Below you will find links to excerpts from my undergraduate and graduate theses/dissertation. They are broken into two categories, followed by an abstract.
Santiago, Nicholas. ‘Teaching as a Reflective Practice: U.K. Professional Teaching Standards and PGCE English, Aligning the Aspects of an ‘Inspirational’ Teacher.’ 2020.
The following qualitative study has been prepared to contribute to the study of teacher-self-identity and narrative inquiry. These fields are comprised of literatures potentially necessary for new teachers or education graduate students to learn what incites a student to become a teacher, or what steers them away from the profession. As this is a small-scale case study: the three research questions are as follows: In what ways and how far does the personal beliefs of PGCE English trainee teachers about what makes an ‘inspirational’ teacher correlate with UK Professional Standards? What are the potential factors behind an alignment or divergence between teachers’ personal beliefs and the UK Professional Standards? What factors contribute to the development of PGCE English teachers’ personal belief about the personality traits that comprise a ‘inspirational’ teacher? In what ways do the U.K. Teachers’ Standards contribute to this?
The study took place at UCL among students enrolled on the PGCE English programme who are training to become qualified teachers in the future, in the form of ten semi-structured interviews. The data collected was then analysed and deconstructed using thematic analysis. Findings show that first, the very meaning of inspiration and teacher hold a different meaning to each person, which affects their criteria of what it means to become inspired by a teacher. Second, findings reveal that inspiration from a teacher goes deeper than their in-class practices or their personality traits, but in their approach to teaching by confronting and managing their own self-identity. Lastly, there are findings to indicate that among teacher trainees on the PGCE programme, there are two firm and contradicting beliefs: teaching as a personal act to influence professionalism and teaching as a professional act to influence personality. Therefore, there are factors that inspire and urge a student to become teachers, and there are external factors like familial influence and key traits/behaviours that coerce students to become teachers of their own calibre. The limitations of this study are listed as well.
Santiago, Nicholas. “To Live Again: Digital Rhetoric and First-Year Composition” 2018. <UNDER REVISION/UPDATING>
As we advance into a new age of media and technology, so too does the flexibility and versatility in the way composition classes are conducted at universities nationwide. Composition emerged as a required course and a field of study in the United States at the end of the 19th century and transformed at the end of the 20th century and, in the twenty-first century, a rebirth of rhetoric is at hand. I contend that we cannot understand composition practices nor the renaissance of rhetoric through multimodal, digital platforms until we understand the classical Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition. This thesis looks at the roots of composition in classical rhetoric. I offer a brief history of classical rhetorical modes, a case study of composition practices in a contemporary composition classroom and an argument for rethinking rhetoric in the digial age. I rely on the work of classical rhetors—Aristotle, etc—as well as contemporary digital rhetoric– Carmen Kynard, Jody Shipka, Byron Hawk and Alex Reid—to rethink rhetorical methods in a new age of authorship and in this digital public sphere. The revival of rhetorical practices in composition is at hand.
This work will be updated as of 2021 to include my experience teaching via multimodal methods as an English Composition I and II instructor.