“Symbols Are Important”: Nation-States and the Images on Our Money

Visual rhetoric has been an area of growing interest for those within the communication field, and this study aims to add to that body of work. One area within the study of visual rhetoric is the everyday, mundane images produced by nation-states, and more narrowly, the images on a nation’s currency. Traditionally, scholars who study images on currency have seen them through the lens of state-as-pedagogue—in other words, that the state is using that “sacred space” to teach their citizenry. Political theorist and scholar Jacques E.C. Hymans (2204, 2010) challenges this notion, and instead posits that nation-states try to connect with their citizenry through a state-as-legitimacy-seeker approach in which the goal is to connect, not by teaching, but by capturing the spirit of the age. This study applies Hymans’ methodology to the images on the obverse side of the US dollar coin from its inception in 1794 to the beginning of the Presidential dollar coin collection in 2011. It was found that Hymans’ method holds promise for studying nation-state motivations behind the images on money, and more broadly, for visual rhetoricians interested in the intersection between nation-states, messages, motivation, and image

Creating Culturally Relevant Techonological Operas in an Urban School

The project described in this study developed due to the gap in achievement between African-American and white students. As music teacher I noticed my urban students could rap all the words of popular songs. Therefore I incorporated the use of technology with an authentic need to learn reading, writing, and lyric development for science and history content within a hip-hop opera . This study details the instructional sequence, in which students watched musical performances, learned songs with a karaoke machine, and wrote new lyrics for the songs based on history and science material. I combined the students\u27 lyrics into new versions of the songs, which they then learned and performed within a dramatic opera. The mixed method research study, conducted in grade 2 through 6 music classes, addressed three questions: How does the learning process differ between culturally relevant hip-hop operas and culturally non-relevant operas? What do children who create culturally relevant hip-hop operas learn about history and science content compared to an opera utilizing music from outside the students\u27 culture? How does creating a culturally relevant hip-hop opera impact students? desire to learn science and history? A case study revealed that both culturally relevant and non-relevant operas could sustain students\u27 involvement in history and science, but students were more eager to participate in instruction utilizing culturally relevant melodies. The quantitative analysis was limited by small numbers of participants with complete data, but some results were obtained. Learning outcome measures revealed gains on basic understanding of some history and science topics embedded in opera-based instruction, but the cultural relevance of the music did not impact the learning outcomes. A follow-up analysis revealed that involving the students in composition of lyrics based on any musical text, culturally relevant or non-relevant, led to greater learning gains than having students learn and perform texts written by the teacher. Analysis of interview results showed that some students increased their desire to learn history and science in school because of the opera instruction. The importance of research such as this aimed at improving urban education is stressed, and suggestions for further research are made

Boosting the Mythic American West and U.S. Woman Suffrage: Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain Women's Public Discourse at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

This project examines how white women negotiated the mythic and gendered meanings of the American West between 1885 and 1935. Focusing on arguments made by women who were active in the public life of the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain States, these analyses illustrate the ways the mythic West shaped the U.S. woman suffrage movement and how Western women simultaneously contributed to the meaning of the American West. Through four case studies, I examine the ways women drew on Western myths as they advocated for woman suffrage, participated in place-making the West, and navigated the gender ideals of their time. The first two case studies attend to the advocacy discourse of woman suffragists in the Pacific Northwest. Suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway of Oregon championed woman suffrage by appropriating the frontier myth to show that by surviving the mythic trek West, Western women had proven their status as frontier heroines and earned their right to vote. Mountaineer suffragists in Washington climbed Mount Rainier for woman suffrage in 1909. By taking a "Votes for Women" pennant to the mountain summit, they made a political pilgrimage that appropriated the frontier myth and the turn-of-the-century meanings of mountain climbing and the wilderness for woman suffrage. The last two case studies examine the place-making discourse of women who lived in Rocky Mountain states that had already adopted woman suffrage. Grace Raymond Hebard, a Wyoming historian and community leader, participated in the pioneer reminiscing practices of marking historic sites. Hebard's commemorations drew on the agrarian myth and Wyoming woman suffrage to domesticate Wyoming's "Wild West" image and place-make Wyoming as settled, civilized, and progressive. When Jeannette Rankin was elected as Montana's U.S. Representative in 1916, she introduced herself to the nation by enacting her femininity, boosting Montana's exceptionalism, and drawing on the frontier myth to explain Western woman suffrage. As I conclude with an analysis of Henry Mayer's "Awakening" cartoon, I illustrate the ways place-based arguments for woman suffrage and the boosting of Western woman suffrage worked together to construct the meaning of the West as a place of gender equality in the early twentieth century

Indigenous Geographic Knowledge and the Lewis and Clark Expedition

This thesis examines the transfer of geographic knowledge from Indigenous peoples to the Lewis and Clark expedition between 1804 and 1806. Throughout the twenty-eight month long expedition, Lewis and Clark consistently relied upon Indigenous knowledge to learn about and navigate unfamiliar territory. On the outbound journey, this inquiry related mostly to pathfinding as the expedition sought the best route from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean. For key stretches of this journey, Indigenous guides piloted the expedition and advised Lewis and Clark on the location and feasibility of nearby trails. On the return trip, Lewis and Clark expanded their focus and sought out geographic information from Indigenous knowledge keepers about regions well beyond the expedition’s route. Much of this information came in the form of Indigenous maps, which Clark, the expedition’s cartographer, incorporated into his maps of the region both during and following the expedition. In this way, Indigenous knowledge and guidance facilitated the progress of the Lewis and Clark expedition in its journey across western North America and contributed to the maps that Clark made depicting western regions previously unknown to Euro-Americans

Middle Columbia River Aquatic Nuisance Species Survey

Aquatic nonindigenous species (ANS) in the middle Columbia and lower Snake rivers were surveyed during the summer of 2006. The project area included eight reservoirs and the free-flowing, Hanford Reach on the Columbia River. We also conducted a literature review to create a complete list of ANS for the study area