Scholarship & Research
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Item Assessing the readability of educational material for the urology patient with benign prostatic hyperplasia(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Nursing, 2020) Cramer, Haily Lynn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Angela JukkalaEducation for the Bozeman Health Urology patient is not standardized and at the recommended AMA reading level. Patient education is outdated, either verbal or written, and differs between providers. A microsystem assessment, patient survey, and staff survey have presented the need to assess patient education and education readability. Results have presented the average urology patient is male with a diagnosis of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). This assessment concluded patient education needs to be standardized and tailored specifically to this population to increase patient satisfaction and improve clinical processes. Using Up-to-Date and assessment readability tools, patient education can be created based on evidence-based information.Item Incorporating literature into the science classroom(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2018) Browning, Linzy Sue; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Greg FrancisIntegration of subjects is a major goal within the classical education model, with teachers and parent educators seeking to present the various areas of study as interrelated strands, rather than stand-alone subjects. This project sought to integrate age-appropriate literature into an elementary homeschool co-op class's science course work to determine if doing so had an effect on student performance and student attitudes. It also assessed parental attitudes, in particular the extent to which the treatment modeled to them assisted them in integrating literature and history into their science instruction and how they felt about that. During the comparison and treatment periods, students were engaged in an 8-week human body unit, which included memorizing the major parts of each body system, experimenting with a variety of phenomena related to the function of the various systems, and making a life-sized paper model of the entire body with all of the major organs. During the 4-week comparison period, students were introduced to the week's body system and organs, with discussion about what functions the system and organs carry out. This was followed by a lab activity in which students explored a phenomenon related to the function of the system introduced that day. During the treatment period, classroom instruction was modified to incorporate 10-15 minutes of interaction with literature related to the body system and organs being studied, and students received literature to interact with during the week. Weekly quizzes showed an insignificant rise in scores with the treatment. However, student surveys and student and parent interviews indicated a decidedly positive shift in attitude toward the content with the incorporation of literature into the lessons.Item Writing-about-writing and Joan Didion: creating a space for emotion as epistemic tool in first-year composition(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2018) Christen, Julie Ann; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Kathleen RyanThis project considers the problem of the cultural binary created between emotion and reasoning as ways of knowing. I address this binary within the context of first-year composition (FYC) by developing three central tenets for emotion as epistemic tool through a review of emotion scholarship in rhetoric and composition. These include: 1) emotions must be specific and nameable; 2) emotion challenges cultural assumptions and beliefs; and 3) we use the connection between emotion and experience as a method of inquiry. Having established these tenets, I situate emotion as epistemic tool in a writing-about-writing (WAW) approach to FYC and argue that this pedagogy is an effective site for emotion as epistemic tool, though it lacks concrete examples for how this works in writing. To address that, I suggest Joan Didion's memoirs as an access point for students to see emotion working as epistemic tool outside academic writing. Finally, I connect these agendas in a curriculum design for a WAW course in FYC on emotion as epistemic tool that includes a course schedule, assignment sheets, and unit rationales.Item Bitter business and spoken daggers: George Peele's senecanism and the origins of William Shakespeare's ethos of revenge in 'Titus Andronicus'(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2017) Lynch, Jeff Raymond; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Gretchen E. MintonFor nearly three centuries, scholars and critics have argued that Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare's earliest revenge tragedy, lacks for thematic and characterological consistency and dramaturgical merit. Many have suggested that Titus was not written by Shakespeare--or not written by him alone. In 2002, British scholar Brian Vickers presented a comprehensive study of the authorship of the play, concluding that Titus was co-written by Shakespeare and his early modern contemporary George Peele. Critical literary scholarship has not caught up with Vickers's settlement of the authorship question and there exists a lacuna in the analysis of the play, namely, for my purposes, how do the disparately authored scenes reflect sourcing influences and intratextual character development regarding revenge as a literary descendant of classical drama and as an ethical enterprise of moral agents. Shakespeare's subsequent treatments of the ethical dimensions of vengeance, as both a public and private manifestation of the quest for justice and a psychological response to injury, spawn from the complex tropology in Titus--both those he assumed from Peele and those he introduced into the text himself. A study of the moral philosophy espoused in the joint composition of Titus affords the opportunity for a deeper understanding of how early modern playwrights addressed the desire for revenge as a psychological and moral activity and how the jointly composed play launched Shakespeare's subsequent negotiation with the revenge tragedy genre and the ethos of revenge in his later revenge tragedies.Item Diverse literature in elementary school libraries: who chooses and why?