Doctoral Reading List
Rhetoric and Composition
The Comprehensive Examination in Rhetoric and Composition is intended to enable a
student to develop an ability to pursue a historical inquiry in rhetoric, to formulate and
explore problems in the teaching of writing, and to use rhetoric and/or composition and
pedagogy to construct an inquiry into a problem that is of special interest to the student.
The emphasis on history, theory, and the relation of rhetoric and composition to other
fields is to prepare students to become inquirers into a set of fields that draw on a 2,500
year tradition of theory and practice and that seek to develop practices and
understandings adequate to the continually shifting intellectual, cultural, and material
conditions under which writing is produced and taught. In addition to allowing the
student to gain the understanding and critical ability to work in the areas of rhetoric and
composition, the examination is also intended to assist students in the practice of defining
a field of inquiry. The ability to define a field of inquiry in order to pursue advanced
research is a prerequisite to writing a doctoral thesis and to becoming a professional who
is capable of organizing and pursuing original research projects. The exam is organized
around 3 questions: one in the history of rhetoric; one in the practice and/or theory of
composition or pedagogy; and one that allows students to explore the ways in which
rhetoric or composition and pedagogy can become a resource with which to explore a
special area of interest to the student.
Core List:
Rhetoric
Plato, Gorgias
Aristotle, Rhetoric
Cicero, de Inventione
Machiavelli, The Prince
Kenneth Burke, Rhetoric of Motives
Recommended: Thomas Conley, Rhetoric in the European Tradition—Conley’s text
provides a short, readable overview of the history of rhetoric.
Composition Studies
James Kinneavy, A Theory of Discourse
James Berlin, Rhetoric and Reality
Lev Vygotsky, Thought and Language
Robert Connors, Composition Rhetoric
Victor Villanueva, ed. Cross-Talk in Composition Theory: A Reader (2nd ed.)
In addition to these core texts in composition studies, a student should
choose one text from one of the following important areas in the
contemporary scholarship in composition studies:
Theory/practice
Thomas Newkirk, The Performance of Self in Student Writing (1997)
Gary Olson (ed.), Rhetoric and Composition as Intellectual Work (2002)
Anis Bawarshi, Genre and the Invention of the Writer (2003)
David Bartholomae, Writing on the Margins (2005)
History
Sharon Crowley. Composition in the University (1998)
Anne Ruggles Gere, Intimate Practices: Literacy and Cultural Work in US Women’s
Clubs 1880-1920 (1997)
Thomas Masters, Practicing Writing: The Postwar Discourse of Freshmen English
(2004)
James Murphy, Short History of Writing Instruction (2001)
Thomas Miller, Formation of College English (1997)
Stephen North, Making of Knowledge in Composition (1987)
Culture
Deborah Brandt, Literacy in American Lives (2001)
William DeGenaro, Who Says? Working Class Rhetoric, Class Consciousness and
Community (2007)
Feminism:
Andrea Lunsford, ed., Reclaiming Rhetorica (1995)
Cheryl Glenn, Rhetoric Retold (1997)
Kirsch et al, Feminism and Composition: A Critical Sourcebook (2003)
Susan Jarratt and Lynn Worsham, Feminism and Composition Studies (1998)
Creative Writing:
Bishop, Released into Language: Options for Teaching Creative Writing (1990)
Anna Leahy, ed. Power and Identity in the Creative Writing Classroom: The Authority
Project (2005)
Technology:
Gail Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe, eds., Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st Century
Technologies (1999)
Pedagogy:
Mina Shaughnessy, Errors and Expectations (1977)
Kay Halasek, Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies
(1999)
Student Selected Texts:
Students taking the rhetoric and composition exam must select an additional 20 texts to
complete the reading list for the exam; the additional texts must be approved in advance
by the faculty conducting the examination during the semester in which the student plans
to take the exam. As part of their preparation for the exam, students will be asked to
justify their choice of texts, arguing for the relevance to the history of rhetoric and/or the
study of composition, or for their relevance to the student’s special area of interest to be
explored using rhetoric or composition studies as a resource. It is strongly recommended
that in developing their list of additional texts students consult with the rhetoric and
composition faculty well in advance of their examination. At the latest, the student must
have the list approved three weeks prior to the exam; students who do not have their lists
approved by that time will not be permitted to take the exam that semester.
Revised 9/10/07
