Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, Spanish and Portuguese

This dissertation offers a comprehensive study of the fiction of bestselling Chilean writer Marcela Serrano, in order to interrogate her discursive feminist praxis, and to analyze its efficacy in terms of its reception among a sample of women readers by means of a reader-response survey. It is my contention that Serrano's texts may be described and analyzed as a praxis of consciousness-raising sought through the articulation of a bond of reading between writer and women readers, and among women readers themselves.In order to discern the praxis of awareness allowed for in Serrano's works, as well as the connections it may generate, mainstream reader-response theories, including those of Wolfgang Iser and Norman Holland, are first outlined, with the intersubjective reading model found in David Bleich serving as a pivot, shifting focus then to specifically feminist reading criticism, as developed by Judith Fetterley, Anne Berggren, Janice Radway, and Patrocinio Schweickart. The conceptual tools of Italian feminism of sexual difference, in particular the practice of female genealogy, as discussed by the Milan Women's Bookstore Collective, Luisa Muraro, and Adriana Cavarero, are presented to inform Serrano's discursive praxis, as it is articulated in terms of the dynamics of how her female characters' life stories are narrated, offering women readers models for women-affirming-women interactions, enabling readers to connect with these female characters and their life stories through the deployment of narrative voice, and making visible for them the constraining effects of patriarchal gender roles via instances of intertextuality and genre re-elaboration. As an empirical counterbalance to the more overtly theoretical treatment of Serrano's fiction, reflections from a sample of women readers of her works are gathered through a survey questionnaire and examined, in order to tap the degree to which such reading can encourage women to construct standpoints of self-definition (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Laura Podalsky PhD (Advisor); Ulises Juan Zevallos-Aguilar PhD (Committee Member); Ana Del Sarto PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Latin American Literature; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, Educational Theory and Practice

The professional literature of the Holocaust is replete with research, references, and recommendations that a study of the Holocaust, particularly for middle and high school students, is most effective when combined with an extensive use of Holocaust literature. Scholars and educators alike advocate the use of first-person testimony whenever and wherever possible in order to personalize the Holocaust lessons for the student. This study explore students' responses to first-person Holocaust narratives through the lens of reader response theory in order to determine if prolonged engagement with the literature enhances affective learning. This study also explores the students' sense of personal ethics and their perceptions on moral decision-making. By examining their responses during prolonged engagement with first-person narratives, herein referred to as witness narratives, and evaluating these responses based on moral development theories developed by Kohlberg and Gilligan, the study also seeks to determine whether there are significant differences in the nature of response that can be attributed to gender. Lastly, the study explores students' views on racism, and how or if an extended lesson on the Holocaust causes affective change in students' perceptions of racism and their role in combating it within our society.

Committee: Janet Hickman (Advisor) Subjects: Education, Language and Literature

Honors Theses, Ohio Dominican University, 2017, Honors Theses

Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (1961) is so famous that the title has become a part of our everyday speech and is often listed as one of the best American novels of all time. This, of course, is untrue of the six works of fiction that Heller wrote after Catch-22. This project explores Heller's six works following Catch-22, with a focus on his second novel, Something Happened. This project not only seeks to redeem Heller's works, discussing them independently of Catch-22 and discovering their individual value, but explains exactly why Heller's career failed; because he became immediately associated with comedy, and his works, no matter the genre, were advertised as such, his readers never felt as if they had read what they expected to read – and not in a positive, surprising way. After Something Happened, Heller tried to return to comedy, but his audience grew tired of the familiarity very quickly. Understanding why this happened to Heller could help improve the publishing world as a whole and save future authors from failing in the same way.

Committee: Kelsey Squire Ph.D. (Advisor); Jeremy Glazier M.F.A. (Other) Subjects: American Literature; Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2011, EDU Teaching and Learning

The creatures and gods of ancient and traditional myth have been included in young adult and middle grade children's literature for as long as those literary designations have existed. Often allusions and metaphors draw a reader's attention to think of a Greek god, a Norse myth or a monster from Homer's Odyssey. Within the last several years, particularly between 2005 and 2010, a significant number of young adult and middle grade children's novels have presented the gods and creatures of various cultures' traditional myths in modern realistic settings, raising the question of how myth and its characters are presented in these novels. These mythic figures interact with young protagonists and exist within a reality that is familiar to the reader, taking on ideological present-day meanings. This study is a description of the analysis of the resulting ways and positions characters of traditional or new myth and mythic tensions are presented within this publishing trend. Content analysis of the shared motifs and themes within a sample of 40 young adult and middle grade children's novels, the inclusions and re-presentations of these mythic figures extends the realms within which myth is traditionally understood. Myth is expanded in terms of these novels' use of time and place and its categorizations as fantasy or reality. The realms of myth are also broadened by the ideological implications the novels are steeped in; whether they include messages about nationalism, environmental conservation, the privileging of the myths of one culture or the interaction among myths of multiple cultures. The realm of myth is also extended in terms of the varied relationships explored among the mythic figures and human characters and whether the gods are positioned as absentee parents to the young protagonists, as friends or as antagonists. Although few young adult and middle grade novels within my sample depict the mythic figures of popular contemporary religions, the inclusion of angels (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Barbara Kiefer PhD (Advisor); Linda Parsons PhD (Committee Member); Amy Shuman PhD (Committee Member); Anna Soter PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, EDU Teaching and Learning

