Master of Arts in English Literature

About the program

The Master of Arts (MA) program in English Literature, offered both in-person and online, equips graduate students with the knowledge and skills necessary both to the outstanding teacher and to the well-prepared candidate for further graduate study while providing for personal and professional enrichment through advanced study of literature. Master's candidates follow a course of advanced study that leads to a comprehensive knowledge of English and American literature. Candidates are also given training in the principles of literary criticism and in the use of bibliographic tools so that they will have a general competence in criticism and research. In addition to our 30-hour degree program, we offer a 12-hour graduate certificate in English Literature and Composition Pedagogy that can be completed online and paired with the MA degree. Our BA students can also pursue the master's degree in our dual/accelerated bachelor's to master's degree program.

Why English?

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, companies are increasingly looking for applicants strong in "soft skills" — advanced critical thinking, distinct verbal capabilities, and experience with writing for diverse audiences, to name a few. Our graduates excel in these skills and have successfully pursued diverse career opportunities after graduation.

Our curriculum is designed to encourage students to explore a variety of future career paths: while our curriculum emphasizes a wide range of reading, research, and writing skills, the capstone projects further provide students with the opportunity to develop career resources applicable to their future endeavors.

A flexible curriculum taught by WSU faculty

All our classes, both in-person and online, are taught by regular WSU faculty. Our curriculum regularly offers courses in British and American literature, major authors, the genres of drama, poetry, and fiction, image literacy in film and graphic novels, publishing, teaching practicums, digital humanities, professional, technical, and scientific writing, linguistics, and many more! We also provide enrolled students with expansive experiential learning opportunities to further their education through co-operative internships (including an internship with Dzanc Publishers), research assistantships, and mentorship programs.

Advance your career with the MA

Our graduate program has been a leader in developing innovative and interdisciplinary courses that target the changing career needs of our student body. Students craft individualized plans of study that meet their professional goals and are mentored by faculty associated with their disciplinary interests. The online degree is especially designed to aid the modern learner, providing professional development opportunities for high school teachers and other industry professionals in need of an adaptable schedule yet desirous of a quality learning experience. Students seeking a traditional classroom experience similarly will find our small class sizes to be intellectually stimulating and academically rewarding. Recent graduates have found success as media designers, high school teachers, PhD candidates, and community college faculty, among other career paths.

Invest in your future

Wichita State offers competitive tuition rates, including a single tuition rate for resident and nonresident students in the online program, as well as tuition reduction programs. Graduate scholarships and travel finding are available for both in-person and distance learners; assistantships may be available for qualified in-person students. The department also offers competitive fellowships, including the MA Fellowship and the prestigious Gordon Parks Fellowship, as further financial assistance to qualified students.

Admissions Information

Applications for the MA program are accepted on a continuous basis. However, the MA program deadline for applications for Graduate Teaching Assistantships are February 10 for Fall admissions and October 1 for Spring admissions. While applications for teaching assistantships will be considered after the deadlines if the department has additional assistantships to award, all applicants are advised to make every attempt to submit their materials before the deadline dates.

Admission Requirements

Applicants must meet the general requirements of the Graduate School, with the additional requirement that they have a 3.000 grade point average in their previous work in English courses. Successful candidates typically have completed 24 credit hours in English and American literature or in other work acceptable to the Department of English at the time of admissions. Applicants with fewer than 24 credit hours may be prescribed additional undergraduate credit hours by the Graduate Coordinator. Courses in freshman composition, grammar, teaching methods, journalism, speech, etc. may not be included in the required 24 hours. Exceptions may be made for outstanding students who have majored in related fields.

Applicants who earned their undergraduate degrees more than ten years before the time of application must be interviewed by the Graduate Coordinator before admission to the degree program. Applicants who have earned degrees at institutions in countries in which English is not the native language of instruction must score at least 600 paper-based, or 100 Internet-based on the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) Examination, or an overall band score of 7.5 on the IELTS before being admitted to the MA degree program in English.

Available Funding

The MA program offers teaching and research assistantships with full or partial tuition waivers. Research assistantships are typically offered to advanced students whereas the teaching assistantships are available to all admitted graduate students and awarded on a competitive basis. Interested applicants are thus strongly encouraged to make every attempt to submit their materials before the deadline dates of February 10 for Fall admissions and October 1 for Spring admissions.

In addition to these assistantship opportunities, the MA program offers the MA Fellowship, awarded on a competitive basis to students with advanced standing, and the Gordon Parks Fellowship, which provides financial support to students who might be otherwise unable to pursue further graduate instruction. The Graduate School also offers additional awards to full and part time students.

Assistantships Gordon Parks Fellowship Graduate Financial Aid and Scholarships

Application Materials

In addition to the application materials required by the Graduate School, the MA program requires that applications be accompanied by a 500 word statement of purpose which addresses motivation for graduate study, degree goals, and qualifications that make the applicant likely to succeed as an English graduate student. GRE results are not required by the Graduate School or the Department of English at Wichita State University.

