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Missoula, MT

In this thesis I critique the American socioeconomic system and culture through a multidisciplinary lens. Using the works of philosopher Karl Marx, economist Robin Kimmerer, and forensic psychologist Christopher Williams, I argue that there are three interconnected characteristics of our socioeconomic system that disincentivize us from creating growth-fostering relationships. These characteristics are the encouragement of overconsumption, the prevalence of hyperindividualism, and that people are valued for what they produce, not who they are. To counteract these characteristics, we must fight to create a Culture of Encounter, which is a culture with a radical dedication to seeing, hearing, and loving individual people without condition, expectation, or a specific goal. The works of St. Teresa of Calcutta and St. Therese of Lisieux, combined with the tenets of Relational Cultural Theory provide an argument for why creating a Culture of Encounter is necessary. Finally, I provide a concrete four step plan that helps people implement a Culture of Encounter into their everyday lives.

Within the nonfiction genre of memoir lies the spiritual memoir, which emphasizes a divine element at work in the lives of mortal beings. Christian tradition, beginning with the Bible, is rich with accounts of God intervening in people’s lives. By writing and preserving their stories, our spiritual forebearers left behind relics of encouragement and instruction for future generations. This thesis aims to inspire Christians to continue the tradition of preserving personal stories in written form. This thesis is presented in three parts. The Artist’s Statement explains the author’s connection to this sub-genre of creative writing. The Critical Research essay is a literature review of Christian memoirs, examining common biblical elements therein. While there is a variety of styles and experiences within these narratives, there are many commonalities as they are written by followers of the same Master Teacher. The Creative Selection portion of this thesis, which holds the bulk, is a selection of original true stories written with the aim of glorifying God.

Missoula, MT

Having left behind the religious faith of his youth, the narrator charts out a new belief system rooted in learning the manifold stories that make up a place and its people. More and more, the narrator feels drawn to the river, which forces him to confront the impact his city and the seven reservoirs above it have had on the waterway.

Working as a corrosion engineer, I’ve followed oil pipelines across mountain ranges in Alaska and barren fields in Wyoming; clambered through dirty power plants and petrochemical facilities from rural Montana to North Dakota; surveyed US military fuel assets scattered across sweltering Pacific islands. Thirteen years spent fighting the slow, inevitable decay of iron and steel and concrete. To keep every infrastructure solid, every machine running, takes hard and often hidden work. And in the end, corrosion is never eliminated, only mitigated. Corrosion may be called ‘the cancer of metal’, but its decay can metastasize within all things: within multi-billion dollar international corporations and the Evangelical Christian church, within families, and within myself. These too are machines—not in their inhumanity, but in their power and motion and complexity, in their constant need for careful maintenance at the hands of those who know them best. When I have taken them for granted or cowered from the work and responsibility of their upkeep, I have felt the juddering grind of total breakdown. This thesis is a creative, hybrid-genre piece that combines non-fiction memoir and poetry to explore some of the machines that torque and thunder inside my own life: religion, masculinity, addiction, family, and my work in the oil & gas industry. It is meant as neither a condemnation nor a glorification of any of them, but rather a reckoning with their realities and demands. I am no more a victim of them than I am complicit in their failings. My desire is that this text is corrosion’s witness, one that is not divorced from the hard truths of its costs and causes: the greed and extraction, the exhaustion and fear—but also too, the deep camaraderie and beauty and meaning found in its prevention. If the labor of life is to maintain the things we love, then let there by joy and grace in this grueling work, in all its long days and early mornings. And when joy is scarce, let there be str

Missoula, MT

UNSEALED: A Memoir begins with a newlywed Mormon couple, Alyssa and Levi, returning home to Utah from their honeymoon. Levi takes Alyssa into an airport bathroom for sex. Alyssa is clearly upset. After they leave the bathroom, the two spontaneously meet one of twelve apostles of the global Mormon church, and Alyssa sees the collision of Levi and the apostle as an emotional collision of her marriage and faith, and it must be resolved. The memoir then moves back in time to Alyssa at age eight. As childhood builds, as does her devotion to orthodoxy. Alyssa’s intensity amplifies when she attends Brigham Young University. Anorexia strikes during Alyssa’s first semester. The weight slips off with no end in sight and after finals, Alyssa’s mother pulls her out of school and takes her home for an intervention. For two nights, a hospital IV keeps Alyssa’s heart beating, a heart that dropped to 24 bpm and almost stopped. Amid her recovery and breakup, she transfers to Utah State University and meets Levi at church. Alyssa enters the Mormon temple for the first time and the two marry in the temple. The submitted thesis ends at this point in the memoir.

