Bachelor of Arts in English - Rhetoric,Professional Writing and Community Engagement

University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

If you want to understand how any kind of text works - whether the text is print or digital, on paper or on any kind of screen - rhetoric offers you an approach. Rhetoric is a method for understanding the relations any text constructs between its maker and its audience. A rhetorical approach helps you compose texts, for it offers an organized way of figuring out how a text might do the work you need it to do in the world. A rhetorical approach also helps you analyze texts made by others: what do the choices evident in any text tell you about how its makers conceived of its audience, their beliefs, and values as well as the contexts in which they live.Track B’s classes mix theories about rhetoric, writing, culture, and literature with considerable practice in writing to help students become thoughtful, effective, ethical communicators. Our faculty mix backgrounds in theories of rhetoric and writing with experience in publication-both print and digital-to help you determine how you want to shape your life as a communicator.