I. OVERVIEW

            The Master of Arts Programs in English serve the personal and professional needs of various students: those currently teaching or intending to teach high school; those intending to teach at the community college level; those anticipating doctoral studies; and those simply interested in the personal growth that advanced studies in English provide. In an attempt to meet students' needs and interests, the Department offers three main concentrations and two combinations leading to the Master of Arts in English:

(1)  in the literature of Britain and the United States (MA-LIT);

(2)  in rhetoric and teaching writing (MA-RTW);

(3)  in teaching English to speakers of other languages (MA-TESOL);

(4)  in combined RTW and TESOL; and

(5)  in combined Lit and RTW.

Students planning to continue on to a Ph.D. should complete the concentration in either Literature or RTW. Students planning to teach overseas or in the multicultural classroom should complete the TESOL concentration. Students planning to teach at the Community College level should consider one of the combinations, depending on their areas of interest.

| Top | II. ADMISSION

Application forms and program information may be obtained from the Office of Graduate Studies. Completed applications should be sent to the Office of Admission and Records for processing. Applications can be completed via the Internet.

The applicant must also submit to the English department two letters of recommendation from former instructors or others who can comment on the applicant's ability to succeed in graduate school. The applicant must submit a 5 to 10 page writing sample. (A critical or an analytical study written for an undergraduate class would serve as an appropriate sample.)

            Applicants with a B.A. in English and a 3.0 GPA are admitted as fully classified students. Applicants with non-English BAs or a GPA below 3.0 may have to submit scores for the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE); in which case, program admission would require a

score of 500 on the Verbal Test. Students not admitted to the University Graduate School or English graduate program may NOT apply courses taken through University Extension to MA degrees.

International students must take both the TOEFL and the Test of Written English, achieving a minimum of 575 on the TOEFL if their score on the Test of Written English is 4; or at least 550 on the TOEFL if their score on the Test of Written English is 5.

            Questions about recommenders or other appropriate writing samples should be directed to the English Graduate Coordinator (Arnold Schmidt at aschmidt@csustan.edu ).

Requirements for Admission to the MA-LIT and MA-RTW Concentrations

            In addition to fulfilling all requirements for admission to the University, applicants to the MA-LIT and MA-RTW Concentrations normally should have a BA degree in English. Those who do not may be required to complete additional prerequisite coursework.

Requirements for Admission to the MA-TESOL Concentration

            Non-English majors may be required to take the GRE Verbal test for classified status in the TESOL Concentration. English majors who graduated from the CSU with 3.0 GPA or higher can start the program conditionally classified. For the non-English major, the prerequisites for the MA-TESOL concentration consists of the following:

1. American Literature after 1865 (ENGL 2210, or its equivalent) (3)

2. Masterpieces of World Literature (ENGL 3920, or its equivalent) (3)

3. Applied Writing (ENGL 3009), or its equivalent (3)

4. ENGL 3750: Introduction to Linguistics (4), ENGL 3700 Introduction to Language (3) or their equivalents.

            Students for whom English is a second language must pass the TOEFL and Written Test of English and demonstrate fluency in spoken English before acceptance into the program.

| Top | III. ADVISING

            Once admitted to the graduate program, students should consult the English Graduate

Coordinator and the Concentration Advisor, who will assist students in determining appropriate plans of study. Normally, the Coordinator of the chosen concentration (LIT, RTW, TESOL) is the student’s program adviser.

IV. Undergraduate and transfer units in the MA program

            A maximum of six units of approved post-baccalaureate upper division undergraduate studies may be applied to MA requirements.

            Students taking any upper division undergraduate class must identify themselves as graduate students to the instructor of the undergraduate class. For students following the LIT and RTW tracks, the Department requires that they do additional work comparable to that of an ordinary graduate seminar; they may NOT choose to do less work and take the class for undergraduate credit.

            Ordinarily only six units of graduate credit may be transferred from another institution. The English Graduate Committee will determine which transfer units will be accepted toward the degree at Stanislaus.

