M.A. in English Comprehensive Exam Contract for Rhetoric & Composition
Concentration
Name (please print)
Oral Examination Date
Check here if you will seek Rank II/I certification
Thesis Title (If applicable)
Committee Chair
Committee Member
Committee Member
Note: All three committee members should be graduate faculty.
By completing and signing this contract, candidates commit themselves to a two-hour
oral exam covering their reading in the following areas:
1. graduate course work
2. general outline of British and American literary periods
3. major trends in post-1965 critical literary theory
4. literary terminology
5. thesis (if applicable)
6. texts on the attached reading list.
7. Rank II/I candidates should also be prepared to discuss pedagogy and their portfolio.
You should prepare your reading list in consultation with your committee members.
Signed copies of this contract and the attached reading list must be given to your
committee members and the graduate advisor at least four months prior to taking the
exam.
Signatures
Committee Chair:
Date
Committee member:
Date
Committee member:
Date
MA candidate:
Date
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Student Responsibilities
Choose and meet with your committee. At least one semester before you plan to take
your exam, ask a graduate faculty member in your concentration area to serve as your
committee chair. Meet with him/her to discuss your reading list choices and who the
other members of your committee will be. You will meet with each committee
member to discuss your reading list.
For students pursuing any concentration other than teaching, the committee should
consist of one literature faculty member and two faculty members from their
concentration. Those with the teaching concentration should choose two English
faculty members (at least one in literature) and one Education faculty member. All
committee members must be graduate faculty.
Set a date. Email your committee members with a list of at least four dates and times
when you would be available take the exam. (Check TopNet to ensure that you are
not suggesting times when your committee members are teaching class.) Once you
have a date when everyone is available, let them know and schedule a room (the RPW
room if it is available) for the exam with Kimberly Boswell in Cherry 100.
Distribute copies of your contract and reading list to your committee members and the
graduate advisor at least four months before the exam date.
Teaching Portfolios (Rank II/I applicants only) should be distributed to the committee at
least two weeks before the exam date. One copy should be provided to the graduate
advisor before or immediately after the exam.
Send a reminder email to your committee members one week before the exam.
Turn in one research paper from a literature class to your exam chair on the day of the
exam. This should be an essay from one of your last classes, one that you feel represents
your best work. It should include a bibliography in MLA format. This essay will be used
for departmental assessment.
Faculty Chair Responsibilities
Consult with the student regarding the reading list and formation of the exam
committee.
On the day of the exam, get an exam grade sheet from the Cherry Hall 134 vestibule.
(They’re in the hanging file on top of the two-drawer filing cabinet next to the door to
CH 134). Obtain a copy of Form E from Kimberly Boswell. She will give you both a Pass
and a Pass with Distinction form. At the end of the exam, sign the appropriate form,
have the other committee members sign it, and give it, the exam grade sheet, and the
student’s research paper to Kimberly or to the graduate advisor.
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Reading List for MA Candidates with a Rhetoric & Composition Concentration
List authors and titles. For poets, the list of poems should be sufficient to be
representative of the poet and the period.
I. British and Anglophone Literature
Poetry
Two poets from different centuries
Drama
One play
Prose
(Note: In this section, “text” refers to a novel, short story collection, or major prose
work; at least one novel must be chosen.)
Two texts from different centuries
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II. American Literature
Poetry
Two poets from different centuries
Drama
One play
Prose
(Note: In this section, “text” refers to a novel, short story collection, or major prose
work; at least one novel must be chosen.)
One nineteenth-century text
One twentieth-century text
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III. Rhetoric and Composition Reading List
A. Rhetorical Theory
Please be prepared to discuss the contribution of rhetoric to the teaching of writing. All
readings are from The Rhetorical Tradition (2nd edition), edited by Patricia Bizzell and
Bruce Herzberg (St. Martin’s Press) for appropriate pages.
1. Classical Period
Select one author.
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Aspasia, “Plato, From Menexenus”
Isocrates, Against the Sophists
Plato, ___ Phaedrus OR ___ Gorgias
Aristotle, Rhetoric
Cicero, Of Oratory
Quintillian, from Institutes of Oratory
2. Other periods
Select two authors.
