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- Title
- NET GENERATION RESEARCHERS: AN INQUIRY INTO HYPERTEXT READING AND RESEARCH STRATEGIES OF FIRST-YEAR COMPOSITION STUDENTS.
- Creator
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Thompson, Susan, Bell, Kathleen, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Hypertext and hyperlinks are present on almost every web site or electronic document. As integral components of visual rhetoric, they are foundational to any discussion of technology and literacy. This inquiry is designed to explore first-year composition students' advances in technological literacy, specifically hypertext reading and research strategies. To accomplish this, a hypertext-reading project was designed to investigate the ways in which first-year composition students...
Show moreHypertext and hyperlinks are present on almost every web site or electronic document. As integral components of visual rhetoric, they are foundational to any discussion of technology and literacy. This inquiry is designed to explore first-year composition students' advances in technological literacy, specifically hypertext reading and research strategies. To accomplish this, a hypertext-reading project was designed to investigate the ways in which first-year composition students assimilate and employ hypertext information as a source from which they must extract information to use in the development of an argument. A program, designed and written specifically for this project, presented research participants, 76 students enrolled in second semester first-year composition, the components of hypertext reading as an online reading and research activity. Participants first completed a technology survey designed to reveal each participant's prior experience and self-perceived expertise with current technology, after which they completed a two-part exercise consisting of a hypertext reading assignment and a post-reading questionnaire. Participants were instructed to use their reading to inform and develop a thesis for an argument. The article selected for this study was "Illegal Immigration," accessed by navigating to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration. The article discusses a current controversial national concern, illegal immigration. While the use of Wikipedia, an online user-edited encyclopedia, often raises credibility concerns, the site in general offers excellent examples of hypertext reading that include textual as well as graphic links. In the analysis, it is revealed that while the study group rated themselves highly proficient users of Internet search engines, email, social networking, and word processing applications, the majority initially did not recognize a relationship between the actions they take as users of those applications and hyperlinks or hypertext. Post-reading responses revealed that the majority of the group read the article from top to bottom with few to no diversions. Furthermore, while most did recognize the hyperlinks as information portals, they made conscious decisions to not access the links for a variety of stated and implied reasons. This research involved a relatively small student sample that defines the limited scope of the findings; however, the data suggests attitudes and expectations of this group that may reflect student populations with similar or shared demographics. These data are used to inform potential pedagogical application suggestions, including the usefulness of technological proficiency assessments and research using technology within the classroom as well as in external assignments.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2007
- Identifier
- CFE0001904, ucf:47489
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001904
- Title
- WHAT IS COLLEGE-LEVEL WRITING? -THE COMMON GROUND FROM WHICH A NEW SECONDARY – POST SECONDARY COMPOSITION PARTNERSHIP CAN BE FORMED.
- Creator
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Berger, Nancy, Bell, Kathleen, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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In the Introduction to What is "College-Level" Writing?, editors Patrick Sullivan and Howard Tinberg state that the title asks "one of the most important questions in our profession" (xiii). However, even after 418 pages of essays written from the perspectives of high school teachers, college instructors, students, and administrators, the answer remains elusive because college-level writing does not, in fact, start in college - it starts in high school - where high school teachers believe...
