Welcome to the Department of Rhetoric and Composition!

Unlike most colleges, Oberlin has a Rhetoric & Composition Department that is separate from both the Creative Writing Program and the English Department. Rhetoric courses encourage students to understand writing as a means of discovery, reflection, and critical thinking; in short, they help students negotiate the demands of academic writing at the college level. Rhetoric courses take students through the writing process and often investigate interdisciplinary topics of inquiry. All of our courses are small, allowing students to have lots of interaction with each other as well as with the writing professor.

Our mission is to support Oberlin's Writing Requirement through a system of our own Rhetoric & Composition colloquia and courses (RHET), through the Writing Certification (WR) and Writing Intensive (WRi) courses offered by faculty across the curriculum. Rhetoric& Composition Department faculty members also teach courses in the First-Year Seminar Program (FYSP).