From composition to transcription: A study of conceptual understanding and levels of awareness in thinking used by children during specific genre writing tasks

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This naturalistic study of cases explores the interrelationship between children’s awareness of their own thought processes, their ability to understand key concepts and concept vocabulary and integrate new ideas into their existing knowledge base when engaged in specific genre writing tasks. An adaptation of the framework, originally devised by Swartz and Perkins (1989), was used to identify the levels of awareness in thinking displayed by eight Year 3 children, when engaged in genre writing tasks during one academic year. The addition of ‘collaborative use’ to this framework highlights ways in which collaborative thinking can act as a support for young writers. When children co-construct ideas they endeavour to make their thinking explicit thus enabling teachers to assess levels of conceptual understanding whilst the children are engaged in a writing task. Evidence also suggests that young writers move in and out of the suggested levels of thinking depending on the complexity of the task, their prior knowledge and understanding of key concepts and awareness of the working strategies and thought processes they employ. This study not only contributes to current research on genre writing within school based contexts but makes a unique contribution by highlighting the need for pedagogical strategies to focus on the way young writers think about and understand the underlying concepts and principles related to genre writing tasks. Evidence also suggests that learning objectives presented to this age group often focus on the factual and procedural aspects of a writing task. However, when factual, procedural and conceptual aspects are made explicit through clear, thought-provoking learning objectives then children are able to develop their own creative responses within the linguistic and textual structures of the given genre without being confined by them

Under construction : acting, creativity, collaboration, and SITI company.

This dissertation is a case study of New York’s Saratoga International Training Institute (known as SITI Company), one of the most innovative American theatre companies of the last twenty-five years. Research for this study was based in part on the author’s experience with the work of SITI throughout those years, including participation in intensive training with the company and observations of rehearsal and performance of the 2014 world premiere production of Steel Hammer at the Humana Festival of New American Plays, at Actors Theatre of Louisville. SITI Company is defined by their dedication to actor training, and to a democratic structure of collaboration in which actors, directors, playwrights, and designers are all full collaborators in the creative work of the company. While SITI is known for its postmodern productions of devised theatre, the company’s development of three unique training methods – Suzuki, Viewpoints, and Composition –is the most significant element of their artistic legacy. Taught and practiced in combination, these methods give the actor new ways to approach theatrical embodiment by developing skills based on kinesthetic response, stage presence, and creative collaboration. This approach to making theatre frees actors from the emotional and psychologically-based practices of American Method training, and grounds them in a physical presence that transcends genre and style. The work of SITI Company serves as an ideal platform for considering the work of the actor within the larger framework of creativity theory research, which sometimes emphasizes the concept of “new-ness,” raising questions about the value of the creative contributions of artists who “interpret” rather than “invent,” such as orchestral musicians, ballet dancers, and actors. New research in collaborative creativity broadens our understanding of the work of actors, who always work in collaboration, including taking part in the creative relationship between the actor and the audience. This dissertation uses the intersection of creativity theory, performance theory, sports theory, the dynamics of creative collaboration, and the training methods of SITI Company as a means of analyzing the experience of “flow,” wherein self-consciousness falls away, perceptions of time disappear, and actions seem to happen without effort. The conditions for finding flow are based in skills that can be learned and implemented by the actor in training, rehearsal, and performance

Exploring teachers’ use of the inquiry-based framework in teaching english language in the international baccalaureate programme: a case of a private primary school, in Dar-es-salaam, Tanzania.

Inquiry-based learning is a lauded approach in the teaching of English language. However, studies based on some IB PYP Schools indicate that teachers still face challenges in the teaching of English, using the inquiry approach, whereas learners face difficulties in reading, writing and problem solving. This case study, therefore, explored how English teachers used the inquiry-based framework in the teaching of English language at the IB PYP School, in Tanzania. Six teachers from Grade one to six along with the former PYP Coordinator participated in this study. The data collection methods used included interviews, observations and document analysis. Data from the three sources were corroborated and had connections with the literature reviewed. Findings demonstrate that teachers used different pedagogical as well as specific strand strategies for reading, writing, speaking and listening and viewing and presenting. However, the consistency and frequency of teaching using each of those strategies was not uniform across all grade levels. This is because teachers required further expertise in developing their technological pedagogical content knowledge and there was a gap in the exchange of knowledge across different grade levels. Moreover, there were other factors that impeded the use of the inquiry-based approach. These were the traditional views of new staff, the time constraint whilst using inquiry process, large class size and lack of manpower, teacher preparedness, inadequate, worn out and unorganized resources and learners’ personal issues, understanding and practice. Thus, the support required as per analysis is as follows: the administration should build a quality teaching and learning network, which would consist of specialists training the teachers in different areas. Peer appraisals should be used to enhance each other’s skills. Furthermore, the administration should provide adequate resources. It should seek to care for the mental health of the teachers and learners and make more use of the counselor where possible. It should monitor and give feedback on teacher reflections. The teachers as stakeholders should research further to incorporate all the pedagogical strategies extensively. Parents and learners should extend their support in the teaching and learning process