Show moreIn the Introduction to What is "College-Level" Writing?, editors Patrick Sullivan and Howard Tinberg state that the title asks "one of the most important questions in our profession" (xiii). However, even after 418 pages of essays written from the perspectives of high school teachers, college instructors, students, and administrators, the answer remains elusive because college-level writing does not, in fact, start in college - it starts in high school - where high school teachers believe they are instilling in their college-bound students the writing skills required by post-secondary institutions. The students, meanwhile, show up in first-year composition classes to find not only have they not been prepared for college-level writing, they haven't the faintest idea what college-level writing is. Our students have more writing demands on them now than ever before -- both in and outside of academia -- what past CCCC president, Douglas D. Hesse, terms "obliged" and "self-sponsored" writing (349). The job market has gone global and careerism is a reality for the college graduates of today. Yet, college writing instruction represents the last chance students have to learn the rhetorical traditions behind the writing skills, along with the realization that without an understanding of process and purpose, the products they do produce will never reach full potential. It is this seemingly dichotomic relationship between the "global village" job market and the rhetorical tradition that has created the exigence for this research. This study examines twelfth grade English and first-year college composition instruction from the three perspectives comprising the College Writing Contact Zone rhetorical triangle (practitioners-professional organizations-textbooks). Following the model of analysis used by Patrick Sullivan and Howard Tinberg in What is "College-Level" Writing, essays and articles written by high school teachers and first-year composition instructors involved in the "what is college-level writing?" conversation are discussed, examining each for the common threads running throughout their different viewpoints. The curricula at both the 12th grade high school and first-year college levels is also researched, in light of the mandates instituted by the professional organizations of the discipline (the NCTE and CCCC). Specifically examined are the roles these respective professional organizations played in the evolution of 12th grade high school English classes and the first-year college composition course, as we know them today. Finally, the textbooks, which inform the curricula of 12th grade high school English and first-year college composition, are investigated in regards to scope and sequence, assumptions, and authorship. The learning theories driving the textbooks are then used to construct the definition of college-level writing from the perspective of textbook publishers. The answer to the "What is college-level writing?" question emerging from this research is not what one might expect. College-level writing, as an entity, does not exist because college-level writing is the result of college-level discourse literacy. Since first year college students must step outside their comfort zone into Pratt's contact zone, perhaps, "instead of asking how to make high school writing prepare students for college writing ,. . ." we should be asking what literacy looks like"(Thompson 80). Making students aware of the different discourse communities in existence at the college level (Hesse's self-sponsored and obliged) is the first step in their being able to learn what writing is considered appropriate within each discourse community. What is needed is a new paradigm in the form of a transitional composition class that cultivates students as critically thinking writers who are the experts of their own thoughts and ideas. Whether this class belongs in the twelfth grade curriculum or the first-year college curriculum needs to be determined, but its absence is the missing link responsible for the non-transference of writing skills from the high school to the college level, as well as the non-transference of writing skills beyond the first-year composition class within academia. Our high schools, recognizing the fact that all of their twelfth grade English students are not going on to college, teach the writing skills and reading analyses needed for post-secondary school life – whatever that may be. First-year composition instructors assign their essays and research papers expecting their students to already be well-versed in the self-sponsored and obliged discourses of the academy – but they are not. The contact zone is created and the conflict begins because students need to access those discourses if they are to start creating self-sponsored knowledge of their disciplines. It is this 'knowing,' this created knowledge, that transforms our students into writers; the writers for whom we are the stewards.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2007
- Identifier
- CFE0001878, ucf:47419
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001878
- Title
- ENGENDERING AGENCY: LITERACIES, SOCIAL ACTION, AND WANGARI MAATHAI'S GREEN BELT MOVEMENT.
- Creator
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Allen, Cassandra, Bell, Kathleen, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This thesis analyzes the life and work of Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai, one of the foremost African woman rhetors of our time. Wangari Maathai--founder of Kenya's Green Belt Movement (GBM), Member of Parliament, and activist for democracy, sustainable development, and human rights--has cultivated a multidimensional literacy that has allowed her to truly understand and address the problems that post-colonial Kenyans face. Her strong solution-oriented approach has allowed her to...
Show moreThis thesis analyzes the life and work of Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai, one of the foremost African woman rhetors of our time. Wangari Maathai--founder of Kenya's Green Belt Movement (GBM), Member of Parliament, and activist for democracy, sustainable development, and human rights--has cultivated a multidimensional literacy that has allowed her to truly understand and address the problems that post-colonial Kenyans face. Her strong solution-oriented approach has allowed her to develop and refine operation of the GBM, which began simply planting trees, to produce a worldwide organization that works for sustainable development, human rights, and environmental conservation/restoration (among many others) by attacking the roots of disempowerment and challenging participants to become the primary agents of change. Through the overlapping lenses of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Jacqueline Jones Royster's Traces of a Stream, and Filomina Chioma Steady's Women and Collective Action in Africa, I trace Maathai's emergence as a literate women in late 20th century Kenya who is able to effect meaningful social change. This examination of her life and work uncovers the convergence of literacies (academic, critical, civic, and cultural) that have created her unique worldview. Furthermore, it also examines her rhetorical construction of self through an analysis of her context, her ethos construction, and her mandates for action. At the heart of the study is an exploration of the GBM as an outlet of civic and environmental education. This discussion explores Maathai's approach to civic education as well as the potential pedagogical implications of that approach in the composition classroom of the Western university.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2007
- Identifier
- CFE0001890, ucf:47401
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001890
- Title
- AN INTERSECTIONAL COMPARISON OF FEMALE AGENCY IN TONI MORRISON'S SULA AND WANG ANYI'S SONG OF EVERLASTING SORROW.
