Table of contents

Page 2- 4 Breakfast, morning presentations,

and lunch
Page 5-6 Afternoon and evening
presentations including keynote
speakers
Page 7-16 Abstract book in order of
presentation schedule
 Morning Presentation Schedule
Check- In: 8:00- 9:00 AM

Liberal Arts Lobby Free breakfast and check-in for presenters and attendees

Presentation I: 9:00 AM - 10:15 AM

Room 111A: Nostalgic Reconsidering Nostalgic Appeals: How Corporations

Appeals and Millennial Target Millennial Anxieties
Anxieties Haley Stammen, Stephanie Tanke, Maeve Dooley, Bryce
Chaired by: Jessica Kanzler Riley

Room 123: Academic Writing The use of informal features in academic writing
Chair: Dr. Luke Plonsky Tulay Dixon

Do the IELTS and TOEFL reflect students’ real writing

abilities?
Allison Clark and Seda Acikara

Room 211: Language and Traditional vs. Contemporary: A Diachronic Study of

History Language in the Church
Chair: Dr. Calinda Shely Ali Redling

Bearing Witness in the Writings of Luis Alberto Urrea

Cymelle Edwards

"The River DeFlag looks like a real river these days":

Floods and Flood Control Along the River de Flag, 1888-
1923
Josh Hailey
 Presentation II: 10:20 AM - 11:35 AM

Room 111A: Creativity in Exploring Identity Through Music in English

Liminal Spaces Composition
Chair: Nicole Walker Jazzy Leemhuis

Contemplation
Jacklyn Walling

Definitions of Community & Limits of Domesticity

Stacy Clark

Beautiful, Beautiful: Liminal Representations of Reality

in Fiction
Nathan Lemin

Room 123: Motivation Piloting a L2 Motivation Questionnaire

Chair: Masha Kostromitina David Puerner

Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in a Second

Language (L2)
Andrew Dennis

What is wrong with Tasks in TBLT?

Omar Eliwa

Addressing the Conceptual Gap: Game-Based Literacy

and the Development of Conceptual Knowledge in
Secondary English Language Arts Curriculum
Zach Bartell
Room 211: Language, News, Teaching Constitutional Rights: The case of the Miranda
and Law Warning
Chair: Dr. Meghan Moran-Wilson Radja Chinoun

Media and Scholars as Hosts for the Manifestos of

Rampage School Shooters: Reconsidering Thresholds of
Violent Writings
Haley Stammen

What is News: A Comparison of Spoken and Written

News
Ruirui Sun and Stacey Wizner

Presentation III: 11:40 AM - 12:40 PM

Room 120: Thin Air Panel Thin Air Magazine: Sharing our Community
Chaired by: Dr. Lawrence Lenhart Members of the Thin Air Organization

Lunch: 12:40 PM - 1:20 PM

Liberal Arts Lobby Free lunch provided

 Afternoon Presentation Schedule
Presentation IV: 1:30 PM - 2:45 PM

Room 111A: Speech Lexico-grammatical patterning of make in student

Chaired by: Ekaterina Sudina writing by German and Spanish- speaking learners of
English
Aisha Shelton and Leonardo Guedez

Heritage Spanish Speaker in the Classroom

Ben Brown

Where is this accent from? International Teaching

Assistants teaching English Composition in the US
Seda Acikara

Room 123: Future The structural and functional characteristics of

Technologies formulaic language in digital games
Chair: Annamarie Carlson Daniel Dixon

Bleary Screens: How Multimedia Horror Crosses the

Threshold of Storytelling
Devin Perez and Jordan Thompson

Siri, Please Read Me the User Agreement Again

Ryan Drendel

Future Sarcasm
Michael Buckius
 Presentation V: 2:50 PM - 4:05 PM

Room 111A: Gender and Exploring Female Cultural and Societal Roles in Julian
Literature Barnes’s Arthur and George
Chaired by: Dr. Angela Hansen Judith Campos

