A REVISIONARY APPROACH TO CROSS-CURRICULAR LITERACY WORK

In this dissertation, I use qualitative research methods to study relationships between compositionists and faculty in other disciplines in the context of cross-curricular literacy (CCL) work. Drawing on a two-year CCL project in the biology department, for which I was a participant observer, I argue that compositionists need to attend more carefully to issues that influence day-to-day interactions with disciplinary faculty in order to develop more meaningful CCL relationships. Toward that end, I offer a revisionary approach to cross-curricular literacy work that cultivates complex relationships by delaying consensus and embracing disconnection and disorientation. More specifically, I employ revisionary stance as a discursive strategy to complicate three key concepts in CCL literature and scholarship—expertise, change, and outcomes. I re-vision three texts produced during my time in the biology department in order to illuminate the complexities of negotiating expertise, recognizing change, and pursuing outcomes in CCL contexts. Given the reciprocal relationship between discursive and material change (Lee), I maintain that revision of CCL discourse can inspire revision on a pedagogical level, shaping how compositionists and disciplinary faculty participate in CCL interactions. Thus, a revisionary approach leads me to conceptualize revisionary pedagogy for cross-curricular literacy work. I theorize revisionary pedagogy as a means of fostering pedagogical relationships in CCL contexts, complicating how relationships are framed in traditional Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing in the Disciplines scholarship. The literature advances three main conceptual models of CCL, each of which embraces expertise, change, and outcomes in ways that sponsor potentially problematic relationships between compositionists and disciplinary faculty. I draw on Composition scholars’ rich conceptualization of revision (Jung; Lee; Welch) and pedagogy (Kameen; Qualley; Stenberg) to challenge the litany of next-best models and imagine alternative possibilities for relationships in CCL contexts. Revisionary pedagogy is a means of approaching material circumstances that reconstitutes how compositionists and disciplinary faculty conceive of and participate in CCL relationships.

Portraits of Protestant Teens: A Report on Teenagers in Major U.S. Denominations

This report examines the religious beliefs and practices of American Protestant teenagers using new, nationally representative survey data from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR). The NSYR is a major study of the religious and spiritual lives of contemporary American teens, which recently produced a book on its major findings entitled, Soul Searching: the Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (by Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton, Oxford University Press, 2005). In addition to broadly describing the religious outlook of Protestant teenagers today — and as a more detailed, descriptive follow-up to that book — this report highlights several positive and negative experiences and evaluations of teenagers in different Protestant denominations and groupings of denominations. In brief, this report presents the following findings in these areas of interest: ♦ Religious Participation: Protestant teenagers are relatively active in religious organizations and activities, both within and beyond their churches. About one-half of all Protestant teens attend church weekly, participate in Sunday school or in a religious youth group, pray and attend a religious summer camp or retreat, though less than one-third read the Bible each week. This also means, however, that substantial numbers of Protestant teens are not actively participating in their religious traditions. Teens from conservative denominations such as Southern Baptist Convention and Assemblies of God are especially likely to regularly attend church and participate in other religious activities. ♦ Theological Beliefs: Protestant teenagers are likely to hold many traditional Christian religious beliefs. The majority of Protestant teens say they believe in God, the afterlife, angels, demons, miracles, judgment day and they view God as a personal being involved in the lives of people today. Sizable numbers of Protestant teens, on the other hand, do not hold these traditional Christian religious beliefs. Teens from conservative and black Protestant denominations are more likely than mainline Protestant teens to hold these religious beliefs. ♦ Importance of Faith: The majority of Protestant teenagers report that their religious faith is very important in their lives. Most of them also say that their families talk about religion together, that they have shared their faith with someone not of their faith and that they have had a powerful worship experience. A large minority of all Protestant teenagers, and in the case of some denominations a majority of teenagers, do not report that religious faith is very important in their lives. Teens from conservative and black Protestant denominations are particularly likely to report that faith is important in their lives. ♦ Evaluations of Churches: The majority of Protestant teenagers express relatively positive views of their churches and fellow church members. They typically report that they would continue to attend church if it were totally up to them, that they would attend a similar church if given the choice and that their current church is generally warm and welcoming. Protestant adolescents, however, do have some reservations about and problems with their churches and fellow church attendees, as spelled out in the following pages, particularly with other teenage attendees.