- Creator
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Lynton, Jordan, Bell, Kathleen, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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The opportunities created by the end of the Mao Era and legislature promoting the rights of African Americans and women in the mid-twentieth century allowed women of both cultures to break further into the literary scene and negotiate their own sense of agency through their work. Although Western feminism also grew rapidly throughout this period, its ethnocentric centering of gender prevented it from being a reliable lens with which to analyze the work of Chinese and African American women...
Show moreThe opportunities created by the end of the Mao Era and legislature promoting the rights of African Americans and women in the mid-twentieth century allowed women of both cultures to break further into the literary scene and negotiate their own sense of agency through their work. Although Western feminism also grew rapidly throughout this period, its ethnocentric centering of gender prevented it from being a reliable lens with which to analyze the work of Chinese and African American women who experienced issues of race, class, and gender simultaneously. This caused Western feminists to evaluate the work of Chinese and African American women from a perspective of privilege and misrepresented the cultural, social, and political influences that impacted their agency. Thus, this paper seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of the intersectional paradigm as a comparative lens with which to analyze the construction of female characters in mid-twentieth century Chinese and African American fiction in place of a Western feminist lens. To this effect, it will apply the intersectional lens to Toni Morrison's Sula (1973) and Wang Anyi's Song of Everlasting Sorrow (2008) specifically, to determine how this research paradigm can be used to reveal the identities the female protagonists construct and their opportunities for agency. This paper hopes to increase discourse on the applications of intersectionality in literature as a tool for better understanding the literature of women of color.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFH0004436, ucf:45124
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004436
- Title
- A GENRE OF COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: BLOGS AS INTERTEXTUAL, RECIPROCAL, AND PEDAGOGICAL.
- Creator
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Gramer, Rachel, Bell, Kathleen, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This thesis investigates the rhetorical features of blogs that lend them dialogic strength as an online genre through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of speech genres, utterances, and dialogism. As a relatively new online genre, blogs stem from previous genres (in print and online as well as verbal), but their emergence as a popular form of expression in our current culture demands attention to how blogs also offer us different rhetorical opportunities to meet our changing social...
Show moreThis thesis investigates the rhetorical features of blogs that lend them dialogic strength as an online genre through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of speech genres, utterances, and dialogism. As a relatively new online genre, blogs stem from previous genres (in print and online as well as verbal), but their emergence as a popular form of expression in our current culture demands attention to how blogs also offer us different rhetorical opportunities to meet our changing social exigencies as online subjects in the 21st century. This thesis was inspired by questions about how blogs redefine the rhetorical situation to alter our textual roles as readers, writers, and respondents in the new generic circumstances we encounter--and reproduce--online. Applying the framework of Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture and Pierre Levy's Collective Intelligence, this thesis analyzes how blogs enable us as online subjects to add our utterances to our textual collective intelligence, which benefits from our personal experience and the epistemic conversations of blogs as online texts. In addition, it is also an inquiry into how the rhetorical circumstances of blogs as textual sites of collective intelligence can create a reciprocal learning environment in the writing classroom. I ultimately examine blogs through the lenses of alternative pedagogy--informed by David Wallace and Helen Rothschild Ewald's Mutuality in the Rhetoric and Composition Classroom and Xin Liu Gale's Teachers, Discourses, and Authority in the Postmodern Composition Classroom--to suggest the potential consequences of a writing education that includes how we are currently writing--and being written by--our culture's online generic practice of blogs.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- Identifier
- CFE0002402, ucf:47770
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002402
- Title
- Examining Gender in Pharmaceutical Rhetoric Through a Cultural Studies Lens: A Case Study on the Gardasil Vaccine.
- Creator
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Fickley, Jennifer, Bowdon, Melody, Scott, John, Bell, Kathleen, Delorme, Denise, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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On June 8, 2006, Merck announced the debut of Gardasil, the world's first vaccine found successful in preventing human papillomavirus (HPV) infections, a sexually transmitted infection that is one of the main causes of certain cancers in men and women, including cervical, vulvar, penile and anal cancers. To promote the vaccine's release, Merck launched Gardasil's (")One Less(") advertising campaign that included television commercials, print ads and a consumer-focused website (www.Gardasil...
Show moreOn June 8, 2006, Merck announced the debut of Gardasil, the world's first vaccine found successful in preventing human papillomavirus (HPV) infections, a sexually transmitted infection that is one of the main causes of certain cancers in men and women, including cervical, vulvar, penile and anal cancers. To promote the vaccine's release, Merck launched Gardasil's (")One Less(") advertising campaign that included television commercials, print ads and a consumer-focused website (www.Gardasil.com), each promoting the message that (")you(") could now be (")one less woman(") affected by cervical cancer ((")One Less(") campaign). The vaccine, tested and approved only for females age 9-26, was advertised to this age group, as well as parents or guardians responsible for making medical decisions for female minors. As the campaign launched, commercials depicted females laughing and enjoying hobbies while mentioning the positive decision they made to receive the Gardasil vaccine. Many commercials also included portrayals of mothers talking happily about their decision to get their young daughters vaccinated. Interestingly, male figures were completely left out of Gardasil's (")One Less(") campaign ads, despite the fact that in reality, males administer the vaccine as medical professionals, transmit the infection as sexual partners, and suffer cancers as HPV-infected patients. Males were even left out of the ads as parents, who were always portrayed by women in the ad campaign. Informed consumers may have expected all this to change on Oct. 16, 2009 (-) three years after Gardasil's debut (-) when the Food (&) Drug Administration (FDA) approved the vaccine for use in males age 9-26 to protect against HPV-caused genital warts. Though Merck's vaccine was now accessible to more consumers than ever, the advertising that surrounded this medical breakthrough changed very little. Television commercials for the vaccine still promoted Gardasil primarily to women for the purpose of preventing HPV-related cervical cancer. Again, men were not featured in commercials as medical professionals, parents, guardians, romantic partners, or even as patients able to get the vaccine. Males did begin appearing on the vaccine's official website, however these depictions were limited to showing only young boys, who appeared standing with a mother's protective arm around them. Males that represent the older age range (up to age 26) were never shown. What effect does the lack of male representation have on the verbal and nonverbal message these ads are sending consumers about who fits in the target consumer group, as well as who is at risk for an HPV infection? On a broader level, how does gender representation as a whole affect pharmaceutical advertisements and the adoption of the potentially life-saving products they promote? How does a pharmaceutical technology become (")gendered(")? How do specific gender portrayals impact the educational aspects of pharmaceutical ads, which may shape a consumer's opinion of who is at risk for an illness, and who is responsible for its treatment or prevention? And how do these gender portrayals connect with, reflect or reinforce dominant cultural beliefs about the roles males and females play in protecting themselves and others from disease? In this study, I investigate these questions using a blended cultural studies/social sciences research perspective, first looking at the controversial history of direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising and the gender stereotypes that traditionally exist in this form of rhetoric. I then test the affect Merck's gender portrayals has on its ad message in a blind study done with a small sample population, which provides evidence that Merck's ads are confusing and exclusive of certain populations, particularly men. I then investigate how Merck's existing gender portrayals, and strong focus on women, reflect larger historical beliefs on the roles that males and females play in health care and in the family. I show how, through advertising, Gardasil has become (")gendered(") as a pharmaceutical technology for female children. From here, I will show how pharmaceutical companies, such as Merck, have both reflected and reinforced the belief that women are the primary caregivers to children, how this stereotype is both damaging and statistically incorrect, and how using it targets Gardasil ads to a very narrow population of consumers, miscommunicating the message of who is at risk for illness contraction and perhaps even damaging sales in addition to prevention. I later provide evidence that Merck's current Gardasil ad series and other actions in the marketplace are dangerously misleading certain populations regarding the nature of the HPV virus, the protective abilities of the vaccine, and the populations responsible for accessing Gardasil. I then provide the argument that gendering Gardasil as a (")women's technology(") is done intentionally by Merck, which has a history of making profits a priority over responsibly treating patient health. I conclude by providing detailed suggestions on how Merck can augment their current ad series to de-gender Gardasil to become more medically responsible, and break out of the cycle of portraying men and women using damaging and outdated stereotypes. Instead, my suggestions for changes to Gardasil's advertising approach would make the vaccine's messages appeal to all audiences at risk.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- CFE0004304, ucf:49486
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004304
- Title
- Can Best Practices in Writing Instruction and Standardized Testing Coexist?.
- Creator
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Cannavino, Karen, Bell, Kathleen, Wardle, Elizabeth, Roozen, Kevin, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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At the high school level, teachers are tasked with a twofold agenda: they must prepare their students for college level and other post-secondary writing, and they must also make sure they perform well on the standardized writing tests that are required by the state. The stakes in standardized testing continue to rise, especially in Florida. Since the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 (NCLB) and the implementation of the Race to the Top Assessment Program (RTTT) in 2009, teachers...
Show moreAt the high school level, teachers are tasked with a twofold agenda: they must prepare their students for college level and other post-secondary writing, and they must also make sure they perform well on the standardized writing tests that are required by the state. The stakes in standardized testing continue to rise, especially in Florida. Since the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 (NCLB) and the implementation of the Race to the Top Assessment Program (RTTT) in 2009, teachers across the nation have experienced intense pressures related to standardized testing. Many schools' efforts to conform to testing requirements have had the unintended consequence of narrowing their focus to the content of the test. As teachers and administrators experience the pressure to meet the requirements, it has become impossible to implement any pedagogy without test results in mind. The challenge facing high school writing teachers is formidable: how can they best choose their new approach to pedagogy, given the pressures of standardized testing, the new curriculum requirements, and the need to ensure that they equip students with the skills they will need to write in college? This thesis explores the question by analyzing the key factors that impact writing instruction in Florida high school classrooms: testing requirements, curriculum requirements, and the content of writing textbooks being used. Do these factors encourage teachers to follow the best practices in writing instruction recommended by field-based research? What knowledge can we gain from comparing these factors, which may be helpful to today's writing instructors in light of the challenges they face? Through this research and analysis, I hope to provide insight that can inform high school writing teachers on the heart of the issue: is it possible for best practices in writing instruction and standardized testing to coexist in their classrooms?
Show less - Date Issued
- 2016
- Identifier
- CFE0006084, ucf:50956
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006084
- Title
- The Role of Occupational Branding in the Professionalization of Technical Communication.
- Creator
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Thomas, Chelsea, Jones, Dan, Flammia, Madelyn, Bell, Kathleen, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This study investigates the relationship between professional identity and professional status by exploring the quest for professionalization within technical communication. An established professional identity is crucial to an occupation's professionalization process, as it enables members of a given field to create a common sense of being and facilitates a recognizable personal and collective identity. Such recognition is vital to an occupation's rise to professional status, as it creates a...
Show moreThis study investigates the relationship between professional identity and professional status by exploring the quest for professionalization within technical communication. An established professional identity is crucial to an occupation's professionalization process, as it enables members of a given field to create a common sense of being and facilitates a recognizable personal and collective identity. Such recognition is vital to an occupation's rise to professional status, as it creates a distilled image of the ideal practitioner for outsiders and forms the basis upon which claims of expertise may be made. By constructing the meaning surrounding their profession, members are able to portray an image which designates their knowledge as a scarce expertise and their profession as the appropriate source for the services they provide.A lack of professional identity constitutes the primary factor hindering technical communication from realizing the professionalization process, as it prevents the formation of practitioners' common sense of being, promotes the absence of identifiability and precludes the possibility of recognition by larger society. Without an established professional identity, the field cannot formulate a culturally-relevant perception of its role, claim professional expertise or jurisdiction over their work, or achieve the social and cultural legitimacy necessary in order to increase its professional status. By implementing processes of occupational branding within the professional project, efforts involving the construction of collective professional identity will increase professional status by enabling a group's management of professional meaning, facilitating the creation of an occupational brand and assisting in value production.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2016
- Identifier
- CFE0006189, ucf:51137
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006189