(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 2017) Bulatowicz, Donna Marie; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Joyce HerbeckPublished children's literature in the United States overrepresents some identities while underrepresenting others, such as people of color, LGBT people, people with disabilities, people who live below the poverty line (Crisp et al., 2016), and more. Thus, some children may not encounter text representative of their identities. As literature can assist with identity development and provide ways for children to learn about those who differ from self, the lack of diversity in children's books disadvantages children with minoritized and majoritized identities (Bishop, 2012; Koss, 2015; Lifshitz, 2016; Schachter & Galili-Schachter, 2012). School librarians function as gatekeepers through the purchase and promotion of various texts. The decisions made by these gatekeepers may enable greater access to representative literature or may limit access. This illustrative case study with a descriptive survey examines the frequency with which librarians promote diverse literature, their comfort level doing so, and how they describe the factors that impact their decisions regarding diverse text. The researcher created an online survey on Qualtrics with both quantitative and qualitative questions and emailed 1,137 elementary school librarians in Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming to request participation in the survey. One hundred and sixteen librarians completed the survey. Eight participants self-selected for interviews. Librarians felt most uncomfortable promoting books with LGBT characters, and were most likely to "never" promote these books than any other type of diverse identity listed in the survey. Two main themes emerged from this study: internal and external factors impact librarian decision making regarding promotion of diverse texts, and some librarians may self-censor purchase and/or promotion of diverse texts. This study offers insight into the factors that impact librarian decision making, as well as how frequently librarians promote diverse texts and their comfort level promoting diverse literature. The study concludes with an examination of the implications from this study, including lack of available texts reflective of LGBT identities, a possible need for training regarding intellectual freedom and the librarian code of ethics, and the impacts of budget issues. Finally, recommendations for future studies are explored, which may further illuminate this under-researched area.Item Wards of state: complicating agency and identity for youth in foster care as portrayed in young adult literature(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2017) Stephens, Shauna Mae; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert PetroneYoung adult literature has become popular amongst a wider audience, and accordingly has developed significant influence on youth and adults alike. Because of this, it is important for scholars and educators to critically consider what messages the literature is passing on to and about adolescents. Texts that feature youth in foster care break from the tradition in some important ways, giving greater influence and visibility to the institutional authorities that operate in the lives of youth. Critically examining these texts allows insight into the messages inherent in the literature about adolescent agency and authority, and the way such messages reinforce the cultural construct around youth in general, and foster youth specifically. This project begins with an examination of the theoretical background around the cultural construct of youth, the critical merit of young adult literature, and the institutional authorities at work in both. Then, these ideas are applied to the critical textual analysis of four recent, popular young adult novels that feature youth in foster care. Looking across the text set from this position demonstrates the power of the institutions over individual agency. Additionally, the web of authority created by the muddying of any defining lines within and between institutions and the lack of stability in their lives makes coming to any single sense of self nearly impossible. At the end of each text, the only option they have to find any stability is to give up their agency and submit to the institutions that operate in their lives. The analysis shows that the literature that is available fails to show the complicated life of foster youth for what it is, instead reinforcing the stereotypes while continuing to support the status quo. Studies like this one may be able to help break from the tradition and allow for a more critical reading of young adult literature, giving agency back to the very youth targeted by the texts.Item We're not much to look at: resisting representations of rurality using a critical rural perspective(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2017) Behrens, Allison Nicole; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert PetroneAddressing the challenges and silences faced by rural schools and students is a matter of social justice, making rural issues a valid and needed topic for classroom study. This project addresses the