The Painter and the Scullery Boy: Pietro da Cortona in Nineteenth-Century Children’s Literature

Although he was an international celebrity in his own lifetime, Pietro da Cortona’s reputation plummeted soon after his death, due in large part to changing standards of taste in the eighteenth century that were hostile to the extravagances of the Baroque style that he epitomized. By the nineteenth century it is difficult to find a positive evaluation of Cortona in any art-theoretical literature. Newly discovered material, however, reveals that a fable featuring the artist was widespread in children’s literature throughout the century, written by some of the leading historians and children’s authors in Europe and America. This article examines how elements of artistic biography were appropriated to serve a burgeoning genre of literature intended to shape children’s character and conduct, and explores what these stories can tell us about Cortona’s popular, as opposed to academic, reception in the centuries following his own

Calculus Students\u27 Understanding of the Derivative in Relation to the Vertex of a Quadratic Function

The purpose of this study was to gain insight into students\u27 understanding of the vertex of the quadratic function in connection to the concept of derivative by use of the think-aloud method as a means of data collection. Thirty students enrolled in a Calculus of One Variable I course participated. By analyzing students\u27 comprehension of the vertex of a quadratic function and the derivative not only during think-aloud sessions, but also during follow up interviews and on written work, this contributed to a better understanding of how students relate the concepts. Several different theoretical frameworks were used to analyze student comprehension. This gave multiple viewpoints to further explore students\u27 thoughts as they worked either aloud individually or in a group setting. First, APOS theory (Asiala et al., 1996) was used to analyze students\u27 understanding of the concept of vertex of the quadratic function in relation to the derivative on certain tasks. Students\u27 personal meaning of the vertex and its impact on the understanding of the derivative was noted as well as students\u27 lack of connection between explicit and real world problems. Obstacles of misconception of the vertex, trouble with the free fall formula, and problems with graphing due to a weak schema of quadratic functions were all identified as barriers to student understanding of real world problems. Next, Skemp\u27s (1976) relational and instrumental understanding framework was used to explain how students think-aloud individually. Trends in the thought process while working alone as well as students\u27 ability to identify and correct mistakes were analyzed. Lastly, Vygotsky\u27s (1978) concept of zone of proximal development was used to describe the difference in ability of students working by themselves versus in a group setting. In a group setting, some students worked within their zone of proximal development as they were influenced by peers to fix incorrect solutions. Based on APOS, several suggested activities pertaining to the quadratic function and its derivative were developed for implementation in the classroom to help students overcome misconceptions and obstacles. Future research is suggested as a continuation to improve student understanding of quadratic functions and the derivative

Book Reviews

A General Rhetoric (J. Dubois, F. Edeline, J.-M. Klinkenberg, P. Minguet, F. Pire, H. Trinon) (Reviewed by Roger Fowler, University of East Anglia)Saving the Text: Litererture/Derrida/Philosophy (Geoffrey H. Hartman) (Reviewed by Robert Moynihan, State University College of New York, Oneonta)Endlesse Worke: Spenser and the Structures of Discourse (Jonathan Goldberg) (Reviewed by Michael McCanlse, Marquette University)Romantics, Rebels and Reactiona1ies, English Literature and its Backg;round 1760-1830 (Marilyn Butler) (Reviewed by Michael Scrivner, Wayne State University)The Trans-parent: Sexual Politics in the Language of Emerson (Eric Cheyfitz) (Reviewed by Kerry Charles Larson, University of Michigan)Joyce\u27s Cities: Archaeologies of the Soul (Jackson I. Cope) (Reviewed by Karen Lawrence, University of Utah)Agon: Towards a Theory of Revisionism (Harold Bloom) (Reviewed by Daniel O\u27Hara, Temple University)Donald Barthelme: The Ironist Saved From Drowning (Charles Molesworth) (Reviewed by Charles Baxter, Wayne State University)Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage (Stanley Cavell) (Reviewed by Dennis Turner, Wayne State University

The Ambience of Innovation: a Material Semiotic Analysis of Corporate and Community Innovation Sites

There are unprecedented opportunities in professional and technical writing (PTW) and rhetoric research thanks to a contemporary expansion of rhetorical studies beyond the linguistic/symbolic and into the material, accounting for the rhetorical contributions of “nonhumans” (Latour Reassembling the Social). Material rhetoric frameworks such as Thomas Rickert’s ambient rhetoric and Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory, provide fertile grounds for PTW/rhetoric research that explores the diffusion of “rhetoric into material space” (Rickert xii) which has especially exciting implications for the study of place and how it embodies values and rhetorically shapes acting, thinking, and the entire spectrum of “human flourishing” (Rickert xii). This renewed interest in the rhetoric of artifacts and how they unite to enact agency within material spaces correlates with an enduring PTW/rhetoric interest in the process that creates things: innovation. The rhetoric of innovation analyzes the complex communication process involved with generating, conveying, and transferring ideas into marketable technology products (Doheny-Farina; Akrich, Callon, and Latour). This work, then, contributes to contemporary PTW/rhetoric research by applying commitments of rhetorical material-semiotics to innovation to understanding the context of innovation and the role of place in ideation. My underlying rhetorical interest within these spaces is the generation, communication, and dispersal of agency during ideation. I explore this process from three perspectives: how the designers of innovation spaces and workshop leverage material context to convey values of innovation; how the artifacts within innovation spaces enact agency upon facilitators and participants to shape their approaches to the innovation process; and how agency is symmetrically distributed across a network of human and nonhuman actants during real time ideation. My project analyzes innovation workshops, brainstorming sessions, and strategic planning sessions, within eight material spaces designed to cultivate creativity through different material means. These spaces are diverse as are the sessions I observed, but, across all of them, I apply a mix of observation, interviews, and ambience descriptions in order to pursue the answers to my research questions and uncover insights about the dispersal of agency within innovation spaces. My analysis of these spaces has numerous implications for PTW/Rhetoric scholars in its expansion of material rhetorics into space analysis; it also has implications PTW/Rhetoric teaching related to materially distribution of agency in the classroom space. Finally, it can help innovation practitioners such as interior designers, engineers, and industrial designers to rhetorically communicate their values of innovation and establish a culture of innovation in their companies through material-linguistic means

