Learning Outcomes

1. Appreciate the discipline’s commitment to diversity and inclusivity, including literary and rhetorical traditions that reflect and honor racial, gender, class, and language differences;
2. Understand how literary and theoretical traditions develop, and become familiar with significant writers, their works, and the connections between them;
3. Understand the history, movements, and traditions of rhetoric, composition, and writing studies;
4. Appreciate how training in English studies lends itself to meaningful work in supporting the public humanities and the discipline’s commitment to the public good, including careers in the arts, commerce, government, non-profit and philanthropic work, and other areas of the public humanities, broadly conceived;
5. Think creatively and critically about a range of intellectual traditions in English studies;
6. Know how to conduct original research and integrate criticism into scholarly analyses;
7. Demonstrate a command of academic English, including the abilities to a) cogently organize and present material, b) successfully formulate and defend scholarly arguments, and c) effectively employ disciplinary language;
8. Pursue a wide variety of personal and professional goals, or undertake further graduate studies, including doctoral study in English or related disciplines.