The corporate good neighbor

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University, 1949. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Challenging Audiences to Listen: The Performance of Self-Disclosure in Community Writing Projects

Young people have the potential to transform public perspectives about pressing social issues—if their audiences listen deeply to what they have to say. This article examines the ways that high school student participants in a community-university writing partnership employ self-disclosure, or emotion sharing, to encourage audiences to listen empathically to performances about complex social issues. Our analysis of two student performance pieces reveals rhetorical strategies that might promote empathic listening. We argue that empathic listening is a necessary precondition for the kind of collective community listening that can lead to social change

Writing Transfer Across Domains: Academic, Personal, and Extracurricular Writing

Over the last decade, scholars in composition studies have devoted significant attention to the issue of student transfer at the collegiate level. That is, they ask whether and how students repurpose their writing knowledge and abilities for new and alternate writing situations. This existing research provides insight into the ways that students do or do not productively repurpose their writing experiences and suggests that successful transfer occurs less often than writing instructors might hope. Drawing on data from a survey, focus groups, writing samples, and interviews, my qualitative study extends this existing research in three primary ways. First, I expand the scope of contexts included in studies of writing transfer. Much of students’ writing, and thus writing education, occurs outside of school. Rather than focus primarily on academic settings, as most scholarship does, my study investigates students’ writing experiences across academic, personal, and extracurricular domains. Second, my study discerns the specific ways that students relate their writing experiences across these domains. Most scholarship in composition examines how students repurpose their writing knowledge by tracing vertical transfer, or the ways students transfer their learning from one writing class to another. My study redirects scholarly attention by focusing instead on how students forge connections between disparate contexts, establishing a “transfer mindset.” Based on students’ writing samples and commentary, this dissertation analyzes five relational reasoning strategies that students use to connect their writing across contexts. Finally, this study examines how students transfer prior experiences and knowledge to create a credible persona, or effective ethos, in many writing situations. My study examines three types of sources that students draw on to project an ethos appropriate to a given writing task. Throughout “Writing Transfer Across Domains,” I emphasize the importance of viewing transfer from students’ own perspectives and valuing students’ idiosyncratic ways of making meaning. Ultimately, this project shows that students can and do draw productive connections between their writing experiences, cultivating a “transfer mindset.” “Writing Transfer Across Domains” offers both theoretical and pragmatic insights into college students’ ability to move their writing knowledge between all the writing situations they encounter and create

The Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome (congenital absence of uterus and vagina) – phenotypic manifestations and genetic approaches

The Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome affects at least 1 out of 4500 women and has for a long time been considered as a sporadic anomaly. Congenital absence of upper vagina and uterus is the prime feature of the disease which, in addition, is often found associated with unilateral renal agenesis or adysplasia as well as skeletal malformations (MURCS association). The phenotypic manifestations of MRKH overlap various other syndromes or associations and thus require accurate delineation. Since MRKH manifests itself in males, the term GRES syndrome (Genital, Renal, Ear, Skeletal) might be more appropriate when applied to both sexes. The MRKH syndrome, when described in familial aggregates, seems to be transmitted as an autosomal dominant trait with an incomplete degree of penetrance and variable expressivity. This suggests the involvement of either mutations in a major developmental gene or a limited chromosomal deletion. Until recently progress in understanding the genetics of MRKH syndrome has been slow, however, now HOX genes have been shown to play key roles in body patterning and organogenesis, and in particular during genital tract development. Expression and/or function defects of one or several HOX genes may account for this syndrome

Challenging Audiences to Listen: The Performance of Self-Disclosure in Community Writing Projects

Young people have the potential to transform public perspectives about pressing social issues--if their audiences listen deeply to what they have to say. This article examines the ways that high school student participants in a community-university writing partnership employ self-disclosure, or emotion sharing, to encourage audiences to listen empathetically to performances about complex social issues. Our analysis of two student performance pieces reveals rhetorical strategies that might promote empathetic listening. We argue that empathic listening is a necessary precondition for the kind of collective community listening that can lead to social change