Ability Grouping in Secondary English (open access)

Ability Grouping in Secondary English

This thesis discusses the pros and cons of grouping by ability in secondary English.
Date: August 1952
Creator: Harris, Steva Whitehead
System: The UNT Digital Library
Abraham Lincoln and the American Romantic Writers: Embodiment and Perpetuation of an Ideal (open access)

Abraham Lincoln and the American Romantic Writers: Embodiment and Perpetuation of an Ideal

The American Romantic writers laid a broad foundation for the historic and heroic Abraham Lincoln who has evolved as our national myth. The writers were attracted to Lincoln by his eloquent expression of the body of ideals and beliefs they shared with him, especially the ideal of individual liberty and the belief that achievement of the ideal would bring about an amelioration of the human condition. The time, place and conditions in which they lived enhanced the attraction, and Lincoln's able leadership during the Civil War strengthened their estimation of him. His martyrdom was the catalyst which enabled the Romantic writers to lay the foundation of the Lincoln myth which has made his name synonymous with individual freedom everywhere even today.
Date: December 1992
Creator: Hicks, Mary G. (Mary Geraldine)
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Abuse of Confidence as a Major Theme in the Novels of Henry James (open access)

The Abuse of Confidence as a Major Theme in the Novels of Henry James

All of the aforementioned factors--love, money, the abuse of confidence, the guilt growing out of it, the response of the victim--contribute to the moral view constantly evolving towards an ultimate statement in the three novels of James's maturity. This thesis will attempt to explicate in full that statement. For James's theme of abuse of confidence, together with all of its elements, was in itself only the vehicle of a finely attuned moral awareness.
Date: August 1966
Creator: Sullenberger, T. E.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Across Borders and Barlines: Chicana/o Literature, Jazz Improvisation, and Contrapuntal Solidarity (open access)

Across Borders and Barlines: Chicana/o Literature, Jazz Improvisation, and Contrapuntal Solidarity

In this study, I examine Chicana/o writings and Black and Brown musical traditions as they entwine in urban centers and inform local visions of inclusion and models of social change. By analyzing literature and music from South Texas, Southern California, and Northeastern Michigan, I detail how the social particularities of each zone inform Chicana/o cultural productions rooted in the promise of empowerment and the possibility of cross-cultural solidarity. I assert that highlighting localized variations on these themes amplifies contrapuntal solidarities specific to each region, the relationship between different, locally conceived conceptions of Chicana/o identity, and the interplay between Brown and Black aesthetic practices in urban centers near national borders. Through literary critical and ethnomusicological frameworks, I engage the rhetorical patterns that link poetry, jazz improvisation, essays, musical playlists, and corridos to illumine a web of discourses helping to establish the idiosyncratic yet complimentary cultural mores that shape localized social imaginaries in the United States.
Date: May 2014
Creator: Leal, Jonathan J.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Active or Passive Voice: Does It Matter? (open access)

Active or Passive Voice: Does It Matter?

This thesis reports on the use of active and passive voice in the workplace and classroom through analysis of surveys completed by 37 employees and 66 students. The surveys offered six categories of business writing with ten sets of two sentences each, written in active and passive voice. Participants selected one sentence from each set and gave a reason for each selection. The participants preferred active over passive 47 to 46 percent of opportunities, but they preferred mixed voice over both, 49 percent. The participants preferred active only for memos to supervisors; in the other five categories they preferred passive or mixed voice. Both males and females preferred mixed voice, and age appeared to influence the choices. They cited context as the most common reason for using passive.
Date: December 1993
Creator: Watson, Rose E. (Rose Elliott)
System: The UNT Digital Library
Addison's Literary Criticism as Found in The Spectator (open access)

Addison's Literary Criticism as Found in The Spectator

This thesis is a study of Joseph Addison's literary criticism as found in The Spectator.
Date: 1950
Creator: Doughtie, Mary Eloise Wilson
System: The UNT Digital Library
Adjective Negation in English (open access)

Adjective Negation in English

It is the purpose of this study to provide a survey of the way in which words combine with negative prefixes to form negative adjectives.
Date: August 1962
Creator: Purcell, James S.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Adventure and Political Reform in Winston Churchill Before 1913 (open access)

Adventure and Political Reform in Winston Churchill Before 1913

This thesis discusses the life of Winston Churchill. It explores his adventures and political reform prior to 1913.
Date: 1953
Creator: Casey, Mary V.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Alchemies (open access)

