Master of Arts in English
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Browsing Master of Arts in English by Author "Harrison, Marlen E."
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Item Derek Walcott’s Omeros: How Effective Stories Benefit the Human Experience(Southern New Hampshire University, 2022-01-25) Gustave, Trisha Pauline; Harrison, Marlen E.; Lee, ChristopherThis thesis offers a fresh perspective about the benefits of stories on the human experience when they are written, structured, and told effectively. To examine how stories inform us, Derek Walcott’s epic poem Omeros is deconstructed through the theoretical framework of narratology in the paper. The theory of narrative highlights how Walcott’s exceptional use of structure, language, characters, and themes educate readers about the past and present struggles of life on the island. In his poem, Walcott revisits the history of St. Lucia through the tale of local characters who feel dispossessed in a post-slavery/post-colonial environment. Mieke Bal’s “The Point of Narratology,” Mark Freeman’s, “Why Narrative Matters: Philosophy, Method, Theory” and David Herman’s “Storytelling and the Sciences of Mind: Cognitive Narratology, Discursive Psychology, and Narratives in Face-to-Face Interaction”, explain how stories help readers form human connections whilst providing them with an opportunity to understand familiar and unfamiliar worlds that are imagined or real, in the past, present, or future. Through Walcott’s Omeros, this thesis expands on the idea that stories allow writers to transport their interpretation of identity and their experience of the self and otherness, as readers experience how Walcott uses storytelling, textuality, and expression to revisit unhealed wounds within himself and his people.Item Literary Analysis of Trauma Narrative for Composition Course(Southern New Hampshire University, 2020-08-12) Roper, Karen; Harrison, Marlen E.; Lee, ChristopherAnalysis of a trauma narrative can empower an individual by providing opportunity and means to create or reform one’s self-identity. Including a literary analysis of a trauma narrative within a composition course offers a unique opportunity for a writer to not only rhetorically engage with the meaning of the narrative’s message, but also to acquire agency in his/her writing. This proposed unit plan weaves together social identity theory, feminist theory, and critical race theory to help students glean a deeper, and maybe more personal, meaning from a narrative. Additionally, this plan draws upon the ideas behind scriptotherapy and bibliotherapy. These are both clinical uses of writing and reading as methods to speed emotional and psychological healing. Social identity theory, feminist theory and critical race theory address how the narrative’s message connects to the greater culture within which the narrative is set. The application of social identity theory to the use of trauma narratives in the classroom allows for exploration of socially constructed identities and the ramifications of forced adherence to these identities. Consequently, within this unit plan lies the potential to empower an individual by providing a rhetorical situation in which to explore the creation of self-identity. Additionally, the focus on the feminist and critical race lenses offer a modern perception by which to examine the narrative’s message. While keeping in mind the benefits of scriptotherapy and bibliotherapy, the instructor can create a classroom in which students feel empowered to develop their own meanings of and relationships to the narratives. This plan considers multimodal literacies and incorporates listening and speaking activities. Collaboration among small group members is included as well as small group discussion. The final analysis is an individual project.Item Seeing Ourselves Rightly: Analyzing Spiritual Self-Awareness in Flannery O'Connor's Fiction as Literature Pedagogy for Moral Instruction(Southern New Hampshire University, 2020-07-06) Filipek, Rebecca; Harrison, Marlen E.; Lee, ChristopherHomeschool teachers and mothers are thoroughly invested in the moral formation of their children and are therefore concerned with finding various ways to teach them morals and virtue. How can literature cultivate virtue in readers? Most scholarship that focuses on moral development by using literature is geared toward the classroom and forming good citizens for democratic societies. This scholarship leaves wide open the gap for focusing on people as individuals. Also, many literary theories focus on narrow aspects of a text without considering the total impact a piece of literature can have on a reader. This essay uses moral and biblical criticism to show how literature can help readers make connections between what we read and how it can help us to read reflectively to become better people. This essay shows how Flannery O'Connor's short story "Revelation" can be compared to Jesus's parables in the Bible to show how moral development begins with the self, then ripples out through the small community of the home and out into society. When we focus on changing ourselves and how we treat others, teaching our children to read reflectively to do the same, we will ultimately change society on a personal level and see people as the individual human beings that they are.