In this thesis I critique the American socioeconomic system and culture through a multidisciplinary lens. Using the works of philosopher Karl Marx, economist Robin Kimmerer, and forensic psychologist Christopher Williams, I argue that there are three interconnected characteristics of our socioeconomic system that disincentivize us from creating growth-fostering relationships. These characteristics are the encouragement of overconsumption, the prevalence of hyperindividualism, and that people are valued for what they produce, not who they are. To counteract these characteristics, we must fight to create a Culture of Encounter, which is a culture with a radical dedication to seeing, hearing, and loving individual people without condition, expectation, or a specific goal. The works of St. Teresa of Calcutta and St. Therese of Lisieux, combined with the tenets of Relational Cultural Theory provide an argument for why creating a Culture of Encounter is necessary. Finally, I provide a concrete four step plan that helps people implement a Culture of Encounter into their everyday lives.

The Biome Within is an essay collection that meditates on change. Born and raised in the Paradise Valley of southwest Montana, Austin recounts stories from her childhood, painting a picture of rural life in the Valley that contrasts with its modern-day incarnation as a luxury get-away and millionaire’s playground. Even as Austin pines for a time and a place that no longer exists, embodying the nostalgia that she identifies in the Valley’s transplants, the reader comes to understand that the author – and her family’s way of making a living – are culpable in creating the changes that she now laments. The tourism industry is painted as a double-edged sword: it’s the lifeblood of the Valley, propping up an ecosystem of dude ranches, rafting companies, and Airbnb owners; but it also sucks the life out of the Valley, pricing out working families, bankrupting local schools, and enabling a make-believe-cowboy lifestyle. Alongside meditations on the outside world, Austin reveals her first pregnancy and ties the changes happening within her own body to the changes in the Paradise Valley. Embracing motherhood is complicated by the aftermath of the Dobbs decision and the once-in-500-year flood of the Yellowstone River – disasters of different natures. On the one hand, Austin struggles with what it means to become an ecosystem to the child she carries when so many women are stripped of the right to chart the course of their reproductive lives. Meanwhile, climate change manifests near and far and begs the author to wrestle with the moral decision of bringing a child into the world. Inspired by the echoing truths in Jim Harrison’s poetry and the weaving, unharried pace of Eula Biss’s prose, Austin endeavors to capture the turning points of her life and the Valley she loves. She hopes to add her own voice to a group of writers and creators who are thinking critically about Montana’s character and their role in shaping it.

This course is a workshop for students with some experience in writing essays, nonfiction prose. Our focus will be negotiating and representing identities grounded in gender, race, class, nationality, sexuality, and other categories of identity, either our own or others', in prose that is expository, exploratory, investigative, persuasive, lyrical, or incantatory. We will read nonfiction prose works by a wide array of writers who have used language to negotiate and represent aspects of identity and the ways the different determinants of identity intersect, compete, and cooperate.

OWN WAY GIRL is a memoir about growing up in a Caribbean family of women. The memoir covers the narrator’s tentative beginnings as she was adopted by a single woman in Barbados at three months old until she turns sixteen and learns the secret that has weighed heavily on both her birth and adopted mother. This memoir explores the narrator’s layered relationship with her adopted mother, her complicated relationship with her birth mother, as well family dynamics with her adopted grandmother and adopted sisters. It interrogates the nature of kin and blood ties and probes the ultimate question of what makes a family. This memoir also touches on the themes of culture, class, cultural capital, domestic violence, death, and a young girl's quest for agency.

