Mission and Goals

English CounselingMission and Goals

The English Department prepares students to use language-based critical thinking skills as a powerful tool in their public lives (career and world citizenship) as well as in personal enrichment (aesthetic, interpersonal, and spiritual concerns). Students develop and practice these skills by reading, analyzing, and critiquing, in both oral and written formats, a wide variety of texts: literature; literary criticism and theory; and other professional and creative works.

A student’s choice of career options will determine the proportion of emphasis in each area. However, the department concentrates on developing mastery of the following abilities in its general English majors, its general English minors, and its Writing Studies minors:

  • To use literary terms, rhetorical terms, and discipline- based vocabulary.
  • To understand and discuss the history and periodization of literature as well as major authors, works, and themes in the Western, American, and/or world literary heritage.
  • To analyze and interpret literature in various genres from diverse historical periods.
  • To communicate effectively in appropriate genres to solve rhetorical problems.
  • To access and contribute to traditional and emerging forms of media.
  • To identify, locate, evaluate, use, and attribute information using discipline-specific tools in the field of English studies