Gentlemanly Sincerity in East Lynne

Myles Lum

Curiouser and Curiouser: Female Access to Education

Sylvia Smith

Myths of Racial Pedigree in the Deborah Harkness 'All

Souls' Universe
Elizabeth Darrow

Room 123: Diagramming Diagramming Meaning: Finding Poetic Subtext Using

Meaning Linguistics
Chaired by: Christine Davis Nathan Lemin, Ryan Drendel, Benjamin Brown, & Andrew
Dennis

Student Keynote: 4:10 PM - 4:40 PM

Room 120 Beyond Genre Thresholds: Music and More in the Pink
Stone Project
Laura Brady

Keynote: 4:45 PM - 5:30 PM

Room 120 Rhetoric, Politics, and Privatization: On Losing the

Language of Higher Ed
Dr. Cori Brewster
 Abstract Book
Presentation I: 9:00 AM - 10:15 AM

Room 111A: Nostalgic Appeals and Millennial Anxieties

Reconsidering nostalgic appeals: How corporations target millennial anxieties.

Tanke, Stephanie, Stammen, Haley, Riley, Bryce, and Dooley, Maeve. Northern Arizona
University, Literature, RWDMS.
All four presenters will be focusing on how corporations target millennials using the
threshold of nostalgia. We will be covering why the millennial generation is so attached
to figures from childhood, and how it has affected politics, personal relationships, and
mindsets.

Room 123: Academic Writing

The use of informal features in academic writing.

Dixon, Tulay. Northern Arizona University, PhD Applied Linguistics.
This study analyzes the use of informal features in published academic writing by using
the 20th Century Research Articles Corpus (Biber & Gray, 2016) and Chang and Swales’
(1999) list of informal features mentioned in style manuals. Specifically, this study
examines 1) how often three different disciplines use the selected informal features and
2) in what ways they use them.

Do the IELTS and TOEFL reflect students’ real writing abilities?

Clark, Allison and Acikara, Seda . Northern Arizona University, MATESL.
Many international students typically take standardized language proficiency exams to gain
entry into universities in English-speaking countries. This study aims to measure whether
the IELTS (International English Language Testing System), placement tests, and the
TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) writing scores are good predictors of
international students’ writing abilities.

Room 211: Language and history

Traditional vs. contemporary: a diachronic study of language in the church

Redling, Ali. Northern Arizona University, MATESL.
How does the language we use today define our society differently than it did a century
ago? You will encounter changes the American people have undergone as we cross the
 threshold of time. Stepping from the 19th century into present day, the presenter discusses
significant language changes in the church.

Bearing witness in the writings of Luis Alberto Urrea.

Edwards, Cymelle. Northern Arizona University, MFA Creative Writing.
I will speak to the effectiveness of poetry when writing about the border and use The
Devil's Highway as the core text for this while pulling from other poets such as Gina
Valdes and works of poetry from Urrea.

"The River DeFlag looks like a real river these days": floods and flood control along the
River DeFlag, 1888-1923.
Hailey, Josh. Northern Arizona University, MA History.
The River de Flag has been mostly invisible since the late-nineteenth century, resembling
a dry wash instead of a river. While it may appear insignificant due to its size and
ephemeral flow, its history challenges us to take a closer look at seemingly insignificant
watercourses.

Presentation II: 10:20 AM - 11:35 AM

Room 111A: Creativity in liminal spaces

Exploring identity through music in English composition.

Leemhuis, Jazzy. Northern Arizona University, MA RWDMS.
Many students have already faced the boundaries surrounding social justice, while others
are totally unaware. The Music Project, a unit as part of a freshman composition class,
allows students to scrutinize social justice, examine its relevance to their own lives, and
share something they love.

Contemplation.
Walling, Jacklyn . Northern Arizona University, MFA Creative Writing.
Contemplation dives into the uncomfortable line we must all cross in life, death. A minor
foot injury triggers a spiraling train of thoughts about past funerals, her Grandpa’s death,
and a surrealist meditation on what she could do with her body when she dies.

Definitions of community and limits of domesticity.

Clark, Stacy. Northern Arizona University, MFA Creative Writing.
Beginning with a brief lecture on the concept of the domestic, and the nature of
community. I plan to engage the audience by using their ideas and comments to direct the
 lecture ideas. I plan to read the piece out loud. Finally, I will take time for Q & A
following the reading.

