Rhetoric, Writing and Digital Media Studies, Graduate Certificate

In addition to University Requirements:

• Complete individual plan requirements.

Students may be able to use some courses to meet more than one requirement. Contact your advisor for details.

Purpose Statement

The Rhetoric, Writing, and Digital Media Studies (RWDMS) Program engages students with a curriculum that prepares them as writers and scholars. The program emphasizes the importance of critical reading, reflection, writing, digital media, and spoken language to educate knowledgeable citizens who understand and appreciate their civic, professional, and personal responsibilities in an increasingly global community. We specialize in preparing students for intercultural and interdisciplinary communication practices in digital and traditional work settings to further global engagement, diversity, and social participation. Students gain experience with rhetorical theory and persuasive argumentation, social media literacy and multimedia writing, professional and public discourse conventions through theory-based application projects. In addition, our courses provide a foundation for workplace writing and M.A. programs in rhetoric, writing, digital media, communication, and composition studies. 

Student Learning Outcomes
 
General Knowledge of English

• Graduates will know about language as a system and about language change and variation. Students will be able to identify, describe, explain, or interpret such features as grammar, language patterns, language differences, the history of English, dialects, semantics, dictionaries and lexicons, idioms, or semiotic structures.
• Graduates will know how effective writers and speakers adapt language to the varying circumstances of interpersonal communication, for various purposes in school, the workplace, civic life, and creative endeavors. Graduates will be able to describe and explain such discourse features as rhetorical situation (speaker, purpose, audience), performative language, orality vs. literacy, print literacy vs. media literacies, style, or word-choice.
• Graduates will know basic concepts and terminology in the study of literature, linguistics, rhetoric, and creative writing. Students will know how to use appropriate disciplinary and professional language.
• Graduates will know about forms, designs, and genres, including appropriate traditions and histories. They will know how formal conventions, social contexts, and audience expectations affect discourses purposes. Graduates will be able to describe and explain such things as literary and creative genres, canons, practical and professional writing formats and genres, types of rhetorical discourse, types of linguistic phenomena, or media and web formats and genres.
• Graduates will know how social, cultural, and historical contexts affect personal expression; the reception, comprehension, or study of texts; and specific communication purposes for both writers and readers. Graduates will be conversant with English in global settings and with the increasing impact of international forces—the history and politics of cultural and linguistic diversity, of environmental sustainability, and of globalization—on the discipline of English. 

• Graduates will know how to read and think critically in response to a variety of texts, drawing on appropriate knowledge, concepts, and terms from the study of literature, linguistics, rhetoric, and creative writing. Graduates will know how to focus these skills on the close interpretation of texts (which could include film, signs, encoded cultural forms or messages, or graphic art, in addition to printed works) or extend these skills to the close study of empirical data or information. Graduates will know how to draw inferences or conclusions from their reading or to formulate interpretive hypotheses or arguments from primary sources or researched information.
• Graduates will know how to write effectively in several genres and for various purposes—with appropriate design, fluency, voice, style, vividness, self-awareness, and awareness of audience or reader. Graduates will know how to invent, find, develop, and support content relevant for their writing purposes.
• Graduates will know how to critique and to augment, rework, or revise both their own writing and the writing of others. Graduates will know how to edit for style, for grammar, and for correct spelling and punctuation according to a text's purpose, audience, and level or manner of discourse
• Graduates will know how to use appropriate principles and methods of research for a variety of purposes in literature, rhetoric, writing, and linguistics. Graduates will know how to determine effective research scope, to apply and refine search strategies, to analyze and evaluate information, to synthesize and apply information, and to use information responsibly.

• Graduates will know how to apply advanced academic training in English to further schooling or to public, professional, or workplace settings that demand clear, efficiently organized information-sharing; lucid expressions of imaginative thinking; persuasive, well-documented discourse; or concise, accessible expository communication. Graduates will know where and how to seek opportunities for employment, publication, continued education, public service, or personal enrichment. Collaborate with others on a project related to rhetoric, writing, and digital media studies and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the process and the final results.
• Graduates will benefit from the study of English as a liberal arts discipline. This study imparts intellectual growth, empowers imagination, and attunes responsiveness to creative expression and artful communication. The study of English fosters habits of empathy, introspection, and ethical reasoning. It imparts resourcefulness in communication, aptitude for creative problem solving, and openness to change, adaptation, and opportunity.