The College of Arts and Sciences

Learning Outcomes

The English Department's curriculum has been carefully constructed to facilitate particular learning outcomes and to impart skills and abilities that we feel are crucial for an English major.

Skills specific to the field of English and Textual Studies:

1. Recognize how meanings are created through acts of critical reading and analysis.

A. Analyze texts using various theoretical paradigms for literary and cultural studies

B. Analyze texts in relation to their historical contexts

C. Analyze texts as bearers of political meaning and mediators of power relationships

2. Analyze the ways texts construct categories of difference, including differences of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, and class

3. Formulate sustained interpretive, analytical, or conceptual arguments based on evidence drawn from texts

4. Develop skills for creative self-expression in fiction or poetry


General skills and abilities:

1. Organize ideas in writing

2. Use clear and appropriate prose

3. Use library and web-based resources to locate primary and secondary sources

4. Use and cite sources appropriately

5. Express ideas and information orally

6. Engage in analytical and critical dialogue orally

7. Evaluate arguments

8. Identify and question assumptions