Online writing research in the upper-division composition classroom: constructions of social engagement and critical dialogue

2020 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.This dissertation is comprised of three related articles examining social engagement and critical dialogue practices in the upper-division online writing classroom. The three manuscripts are presented with bookend chapters to introduce and discuss the larger research project. The over-arching questions this research asks are: How are teaching and learning supported and constrained in online writing instructional environments? How can constructions of social engagement in the online Writing Arguments classroom support critical learning and critical dialogue? The three articles examine the teaching of writing in an upper-division online writing course, Writing Arguments, which is a rhetorical theory course in composition. This compilation of continually evolving research captures the dual importance of enhancing online education as well as the need to construct social engagement in the online classroom. Additionally, as the Writing Arguments course lends itself naturally to areas of opposition and difference, the final two studies focus specifically on critical dialogue and learning in the online classroom

Literature Discussions as Mangles of Practice: Sociological Theories of Emergence and/in Dialogic Learning Events

In this report, we argue that some of the most productive and edifying kinds of literature discussions among certain ages/grade levels may be best understood as “mangles of practice” (Pickering, 1995).  Mangles of practice involve the coalescence of planned and contingent forces, and they produce emergent or self-organizing transformations of ongoing social activities, as well as unpredictable outcomes or products.  Indeed, the discussions we studied had these characteristics.  They often involved both planned and contingent actions and reactions by individual, social, cultural, and material agents and agencies.  As such, they were emergent phenomena about which we could seldom predict what precise collections, collisions, and collusions of actions and reactions would occur within them or what the effects of these collections, collisions, and collusions would be.  In spite of (or more likely because of) their unpredictability, these discussions were extremely dynamic knowledge-producing activities.  Given this social fact, we think our findings contribute significantly to understanding the lineaments and potentials of dialogic pedagogy, which deepens students’ learning and development.  More specifically, when teachers successfully prompt and engage students in more robustly dialogic talk that promotes text-to-life connections, life-to text connections, linkages to non-school knowledge (like that of popular culture), etc., then students often reap a wide variety of benefits with respect to their abilities to engage in genuine inquiry, to reason and argue for particular interpretations, to evaluate complex human actions and decisions, and to develop principled social, cultural, and moral equipment for living their own lives.</p

Literature Discussions as Mangles of Practice: Sociological Theories of Emergence and/in Dialogic Learning Events

In this report, we argue that some of the most productive and edifying kinds of literature discussions among certain ages/grade levels may be best understood as “mangles of practice” (Pickering, 1995).  Mangles of practice involve the coalescence of planned and contingent forces, and they produce emergent or self-organizing transformations of ongoing social activities, as well as unpredictable outcomes or products.  Indeed, the discussions we studied had these characteristics.  They often involved both planned and contingent actions and reactions by individual, social, cultural, and material agents and agencies.  As such, they were emergent phenomena about which we could seldom predict what precise collections, collisions, and collusions of actions and reactions would occur within them or what the effects of these collections, collisions, and collusions would be.  In spite of (or more likely because of) their unpredictability, these discussions were extremely dynamic knowledge-producing activities.  Given this social fact, we think our findings contribute significantly to understanding the lineaments and potentials of dialogic pedagogy, which deepens students’ learning and development.  More specifically, when teachers successfully prompt and engage students in more robustly dialogic talk that promotes text-to-life connections, life-to text connections, linkages to non-school knowledge (like that of popular culture), etc., then students often reap a wide variety of benefits with respect to their abilities to engage in genuine inquiry, to reason and argue for particular interpretations, to evaluate complex human actions and decisions, and to develop principled social, cultural, and moral equipment for living their own lives

Roles of Affect and Imagination in Reading and Responding to Literature: Perspectives and Possibilities for English Classrooms

In this essay, we argue that to engage in critical readings of literary texts, in ways that are also ethical and compassionate, requires readers to enter emotionally and imaginatively into the complex, textual worlds of others as they are portrayed in stories. In this regard, we discuss both past and recent work of scholars whose insights we believe are useful for rethinking and deepening what it means to read and respond to creative narratives with “one’s heart as well as with one’s mind.” Given the popularity in recent years of teaching literary theory, and embracing the power of “critical” reading in English classrooms, the value of personal and emotional ways of reading has been increasingly understated. We thus call for the kind of engaged humanities reform we believe is ultimately crucial to democratic forms of community rooted in a general concern for the value of the lives of others

\u3ci\u3eDrosophila\u3c/i\u3e Muller F Elements Maintain a Distinct Set of Genomic Properties Over 40 Million Years of Evolution

The Muller F element (4.2 Mb, ~80 protein-coding genes) is an unusual autosome of Drosophila melanogaster; it is mostly heterochromatic with a low recombination rate. To investigate how these properties impact the evolution of repeats and genes, we manually improved the sequence and annotated the genes on the D. erecta, D. mojavensis, and D. grimshawi F elements and euchromatic domains from the Muller D element. We find that F elements have greater transposon density (25–50%) than euchromatic reference regions (3–11%). Among the F elements, D. grimshawi has the lowest transposon density (particularly DINE-1: 2% vs. 11–27%). F element genes have larger coding spans, more coding exons, larger introns, and lower codon bias. Comparison of the Effective Number of Codons with the Codon Adaptation Index shows that, in contrast to the other species, codon bias in D. grimshawi F element genes can be attributed primarily to selection instead of mutational biases, suggesting that density and types of transposons affect the degree of local heterochromatin formation. F element genes have lower estimated DNA melting temperatures than D element genes, potentially facilitating transcription through heterochromatin. Most F element genes (~90%) have remained on that element, but the F element has smaller syntenic blocks than genome averages (3.4–3.6 vs. 8.4–8.8 genes per block), indicating greater rates of inversion despite lower rates of recombination. Overall, the F element has maintained characteristics that are distinct from other autosomes in the Drosophila lineage, illuminating the constraints imposed by a heterochromatic milieu