Degree Requirements

General Requirements for the M.A. in English

• Students must earn 33 graduate credits beyond the bachelor's degree for creative writing and 34 graduate credits for literature or language and literature. Of these credits, at least 15 hours must be at graduate level (courses numbered 5000 and above) and taught by a member of the graduate faculty and at least 9 hours must be in 5000-level seminars or other 5000-level courses which are not cross-listed with 400-level courses.
• Literature and language and literature students must take English 5000 and successfully complete one hour of 5599 for their "Culminating Experience".
• Students must maintain a 3.0 (B) grade-point average to remain in the M.A. program and to complete the degree. Students are advised that grades of I (incomplete) convert to an F within one year.
• Students must fulfill a foreign language requirement by satisfactorily completing (with a C or better) two years of the same foreign language or by completing satisfactorily the final exam of a second semester language course.
• Students must remain continuously enrolled, except in summer, for a minimum of 1 credit hour per semester. 5899 is the continuous enrollment course number.
• Students must complete a formal Program of Study and have it signed within a year after admission. A final POS must be submitted and signed during the semester a student files to graduate.
• Students must complete all coursework within seven years.

Specific Requirements for the M.A. in English

Literature M.A. Requirements

   I.    Criticism and Scholarship
         English 447/5547,5550G, 5555G
   II.   Language and Rhetoric
         English 400CH, 5519, 445/5545, 470, 5520, 5550J,
         5550M, 5555J, 5555M
   III.  Literature Through the Middle Ages
         English 400CF, 412/5512, 422/5522, 452/5552, 
         5503, 5550A, 5550R, 5555A
   IV.   Renaissance Literature
         English 400CA, 413/5513, 414/5514, 423/5523,
         451/5551, 452/5552, 461/5561, 5550B,
         5555B, 5555R
   V.    Late 17th- and 18th-Century Literature
         English 415/5515,416/5516, 426/5526, *455/5556,
         462/5562, 5550C, 5555C
   VI.   Nineteenth-Century Literature
         English **410/5510, *416/5516, 418/5518,426/5526
         **440/5540, 455/5556, 5550D, 550E, 5555D
   VII.  Twentieth-Century Literature
         English **410/5510, 417/5517, 427/5527, 428/5528,
         **440/5540, 453/5553, 463/5563, 465/5565, 5550F, 
         5555E, 5555F

Other courses in the catalog may satisfy an area requirement if the content is appropriate, e.g., English 5550H/5555H Graduate Seminar: Studies in Fiction or 433/5533 Histories of Writing, Reading, and Publishing.

Language and Literature M.A. Requirements:

• At least 12 hours selected from the following list of courses: English 445/5545, 447/5547, 470, 5519, 5520, 5550G/5555G, 5550J/5555J, 5550M/5555M, and 5550P. For students interested in teaching in the community college or secondary school, or in pursuing a Ph.D. in composition and rhetoric, English 5519 is highly recommended (it is required for graduate teaching assistants).
• In addition to the requirements for areas I & II, students must take at least one course from three of the five remaining areas (III-VII) including at least one course from areas III-IV and at least one course from areas V-VII.

Culminating Experience:

• At the end of their M.A. (either in the last semester or the second to last semester), students will revise a seminar paper (written in a previous course and/or in their area of interest) under the guidance of a faculty mentor. The goal of the revisions will be to create a polished paper of about 20-30 pages that could possibly be the basis for a conference paper, a writing sample, or a publishable article.
• Students will enroll in one hour of 5599 in order to work on this final paper with their chosen faculty mentor.
• Final papers will be reviewed by a faculty committee that will rotate each semester. The committee will consist of two assigned members of the graduate faculty appointed by director of Graduate Studies, who will work with the student's faculty mentor.
• Students will turn in their revised papers to their mentors and the review committee at least two weeks prior to the end of the semester. Mentors are responsible for arranging a meeting with the student and the review committee before the end of the semester in which the 5599 is taken. After conducting a discussion about the paper and providing feedback for the student, the mentor and the review committee will assign a grade of pass or fail.