English

Welcome to the English webpage. On this page you'll find the mission of the department, departmental student learning goals, a curricular map and assessment schedule, and progress made from the most recent Program Review Action Plan (2011-2012). If you have questions about the assessment findings or questions about the department, please contact Matthew Harkins, English Department Chair, at [email protected].

MISSION

As globalization brings the world closer together, our ability to understand complex human issues from multiple perspectives becomes ever more vital. Amidst so many tangled narratives, we need to hear individual voices without reducing human complexity into what Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie has called "the danger of a single story."

STUDENT LEARNING GOALS

English graduates will:

  • Demonstrate knowledge of literary genres, literary criticism, cultural theory, different literary traditions, and will apply relevant methods of interpretation and criticism.
  • Understand the formal elements of literary genres (e.g. poetry, short story, novel, drama, film, etc.), their historical development, and cultural variations as well as various forms of cultural production and cultural theory, including the study of historical and contemporary issues in the fields of literary and cultural studies. They will understand the history and development, as well as the aesthetic and ideological dimensions of literary traditions in English.
  • Study and apply various forms of literary or textual criticism (e.g. Formalist, Historicist, Marxist, Feminist, Psychoanalytic, Transnational, Gender criticism, etc.).

The study of literature, the habit of critical thinking, and the craft of writing belong together. Therefore, graduates will demonstrate perceptive reading and effective writing.

English graduates will also:

  • Demonstrate excellent reading, writing, discussion, and thinking skills as well as discussion skills: clear and logical articulation of ideas, listening, synthesizing, staying focused, leading discussion, etc., and an understanding of the values and ideologies that inform their reading of texts.
  • Exercise effective research design and method.

CURRICULAR MAP and ASSESSMENT SCHEDULE

Interpret

 

Goals

Markers

Beginner (yr. 3)

Intermediate (yr. 2)

Advanced (yr. 1)

Text

Students will identify textual elements
which could include genre, meter, style, 
narrative point of view. 
(1XX, 213, 214)

Students will apply their knowledge of textual
elements to produce an interpretation of a text.
(22X)

Students will use textual elements to relate two
or more interpretive perspectives of a single text
or relate two or more texts to one another.
(382, 383, 352)

Theory

Students will appropriately describe and
explain an identifiable literary or cultural 
theory/method into a reading of a text. 
(243)

Students will appropriately apply an identifiable literary
or cultural theory/method to a reading of a text.
(243)

Students will produce a reading of a text that
makes appropriate, sustained use of one or
more literary or cultural theories/methods.
(3XX or 365).

Connect

Students will identify the historical, cultural,
aesthetic values or ideological context that
informs a text. 
(1XX)

Students will explain the dynamic relationship
between a text and its historical, cultural,
aesthetic, or ideological context(s).
(22X)

Students will demonstrate how their composition
contributes to a larger critical and/or creative conversation.
(365)

Research

 

Students will locate relevant resource(s) for
interpreting a literary text and be able 
to distinguish them (secondary sources).
(22X)

Students will apply relevant research to
a reading of a text or to create a new text.
(213, 22X)

Students will independently locate relevant research
and use it to develop an interpretation of a text or
to create a new text.
(313, 311, 365)

Create

 

Beginner

Intermediate

Advanced

Argue

Students will comprehend and summarize
thesis-driven expository writing.
(1XX)

Students will construct a reasoned
argument through an analysis of a text.
(22X)

Students design and develop a rhetorically
effective argument.
(365)

Express

Students will recognize elements of style
and form and use them in a composition.
(213, 214)

Students will employ a form that is
suitable for the content of their composition.
(311, 313)

Students will create an effective
composition that speaks in a distinctive voice.
(313, 365)

HM Assessment: HM Goals #1 and #2 will be assessed in alternating years.