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English Learning Â鶹ÊÓƵ

Graduates who successfully complete an English major  are assessed in three ways during the course of their program: 1) a 2.0 GPA or higher in their major required courses; 2) meeting expectations in their Capstone project; and 3) successful performance on presentations in their Senior Capstone course.

Learning Â鶹ÊÓƵ

English graduates are proficient in four areas of literacy and literary analysis.

I. Critical Thinking and Writing

Graduates can:

  • Think about complex social, political, cultural, and textual issues and effectively communicate their ideas about these issues in written and spoken form.
  • Develop sophisticated and convincing critical arguments about texts.
  • Defend these arguments with logical and original analysis that skillfully integrates textual examples to support interpretation.
  • Explain with precision and skillful reasoning the relationship of textual evidence to meaning, interpretation, and argumentation.

II. Reading and Interpretation

Graduates can:

  • Interpret significant literary and cultural forms, conventions, and genres.
  • Identify through close reading how the language, form, and structure of a work contribute to its meaning.
  • Formulate sophisticated, cohesive, and compelling readings of texts by connecting numerous specific textual details to overall meaning and context.
  • Creatively and insightfully analyze the use of literary devices, such as figurative language, tone, narrative perspective, narrative voice, and authorial voice.
  • Explore and analyze complexity, ambiguity, and subtlety in texts, including such concepts as connotation, irony, symbolism, and allegory.

III. Contextual Awareness

Graduates demonstrate:

  • Knowledge of the traditions of Anglo-American literary, cultural, and critical texts, both within and beyond the canon.
  • Sensitivity to the diversity of literary and cultural voices, including the voices of groups that have been silenced, erased, and/or marginalized.
  • Sophistication in articulating connections between relevant contexts of history, culture, genre, criticism, and literary history.
  • The ability to incorporate contexts in meaningful ways to produce rich, insightful, and nuanced readings of texts.

IV. Literary and Cultural Aesthetics

Graduates can:

  • Formulate well-developed ideas about the distinctive intellectual and aesthetic experiences provided by literary and cultural texts.
  • Write and speak about texts with a sophisticated awareness of and appreciation for the qualities that make texts meaningful, moving, and pleasurable.
  • Enrich readings with meaningful reference to the sensory and affective aspects of literary and cultural texts.