MA Exams
VCU Department of English

Note: This section only applies to those current students who entered the program prior to 2011. The fall exam is usually administered in November. The spring exam typically is held on a Saturday about mid-April. Students will be notified of the date via email when it is set. Candidates intending to take the exam will be asked to notify the program director four weeks prior to the exam date.

Morning Session: For candidates in the literature track, the morning session will be a question relating to the material covered in English 531 (Literary Theory) or English 530 (Scholarship). The question will draw on the material in either course as it can be used to discuss texts from the short list.

For candidates in the writing and rhetoric track, the morning session focuses on broad issues that have been raised in the candidates' course of study in the program.

Afternoon Session: This session, given from 1-3, is based on the 'short' or 'set' list of texts from the longer reading list compiled by the graduate faculty (see MA Reading Lists). The questions for the afternoon session in both tracks will be derived primarily, but not exclusively, by the questions the candidates themselves generate in response to the reading list as detailed in their proposals. While the MA Committee may incorporate questions beyond the proposals, they read the proposals carefully and use them to formulate an exam that is responsive to the way candidates intellectually organize the material on the short list.

Exam Proposal: The MA Committee wants the basis of the exam to be informed by the reflections of the candidates taking the exam. To facilitate that process, three to four weeks in advance of the exam candidates must submit to the MA Committee a brief (500-750 word) exam proposal that details the primary interpretative approaches or modes of inquiry they use to read the short list of set texts. This exam proposal must include two or three central questions the candidate sees as a way to organize the list intellectually. Simply put, candidates should propose some questions for the exam based on their reading and explain the context or origination of those questions. These questions will be used as the basis for the questions that will appear on the exam. All candidates within a track will receive the same exam.

For candidates in the literature track, questions should specifically address the texts on the short list and the issues they raise. The proposal provides the basis for only part two of the exam. The proposal should provide a sense of the way the candidate has organized the list intellectually. It should detail the primary interpretative approaches or modes of inquiry candidates use to intellectually organize the list, and the questions that emerge as a result. How does the candidate make sense of the works on the list as a whole? What sorts of theoretical approaches can be brought to the list? What are the thematic, cultural or aesthetic crosscurrents between and among these texts? We anticipate that each candidate will compose questions oriented in the methodology, reading strategies, and critical paradigms cultivated during the course of the program.

For candidates in the writing and rhetoric track, the proposals form the basis for both parts of the exam. Thus, the candidate proposes two sets of questions: one set of two questions over the knowledge gained from coursework given an individual’s goals in the program; another set of two questions relating to the reading list.

For the first set of questions, to be used for part one of the exam, candidates should provide two kinds of reflections or discussions on their development and mastery in the field. This section of the proposal should focus mainly on the theories and practices to which candidates have been introduced and/or have studies in depth through their coursework. First, candidates should reflect on their whole experience of composition studies, beginning with their motivation for entering the program and the ways their thinking has shifted as a result of their coursework here. It is important that the candidate provide this intellectual context for his/her thinking given the widely varying interests of students in the writing and rhetoric concentration. Second, candidates should consider and detail what has most powerfully shaped their thinking about the field. Within the context of their reflections, candidates should pose two questions that their course of study has raised for them. The proposal should be a kind of intellectual history in which the candidate reflects on his/her initial attraction to the field and the ways the theoretical and practical approaches mastered through coursework helped to ground that attraction. This section of the proposal should not be a confessional, personal narrative; it needs to remain focused on the educational and intellectual development of the candidate, and the questions that stem from that.

The second section of the proposal should deal with the candidate’s response to the reading list. This section should detail the primary interpretative approaches or modes of inquiry candidates use to intellectually organize the list, and the questions that emerge as a result. Candidates might consider which text(s) on the list serve as a bridge among what they brought to the field, their own classroom learning, and their own goals. How do the texts speak to each other? What were the two or three most significant texts on the list and what was that significance (note, in the field not to the candidate personally). In composing their questions, candidates might think about questions that might be interesting to their fellow MA candidates to answer.

Exam proposals will be due three to four weeks in advance of the exam date. They may be sent by email as an attachment (preferably), or a hard copy may be left in the English office, 306 Hibbs Building.

The MA Committee will review the exam proposals and use the questions they generate as the basis for the exam. Candidates whose exam proposals can be further strengthened will meet with a member of the MA Committee to discuss possible revisions to the exam proposal and to refine the candidate’s thinking in advance of the exam. This meeting would occur within one week of the initial submission of the exam proposal. Candidates who do not submit a prospectus with the necessary questions will not be allowed to take the exam that semester.

All proposals, regardless of concentrations, should reveal an engagement with the texts on the list and a serious consideration of the issues and approaches involved. The proposal must be more than just a brief list of questions; rather it should demonstrate the candidate’s sustained thinking about the texts, their relationships, and his/her own approach to them.