English (BA) Program Assessment

Mission

The English Bachelor of Arts degree fosters our students’ capacity for critical reading, deepening and broadening their understanding of complex works. English majors also develop expressive techniques and compose works of creative, academic, professional, and civic writing. In the Literature emphasis of the English major, students analyze literature from the mediaeval to the contemporary periods in the world’s major Anglophone literary traditions using multiple theoretical lenses. They critique both primary and secondary sources, and communicate their ideas about literature through authentic research and lucid writing. In our Writing and Language emphasis, students analyze how writers and speakers structure their writing, in creative, professional, academic, and public texts. Through guided practice, students apply writing strategies that they see in these works to their own original writing projects. Students analyze sociolinguistic theory, and the histories and geographies of English, and apply these analyses to their own language practices, recognizing where these fit in the complex linguistic landscape of the United States and beyond.

Goals

• Critical Reading: Students will understand and articulate insights about complex texts, both primary and secondary, including literature, criticism, and various genres of non-fiction.
• Discipline-specific Knowledge and Discourse: Students will speak and write effectively, addressing complex issues in the language of the chosen field of study.
• Research Activities: Students will engage in authentic research, including finding and evaluating both primary and secondary sources.
• Writing: Students will produce a work in an appropriate genre for a chosen emphasis and at an appropriate level: literary criticism, creative writing, rhetorical or linguistic analysis.