Standard proficiency in one foreign language is also required. The distribution of course work is described below. An overview of contemporary theory and research in the study of written composition, with emphasis on the interrelationship of reading and writing abilities and on current issues in defining literacy. The course also introduces the student to the interdisciplinary range of composition and rhetoric studies by drawing on work from rhetorical theory, linguistics, literary theory, literacy studies, philosophy of language, and philosophy of education. A course that uses theory and research to focus on instruction in writing.
Students explore versions of the writing process and construct units of material for use in class.
They try to define what the elements of various kinds of writing are and use these to examine how such descriptions can be used to make instruction more efficient. Students also analyze how they write and compare this with what other writers say both in professional and non-professional contexts. Research in their rhetorical and compositional theories depends on an examination of their epistemologies and their connection with rhetoric, culture, and politics. A survey of rhetorical scholarship and thought from Nietzsche to the new rhetorics and postmodernism. Also, emphasis on points of contacts between the disciplines, the philosophy of language, philosophy of the human sciences, and, more generally, theories of knowledge.