Beautiful, beautiful: Liminal representations of reality in fiction.

Lemin, Nathan. Northern Arizona University, MFA Creative Writing.
My fiction seeks to understand the effects that displacement and absence have on
individuals. I explore on all things liminal--whether that be the effacement of home when
traveling, the threshold of physical boundaries, or the haunting of personal loss. I am
entranced by the truth found in between two realities: then, now; there, here; with them,
without them. Narratively, these themes often take the form of far off settings, infidelity,
and deaths in the family. Using my own work (a short story) I aim to show how fiction
can both comment on and create reality because of its unique, liminal position at a
distance from said reality.

Room 123: Motivation

Piloting a L2 Motivation Questionnaire.

Puerner, David . Northern Arizona University, MATESL.
Piloting an instrument is just one way that professionals in applied linguistics move from
the realm of ideas and concepts to the realm of real measurement (or at least our best shot
at real measurement). This presentation is about the piloting of an L2 Motivation
questionnaire in a first semester Chinese foreign language context.

Willingness to communicate (WTC) in a second language (L2).

Dennis, Andrew. Northern Arizona University, MA TESL.
This study is an overview of different attempts to define WTC in various research
contexts, followed by an outline of common practices for measuring WTC within
different fields of research and language learning contexts. This study concludes with
various researchers’ suggested implications for utilizing WTC to enhance L2 teaching
pedagogy and align future research.

What is wrong with tasks in TBLT?

Eliwa, Omar. Northern Arizona University, MA TESL.
It has been problematic to define tasks in TBLT since every contributor in the field has his
own definition of the concept. This presentation aims at raising awareness among current
or potential teachers about the similarities and the significant differences that might result
in confusion or misconceptions about tasks.

Addressing the conceptual gap: game-based literacy and the development of conceptual
knowledge in secondary English language arts curriculum.
Bartell, Zach. Northern Arizona University, Secondary English Education.
Traditional literacy in ELA emphasizes the acquisition of skills over the construction of
conceptual knowledge. Yet, secondary ELA is at least in part a conceptually-driven school
subject. To bridge this conceptual gap, the threshold concept of game-based literacy may
provide a useful framework.

Room 211: Language, news, and law

Teaching constitutional rights, the case of the Miranda warning.

Chinoun, Radja. Northern Arizona University, MA TESL.
The study investigates whether non-native speakers of English comprehend the Miranda
warning. We used several instruments to examine participants’ understanding of the
warning. Results showed that there are significant differences between native and non-
native speakers in understanding the Miranda warning. Teaching implications are
discussed in light of the obtained results.

Media and scholars as hosts for the manifestos of rampage school shooters: reconsidering
thresholds of violent writings.
Stammen, Haley. Northern Arizona University, MA RWDMS.
Rampage school shootings are a complex myriad of sociocultural factors that culminate
into premeditated, extreme violent acts. School shooters often leave behind writing(s) to
explain motive for their act(s) of violence. This presentation explores the rhetorical and
discursive features of rampage school shooter writings. By situating these writings within
the thresholds of media and scholarly discourse, there are new opportunities for
addressing social problems raised by school shooters.

What’s news? A comparison of spoken and written news.

Sun, Ruirui and Stacey Wizner. Northern Arizona University, BA English.
This corpus-based study investigates the situational and linguistic differences between
spoken and written news. AntConc was used to measure the frequency of personal
pronouns, modals, reporting verbs, general hedges, and reduced -ing clauses. Results will
be discussed in reference to helping second language learners access the discourse of news.
 Presentation III: 11:40 AM - 12:40 PM

Room 120: Thin Air panel

Thin Air Magazine: Sharing our community.

Magneson, Clare. Cruz, Margarita. Brooks, Courtney. Northern Arizona University, MFA
Creative Writing.
Speak to the staff of Thin Air Magazine, an internationally-distributed print and online
literary magazine that publishes writers and artists from around the world but is edited
and printed right here at NAU. Meet a few key members of this year's staff and learn how
we are working to rejuvenate and collaborate with the literary community across
Northern Arizona.

