As a result of completing the B.A. in English graduate will be able to

Read texts closely and think critically

  • Comprehend a text’s literal/factual content
  • Distinguish between a passage's literal/factual content and its figurative/symbolic/interpretive content
  • Analyze a text closely and identify rhetorical strategies therein
  • Connect a passage's formal structure and thematic content with the text as a whole
  • Extrapolate the larger implications (social, philosophical, ethical, argumentative) of these patterns

Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of literature in English

  • Demonstrate familiarity with specified content areas in literature, literary history, theory, and criticism
  • Understand literature as a culturally and historically embedded practice
  • Relate literature to other fields of inquiry

Communicate effectively

  • Approach writing as a recursive process
  • Develop and support claims about literary texts
  • Articulate claims in conceptually coherent essays
  • Use conventions of standard written English
  • Present research findings orally within the conventions of the discipline

Conduct research in literary and cultural studies

  • Use bibliographic tools to find source material
  • Employ appropriate critical approaches in their research
  • Contribute to scholarly conversations about literary and cultural texts and phenomena
  • Incorporate and document source material using MLA style
  • Communicate in accordance with standards of academic integrity