Teacher Thoughts on Infographics as Alternative Assessment: A Post-Secondary Educational Exploration

This qualitative phenomenological case study is designed to investigate the learning outcomes, lived experiences, and perceptions of eight post-secondary teachers participating in a sketch-based infographic development training program. This research is designed to assess the viability of infographics as a learning and assessment strategy, providing insight into the application of infographics to the post-secondary education environment, and informing the development of an instructional and assessment model with prescriptive conditions for usage and training. This research provides much needed empirical support for specific applications of visualization tools in the post-secondary learning environment with a specific focus on teacher perspectives providing additional insight into visual skill development, learning environment considerations, training requirements and support implications associated with infographics. This study revealed five (5) major themes associated with the use of infographics as alternative assessment in post-secondary education. These five interconnected themes include Using Infographics, Teaching Infographics, Developing Infographics, Assessing with Infographics and Infographics and Learning. A prescriptive model and approach for using, teaching, developing, and assessing infographics in post-secondary educational settings is presented

Accessing Academe, Disabling the Curriculum: Institutional Locations of Dis/ability in Public Higher Education

The field of Disability Studies has long committed itself to the project of making American colleges and universities more accessible places for disabled faculty, staff, and students. Indeed, many of the field of early ideological roots of the discipline of Disability Studies (DS) emerged from campus-based activist movements. This influence has impacted the ways DS scholars continue to frame their intellectual labor as a progressive public good. In recent years, composition/rhetoric scholars have begun applying DS approaches to questions of pedagogical and professional access as well. These critiques have drawn attention the ways teaching practice, administrative policy, and other aspects of academic life are undergirded by many of the same ableist values that pervade other professional environments. This dissertation investigates the history of disability-related institutional work in the City University of New York across three distinct periods: I use archival analysis to discuss New York City’s unique municipal college system’s early 20th century programs, which defined disability access in terms of a medical rehabilitation model; second, I use oral history to document important institutional changes that came to CUNY (which was officially organized only in 1961) during the 1970s, when students began organizing disability activist coalitions and CUNY began institutionalizing system-wide disability services; finally, I draw from unofficial archives and further oral histories to examine the impacts of the rise in learning and other invisible disabilities in CUNY in the 1980s and 90s. This history demonstrates both the complex problem of designing equitable programs for disability access, and the generative possibilities of incorporating disability into the mainstream mission of higher education

Modding the Apocalypse: (Re)Making Videogames as Post-Structuralist Free Play

This dissertation is about seeing videogames, and videogame design, through the lens of Gregory Ulmer ™s electracy apparatus theory. Videogame modding is emphasized an electrate approach to intervening in existing media. Mods have the potential to make potent rhetorical arguments, but they are little-understood in the field of rhet-comp, and there are numerous obstacles to carving a space for them in academic curricula; nevertheless, they are an increasingly common form of participatory engagement that make use of a broad digital skillset. Modders fit into Gregory Ulmer ™s electracy apparatus as egents ”agents of change in the Internet age ”and their playful appropriation of objects from various archives resembles the electrate genre of MyStory (personal alternative-history). By positioning modding as electrate composition praxis, a new gateway for academic game study and production is opened, one where play is integral to the process of knowledge formation. Fallout 4 (2016) serves as an example of a moddable game whose rhetorical affordances can be adapted to craft MyStories and MEmorials

Disability and College Composition: Investigating Access, Identity, and Rhetorics of Ableism

This dissertation analyzes the accessibility and accommodation experiences of students with disabilities in college writing classrooms at a Midwestern public research university. The study argues that writing teachers need to work more deliberately to increase access and that this can be achieved by listening to students’ suggestions for enabling accessible pedagogies. Increasing access requires that disability awareness be integral to the design of a course, not simply adding accommodations as a retrofit for individual students. Drawing on the perspectives of students with disabilities, access-centered pedagogy is presented as an alternative to accommodation models. Access-centered pedagogy is an approach to teaching that considers access a central value and aims for sustained and reflective attention to ensuring its realization for all students. Finally, the dissertation investigates the rhetorics of ableism to which students with disabilities are subject and makes an argument for combating such discrimination, through pedagogy, administration, and increased attention to disability as both subject position and critical modality