Download Rhetoric/Composition Comprehensive Exam Questions: For the

Rhetoric/Composition
Comprehensive Exam Questions:
For the Comprehensive Exam in Rhetoric/Composition, you will choose fifteen questions from
the list below and will submit those questions to the Director of Graduate Studies in English with
your application to take the exam. Use this list, striking (not deleting) the questions you do
not wish to be examined on; for example:
25. Please strike unwanted questions and do not change the order or numbers for each.
On exam day you will write two 90-minute essays. For each essay, you will choose from among
three questions chosen by the Graduate Committee from your list of questions.
1. Why teach composition? Consider related issues, such as how, when, and where to teach
composition.
2. What are the central theorists and issues associated with collaboration in Composition
Studies? Feel free to use examples from your own classroom demonstrating how authority is
negotiated and renegotiated.
3. Outline the history of one of the major approaches to teaching composition. What are the
origin of or influences upon this approach? Who are the major theorists? How has this approach
changed or evolved?
4. The field of Composition has moved away from expressivist theories of self to social
constructionist theories highlighting culture. Explain this paradigm shift, referring to particular
sources, and conclude by offering your reactions to the shift.
5. Certainly audience is an important concept in writing instruction. What range of perspectives
exists in theories about the nature and role of audience in the writing process? What significant
theorists (both classical and contemporary) inform current discussions about audience?
6. Outline the major tenets of Aristotle's Rhetoric and explain the impact of these tenets on your
major field of study.
7. What do you consider to be the most important distinctions among modernism,
antimodernism, and postmodernism? Discuss how these distinctions are observable in various
pedagogies or texts.
8. Compare and contrast such feminisms as liberal, cultural, radical, and postmodern, paying
particular attention to how each addresses gender equity, conflict and the dilemma of
essentialiam.
9. What impact (if any) has gender had on the field of Composition and emerging technologies?
10. Are there modern day sophists? What would they look like in the academy? How do they
resemble and not resemble ancient sophists?
11. Quintilian describes an orator as “a good man speaking well.” Throughout history, the
emphasis has continued to shift between “a good man” versus “speaking well”. What is the
dynamic between the ethos of the speaker/writer and the message expressed by the
speaker/writer? In other words, can a bad man speak well? What responsibility does the
composition teacher have to police the message?
12. In Errors and Expectations, Shaughnessy, among other things, lists common errors that basic
writers make. Is reducing error the main goal for teachers of basic writing? What other goals
might there be?
13. Explain how the work of two post/modern rhetoricians have altered or influenced the way
that we understand written texts and writers.
14. North contends that “our job is to produce better writers, not better writing”. Explain the
distinction he makes in terms of writing center pedagogy and conferencing strategies. Many
theorists take this distinction as synonymous with the distinction between minimalist and
directive conferencing. Discuss both of these approaches and how they relate to North’s maxim.
15. The Internet as a research tool is commonly accepted. The Internet as a rhetorical space is
less obviously evident. Using research and your own experience, consider how this space is
constructed and what tropes persuade successfully. What rhetorical strategies work best when
writing in digital spaces? How does writing and literacy change in a digital environment?
16. Ideas of sole authorship and ownership have become suspect in recent years with the
introduction of collaborative pedagogies and interactive technologies. What is plagiarism and
why is it difficult to define given the current environment? Consider such things as “patch-work
writing,” poor paraphrasing, inadequate citation, collaborative writing, and boiler-plates.