Requirements for the master’s degree should be completed within two years, though the Graduate School sets a six-year maximum on completion from the date of initial matriculation. A student must complete at least one course a year until course requirements are fulfilled. Students must maintain continuous registration throughout the graduate program.

For MA Advisees (31 coursework credits; 2 years of funding)

Year 1: Consult with Major Advisor about courses to be taken. Complete at least 7 credits in the fall semester, including English 5100 (Theory and Teaching of Writing, 3 credits) and English 5182 (Teaching Practicum, 1 credit); and at least 9 credits in the spring semester.

Year 2: Consult with Major Advisor about courses to be taken. Complete 6 or 9 credits in the fall semester, and complete remaining credits (6 or 9) in the spring semester. Submit the Plan of Study (Plan B, non-Thesis) in the fall semester. Submit the MA Writing Project by March 1st of the spring semester. Once the results of the MA Writing Project have been received, complete the Registrar's Report on the Final Examination (Plan B Master's), which will automatically route for approval upon submission.

MA work is guided by a Major Advisor appointed by the Graduate Director upon matriculation. Students should consult with the Major Advisor each semester about courses to be taken and other degree policies. Forms to change the Major Advisor are available in the Graduate English Office, and students are encouraged to select the Major Advisor most appropriate for their individual professional needs.

The Plan of Study for the master’s degree must be signed by a student’s Major Advisor, approved by the Graduate Office, and submitted to the Graduate School in the penultimate semester of coursework. In consultation with their Major Advisor, the student must indicate the courses taken and to be taken in fulfillment of requirements. If any changes are necessary after submission of the Plan of Study, a Request for Changes form or a memo from the student’s advisor must be submitted to the Graduate School. The form may be obtained from the Graduate English Office, or from the Graduate School website.

Application for Graduation Form to receive the MA degree must be filed with the Graduate School through the Student Administration System. Students should consult the current academic calendar for instructions and deadlines for submitting this application.

Visit the UConn Graduate Catalog for course requirements for the current academic year, or view requirements from a past catalog year.

Students must complete 31 credits to earn the MA. Course work is normally undertaken at the UConn Storrs campus. Transfer of up to six course credits from another institution’s graduate program, or from non-degree graduate coursework undertaken at UConn, may be accepted toward a master’s degree at Storrs, provided that such credits are not used to earn a degree at the other institution.

Distribution Requirements

All graduate students (MA, MA/PhD, and PhD) are required to fulfill three distribution requirements:

• a course in pre-1800 texts,
• a course in post-1800 texts, and
• a course in theory.

For MA students, these requirements ensure breadth of study to support common pathways beyond that degree, including secondary education and doctoral work. For PhD students, these seminars provide vital context for the deeper investigations required by PhD exams and the dissertation.

The 1800 pivot date of the chronological distribution requirements is not meant to signal an important shift in literary or cultural history but instead establishes a midpoint in common areas of study; in asking students to take coursework on either side of 1800, these distribution requirements ensure that students in earlier periods look forward to later developments in the field and that students in later periods trace the field backward.

Students can fulfill these requirements in the following ways:

• Take a course that focuses entirely on the distribution requirement’s stated area of study. For example, a Milton seminar would fulfill the pre-1800 requirement, a twentieth-century literature course would fulfill the post-1800 requirement, and a lyric theory seminar would fulfill the theory seminar requirement. Often, these courses are offered under course designations (such as ENGL 5330: Restoration and Eighteenth Century Literature or ENGL 6500: Seminar in Literary Theory) that make clear their ability to fulfill distribution requirements. However, at times courses listed under more general course designations can fulfill these requirements. Consult with the instructor of record and the Director of Graduate Studies if a course’s eligibility to fulfill a distribution requirement is unclear.
• Take a transhistorical seminar or a seminar organized by a methodology or thematic concern and complete research and writing in the distribution requirement’s stated area of study. Seminars that span centuries (such as  Shakespeare on Screen) or those that focus on a methodology or theme (such as Disability Studies) can fulfill the pre- or post-1800 distribution requirement if the student completes the major writing assignment of the seminar focusing on texts or ideas from the relevant chronological period. For example, if a student enrolls in a Medical Humanities seminar, they can fulfill the pre-1800 requirement by focusing their work for the course on a pre-1800 text, such as Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year, even if the bulk of that seminar’s reading is post-1800. If they enroll in a seminar on adaptation of Arthurian texts, they can fulfill the pre-1800 requirement by completing work that draws substantially on Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur in theorizing modern retellings of that text. Please consult with the instructor of record to ensure that this type of work is possible if you plan on using a transhistorical, methodology-based, or thematic seminar to fulfill a distribution requirement.
• Complete a teaching mentorship in the distribution requirement’s stated area of study.
• Submit to the graduate office proof that you have completed a seminar in the distribution requirement’s stated area of study (unofficial transcripts and, if available, a syllabus) in the completion of a previous degree. Note that while coursework completed in the course of earning a previous degree can be used to fulfill English Department distribution requirements, those credits cannot count toward your UConn degree on your plan of study.

Note that some seminars can fulfill more than one distribution requirement. For example, a seminar in African American Literary Theory fulfills the theory distribution requirement and can, with relevant research writing, fulfill either the pre- or post-1800 requirement.

Students should email the graduate program administrator when they complete a distribution requirement to ensure that the graduate office keeps accurate records.

