Writing and Rhetoric Department:College of Arts and Humanities

Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Composition

We invite students to come and explore the relationship between the long history of rhetorical studies and contemporary writing and literacy practices.

Program Mission

The M.A. in Rhetoric and Composition trains students to engage in technologically adept, theory-informed research and teaching about rhetoric, writing, and literacy.

Students in the program

  • Learn how rhetorical theory has and can inform the teaching and practice of academic, professional, and civic writing
  • Conduct advanced research and participate in scholarly discussions of Rhetoric and Composition Studies
  • Are prepared for advanced teaching positions, writing-intensive professional positions, and Ph.D. programs in rhetoric and composition or related disciplines

Key Features

  • Faculty strengths include writing program administration, writing and digital media, rhetoric as civic engagement, community literacy, and transnational rhetoric
  • Students have opportunities to work with and conduct research for the department’s outreach programs, including the University Writing Center and new WAC initiative
  • Students are part of a vibrant community of scholars who engage one other through a reading group, teaching workshops, department celebrations, and other events

More Information

For additional information or to set up an advising appointment, contact Blake Scott, Director of Degree Programs. For more information about UCF graduate policies, consult the UCF Graduate Catalog.

Faculty

Amy Barnickel

Research Interests:
Art-making, Gender, feminism, writing, cultural studies, caribbean literature, women's studies

Melody Bowdon

Research Interests: Faculty Development; Technical and Professional Communication; Gender and Technology; Service-Learning and Higher Education; Distance-Learning

R. Mark Hall

Research Interests: Writing center theory and practice; Tutor education and professional development; Literacy practices in popular culture; Writing pedagogy

Martha Marinara

Research Interests: ; Queer Theory and Composition ; Gender Studies and Feminist Theories; SOTL in Information and Undergraduate Research ; Fiction ; Poetry

Stacey Pigg

Research Interests: Rhetorical theory and practice; Writing technologies; Research methodologies; Embodiment theory; Informal learning and civic engagement

Gabriela Raquel Rios

Research Interests: Indigenous (Chican@/Latin@) Rhetorics; Biocultural Diversity Studies; Materiality and Thing Theory; Embodied Rhetorics; Rhetoric and Civic Engagement

Angela Rounsaville

Research Interests: Transnational/Transcultural Literacy, Writing, and Rhetoric; Literacy Studies; Composition History, Theory, and Pedagogy; Rhetorical Genre Theory; Language and Power; Transfer

Blake Scott

Research Interests: Rhetorics of Health and Medicine; Rhetorical History and Theory, including Rhetoric as Civic Engagement; Theory and Teaching of Composition; Professional and Technical Communication

Mary Tripp

Research Interests: Distributed writing practices especially as they extend to web environments and the construction of text.Agency in the construction of texts, especially in digital environments.Activity Theory, situated learning, and new methodologies for examining extended and distributed agency in networked environments.Production and consumption of digital texts as they affect agency.

Douglas Walls

Research Interests: ; Access; 21st century literacies; Academic and professional Identities; Community literacy; Intersections of digital and cultural rhetorics; Research design & methodology; The social web; Visual rhetoric & design

Elizabeth Wardle

Research Interests: Scholarship of Writing Program Administration; First-year composition as Writing Studies; Disciplinarity of Writing Studies; Genre theory; Activity theory; Transfer of writing-related knowledge

Pavel Zemliansky

Research Interests: Professional communication, especially in international contexts; writing across the curriculum and writing in the disciplines; connections between professional communication theory and WAC/WID; new media in professional communication;

Affiliated Faculty

Research Interests: ; Classical and Contemporary Rhetoric ; Technical Communication for students across UCF in all majors ; Hypertext and Writing for the Web; XML and Digital Archiving ; Literature of Science and Technology ; The Discourse of Science

Paul M. Dombrowski

Research Interests: Rhetoric theory, history, and practice, classical to contemporary; Texts and Technology, rhetorical and ethical aspects, and statistics and research design; technical communication, especially rhetorical and ethical aspects; discourse about rhetoric studies.

Beth Rapp Young
Department of Writing and Rhetoric • College of Arts & Humanities at the University of Central Florida
Phone: 407-823-2295 Fax: 407-823-1287 • Website Technical Support: cahweb@mail.ucf.edu