English - Master of Arts

Degree: M.A.

Why Study This Program?

Earning a Master of Arts degree in English at Millersville University can hone your writing skills, strengthen your analytical abilities, and sharpen your investigation skills. Earning a Master of Arts degree can help you change careers or enhance your current career. The English MA cultivates curiosity, openness, and creativity as mindset approaches to support you as you develop skills and content knowledge. These mindset values, along with the skills obtained throughout a master’s degree, strengthen your impact in the workplace. Notably, graduate education in English enhances competencies in research, writing, analysis, and creative thinking. These are in-demand skills across all industries in the current digitally mediated world. Through the English department at Millersville, graduate students can learn these skills in a virtual medium. The English department is excited to offer an online pathway to create a more accessible and available program for graduate students to learn, on a schedule that works best for them. These online pathways also further our focus on diversity, equity, and life-long learning. Although courses are presented in an online format, there is still ample opportunity to connect with classmates and professors.

Program Benefits

• Flexible course availability - Students are able to do coursework anywhere at any time, courses offered Fall, Spring, and Summer
• Online pathways - Students can access coursework from anywhere, increasing the availability of courses that support critical and analytical thinking to more students.

What Will You Learn?

As a graduate student of English, you will develop academic writing and research skills, craft in-depth analyses, enhance creativity, and engage with a community of scholars studying Literature, Composition, Rhetoric, and Linguistics. Many of our students have applied their graduate skills as writers within business, as researchers in a variety of fields, as curriculum designers in K-12 and Higher Education, and as educators. Some students have furthered their education in PhD programs after leaving our MA English.

Below are some of the areas that will enable you to expand your skill sets:

• Narrative Studies: Literature and Film
  • Narrative Studies focus offers a breadth of courses in Literature and Film studies. This focus provides students advanced training in critical interpretation and theory of a variety of media. Our literature faculty members have expertise in a variety of fields including African American literature, British literature, postcolonial literature, contemporary American literature, gender and sexuality studies, disability studies, feminism, and ecocriticism. This track enhances engagement with a diverse range of canonical and noncanonical texts, and exposes students to contemporary ideas about narratives.
• Writing Studies: Rhetoric, Composition, and Creative Writing
  • Writing Studies focus offers a breadth of courses in rhetoric, composition, and creative writing. This focus provides students advanced training in theories of writing, theories of rhetoric, theories of creative writing and how they inform writing practices. Our writing studies faculty members have expertise in digital writing, science writing, technical writing, public writing and publishing, drama and poetry creative writing, and rhetoric and composition. This track enhances understanding of writing skills and, exposes students to contemporary theories of writing.
• Linguistic Studies
  • Linguistic Studies blends the study of linguistics and ESL. This focus provides students advanced training in theories of linguistics and how they inform teaching practices. Our linguistics faculty members have expertise in teaching English as a second language, and second language writing. This track enhances understanding of linguistics and, exposes students to contemporary theories of teaching English as a second language.

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