Sample Writings
Ain't You Supposed to Be...?
Written in 2016, this essay compares Mia McKenzie's The Summer We Got Free and the short story Cabins by Christopher Merkner. In both texts, a common thread can be traced discussing the theme of masculinity: what it means, how it manifests itself socially, and the consequences of ignoring it.
The Summer We Got Free was awarded the Lambda Literary Award for its exploration and representation of queer subject matter.
Strength in the Face of an Angry Puritan Man
John Winthrop was infamous for his religious conviction and manipulative tendencies. In this essay I discuss that zeal in the context of women's personal crises in the Puritan culture. It was common for women to serve as examples, they were often publicly humiliated for their assumed crimes. So what happens when a woman gives birth to a stillborn baby?
Open Letter
This was written during my time in a class about technical writing. It intends to bring light to the issue at West Chester University and the larger music composition realm. It includes statistics about the diversity in music, or lack thereof, and urges it's recipients and readers to think critically about the current state of the fine arts.
Symbolic Annihilation and Commodification of a Nation
This essay analyses the historic representation of Native Americans in United States media. I explore concepts such as symbolic annihilation, the act of relegating a minority group to only a certain time period, without recognizing that they still exist today. Native Americans were touted in the 70's as protectors of the land, but this concept is factually ignorant. If we, as a culture, seek to make positive change, we must learn to understand all of our members.
English Dialect Variation by Generation as Influenced by Technology
In English we are often blind to dialect variations, or rather we do not recognize them as dialect variations at all. African American Vernacular English is one such dialect which we associate strongly with people of darker skin, but don't always recognize as its own separate dialect. In the culture of the United States, there are also variations in the "Standard" English dialect. With the advent of the internet, dialect variations grow to represent more than just generation, but political orientation, gender, and class. Here I discuss how technology has affected the dialect of Millennials and members of Generation Z and what we can learn from the findings.