mittensmitten

For a sort of general understanding of what rhetoric is and how it came to be, I've been told by my professors that THE book is Bizzell and Herzberg's The Rhetorical Tradition. I've read excerpts of it for class and it's definitely very thorough about rhetoric and the people who influenced it (it starts with the classical period and goes all the way to modern times). Another (cheaper) book that could help give you more education about rhetoric is Jay Heinrichs' Thank You for Arguing. I read just a few chapters for a presentation, but he has a great way of making rhetoric contemporary and giving plenty of examples. As for some of the big names in the field, Andrea Lunsford is the first person that comes to mind. I've read a few of her articles and she's very influential in both shaping and defining the field. And also, there ARE undergraduate programs that focus on this, but they're just not that common. I'm an undergraduate who attends one of these programs

Wow, thank you so much, everyone! All of your advice is so helpful and I completely appreciate it. I will definitely look into all the programs mentioned and will get researchin’. I’m also in the midst of making vocabulary flash cards for GRE prep and am trying to re-learn some math from high school (we’ll see how that goes). To answer some of the questions posed that might help this discussion, I don’t have a specific area of specialty yet, but I’ve noticed that I’ve been gravitating toward a couple topics throughout the years. Since I’m also a French major, I’ve always been interested in working with ESL students and trying to better understand their writing process and ways to help them. I guess I can pull from my own difficulties with writing in French and being in a Quebec classroom not knowing what the HELL my professor was saying, and I find that I enjoy my ESL tutoring sessions in the writing center and I even wrote a paper about a specific kind of ESL tutoring for a global rhetoric class. So, for whatever reason, ESL tutoring/writing processes fascinates me. Also, I like researching undergraduate writing and rhetoric programs. For those of you who might not know, my program at Oakland University is completely separate from the English Department and pretty much does its own thing. We’ve learned about all of the general hostility between English vs. Writing and Rhetoric/Rhetoric and Composition programs in this country, and I find the whole situation interesting and have done some research on it for both class and conferences. Those are a couple of my interests that I could see narrowing in on throughout grad school, and I have a couple professors who do research and are prominent in those areas. From the list we’ve compiled, I think MSU would be pretty good for the ESL work with their MA program in Critical Studies in Literacy & Pedagogy, but I don’t know much about other programs. Also, I will definitely add EMU to the list since it’s very close to home! Anyone know anything about Wayne State in Michigan? One of the professors in our department went there for his PhD, but I know nothing about it. And as far as keeping myself limited to just rhet/comp work, I think I don’t really have a choice with that. As I mentioned, our Writing and Rhetoric Department is not housed in the English Department, so I have no experience with literature. However, I am majoring in French Language and Literature and so have had exposure to French literature, but it’s all entirely in French and I feel like we don’t study it the same way one would study literature in their native language (we do a lot of comprehension questions mixed in with stylistic and analytical ones because they obviously have to make sure we understand the crazy long things, which we often don’t). Again, thanks so much for all your help, and I will indeed probably PM those of you who offered! I feel like I’ve finally found a place where people actually know what I’m talking about and don’t ask me “what does rhetoric mean?”

Oh, and about funding, thanks! I will definitely have to reconsider how much I'm willing to pay and will try to follow the funds.

Thanks so much for the replies! It's all very helpful. Thanks for the tips about the GRE, Litgirl23, and thanks for the info, bhr. Chadillac, thanks so much for the input! The info about the undergraduate journals is very helpful and I will look into that, as I will with Cs. As far as other programs go, what would be a good list to start looking at? My professors have thus far pretty much just recommended top tier programs since alums from our school have gotten in, but I agree with you that I should also consider other schools. I've read that Arizona State, University of Central Florida, and University of South Florida also have good programs. Are they also considered top tier? I'm finding that it's sometimes difficult to rank graduate programs since it varies so greatly from institution to institution! Thanks again for all the help and guidance!

Hi everyone, I recently came across this site while researching information about graduate school, and I'm so happy I found it! I have some specific questions about Purdue and rhet/comp MA degrees in general, and I'd appreciate any help and insight! To start, I'm currently a junior majoring in Writing and Rhetoric and French Language and Literature at Oakland University in Rochester, MIchigan. I've been told that Oakland is pretty well-known for its undergraduate Writing and Rhetoric program, and I've indeed learned a plethora of useful and meaningful things thus far in the program. I've fallen in love with the field of rhetoric and composition and can truly see myself studying it even further and then teaching other students about the discipline. My professors are very encouraging of my academic pursuits and one of them actually graduated from Purdue with her PhD back around 2007, which is actually why I'm interested in Purdue in the first place. My professor has told me stories about the experiences she's had there and about the program itself, and I really feel like it's where I can excel. She also warned me about how competitive it is and how there aren't a lot of MA students that get accepted, so I'm also looking into the programs at Ohio State, University of Miami at Ohio, and Michigan State since some of our previous students attend grad school there for rhet/comp. Basically, I want to give my applications my absolute all. I've never wanted anything more in my life - I just want to get into a good program so that I can learn and follow my passion. I've yet to take the GRE and will probably do so this summer, and my GPA is currently a 3.92 and shouldn't dip below a 3.9 by the time I apply in the fall. So, here are my experiences so far, and I'd appreciate it if anyone could tell me of other ways I can make myself more competitive: I work at our writing center (I started my sophomore year) and have been able to present at a couple of conferences through my employment there, one national conference and one regional conference. I also participated in what we call our Embedded Writing Specialist (EWS) program where a writing center tutor goes into a basic writing class once a week to help the professor workshop with students, and next semester I'll be an official TA for an upper-level writing class. I also have a publiation in the manual we have for our EWS program. Additionally, I won a writing award the department offers and I'm the president of one of our writing clubs and the chief editor of our corresponding journal. Beyond the writing and rhetoric stuff, I've studied abroad in Montreal, Quebec and will potentially study there again this summer or will possiblly go to France next fall. I've also won a few awards for my French performance and hope to start tutoring French at our university's tutoring center. This is what I've achieved so far, and while I know that I should proud and happy for what I've done, I still feel like I could be doing more. I'm sure there are people applying who are waaaaaay more qualified than myself, and since I still have some time before applying, I'd like to maximize my potential. Additionally, I understand that there's the issue of funding, especially for MA students. I know they say to not to go to grad school if you don't get funded, but what if I were to pay for my MA and get funded for my PhD? Isn't that how it works sometimes? I have a nest egg of money that I could contribute to grad school since I have a full-ride for undergrad, but would that be a foolish thing to do? Thanks so much for reading, and thanks in advance for any responses!