Emily Dickinson in vain

This is a biography of the nineteenth century poet, Emily Dickinson.Women's and Gender Studie

Beginning your career during the Covid-19 pandemic: potential impacts on newcomers

The following master’s thesis examines the potential impacts on career beginners during the COVID-19 pandemic and how their newcomer socialisation may be impacted in such unprecedented times, by drawing on qualitative research. Within the framework of this research, newcomer socialisation refers to the process of successfully integrating and adjusting a newcomer into their workplace. This thesis finds evidence for newcomer socialisation being influenced due to the associated burdens of working remotely, resulting in the majority of newcomers not yet feeling entirely integrated in the organisations

21st Century Motherhood: Navigating Work, Family, and the Struggle to Have it All

This dissertation examines the experiences of first-time mothers’ transition to motherhood in the 21st century United States. Based on interviews with 46 first-time mothers, as well as eight practitioners who work with new mothers, I explore women’s experiences of the transition to motherhood. The research questions I answer are: (1) How do women in the 21st century navigate the transition to motherhood? (2) What broader social issues are visible in individual women’s troubles as they become mothers? and (3) What factors may exacerbate or mediate these troubles? These questions are addressed in three distinct papers which explore, in turn, institutional (policy), interactional (technology), and cultural (ideology) factors impacting women’s transition to motherhood. In the first article, I explore how, in the absence of a federally mandated parental leave policy, American women’s occupational group shapes their access to parental leave. I find that disparities in access to formal benefits, including job security and paid or unpaid time off, are exacerbated by inequitable access to informal benefits, such as flexible hours and accommodations offered by “understanding” bosses. Further, these differences are reinforced by women’s ability to leverage cultural capital and knowledge to access (or fail to access) these informal benefits. In the second article, I explore how women use social media and technology across the transition to motherhood. I find that while technology can fill a necessary gap—helping women stay more connected to social, cultural and material resources—paradoxically, it can also exacerbate some of the challenges of early motherhood, by heightening anxiety, fear and insecurities of new mothers. I conclude that, despite technology’s potential to extend social support and connectedness for first-time mothers, it may also create a new source of invisible labor for women, such as the need to manage and curate not only her own online presence but also that of her baby. Women who opt out of social networking sites also opt out of the social support they stand to gain from them. In the third article, I examine how cultural scripts may exacerbate the transition to first-time motherhood. While the transition to motherhood can be difficult for many women, not all participants in my sample found it equally disruptive of their lives. Specifically, those women who had prior experience with children were often better prepared not only experientially but also with narratives to combat oppressive, dominant ideologies about motherhood. In contrast, new mothers with more limited experience with infants frequently turned to expert advice or social networking to learn how to mother, but often struggled with incompatibilities between their expectations and reality, which could result in a particularly disruptive and isolating transition. In each of these studies, I explore how structural factors such as occupational group, social support and cultural scripts about motherhood shape the very personal and individual experience of the transition to motherhood. Through highlighting the strengths and challenges facing new mothers, I hope to push us to more critical conversations about how we as a society can support women who bear children.PHDSocial Work & SociologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145984/1/charityh_1.pd

Improving Engagement and Literacy Skills with Choice Literacy Centers

As students transition to middle and high school, opportunities for student choice within curriculum become limited, and there is a need for students to have authentic literacy and decision-making opportunities. Key influences during research of this project include Kelly Gallagher, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser, and Linda Gambrell and Lesley Mandel Morrow’s Best Practices in Literacy Instruction. Research indicates that benefits of literacy centers include fostering engagement, literacy skill growth, opportunities for small-group instruction, and developing student autonomy. The curriculum designed for this project took the form of student choice literacy centers. The purpose of this project was to design weekly literacy centers to implement in a seventh grade English Language Arts classroom in order to increase student engagement and autonomy; these improvements then further develop student literacy skills. These centers include at least one activity from each of the following categories: vocabulary, fluency/listening, digital literacy and print concepts, choice reading, choice writing, research, and missing work. There is also small-group instruction for completing needs assessments and to provide supplemental instruction for students identified with reading struggles. This project has students complete a portfolio assessment at the end of term, including tracking cards that indicate their practice at all of the centers throughout the term. This portfolio includes pieces that the student identifies as showcasing their abilities in a variety of literacy skills. These literacy centers are meant to encourage students to be curious and engaged learners

A Saturday at the lake and other stories

These five stories, with the exception of "Easily, Turk," are concerned with the problem of Will, not in its freedom but in its exercise. The majority of the characters in these stories are attempting to posit a self-reliant existence for themselves and it is the apparent success or failure of their personal strengths that make up the theme of most of these stories

Music Speaks, We Listen: A Teacher\u27s Guide for Using Music in the Adult ELL Classroom

Too often adult ESL students are stymied by high levels of perfectionism, self-consciousness and anxiety when trying to learn English. They are further challenged because they may have come from a country where language teaching methods have not kept up with the times, so have an imbalance of skills—lacking speaking and listening skills. When students’ affective filters are high and their motivation is low they are less open to learning. Students need authentic, culturally-relevant material to stimulate learning and activate their multiple intelligences. The purpose of this project is to introduce adult ESL teachers to using popular songs to teach English. Music-centered curriculum offers rich, authentic and culturally-relevant material for use in the adult ESL classroom. This project explores research in second language acquisition and the neuro-cognitive and psychological benefits of using music in adult ESL. Finally, practical aspects of materials development are presented for music-centered classroom activities with specific songs as examples to teach vocabulary, speaking, listening, grammar and pronunciation

The Cowl - v. 74 - n. n/a - Feb 11, 2010

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 74 - Number n/a - February 11, 2010. 8 pages