V. CLASSIFICATION STATUS

            Students with a BA in English, at least a 3.0 GPA, two letters of recommendation, and a 5-10-page writing sample may be admitted to the program as fully classified students. Some non-English BAs may be admitted as fully classified as well, depending on their major, experience, and writing. Those with incomplete files may be admitted as Conditionally Classified, but should complete the application process as soon as possible. No more than nine units earned as a Post baccalaureate Unclassified student shall apply to the MA degree.

| Top | VI. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS FOR THE MASTER'S DEGREE

The following requirements describe the minimum of prerequisites and courses that candidates must complete to receive the MA degree. To develop historical, theoretical, and methodological expertise in the field, students are encouraged to take courses and seminars in a variety of areas.

            To receive an MA in English, a student must

            1. complete at least 30 units;

            2. maintain a grade-point average of at least 3.0, with no grade lower than a B- in any course;

            3. pass comprehensive exit examinations;

            4. in the case of project or thesis, present an oral defense.

| Top | VII. THE CONCENTRATION IN LITERATURE (MA-LIT) 

Students electing the Literature Concentration must take ENGL 5000 and complete at least 27 more units of applicable course work. Of these 27 units, at least 12 must be in Literature courses numbered ENGL 5000 through ENGL 5999. Literature students may apply no more than three units of each of the following (9 units total) toward their MA degree: undergraduate courses, independent study (ENGL 5980) courses, and courses not offered by the English Department. Students not completing 6 units of thesis must take 6 units of 5000-level literature seminars.

Thesis and non-thesis options: Students in the MA-LIT Concentration may elect either the thesis or non-thesis option. Those planning to enter a doctoral program in English may want to write a thesis; only students who maintain a grade point average of 3.5 or higher for the first 24 units of the Concentration may elect to write a thesis. Students not eligible or not electing to write a thesis will instead complete six further units of 5000-level literature seminars. A student electing to write a thesis may take a maximum of six units of ENGL 5990 (Thesis) to meet MA course work requirements.

            Students who have completed six units of ENGL 5990, but not yet completed their theses, must register for a unit through Extension to maintain University status and privileges.

NOTE: Students exercising the thesis option must submit a thesis prospectus at least one

semester before signing up for ENGL 5990 Thesis. Students must submit the completed theses or advanced projects at least four weeks prior to the end of the semester targeted for graduation.

| Top | VIII. THE CONCENTRATION IN RHETORIC AND TEACHING WRITING (MA-RTW)

The concentration provides overviews of history, research, major and emerging voices, and important questions in composition, rhetoric, and pedagogy. The theory and research base prepares students for the writing classroom and for further graduate work. Students in the concentration will also have opportunities to teach and carry out institutional research.

Beyond the general requirements noted above, students in the MA-RTW concentration must take the following core courses and an additional 9-12 units planned in consultation with the concentration coordinator:

ENGL 5001 History and Research Methods in Composition and Rhetoric, 3 units

ENGL 5010 Seminar: Composition and Rhetoric (may be taken twice for credit), 3 units

ENGL 5020 Assessment in English

ENGL 5870 Practicum: Writing and Teaching of Composition, 3 units

ENGL 5894 Teaching College Composition and Literature, 3 units

ENGL 5941 Internship in Teaching Writing

By taking additional units, beyond 30, students may combine this concentration with LIT or TESOL.

| Top | IX. THE CONCENTRATION IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES (MA-TESOL)

            Students who elect the MA-TESOL concentration will develop a specialist's knowledge of English grammar, second language acquisition, theory, methodology, curriculum, materials development, and cross-cultural issues related to the teaching of English as a Second Language (ESL). This concentration is particularly appropriate for those who intend to teach in post-secondary settings such as community colleges, universities, adult education programs, and English language institutes in the U.S.A. and abroad. (Students anticipating teaching in a public school, K-12 setting, should consider the Master's in Education, Multilingual Education Concentration.)

