Developing an English Day at a Small Liberal Arts College for Prospective Students
By: Austin Searfoss & Stefanie Lauer

The purpose in planning an English Day is to bring high school students interested in English together on a college campus. The plan suggests a day in which high school juniors and seniors have the opportunity to experience what small liberal art colleges offer in the area of English, as well as how English impacts future career choices. This plan fosters students' interests through the use of panels, discussion, readings, and writing activities. Similar events held at surrounding universities yielded successful end results. This English Day offers different perspectives, more resources, and opportunities for students to research potential paths to take after high school.
 
In order to begin building this day, research was conducted through professor interviews, observations of other days, and interaction with current high school and college students. Participants will develop a wider array of knowledge and useful contacts for the future through the assistance of professors and current college students. This English Day remains an annual event with a different focus each year. Every year, University students will serve on a panel and interact with high school students during lunch, though topics will differ. The first year focuses on creative writing, with the use of faculty as keynote speakers and workshop leaders. The University's Writers Series' speakers and culturally relevant themes determine future topics. In doing so, this English Day distinguishes itself from others in the area so students' interest and participation remain high.

Grammar as an Introduction to Creative Writing in Middle School Language Arts
By: Brittany Hall

The purpose of the project is to create a grammar unit that will serve as an introduction to a creative writing unit with middle school language arts students.  Before the students can complete a well-written creative essay or paper, they must have an understanding of the different elements that make up a sentence.  The unit consists of six lessons, each taught in the time frame of one standard public school class period, and each focusing on a different part of speech, covering all of the parts of speech within six days.  A final lesson consists of a grammar review game.  Following these lessons, a test is given to the students to measure their understanding of the material, as well as their need for remediation.  Based on research, some people believe traditional methodologies lead to ineffective learning environments; some contemplate whether the methods used today are adequate for the students’ needs in writing, while others find grammar ineffective in improving the quality of students’ writing in English.  According to the Ohio content standards, students should have been taught the basic rules of grammar and parts of speech as early as elementary school.  Overall, this unit is intended as a simple review of what students have learned in the past.  Once the unit is completed, the students should be ready to start a creative writing unit, relating to the novel they are reading.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and English as an International Language
By: Craig White

Senior Craig White shares his Capstone project at the February Board of Trustees luncheon on undergraduate research.

Few efforts have been made since Benjamin Lee Whorf’s untimely death in 1941 to prove the legitimacy of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis through empirical research, and there is much debate as to the legitimacy of his idea, summed up by John Lucy  (1992), that “diverse languages influence the thought of those who speak them” (p. 1). This study seeks to explore what light this hypothesis can shed on the recent trend of English towards international lingua franca. In addition, this study discusses widely-held notions concerning the perceived superiority and centrality of Western language in business and popular culture the world over. These notions are placed under scrutiny using the lens of Whorf’s linguistic relativity. 

Examined first is Whorf’s hypothesis, as well as the scant empirical research which has been performed since his passing. The modern trend of English towards international language is then explored, followed by a discussion on the perceived racial, linguistic and cultural superiority of the West that still exists in many countries around the globe. The study offers that efforts towards the creation of a synthetic language which goes beyond the realm of Indo-European thought and grammar and represents a much more diverse background of linguistic interests would help towards the achievement of a more balanced perspective of the world. Finally, the linguistic relativity hypothesis is investigated in terms of its possible implications on ESL education abroad, and suggestions are made for future research.

Introducing Rhetoric to Middle Level Education
By: Jessica Knoll

The purpose of this project is to seamlessly introduce rhetoric into the seventh grade curriculum. Since rhetoric is not hosted by the seventh grade academic content standards, the ideas have been born from content that is. Six lessons will be introduced to students in the realm of two larger units: reading and writing.  The text to be used for the reading unit is Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls while the writing unit focuses on a fictional, creative short story written by the students. The instructional methods will not only introduce the seventh graders to forms of rhetoric, they will further student knowledge and comprehension in reading and writing. The lessons will be introduced sporadically, yet strategically, in order to maintain students’ focus on the superior units.  Students partake in arguing, persuading, and informing on a daily basis, so the expected results from this project would be that they comprehend almost immediately and connect to the work in a global sense. Often, adolescents battle with their identities, especially in middle school, until they reach early adulthood. Working with rhetoric will help them make decisions about their morals, values, and how they fit into the world around them. Through informing others, taking a stance on an issue, and defending their beliefs, students will become more well-rounded and further their search for a spot in society. 

Who Will Watch Them?
By: Lauren Salisbury

The world is full of minute details, actions, and people that go unnoticed on a daily basis: the clerk at a hardware store, the neighborhood children playing, the empty model home on the side of the highway, and even the solitary moth drawn to a window by the bathroom light.  Who will watch them? The author of this group of poems uses these subjects and more to construct a collection which examines every day nuances that usually go by without recognition.

The poet uses narrative structures with characters and plot to tell a story through each poem, making these otherwise inconsequential topics significant. Each poem lends itself to a greater understanding of the world from which we all come: the aspirations, the tragedies, the oddities, and the revelations that change us inexorably.

This short collection weaves in and out of many different consciousnesses to find those things in life that everyone fails to notice but should pay the most attention to.  In reading this collection, the reader will evolve from the role of an outsider to a member of the innermost circle of each subject.  Through each poem the reader becomes the observer of the clerk, the children, the moth, and the house—eager to watch them all.

Writing a Memoir
By: Vanessa Johnston

It can take an individual several years after the death of a loved one before writing a memoir on grief. Walking through the Shadows is the story of how the author dealt with the death of her father. The pain the author experienced left her with feelings of regret that caused her to be numb for several years.

In preparing to write her memoir, the author researched other memoirs such as Tuesdays with Morrie and Memoirs of a Geisha. Tuesdays with Morrie helped the author with the structure. The structure of this novel used flashbacks to show how the author dealt with his grief. Memoirs of a Geisha helped the author deal with her understanding of her past.
 
Death affects individuals differently. For the author losing her father she often looked to other men to take his place. The author had no one else to turn to in her time of grief.
 
In the end, this memoir helped the author deal with intense life changing experiences. In the same way, a memoir can help individuals develop a better understanding on how to deal with their feelings of grief.