Medieval
___ Augustine, from On Christian Doctrine, Book IV
___ Christine de Pisan, from The Treasure of the City of Ladies
Renaissance
___ Cereta, Letters to Augustinus Aemilus and Bibulus Sempronius
___ Erasmus, from Copias: Foundations of the Abundant Style
___ Bacon, from The Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum
___ Fell, from Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed by the Scriptures
Enlightenment
___ Campbell, from The Philosophy of Rhetoric
___ Blair, from Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres
Nineteenth Century
___ Grimke, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman
___ Nietzsche, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
Modern and Postmodern
___ Bakhtin, from The Problem of Speech Genres
___ Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric
___ Burke, from A Grammar of Motives OR ___ from A Rhetoric of Motives
___ Weaver, Language Is Sermonic
___ Toulmin, from The Uses of Argument
___ Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge
___ Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa
___ Gates, from The Signifying Monkey
___ Anzaldúa, from Borderlands/La frontera
___ Fish, Rhetoric
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B. Composition Theory and Pedagogy
1. Theories
Select two of the following.
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Berlin, Rhetoric, Poetics, and Culture
Britton, The Development of Writing Abilities
Connors, Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, Pedagogy
Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Grimm, Good Intentions: Writing Center Work for Postmodern Times
Johanek, Composing Research: A Contextualist Paradigm for Rhetoric and
Composition
Kinneavy, A Theory of Discourse
Kutz and Roskelly, An Unquiet Pedagogy
Lindemann, A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers
Miller, Rescuing the Subject
Moffett, Teaching the Universe of Discourse
North, The Making of Knowledge in Composition
Rose, Lives on the Boundaries
Rosenblatt, The Reader, the Text, the Poem
Selfe and Hawisher, Literate Lives in the Information Age
Zebroski, Thinking through Theory: Vygotskian Perspectives on the Teaching of
Writing
Other (approved in advance): _______________________________________________
2. Applications
Select two of the following.
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Atwell, In the Middle
Black, Between Talk and Teaching
Boquet, Noise from the Writing Center
Corbett, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student
Elbow, Writing without Teachers
Gillespie and Lerner, The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring
Kirby, Kirby, and Liner, Inside Out
Mohr, Working Together: A Guide for Teacher Researchers OR
Myers, The Teacher-Researcher
Murray, A Writer Teaches Writing
Sternglass, Time to Know Them
Tobin, Reading Student Writing
Yancey, Reflection in the Writing Classroom
Other (approved in advance): _______________________________________________
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C. Chapters/Articles
Select five of the following.
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Bartholomae, “Inventing the University”
Berlin, “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class”
Berthoff, “Freire’s Liberation Pedagogy”
Berthoff, “Is Teaching Still Possible? Writing, Meaning, and Higher Order Thinking”
Booth, “Telling and Showing” (from The Rhetoric of Fiction)
Brooke, “Underlife and Writing Instruction”
Bruffee, “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind’”
Connors & Lunsford, “Teachers’ Rhetorical Comments on Student’ Papers”
Derrida, “Signature Event Context”
Ede and Lunsford, “Audience Addressed, Audience Invoked”
Elbow, “Embracing Contraries in the Teaching Process”
Emig, “Writing as a Mode of Learning”
Flynn, “Composing as a Woman”
Hartwell, “Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar”
Haywisher & Selfe, “The Rhetoric of Technology and the Electronic Writing Class”
Lu, “Conflict and Struggle: The Enemies or Preconditions of Basic Writing?”
McGee & Ericsson, “The Politics of the Program: MS Word as the Invisible
Grammarian”
Palmquist, Kiefer, Hartvigsen, & Goodlew, “Contrasts: Teaching and Learning
about Writing in Traditional and Computer Classrooms”
Peirce, “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” (from Selected Writings)
Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zones”
Rorty, “The Contingency of Language” (from Contingency, Irony, Solidarity)
Rose & Hull, “ ‘This Wooden Shack Place’: The Logic of an Unconventional
Reading”
Royster, “When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own”
Shaughnessy, “Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing’”
Sommers, “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers”
Trimbur, “Peer Tutoring: A Contradiction in Terms?”