The Department of English offers a Master of Arts degree in English with a general grounding in both British and American literature, in addition to a selection of courses in creative writing, rhetoric, linguistics, continental literature, and English education. To complete their degree work, all students must pass a comprehensive written exam covering material from their coursework, as well as texts from a reading list that will be made available to all students upon entry into the program. Students will be required to pass all sections to pass the exam. If a student fails only one question on the exam, however, the student can retake that section within 7-10 days in an oral exam format.This supplementary one-hour oral re-examination will be given by the professor who wrote the exam question and by another professor under the direction of the graduate coordinator. Students who do not pass the oral re-examination can take the entire exam one more time, but only when it is offered the following semester. Failure to pass the second examination will result in removal from the program.