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 |
Students will apply their knowledge of textual |
Students will use textual elements to relate two |
Theory |
Students will appropriately describe and |
Students will appropriately apply an identifiable literary |
Students will produce a reading of a text that |
Connect |
Students will identify the historical, cultural, |
Students will explain the dynamic relationship |
Students will demonstrate how their composition |
Research
|
Students will locate relevant resource(s) for |
Students will apply relevant research to |
Students will independently locate relevant research |
Create
|
Beginner |
Intermediate |
Advanced |
Argue |
Students will comprehend and summarize |
Students will construct a reasoned |
Students design and develop a rhetorically |
Express |
Students will recognize elements of style |
Students will employ a form that is |
Students will create an effective |
HM Assessment: HM Goals #1 and #2 will be assessed in alternating years.