English Rhetoric and Composition (PhD)
Admission Requirements
Application Due: January 5 (fall admission only)
All applicants should submit:
- Online Graduate Application.
- A written statement of no more than 1,000 words detailing the applicant's professional goals in the field of rhetoric and composition.
- Complete official transcripts of all college-level work.
- Three academic letters of recommendation.
- Critical writing sample (15-20 pages).
- Application for Graduate Teaching Assistantship (GTA).
- Statement (1-2 pages) describing how you would approach teaching in general and teaching writing in particular. If you have experience as a teaching or tutor, describe your teaching philosophy and provide some specific examples of how you turn that philosophy into practice in the classroom or writing center. What are the most important concepts and skills you think student writers need to learn? If you do not have experience as a teacher or tutor, describe what, as a student, you have found effective in your best teachers. What approaches to teaching and what personal qualities did you value in their work? Describe how you would approach teaching based on what you have experienced. What are the most important concepts and skills you think student writers need to learn?
- All applicants for whom English is a second language must also submit official TOEFL scores of 79 or higher on the internet-based test, 213 or higher on the computer-based test. English proficiency can also be met by submitting official IELTS scores of at least 6.5 overall band score from the academic module exam or official Duolingo overall score of 105. Students holding a bachelor's or advanced degree from an accredited institution in the United States may be exempt from this requirement.
Degree Requirements
All doctoral students are expected to complete a minimum of 45 graduate credit hours; demonstrate proficiency in one language other than English; successfully complete the Modern and Contemporary Rhetoric and Composition exam and the Specified Literature Area exam; complete and defend a dissertation; and participate in a year-long supervised teaching-internship. (Graduate teaching assistants automatically fulfill the professional requirement once they have completed one successful year as a graduate teaching assistant.)
More information on requirements can be found in the English Department Graduate Program Guidelines.
Graduate-level English courses beyond those listed may count towards requirements depending on the topics covered. Detailed course descriptions, available on the English Department website, will provide this information and can be discussed during advising with the director of graduate studies.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| General Requirements | ||
| ENGL 602 | Teaching College Composition | 3 |
| ENGL 620 | Research in the Composition | 3 |
| ENGL 689 | Directed Reading for Comprehensive Examinations | 3 |
| Pedagogy and Program Administration | 3 | |
| Assessing and Responding to Student Writing | ||
or ENGL 670 | Composition Theory and Practice | |
| Rhetoric | 3 | |
| Studies in Genres | ||
or ENGL 671 | History of Rhetoric I | |
or ENGL 672 | History of Rhetoric II | |
or ENGL 673 | Rhetoric and Textual Analysis | |
or ENGL 676 | The Rhetoric of Science | |
| Literature 1 | 9 | |
| Contemporary Theories of Interpretation | ||
or ENGL 692 | Topics in Interpretive Theory Since 1900 | |
| Studies in Genres | ||
or ENGL 605 | Teaching Literature: Theory and Practice | |
or ENGL 606 | Creative Writing I | |
or ENGL 607 | Creative Writing II | |
or ENGL 624 | Old English and Middle English Language and Literature | |
or ENGL 631 | Renaissance Drama | |
or ENGL 632 | Shakespeare | |
or ENGL 633 | Renaissance Poetry and Prose | |
or ENGL 642 | Eighteenth-Century Fiction | |
or ENGL 643 | Eighteenth-Century Poetry and Prose | |
or ENGL 644 | Romantic Poetry and Prose | |
or ENGL 651 | Nineteenth-Century Fiction | |
or ENGL 652 | Nineteenth-Century British Poetry and Prose | |
or ENGL 653 | Irish Studies | |
or ENGL 654 | Twentieth-Century Literature | |
or ENGL 660 | African-American Literature | |
or ENGL 661 | Nineteenth-Century American Fiction | |
or ENGL 662 | Nineteenth-Century American Poetry and Prose | |
or ENGL 664 | American Authors: 1900-Present | |
or ENGL 665 | Contemporary Poetry | |
or ENGL 681 | Seminar in Special Studies | |
or ENGL 685 | Seminar in Modern British Studies | |
or ENGL 686 | Seminar in American Studies | |
| Electives | 9 | |
| ENGL 690 | Dissertation Research | 12 |
| Minimum Total Hours | 45 | |
