"Compton's Human Sacrifice": Kendrick Lamar and the Identity of Exile

English Department Honors Thesis.Vanderbilt UniversityEnglish DepartmentCollege of Arts and Scienc

ELL Capstone Portfolio

Teaching and Learning Department capstone projectThe ELL Capstone portfolio is aimed at demonstrating my understanding of teaching English Language Learners (ELLs) and my mastery of relevant theoretical frameworks and pedagogy. It consists of three parts: My Philosophy of Teaching; TESOL Domains and Standards; Application to Practice. In the first part, I state my teaching philosophy by identifying what I value when teaching English as a foreign language, which is grounded on conceptual theories. In the second part, I demonstrate my interpretations of eight TESOL domains and standards, Planning, Instructing, Assessing, Identity and Context, Language Proficiency, Learning, Content and Commitment and Professionalism. Except Language Proficiency, along with each domain, one to two artifacts completed by me during my study in Peabody College are presented to assist in illustrating my understanding, in terms of the learner, the learning environment, the curriculum and the assessment, of the domain addressed. In the third part, I reflect upon what I have learned in the past two years and describe my ideal teaching model from the perspectives of lesson preparation, lesson delivery, assessment and reflection. More importantly, I anticipate possible challenges regarding my future teaching context and propose potential solutions. The portfolio is concluded by presenting my expectations for myself.Department of Teaching and LearningPeabody College of Education and Human Developmen

Social Horror and Social Media: The Threat of Emergent Technology in "Unfriended" and "Sickhouse"

English Department Honors Thesis.Vanderbilt UniversityEnglish DepartmentCollege of Arts and Scienc

Absent Characters: Stage Space and Social Change in Modern Drama

English Department Honors Thesis.Vanderbilt UniversityEnglish DepartmentCollege of Arts and Scienc

Executive Function, Coping, and Depressive Symptoms in Children of Depressed and non-Depressed Mothers

This study examines the associations among executive function, coping, and depressive symptoms in a sample of adolescents.The present study examined the concurrent associations among executive functioning, coping, maternal depression history, and depressive symptoms in adolescents. The sample included 82 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15 and their mothers, recruited to represent a range of maternal depression history. Results indicated that adolescents of mothers with a history of depression were more depressed than adolescents of mothers without a history. In the full sample, significant relations were found between measures of coping and depressive symptoms, executive function and depressive symptoms, and executive function and coping. The association between executive function and depressive symptoms was accounted for secondary control coping. Findings suggest that better EFs, coupled with increased secondary control coping, may protect against depressive symptoms in adolescents with and without a history of exposure to maternal depression.Vanderbilt UniversityPsychologyArts & SciencesThesis completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Honors Program in Psychological Science

“Benign Negligence: U.S.-South Korean Relations at the End of the Carter Administration”

History Department Honors Thesis, 2017. Awarded: Highest Honors.President Carter hoped to define his foreign policy on human rights and liberalization. With the removal of the longtime authoritarian leader, Park Chung Hee, the year 1979 presented an opportunity for democracy in South Korea in 1979. The Carter administration missed this opportunity because of world events and poor communication. This thesis analyzes President Carter’s goals and the way changed over the course of the administration. Ultimately, international crises like the oil crisis, the Iranian hostage crisis, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan distracted the administration from the hope for democratization in South Korea. This unintended negligence left the security-minded American officials in South Korea in charge. This thesis shows the opportunities and limits of American power abroad and the difficulty in pursuing a moralistic foreign policy.Department of HistoryCollege of Arts and Scienc

Bryan Lowe on Ritualized Writing: Buddhist Practice and Scriptural Cultures in Ancient Japan

In this podcast, Chris Benda, theological librarian at Vanderbilt Divinity Library, interviews Professor Bryan Lowe about his book Ritualized Writing: Buddhist Practice and Scriptural Cultures in Ancient Japan

ELL Capstone Portfolio

Teaching and Learning Department capstone projectThe capstone illustrates my philosophy of implementing culturally responsive teaching in various contexts, with more detailed elaboration in each domain of different aspects in teaching. The last part of application explains the difficulties which I encountered in my practicum and how I want to further explore into the profession of teaching. My philosophy is to hold a pluralistic attitude towards the different cultures of my students and their funds of knowledge. I envision to become a teacher who can find out the individualized needs of each student exactly and build on these funds to achieve an effective teaching. In order to realize the philosophy, I studied not only at the classroom level of planning, instructing and assessing, but also reach out to the community for resources of teaching. Furthermore, second language acquisition theories also provides a tool to facilitate my work. In practice, I mainly encounter the three problems of how to track student thinking, parent involvement, and interaction in class. All three problems try to answer the questions of what is the funds of knowledge, how to find the funds, and how to build on these funds. In the section, possible directions to solve these problems are proposed, and yet more exploration waits ahead to delve into the profession.Department of Teaching and LearningPeabody College of Education and Human Developmen

“Jeffrey Sachs and the Costs of Capitalism. Shock Therapy in eastern European Transition Economies”

History Department Honors Thesis, 2017. Awarded: Honors.This thesis examines economist Jeffrey Sachs’s implementation of shock therapy in transition economies from 1985-1994. Analysis begins with the foundation of the practice in Bolivia, and examines the changes in the approach and evolution of thinking that impacted its execution in Poland and subsequently post-soviet Russia. This thesis argues that the successes and failures of this economic practice are heavily dependent on two determinant factors – international backing for debt forgiveness, and the amount of cohesive national support for the effort. Ultimately, Russia failed to see the economic growth following Sachs’s intervention that Bolivia and Poland experienced; however, their individual successes also came with significant drawbacks in the form of rioting and a constitutional state of siege in Bolivia, and deindustrialization and unchecked increases in unemployment in Poland. This thesis concludes that current economic and historiographical interpretations of these transitions are too narrow in their analysis, and that the discrepancies behind Jeffrey Sachs’s, among other economic advisers’, ability to fully implement these policies from nation to nation contextualizes their effects on macroeconomic stabilization.Department of HistoryCollege of Arts and Scienc

A Multilevel Logistic Regression Analysis on the Likelihood of Overeating and Unplanned Eating

This paper analyzed three models of emotional eating: the restraint disinhibition model, the affect-regulation model, and the externality model (Herman and Polivy, 1975; Haedt-Matt & Keel, 2011; Schachter, 1968). Emotional eating is a risk factor that contributes to the probability that a person will overeat or have an unplanned meal, which can contribute to weight gain and obesity (Goldbacher et al., 2012). Using multilevel logistic regression in Hierarchical Linear and Nonlinear Modeling (HLM) software, two-level models were created with overeating and unplanned eating as the dependent variables (Version 7; Raudenbush, Bryk, & Congdon, 2010). All three models provided valid frameworks for understanding the risk factors associated with overeating and unplanned eating. Level 1 of the models included situational factors (e.g. negative mood, place, people, and type of meal), which were analyzed to understand how context affected the probability of overeating and unplanned eating. Level 2 of the models included within-person characteristics (e.g. BMI, age, race), which were analyzed to understand how individual demographics affected the probability of overeating and unplanned eating.Vanderbilt UniversityPsychologyCollege of Arts and ScienceThesis completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Honors Program in Psychological Science