Presentation IV: 1:30 PM - 2:45 PM

Room 111A: Speech

Lexico-grammatical patterning of make in student writing by German and Spanish-

speaking learners of English.
Shelton, Aisha and Guedez, Leo. Northern Arizona University, MA TESL.
This study investigates uses of the verb make in written texts authored by advanced German
and Spanish-speaking learners of English, and how their use of the verb make compares to
the use of make by native speakers of English at the undergraduate level. Analysis of
frequency and use were investigated through the use of corpora.

Heritage Spanish speaker in the classroom.

Brown, Ben. Northern Arizona University, PhD Applied Linguistics.
This study compares spoken language from two types of students: foreign language
learners and heritage language learners. The comparison focuses on the formulaic language
of Spanish learners and utilizes corpus linguistics in order to determine what types of
phrases these students use frequently and how they differ from each other.

Where is this accent from? International teaching assistants teaching English composition
in the US.
Acikara, Seda. Northern Arizona University, MA TESL.
ITAs, in this study, refer to International Teaching Assistants who teach composition to
undergraduate English-speaking students in the US. This study aims to measure whether
there is a relationship between ITAs’ speech features, namely their accentedness and
 comprehensibility, and a) teaching effectiveness, b) classroom climate, and c) overall
student preference.

Room 123: Future technologies

The structural and functional characteristics of formulaic language in digital games.

Dixon, Daniel. Northern Arizona University, PhD Applied Linguistics.
This study focuses on the formulaic language found in five different game mechanics used
in two single player offline games: Fallout 4 and Skyrim. The results imply that these five
mechanics make up distinct linguistic registers, and that the lexical bundles share structural
and functional characteristics similar to that of their real-world counterparts.

Bleary Screens: How Multimedia Horror Crosses the Threshold of Storytelling.

Perez, Devin and Thompson, Jordan. Northern Arizona University, MFA Creative Writing
One such creative project, named Mother Horse Eyes, begins with non-sequitur posts on
Reddit starting in 2016. These diatribes often hint at sinister conspiracy-esque events, and
often hinting at the use of psychedelic substances...

Siri, please read me the user agreement again.

Drendel, Ryan. Northern Arizona University, MFA Creative Writing.
This series of poems contemplates cellular devices as thresholds between human
connection. In what way does technology allow us to connect with loved ones like never
before--as a conduit of communication? How does that same technology also stifle
connection--as a filter of intimacy? This series explores the agreement we make, as
individuals and as a society, when we create digital thresholds between the physical and
the emotional realms.

Future sarcasm.
Buckius, Michael. Northern Arizona University, MFA Creative Writing.
Future Sarcasm is a darkly humorous collection of visual art and poetry that deals with the
very real possibility of a dystopian future. As technology continues to alter the way we
live, and we sit on the threshold of the point of no return as far as climate change is
concerned, my work attempts to find the humor in an irrevocably damaged landscape
through poems about fashion, relationships, sports, technology, and beating the heat. It is
accompanied by odd digital drawings, which will make up the visual component of the
presentation.

Presentation V: 2:50 PM - 4:05 PM

 Room 111A: Gender and literature

Exploring female cultural and societal roles in Julian Barnes’ Arthur and George
Campos, Judith. Northern Arizona University. MA English Literature.
This presentation explores Julian Barnes’ depiction of a women’s place in late Victorian
and early Edwardian society and culture in Arthur and George, a topic underrepresented
in the novel’s current scholarship. The female characters in the novel reflect changes
within middle-class women, from adhering to societal expectations, to rebelling against
them.

Gentlemanly sincerity in East Lynne.

Lum, Myles. Northern Arizona University, MA English Literature.
Questions of honesty, faithfulness, and infidelity arise in Ellen Wood’s East Lynne. In
this paper, I will be focusing on the depiction of male Victorian characters’ sincerity and
arguing that such sincerity was a chief moral not commonly recognized in modern
scholarship, but highly relevant for particular Victorians.

