English: Learning Outcomes

The English Major is designed to provide the following learning goals and outcomes.

Outcome #1
Read a range of literature in English and exhibit a knowledge of genres, literary history, and literary criticism.
Indicators of Achievement - Graduates will be able to:

• Understand literature in English as a body of knowledge open to multiple interpretations
• Recognize and distinguish major genres and sub-genres of literature
• Develop familiarity with major periods and movements, and the influence of previous trends and styles on later authors and texts
• Develop familiarity with major theoretical trends and schools of literary criticism, as they impact the critical reception(s) of texts and authors
  

Outcome #2
Read texts closely and think critically, with openness, confidence, and acuity – understanding that literary texts are complex and resist simple interpretation.
Indicators of Achievement - Graduates will be able to:

• Distinguish between a passage’s literal/factual content and its figurative/symbolic/interpretive content
• Identify a range of means through which a textual passage communicates
• Identify significant patterns in the way a textual passage is constructed
• Extrapolate the larger implications (social, philosophical, ethical, argumentative) of these patterns
• Connect a passage’s formal structure and thematic content with the text as a whole

Outcome #3
Write with clarity and compose well-argued essays.
Indicators of Achievement - Graduates will be able to:

• Understand that writing is a process
• Develop focused, compelling arguments about literary texts
• Present these arguments in essays marked by conceptual coherence, correct usage, and a fresh writing style
  

Outcome #4
Know how to conduct productive research in literary studies, equipped with a basic understanding of the major approaches of literary criticism.
Indicators of Achievement - Graduates will be able to:

• Use bibliographic tools to find primary and secondary source material
• Employ secondary source material in the process of developing an original argument
• Recognize major schools of literary criticism
  

Outcome #5
Experience literature as a powerful way of knowing about cultures and the lived life.
Indicators of Achievement - Graduates will be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge of the relationship between literary texts and their cultural and historical contexts
• Demonstrate an understanding of how the structures, language, characters, and actions in literary texts speak to fundamental life questions