English - Master's (ENGM)

Provides students with an overview of some of the histories and theories of “classical” rhetorics beginning with their origins in Ancient Greece and Rome and moving into more contemporary paradigms and treatments. This history will give students a thorough grasp of how much of what is talked about today in terms of “rhetoric” has its origin in antiquity. Students will read primary texts by Plato and Aristotle with the goal of understanding how such thinkers managed to lay the foundations for a field of study that is flexible, nimble, and incredibly powerful. The rich historical and theoretical treatment of rhetoric here will nicely prepare students to be able to follow and contribute to current conversations within the ever-growing field of rhetorical study.

Provides students with an overview of the major theoretical foundations necessary for the study of contemporary rhetorical theory and thinking. Much contemporary rhetorical work begins with Nietzsche in the 19th century and runs through a full gamut of schools and thinkers in the twentieth century related to the heavily discussed “linguistic turn.” This course will focus quite closely on just a few of the major theoretical contributors (Heidegger, Burke, Austin, Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard) while also canvassing a number of different adjacent fields of study (affect theory, apparatus theory, media studies, critical and political theory) and various schools of philosophy (postmodernism, structuralism/post-structuralism, deconstruction).

Will help students develop personally meaningful and useful ways of thinking about teaching writing. The class is rooted in the field of Composition Studies, which explores questions including: how do writers write? In what ways is writing teachable? In what ways is writing learnable? How should writing instructors approach errors in grammar or mechanics? Why should students write well? Who decides what it means to write well? How does writing respond to different social contexts? How does writing interact with other modes of communication, especially now that we communicate through digital platforms? This course will explore these questions for theoretical and practical purposes. By the end of the course, students will have a better understanding of themselves as writers and teachers—and will be equipped with practical tools for teaching writing.

This course, which is intended primarily for prospective teachers, will help you develop personally meaningful and useful ways of thinking about teaching writing. The class is rooted in the field of Composition Studies, which explores questions including: how do writers write? In what ways is writing teachable? In what ways is writing learnable? How should writing instructors approach errors in grammar or mechanics? Why should students write well? Who decides what it means to write well? How does writing respond to different social contexts? How does writing interact with other modes of communication, especially now that we communicate through digital platforms? Our class will explore these questions for theoretical and practical purposes. By the end of the course, you will have a better understanding of yourself as a writer and a teacher, and you will be equipped with practical tools for teaching writing.

Multimodal Composition provides students with an overview of the theory and practice of multimodal composition, or composition that combines more than one mode of communication, including writing, images, sound, space, and electronic media. Although multimodal texts, from picture books to fliers to plays, long predate the digital era, the advent of digital communication has proliferated these forms of multimodal communication. In the digital era, literacy increasingly means fluency in modes beyond writing, and multimodal composition provides a framework for combining multiple modes in rhetorically effective ways. This course will introduce students to foundational works that develop the theory of multimodal composition as well as practical approaches to designing and assessing multimodal composition projects for students.

Provides students with an overview of rhetorical theory focused on the digital era. Given the explosion of different kinds of media, rhetoric has had to change and transform in order to keep pace with all of the auditory, visual, procedural, and interactive modalities on offer (modalities that range from the latest internet meme to the most recent videogame or simple blog post and so much more). This course will provide students with a robust theoretical framework (while also suggesting a number of practical tools) with which to help students think not only about all the different ways in which digital spaces function rhetorically, but also how the tools of rhetoric can be used to view life and learning in the digital age.