A GROUP OF HYENAS IS A CACKLE is a memoir about sisterhood, success, and self-worth. The memoir spans approximately twenty-five years in the memoir-speaker’s life and is divided into five sections. Book one explores her childhood through high school graduation, focusing on her experiences as the eldest sister in a hardscrabble, IrishCatholic family living in New England during the 1990s and its central defining eventthe death of her mother from a drug overdose. Book two examines a slice of adulthood in the protagonist’s twenties when she was a law student living in New York City with her sister. The remaining three sections work like a ribbon that weaves throughout the narrative via a prologue, a hinge passage, and an epilogue in which the memoir-speaker incorporates women’s gymnastics and explores the concepts of sacrifice, truth, and success to illuminate and unify the major themes of this protagonist’s journey.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students' changing leisure-time reading habits, knowledge of how much students read at school is still limited. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle (Grades 4-6) and lower secondary (Grades 7-9) school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. More students in middle school compared to lower secondary still read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

This essay focuses on Leila Guerriero’s writing style when it came to narrate faithfully and without artifice the chronicle A Simple Story (2013). The analysis sheds light on the author’s informative and poetic use of language, which sets up the atmosphere of a postmodernist text identifying a precise story of Argentina, at the same time as it addresses the universal topics of cultural heritage, identity, and perseverance. Concisely, A Simple Story is a former journalistic investigation made chronicle, yet also a fiction returned to its reality. In this work, Leila Guerriero juxtaposes two specular quests for authenticity, her literary strive and the malambo dancer living for the preservation of a tradition., En el presente artículo, comentamos cómo Leila Guerriero usa su pluma de cronista para escribir con sinceridad y sin artificios ficcionales Una historia sencilla (2013). Veremos que el manejo minucioso de una prosa informativa y poética le permite proponer un texto posmoderno que ofrece una historia singular de Argentina, tal como una obra que acude, sencillamente y precisamente, a temas universales como la herencia cultural, la identidad y la perseverancia. Una historia sencilla es una primera investigación periodística hecha crónica, pero también una ficción devuelta a su realidad. En esta obra, Leila Guerriero refleja dos luchas para la autenticidad, a saber, una literaria, y aquella que reside en el empeño de un malambista que entrega su vida para el mantenimiento de una tradición

The past is never gone in The Buried Train, a collection of three stories that engages with memory, memoir and postmodernism. “A Patchwork Person” melds fiction and nonfiction across a novella-length metaphysical detective story as an alter ego of the writer goes on a cross-country search for her missing, Pynchon-obsessed stepfather. “The Nature of Love is Lingering” uses the personal essay as an exploration of the writer’s alcoholic father and his legacy in her life. “The Buried Train,” a short fiction story, investigates childhood trauma reemerging in the relationship between the writer and her brother as they seek out a flood-ravaged New Mexico ghost town. Themes of family, the search for the self and (of course) trains unite this trio of tales.

This course is a workshop for students with some experience in writing essays, nonfiction prose. Our focus will be negotiating and representing identities grounded in gender, race, class, nationality, sexuality, and other categories of identity, either our own or others', in prose that is expository, exploratory, investigative, persuasive, lyrical, or incantatory. We will read nonfiction prose works by a wide array of writers who have used language to negotiate and represent aspects of identity and the ways the different determinants of identity intersect, compete, and cooperate.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students' changing leisure-time reading habits, knowledge of how much students read at school is still limited. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle (Grades 4-6) and lower secondary (Grades 7-9) school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. More students in middle school compared to lower secondary still read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students' changing leisure-time reading habits, knowledge of how much students read at school is still limited. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle (Grades 4-6) and lower secondary (Grades 7-9) school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. More students in middle school compared to lower secondary still read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students' changing leisure-time reading habits, knowledge of how much students read at school is still limited. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle (Grades 4-6) and lower secondary (Grades 7-9) school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. More students in middle school compared to lower secondary still read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students' changing leisure-time reading habits, knowledge of how much students read at school is still limited. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle (Grades 4-6) and lower secondary (Grades 7-9) school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. More students in middle school compared to lower secondary still read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

Traumatic life experiences altered the way I perceive the world. As a result, I embark on a journey to reshape my relationship to self, the built and natural world; to environment. In this thesis I ask: How do I want to relate to the environment? Considering I am a doubly colonized agent, I also aim to decolonize my relationship to environment along the process. Therefore, this work aims to formulate a new, personal, relationship to environment through academic literature, history, psychology, Indigenous knowledge and science, and literary studies, among other fields of knowledge. This work is interdisciplinary in nature; life is interconnected and so is this work. I look to theoretical concepts like the prose of countersovereignty, colonial discourse, violence, and the ethics of care to aid in the reshaping of relationship. Through this work, a healthier mode of relationship has been possible for myself. The work is not over as I aim to implement this in everyday life, as is the case with intentional communities and intentional living—practices I was a part of whilst at The University of Montana. Continuing along the lines of decolonization, the thesis closes with a chapter looking into decolonizing canon and Academia, as well as community based participatory research as a way to further aid in decolonizing canon and Academia.