minimal curricular presence of contemporary rural literary representations in the secondary English classroom. It investigates rural depictions in several Young Adult (YA) novels which reveal the persistent presence of stereotypical depictions of rural people and places. Because of the presence of these stereotypes, this project offers an analysis tool for engaging with rural texts called the Critical Rural Perspective. This paper also examines some possible benefits of using rural YA literature in the classroom. When contemporary rural YA novels are read in the classroom, students can transfer their understanding of the discursive construction of rurality seen in textual representations to the ways that language is used to create what it means to be rural. By becoming aware of the construction of rural identity, students can analyze, resist, and manipulate the single story of rurality which can set the stage for a more nuanced societal understanding of rural people.Item A comparison of the achievement gains between a group of students taught English by a traditional method and a group taught by the Nebraska English curriculum(Montana State University - Bozeman, 1969) Ottinger, Mary Ann BlazichItem Spiral stairways : towards defining a romantic map of identity(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2004) Genito, Virginia Lee; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Marvin D. L. LansverkThe purpose of this paper is to define, interpret, and account for elements of a “Romantic map of identity” as set forth by Plotinus and adapted by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others in the Neoplatonic Romantic tradition. The methodology explores interrelationships between the map’s components by defining the terms: (1) “Romantic,” (2) “map,” and (3) “identity,” drawing on the Christian Neoplatonic tradition of the early British Romantics, the Romantic transcendentalists of New England, and the related terms and concepts developed by C. G. Jung. Romantic characteristics are organized into four cardinal points: (1) a focus on concepts and representation of the whole self, (2) a transcendent vision of the emanation and fall of the soul from its source, (3) a sense of the mission to facilitate the soul’s return through unity, and (4) an emphasis on the creative, self-expressive individual in his or her personal environment and historical context. To explore the meaning of “identity,” Plotinus’s and Coleridge’s versions of the stages of identity development are outlined and compared in detail. This method demonstrates how synthesizing the four essentials with the Romantic mapping process generates a worldview, articulated by Coleridge, that echoes the Plotinian schema of the origin and creation of consciousness. This includes the theory that self-consciousness develops in stages through the circular process of the descent from the Source (through emanation) and the return (through soul evolution) within a larger macrocosmic context. These stages of development are schematized as a hierarchy, or the Great Chain of Being, and a holarchy, or inherent analogies between inner and outer experience. This approach generates an identity-mapping model that combines hierarchical and holarchical patterns, accounting for various mapping processes in the Neoplatonic Romantic tradition. This model is egg-like with layers, the ovoid “sliced” into “horizontal” sections, which synthesizes the “flat” hierarchical ladder design with the concentric spheres of a holarchy. This paper concludes that mapping the Romantic scheme of identity is important and relevant today; for an individual can rise no higher than his or her self-conception, and a culture can evolve no further than its most enlightened and self-realized individuals.Item On the English classroom as discourse community : an inclusive pedagogy(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2004) Sherrill, Perri Wilson; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Kimberly MyersOur use of language provides us with a means to negotiate our interactions with the world. For many new college students, learning the language necessary to participate in academic discourse is a barrier to success. The idea presented in this thesis of an inclusive pedagogy primarily bridges the gap between the discourse used in academic situations and the various discourses students bring with them to academy. Since identity cannot and should not be erased from students’ studies and work, we must conceive of ways to break down the binary opposition between students’ academic and nonacademic identities. Simply stated, teachers can include all students by inviting them to examine the experiences upon which their prior knowledge is built, thus helping them see their experience as a path to transformation and new learning. A struggle for a diverse group of learners, brought together in an English course not by common interest but by the need to fill a university requirement, is to find a common language in which each individual member of the group can thrive. So, an initial lack of shared knowledge is an obstacle to the kind of inclusive pedagogy I advocate. Classroom communities of introductory courses have the potential to engage students in the shared purposes, understandings, interests, and language of particular disciplines. Therefore, I propose introducing students to the characteristics of different discourse communities and sharing the expectations of the particular discourse inherent in a given discipline—English in this case. Demystifying the concepts of discourse and discourse communities, by reading, writing, and speaking about them, will help students understand more about the knowledge we all already have as language users and thus begin to bring together the different ways of knowing they practice.