods to follow the peer tutors through a three-week training program and a fifteen-week semester of tutoring. The study identified the principal settings—both educational and personal—which shaped tutors' developing roles and practices; explored the way tutors negotiate tensions which arise as they attempt to appropriate the teaching tools presented in tutor training; and considered the contextual factors (e.g., outside settings, personal goals, prior experiences) which may shape the tutors' appropriation of the teaching tools. The results describe how the various activity settings affected how the tutors developed their own approaches to tutoring in the writing center as they negotiated the competing motives and emerging tensions at work in conference activity over a semester. In acknowledging these powerful tensions, (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: George Newell (Advisor) Subjects: Education, Language and Literature

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2010, English

The primary purpose of this thesis is to explore the effectiveness of first-year composition courses for business students. In order to assess whether first-year composition courses address the skills students need for success in academia and as business majors, two business faculty members at each of three universities in the South are interviewed, comparing their desired skills for college students with the skills actually taught at the same universities through interviews conducted with two First-Year English Composition Faculty at each school. This is a complex area of study for English and Business Faculty, and while many faculty interviewed agreed on the importance of some current FYC objectives, including coherent and clear writing, the study identifies other objectives that must be included and/or reprioritized in future composition syllabi for business students. This paper identifies grammar and Internet citation skills as requiring more emphasis among a plethora of perceptions about writing held by those interviewed.

Committee: Bryan Bardine PhD (Advisor); Betty Youngkin PhD (Committee Member); Andrew Slade PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration; Composition

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2011, English (Rhetoric and Writing)

With increasing awareness, digital media initiatives on a national level have permeated higher education. The permeation continues into the first year writing classroom. Neal Postman (1996) has argued that no one has taken up the call to implement new technologies with greater enthusiasm than the educator. Many writing educators believe that preparing students for the 21st century requires teaching students multiple technological literacies (Selber, 2004; New London Group, 2000) and bringing digital media into the classroom is one way to accomplish course goals while working with these literacies. In addition, research supports the use of digital media in the writing classroom and argues for capitalizing on student's native literacies, but little scholarship explores the ethical implications of digital media implementation. Simultaneously, the ethical turn in Writing Studies has developed a plethora of articles, books, and presentations on participant treatment, research ethics, and even ethical pedagogies, but again, little has attempted to bring together how we use digital media in our pedagogies with an explicitly ethical focus. One aspect of understanding these pedagogies is exploring how teachers and administrators come to view concerns as ethical, something that requires an investigation of worldview. This research seeks to merge these areas through case study methods, drawing on an activity theory framework that uses grounded theory to analyze the data. By interviewing an instructor and writing program administrator at a public university and a private, faith-based college, this work expands on two ethical approaches to digital media from two very important sites in higher education. The implications of the data provide important additions to our understanding of ethical pedagogies of digital media use. The goal of this study is to discern what the instructors and administrators view as ethical concerns when implementing digital media and to learn how differ (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kristine Blair (Committee Chair); Bruce Edwards (Committee Member); Lee Nickoson (Committee Member); Howard Casey Cromwell (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2009, English/Rhetoric and Writing

This pilot study examines the new teaching assistant (TA) preparation programs used by Ohio universities, both public and private, that graduate students to staff first-year composition (FYC) classrooms. I collected information about the preparation programs and the components of preparation from in-house materials from each of the schools, including university and departmental websites as well as a survey that was sent to the Writing Program Administrators (WPA) at each institution. My main research questions were: (RQ #1) How are graduate students enrolled in English programs being prepared to teach writing? and (RQ #2) Is the preparation of new TAs in line with the available literature? I examined each of the fourteen Ohio universities that use graduate students as TAs to staff FYC classes based on all available data (RQ #1). Although there are many components that may be used in TA preparation programs, I chose to focus on are balance of theory and practice, standardized syllabi and day-to-day plans, pre-service orientation, preparatory seminars, observations, mentoring, and reflection. This includes looking at the in-house materials that were given as part of the survey response and in-house materials that are available online. It also includes general information about each university that was available on the university websites as well as the department homepages. Additionally, survey responses and answers to survey questions that were determined by researching each school are included. Some schools have much more in-depth materials available; therefore; those universities are discussed in much more detail. I compiled the information about each of the school by component and compared it to the recent literature and suggestions about TA preparation programs in English (RQ #2). The findings indicate that universities, programs, and individual researchers do not agree on the best practices for preparing graduate students to teach in FYC programs, but that Ohio (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Richard Gebhardt PhD (Committee Chair); Kristine Blair PhD (Committee Member); Amy Morgan PhD (Committee Member); Donna Nelson-Beene PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2008, English/Rhetoric and Writing

