English Major Learning Goals and Outcomes

• Goal 1: By the time they graduate, English majors should be able to adapt their use of writing, speech, and visuals to communicate effectively to a variety of audiences and purposes.

  • create texts for a variety of audiences and purposes
  • articulate how their work is designed to serve a particular audience and purpose
  • present ideas in a visual form
  • present ideas orally
  • revise their work based on feedback from their peers and/or instructors
  • articulate how skills practiced in the English major are reflected in work completed in other courses and settings
  • articulate areas of growth and continuing challenges in their development as thinkers, researchers, readers, and writers

• Goal 2: By the time they graduate, English majors should be able to develop convincing analyses of, arguments about, and responses to a range of texts, supported by in-depth engagement with: textual details; literary and rhetorical conventions and devices; and conversations in the field.

  • summarize the contents of a text effectively
  • craft a thesis statement
  • incorporate evidence to support a thesis/claim
  • craft a claim that puts two or more texts into conversation
  • analyze textual details in depth (i.e., close reading)
  • explain how literary and rhetorical elements and devices contribute to a text’s meaning and the readers’ experiences
  • respond to the conventions of different genres and/or forms

• Goal 3: By the time they graduate, English majors should be able to produce independent research and/or creative activity that contributes to broader cultural, artistic, and scholarly conversations, responding thoughtfully and respectfully to a variety of perspectives.

  • compose research questions that meet the demands of the task
  • cite the ideas of others ethically in ways appropriate to the genre, audience, and purpose
  • discriminate between reliable and unreliable sources
  • integrate quotations or paraphrases into their work
  • synthesize the perspectives offered by multiple sources
  • articulate why they agree with another’s ideas
  • explain respectfully how and why their perspective disagrees with or complicates another’s ideas
  • explain how their work contributes to an existing intellectual and/or artistic conversation

• Goal 4: By the time they graduate, English majors should be able to engage with writers from a range of backgrounds and worldviews, and articulate an understanding of how cultural, historical, and ideological contexts can shape both the creation and the reception of texts across time and now.

  • apply specific scholarly and/or artistic vocabulary and concepts to enrich their work
  • describe how a text responds to specific historical or current events and attitudes
  • describe how a text reflects its author’s identities and experiences (e.g., race, class, sexuality, gender)
  • analyze and/or critique representations of identities and experiences (e.g., race, gender, class, citizenship, (dis)ability, indigeneity, sexual orientation, and/or religion) in a text