Alchemies

This thesis consists of a collection of poems and a critical preface. The preface is a discussion of Elizabeth Bishop's descriptive mode, as demonstrated by three of her poems: "Sandpiper," "The Monument," and "Santarém." I argue for Bishop's descriptions as creative acts, and examine the gestures that help her make the reader aware of the shaping power she exercises.
Date: August 2013
Creator: Heffner, Christopher Daniel
System: The UNT Digital Library
Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936) the Man and His Work (open access)

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936) the Man and His Work

The purpose of this thesis is to "delve into the life and poetry of A. E. Housman to try to discover, not what made Housman the man he was, but why his poetry has appeal." p. 3
Date: August 1962
Creator: Smith, Mary M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Alienation and Reconciliation in the Novels of John Steinbeck (open access)

Alienation and Reconciliation in the Novels of John Steinbeck

The purpose of this study is to show how, in a world with a system of values based on love, the characters in the novels of John Steinbeck are alienated and reconciled.
Date: May 1964
Creator: McDaniel, Barbara Albrecht
System: The UNT Digital Library
“Almost Astronauts”: Short Stories (open access)

“Almost Astronauts”: Short Stories

In this collection of short stories, I abduct experiences from my own life and take them on an imaginative journey. I experiment with elements of structure and point of view, often incorporating the magical or surreal to amplify the narrator’s internal landscape. As demonstrated in the title story, “Almost Astronauts,” these stories all deal with a sudden and sometimes destructive shift in the narrator’s perspective.
Date: May 2012
Creator: Miller, Laura I.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Ambivalence in the Poetry of Robert Frost (open access)

Ambivalence in the Poetry of Robert Frost

In this thesis an attempt will be made to demonstrate the existence and significance of some of the opposite pulls evidenced in Frost's poetry and to delineate some of the important areas in which they occur.
Date: August 1967
Creator: White, Patricia F.
System: The UNT Digital Library
American Background in Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha" (open access)

American Background in Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha"

The background for "The Song of Hiawatha" is explicitly American, for Longfellow has preserved many legends, traditions, and customs of the aborigines with fidelity. As a whole, "The Song of Hiawatha" is a successful delineation of the aborigines of North America. Longfellow preserved the most interesting legends and supplemented them with accounts of Indian life.
Date: 1940
Creator: Doty, Fern Marie
System: The UNT Digital Library
The American Businessman in the Novels and Stories of Henry James (open access)

The American Businessman in the Novels and Stories of Henry James

The critical interest in Henry James and his relationship with the "Gilded Age," or the "golden age of American business," indicates that a chronological study of the American businessman, as this character appears in James's fiction, may have some value. The term businessman in this study will simply be understood to mean a maker of money. To consider in detail all of James's writings would exceed the scope of this study; only those novels and stories which deal most obviously and directly with American businessmen will be included.
Date: August 1969
Creator: Smith, Margaret Hart
System: The UNT Digital Library
The American in the Novels of Henry James (open access)

The American in the Novels of Henry James

For the purpose of analyzing James' interpretation of the American character, it is first necessary to study his individual Americans.
Date: 1949
Creator: Speegle, Katherine Sloan
System: The UNT Digital Library
American Literary Pragmatism : Lighting Out for the Territory (open access)

American Literary Pragmatism : Lighting Out for the Territory

This thesis discusses pragmatist philosophy in the nineteenth century and its effect on American literature of the time.
Date: August 1998
Creator: England, Peter S. (Peter Shands)
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Analysis of Conflicts in Mrs. Gaskell's "North and South" (open access)

An Analysis of Conflicts in Mrs. Gaskell's "North and South"

Both contemporary and modern critics recognize the industrial, regional, and personal conflicts in North and South. There are, however, other conflicts which Mrs. Gaskell treats and resolves. This study emphasizes inner struggles resulting from repressive Victorian sexual mores. An examination of conflicts at a deeper -level than has previously been attempted clarifies motivations of individual characters, reveals a conscious and unconscious pattern within the novel and gives a fuller appreciation of Mrs. Gaskell's psychological insight. Included for discussion are examples of the Victorian feminine stereotype and the use of religion as sexual sublimation. A major portion of the paper concerns the growth of the heroine, Margaret Hale, from repressed sexuality to an acceptance of womanhood in Victorian society.
Date: May 1976
Creator: Brown, Kathleen B.
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Analysis of Six Representative Women Characters in Edith Wharton's Novels (open access)