Despite the interest that literacy researchers have taken in graphic novels—a kind of multimodal text that conjoins word and image to convey a narrative—few applied studies have asked how stronger readers at the high school level experience them. To fill a gap in the literature on graphic novels, and to contribute to a burgeoning body of scholarship on multimodal reading, this case study asked how six high school students—four males, and two females—who were identified by their English teachers as proficient readers responded to four graphic novels in the context of a voluntary after-school reading group. Sociocultural theories of literacy learning, as well as reader response theories and semiotic perspectives on multimodality, were employed to understand: a) how the students conceived of graphic novels as a form of reading material; b) what semiotic resources they drew on to construct meaning; c) how they talked about graphic novels in the context of an after-school reading group; and d) how, if at all, doing so influenced the manner in which they conceived of graphic novels. Data were collected using methods associated with qualitative research, specifically, whole-group and individual interviews, participant observation, and the collection of written artifacts. Data analysis made use of open, axial, and selective coding. Findings from the study indicate that people appropriate strategies for reading and talking about graphic novels as they participate in a community of readers that values that particular form of reading material. The findings also point to the active role readers occupy as they transact with graphic novels. As they read and talked about the graphic novels they encountered in the context of this study, the students were found to have drawn on an available visual design, color design, audio design, spatial design, and linguistic design as resources for constructing meaning. Despite this, they often appeared to underestimate the knowledge they dre (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Anna Soter (Advisor); George Newell (Committee Member); Lucy Shelton Caswell (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Language Arts; Literacy; Literature; Secondary Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, ED Teaching and Learning (Columbus campus)

Multicultural children's literature can serve as mirrors for culturally diverse children when they transact with literature about their own culture. However, despite extensive research on reader responses, literary responses of children of various cultural backgrounds received little attention. The purpose of this study was to explore responses of eight Korean transnational children with varying exposure to Korean culture to picture books about Korean people and culture in order to describe how the children draw on their cultural backgrounds in making responses to the books. A qualitative multiple case study approach was used to examine the meaning making process of four groups of Korean transnational children (i.e., Korean adopted, Korean American, acculturated and recent Korean immigrant groups) before, during and after reading six picture books for 10 weeks. Data sources included field notes, reflection journal from the researcher, 24 videotapes and audiotapes documenting read-aloud and post-reading sessions, 4 audiotapes recording interviews with the children's mothers, and the children's artifacts. The data were transcribed, coded, and analyzed. Analyses of the data revealed that the children constructed five types of literary responses (i.e., analytical, intertextual, personal, transparent, and performative) within the similar percent ranges as in Sipe's study. Data analysis also illustrated that the children made culturally-based responses by drawing on their cultural knowledge and experiences while recognizing, connecting, inquiring and evaluating what we had read. A closer examination of the children's responses to the three books revealed that children's diverse cultural backgrounds contributed to the construction of different perspectives and responses to cultural practices, an immigrant character, and inauthentic cultural descriptions presented in the books. These findings demonstrated that the children actively employ their cultural backgrounds in re (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Barbara Kiefer PhD (Advisor); Anna Soter PhD (Committee Member); Alan Hirvela (Committee Member); Patricia Enciso (Committee Member) Subjects: Elementary Education; Language Arts; Literature

PHD, Kent State University, 2012, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Studies

This study looked at the potential relationship that may exist between students' intelligence strengths, in particular their spatial and kinesthetic strengths, and their combined cognitive and metacognitive levels of interaction with a CD-ROM storybook. The multiple intelligence strengths of a sample of students, measured via the MIDAS/My Young Child (Shearer, 1994-2002) was correlated with their levels of interactions with the CD-ROM storybook as measured by the researcher's adaptation of a rubric used by Labbo & Kuhn (2000). It was predicted that correlational analysis would show different measures of positive relationships between all intelligence strengths but a higher positive relationship between both the spatial intelligence strength and combined cognitive and metacognitive levels of interaction with the CD-ROM storybook and also between kinesthetic intelligence strength and combined cognitive and metacognitive levels of interaction with the CD-ROM storybook. Results appeared to demonstrate that it was the unique student intelligence profile as an entity, as opposed to particular and individual intelligence strengths, in relation to the content of the storybook that was more informative concerning potential relationships at work.

Committee: Timothy Rasinski PhD (Committee Co-Chair); William Kist PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Carolyn Brodie PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Early Childhood Education; Education; Educational Software; Educational Technology; Elementary Education; Instructional Design; Library Science; Literacy; Multimedia Communications; Pedagogy; Preschool Education; Psychological Tests; Psychology; Reading Instruction; Te