Curiouser and curiouser: female access to education.

Smith, Sylvia. Northern Arizona University, MA English Literature.
Alice Liddell, Lewis Carroll’s muse for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was born into
privilege and received an education that was of a higher quality to those which most
females would have access. Carroll’s choice to use a young female as heroine relies on her
quick wit, a powerful imagination, and an insatiable curiosity.

Myths of racial pedigree in the Deborah Harkness All Souls universe.

Darrow, Elizabeth . Northern Arizona University, English BA Alum.
The concept of racial myths used as political thresholds in Deborah Harkness fantasy All
Souls universe will be analyzed. PEAKS attendees will be able to hear this prior to its
presentation occurring at the Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society
March 2020 Convention that will take place in Nevada.

Room 123: Diagramming meaning

Diagramming meaning: Finding poetic subtext using linguistics.

Lemin, Nathan. Dennis, Andrew. Drendel, Ryan. Brown, Ben. Northern Arizona University,
MFA Creative Writing, MA TESOL, PhD Linguistics.
Our panel aims to use sentence diagramming and additional linguistic analysis to identify
poetic subtext. We hope to illuminate how meaning is created in the threshold between
the pragmatic, textual level of a line of prose or poetry, and the linguistic arrangement of
 said line. We will begin by familiarizing the audience with sentence diagramming and
key linguistic terms, to ensure their comfort with the techniques we will use.

Student Keynote: 4:10 PM - 4:40 PM

Room 120: Genre Thresholds

Beyond genre thresholds: music and more in the Pink Stone Project.
Brady, Laura. Northern Arizona University, MFA Creative Writing.
Pink Stone is a multimedia project of music, essays, photography, and illustrations inspired
by four seasons in Washington's mətxʷú (Methow) Valley. The project began when a
mysterious and disabling neuro-immune condition prompted me to leave the city for a
cabin in the woods in search of a cure. In the wilderness, I found healing, but not of the
kind I expected, and began writing new songs about the river, intimacy and solitude, and
love and loss. Almost immediately, the traditional format of an album felt constraining. I
had more to say and express than a song could carry, so I decided to gather a team of artists
to make a companion book to accompany the album of songs. This book, now underway
thanks to funding from 4Culture and a Kickstarter campaign, will include short essays,
journal and letter excerpts, a photo essay, and illustrations. By traveling 'beyond genre' in
this way, the project will hopefully immerse the reader in a deep experience of place that
opens up new ways of understanding the human body in nature.

Keynote: 4:45 PM - 5:30 PM

Room 120: The language of higher education

Rhetoric, Politics, and Privatization: On Losing the Language of Higher Ed

Dr. Cori Brewster, Professor & Department Chair of English/ Writing at Eastern Oregon
University.
 Dr. Cori Brewster is professor of writing, rhetoric, and
literacy studies at Eastern Oregon University, where
she also serves currently as English/Writing program
chair, co-coordinator of campus writing, and vice
president of the Faculty Senate. Drawn to graduate
study like so many by an interest in relationships
between language and power, she holds an M.A. in
Literature from University of Montana and a Ph.D. in
Rhetoric and Composition from Washington State,
having stopped along the way for a transformative year
of graduate work in the English Department at NAU. Her work on rhetorics of race, rurality, and
social change has appeared in several collections, including Reclaiming the Rural (Donehower,
Hogg, and Schell 2012), The Ecopolitics of Consumption (Davis, Pilgrim, and Sinha 2015),
Crossing Borders, Drawing Boundaries: The Rhetoric of Lines Across America (Wojahn and
Couture 2016), and Class in the Composition Classroom (Carter and Thelin 2017). Her article
"Basic Writing through the Back Door: Community-Engaged Courses in the Rush-to-Credit Age"
was selected for inclusion in Best of the Independent Rhetoric and Composition Journals, 2015.
Dr. Brewster's current research centers on the political economy of literacy, language justice, and
rhetorics of access in the context of privatization in public higher education. She is thrilled to return
to Flagstaff to meet current graduate students and speak at Conference at the Peaks, the first
academic conference at which she presented, in spring of 2002.