Variety is the Key: Teaching Shakespeare in Secondary English Classrooms

This thesis explores the reasons teachers teach Shakespeare, especially his plays, in Secondary English classrooms, which plays teachers teach and why they teach them, and a catalog of methods of teaching Shakespeare. The catalog includes methods of introduction, literary analysis, performance, multimedia, and technology, as well as methods that integrate multiple approaches. The thesis stresses the integration of multiple approaches and the employment of a variety of methods

Deprivation, Violence, and Identities: Mapping Contemporary World Conflicts

The University Archives has determined that this item is of continuing value to OSU's history.With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many anticipated the advent of a “new world order” of global capitalism, or even an “end to history,” implying that conflicts based on ideology and competing national interests and identities would lose their political relevance in the post-Cold War era. Quite to the contrary, the 1990s saw an upwelling of ethnic and religious violence in locations as disparate as the former Yugoslavia, Central Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. Prior to the events of 9/11, the structure of international relations had still made it possible to imagine that such conflicts had local roots and were thus exclusively of regional consequence. The events of 9/11, however, rendered undeniable the global significance of local ethnic and religious-based differences. It is now an inescapable conclusion that social identities are everywhere threatened from within by local and ethnic formations, conditioned in their response by the prerogatives and ambitions of the state and its actors, and transformed from without by the global flows of capital, popular culture, and transnational ideologies and populations. As features of the contemporary world, deprivation, violence, and identities are but the local manifestations of the conflict between global systems of thought, power, and authority.Ohio State University. Center for African StudiesOhio State University. Office of International AffiarsOhio State University. East Asian Studies CenterOhio State University. Center for Slavic and East European StudiesOhio State University. Middle East Studies CenterOhio State University. Office of International Affairs. Clusters of Interdisciplinary Research on International Themes (CIRIT)Ohio State University. Center for Latin American StudiesOhio State University. Mershon Center for International Security StudiesEvent webpage, event summar

The use of english adventure technique to teach speaking descriptive text at the tenth grade of sma laboratorium upgris

This study aimed to describe the English Adventure technique of the tenth grade students of SMA Laboratorium UPGRIS. The research design used descriptive qualitative research. The English Teacher and 22 students participated in this study as source of data. The direct observation, interview, and documentation were used to collect data technique. The result of the study indicated that . English Adventure Technique is a technique in teaching outdoor class with teacher direction and fun learning activities. The students are given three challenges in the teaching speaking descriptive text using English Adventure Technique. The students are provided the directions in groups. First, they looked around the tourist destination and observed the history, the building, the people, and the important thing in Sam Po Kong. Second, the students collected the data to prove their observation through take a picture, booklet, book guidance, and board information. Third, after they found the information, the students write the description about Sam Po Kong. The problems that faced by the students, that is, unclear directions by the teacher, lack of vocabulary, lack of pronunciation, and grammatical problem. The students admitted that they found the difficulties saying the words in English, sometimes asking about the word in English to their English Teacher. The teacher provided some suggestions to solve the problems such as the teacher provide the direction concise clearly, the students must practice pronunciation, reading text to enrich vocabulary, and learning the grammar

The Lines Between the Lines: Stage Directions as Fluid, Affective Collaborations Between Theatre Texts and Theatre Makers

This project contends that certain kinds of stage directions can affectively engage the bodies of actors, and the imaginations of directors and designers, resulting in a collaboratively created performance of a given theatre text. As opposed to more literary treatments of stage directions, this project contends that theories of embodiment, especially affect theory, is a useful lens through which to explore the range of potential performances present in various stage directions. By analyzing the ways in which stage directions allow for more agency than has traditionally been considered in theatre scholarship, I seek to encourage theatre makers and scholars alike to explore the potential contained in these historically marginalized portions of theatrical texts. I focus on the work of six English-language playwrights who are known for their creative uses of stage directions: Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Brian Friel, Lisa D’Amour, Sarah Ruhl, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Through analyzing the oeuvres of these six playwrights, I have identified five different tactical uses of stage directions that require collaboration from the future theatre makers who will encounter these play texts in order to supply various active and enacted portions of the plays. Although the Method, and other prevalent acting techniques in the United States, have encouraged actors to disregard stage directions, the kinds of stage directions analyzed in this project are written in a variety of ways that challenge that dismissal, ultimately reorienting actors towards these unspoken pieces of text. In this sense, Spoken Stage Directions, Affective Stage Directions, Choreographic Stage Directions, Multivalent Stage Directions, and Impossible Stage Directions all performatively affect the actors, directors, and designers encountering them, allowing for a wide range of potential performances. This process is also inherently queer, as expressed via Sara Ahmed’s concepts from Queer Phenomenology, where Ahmed theorize that queer orientation is a process of physical and ideological reorientation. As stage directions are marginalized portions of texts, privileging them is a process of queering, and one which requires a physical and mental reorientation towards the play scripts being discussed. This project begins the work of a more theatrical approach to the analysis of stage directions, and is meant to be of use not only to theatre scholars, but also the practical theatre makers who will encounter these texts