Course Requirements for MA-TESOL Concentration:

Thirty units of work (ten courses) from among the following, as agreed upon with advisor:

ENGL 4600 Tutorial Projects in English, 3 units

ENGL 4615 TESOL Methods, 3 units

ENGL 4800 Second Language Acquisition, 3 units

ENGL 4850 English Grammar, 3 units

ENGL 5001 Research Methods: Composition/Rhetoric, 3 units

ENGL 5020, Testing and Assessment in English

ENGL 5800 ESL Theory, 3 units

ENGL 5850 Linguistics For Teachers, 3 units

ENGL 5870 Practicum: Writing & Teaching of Composition, 3 units

ENGL 5940 Internship, 3 units

ENGL 5960 Individual Study, 3 units

ENGL 5960 Advanced Projects, 3 units

ENGL 5984-94 Practicum, 3 units

EDML 5000 Multilingual Education in the Content Areas, 3 units

EDML 5001 Multilingual Education Evaluation, 3 units

NOTE: MA-TESOL students who opt to do an advanced research project must submit a prospectus for the final project at least one semester before signing up for ENGL 5960, Advanced Projects.    

| Top | X. DUAL CONCENTRATIONS

LIT/RTW Dual Concentration:

A student may choose to combine the two concentrations by taking at least 37 units. Comprehensive exams will consist of two exams in literature and one in RTW, administered as is customary for the particular concentration.

The degree requirements for this dual concentration comprise:

(1)  MA-RTW core courses: 18-21 units (5001, 5010, 5020, 5870, 5894, 5941)

(2)  MA-LIT core courses: 15 units (5000, at least three 5000-level Lit seminars, and one literature elective)

(3)  LIT thesis or RTW project, with topic for either encompassing both areas 6 or 4 units (students not completing a thesis or project must substitute two 5000-level seminars, at least one of which must be in Literature)

RTW/TESOL Dual Concentration:

This dual concentration will also require a minimum of 36 units and will require the MA-RTW core listed above. See the TESOL coordinator for additional specific course requirements.

| Top | XI. FORMATION OF STUDENT'S MA ADVISORY COMMITTEE

            Students in all three concentrations should consult the Graduate Coordinator concerning the formation of an appropriate three-person graduate Advisory Committee. Students should form that committee no later than one semester before that in which they plan to take exams. Students in the LIT concentration should form an Advisory Committee before registering for the term in which they intend to take comprehensive exams or one term prior to taking ENGL 5990.

Students in the RTW and TESOL concentrations should form an Advisory Committee at least one semester before taking the comprehensive examination or beginning the prospectus for the advanced project.

The student's MA Advisory Committee will be responsible for administering the student's comprehensive examinations, and for reading and evaluating the thesis or advanced project. To allow time for Advisory Committee members to read theses or advanced projects, students must turn in these materials at least one month before the expected graduation date.

| Top | XII. COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATIONS

            MA-LIT: Students in the LIT concentration will be tested intensively on three periods of literature, of the students’ choice. Each period is tested by a two-hour, on-campus exam. The three exams must be taken during the same semester, but will not ordinarily be administered all on the same day. Comprehensive exams ordinarily will be given only during November and April. The committee bases the exams on the student's reading list (see below).

The form of the exam is at the discretion of the student's committee, but will emphasize essay questions. For a student to pass an exam for any of the three periods requires the unanimous consent of the student's committee. The student may retake the exam for the particular period once with a new set of questions, should there not be unanimous consent. Normally students in the LIT concentration should not schedule exams in the same semester in which they plan to complete the thesis or final project.

MA-RTW: Students in the RTW concentration have 72 hours to write in response to two questions covering a required reading list supplemented by an additional list developed in consultation with the advisory committee.

TESOL: Students must take the 5800 TESOL Seminar in which they write a graduate research paper, and take the TESOL comprehensive exam, which consists of a series of brief essays on key concepts in TESOL and a 48-hour take-home consisting of two essays, one on theoretical issues, another on methodological issues.

| Top | XIII. READING LIST FOR EXAMS

            MA-LIT: Below you will find the LIT concentration’s representative core reading list of five primary works for each literary period included in the literature concentration. The student's committee will expand the list with ten more primary works for each period, so that some tailoring to individual student interests becomes possible. A student preparing three areas for testing thus will be responsible for a total of 45 works.

M.A./ Lit. Core Reading List (revised 10/02):

Students will be responsible for the core list in the three periods they have chosen as their focus. Additionally, they will be responsible for ten more primary works in each of those three periods; that additional list of works will be drawn up in consultation with their thesis advisor or exam committee chair, with the approval of the respective committees. Thus each student will be responsible for 45 works (or, for poets, groups of selected poems).

