Students should be able to:

1. Challenge ideas critically and creatively;

2. Appreciate the changing canons of American, British, and world literature and question the authority of classic texts;

3. Deploy a vocabulary for analyzing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, and other cultural artifacts in terms of form and content;

4. Respond specifically and meaningfully to their own writing and to that of their peers;

5. Write with clarity, insight, purpose, and power for a variety of audiences and occasions;

6. Analyze language in its historical, cultural, literary, and linguistic contexts;

7. Utilize helpful primary and secondary sources so that they can become independent researchers and writers;

8. Demonstrate the link between their study of literature and writing and their lives beyond college, including social issues and vocations.

Assessment of these Goals:

English and writing majors will develop a portfolio of essays, presentations, and creative writing from all required courses. As part of ENGL 493: Senior Seminar they will compose a reflective essay reviewing their work in the major. Departmental faculty will review a significant percentage of these portfolios at the end of each academic year to determine how successfully we are meeting our pedagogical goals.