Submission Details

Interested applicants must apply online through the Graduate School's online application system, CollegeNet. The 500-word statement will need to be uploaded at this time. GTA application materials for the MA program, including the supporting writing sample and letters of recommendation, should be sent to the Graduate Coordinator directly (rebeccah.bechtold@wichita.edu).

Degree Requirements

The MA degree requires 30 credit hours of coursework, including the successful completion of either the Master's Thesis (up to 6 credit hours) or Master's Portfolio (3 credit hours). The Master's Thesis is intended for students interested in an intensive, independent research experience while the Master's Portfolio is intended for students interested in developing documents more reflective of the diverse work they have completed while enrolled in the degree program.

Students must complete 24 hours of credit at Wichita State within the English department. If the credit to be transferred comes from a program in which the student took a graduate degree, the time limits imposed by the Graduate School on other transfers of credit will not apply. Credit for transfer courses will not count toward the required number of courses at the 700 level or above unless the transfer hours are of appropriate level from Kansas Board of Regents institutions.

Core Courses

All students must complete the following core coursework:

3 credit hours in ENGL 700, Introduction to Graduate Study in English
12 credit hours in period courses in literary seminars, of which 6 hours must be in literature before the 20th century and 3 hours must be in literature after the 20th century. Of the 12 credit hours, students must take at least one seminar in British and American literature each.

ENGL 700 normally should be included in the student's first semester of graduate study. At least seven courses towards all degree plans must be at the 700 level or above. The remaining hours may be taken at any level 500 or above. Requests for exceptions to this rule may be granted by the graduate coordinator in special circumstances. Candidates completing 500- or 600-level English courses for graduate credit must satisfy a higher differential of performance relative to undergraduate students in the same courses, with the nature of this differential set by professor. With graduate coordinator approval, courses with a minimum of 80 percent the content meeting a requirement can occasionally be used to satisfy a requirement other than the one for which they are listed. No single course can be used to satisfy more than one requirement. A major author(s) course cannot be used to satisfy a period requirement. With approval of the graduate coordinator, a course can be repeated once for credit if at least 80 percent of the content is different. With graduate coordinator approval, one elective may be taken in another department or college, such as the College of Education.

Thesis

In addition to the above core requirements, thesis students select 9-12 credit hours in elective coursework chosen in consultation with the graduate coordinator and must complete 3-6 credit hours of the master's thesis (Engl 890); a maximum of 6 hours of Engl 890 can be applied toward the degree. The Master's Thesis is intended to be a demonstration of the student's ability to formulate a problem in literary study, to pursue its solution through appropriate scholarly, critical, and analytical techniques, and to present the results in suitable written form. Although the essay need not be thought of as a publishable contribution to knowledge, it should develop a new interpretation, reinterpret available information, present a new approach to the given material, and/or refute or modify some interpretation(s) previously appearing in print. The Master's Thesis would normally extend to a length (exclusive of title page, preliminaries, bibliography, appendices, etc.) of 25 to 50 pages.

Portfolio

In addition to the above core requirements, portfolio students select 12 credit hours in elective coursework chosen in consultation with the graduate coordinator and must complete 3 credit hours of the master's portfolio (Engl 895); a maximum of 3 hours of Engl 895 can be applied toward the degree. The Master's Portfolio should present the student's best work and be reflective of their course of study. Students submit a self-reflective statement, an sample of academic writing in the form of a seminar-length or conference-length paper, and an individualized project. This project should be representative of the student's professional and/or academic interests and should reflect work begun, or methodologies explored, in prior coursework. As coursework in our program is varied, students can specialize in literary studies, linguistics, composition studies, digital and visual rhetoric, professional writing, and pedagogy, among other areas.

Language Requirement

The MA degree requirements include a foreign language component that MA candidates may fulfill prior to being accepted into the program or while receiving the degree. Candidates may fulfill the department's foreign language requirements in any one of the following ways:

By submitting a transcript showing the completion with a grade of C- or better of at least 15 hours of undergraduate work in a single foreign language or the equivalent as defined by the Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
By completing the required 15 hours of undergraduate work in a single foreign language.
By taking a test administered by the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature in the elected foreign language, with a successful score determined by the English department.
By taking at WSU or submitting a transcript showing completion of 6 hours of Linguistics with a grade of C- or better.

Additional Information

Assistantships Gordon Parks Fellowship Graduate Faculty

Featured links

Department of English Homepage MA Handbook Resources for Current Students Current Course Offerings Graduate Certificate Dual / Accelerated BA to MA

Pursuing a Master's degree in English has been the best thing I have done for my career as a teacher. Because of the program and the English department at WSU, I've become a more conscientious teacher, reader, and writer. The professors have allowed me the freedom and flexibility to apply the content knowledge to my own craft of teaching, which has benefited my students directly.

Becky Timberlake
High School Teacher