BRITISH

Medieval:

Beowulf

Geoffrey Chaucer, Selections from The Canterbury Tales: "The Knight's Tale," "The

Miller's Tale," "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale," "The Clerk's Tale," "The

Franklin's Tale"

Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe

Gawain Poet, The Pearl

William Langland, Piers Plowman (text A, passus 1,2,5,7,9)

Renaissance:

Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella

Edmund Spenser, The Faerv Queene, Bk. 1

John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

Katherine Philips, Norton Vol. I.

Aemilia Lanyer, Norton Vol I.

John Milton, Paradise Lost

Enlightenment/18th Century:

Aphra Behn, The Rover

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism

Fanny Burney, Evelina

James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson

Nineteenth Century:

William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads, 2nd. ed.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

George Gordon, Lord Byron, Don Juan

Robert Browning, Men and Women

George Eliot, Middlemarch

Twentieth Century:

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

W.B. Yeats, Selected Poems: "Easter 1916," "The Second Coming," "Sailing to Byzantium,"

"Among School Children," "A Dialogue of Self and Soul," "Lapis Lazuli," "Under Ben Bulben," "The Circus Animals' Desertion"

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Philip Larkin.  Select 12 or more poems from either The Less Deceived or The Whistsun Weddings.

| Top | AMERICAN

American Literature until 1865:

Anne Bradstreet, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life (1845 version)

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

American Literature 1865-1910:

Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron Mills

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Henr,v James, "The Beast in the Jungle"

Frank Norris, McTeague

W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk

American Literature 1910-Present:

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

Langston Hughes, Selected Poems: "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "Montage of a Dream

Deferred," "The Weary Blues," "Harlem Night Song," "Song for Billie Holiday," "Porter," "Lunch in a Jim Crow Car"

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Richard Wright, Native Son

Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior

            MA-RTW: The current core reading list may be found at http://rhet.csustan.edu/matw/readlist.htm

            Students in the TESOL concentration will take a comprehensive examination. Written examinations may consist of essays, short answer questions, or a combination of both types.

| Top | XIV. COLLOQUIUM, OR ORAL EXAMINATION

            Students completing a thesis or project must give an oral defense or participate in a Department colloquium. These consist of interested students and professors, gathered together to listen to and discuss MA candidates' presentations relating to their research or courses of study.

 XV. CONTINUING ENROLLMENT REQUIREMENT

            Since Winter 1998, irrespective of catalogue year, any student who has completed all other degree work, is pursuing the project or thesis, but has not completed the thesis or project, must sign up for one unit of Extended Education credit each term in order to remain affiliated with the university until the thesis or project has been submitted. A student who is not affiliated with the university may not use any university facilities or consult with faculty.

XVI. APPLICATION FOR GRADUATION

           A candidate for an MA degree must file an application for the degree at the Admissions and Records office in the first two weeks of the term (or first week of a summer session) in which he or she expects to complete all requirements for the degree.

| Top | XVII. TEACHING ASSOCIATESHIPS

The Department offers qualified graduate students in English an opportunity to support their MA studies financially and to gain valuable teaching experience by serving as Teaching Associates in the composition program. Students may apply for an assistantship when they seek admission to the Graduate Program, but to be eligible for a TA position they must normally have attained classified graduate standing in English.

Candidates are selected for the TA program on the basis of the quality of their academic background, previous experience, and their promise as classroom instructors. ENGL 5894 Teaching College Composition and Literature is required as a pre- or co-requisite for teaching and is applicable to all three concentrations. For information about teaching associateships, salaries, applications, and deadlines, contact the Director of Composition (Stephanie Paterson at spaterson@csustan.edu).

XVIII. THE TEACHING INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

            Knowing that many graduate students in English aspire to teach at the university/college level, the Department has designed an internship program for qualified graduate students interested in attaining supervised practical experience in teaching literature, composition, and English as a Second Language (ESL). Students who sign up for the internship program will work with a supervisory instructor.

            The student and the supervising instructor will decide jointly the specific duties for which the student will be responsible. Students who intend to serve as interns must take ENGL 5940: Internship or ENGL 5941: Internship in Teaching Writing. Note that a student may serve as an intern more than one time; however, only three units of Internship can be applied toward the MA-RTW and MA-TESOL. Internships CANNOT be applied towards MA-LIT after Fall 1998.