Learning Outcomes

Upon graduation, a student will be able to:

Major-Specific Areas of Knowledge

Upon graduating, English majors will be able to perform sophisticated close readings of literary texts, applying genre-specific literary terminology in demonstrating their understanding of the relationship between form and content. They will be able to demonstrate their familiarity with various approaches to literary studies, to identify the effects of literary allusions, and to investigate the relationship between a text and the culture in which it was written.

Accessing Academic Community/Resources

They will be able to make good use of library resources and to read and explore literary texts independently.

Critical Thinking

They will have developed sensitivity to literary aesthetics and style and will be able to analyze texts and discourses in a variety of media—written, performed, visual, and oral; they will be able to synthesize a broad range of information bearing upon the interpretation of these discourses.

Communication

They will be able to think, speak, and write intelligently about what texts do in their various functions. They will speak and write clearly, confidently, persuasively, and with nuance.

Research Experience

They will be capable of writing an extended literary analysis paper supported by primary and secondary research. They will be capable of identifying literary questions, posing an hypothesis about how the question might be answered, and researching the question through the analysis of primary sources and synthesis of secondary sources.