Quick Facts
- Delivery: On Campus
- Credits: 30-33
Ball State’s master of arts in English with a focus on rhetoric and composition provides students with a broad understanding of rhetorical and writing studies. Students will use technological literacy and digital rhetoric in the classroom as well as in the creation of discourse. They will be able to explore various aspects of rhetoric and composition including the Writing Program, the Writing Center, and the Indiana Writing Project.
As a student in our program, you will:
- Investigate the influences of digital and multimedia writing alongside rhetorical history, research, methodologies, and composition pedagogies.
- Explore the production, interpretation, and analysis of discourse across genres, media, and historical eras.
What You Will Learn
As a student in our program, you will understand:
- the history of rhetoric and composition
- rhetorical strategies and analysis
- pedagogy
- digital literacies
- multimodality
- critical thinking
Our Alumni
Learn more about what our graduate-program alumni do.
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Program Benefits
As a student, you’ll not only study contemporary theories of composition but also implement them within first-year and upper-level writing courses. In particular, you’ll theorize and develop pedagogies that emphasize the rhetorical, recursive, social, technological, and multimodal nature of writing.
You’ll look at university writing instruction through an administrative lens, considering how writing programs are developed, how they’ve evolved, what they value, how they’re staffed, and how they operate within the larger context of the university.
You’ll receive insight into the best practices of Writing Centers. To that end, you’ll study the history and theory of Writing Centers in order to consider concerns at the level of both administrator and tutor. You will also have the opportunity to work and tutor within the Writing Center.
You’ll build upon the rhetorical foundation provided by the Classical Era by critically analyzing and employing rhetorics created by diverse (and frequently marginalized) individuals and expressed through diverse media.
You’ll grapple with the idea that writing is a technology and writing is performed with and through technologies. As a result, you will practice composing with different writing technologies and explore how technologies inform the act and the teaching of writing.
A graduate assistantship is an excellent opportunity to gain meaningful professional experience while helping cover the costs of your degree. Learn more.
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Take the Next Step
If you’d like to learn more about our master's degree, complete our online form. Or one of the best ways to get a true feel for Ball State is to see it for yourself, so schedule a visit today! And if you’re ready to apply, review our admission requirements and complete our online application.
Applications for the fall semester will be accepted until July 10; applications for the spring semester will be accepted until November 1. To ensure full consideration for academic-year graduate assistantships, applications must be complete by January 31.