Independent Studies

In addition to seminars within and beyond the Department of English, graduate students may propose an independent study or teaching mentorship with a faculty member in the Department. Either option can fulfill a distribution requirement (pre-1800, post-1800, or theory). Students will typically register for 3 credits of ENGL 6000 for either option. Students may register for up to 6 total credits of independent study, including teaching mentorships, during their degree program. Under unusual circumstances, students (with the consent of their major advisor) may petition the Graduate Executive Committee (GEC) to exceed that limit.

A conventional independent study enables a student to dive into a topic with the same rigor as they would in a seminar, but in a one-on-one format (or, in the rare cases when two or three students collaboratively propose an independent study in partnership with a faculty member, a small-group format). Students might propose such a study if there is a genuine gap in seminar offerings within a major field of English studies relevant to the student’s goals, if they would like to extend work begun under a faculty member in a previous semester in new directions, or for many other reasons. What an independent study is not for is replacing or circumventing seminar work or distribution requirements altogether. Coursework is not supposed to overlap completely with one’s projected research program. It is an exploratory period in any graduate program that is intended to introduce students to a wide variety of current and enduring conversations, debates, texts, and methodologies across English studies as a discipline. It is not meant to be a hyperspecialized experience, but one of exposure, discovery, and context-building. Before proposing an independent study, students should think critically about its purpose as well as past, present, and future seminar offerings.

A teaching mentorship is a specific type of independent study, focused on teaching and pedagogy rather than research and writing, with a faculty member who is teaching a course of a sort that a student is interested in eventually teaching at UConn or beyond. Participation in a mentorship can provide both useful preparation for non-FYW teaching and an opportunity to read broadly in one’s field (from a pedagogical as well as scholarly perspective) in preparation for the PhD qualifying exams. The terms of the mentorship are largely based on the needs and plans of the partnering faculty member and graduate student. What about the faculty member’s expertise can aid the student in addressing their objectives? That said, the student is not a grader or TA. The purpose of this experience is to give the student a structured, credit-bearing environment in which to learn about upper-division teaching through direct experience and to develop a better understanding of a disciplinary subfield. As such, the GEC recommends that the student undertake some combination of the following activities: attend the undergraduate course and read the assigned material, read supplemental related materials or additional primary texts related to the course, teach one or two class sessions, hold some office hours, observe the faculty mentor’s office hours, and/or meet with the faculty mentor to discuss the progress of the course. (Note that the student is to work with the faculty mentor’s own syllabus, not to contribute to its design.) Regardless, the student should also be responsible for relevant assignments of their own. These might include the development of a syllabus, reading list, assignments, or lessons plans for the same or a similar class and/or of a teaching philosophy. In short, the mentorship must still comprise a standard workload for a graduate seminar or other independent study.

All proposals must be approved by the GEC. They should be submitted to the graduate program office the semester before the proposed study will take place through the Independent Study Form (regardless of the sort of study being proposed, which will be selected on the form) no later than three weeks after the designated registration period begins (except in situations in which a student must take an independent study in lieu of a cancelled seminar, in which case they can petition the GEC to add one). The writing of the proposal is the student’s responsibility, but their major advisor and the faculty member with whom they wish to work should review the proposal and offer feedback prior to submission. The form will route through the major advisor for approval before moving on to the GEC. If approved, the Graduate Program Administrator will notify the student and provide instructions on how to enroll.

When proposing a conventional independent study, students must submit the following: (1) general information (faculty instructor; title of independent study; and number of credit hours—typically three); (2) a one-page description (including a rationale explaining why an independent study is necessary, what gaps it fills in seminar offerings, how it will advance professional goals, etc.; and a course description as one would read on a syllabus); and (3) a syllabus (including written and other assignments, a tentative reading list including both primary and secondary materials, and a tentative schedule of meeting times and readings for 14 weeks of work).

When proposing a teaching mentorship, students must submit the following: (1) general information (faculty instructor, undergraduate course number, title, and day/time; and number of credit hours—typically three); (2) a one-page description (including graduate student learning objectives detailing what will be learned during the mentorship; and expectations for attendance and meetings in the class itself, and between the student and the faculty member); (3) a syllabus (including expectations for the student’s own contributions to the class and their own “assignments”; a tentative supplemental reading list, which, in combination with the reading list for the undergraduate course, should comprise a typical reading load for a graduate seminar; and a tentative schedule of meeting times between the student and the faculty member, and for supplemental readings for 14 weeks of work); and (4) a copy of the faculty member’s syllabus for the undergraduate course (including schedule of meeting times and readings).

General information will be entered into fields in the form. The one-page description and all syllabi should be bundled together as a single file for upload.

Policy on Incomplete Grades

The Graduate Executive Committee strongly discourages incompletes. However, the Committee recognizes that, at times, extenuating circumstances merit offering a student additional time beyond the semester to complete work for a seminar. In that case, the student should determine with the faculty member teaching the seminar a reasonable timeline for completing and submitting seminar work — ideally no more than one month. It is the student’s responsibility to remain in communication with their professor about outstanding work, especially if the student requires additional time.

According to the academic regulations of the Graduate School, if a student does not submit all work required to resolve an incomplete within 12 months following the end of the semester for which the grade was recorded, no credit will be allowed for the course. A limited extension of the incomplete beyond 12 months may be granted by the Graduate School upon the recommendation of the instructor, but the Graduate School is not obligated to approve an extension if the instructor of the course is no longer at UConn.

If a student accumulates more than three incompletes on their transcript, they will be placed on probationary status by the Graduate Executive Committee and may be required to resolve those incompletes before being allowed to register for additional coursework. A student whose transcript includes four or more grades of incomplete may not be eligible for a teaching assistantship.