The new non-fiction picturebook for children is conceived not just as an informational book, but first and foremost as a beautiful object, characterized by a largely visual and proudly creative approach to knowledge. By blending information and artistic illustration/design, transmission of data and sophisticated aesthetic experimentation, this medium seems to bring successfully together the rational/explicit and the aesthetic/intuitive way of attending to the world, with promising consequences for the development of an integrated learning experience. Applying the findings of cognitive sciences to the analysis of non-fiction picturebooks can be enlightening to understand the full potential of such books in sharing knowledge with children. Their intrinsic multimodality and ability to stimulate different parts of the reader’s brain makes them valuable in any educational context revolving around the paradigm of complexity and having connection (as opposed to disjunction) of different levels of experience as its aim.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students’ changing leisure-time reading habits, knowledge of how much students read at school is still limited. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle (Grades 4–6) and lower secondary (Grades 7–9) school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. More students in middle school compared to lower secondary still read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

The actions of ancient Near Eastern warrior gods are often depicted as acts of vengeance, greed, and brutality, serving selfish ambition and never-ending power struggles. These gods and their warfare ethic dominated the worldview of the ancient world in which the events of the Old Testament took place. The actions of the Hebrew God are often included, even emphasized, in discussions of ancient divine warfare today. There are supposed similarities between the actions of war gods like Anat from the Ugaritic pantheon and those of Yahweh from ancient Israel. Unfortunately, this has led to the present-day belief that the God of the Old Testament is violent and vengeful, harboring hidden, malevolent motives. However, a closer look at the warfare ethic of Yahweh and that of Anat reveals a stark distinction between the ethics of each deity in their violent dealings with their enemies. By comparing the warfare ethic of Yahweh in Judges 4–5 and Anat in the Baal Cycle, it will be made apparent that Yahweh’s violent actions against the Canaanites are ultimately merciful. The stark distinction between the ethic and motives of these two deities make an apologetic for the morally superior warfare ethic of Yahweh and, consequently, His inherently benevolent nature.

A historical meditation on non-Euclidean geometry, three Jesuits, a radical egalitarian mathematical philosopher, and the atom bomb, structured by word-count with attention to divisors of 441 and the Fano plane.

Our national conversation about wildfire is shifting. As wildland fires become larger, more frequent, more severe, and more expensive—and as climate change and land-use patterns drive the trend toward more fire—we’re scrambling to find a different paradigm for engaging with fire. Scientists now call this age of increasingly extreme burning the Pyrocene, and we’re just beginning to grapple with its impacts on the way we work, play, and live on the land. As a longtime trail worker for the U.S. Forest Service, I’ve spent hundreds of days clearing trails in burned forests. In Trailing Fire, I draw on these experiences to show how we have yet to reckon with wildfire’s longer-term effects on outdoor recreation, and to explore what that means for how humans connect with wild spaces. As outdoor recreation surges across the country, putting public lands in the spotlight and prompting important conversations about equity, inclusion, and access in the outdoors, federal recreation budgets keep shrinking, forcing smaller crews to keep up with the impacts of exploding use. Meanwhile, more fire means trail-maintenance workloads are growing, as the effects of severe burns persist for years, if not decades. While approaches to preparing for and fighting wildfire are changing at both a policy and community level, federal land managers have no comprehensive strategy for addressing the impacts of fire on recreation and trails. And that’s a problem, because recreation provides a portal through which vast numbers of Americans connect with wild spaces. Extreme fire regimes, by limiting access to the outdoors, threaten opportunities for understanding fire’s historic and future role in our shared landscapes. I illustrate these complexities by sharing vivid stories from my years of restoring burned trails, at the same time tracing my evolving understanding of reciprocity between communities, landscapes, and the fires that shape them. Trailing Fire weaves personal narrative with ecological an

Lia Mendez grew up on the frontlines of America's breadbasket in the great Central Valley of California where Big Ag and Big Oil reign supreme. When Lia returns home after a long absence and joins local activists in her hometown's fight to reclaim its dying river from agribusiness, she discovers that the land holds secrets whose truths have been long hidden in plain sight. As Lia's love and concern deepen for the very place she promised herself she'd never wind up in, so, too, does her understanding deepen of the systems of oppression and extraction which rule her world. In this memoir, Lia Mendez struggles to define her role not just as an activist, but as a wife and daughter with close ties to the very extractive industries whose practices she challenges.

The actions of ancient Near Eastern warrior gods are often depicted as acts of vengeance, greed, and brutality, serving selfish ambition and never-ending power struggles. These gods and their warfare ethic dominated the worldview of the ancient world in which the events of the Old Testament took place. The actions of the Hebrew God are often included, even emphasized, in discussions of ancient divine warfare today. There are supposed similarities between the actions of war gods like Anat from the Ugaritic pantheon and those of Yahweh from ancient Israel. Unfortunately, this has led to the present-day belief that the God of the Old Testament is violent and vengeful, harboring hidden, malevolent motives. However, a closer look at the warfare ethic of Yahweh and that of Anat reveals a stark distinction between the ethics of each deity in their violent dealings with their enemies. By comparing the warfare ethic of Yahweh in Judges 4–5 and Anat in the Baal Cycle, it will be made apparent that Yahweh’s violent actions against the Canaanites are ultimately merciful. The stark distinction between the ethic and motives of these two deities make an apologetic for the morally superior warfare ethic of Yahweh and, consequently, His inherently benevolent nature.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students' changing leisure-time reading habits, knowledge of how much students read at school is still limited. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle (Grades 4-6) and lower secondary (Grades 7-9) school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. More students in middle school compared to lower secondary still read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

In this course, you will be exposed to the work of many great documentary photographers and photojournalists, as well as to writing about the documentary tradition. Further, throughout the term, you will hone your photographic skills and 'eye,' and you will work on a photo documentary project of your own, attempting to reduce a tiny area of the moving world to a set of still images that convey what the viewer needs to know about what you saw—without hearing the sounds, smelling the odors, experiencing what was happening outside the viewfinder, and without seeing the motion.

EL CAMINO is a collection of essays. The author, reared in the oral storytelling tradition of the American South, was schooled early in the fine art of laughing to keep from crying. Later, in the literary works of authors ranging from Cervantes to Beckett, and in the school of hard knocks that is late-capitalist America, the author discovered both mentors and material galore to guide his stories from their oral storytelling roots onto the page. The essays in this collection explore themes of home and belonging, exile and migration, and memory and forgetting.

Prologue /The Lake Within I am a fisherman. Every time I raise my arm to cast, I’m searching for an answer. What is a lake? I throw my lure at the lilies of my childhood, the sunken log of my crib. With every cast I hope the truth will follow it back, this little piece of me I offer to the mystery. My earliest memories are at the bus stop, where a shroud of mist swirled about me and I listed side-to-side, six-AM eyes drooping while I waited for that big yellow ship to bust through the fog and open its doors before me. I was never a good sleeper, rarely felt awake, and when the bus would barrel along the shore of Long Lake, I’d rest my head against the foggy window and pondered how the water could sit so utterly still, yet churn the mist as if the fact the lake existed made reality tremble. I thought there must be something beneath the surface that shifted the air upon its waking, like my dad when he’d start the coffee pot with a hiss of steam, or the eruption of old truck engines across our village of fifty people or so, or a swirl of smoke bursting from the nighttime’s remnant coals when I’d open up the woodstove and feed it the day’s first log, as I’d been taught to do if I wanted to stay warm.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students’ changing leisure-time reading habits, we still have little knowledge of how much students read at school. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous and coherent text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle and lower secondary school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. There are still more students in middle school compared to lower secondary who read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students’ changing leisure-time reading habits, knowledge of how much students read at school is still limited. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle (Grades 4–6) and lower secondary (Grades 7–9) school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. More students in middle school compared to lower secondary still read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students’ changing leisure-time reading habits, we still have little knowledge of how much students read at school. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous and coherent text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle and lower secondary school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. There are still more students in middle school compared to lower secondary who read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students’ changing leisure-time reading habits, knowledge of how much students read at school is still limited. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle (Grades 4–6) and lower secondary (Grades 7–9) school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. More students in middle school compared to lower secondary still read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students’ changing leisure-time reading habits, we still have little knowledge of how much students read at school. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous and coherent text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle and lower secondary school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. There are still more students in middle school compared to lower secondary who read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students’ changing leisure-time reading habits, we still have little knowledge of how much students read at school. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous and coherent text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle and lower secondary school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. There are still more students in middle school compared to lower secondary who read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students’ changing leisure-time reading habits, we still have little knowledge of how much students read at school. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous and coherent text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle and lower secondary school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. There are still more students in middle school compared to lower secondary who read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.

This thesis examines the representation of female trauma in the work of contemporary French women authors. Through analysis of their narrativization in terms of psychological techniques, historical context, and written style, this work proposes an in-depth look into the literary expressions of Marguerite Duras, Annie Ernaux, and Nelly Arcan. The three work in conjunction to span nearly half a century of literature, from the throes of World War II, into the turn of the 21st century. Each author presents an opportunity to examine different and unique forms of female trauma—wartime trauma, abortion related trauma, and trauma in connection with sexuality. In examining these narratives, this thesis discovers the narrative evolution of female trauma through the years as the socio-political climate shifts and changes from one decade to the next. The heart of each experience resonates with similarity as conveyed through the use of various literary techniques which linger with likeness. More specifically, these three authors explore topics of memory, bodily influence, performance or performativity, activeness in the form of writing, testimony and a compulsive need to testify in writing (often in response to systematic censorship). Additionally, they rely on literary elements of repetition, heavily detailed imagery, female expression via character, time-driven writing, and engagement with their (respective) surrounding political and socio-cultural environments. As the thesis develops, one notices both consistency and evolution in the values placed upon women and their own personal concerns—showcasing in finality how testimonies on female trauma have both remained consistent and yet transformed through the latter half of the 20th century.

Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIP) is a rare and misunderstood medical diagnosis, even in sophisticated clinical settings. Due to a mutation in recessive genes effecting nerve development and reception, a person with CIP doesn’t recognize their physical pain sensation from birth, as the abnormality “interrupts” that signal to the brain. Therefore, patients suffer injuries without direct knowledge of their ailments, leading them to aggravate and reaggravate injuries. The following deals with the effects of this mysterious birth defect, not only from a physical standpoint, but from a psycho-emotional perspective. As a CIP survivor, I explore my past and how the condition directly and indirectly impacted my emotional state and awareness, including the perception of both physical and emotional pain in others. Further complicating matters, are themes of neglect, substance abuse and violence. What are the ramifications of pain, or lack thereof? What does it really mean to feel?

The objectification of the Marvel Cinematic Universe character Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow has been present through the films she has been in. She is merely a sex symbol and seen as just the pretty face, when she leads the Avengers by combat fighting, espionage tactics, and hacking into computers. By employing film theorist Laura Mulvey’s the Male Gaze Theory, Hugo Ingrasci’s theory of the antihero trope, Historian Barbara Hales’ Theory of the femme fatale in film noir, author Michael Manahan’s concepts of the antihero and societal implications, and Director Joey Soloway’s notion of the Female Gaze theory we are to examine the character Black Widow from the Marvel Cinematic Universe through seven Marvel films. Additionally, this research includes interviews, outside source websites, and film posters. Each research section examines the mentioned theories by dissecting each movie to focus on the theory and film instead of the whole movie and theories included. Through these examples of the Male Gaze theory there were prevalent instances of Black Widow that display Mulvey’s theories. Examples of the camera’s angle direction, the dialogue between male and female characters, and the film posters that objectify the Marvel Cinematic Universe character. The character Black Widow visibly shows the femme fatale trope by displaying examples from the film noir genre, spy movies, and Barbara Hales’ results of the femme fatale in film noir of the 1940-50s from certain scenes of certain movies. After evaluating Hugo J. Ingrasci’s antihero trope, the character Black Widow exhibits traits of an antihero trope in multiple Marvel films. In Michael Manahan’s concept of writing an antihero, the character Black Widow is seen as the antihero when it comes to injustice versus justice situations in society and determining her alliance in Captain America: Civil War. The intention of the antihero is to set apart from this view of Black Widow as an object and view the character. However, thro

The object of this research is the synthesis of two complete different phenomena: Holocaust tragedy and “naturalist stories”. Distinctive feature of works about the Holocaust, both cinema, and literary, is the indispensable documentary basis. The chosen subject itself causes documentalism. It is possible to track D. Ackerman's way to writing of the novel Zookepper’s Wife from professional interest in preservation of animals in the conditions of occupation to the appeal to history of the Holocaust, resistance and heroism. The author tries to represent events in Warsaw through a prism of specifics of fauna, keeping scientific view of the naturalist on the events nature. Constant comparison of people and animals results in a certain blurring of borders between these two worlds. The writer constantly puts the readers in a situation of the moral choice., O objeto desta pesquisa é a síntese de dois fenômenos completamente distintos: a tragédia do Holocausto e as “histórias naturalistas”. Característica distintiva das obras sobre o Holocausto, tanto cinema como literária, é a base documental indispensável. O próprio tema escolhido causa documentalismo. É possível rastrear o caminho de D. Ackerman para escrever o romance Esposa de Zookepper, desde o interesse profissional na preservação de animais nas condições de ocupação até o apelo à história do Holocausto, resistência e heroísmo. O autor tenta representar os acontecimentos em Varsóvia através de um prisma de especificidades da fauna, mantendo a visão científica do naturalista sobre a natureza dos acontecimentos. A comparação constante de pessoas e animais resulta em um certo borramento das fronteiras entre esses dois mundos. O escritor constantemente coloca os leitores em uma situação de escolha moral., El objeto de esta investigación es la síntesis de dos fenómenos completamente diferentes: la tragedia del Holocausto y las “historias naturalistas”. El rasgo distintivo de las obras sobre el Holocausto, tanto cinematográficas como literarias, es la base documental indispensable. El propio tema elegido provoca documentalismo. Es posible rastrear la manera en que D. Ackerman escribió la novela La esposa del cuidador del zoológico desde el interés profesional en la preservación de los animales en las condiciones de ocupación hasta la apelación a la historia del Holocausto, la resistencia y el heroísmo. El autor trata de representar los eventos en Varsovia a través de un prisma de especificidades de la fauna, manteniendo la visión científica del naturalista sobre los eventos de la naturaleza. La comparación constante de personas y animales da como resultado una cierta difuminación de las fronteras entre estos dos mundos. El escritor pone constantemente a los lectores en una situación de elección moral.

Summary: Home Home is a collection of nonfiction essays addressing themes of mental health, popular culture, queerness, setting, and sexuality., 2021, Includes bibliography., Degree granted: Thesis (MFA)--Florida Atlantic University, 2021., Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Digital storytelling techniques and persuasive communications are becoming increasingly intertwined and realized in cultural discourses such as cultural heritage, environmental activism, and politics. Rhetorical theory has grounded and influenced communication practice since the age of oration, and as society is increasingly undergoing new mediatization, digital rhetorical theory can be reexamined and applied to nonfiction digital narratives for improved practice. Narratology provides key theoretical foundations that are braided into digital rhetoric for application to digital nonfiction narratives. This article highlights how new media has changed the impacts of the modes of persuasion (ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos) on today's multimedia-consuming audiences and how the classical rhetorical canons (invention, arrangement, style, delivery, and memory) can be reframed and updated by incorporating narrative theory to aid creators of new nonfiction digital narratives across different genres.

Influenced by— and sometimes in conversation with— diverse literary voices such as Dorothy Allision (BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA), Harry Crews (A CHILDHOOD), and Mark Doty (FIREBIRD), SPLIT AT THE ROOT is a literary bildungsroman told primarily in the narrative mode. The memoir traces the narrator’s volatile beginnings in the trailer parks of rural South Carolina in the 1980s to the day he accepted, sight unseen, an offer of admission to Yale University, boarding a plane in 1993 for the first time in his life. This memoir explores the narrator’s quest for agency, deploying the essayist mode to interrogate along the way urgent themes such as class and cultural capital, addiction, domestic violence, marginalization, survivorship, victimhood, and always with careful attention to the reader’s need for the engaging and well-told story.

(A segment of a book-length project) Struggling with divorce, the death of his father and coming to terms with his sexuality, a former Force Recon Marine abandons the thought of suicide and decides, instead, to retreat to the wilds in a desperate attempt to make sense of thing. Hiking by himself for more than 1,000 miles, over three months, mostly off-trail through some of the most remote and wild country left in the United States, the author writes of his encounters with wolves, grizzlies, mountain lions and, more importantly, himself. "In the wilds," the author writes, "there are no societal-created norms and expectations. everything is what it is. A Grizzly might judge me as a possible threat or feast but doesn't care who I love or sleep with." A mixture or wilderness adventure, natural history and self-discovery, the narrator takes along on his physical and emotional journey as he faces a lifetime of deceit and begins to understand and embrace his darkest secrets and authentic self.

Missoula, MT

Missoula, MT