An Analysis of Six Representative Women Characters in Edith Wharton's Novels

For this study, an analysis will be made of six of Edith Wharton's heroines: Lily Bart, the luxury-loving, aristocratic heroine of The House of Mirth, who was destroyed by her own class; Ellen Olenska, who neither lost nor sought an established place in New York society, since it belonged to her, and she stayed there by the sacrifice of instinct and happiness; Anna Leath, a typical product of puritan New York, who suffered from having learned so thoroughly the rules of her generation; Halo Tarrant, who took love into her own hands and defied society but felt the strength of the social convention which shuts out the woman who does not play the game according to the rules; Undine Spragg, the social adventurer, who represents ambition, which Mrs. Wharton had come to recognize as the dominant characteristic of the new woman of America; and Sophy Viner, an American girl who, yielding to temptation, is plunged into insecurity because she comes into contact with Anna Leath and the rules of her world.
Date: 1942
Creator: Wheeler, Ferrel
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Analysis of Some of Browning's Major Characters. (open access)

An Analysis of Some of Browning's Major Characters.

This study aimed to show the variety and skill of Browning's portrayal of character and to prove that the unifying forces in his treatment of character is the development of the poet himself.
Date: August 1936
Creator: Kincaid, Elizabeth
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Analysis of the Effect of Constituent Division of Reading Texts on Students of English as a Second Language (open access)

An Analysis of the Effect of Constituent Division of Reading Texts on Students of English as a Second Language

The effect of constituent division of reading texts on ESL students was examined to note possible benefits to reading comprehension. An experimental group in each of three ESL proficiency levels was tested on a reading passage divided at the ends of lines at major constituent boundaries. Within each level, the experimental group was compared to a control group in three areas: reading time, test time, and test results. Results of the study do not support the theory that constituent division of reading texts could be beneficial to ESL students. The differences in reading time, test time, and test results of the experimental group and the control group in each level were insignificant.
Date: December 1986
Creator: Childress, Anita Gaye
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Analysis of the Overt Teaching of the Monitor to Students of English as a Second Language (open access)

An Analysis of the Overt Teaching of the Monitor to Students of English as a Second Language

The overt teaching of the Monitor, or conscious rule awareness, to native Spanish-speaking ESL students was examined to note possible benefits to the students' oral English production. Native Spanish-speaking students of English (the experimental group) were taught an awareness of their ability to self-correct their spoken English. They were then compared to another group of native Spanish-speaking ESL students (the control group) in four areas: Ilyin Oral Interview score, total words produced, errors produced, and interference errors produced. The results of the study lend support to the theory that overt Monitor teaching could be beneficial to native Spanish-speaking students of English. The experimental group showed a significant gain in Ilyin scores and a significant reduction in the number of errors produced.
Date: August 1983
Creator: Conway, Jean (Priscilla Jean)
System: The UNT Digital Library
An analysis of the syntactic and lexical features of an Indian English oral narrative: A Pear Story study. (open access)

An analysis of the syntactic and lexical features of an Indian English oral narrative: A Pear Story study.

This pilot study addresses the distribution of nonstandard syntactic and lexical features in Indian English (IE) across a homogeneous group of highly educated IE speakers. It is found that nonstandard syntactic features of article use, number agreement and assignment of verb argument structure do not display uniform intragroup distribution. Instead, a relationship is found between nonstandard syntactic features and the sociolinguistic variables of lower levels of exposure to and use of English found within the group. While nonstandard syntactic features show unequal distribution, nonstandard lexical features of semantic reassignment, and mass nouns treated as count nouns display a more uniform intragroup distribution.
Date: December 2007
Creator: Seale, Jennifer Marie
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Angel in the House and The Woman in White: The Unfolding and Decoding of a Victorian Stereotype (open access)

The Angel in the House and The Woman in White: The Unfolding and Decoding of a Victorian Stereotype

Abstract: Modern readers frequently perceive female characters in Victorian novels as insipid and inane, blaming the static portrayals on the angel in the house stereotype attributed to Coventry Patmore's poem of the same name. The stereotype does not accurately reflect the actual Victorian woman's life, however. Examining how the stereotype evolved and how the middle-class Mid-Victorian woman really lived provides insight into literary devices authors employed either to reinforce the angel ideal or to reconcile the ideal with the real. Wilkie Collins's portrayal of Marian Halcombe in The Woman in White features a dynamic female who has both androgynous characteristics and angel-in-the-house qualities, exemplifying one more paradox in a society riddled with contradictions.
Date: August 1991
Creator: Spencer, Sandra L.
System: The UNT Digital Library