The South Omaha Community Scholarship Program: A Qualitative Study of Persistence of Hispanic Students at Bellevue University

The purpose of this case study was to determine the impact of the South Omaha Community Scholarship Program on the persistence of the Hispanic students who participated. Previous research on Hispanic student persistence has focused on the reasons why students do not persist and more recent research has been conducted on programs and retention efforts, colleges and universities are implementing on their campuses. This study researched a specific program, The South Omaha Community Scholarship Program, designed to provide financial, academic and other needed resources to help Hispanic students persist to graduation. The researcher believes this study was important because it provided an overview of how the South Omaha Community Scholarship Program is affecting students both on campus and in their community. Eight interviews were conducted, with eligible students, in person. Students eligible for the study were current students or recent graduates of the South Omaha Community Scholarship Program and had attained at least junior or senior status as of the fall of 2009, as defined by Bellevue University. Research questions were based on the four components of the program and the affect the program had on the student’s life, outside of Bellevue University. The four components of the program were: financial aid, academic advising, the scholarship aid, and the Professional Enrichment Program. The results of the study were broken into five components with an additional section that provided other themes that were derived from the interviews. The five components were: (a) financial aid counseling, (b) academic advising, (c) scholarship aid, (d) Professional Enrichment Program, and (e) the South Omaha Community Scholarship Program beyond Bellevue University. Other themes that were derived from the interviews were: class format, deciding on a college, higher education class, campus resources, and a sense of community on-campus. The research found that the scholarship, provided by the South Omaha Community Scholarship Program, was the primary motivating factor for students to attend Bellevue University and persist in college. The interviewed students also commented on how the scholarship had given them the opportunity to attend college, even though that opportunity had seemed out of reach. The interviewed students also commented on their academic advising experience, campus resources, and feeling a sense of community on-campus as other campus related areas that were affected by the South Omaha Community Scholarship Program. Finally, students provided examples of how the South Omaha Community Scholarship Program impacted their connection to their South Omaha community through volunteer and employment opportunities. Adviser: Richard Hoover

Children’s Play in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A New Look at the Six Cultures Study

A qualitative and quantitative reanalysis of the Six Cultures data on children’s play, collected in the 1950s, was performed to revisit worlds of childhood during a time when sample communities were more isolated from mass markets and media than they are today. A count was performed of children aged 3 to 10 in each community sample scored as engaging in creative-constructive play, fantasy play, role play, and games with rules. Children from Nyansongo and Khalapur scored lowest overall, those from Tarong and Juxtlahuaca scored intermediate, and those from Taira and Orchard Town scored highest. Cultural norms and opportunities determined how the kinds of play were stimulated by the physical and social environments (e.g., whether adults encouraged work versus play, whether children had freedom for exploration and motivation to practice adult roles through play, and whether the environment provided easy access to models and materials for creative and constructive play).

Traces, Patterns, Texture: In Search of Aesthetic Teaching/Learning Encounters

This inquiry reveals the crucial guidance of teachers toward surveying the capacity and needs of students, the formation of ideas, acting upon ideas, fostering connections, seeing potential, making judgments, and arranging conditions. Each aesthetic trace causes me to wonder how teachers learn to create experiences that foster student participation in the world aesthetically. The following considerations surface: • Given the emphasis in schools on outcomes and results, how do we encourage teachers to focus on acts of mind instead of end products in their work with students? • Given the orientations toward technical rationality, to fixed sequence, how do we help teachers experience fluid, purposeful learning adventures with students in which the imagi¬nation is given room to play? • Given the tendency to conceive of planning in teaching as the deciding of everything in advance, how do we help teachers and students become attuned to making good judgments derived from within learning experiences? • How do we help teachers build dialogical multivoiced conversations instead of monolithic curriculum? • What do we do to recover the pleasure dwelling in subject matter? How do we get teachers and students to engage thoughtfully in meaningful learning as opposed to covering curriculum7 • A capacity to attend sensitively, to perceive the complexity of relationships coming together in any teaching/learning experience seems critical. How do we help teachers and students attend to the unity of a learning experience and the play of meanings that arises from such undergoing and doing? The traces, patterns, and texture evidenced locate tremendous hope and wondrous possibilities alive within aesthetic teaching/learning encounters. It is such aliveness I encountered in the grade 4 art classroom that opened this account and continues to compel my attention. Possibilities for teaching, learning, and teacher education emerge. I am convinced they are most worthy of continued pursuit.