This descriptive study re-examines two online practices, the use of synchronous Chat and asynchronous Discussion Board, as collaborative invention forums for composing a research-based essay. Basically, I looked at the transfer of invention ideas from each forum to student rough drafts in order to help substantiate the claim that the use of computer-mediated communication is an enabling practice for knowledge construction. Two first-year writing classes taught in a computer laboratory by the same instructor participated in the study; one class used Chat and the other used the Discussion Board for invention prior to drafting the essays. I analyzed the online transcripts, student rough drafts, and the teacher and student interview data to describe the effects of both synchronous and asynchronous platforms as collaborative invention strategies on academic writing. Throughout the investigation, two research questions were addressed: (RQ #1) How effective is each type of online invention in generating ideas for writing academic essays? and (RQ #2) What attitudes/perceptions do the teacher and students have toward the collaborative online invention process? The descriptive findings generally indicate that the transfer of invention ideas and language patterns from both online forums to the essays (RQ #1) is directly supported by the teacher and student interview patterns (RQ #2). Significant data patterns reveal the following effects of Chat and Discussion Board invention forums on student drafts: both show successful transfer of ideas in terms of essay topic, purpose, and thesis statement; average transfer of main ideas and supporting details; and minimal transfer of source ideas. However, the transfer of counterargument ideas from each forum differs: the use of Chat indicates null transfer of ideas while very minimal transfer is attributed to the use of the Discussion Board. Interview data patterns reveal agreement between the teacher and students as regards the capacity (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kristine Blair PhD (Advisor); Richard Gebhardt PhD (Committee Member); Donna Nelson-Beene PhD (Committee Member); Margaret Booth PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2006, English/Rhetoric and Writing

Although previous studies on teaching anxiety have clarified the general characteristics and manifestations of this phenomenon and established the need for more effective teacher preparation programs, most do not reflect the practices or concerns of writing instructors or indicate how or why they experience anxiety. The purpose of this dissertation, therefore, was to determine how the rhetorical and situational elements of writing instruction contribute to teaching anxiety and to what extent composition instructors attempt to resolve or minimize the effects of potential triggers and symptoms. Over a period of sixteen weeks, five first-year composition instructors completed a series of interviews and surveys related to their teaching and met periodically in small groups to discuss instructional matters and strategies for handling them. Data yielded from interview and group session transcripts and survey responses indicated that a) general teaching anxiety triggers (that is, triggers found in any discipline and at any level) are often compounded by discipline- and/or program-specific anxiety triggers, b) the potential anxiety triggers instructors reported or exhibited seem to interfere with their abilities to successfully impart student learning, and c) instructors' behavioral responses to such anxiety triggers are influenced by what they consider to be the likeliest and/or most addressable sources of their anxiety. These findings provide several starting points for a much needed in-depth look into the causes and manifestations of and possible remedies for teaching anxiety as well as the long-term effects of teacher preparation and faculty development programs on anxiety and job performance.

Committee: Sue Carter Wood (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2012, English-Composition

The process of becoming a writer – choosing the topic, recognizing the audience, acknowledging the facts and theories of the subject – is similar to that which an actor goes through to design a specific character for a specific role. This similarity, and its inherent potential for effective teaching and learning, has been neglected in the Composition/Rhetoric field's literature and in the college writing classroom. Some students come to First Year Composition (FYC) with the understanding that writing is merely repeating what the instructor has told them, and writing in the way the instructor has told them, not realizing that they, too, have a voice. This is not a new observation, and composition theory has and continues to address the issue of developing a writerly voice, but the problem remains: students too often do not develop their own well-rounded author/character, but stick to a flat stereotype instead, producing writing that is uninteresting, disengaged, and ineffective. This project argues that there are various processes an actor might choose to create each character he portrays on stage or in film, and that understanding these processes could help the student writer develop his own author character during the writing process, thus producing more effective texts and enabling a more fruitful process for future writing. Method Acting is one of the unique processes which make use of multiple influences and experiences that contribute to the forming and presentation of the self. A clear parallel may be found between the process a method actor goes through to create and present his character within the context of a play or film and the process an expository writer (journalist to essayist) goes through to create and present his text. Little has been written of this parallel thus far, and it may be useful to evaluate its potential for integration into the traditional implementation of the writing process, as well as the pedagogies used in composition and research (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Julie Drew Dr. (Advisor); Janet Bean Dr. (Committee Member); Hillary Nunn Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition