Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item Reading a novel in middle school science: the impact of socioscientific issues(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2021) Dobkins, Susie Ellen; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Greg FrancisThis study was conducted at Eileen Johnson Middle School, a 6-8 public middle school with about 400 students located in Billings, Montana. Since the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, schools have been under increased scrutiny to raise their student test scores in reading and math. Many schools have begun taking away students' science, social studies, and elective courses if they are testing below average in reading and/or math and placing them in an additional reading and/or math intervention course. This study aimed to see if incorporating a novel in a seventh-grade life science class could have a positive impact on students' enjoyment of reading, science content understanding, build 21st century skills such as perspective-taking and global-mindedness, as well as increase students understanding of socioscientific issues. Students were given a pre and post survey before beginning their Traits and Reproduction Unit. Students read between five to eight pages of the book per day at the beginning of class. The class then discussed what had occurred during that section and the discussion flowed wherever students wanted it to. Students in the treatment group showed a medium normalized gain in science content understanding whereas students in the non-treatment group showed a low normalized gain. Students showed a 75% increase in the answer response that showed an understanding of socioscientific issues, empathy, and a desire to be the scientist who cures malaria. Students showed an overall increase in responses that related to socioscientific issues such as who owns scientific information. Students who read the book had a large increase in seeing reading as useful in science. This study showed larger normalized gains in science content knowledge for the treatment group than the non-treatment group meaning reading a book on socioscientific issues could have helped students understand science content information. It also showed an increase in students understanding of socioscientific issues and global mindedness. In addition, students who read the book had an overwhelming increase in ability to see reading in science as useful in building their knowledge about the world and understanding of science content.Item Steady hammer: origins of American counterterrorism in the dime novel world of William J. Flynn(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2020) Roberts, Brent Sidney; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert RydellThis dissertation traces the life and times of William J. Flynn (1867-1928) as a means of understanding popular attitudes toward anarchism and terrorism, as well as expectations for protection from these forces, at the dawn of the twentieth century. Flynn was constantly at the nexus of law enforcement, serving as jailkeeper in the New York County correctional system; as agent, regional director, and national director of the U.S. Secret Service; and as director of the Bureau of Investigation. He also led a creative literary life, penning memoirs of his cases as novels and newspaper serials, and writing stories and editing a detective fiction magazine after his retirement from government service. Drawing on theories of popular culture of Russel Nye, as well as concepts of power and discourse of Michel Foucault, this study examined Flynn's literary works, historical documents from the Secret Service, Bureau of Investigation, and U.S. Railroad Administration, and popular dime novels to capture public perception of anarchists and expectations for protection from the terrorist threat. Anarchists were portrayed generally as unclean and often of foreign origin, while counter-anarchists appeared as capable, sharp-witted, affluent men and women. Temporality forms an important aspect of the study, demonstrating that Flynn's counterterrorist approach, as well as expectations for protection from terrorist violence, were rooted in elements of time. In a period when most detective work was financed by private individuals, Flynn built an identity for himself as a competent public official, and more importantly through his work and writings established the federal government as the primary entity capable of meeting the demands of protecting American citizens in the early twentieth century. Following retirement, Flynn continued his literary endeavors, always blurring the line between fact and fiction, generally cloaking his own adventures, all worthy of dime novels themselves, with a veneer of fiction.Item The motif of meeting: a content analysis of multi-voiced young adult novels(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 2019) Stolp, Susan Hardy; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Joyce Herbeck; Ann Ewbank (co-chair)The purpose of this study was to discover, through content analysis, polyphonic narrative strategies used in a small sample of multi-voiced young adult novels. The objective was to trace the paths of the individual narrators toward eventual meeting with or understanding of each other, looking for trends, commonalities, and unique qualities that characterize the polyphonic fugue described by McCallum (1999) and Bakhtin (1981). I envisioned these points of meeting as Bahktin's (1981) units of narrative analysis known as the chronotope, perfect alignments in time and space, functioning as connectors among strands within multi-voiced narratives. In Vivo Coding, springing from the actual language of participants, and Emotion Coding, making inferences about narrators' subjective experiences, were the guiding qualitative methodologies used in this content analysis. The combination of In Vivo and Emotion Codes provided the data that was used to analyze and interpret narrators' emotional journeys as well as their interactions with one another. The content analysis revealed a complexity of emotions among the ten individual narrators from the three novels studied. Patterns in their emotional journeys were determined and displayed using artistic representation. Points of meeting between and among narrators proved to be the impetus for individual change and growth. In terms of the fugue, the voices are independent of one another but also have shape and meaning in conjunction with one another (McCallum, 1999), and through analysis and interpretation of narrators' emotional arcs, these shapes and meanings emerged. In terms of significance, this content analysis provided evidence for the use of multi-voiced young adult literature to be a means by which to read with a critical literacy lens, for adolescents to realize their existence as part of a greater whole, and to imagine literature as a catalyst toward personal growth.Item The golden spy-masters & the devolution of the West in British espionage fiction(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2017) Lewis, Kelly Allyn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Maxwell UphausThe action of espionage has a tradition historically spanning millennia, reaching its peak of its public interest in the 20th Century when the spy went from state villain to international hero. With the support of the multinational public's explosive interest in spies and their politics, the literary world heralded the entrance of the professional provocateur into the numbers of the greatest literary figures ever known. But as the wars of the 20th Century and the role of the spy changed, cracks began to show in the edifices of state political morality through the cloak and dagger heroes of espionage fiction. Between two of the genre's most eminent authors, Ian Fleming and John Le Carre, the separation of representations of the West reveals the unique presence of an unspoken contradiction between the ethics of the British state and the ethics of the Western para-global societal alliance. Utilizing the heroism and liminality of the spy figure, these two authors portray the British state diametrically differently: one staunchly avoiding the friction and disillusionment of postwar Britain as a geopolitically ambiguous Western power, and the other embracing it. The differences in their Wests characterizes a series of evolving worldviews and perspectives on Britain's place within the Western hierarchy during the Cold War, emphasizing the growing social distance within the Anglo-American alliance and the development of the secret agent as a means of both reinforcing and subverting implicit societal ideals. By bringing into question not only what the West is to Britain, but why it can still be identified as a political entity even as it changes upturned perceptions of unity for the Western facade. The upheaval of this implicit perception highlighted the difference in the needs of two different generations of authors, readers, and spies to grapple with the ubiquitous presence of the West. For as in the clandestine world of real spies and their masters, nothing sacred, not even the West, can hold.Item Emerging identity in Afro-American women's novels, 1892-1937(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 1989) Goetz, Catherine CoughlinItem Lost or aware? : an examination of reading types(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2010) Forslund, Elizabeth Nicole; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert BennettReader response theorists focus on studying how and why readers read, and the effects of these practices on literacy. One aspect of reader response theory that has been largely ignored, however, is the fundamental conflict that exists between two different "types" of reading: reading for pleasure, or ludic reading, which I called "immersion reading," and reading with a critical detachment from the text, or "awareness reading." Theorists such as Louise Rosenblatt and Wolfgang Iser tend to favor one "type" of reading or the other, not acknowledging the fact that both "types" exist and exert a pull on the reader. The conflict that results between the two "types" of reading, I argue, are enforced by educational practices aimed at funneling students towards one type of reading, depending on age and educational level. This educational trend is problematic for two reasons. First, because it limits the perceived appropriateness and thus the scope of literacy education in schools, and second because it actively discourages readers-especially reluctant readers-from seeing literacy as complex, multifaceted and engaging. I argue instead in support of a metacognitive approach to literacy, one that recognizes the conflicts readers encounter and addresses the potential difficulties and successes facing student readers.Item Ecstatic truth through fiction : re-framing the science film to engage a wider audience(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2007) Smith, Elizabeth Ann; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: William NeffAmericans obtain a majority of their information about science through science films, primarily in the form of documentaries on television. However, despite the recent proliferation of these films, there is much discussion in the science filmmaking community about how ineffective these films have been lately at informing the public about science and compelling viewers to act. It is time to look at the underlying definitions of the genre from a different perspective and determine whether the current standards are the best way to successfully convey messages about science to the widest audience. To explore the possibilities for increasing the effectiveness of science filmmaking, one needs to look at the basic assumptions that come into play during the process of producing science films by re-framing the major components of the science film: goals, subject matter, audience, and format. This new set of paradigms reveals the possibility of another avenue - fiction.